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Chapter Text

The wind howled through the broken windows of the council chamber, carrying the cries of dragons over the city. Smoke still lingered above King’s Landing.. thick, sour, and unwilling to leave.

Rhaenyra sat at the war table, her fingers tracing the cracked black seal of a raven’s letter. The wax had melted into the parchment, as though even fire refused to destroy its message.

The door opened.

“Your Grace” Jacaerys said as he entered, his armor scuffed, his hair wild from flight. “You sent for me?”

Rhaenyra looked up from the letter, the firelight flickering against the silver in her hair. “I did.”

She held up the parchment between two fingers. “A raven has come.”

Jace raised a brow, already half smirking. “That usually means someone wants something.”

“Indeed.” She offered the letter.

His brows raised but took it, scanning the words, his expression shifting from mild curiosity to disbelief, then to something dangerously close to laughter.

“They’d bend the knee,” he read aloud, voice dry, “if I were to wed Alicent Hightower’s youngest daughter.”

Rhaenyra inclined her head. “Maeryn.”

He stared at the page, then dropped it onto the table with a scoff. “Of course. Why not? We’ve only spent half the war burning each other alive . might as well finish it off with a bloody wedding feast.”

“Jace—”

“No, truly, this is brilliant,” he continued, tone laced with mock admiration. “I kill their armies, they kill mine, and we’ll seal it with cake. Maybe her mother can throw the flowers.”

“Enough,” Rhaenyra said sharply, though her patience hadn’t cracked....yet.

Jace folded his arms, pacing. “You can’t be serious. You think a marriage fixes this? That Aemond" he took a long breath "will sit quietly while I wed his sister? He’d sooner burn the Sept.”

Rhaenyra rose slowly, the movement regal, controlled. “Aegon is burnt beyond saving,” she said evenly. “And Aemond will not harm his own blood. If Maeryn rules beside you, the fighting ends.”

He huffed out a a doubtful laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t put faith in Aemond’s brotherly affection.”

“This isn’t about faith,” she said. “It’s strategy. Peace by alliance.”

“Peace by farce,” Jace shot back. “Do you truly believe bending to their terms ends this? We’ve buried too many for that.”

Rhaenyra sighed circling the table. “Every victory demands its price,” she said quietly. “This one demands yours.”

Jace let out a long, doubtful breath and turned toward her. “You could have told me this sooner,” he said, tone edged with disbelief. “Before I set half the Riverlands on fire. Before I spent months fighting, killing, bleeding for peace that apparently could’ve been arranged with a bloody marriage contract.”

Rhaenyra’s expression didn’t waver. “You wouldn’t have agreed then either.”

He huffed a laugh, pacing now, his boots echoing sharply against the floor. “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t have. But at least I wouldn’t feel like the realm’s most decorated pawn.”

“Jace—”

He raised a hand, cutting her off . not rudely, but with the weariness of a man who’d already argued with death itself. “No, no, I understand. A few dead dragons, a few thousand corpses, and what’s left? A wedding! The gods must be thrilled.”

Rhaenyra’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Enough.”

He turned to face her fully, jaw tight, his voice low and bitterly calm. “Do you have any idea how it feels to bury your brother and then be told to marry the sister of the man who killed him? Because I assure you, it does not inspire romance.”

“This way the war ends,” Rhaenyra said sharply, the steel finally threading through her voice. “We rebuild, we heal, and there will still be a kingdom left to rule .. one your brother died to protect.”

Jace scoffed, stepping closer to the table, his hand slamming down on the edge of the map. “You think peace born from that will last? You think I can sit beside her every night and forget who her family is? What they’ve done?”

Her tone softened, though her words remained firm. “You won’t need to forget. You’ll need to forgive. There’s a difference.”

He laughed under his breath humorless, sharp. “You sound like you almost believe that.”

Rhaenyra’s gaze met his evenly. “I do. Because I must.”

He stared at her for a long, tense moment, the flicker of the candles dancing between them like a battlefield. “She would never agree,” he said finally, his voice quieter, though the anger still hummed beneath it.

“She will,” Rhaenyra replied without hesitation.

Jace blinked at her, incredulous. “And how, exactly, do you know that?”

Rhaenyra stepped closer, the faintest shadow of sadness touching her expression. “Because Alicent has already agreed for her.”

His breath caught not surprise, but something darker. Disgust. “So it’s decided, then,” he said bitterly. “The peace of the realm rests on how fast we can chain two unwilling people together.”

Rhaenyra didn’t deny it. “This is the price, Jace,” she said softly. “Every ruler pays one.”

He turned from her, jaw locked, hands curling into fists at his sides. The silence stretched.

Then, quieter, more tired than angry: “And if I cannot?”

Rhaenyra’s voice gentled, the queen fading, the mother returning. “Then you’ll do it anyway. Because you are your mother’s son.”

Jace exhaled slowly, shaking his head, a bitter, broken laugh escaping him. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

And without another word, he left her standing in the chamber. the map still glowing faintly under the candlelight, the war won, but the cost still collecting.

-

The sky above King’s Landing was the coloue of smoke and steel when the Hightower carriage rolled through the gates of the Red Keep. Bells tolled faintly in the distance , not for mourning, but for a peace too fragile to name.

Rhaenyra stood on the steps of the courtyard, crown glinting in the ashen light, the wind pulling faintly at the black train of her gown. She looked every inch the queen but the set of her mouth betrayed that she would rather face another army than this reunion.

The carriage stopped with a low creak. From within stepped Alicent still elegant, still poised, though time had carved thin lines of grief and pride into her face. Her gown was a deep sapphire, heavy with embroidery

And then, Maeryn descended after her slow, deliberate, as though the weight of every eye in the courtyard pressed down on her shoulders.

She was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. The soft light caught her pale hair and made it gleam like silk. The green of her eyes was cool and thoughtful, so achingly familiar that Rhaenyra’s throat tightened, because for a moment, She was seeing Alicent, years younger, when they’d still walked hand in hand through the keep, laughing about things that no longer mattered.

Rhaenyra forced herself to move. She descended two step her voice even and deliberate.
“Queen Alicent,” she said. “You are welcome in King’s Landing.”

Alicent inclined her head. “Your Grace,” she replied softly.

Rhaenyra’s gaze flicked to Maeryn. “Is Halena well?” she asked, more stiffly than she’d meant to.

“She is,” Alicent answered before her daughter could speak. “She keeps to the gardens. It brings her peace.”

Rhaenyra nodded once. “I’m glad”

The silence stretched long enough for the sound of the wind to fill the space between them

Rhaenyra’s gaze softened just slightly, “It is good to see you in better circumstances, sister,” she said, her tone polite but not entirely warm.
"You aswell" Maeryn smile

Rhaenyra turned toward the keep, gaze flicking upward to where her son’s shadow should have stood.

“Prince Jacaerys offers his apologies,” she said, looking back at Alicent and Maeryn. “He has… duties that require his attention.”

Alicent’s brow tightened, just slightly a small, controlled reaction honed by decades of court life. But she said nothing, her hands folded neatly before her as if she could will the tension from the air by sheer composure.

Maeryn, however, didn’t look at her mother. She only smiled again, that same small, graceful curve of her lips a courtesy, not a comfort. “That is quite all right, Your Grace,” she said softly. “I understand that duty often comes before pleasantries.”

Rhaenyra regarded her for a long, silent moment. The girl was striking in her restraint that poised quiet, that careful speech, the way she seemed to steady her mother without a word. Gods, she even stood the same way Alicent used to, hands clasped at her waist, shoulders held tight as if guarding her heart.

“You have your mother’s poise,” Rhaenyra said finally, her voice quieter, softer, before something sharper flickered beneath it. “And her patience, I believe.”

Alicent’s lips curved, though it wasn’t a smile so much as an acknowledgment. “She’s had to learn both,” she said, the words light but edged.

Rhaenyra’s eyes softened just for a heartbeat. She remembered that same tone, years ago, before crowns and colours divided them. For an instant, she saw not the queen who’d opposed her, but the friend who’d once brushed tears from her face.

And then the moment passed.

“The realm waits for peace,” Rhaenyra said at last, stepping aside, gesturing toward the open doors of the Red Keep. “Let us not keep it waiting.”
"Maeeyn go for a walk" Alicent said, Maeryn nodded, she sighed when the women were out of sight, wishing she could be anywhere but here.
_

The forgotten wing of the Red Keep was silent, save for the wind that whispered through its cracked windows. Dust drifted lazily in the dying light, and ivy crept through the stone, half-swallowing a corridor that had been where she would spend time, before the war. Away from prying eyes.

At the end of that corridor, a single balcony overlooked the gardens below. Jace stood there, arms braced against the carved stone rail, his gaze fixed far beneath him. From this height, he could see them, Rhaenyra and Alicent, the ghosts of an old war pretending peace in the sunlight.

The sight made his jaw tighten.

He didn’t hear her footsteps at first soft, deliberate, unhurried. But when she stopped a few paces behind him, he knew. He didn’t need to turn to know who she was.

“So,” came a light voice measured, slightly amused, but edged with the same exhaustion he felt. “These are the duties you’ve been assigned, then?”

He didn’t answer.

“Tell me, Jace…” she continued, stepping forward until the late sun caught her hair, “Are we truly doing duties Or do you simply prefer hiding?”

He scoffed under his breath, a sound half irritation, half disbelief, but he didn’t turn to face her.

“I would watch your tongue,” he said flatly, eyes still on the gardens below. “You are not allowed to call me Jace.”

Maeryn only sighed and leaned against the railing beside him, close enough that their sleeves brushed lightly in the wind. Her gaze followed his down to the two figures strolling through the maze of roses and white stone.

Their mothers.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she murmured. “After all that’s happened, they walk together as though none of it ever was.”

Jace said nothing. The silence between them stretched

Then, quietly, Maeryn spoke again. “You think I was jumping for joy at this arrangement? I considered running away. To Pentos.”

That earned his attention. He turned then slowly. “Did you?”

Her lips curved faintly. “I did.”

He pushed off from the rail, folding his arms over his chest as he regarded her fully for the first time.

“Then tell your mother,” he said, voice hardening, “that we do not need to wed for peace. Tell her to bend the knee regardless.”

Maeryn exhaled slowly through her nose, her expression unreadable. She turned her back to him, leaning against the balcony with a studied calm, her silver hair spilling over her shoulder.

“Jacaerys,” she said deliberately drawing out each syllable, soft but pointed.

His jaw tightened.

She tilted her head toward him, eyes narrowing slightly in wry defiance. “My mother seeks assurance...a guarantee that her remaining children will not be slaughtered when she sleeps. Not a promise sealed with air, but one sealed with blood.”

He stared at her, unflinching. “You have my word,” he said, each word clipped, almost brittle.

Maeryn’s soft scoff cut through the stillness. “Your word,” she repeated, pushing off the rail and turning to face him again. “Forgive me, but men have bled kingdoms dry with their word.”

Their eyes locked hers cool and composed, his burning with restrained fury. For a moment, neither spoke. Only the wind moved between them, carrying the faint sound of the queens’ laughter far below , fragile, foreign, almost cruel.

Finally, Maeryn looked away first, her voice quieter but no less firm.
“You think this union is a chain,” she said. “But to me, it feels like a sentence. So you needn’t worry, Prince Jacaerys. I have no desire to wear your crown.”

He studied her, silent perhaps surprised by the honesty in her tone, or the weary grace that reminded him painfully of his mother.

“Good,” he said at last, though his voice was softer than before. “Then we understand each other.”

Maeryn nodded once, gathering her composure, and turned toward the hall.

But just before she stepped back into shadow, she looked over her shoulder her eyes catching the last of the light.

“Perhaps we do,” she said quietly. “Though understanding and agreeing are rarely the same thing.”

And then she was gone her footsteps fading down the corridor, leaving Jacaerys alone once more on the forgotten balcony, staring out over a realm that had bled for peace… and wondering if, in binding their blood again, he hadn’t just tied a new noose.
_

Chapter Text

The great hall of the Red Keep was too quiet for supper.

Candles flickered along the long table, their light stretching thin across silver goblets and half-touched platters. The air smelled faintly of roasted meat and sea salt, but no one seemed hungry.

At the head sat Rhaenyra, every inch composed, her crown gleaming dully in the candlelight. To her right, Daemon lounged with his usual air of impatience, the knife in his hand spinning idly against the table. Beside him, Baela and Rhaena sat in uneasy silence, the sisters trading glances whenever the quiet stretched too long.

Opposite the queen sat Alicent, spine straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her expression was calm.

And between them like a thread pulled too tight sat Jace and Maeryn.

If not for the tension radiating off him, Jace could have passed for polite. His posture was perfect, his words precise when spoken to his mother or Daemon. But he hadn’t looked at Maeryn once since she’d entered.

She sat beside him, her hands resting lightly on the tablecloth, posture perfect but eyes distant. Every time she dared glance at him , at the man who had once been the boy who’d shared her secrets and laughed beside her in the training yard he refused to meet her gaze.

“Maeryn,” Rhaenyra said after too long a silence, her tone smooth, though her eyes flicked sharply toward her son. “I trust your journey here was not too taxing.”

Maeryn blinked, startled by the sudden attention. “No, Your Grace,” she said politely. “The weather was merciful.”

Alicent smiled faintly ar her daughter. “We were fortunate. The storms along Blackwater Bay spared us this time.”

Daemon’s knife stilled, his voice cutting lazily through the air. “How generous of the gods,” he drawled.

The silence that followed was thick enough to drown in.

Baela cleared her throat. “I remember when we were all children,” she said, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You and Jace would vanish into the library together. Mother used to say it was the only time he sat still.”

Rhaena gave a small laugh, nodding. “Until you both came back covered in dust and pretending you hadn’t broken half the shelves.”

A faint, fleeting smile tugged at Maeryn’s lips. “That was him, not me,” she said softly.

All eyes turned to Jace.

He didn’t look up from his plate. “Memory must fade with distance,” he said flatly, cutting into his food. “I seem to recall it was your bright idea to climb the shelves in the first place.”

Maeryn blinked, caught off guard not by the words, but by the tone. He hadn’t spoken to her directly in days, and now that he had, the old warmth was gone, replaced by something distant, biting.

“I was eight,” she said carefully, her voice soft but even.

“Some mistakes follow us longer than others,” he muttered.

“Jacaerys,” Rhaenyra said sharply, her tone a warning.

He set his knife down, straightened, and took a sip of wine without looking at anyone. “Merely making conversation, Mother.”

Daemon smirked faintly, amused by the discomfort rippling down the table.

Alicent’s expression didn’t change, though her gaze flicked briefly to Maeryn a silent plea for restraint.

Maeryn forced a small, polite smile and said, “You’ve grown. Though not much for kindness.”

The jab was quiet but cleanly aimed.

Baela’s eyes widened. Daemon let out a low chuckle, not bothering to hide it.

Jace looked up then really looked at her his brown eyes dark and tired. “And you’ve learned it?” he said. “Must’ve been difficult, considering the house you were raised in.”

Rhaenyra’s knife scraped against her plate. “Enough.”

Maeryn only lifted her chin. “It seems cruelty is contagious in this family.”

“Apparently so,” Jace said. “At least we’re united in something.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. Even Daemon stopped smiling.

Finally, Rhaenyra spoke her voice cool, composed, and final. “If this is the peace we’ve won, perhaps it is not so different from war.”

No one dared speak after that.

The rest of supper passed in strained quiet. Goblets clinked. Forks scraped. And through it all, Maeryn stared down at her plate while Jace drank like a man trying to drown something that refused to die.

When the meal finally ended, Maeryn rose first. She curtsied to the queen, then to her mother, and walked from the hall without another word.
_

The firelight in the queen’s solar burned low, casting long, unsteady shadows across the carved stone walls. Outside, the sea wind howled faintly against the tower, carrying the distant cry of dragons through the night.

Jace stood by the window, his jaw tight, the tension still humming through his body from supper. He had discarded his cloak but not the sharpness in his voice. The candlelight caught the faint red in his eyes anger, exhaustion, and the smallest edge of guilt that he refused to name.

Rhaenyra sat behind her desk, her crown placed beside the stack of scrolls she’d been pretending to read. The silence between them stretched until it ached.

“Tell me,” she began at last, her tone low but cold, “was there truly no limit to your insolence tonight, or did you simply tire before finding it?”

Jace didn’t move. “If you brought me here to scold me, you’ll have to wait in line. I’m sure Alicent has already beaten you to it.”

“Do not play the fool,” she said sharply. “You humiliated her, Jace. In front of both courts. In front of me.”

“She humiliated herself,” he muttered. “By pretending this is anything but a performance.”

Rhaenyra rose slowly, her hands pressed against the desk. “She is to be your wife.”

He turned at that quickly, bitterly. “Because you decreed it.”

“Because the realm demanded it,” she countered.

“The realm,” he repeated, laughing under his breath. “That nameless, faceless thing you love more than your own son.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes flashed, but her voice stayed level. “I love you enough to save you. To save everything you will inherit.”

“I fought your war,” Jace bit out, his voice rising despite himself. “I killed for your crown. I buried my brother for your cause. Don’t speak to me of sacrifice, Mother ... I have bled enough for your peace.”

The words hit her hard. She blinked once, then steadied herself, her chin lifting. “And yet the realm still burns,” she said softly. “Because peace demands more . It demands restraint. It demands forgiveness.”

“Then perhaps you should have married her,” he said bitterly. “You seem to think she’s the key to all of it.”

Rhaenyra went still, her expression unreadable. For a moment, the queen disappeared, and only the mother remained tired, wounded, but resolute.

“You will make amends,” she said finally. “In the morning, you will spend time with her. You will treat her with respect. Because she will be your wife and the realm will not survive another war waged between this family”

Jace’s jaw tightened. “And if I refuse?”

Her eyes met his calm, fierce, final. “Then you are not the man your brother died believing you were.”

That silenced him.

He stared at her chest heaving, anger still burning behind his eyes then turned away, running a hand through his hair.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll make amends.”

Rhaenyra’s voice softened, almost imperceptibly. “Do not mistake duty for cruelty, my son. The gods seldom grant us what we want. Only what we need.”

He didn’t look back at her. “Then they have cruel tastes.”

And with that, he left the solar the door closing behind him with a dull, final thud.

Rhaenyra stood there for a long while, staring into the dying fire.

And though she had won the argument, it did not feel like victory.

_ 
the dawn mist clung to the stones of the Red Keep, thick and cool, carrying the metallic tang of the forge nearby. The sound of steel rang faintly through the air rhythmic, deliberate, like a heartbeat.

Jace swung his sword again, the motion sharp and controlled. Sweat darkened the collar of his tunic, his breath steady but taut. He’d been out here since sunrise, trying to burn away the restless anger that refused to leave him.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.
Maeryn her calm, her poise, her quiet smile when she called him Jacaerys.

He told himself he hated her. He repeated it like a prayer with every swing of his blade.

He didn’t notice her at first.

She appeared from one of the arched passages, pale hair loose around her shoulders, no jewels only a simple gown the colour of smoke. Even then, she looked every inch a Targaryen.

Her voice reached him before her footsteps did.
“You train early.”

He froze mid-swing, his blade halting in the air before dropping to his side. “And you rise earlier than most ladies,” he said flatly, not turning.

“I’ve never been fond of sleeping in,” she replied, stepping closer, her tone almost tired. “It seems a waste of daylight.”

He finally turned, wiping his forearm across his jaw. “Is there something you want?”

“Only to watch,” she said, eyes flicking toward the sword in his hand. “It’s said the prince trains like a dragon breathes, tirelessly.”

Her words weren’t mocking, More courious

He sheathed his sword with a metallic hiss. “You must have been misinformed. I train because I can’t sleep.”

“Ah,” she said softly. “Then perhaps we share that flaw.”

He met her gaze, frowning. “You come here for conversation, then?”

Maeryn shrugged lightly. “You didn’t come to supper last night.”

“I had no appetite,” he said, dry

She smiled faintly. “I didn’t think you had much for company either.”

That did it. His composure thinned like cracking glass.

“Why are you here, Maeryn?” he demanded, voice hardening. “Do you enjoy bothering me? Does it amuse you to act as if you’ve been sent here by choice?”

She blinked, calm as ever, and took another step toward him. “If I’ve offended you, I assure you that was not my intent.”

“Oh, you’ve done plenty,” he snapped, stepping forward now, the space between them shrinking fast. “You smile, you speak with courtesy, you charm my mother and the court, and you act as though this—” he gestured between them sharply “—isn’t an insult to every life lost in this war.”

Her expression didn’t waver. “You think I asked for it?”

“I think you benefit from it,” he shot back. “From standing here, from wearing peace like it’s some silken cloak while the rest of us remember what it cost.”

Her jaw tightened the first crack in her composure. “And what would you have me do, Jacaerys? Refuse to live? Refuse to breathe because your side bled more prettily?”

“Don’t—” he warned, voice rising.

“Don’t what?” she cut in, her own tone hardening now. “Don’t speak truth to the prince who cannot stand to look at me because I remind him of everything his mother hates?”

The words hit their mark. He stepped closer, close enough that her breath caught. His eyes were dark, the kind of furious that only comes from something deeper something unspoken.

“Careful,” he said quietly, dangerously. “You forget who you speak to.”

She didn’t flinch. “No,” she said, voice low and steady. “I think you forget who you are.”

That silence sharp, sudden felt heavier than a shout.

Jaces’ grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. For a moment, she thought he might walk away. Instead, he threw the blade down the clang of steel on stone echoing across the yard.

“I dislike you,” he said through clenched teeth, but the way it left his mouth sounded almost like a confession.

Maeryn held his gaze, unflinching, her pulse quickening though her voice remained soft. “Good,” she said. “It’ll make pretending easier.”

His jaw worked silently a storm behind his eyes.

She turned then, every movement graceful and deliberate, leaving him standing in the empty yard with the echo of her words ringing in his chest like a curse he couldn’t shake.

He watched her disappear through the archway, her pale hair catching the morning sun, and for a long time, he didn’t move.

Finally, he bent, picked up his sword and swung again, harder this time, until the sound of metal drowned out everything else
_.

The torches outside her chamber flickered as he approached his footsteps echoing hard against the stone corridor. The guards exchanged uncertain looks but said nothing they’d learned better than to speak when the heir to the throne moved like a storm.

he didn’t knock. He threw the door open with a shove that rattled the hinges.

Maeryn looked up from the book in her hands, her expression barely changing. The chamber smelled faintly of parchment and lavender the fire in the hearth had burned low, painting her in gold and shadow.

“Do you make it a habit,” she said calmly, “to enter a lady’s chamber without invitation?”

“Do you make it a habit,” he snapped, voice sharp as a blade, “to insult your prince?”

She arched a brow, closing her book with unhurried grace. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

He took a step forward, his anger boiling over, every word striking like thunder. “When you said I forget who I am..what did you mean by that?”

Her gaze didn’t falter. “Exactly what I said.”

His voice rose. “To refer to me as anything less than my birthright... to call me a bastard, even in implication is treason” He slammed a hand down on the table, the sound echoing off the walls. “And treason can see you hung from the city walls before the sun sets”

For a heartbeat, the air went utterly still.

Maeryn did not flinch. She only stared at him long, quiet, unbothered. Then, with maddening composure, she placed her book upon the table and crossed the room toward him, her bare feet silent against the rug.

He expected fear. He got none.

When she stopped before him, close enough that he could see the reflection of the fire in her pale eyes, she spoke with a voice soft but cutting, every word deliberate.

“You are the heir to the Iron Throne,” she said. “And yet you storm into a woman’s chamber shouting threats like a common soldier. To rule with such a temper, Prince Jacaerys, is dangerous.”

Something in him faltered. Just for a breath a flicker of regret, gone as quickly as it came.

Her eyes studied him, patient and piercing. “You know,” she said quietly, “your cruelty and anger toward me , though I have done nothing to you ,remind me very much of my brother.”

The words struck deeper than she could’ve known.

He stiffened, fists clenched at his sides. “Do not compare me to him,” he said, his voice low, trembling with fury.

She brushed past him then, her gown whispering against the floor. He turned as she reached the door, his breath uneven, his control fraying.

“I am nothing like Aemond,” he shouted after her. “I would never murder my blood!”

She paused at the threshold, her hand resting lightly on the frame. When she turned, her gaze was colder sadder than before.

He stood there, chest rising and falling, the crackle of the dying fire the only sound in the room. The anger that had fueled him only moments ago now hollowed into something heavier something he didn’t want to name.
_
he night after their fight, the Red Keep felt too still as if even the stones held their breath.

The echo of his voice still clung to the walls of her chamber. “And treason can see you hung from the city walls before the sun sets!”
The words looped in her head like a curse she couldn’t silence.

Maeryn sat by the dying fire, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The skin around her knuckles had gone white. She’d changed from her gown hours ago, but her hair was still pinned from supper, the curls half-fallen, forgotten.

He didn’t mean it, she told herself again. The thought was brittle, like glass. He’s angry. That’s all. The war broke him. It broke everyone.

She forced her breath to steady, pressing a hand to her chest. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since she left him standing there. To proud to cry untill she was alone.

He wasn’t always like this.

He’d lost his brother, his home, his father’s legacy.
Maybe this cruelty was all he had left to hold on to.

The fire cracked, and she flinched. Then sighed. Gods, you’re a fool, she thought. But she couldn’t stop herself.

Because even after everything even after the threat, the venom, the look in his eyes some part of her still wanted to believe she could reach him. That if she just tried again, tomorrow, maybe she’d see the boy she remembered.

When she finally rose, the fire had burned down to ash. She crossed to the window, pushing it open. The air that met her was cold and sharp, carrying the smell of rain.

Her fingers lingered on the window latch as if steadying herself. The night wind tangled in her hair, cold against the salt of her tears.
_

The morning sun cut through the tall windows of the study, its pale light catching the motes of dust that drifted lazily in the air. The room smelled faintly of parchment, old ink, and the salt wind that crept in from Blackwater Bay.

Jace sat behind the heavy oak desk, sleeves rolled to his forearms, the fine script of a letter half-finished beneath his hand. He looked every inch his mother’s son composed, severe, the weight of the realm pressing into the line of his shoulders.

He heard her before he saw her.
Soft footsteps. The rustle of silk. A pause at the threshold.

“Your Grace,” came her voice polite, careful, too even to be real.

He didn’t look up. “You’ve taken to haunting libraries now?” he asked dryly, still writing. “I suppose it’s an improvement over haunting corridors.”

Maeryn stepped further inside, ignoring the barb. The morning light spilled across her hair, catching the silver and gold in it. “I came to speak with you.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh, dipping his quill again. “Gods help me.”

Her brow tightened. “You might try speaking like a man rather than a child, Jace.”

He set the quill down a little too hard. The ink bled into the parchment like spilled blood.

“Careful,” he said, glancing up at her at last. “You’ve been told not to call me that.”

“I remember,” she said softly, meeting his glare. “But I knew you before you were heir. Before you learned how to sneer.”

That made him pause only for a moment before the sarcasm returned. “And what would you have me do? Smile at the woman who will tie me to her mother’s mistakes for the rest of my life?”

Maeryn’s lips parted slightly, but she didn’t rise to the bait. She stepped closer instead, the faintest waver in her voice betraying a memory she hadn’t meant to touch. “What happened to the boy I used to sneak into the kitchens with?” she asked quietly. “The one who laughed when we were caught stealing bread, and swore he’d marry me one day just so no one could punish us?”

He stilled, eyes flicking up to hers not softening, but darkening. “He died,” Jace said, his voice low and sharp, “the day your brother stole my mother’s crown.”

The words cut like steel between them.

He rose from his chair, his height casting her in shadow. “Tell me, Maeryn,” he said, stepping closer, “what did you lose? What did you suffer while the world burned around us? You sat in the castle, safe, while dragons tore the sky apart.”

Her chin lifted. “That’s not true.”

“No?” he asked, his tone crueler now. “You want to tell me of your pain? Sitting on the balcony of the Red Keep, watching the flames devour the city your brother damned?”

“Aegon paid for that,” she said sharply.

He smiled, but it wasn’t kind. “Did he? Tell me, does it bring you peace? Knowing your brother’s charred bones were all it took to soothe your guilt?”

She went still. The words struck harder than he’d meant them to but he didn’t stop.

“You fought, didn’t you?” he said. “Riding your dragon, burning soldiers who never even knew whose side they were on. You fought your war, and I fought mine and now, to finish the slaughter, they would have the greens...You win the throne by wedding me.”

His voice broke on the last word barely, but enough.

Maeryn stared at him, her expression unreadable. “And do you think I want that?” she asked, quiet but fierce. “To be paraded before your court like another peace offering? To be hated for the blood in my veins before I even open my mouth?”

He laughed sharp and bitter, no trace of humor. “You don’t need to open it,” he said coldly. “The realm already knows what you are.”

That did it. Her breath caught not from surprise, but from hurt. Still, she didn’t back down. Her chin lifted, and her voice turned smooth, almost taunting.

“There’s that temper of yours,” she murmured.

His head snapped toward her, eyes narrowing. “Careful,” he said quiet, dangerous.

“Why?” she asked softly, eyes unwavering. “You’ll shout louder? Prove me right? You think if you rage hard enough, the world will forget how much you’ve lost?”

Something broke.

He moved so fast the chair behind him clattered to the floor. The air seemed to shift with the force of his anger.

“Do not,” he snarled, voice rising, “speak to me as if you understand anything!”

Maeryn froze, her hand tightening on the edge of the desk, but she held his gaze.

“You know nothing of loss,” he spat, advancing on her. “You didn’t see the dragons fall from the sky, You didn’t have to stand in the ash of your home while your mother tried to look like a queen and not a grieving woman!”

“Jacaerys—”

“You watched from your damned castle,” he roared, cutting her off. “While my family burned for yours! You—” He slammed his fist down onto the table so hard that the ink jar toppled, dark liquid spreading across parchment like spilled blood.

“—you sat there, safe, and now you stand here lecturing me about temper?” He leaned forward, close enough that she could feel the heat of his fury, his breath sharp and ragged. “Say another word about my rage, and I swear to the gods, I’ll—”

She took a step back, fear flashing across her face despite her composure. “You’ll what?” she asked quietly.

He froze. His chest heaved his hands trembled. The fire in his voice cracked under its own weight.

“You’ll hurt me?” she pressed, her voice trembling but firm. “Just to prove you aren’t like him?”

That stopped him cold.

Aemond’s name wasn’t spoken but it hung in the air between them all the same.

Jace stared at her, something wild in his eyes — anger and guilt and exhaustion tangled into something too heavy to carry. “Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare compare me to him.”

Maeryn straightened, meeting his glare with quiet defiance. “Then stop acting like him.”

The words hit like steel to bone.

He stepped back, his breath unsteady, the silence ringing loud in his ears. His knuckles were white where his hand gripped the desk.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the soft hiss of the fire.

The door shut behind her before he could find an answer.

Jace stood there shaking the echo of her words hammering through his skull, the fury in him rotting into something he couldn’t name. The ink bled across the map beside his hand, spreading like war, like guilt, like everything he’d sworn he’d left behind.

Chapter Text

The courtyard was warm with late afternoon sun, but Jace felt none of it. The clang of swords rang faintly from the training yard, the laughter of guards carrying on the wind distant, foreign. He sat at the stone bench beneath the tree, his fingers drumming restlessly on his knee.

Baela dropped down beside him, all confidence and smirk, her white curls loose around her shoulders. She had that look again the one that said she’d been watching him stew for far too long.

“You’ve been sulking since sunrise,” she said flatly, tearing a piece of bread from the small plate between them. “You might as well start brooding in public. The servants are already talking.”

“I’m not sulking,” Jace muttered.

Baela arched a brow. “You’re sitting under a tree alone, glaring at your boots.”

He shot her a sideways glare. “You’re very observant.”

“Years of practice,” she said, taking a bite. “Living among men raised by dragons , you learn to spot the signs of a tantrum.”

Jace groaned. “Gods, not you too.”

Baela laughed softly, leaning back against the bench. “You make it too easy.”

He didn’t respond right away, eyes flicking to the horizon where the sea shimmered faintly through the walls of the Red Keep. The silence stretched until he finally exhaled.

“I was meant to wed you,” he said abruptly. “Not her.”

Baela glanced at him not surprised, but cautious. “I know.”

He turned toward her fully now, his voice sharp. “It would have made sense. You’re of our blood, we were raised together, the realm wouldn’t question it.”

“True,” she said easily. “But then we’d have to live with each other.”

He shot her a look. “You think I’d be worse than this?”

Baela snorted. “You? You’d be unbearable. I’d have pushed you off a tower by the first moon of marriage.”

Despite himself, he huffed out a short laugh but it didn’t last. His jaw tightened again. “At least I wouldn’t hate you,” he muttered.

Baela glanced at him, her expression softening. “You don’t hate her, Jace.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No,” she said simply “You hate what she reminds you of. That’s not the same thing.”

He looked away, jaw clenching. “You sound like my mother.”

“Then maybe you should listen to her once in your life,” Baela said lightly, though her eyes softened. “It could be worse, you know.”

Baela tore another bite of bread, eyes flicking toward him with that sharp, knowing amusement only she could manage.

“Worse?” she echoed, a wry smile tugging at her mouth. “You could be married to someone who doesn’t argue back. Someone who smiles, nods, and lets you rot in your own bitterness without ever telling you you’re being an ass.”

Jace blinked, caught between annoyance and reluctant amusement. His retort stalled somewhere in his throat.

“You cared for her as a child, didn’t you?” Baela asked suddenly, tone deceptively casual.

He hesitated. “…Yes.”

Her brow arched. “And?”

Jace leaned back against the bench, arms crossing. “And she got me into trouble quite a bit. Usually on purpose.”

Baela chuckled softly. “Sounds about right.”

He glanced at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Baela said, voice even, “you’ve always liked a challenge. You just don’t like admitting it.”

He scoffed, looking away. “This isn’t a challenge, Baela. It’s punishment.”

She didn’t argue. She only tore another piece of bread, then said mildly, “If you keep playing whatever game this is, you’ll make her fear you.”

Jace turned sharply, irritation flashing. “Maeryn doesn’t fear men,” he said, his tone harsh. “She provokes them.”

Baela’s hand shot out, smacking his shoulder hard enough to make him blink.

“Ow—what was that for?”

“For being blind,” Baela said calmly. “She was raised without warmth or safety, Jace. Without affection. And she still manages to be kind..”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You’ve spoken to her then, have you?”

“Yes,” Baela said simply, and when he rolled his eyes, she added, “She’s gentler than you think. But she’s not soft. You mistake grace for weakness, you always have.”

He stared at her, annoyed that she sounded so much like his mother, annoyed that she might be right. “And what would you have me do? Play nice? Pretend this isn’t an execution in a wedding cloak?”

Baela’s eyes glinted with something between affection and challenge. “Maybe try not to make her hate you before the vows are even spoken. You’d be surprised what a bit of civility can win.”

Jace let out a dry laugh, but there was less venom in it now. “You think she’d fall in love with me if I said good morning instead of go away?”

Baela tilted her head. “You’d be amazed what people will forgive if you just stop giving them reasons not to.”

He went quiet then, frowning, staring at the stone under his boots.

Baela rose, brushing crumbs from her hands. “You don’t have to love her, Jace. But at least try not to become the man she already thinks you are.”

He looked up at her, something soft flickering behind the frustration. “And what man is that?”

Baela smiled faintly, walking away. “The one who’s already decided he can’t be forgiven.”

He watched her go, her words circling in his head long after she disappeared into the sunlight.

And for the first time since the betrothal was announced, Jace found himself wondering if it wasn’t too late to change how this story ended.

_:

He hadn’t meant to walk into her. The turn in the corridor was narrow, and she appeared so suddenly it was as if she’d stepped out of the light itself a soft blur of silver hair and blue silk.

For a heartbeat, he just stood there, watching her.
Her arms were full books, parchment, a few quills tucked neatly between pages the kind of clutter that made her look almost real, almost Small.

“Princess,” he said finally.

She startled, the sound of his voice breaking through the stillness like a blade through glass. The books slipped from her hands and hit the floor in a soft thud of scattered pages.

Jace froze then sighed, running a hand through his hair before crouching down. “You do not need to,” she murmured, already reaching for the fallen parchment.

He ignored her, scooping up a loose sheet before handing it back to her without meeting her eyes. “Apparently I do.”

When their fingers brushed, she flinched barely, but enough for him to notice. His jaw tightened. Baela’s words echoed in his head: Don’t make her fear you.

He shoved the last of the papers into her hands, straightening. “We’re to wed in two days time” he said flatly, the words landing somewhere between a statement and a warning.

Maeryn’s pale eyes lifted to meet his cautious, steady. “All right,” she said simply.

That was it. No anger, no trembling. Just quiet acceptance.
It disarmed him more than defiance ever could.

“Nothing to say?” he asked, the sarcasm spilling out before he could stop it. “No grand protest? No tears?”

She blinked once, slow and deliberate. “Would it change anything?”

His mouth opened, then closed again. “No,” he admitted.

“Then I’ll save my breath.”

The air between them tightened, sharp and still. For the briefest moment, he saw the shadow of the girl he remembered the one who used to sneak sweets from the kitchens and grin at him like she dared him to stop her.

 

Maeryn gathered the last of her parchment, pressing it to her chest. Her voice was soft when she spoke again. “Am I free to go, or did you need me for something else?”

Jace’s reply came too fast, too sharp. “I do not need you.”

The words hung there — cold, final.

She inhaled quietly, the faintest flicker of hurt crossing her face before she masked it with grace. “Of course,” she said, stepping past him. “My mistake.”

He didn’t turn to watch her leave, but he heard the soft retreat of her footsteps and the echo of his own cruelty following after them.

When the silence closed in again, Baela’s voice rose in his mind, quiet and cutting

He exhaled through his nose, jaw clench
_
The bells of King’s Landing rang low and steady, their sound carrying across the city like a heartbeat. heavy, ceremonial, final.
Every window of the Red Keep shimmered with light. Silk banners of black and green hung side by side for the first time, fluttering in the faint sea breeze an uneasy peace made flesh.

Maeryn stood before her looking glass, the quiet hum of her attendants fading as they finished the last ties of her gown. The chamber was still, save for the crackle of the fire and the distant murmur of the crowd gathering below.

Her gown was pale silver, threaded with faint gold and crimson silk a perfect blend of both houses. Dragons and stars shimmered in embroidery down her sleeves. Her hair fell in loose waves, a few soft curls pinned back with Valyrian steel combs. She looked every inch the queen she was born to be. Every inch the symbol of peace they all wanted her to become.

And yet, staring at her reflection, she barely recognized the woman in the mirror.

Her stomach turned with the thought: she could still leave. She could call her dragon, take to the sky, and vanish beyond the Narrow Sea before the bells finished their song. No one could stop her . espically not him.

The thought was foolish, reckless. But it was there.

A gentle knock pulled her back. Before she could answer, the door opened softly, and her mother stepped inside.

Alicent looked smaller than she once had not in stature, but in spirit. The years had worn her into something quieter, sadder, though she still carried the grace of a queen. Her gown was dark emerald,

“My sweet girl,” she murmured, her voice tender in a way Maeryn hadn’t heard since childhood.

Maeryn straightened, quickly brushing a thumb beneath her eye though no tears had fallen. “Mother,” she said softly.

Alicent approached, her hands clasped before her, eyes shining as she took her daughter in. “You look…” She smiled faintly, but her voice wavered. “You look like a true Targaryen princess. Your father would have been proud.”

Maeryn swallowed, looking away. “Would he?” she asked quietly. “I wonder if he’d call it pride...or penance.”

Alicent’s smile faltered, the weight of truth pressing between them. “I know this cannot be easy for you,” she said at last, reaching to tuck a loose curl behind Maeryn’s ear. “Truly, I do. You deserved a life of your own choosing.”

Maeryn looked down at her hands, at the faint tremor she hadn’t managed to hide. “I understand why,” she murmured. “Peace has its price.”

Her mother’s eyes softened. “It always has. And this…” she hesitated, searching for the right words, “…this is the one way we might keep what remains of our blood alive. Of you alive.”

Maeryn forced a small, steady nod. “Then I will do my duty.”

Alicent smiled, though her eyes glistened with tears she refused to shed. “You have your father’s heart,” she said quietly. “And your grandsire’s strength. The realm will see that ..even if they never understand it.”

Maeryn managed a faint, sad smile. “And what of my husband? Will he?”

Alicent hesitated. “He will learn to,” she said softly. “In time.”

They stood in silence for a long moment ,mother and daughter, two women shaped by war and duty, both wishing for gentler worlds they would never know.

Then, outside, the bells began again .louder now, echoing through the Keep, through the city, through the bones of everyone who’d survived long enough to witness this day.

Alicent reached for her daughter’s hand and squeezed it gently. “It’s time,” she whispered.

Maeryn nodded once, her reflection blurring as she blinked hard.
“I know,” she said quietly. “It’s time to make peace.”

Chapter Text

The Great Sept of Baelor had never been so silent.

Even the bells seemed to toll more carefully that day, their deep notes trembling through the air of King’s Landing like warnings rather than celebration. The city below was watching, holding its breath, waiting to see if dragons truly could bind peace in mortal flesh.

Inside, the realm’s survivors gathered beneath the colored glass of the Seven. The banners of Houses hung side by side above the altar. Fire and faith, sewn together by necessity.

The crowd rose when Maeryn entered.

She walked slowly, the long train of her gown sweeping the marble behind her. Every step was graceful, deliberate, but her hands trembled in the folds of her gown.

At the altar, Jacaerys stood waiting.

He looked like a prince carved from the same cold marble he stood on unyielding, unreadable, his jaw set hard enough to break bone. His armor gleamed beneath his ceremonial cloak, still dark with the memory of war.

Their eyes met, and for a breath, the world stopped moving.

She remembered him as the boy who used to sneak sweets from the kitchens with her, who used to laugh with sunlight in his hair.
He saw only the woman who carried the blood of his brother’s killer.

They did not smile.

The Septon began to speak, his voice hollow and distant beneath the echoing dome. “Before gods and men, we join these two houses, once divided, now united in peace.”

The word peace felt heavy, bitter.

Rhaenyra stood tall near the dais, her expression proud but tight eyes flicking between her son and her half-sister. Alicent stood across from her, hands clasped so tightly around her rosary that her knuckles had gone white.

It was a union neither of them wanted, yet both demanded.

When the time came for the vows, Maeryn’s voice was steady, though her throat ached. She repeated every word perfectly, but her gaze never softened. Jacaerys echoed her, his tone clipped, his eyes locked on hers with the quiet ferocity of a man forcing himself not to feel.

The Septon nodded solemnly. “In the eyes of gods and men, be bound.”

For a moment, they didn’t move.

Then Jace stepped forward. His hand reached for her face not tenderly, not possessively, but mechanically, as if fulfilling a task carved in stone.

The kiss that followed was barely that. A brush of lips impersonal, cold, duty-bound. The Sept roared with applause all the same, their cheers a brittle sound that rang false beneath the vaulted ceilings.

When he drew back, she could still feel the ghost of his breath against her lips, warm, restrained, and distant all at once.

He hesitated only a moment before offering his hand.

“Princess,” he said softly, but not kindly.

Her hand trembled as she placed it in his. “Prince Jacaerys.”

Their eyes met briefly hers searching, his unreadable, before they turned toward the stairs together.

The crowd’s gaze followed them down the aisle like a blade. Lords smiled, ladies whispered, and the realm sighed with false relief.

as he guided her out, his grip was gentle but rigid, his knuckles against her skin.

Every heartbeat between them pulsed with tension , not desire, but something far more dangerous, the unbearable knowledge that they were bound by blood, by duty, by ghosts neither could escape.

And when they stepped into the sunlight before the crowd, hands still joined, both wore the same expression, poised, perfect, and utterly empty. 
_

The feast that followed was less of celebration and more of a performance.

The Great Hall of the Red Keep blazed with torchlight, banners of red, black, and green fluttering from the rafters. Tables groaned under the weight of roasted boar, lemon cakes, and gilded goblets of wine, the trappings of victory and reconciliation. But beneath the laughter and music, tension sat thick as smoke.

Rhaenyra presided over it all like a queen carved from flame, her composure flawless, her eyes sharp. Alicent sat opposite her, expression serene but distant, every muscle in her jaw tight from restraint.

And between them, at the high table, sat the newlyweds, the living symbol of the peace everyone pretended to believe in.

Jacaerys had barely spoken since the ceremony. He sat rigid, one hand loosely curled around a goblet he had yet to drink from, the other resting tensely on the table beside Maeryn’s untouched plate. His shoulders were stiff, his gaze fixed somewhere over the heads of the gathered lords.

Maeryn, for her part, sat with her back straight and her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her face was composed, her smile faint and courteous, but her eyes never met his. Every so often, she nodded politely when someone toasted their union, though her knuckles whitened around her cup.

Between them was charged, invisible, and deadly.

The hall had begun to hum with wine-soft laughter and the scrape of chairs.
Jace’s patience was gone. Every speech, every toast, every hollow word about “peace through love” felt like salt pressed into an old wound.

He leaned closer, voice low enough that only she could hear.
“Seven save me, if I must hear one more lord praise the wisdom of this match, I’ll order Vermax to end the feast.”

Maeryn didn’t even glance his way. Her lashes lowered, her tone smooth as silk.
“Then perhaps you should’ve stayed in the courtyard with your dragon, Your Grace. The rest of us are trying to keep the peace you swore to.”

His jaw ticked. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t speak at all.”

“Gladly,” she murmured, the single word slicing through the din like glass.

For a time, neither moved. The silence between them had weight—thick, suffocating, humming with all the things they would not say. The crowd’s laughter felt miles away, the candlelight too bright.

A servant approached to refill their cups, breaking the stillness. Maeryn reached for her goblet at the same moment he did. Their hands brushed. A fleeting touch barely a breat but it stopped him cold.

Her skin was warm.
He hadn’t expected that.

Her hand lingered a fraction too long before she pulled back, fingers tightening around the stem of her cup. The air between them shifted unsteady, alive. He looked at her without meaning to, catching the flicker of her pulse at her throat, the faint tremor in her breath.

 

The feast carried on

When the musicians struck the final notes of their song, Jace rose abruptly, his chair scraping against the stone. The motion drew too many eyes. He didn’t care.

“Come,” he said, voice steady but unreadable, extending a hand toward her. “The court expects a dance.”

Maeryn looked up at him, her face a mask of calm, though her pulse quickened beneath the candlelight. “Is this duty,” she asked quietly, “or mercy?”

A humorless flicker passed over his mouth. “Obligation.”

Her fingers brushed his as she took his hand, the warmth of her skin startling him more than he’d ever admit. He guided her to the center of the hall, posture rigid, every movement measured, a prince playing his part before an audience that had bled for this performance.

The musicians began to play a slow, solemn melody that unfurled through the Great Hall like a memory dredged from somewhere long buried. All around them, lords and ladies turned to watch, the air weighted with ceremony and expectation.

They stood opposite one another beneath the glow of candlelight, when Maeryn lifted her hand to his, Jacaerys felt his breath falter.

Their palms met, soft against calloused, warm against cold. The contact was formal, meant to be symbolic, nothing more. But to him, it didn’t feel like duty. It felt like déjà vu.

For a heartbeat, he wasn’t standing in the Great Hall before the realm.
He was back in the old training yard at redkeep, a young boy with shaking hands, holding hers as they practiced the same dance. She’d been all laughter then , wild, unafraid. spinning too fast, stepping on his foot, apologizing between fits of giggles that made his ears burn. He’d pretended to be annoyed, but gods, he’d been in love with her.

He hadn’t known it then not really but it had been love all the same.

The music drew them into movement. They circled one another with slow, deliberate steps, palms still pressed together, eyes meeting and breaking away in rhythm. Every touch, every turn was dictated by tradition, but Jace felt it differently. the pulse in her wrist beneath his thumb, the brush of silk at her sleeve, the faint tremor in her breath.

When he finally looked down at her, the world narrowed.

Her face was tilted toward his, her hair catching the candlelight, her lips parting just slightly as she focused on the steps. Her eyes flickered upward ..first to his collar, then his mouth, and then, finally, to his eyes.

And when she looked at him really looked at him it was the same as it used to be.

That open, unguarded warmth that had undone him once before. The look that had made him think of stolen afternoons, of laughter echoing through corridors, of the future they’d both believed was waiting for them.

It hit him like a blade to the chest.
Because for that one, fragile moment. she wasn’t his enemy. She was just Maeryn. The girl who used to sneak him figs and call him Jace with a grin that melted every ounce of composure he had.

And his heart traitorous, stupid thing softened.

He looked at her the way he used to, and the way her eyes flickered, as though she saw that softness and remembered it too, nearly broke him.

His thumb brushed unconsciously against her palm, the barest hint of a touch that was too intimate, too real.

But thenreality returned.

The music, the crowd, the sea of watching eyes, the weight of every death between their families . it all came rushing back. The warmth in his chest twisted to something cold and sharp.

Because this was no innocent dance between two children under the watch of their mothers. This was penance. This was politics. This was the illusion of peace dressed in silk and firelight.

He was dancing with his enemy.

His hand stiffened slightly in hers. His gaze, once soft, hardened again as the truth settled heavy in his stomach. He could not afford to look at her that way .not anymore. Not when her brother’s blood was on his hands, not when her name had been whispered in the same breath as everything that had destroyed his family.

And yet, even as he forced his features back into calm indifference, she smiled faintly, sadly, as though she’d seen the change and mourned it.
It was slight barely a pause, barely enough to notice but she felt it. Her brows drew together, her lips parting. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly.

He looked at her for a moment too long, words catching behind his teeth. Then he shook his head, his voice coming out rough. “I’m tired.”

Around them, a few nearby lords laughed, mistaking his weariness for jest. One, bold from wine, raised his cup and shouted over the crowd, “Then let the prince rest well the bedding ceremony awaits!”

The hall erupted in crude cheers.

Jace’s face darkened instantly, his jaw setting hard enough to splinter. “There will be no bedding ceremony,” he said, his voice cutting clean through the noise.

The laughter died. The silence that followed was sharp and uncomfortable.

Without another word, he released Maeryn’s hand and turned, the tension in his shoulders radiating fury. He didn’t look back to see the flash of hurt that crossed her face the way she steadied herself, chin lifting as the eyes of the court turned to her.

He walked ahead, each step echoing down the marble corridor as he left the hall, his cloak sweeping behind him.

Maeryn followed slower, quieter the hem of her gown whispering against the stone.

 

The door shut behind them with a low, echoing thud , a sound that seemed to seal them off from the rest of the world. The faint laughter and music of the feast faded into a muffled hum through the stone.

Maeryn lingered near the door, watching him with the wary calm of someone who already expected the worst. “What?” she asked finally, breaking the silence.

He turned, his expression cold enough to make the air feel thinner. “You truly want me to speak?”

She raised her chin slightly. “You came in here. Not I.”

He stepped closer, each movement measured , deliberate , until the edge of the table pressed against her back. “We are wed,” he said, voice low but sharp, like steel drawn too quickly from its sheath.

“I’m aware,” she said quietly, though her voice trembled just enough for him to hear.

“I trust,” he went on, eyes dark and unreadable, “that you’ll allow me to do my duties.”

Her brow creased. “Your duties?”

He let out a humorless laugh. “To the realm,” he said. “To the mess I’ve inherited. I have much to clean up now that we’re all pretending peace has been restored.” He turned, running a hand along the back of a chair. “So don’t expect me here. I’ll be where I’m needed, which won’t be in this room.”

“You will not stay?” she asked.

His gaze snapped to hers. “No. Why would I?”

Her voice was small, but it cut through the tension. “You do not wish—”

“To bed you?” he interrupted, scoffing. “No. Seven hells, no.” His tone was cruel now, every word dipped in venom. “You think I’d touch you? That I could forget what your blood has done? What your brother did?”

She froze, her throat tightening. “I told you i did not want this anymore then you did”

“Don’t lie,” he hissed, stepping closer again. “You’ve been trained your whole life to play the martyr — all soft voice and sad eyes. But this—” he gestured between them, bitterly — “this is your victory, isn’t it? The Greens clawing their way back into our lives under the guise of peace.”

Maeryn drew a slow, shaking breath, refusing to back away. “Peace is all any of us have left.”

He laughed again, quieter this time, but darker. “Peace? This isn’t peace. This is humiliation dressed in silk.”

“You will say these things to me,” she said, her voice breaking slightly, “but you will not even look at me?”

He met her eyes then, hard and unyielding. “I look at you and see my brother falling through the clouds,” he said, voice low. “I see fire. I see everything I lost. Tell me, how am I meant to desire the face of the family that destroyed mine?”

She faltered not from his words, but the sheer weight of the hatred in them.

He turned away, already reaching for the door. “I’ll be saying we did,” he muttered. “Let’s save us both the trouble.”

Her composure cracked. “And what happens then,” she demanded, “when I never give you a child?”

He paused only for a heartbeat. Then he looked back over his shoulder, the fire catching the edge of his expression. “Joffrey will be my heir,” he said simply, with the cold finality of someone closing a wound by cauterizing it.

And then he left.

The door shut behind him, quiet but absolute.

Maeryn stood where he’d left her, staring into the fire until her vision blurred. Her wedding gown shimmered faintly in the light.

When she finally exhaled, it sounded like breaking.

The corridors of the Red Keep were quiet that night too quiet.

The celebration still echoed faintly in the distance: laughter, music, the scrape of goblets and the dull murmur of peace being toasted by men who had never bled for it. But up here, away from the feast and the torches, the halls were dark. Cold.

Jace walked fast, his steps hard against the stone. The edges of his cloak trailed behind him like the shadow of a storm that refused to break.

He couldn’t stop hearing her voice.
You will not stay? You do not wish—
The way she’d said it. Not pleading, not soft. Just… tired.

It made something in his chest twist, and he hated that.

He turned a corner too sharply, the ring on his hand scraping the wall. The sound made his jaw clench tighter.

He’d told himself he’d done the right thing. That cruelty was cleaner than pretending. That distance was mercy.
But gods, he could still see the look in her eyes when denied her.

He stopped at the end of the corridor, bracing a hand against the cold stone wall, his head bowed. The candlelight flickered, catching the tremor in his jaw.

He hated her.

He hated what she represented every scar the realm carried, every face he’d buried, every oath he’d sworn that had burned to ash. She was the living proof that peace had a price, and it was him.

But beneath all that hate, beneath the armor and the pride and the grief, there was something else.
A memory.

He’d forgotten how that had felt.
Or maybe he’d buried it.

Jace let out a long, unsteady breath and pushed away from the wall, pacing. His hands trembled when he dragged them through his hair.

He couldn’t go back to her. Not tonight. Not when every word that had left his mouth still burned on his tongue.

But he couldn’t shake the image of her standing in that room with her back to the fire, trying not to look wounded.
Trying not to let him see.

He reached the balcony overlooking the dark city.

He gripped the stone railing, knuckles white, forcing his breathing steady. He told himself he didn’t care. That he didn’t need her. That this marriage was just a cage with gold bars.

But the truth sat heavy in his chest ugly, undeniable.
He hated her because he couldn’t stop seeing the girl she used to be.
Because somewhere in all the anger and ruin, he still wanted to.

He closed his eyes.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint echo of laughter from the feast below

He couldn’t.

When he finally left the balcony, the firelight caught the edge of his face, tired, hollow, but no longer entirely certain whom he despised more.
_

The days that followed blurred together, each one colder than the last.

The court saw peace smiles, polite words, the soft trappings of a realm pretending to heal but behind the doors of the royal wing, silence ruled. Silence, and distance.

Every morning, Maeryn woke before the sun, the fire in her chamber long gone cold. The servants still called her the Princess of Peace, but the title felt hollow. Her husband hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to her since the wedding night.

Still, she tried.

She sought him out in the corridors when the council meetings ended, walking beside him despite his clipped tone and quick pace. She lingered at the edge of the war table, offering to help sort through letters from the Reach and Dorne. She waited outside the council chambers until the last maester had left, hoping he might glance her way.

Sometimes, he did. But it was never long enough. Never warm enough.

“Prince Jacaerys,” she said one morning, catching him as he left the council room, scrolls tucked under his arm. “You haven’t eaten. I had the kitchens prepare something—”

“I’m not hungry,” he cut in, without looking at her.

She followed him down the hall, her voice gentler this time. “Then perhaps a walk? The gardens are—”

“I don’t have time for gardens,” he said, his tone sharp enough to sting. “Or for conversation. The realm doesn’t fix itself with pleasantries.”

Her steps faltered. “I wasn’t asking as your princess,” she said softly. “I was asking as your wife.”

He stopped then only for a heartbeat before turning to face her. His eyes, the same deep brown as his fathers, were tired and guarded.

“My wife,” he repeated, the word bitter on his tongue. “My wife would understand that I’m busy. That peace doesn’t hold itself together with idle chatter and walks among flowers.”

“I’m trying,” she said, her voice low but trembling. “I’m trying to make this work.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Work? Maeryn, this is not something to fix. This is a treaty with a name. You were never meant to be a comfort.”

The words hit harder than he intended. He saw it the way her expression flickered, the faint tremor in her hands before she hid them behind her skirts.

She took a breath, steadying herself. “You weren’t always this cruel,” she said quietly.

He turned away. “I wasn’t always forced to be,” he muttered, and walked off before she could answer.

That became their pattern.

She tried again the next day, and the day after that — small gestures, small hopes.
A book she remembered him liking, left on his desk.
A fresh pot of tea, set beside his untouched plate.
A kind word in the hall when she knew he wouldn’t respond.

Each one was met with the same polite dismissal, the same hollow distance.

And still, she persisted because someone had to. Because she refused to believe this was what their peace had to look like.

Chapter Text

The night was long, and Maeryn hadn’t slept. The fire had burned low in the hearth, casting thin ribbons of amber light across her chamber walls. Her untouched supper had gone cold on the tray by the window. The city below was silent, save for the soft hum of the wind against the stones.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in,”

“I thought you might still be awake,” Alicent said, closing the door behind her.

Maeryn managed a small, polite nod. “I usually am.”

Alicent’s gaze swept the room the untouched food, the wilted flowers, the rumpled bed before settling on her daughter’s face. “How are you faring?”

Maeryn hesitated, then exhaled through her nose, the brittle mask of courtesy breaking all at once.
“I hate it,” she said flatly.

Alicent blinked, taken aback. Her daughter had never been so blunt, not even as a child. “You..hate it?”

“Yes,” Maeryn said, “I hate the stares, the whispers, the silence. I hate pretending everything is well when it isn’t. And I hate—” she stopped herself, looking down, her fingers twisting in the folds of her gown, “—that he despises me.”

Alicent frowned, stepping closer. “Jace does not despise you.”

Maeryn’s bitter laugh. “He does. He despises me for the war, for what it cost him.”

“Maeryn—”

“I don’t blame him,” Maeryn interrupted quietly. “It was our fault. It was.” She lifted her gaze to her mother’s. “But I can’t live like this, Mother. Not in a castle full of ghosts, with a husband who looks at me and sees everything he’s lost.”

Alicent’s expression faltered She crossed the room and sat beside her, reaching to take her hand. “You are not to blame for the choices of men, my sweet girl,” she said gently. “Not for their pride. Not for their anger.”

Maeryn swallowed hard, eyes shining. “I just want peace, Mother. Real peace. Not the kind that comes with crowns and banners and forced smiles.” She turned toward her, voice trembling. “Can I come back to Dragonstone with you? Please. Just for a little while.”

Alicent’s face softened with sadness. She squeezed her daughter’s hand. “No, my love. You cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because peace demands presence,” Alicent said quietly. “If you leave, they will say the alliance has failed. They will call this union hollow. You are the proof that the realm can heal.”

Maeryn’s jaw tightened a small tear falling “And what am I, then? A living treaty?”

Alicent’s hand rose, brushing the tear from Maeryn’s cheek. “You are my daughter,” she said softly. “And you are stronger than you know. This… pain it will not last forever.”

Maeryn’s sighed. “It feels like it will.”

Alicent didn’t argue. She simply pulled her into her arms, the way she used to when Maeryn was small. For a long while, neither spoke only the quiet crackle of the dying fire filled the room.

When Alicent finally rose to leave, she paused at the door, her voice quiet but steady.
“Endure, Maeryn. Just a little longer.”

Maeryn nodded, though her eyes stayed fixed on the flames.

-

The knock on Maeryn’s chamber door came sharp and without patience ,not the soft courtesy of a husband, but the clipped demand of a prince who didn’t want to be there.

“Enter,” she said coolly, not looking up from the book she hadn’t been reading.

The door swung open, and Jace stepped in, already irritated, already tired. His hair still damp from the bath. Even without the armor, he carried the same weight of command, the same unspoken annoyance that hung in the air whenever he had to speak to her.

“You’re awake,” he muttered, as though that itself were a nuisance.

“I find sleep difficult these days,” Maeryn replied without looking at him. “Though I suppose I should thank the gods you found the time to notice.”

Jace exhaled through his nose before crossing the room with heavy, measured steps. “There’s to be a celebration tomorrow,” he said flatly, ignoring her tone.

“Oh, another?” she said, finally glancing up, voice faking sweet “Have we not already toasted enough ghosts?”

His jaw tightened. “You’ll attend.”

“Will I?” she asked, arching a brow. “And what exactly are we celebrating this time? My captivity? Your misery?”

Jace let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “Gods, you never stop talking, do you?”

“Not when ignored,” she said lightly. “It’s the only way to remind you I exist.”

He turned toward her, the firelight sharpening the irritation in his eyes. “You’ll attend,” he repeated. “You’ll smile. You’ll act like peace means something.”

She closed her book with a soft thud. “Peace,” she echoed. “Is that what you call this? I thought we were still in the ‘endure each other quietly’ phase.”

“Call it whatever you like,” Jace said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Just act civil.. For the sake of appearances.”

“Ah,” she said, standing now, crossing the space between them with deliberate slowness. “So we are to perform again. I play the dutiful wife, and you—” her eyes swept him head to toe “—the charming prince. How exhausting for you.”

He gave her a sharp, humorless smile. “It’s your duty, Maeryn. Or have you forgotten what that word means since your brother usurped my mother’s throne?”

The air in the room froze.

She went still not because she was surprised, but because she’d expected cruelty eventually. Still, the venom of it stung she said softly. “You think I haven’t paid for it every day since?”

Jace looked away, jaw tight, voice low and dismissive. “Then pay a little longer.”

Her expression didn’t crack not outwardly. Only her eyes hardened. “You wear cruelty like armor, my prince. I hope it keeps you warm when everyone else stops caring.”

He scoffed, stepping back toward the door, one hand already on the handle. “It already has.”

She folded her arms, tilting her head slightly. “Then by all means keep pretending it’s peace you’re fighting for. You’re getting rather good at it.”

He paused just for a heartbeat before slamming the door behind him.

The silence that followed was loud.

Maeryn stood there for a long moment, breathing slowly, until the echo of his footsteps faded down the corridor
_

The great hall of the Red Keep glittered with gold and false warmth.
Banners of red and black hung high, their silk shifting in the candlelight, dragons dancing in the flicker of flame. Laughter echoed across the vaulted ceiling, loud and performative the sound of a realm desperate to believe the war was truly over.

 

He was perfect tonight.
Every motion, every smile, every glance toward her seemed effortless, rehearsed to precision. When he leaned in to whisper something near her ear, the lords and ladies sighed with relief the prince adored his wife, how fortunate, how divine.

Maeryn smiled too.
Her lips curved with quiet grace, her laughter soft and melodic when required, but her eyes never warmed. Every gesture was a choreographed lie the gentle tilt of her head toward him, the delicate brush of her fingers against his arm. She performed her role like a penance, each act of tenderness another sin repaid.

Across the tables, wine flowed freely. Lord Celtigar raised a toast to “House Targaryen united once more.” The crowd cheered. Goblets clinked. A bard struck up a song of dragons at peace.

And Jace, ever the prince, lifted Maeryn’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles soft, lingering, calculated. His smile didn’t falter, even as the touch made his skin burn.

“My love,” he murmured just loud enough for those nearby to hear, “you’ve outshone every light in this hall.”

A chorus of approving laughter rippled from the table below them.
Maeryn’s smile tightened, but she played her part perfectly.

“You flatter easily,” she replied sweetly, her tone honeyed. “I fear the wine’s done most of the work.”

Jace’s jaw flexed just a flicker beefore he laughed, a low, charming sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps,” he said. “But I find the sight of you sobers me too quickly.”

The surrounding nobles cooed. Alicent smiled faintly, Rhaenyra lifted her cup, and even Daemon chuckled low at the far end of the table.
The illusion held.

But beneath it beneath every exchange, every forced smile the fire between them simmered hotter than ever.

Every touch burned.
Every glance wounded.
And every word that passed between their lips only deepened the hatred neither could speak aloud.

"exuse me" Jace whispered to Maeryn nodded slowly in response

The crowd parted easily around him, drawn as much by his title as by the force of his restrained temper. The lord beside him a portly man reeking of wine and flattery kept speaking, oblivious to the tension building behind Jace’s eyes.

“She truly is the jewel of the realm, Your Grace,” the man said, swirling his goblet lazily. “That hair that bearing. The gods must’ve forged her for the throne itself. You’re a fortunate man.”

Jace’s lips twitched into something that looked like a smile but wasn’t. “So I’ve been told.”

He lifted his cup to his lips, letting the wine burn down his throat while his eyes wandered across the hall. There she was Maeryn seated now beside her mother  The candlelight softened her, turned the sharp lines of duty into something gentle. For a moment, she looked nothing like the woman who bit at him with words sharper than steel. She was laughing softly at something Alicent said, her smile real and unguarded.

And gods help him she looked beautiful.

The thought struck him before he could bury it, and immediately his chest tightened with irritation. Beautiful or not, she was still her still the girl whose bloodline nearly destroyed everything.

“Tell me, Your Grace,” the lord continued, dragging him back to the present, “now that the houses are joined again, what of Prince Aemond? The realm wonders when he’ll rejoin court.”

Jace’s head turned sharply. The noise of the hall seemed to fade for a moment. “The prince Aemond,” he said evenly, though every syllable tasted bitter, “is on Dragonstone. With Prince Aegon and Princess Helaena.”

The lord blinked, half-grinning as though he’d stumbled upon gossip. “And why are they not here, may I ask?”

Jace’s patience thinned. He kept his tone smooth, his smile tight. “Aegon is… unwell. Helaena remains with her children. And Aemond”—he paused, forcing the word through clenched teeth—“is attending to what remains of the realm’s… disorder.”

“Ah. A pity,” the lord said, taking another long drink. “I imagine the court feels emptier without him.”

“Not in the slightest,” Jace replied, his tone so dry it could have burned the wine from the man’s cup.

He didn’t wait for a response. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said curtly, setting his goblet down and stepping away before the lord could speak again.

He needed air or something sharper.

But he didn’t get far.

He felt her before he saw her the faint scent of lavender and smoke, the subtle shift in the air as Maeryn appeared at his side.

“Jacaerys,” she said softly.

He turned, eyes dark. The name on her lips made something inside him tighten. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped the exhaustion, the resentment but then he caught himself, plastering the polished smile back in place for the watching eyes around them

He took her hand, his grip firm, almost possessive, and turned toward the crowd again.
“Darling,” he said smoothly, loud enough for nearby courtiers to hear.

The word was so sweetly false it nearly made her laugh nearly.

Maeryn tilted her head, her expression flawless, her voice light. “You always know how to make an show.”

“And you always know how to test my patience,” he murmured under his breath, his lips barely moving as he guided her back toward the floor.

The nobles who watched saw only what they wanted to a prince and princess in perfect harmony.
But between their locked hands, their shared smiles, and the graceful act of affection there was nothing but fire. 
_  

Jace ripped his hand from hers the instant they were alone, the sound of the doors closing behind them echoing like a slap.

“Seven hells,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair, every movement full of barely contained irritation. “Do you always grip like a vice, or is that your way of reminding me I’m trapped?”

Maeryn blinked once before scoffing, her tone cutting and dry. “Apologies, Your Grace. I wasn’t aware the heir to the Iron Throne bruised so easily.”

He turned sharply, his eyes flashing with disbelief. “Bruised? I’ve spent the entire night holding my tongue while you smiled like a saint and you think I’m the delicate one?”

“I don’t think about you at all,” she shot back, her tone perfectly calm. “But unfortunately, I’ll have to learn to stomach you.”

That made him step closer, his voice low, sharp with annoyance. “Were you always this awful, or is this some new talent you picked up to keep yourself entertained?”

Maeryn tilted her head “Amusing. I was just thinking the same thing about you. It seems court life has spoiled that sweet boy who used to steal lemon cakes and think he was clever.”

Jace’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking as he glared down at her. “You’d do well to remember who you’re speaking to.”

“Oh, I remember,” she said smoothly. “The prince who can’t decide whether he’s angry at me, my brother, or himself.”

That landed. His nostrils flared, his breath sharp, the vein in his temple twitching. “You think you know me?” Jace bit out, his voice rising. “You think you understand anything about what I’ve lost?”

“Yes, I’m sorry—” Maeryn said softly, then added with a cutting edge, “—the prince who was the only one who suffered.”

He froze.

The look he gave her could have melted steel. His eyes burned with the kind of anger that didn’t fade, the kind that lived deep and unhealed. “Don’t you dare mock me,” he snapped. “You don’t know what I’ve seen, what I’ve had to bury you don’t know anything.”

Maeryn’s lips parted, breath catching. “I know more than you think,” she started, quiet but firm, “I know what it feels like to—”

“Don’t,” he snapped. He took a step closer, and she instinctively stepped back, her shoulder brushing the cold wall. “You don’t know loss,” he hissed. “You were the sister of the man who burned the world and then dared to call it peace.”

Her heart pounded, but her voice stayed steady. “And you’re the son of the woman who burned it to take it back. Seems we’re both paying for the sins of others.”

His jaw clenched hard enough to ache. He turned from her abruptly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of her, his cloak brushing past her arm. “Is it done now?” he asked, voice low, almost a growl.

“Is what done?” she asked, feigning innocence but her voice trembled slightly.

“This endless talking,” he snapped, spinning halfway around to face her again. “This noise that pours out of you every time you open your mouth, Because I’d very much like the chance to stop hearing it.”

Her smile was sharp but wounded, all pride and poison. “Gladly. It’s not as if you’ve listened once since we been children”

He glared at her one last time jaw tight, chest heaving and then turned on his heel, storming down the corridor. His boots struck the stone like thunder, echoing long after he was gone.

Maeryn stood where he left her, her pulse still racing, her chest rising and falling. For a long moment, she stared down the empty hall after him the anger, the ache, and the unwanted longing twisting painfully inside her.
-

The fire burned low in the war room, its light throwing restless shadows across the carved table of Westeros. The old battle maps were still spread across it ghosts of a war that refused to die, no matter how many banners were lowered.

Daemon poured himself wine, leaning lazily against the edge of the table. “You look like a man being eaten alive,” he said without looking up.

“I’m fine,” Jace muttered.

Daemon’s brow lifted. “You’ve been snarling at everyone from your mother’s courtiers to the servants who bring your meals. That’s not fine.”

“I’m tired,” Jace snapped. “That’s all.”

Daemon’s lips curved faintly. “Of your wife, you mean.”

Jace’s jaw tightened. He looked away, the faint muscle in his cheek ticking. “She talks too much. Always trying to fix things that don’t need fixing. Trying to smile, to… to make peace.” He let out a bitter scoff. “Seven hells, she tries to.” he ran his hand through his hair

“Tries what?” Daemon asked, voice low, deceptively calm.

“To make me like her,” Jace muttered. “To pretend this marriage is anything but a cage.”

Daemon studied him, eyes narrowing slightly. “And that offends you?”

“It’s pathetic,” Jace said, his tone sharp. “She walks through the Keep like some penitent saint, trying to win over everyone she meets. Smiling at my mother, bringing flowers to the Sept, pretending she’s grateful to be here.” He turned then, the anger in his voice cracking just enough to betray what sat underneath. “I can’t stand it. The effort. The… hope.”

Daemon sipped his wine slowly, watching him. “Hope,” he repeated. “You hate her because she hasn’t given up.”

Jace’s head snapped toward him, glare cutting. “Don’t start.”

“You remind me of your mother when she was young,” Daemon said, unbothered. “All fire and righteousness, all fury at the world for not being what you thought it should be. But she learned something you haven’t.”

Jace folded his arms, scowling. “And what’s that?”

Daemon set down his cup, meeting his gaze with quiet intensity. “That hate and guilt are the same beast only worn differently. You despise that girl not because of who she is, but because every time she looks at you, she reminds you what peace costs.”

Jace’s breath caught, the anger flickering for a moment. “You think this is guilt?” he said bitterly. “You think I asked for this?”

“No,” Daemon said. “I think you’re angry that she didn’t.”

That silenced him.

Daemon straightened, his tone turning colder. “Do you even know why you had to wed her, Jacaerys?”

Jace rolled his eyes “Yes. For peace. My mother’s grand dream.”

Daemon’s eyes sharpened. “No. Not for peace. For power.”

Jace turned toward him then, something hard and wary settling in his chest.

“To insure your mother’s crown,” Daemon continued . “To bind fire and fire, black and green, into one house again. If our blood stands united, If our house is united again with all our dragons tell me, what lord would dare raise a banner against us agaisnt you when you become king?”

Jace looked away, his hands curling into fists. “And what if I can’t stomach her long enough to make that happen?”

Daemon gave a quiet, knowing smirk. “Then she’ll do what women like her have always done bear the burden you can’t.”

Jace’s head snapped toward him, fury flashing in his eyes. “You think I’d force her—”

Daemon’s voice cut clean through his anger. “I think she’s already forcing herself to love you, and that’s a cruelty worse than any sword.”

The words landed like a blow.

For a moment, Jace said nothing couldn’t. He looked toward the fire, jaw tight, the reflection of its light flickering in his eyes like something breaking.

Daemon poured another cup of wine and slid it across the table toward him. “She’s been trying, boy,” he said quietly. “And all you’ve done is punish her for it. Maybe she’s not the one you should be angry at.”

Jace stared down at the wine, unmoving, his throat tight.

Daemon turned away, his cloak trailing after him as he left the chamber.

The fire popped behind him, casting its red light over Jace’s face and for the first time, the prince of dragons didn’t look furious. He looked haunted.
-
The corridor outside the royal chambers hummed faintly with voices low, conspiratorial, and careless in the safety of distance.
Maeryn had only meant to take a walk. To breathe. To escape the silence of her room that felt too heavy, too sharp. But as she turned the corner, she froze.

The voices came from the alcove beyond the tapestry servants, their laughter soft but biting.

“I swear to the Seven,” one of them said, “if I hear them shouting through the walls one more night, I’ll pack and run to Oldtown. No kingdom can survive that much poison under one roof.”

The others giggled, nervous and gleeful all at once.

“They’re dragons,” another whispered. “Maybe they’ll just burn each other up and save the rest of us the trouble.”

That earned a chorus of stifled laughter.

Maeryn’s stomach tightened, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t. She should have turned away but she didn’t.

“I heard the prince left the keep last night,” a third voice added, lowering to a conspiratorial hush. “Went down into the city. The brothel in Flea Bottom, they say. To—” she paused for effect, “—let off steam from his darling wife.”

The laughter that followed was louder, freer.

“Oh, the poor princess,” one of them said through her giggles. “All that fire, and not even her husband wants to burn with her.”

More laughter.

“Shh!” one hissed. “You’ll lose your tongues if you’re heard.”

“Not by him,” the first replied with a snort. “The prince doesn’t notice anything unless it insults him directly.”

Their laughter faded as their footsteps carried them away down the corridor, their whispers trailing into nothing.

Maeryn stood very still. Her hands were trembling, though she didn’t notice until she realized her nails had pressed crescent moons into her palms.

The corridor was quiet again. The only sound was the faint rustle of her gown as she turned slowly, forcing herself to breathe forcing her spine straight.

Her face betrayed nothing. Not anger. Not hurt.
Just calm. Regal. Controlled.

But her heart her heart felt as though it had been cut open and filled with fire.

She exhaled slowly, her voice barely audible, trembling with something between fury and heartbreak.
_

Chapter Text

The corridor outside his chamber was still too still. The air hung heavy with the scent of candle wax and smoke. The guards exchanged a nervous glance as Maeryn strode past her fury sharp enough to make them avert their eyes.

She didn’t knock softly. just opeed it forcefully the impact rattling the hinges, the sound cutting through the quiet like thunder.

Jace was by the window, fastening his tunic. Sunlight caught in the black thread and the faint glint of his signet ring. His desk was immaculate papers lined in perfect order, sealed letters arranged in neat stacks. Everything about the room spoke of discipline, of distance, of control.
Everything he could organize except her.

“Do you have a moment?” she asked. Her voice was steady at first, but the tremor beneath it betrayed the fury coiled inside her.

He didn’t even turn. “Maeryn.” Her name sounded like a burden on his tongue. “I have a council meeting.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she said, “You always do.”

He sighed, shoulders tensing. “If this is another attempt at conversation, spare us both.”

Her jaw tightened. “I came for honesty.”

That word made him turn slow, reluctant, like she was dragging him toward something he didn’t want to face. His expression was unreadable but cold, the faintest curve of mockery at his lips.
“Honesty?” he echoed. “What is it you want to hear, wife?”

She flinched at the word, but met his eyes. “You’ve avoided me since the celebration three days ago.”

He turned away again, reaching for a quill, letting the insult drip from his tone like venom. “You were forced upon me, Maeryn. That is the truth of it.”

“You could at least try to act like a husband,” she said.

“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered, flipping through parchment as if she were nothing more than an inconvenience.

“You have time for everything else!” she shouted, taking a step toward him. “Letters, reports, meetings—!”

He slammed his hand down on the desk, the sound explosive, shaking the inkpot. “Because those things matter!”

Her heart jumped, but she held her ground. “And I don’t?”

That made him look at her really look at her. The facade of control shattered. His eyes burned with something dark, something ugly.
“You?” he said, voice low but shaking with fury. “You the reminder of everything wrong in my life?"

The words hit like blows. Her lips parted, her throat dry, but no words came.

He stepped closer, his voice rising, bitter and raw. “I wake every morning and see the daughter of Alicent Hightower in my hall wearing my name, sitting at my table, smiling as if the blood that burned my brothers from the sky isn’t running in your veins.”

Silence pressed between them, thick and suffocating.

Then she asked, “Tell me, then. Why haven’t you consummated our marriage? Is that weakness too?”

He froze. For a heartbeat, he didn’t breathe. Then his voice came low, controlled, but seething underneath.
“Because I don’t want to.”

It was the truest thing he’d ever said to her

The words cut deep, but she didn’t let him see her break. “You’re meant to secure peace.”

“I am securing it,” he said sharply. “Every moment I spend keeping this kingdom from falling apart is peace. Bedding a stranger is not.”

“Then perhaps your peace is elsewhere,” she said, bitterness creeping into her tone. “In the brothels, maybe?”

His head snapped toward her so fast she almost stepped back. “What did you say?”

“I’ve heard the rumours,” she said, her voice trembling but unrelenting. “That their noble prince finds comfort elsewhere. That while his wife sleeps alone, he—”

“Enough.”

The word cracked through the room like a whip.

She flinched, but refused to lower her gaze. “So it’s true, then?”

He stared at her, jaw clenched, the pulse in his neck pounding. Then, slowly deliberately he nodded. “If it will make you stop speaking, then yes. Believe what you want.”

Her eyes went wide. The tears she’d been holding back finally broke. “I thought you were proud,” she whispered. “Arrogant, yes — cruel even. But not this.”

He went completely still. His hands were shaking, the parchment in his grip crumpling.

“Be careful,” he said quietly dangerously quiet. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

Her voice cracked. “You hate me so much you’d rather let the world think you bed whores than touch your own wife?”

Something dark crossed his face a shadow, deep and heavy.

He took one step toward her. Then another.

And when he spoke, his voice was low, trembling not with fear, but fury barely restrained.

“Don’t mistake mercy for weakness,” he said. “Because if I treated you the way I wanted to ..the way your name deserves... you’d pray I stayed in those brothels.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Maeryn didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Her throat burned, her chest tight

Her voice broke as she whispered, “You hate me.”

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even blink.
“I do.”

The simplicity of it made her chest twist. “Then why marry me at all?” she managed, voice cracking on the edges of the words.

“Because peace demanded it,” he spat, the bitterness sharp enough to cut. “Because no other house would dare stand against us if the dragon was whole again. And unfortunately for both of us, that meant I must wed you to prove to the realm that the Targaryens are united.”

Her eyes glistened, but she refused to let a single tear fall. “stop thinking i wanted this”

“I don’t care what you wanted,” he snapped too fast, too loud and stepped toward her.

She flinched. It was small, barely there, but it was enough. Her back pressed to the table, her fingers curling around the edge like she might fall.

And he froze.

The sound of his own breathing was suddenly too loud in the room. He saw her properly saw her eyes wide, shoulders rigid, the faint tremor in her hands. And it landed like a knife between his ribs.
It was there.
The fear.
Real.
Because of him.

For a moment, neither moved. The air between them went still, heavy, choking. His anger curdled into something colder something sickening. Baela’s voice whispered in the back of his mind..You’ll make her fear you.

He looked at Maeryn again really looked. The tears trembling at her lashes, the way she stood her ground even when he towered over her.

His voice, when it came, wasn’t fury anymore. It was unsteady, almost broken. “are...are you afraid of me.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
The truth sat between them like smoke that wouldn’t clear.

He shut his eyes, forced a breath through his teeth. When he spoke again, it was softer. “You shouldn’t be.”
But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie.

He dragged a trembling hand through his hair, stepping back half a pace just enough to give her air, not enough to erase what he’d done.

“I didn’t mean—” he began, then stopped. The words disintegrated on his tongue.
He didn’t know what he hadn’t meant. The shouting? The hatred? The honesty?

The only sound was her breathing shallow, uneven. It crawled under his skin, made his pulse stutter.

He took a hesitant step forward. His hand lifted before his mind could stop it. His fingers brushed her cheek. She flinched not violently, just a tiny, instinctive pull but it was enough to make his heart twist painfully in his chest.

He froze. His hand hovered there, just touching the warmth of her skin. Her eyes were on him now shimmering, defiant even through the fear. The sight stripped him raw.

Slowly, he brought up his other hand, cupping her face fully now. His thumbs brushed along her jaw, feather-light too gentle, as though he was terrified he might bruise her.

“What would you have me do, Maeryn?” His voice came rough, low, unsteady.

She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Nothing,” she whispered.

He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. “Nothing?” he echoed. His voice cracked on the word. “You come in here, accuse me, scream at me, because you hate the man I’ve become.. and then tell me to do nothing?”

Her eyes filled again, but her voice stayed steady. “Because anything you do now,” she said softly, “would not be for me.”

That silenced him.

He stood there, staring at her the space between them a fragile, breaking thing. Her words hit where armor couldn’t reach. He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time the woman he’d sworn to protect and instead destroyed, piece by piece.

The guilt inside him clawed upward, heavy and desperate. He wanted to say something anything but all that came out was a ragged breath.

Finally, he let his hands fall away, his voice low, hoarse. “You should leave.”

She didn’t move.

“Please,” he added, quieter, broken now. “Before I say something worse.”

For a heartbeat, she just looked at him searching his face for the boy she used to know. But there was no trace of him left. Only a man hollowed out by war and bitterness, wearing a crown of ashes that hadn’t yet touched his brow.

Maeryn nodded once. “Very well, Your Grace.”

She turned, her movements slow, careful as if afraid one wrong breath might shatter what was left of the silence between them.

The door shut behind her with a quiet, final click.

Jace stood motionless, staring at the space she’d just left. His chest heaved once, then again. The warmth of her skin still burned against his palms, ghostlike and unbearable.

He sank against the table, parchment crumpling beneath his hands. The ink spread across the map of Westeros like black blood, staining everything he touched.
-

The fire in Maeryn’s chamber had long since burned low, leaving the room dim and hollow shadows pooling in the corners like secrets that refused to die. The faint scent of smoke and parchment clung to the air, the reminder of a night that hadn’t truly ended.

She sat at her writing desk, the half-finished letter before her blurring through unshed tears.

Mother, forgive me…

Her hand trembled. The quill scratched too hard against the parchment, the ink spreading into a dark blot a wound she couldn’t undo. She hissed a curse under her breath and dropped the quill, watching as a bead of ink rolled down her wrist like spilled blood.

She rose sharply, the chair scraping across the floor. The silence pressed against her, heavy and suffocating. She began to pace.

Back and forth.
Back and forth.

Her bare feet made no sound against the cold stone, but her pulse was deafening in her ears. Every few steps, she stopped fingers tangling in her hair, dragging it over one shoulder, trying to think, trying to breathe.

But all she could see was him.

The way he’d looked at her not like a man looks at a wife, or even an enemy. But like she was something rotten, something he couldn’t bear to touch. His voice, his fury, the way his words had hit her harder than any blade could.
"Because if I treated you the way I wanted to the way your name deserves you’d pray I stayed in those brothels."

The words echoed again and again until they were all she could hear.

She hated how her stomach still twisted at the memory.
Hated how his voice still lingered like a bruise under her skin.
Hated that, even after everything. she still felt the ghost of his touch on her cheek, gentle and trembling, as if he hadn’t meant to hurt her at all.

She gripped the edge of the desk until her knuckles went white. “I hate you,” she whispered into the quiet. But the tremor in her voice betrayed her.
Because part of her didn’t.
Part of her hated herself instead for still feeling.

For remembering the boy he used to be.
The boy who once laughed with her in the sunlit courtyards, who’d snuck her lemon cakes and sworn to protect her from her brothers’ teasing. The boy who’d looked at her like she was a piece of the sky, not a reminder of everything he’d lost.

But that boy was gone burned away in war and blood and grief. And in his place stood a man made of armor and ash.

She pressed her palms together, nails biting into her skin until it stung. The small pain steadied her reminded her that she was still here, that her body still obeyed even when her heart didn’t.

Her eyes fell to the letter again. The ink had dried into a black smear. Mother, forgive me…

Forgive her for what?
For marrying a man who despised her name?
For believing peace could be born from their ruin?
For wishing ven now that he’d looked at her like he once had?

The thought made her sick.

She turned toward the window, staring out at the dark stretch of sky above the bay. Dragonstone’s shadow loomed far beyond the horizon, invisible where her mother and sister were. She then thought of pentos.

How easy it would be to leave. One ship. One dawn. She could be gone before anyone noticed.

But the thought of her dragon twisted in her chest like a knife. She would wait for her, search for her, burn for her. She was the only creature in the world that still came when she called.

She couldn’t leave her behind. Not even for freedom.

The room felt smaller. The air heavier. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, too loud, too wild.

She was still standing by the window when the knock came. Soft. Hesitant.

She swallowed hard, forcing her voice steady. “Enter.”

The door opened, and Rhaenyra stepped inside calm, composed, the firelight catching in the silver of her hair.

“Your Grace,” Maeryn said automatically, bowing her head.

Rhaenyra gave a small, tired smile. “You may call me sister, if you wish.”

Maeryn hesitated, then inclined her head. “As you wish… sister.”

Rhaenyra’s gaze swept the room the mess of parchment, the forgotten quill, the faint tremor in Maeryn’s hands. She said nothing at first, only stepped closer.

“I was looking for Jace,” she said softly. “I thought he might be here.”

Maeryn let out a faint laugh humorless. “No. He’s not.”

Rhaenyra tilted her head, studying her face. “Have you seen him?”

Maeryn’s breath caught for a moment. “No,” she said finally, too quickly. “I never see him.”

The words fell into the air like glass breaking.

Rhaenyra didn’t answer right away. Her eyes softened, faintly the kind of softness that comes from recognition. “I see,” she murmured.

Maeryn turned away, facing the fire. “tell him the council awaits. He’ll be eager to find you.”

Rhaenyra lingered, watching the way her fingers dug into her own palms little half-moons pressed deep into the skin. “Goodnight, sister.”

“Goodnight,” Maeryn murmured.

When the door closed, the room fell silent again the kind of silence that pressed down on her chest until she could barely breathe.

She looked down at her hands the half-moon marks stark against her skin and thought of the dragon, sleeping and waiting.

The only thing in this realm that was truly hers.

And she wondered, not for the first time, which of them was the more caged the beast in its pit, or her.

-

The fire in Jacaerys’s chamber had nearly burned itself to embers, yet he hadn’t moved in hours. The only light came from the window the silver wash of the moon spilling across the maps and scattered parchments on his desk.

He sat slouched in his chair, elbows braced against his knees, his head bowed. One hand rested against his jaw, the other still stained with ink ..and something else.

He’d washed them twice, but the ghost of her warmth still clung to his palms.

Every breath scraped. Every thought hurt.

You’re afraid of me.
You hate me.
You’d rather let the world think you bed whores than touch your own wife.

Her voice echoed, unrelenting.

He dragged a hand through his hair, staring down at the map of Westeros. The ink blot near the Vale had dried into a black scar. His kingdom, he thought bitterly, even his peace, was bleeding.

A soft knock came at the door. He didn’t look up.

“Enter,” he muttered, expecting a servant.

It wasn’t.

Rhaenyra swept in with quiet authority, her steps measured. She looked at her son for a long moment before speaking. “You missed council,” she said evenly.

He didn’t stand. “I sent word. I was occupied.”

“Occupied?” she repeated, one brow arching. “By what, exactly?”

Jace looked up at her finally exhaustion shadowing his eyes. “By trying not to do something I’d regret.”

Rhaenyra studied him in silence, the faintest flicker of understanding softening her expression. “You’ve been angry for weeks,” she said. “Anger does not become you.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “It’s all that’s left of me some days.”

She stepped closer, folding her hands. “Maeryn is your wife now. The realm watches you both. Every word you speak to her, every glance, every silence it carries beyond these walls.”

He scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “You think I don’t know that? I perform my duties well enough before the court. They’ll see a united house, no matter how false it is.”

Rhaenyra’s tone cooled, the warmth of motherhood giving way to the weight of the crown. “You’ll do more than perform.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll take her with you,” Rhaenyra said simply. “To Harrenhal.”

Jace stared at her, incredulous. “No.”

“It isn’t a request,” she replied, voice quiet but absolute.

His jaw tightened. “That fortress is a ruin. The gods themselves turned from it. It’s no place for her.”

“It’s precisely the place she must be,” Rhaenyra countered. “The realm needs to see you together as one front, not divided. A prince who fights beside his queen, not apart from her.”

“She is not my queen,” he said sharply, rising to his feet.

Rhaenyra’s eyes narrowed, her voice turning to steel. “She is your wife, Jacaerys Velaryon. And when you stand beside her, you stand for me, for House Targaryen, and for the peace we’ve bled to build.”

He shook his head, pacing away from her. “You ask too much.”

Her voice cut through the air calm, deliberate, but carrying the weight of authority that could not be ignored. “I command it.”

That stopped him cold.

He turned, meeting her gaze. “Is that my mother speaking,” he asked bitterly, “or my queen?”

Rhaenyra’s expression didn’t waver. “The Queen,” she said. “And she expects obedience.”

Silence fell thick, sharp, dangerous.

For a long moment, Jace said nothing. His hands curled at his sides, the tendons straining. His voice, when it came, was quieter but laced with venom. “You’re sending her with me to make a show of peace, not because you believe it exists.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes softened, just barely. “Peace is a performance, my son. Until the realm believes it, we must act it.”

He turned away, jaw tight, every muscle rigid. “So that’s my purpose then — to pretend.”

“To rule,” she corrected softly.

He said nothing. His throat worked as if swallowing something bitter.

Finally, she sighed that tired, regal sound of a woman who’d borne too much for too long. “You in the morning,” she said, moving toward the door. “And she goes with you.”

He didn’t respond.

When she reached the threshold, she paused her voice softer now, almost human again. “Do not make her your enemy, Jace. Not when you already have so many.”

The door shut quietly behind her.

He stood there for a long time, staring at the empty space where she’d been. His hands found the edge of the table again, knuckles white against the wood.

Through the window, the first faint streaks of dawn crept over the city — pale and cold.

And all Jace could think, bitterly, was how easy it would be to mistake that light for warmth
_
Maeryn sat at the edge of her bed, the morning light pale against the heavy curtains. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders, and the half-folded letter in her lap was smudged where her fingers had lingered too long.

Mother, I am fine.
Even on parchment, the lie felt hollow.

Her hand stilled on the page. She could still hear his voice from the night before sharp, venomous, full of things she couldn’t unhear. The echo of his words still sat heavy in her chest.

So when the knock came, firm and deliberate, she flinched.

The door opened before she could answer.

Jace stepped inside.

He looked composed maddeningly so dressed in dark riding leathers, his cloak clasped neatly at the shoulder. The faint scent of salt and parchment clung to him. His hair was still damp, combed back, the image of a prince prepared for duty.

But to her, he only looked tired.
And cold.

“Good morning,” he said, his tone even too even, like a blade dulled just enough to hide the edge.

She blinked, startled to see him there. “Your Grace.”

His jaw tightened at the title, but he didn’t correct her.

“I came to tell you,” he said after a beat, “I’ll be leaving for the Riverlands.”

Her fingers tightened slightly around the letter, the paper crinkling softly. “Oh.” She managed the word without looking at him. “For how long?”

“A few days, a week maybe” he replied curtly. “Lord Strong and Blackwood has requested an audience about the new borders.”

She nodded once, her gaze drifting past him toward the sunlight breaking across the floor. “Then I wish you a safe journey.”

The words sounded polite distant but her throat ached with everything she wasn’t saying.

He studied her for a moment, his face unreadable, his voice finally cutting through the silence. “You misunderstand.”

Her brow furrowed. “I do?”

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

The air between them froze.

She blinked once, unsure she’d heard him correctly. “No,” she said after a pause, quiet but certain. “I’m not.”

His posture shifted, a faint tension pulling at his shoulders. “Is this not what you wanted?” he asked, his tone sharper now deliberate, controlled. “To spend time with me? To see how a prince conducts himself beyond the Red Keep?”

There was no warmth in his words only pride, defense, and the faint trace of guilt he was too proud to name.

She stared at him, searching for any sign of softness something real but found only the armor of exhaustion and the ghost of last night’s anger still sitting behind his eyes.

She should have hated him for it.
But all she could feel was that same awful pull the one that made her want to reach for him even as he pushed her away.

Her mind flickered to the Riverlands, to distance, to freedom.
Far from the court. Far from the whispers.
Far enough that, if she wanted, she could vanish with her dragon and never look back.

For a breath, she hesitated long enough for him to notice.

His gaze sharpened, his tone lowering. “Maeryn”

She swallowed, “The Riverlands sounds good,” she said softly.

Jace nodded once, brisk and mechanical. “Good. We’re already late. Meet me at the Dragonpit once you’re dressed.”

He turned toward the door, pausing for only a heartbeat. She thought hoped he might say something else. Maybe even an apologiy

But whatever flicker had crossed his face vanished before it reached his lips.

“Be fast,” he said

And then he left.

The door closed behind him with a soft, definitive sound the kind that made her chest tighten.

For a long while, she sat perfectly still, staring at the door he’d just walked through.

Her hands clenched the letter until it crumpled.

She hated the way her pulse still quickened when she thought of him.
Hated the warmth that lingered in her chest where his voice had been.
Hated herself most of all because even after everything, some small, traitorous part of her still wanted him to turn back.

But he didn’t.

And so, she rose, wordless, and went to prepare for another day spent pretending

Chapter Text

The morning broke pale and cold the kind of dawn that made everyting look grey
Mist hung thick across the courtyard, smothering everything in silence. The dragons were dim shapes in the fog ,breathing smoke and heat into the frigid air.

Maeryn stood beside her dragon, her hand pressed against the creature’s neck. The beast’s silver-blue scales gleamed faintly where light managed to break through, and when she spoke to it in soft, lilting Valyrian, her voice seemed almost gentle.

Jace watched her from across the courtyard.
He stood beside Vermax, jaw tight, hands clasped behind his back. The steam from his dragon’s nostrils wove through the mist, and still he didn’t move. He only watched the picture of control while something sharp and ugly twisted beneath his ribs.

She whispered to the creature like it was some fragile, innocent thing. Like she wasn’t the woman who’d rained fire across villages. Like her hands weren’t already blood-warm from the war.

Her tenderness repulsed him.

“You’re very kind with her,” Jace said finally, his voice slicing through the morning quiet.

Maeryn startled faintly, turning toward him. “She trusts me,” she said softly, as if that explained anything. “She always has.”

He approached, his expression unreadable, though the tension in his jaw betrayed him. “She listens well,” he said. “Pity her rider doesn’t.”

Her brow knit, but she didn’t rise to it. “Vhaelyra listens because she knows me,” she said simply. “Because I don’t command what I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” His tone was mild, but the venom coiled beneath it. “Strange. That’s not what the men would say.”

She frowned, turning back to the dragon. “I did what was asked of me.”

Jaces mouth curved not quite a smile. “Asked of you. That’s what you tell yourself, then? That someone else told you to burn them?”

Maeryn’s fingers paused against the dragon’s scales. “It was war,” she said quietly. “You of all people should know that.”

He stepped closer, his shadow falling over her. “Oh, I do,” he said, voice low. ''at least when I killed, I didn’t pretend it was mercy.”

Her head snapped toward him. “You think I pretend—?”

“I think,” he cut in, his eyes burning cold, “you tell yourself bedtime stories to sleep at night. You whisper to that dragon like she’s clean. Like you both are. But you’re not.”

Vhaelyra’s head lifted, smoke curling from her nostrils, a low, warning growl rolling through the mist. Maeryn stayed still.

Jace didn’t flinch. “You talk to her like she’s pure,” he said softly, almost mockingly. “But she isn’t. She’s a reflection of you. And I’ve seen what you are, Maeryn.”

Her breath hitched barely but he saw it.

His voice dropped further, dark and deliberate. “I flew over the fields you left behind. The ones you turned to glass. The smell of it still clings to the sea air. You burned them alive and you didn’t even look back.”

Her jaw clenched, the colour draining from her face. “And you didn’t?” she said, voice trembling only at the edges. “You think I don’t know what you did? How many have you burned?”

He stared at her then really stared, his eyes flaring with the kind of hatred that always hides grief. “The difference,” he said quietly, “is that I never tried to make it holy.”

The words hit
Vhaelyra growled again, low and guttural, her tail sweeping across the stone. Maeryn didn’t move.

“I did what I had to,” she said finally. “So did you.”

“No,” he murmured, stepping close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him. “You did what you wanted. You enjoyed it. Don’t lie to me and call it duty.”

Her eyes snapped up to his, fury breaking through her restraint. “You think you know what I wanted?”

He leaned in, voice a whisper that cut through the fog. “I know you liked the power. I saw your face in the firelight. I saw what it made of you.”

They stood there, so close their breath tangled dragon heat and human rage mixing in the cold air.

And for a flicker, she saw something crack in his eyes. Not pity but something hollow and tired. Like he hated her because he saw himself reflected there.

He straightened abruptly, as though realizing how near he’d drifted. “We leave now,” he said

He turned and walked past her, the brush of his cloak cold against her sleeve. The scent of smoke and steel trailed after him.

Maeryn stood where she was, her hand trembling slightly against her dragon’s neck. Vhaelyra shifted, uneasy, rumbling a low question deep in her chest.

“Peace,” Maeryn whispered in Valyrian, though her voice faltered.

The word felt foreign unearned.

Jace climbed into Vermax’s saddle without looking back, his posture rigid, the fog curling around him like ghosts.

When he gave the command, Vermax rose with a roar that split the dawn in half, shaking the sky itself.

Vhaelyra stirred beneath Maeryn’s hand, wings flexing restlessly.
_

The skies over Harrenhal were grey and bruised with mist. The castle’s broken towers rose like jagged teeth from the earth, their stone blackened from a hundred fires that had never truly died.

The air smelled of ash, of rain, of old ghosts.

Vermax was the first to descend a green blur cutting through the fog, his roar splitting the silence. He circled the ruins once, twice, then slowed as another sound reached him a softer, melodic cry from below.

Maeryn’s dragon wings shimmering faintly against the dawn was already gliding down through the mist, her scales catching the light like water. The sight made Vermax’s head lift, a low, eager rumble building in his chest.

He answered with a sharp, delighted call that echoed off the broken walls, startling the horses below.

Jace clenched his reins. “Easy,” he muttered, but Vermax only twisted his head, eyes locked on the silver dragon below as she landed gracefully on the scorched courtyard stones.

The great beast shifted, tail lashing once, claws digging into the earth. His excitement was impossible to ignore wings flaring, throat humming with that restless, thunder-deep sound dragons made only when something stirred them.

“Vermax,” Jacaerys warned, trying to steady him, but the dragon only tossed his head, letting out another bellow that rattled the air.

Below, Vhaelyra turned toward the sound, wings half-spread in greeting. She let out a low, answering growl that was almost… affectionate.

When Jace finally guided Vermax down, the two dragons met like old friends reunited rumbling, circling, their necks brushing in greeting. The ground trembled beneath their weight, wings stirring the fog into ribbons of silver and smoke.

Vermax’s enthusiasm made Jace pull sharply on the reins. “Seven hells,” he muttered, trying to steady the beast. “Calm yourself before you bring the towers down.”

But Vermax only crooned again, his head pressing against Vhaelyra’s shoulder.

Jacaerys glared at the dragons and then at Vhaelyra. “You’ve made quite the impression,” he said,

Maeryn was already sliding down from her dragon’s back, boots hitting the blackened ground with soft precision. Her braid had loosened during flight,

"she usually does,” she said coolly, not looking at him.

She ran her hand once down Vhaelyra’s jaw, whispering something in Valyrian that only the dragon could hear. The great creature’s eyes closed, a low hum vibrating through her chest.

Then Maeryn stepped back, her tone calm, commanding. “Stay.”

The dragon shifted but obeyed, folding her wings neatly against her sides, her breath steaming in the chill air.

Jace dismounted beside Vermax, still struggling to rein him in as the dragon tried to edge closer to his pale counterpart. “And you’re not going to worry she’ll fly off?” he asked, a hint of irritation undercutting his voice.

Maeryn finally looked at him “No,” she said simply. “She knows where she belongs.”

Her dragon let out a quiet, approving rumble, the sound almost smug.

Maeryn didn’t look back as she walked, her cloak brushing over the broken stones, the deep crimson fabric stark against the pale ruin of Harrenhal. Her silver hair caught what little light filtered through the clouds,

Jace watched His expression was carved from stone distant, cold but his eyes betrayed him and The faint, almost imperceptible twitch of his jaw when she didn’t wait for him.

When Vermax rumbled behind him, impatient and loud, Jace turned slightly, his voice low.
“Stay,” he ordered.

The dragon huffed, a deep, resentful sound that rolled through the air. Jace’s hand hovered on the scaled neck for a moment, his tone softening only slightly. “Stay.”

Vermax obeyed reluctantly, lowering his head beside Vhaelyra, who tilted hers with what almost looked like amusement.

“Traitor,” Jace muttered under his breath, his mouth twisting into a grim half-smile that never reached his eyes.

By the time he caught up to Maeryn, she had already reached Simon Strong and his men, their banners snapping weakly in the wind. The men straightened immediately, unsure whether to bow or speak first.

Jace leaned in just enough for her to hear the whisper that barely stirred the air between them. “grace,” he murmured.

Her only response was a small, composed smile the perfect courtly gesture. Without missing a beat, she turned slightly and offered her hand. Her fingers slid into his, light, deliberate.

For a moment, his hand stiffened a visible resistance, his jaw clenching before he forced his grip to ease. His lips curved into a ghost of a smile that looked almost convincing.

“My prince… Princess,” Lord Strong greeted them, voice tinged with surprise. “We did not expect both of you for the border discussions.”

Jace’s face shifted instantly, his tone adopting that effortless diplomacy that came with years of practice. “Her Grace insisted we travel together,” he said smoothly, the sweetness in his voice so false it almost gleamed. “It seemed only right that the crown’s unity be seen . not simply spoken of.”

Beside him, Maeryn smiled with all the poise of a princess. “We thought it wise to ensure no miscommunications… especially given how delicate these new borders are.”

Jace’s fingers twitched slightly against hers subtle, restrained as though the words “we” had scraped across his skin.

Lord Strong nodded quickly, bowing his head. “Of course, Your Grace. Shall we move inside? The maps have been laid out as requested.”

Jace inclined his head in practiced agreement. “Yes,” he said, his tone pleasant but hollow. “Let’s not waste daylight. Peace waits for no one.”

As they began walking toward the keep, Maeryn’s hand still rested lightly in his, her expression serene and faultless.
He didn’t look at her.
But his knuckles had gone white.
_

The ruined hall of Harrenhal was dim and echoing, the sound of their footsteps swallowed by old stone and smoke. The long table ahead had been cleared and covered with rolled maps, wax seals, and rough sketches of river boundaries still drying in ink.

Simon Strong gestured politely for them to approach, his voice trembling with a formality that didn’t quite hide his nerves. “We’ve marked where the Riverlands’ claim meets your borders, Your Grace. The lords await your word before finalizing any decrees.”

Jace gave a short nod, his posture perfect, every inch the prince. “Good,” he said smoothly. “Let us see what the QUeens peace looks like on paper.”

Maeryn stepped beside him “My husband means that we’re grateful for your diligence, Lord Strong.”

That gentle correction husband earned the faintest shift in Jace’s expression. His jaw flexed once, but his lips curved politely. “Indeed,” he said, his tone sugar-slick. “My wife is far better at pleasantries than I.”

The men exchanged awkward glances, unsure whether to smile or bow deeper.

Maeryn, unbothered, leaned over the table to inspect the maps. Her fingers brushed the edge of the parchment, her profile calm, regal. “You’ve placed the Blackwood markers too far east,” she said after a pause. “The queen will not approve.”

Simon hesitated, glancing between them. “I—ah—perhaps your grace could—”

“I’ll fix it,” Jace cut in. His tone was low, clipped. He reached for the quill, his hand brushing hers as he did. The contact was brief, but it felt deliberate like a test neither wanted to acknowledge.

Maeryn straightened, her smirk softening into a picture-perfect court smile for Lord Strong and his men, as if nothing had happened. Jace, meanwhile, signed the map with a decisive stroke, his quill scraping the parchment a little harder than necessary too deliberate, too loud in the silence that followed.

For a brief moment, the room seemed to breathe again. The men shifted, murmuring approval, the tension thinning just enough to pass for ease.

Maeryn stepped back, her gaze wandering across the chamber polite, distant, She didn’t notice the eyes that lingered on her.

The bannerman stood near the hearth, posture casual but gaze anything but. His stare traced her like a man studying a secret he shouldn’t know lingering too long, too boldly, without the decency to disguise it.

Jace’s head lifted at the same instant Maeryn’s attention drifted his way. He followed her line of sight and saw.

The quill in his hand stilled mid-stroke. The smile on his face didn’t falter, but something behind it shifted a flash of cold fury barely buried beneath that court-perfect mask.

The air in the room seemed to tighten around him.

Maeryn, oblivious, turned her attention back to the maps, fingertips brushing the edges absently as she listened to Lord Strong drone on about trade routes and river rights.

Jace wasn’t listening. Not to Strong. Not to the words. His mind was locked on that bannerman on the way the man’s eyes didn’t move, on the easy, unearned familiarity in his stare.

He forced himself to look down again, to dip the quill and sign another line, but his jaw flexed, the muscle twitching once before he stilled it.

Lord Strong’s voice blurred around him. “And if we adjust the border near Seagard—”

“Fine,” Jace said flatly, too fast, too sharp.

Strong hesitated, blinking, unsure if he’d been dismissed or agreed with. Maeryn’s head lifted slightly at the tone, her brow furrowing just a fraction before she caught herself and softened it back into a smile.

When Jace looked up again, his eyes found hers across the table. The warning there was unmistakable not shouted, not even spoken, but carved clean into the silence.

Maeryn tilted her head , Her eyes gleamed with restrained amusement, the corners of her lips curving just enough to make him wonder if she was enjoying this.

He inhaled slowly through his nose, steady, controlled, the sound barely audible. The movement of his hand across the map resumed, but the strokes were tighter now too neat, too careful ...the kind born from a man holding back far more than irritation.

The bannerman shifted finally, glancing away, murmuring something to another man beside him. Jace’s eyes followed the motion, cold and precise, before flicking back to Maeryn.

She had already turned away again, seemingly content, her posture relaxed but the small flicker of a smile remained, ghosting across her lips like a secret.

Jace the man who’d learned to master silence, diplomacy, restraint found himself fighting a heat he couldn’t name.
_

The air over Harrenhal was heavy thick with the kind of silence that came after ruin. Every sound echoed too loudly the soft drag of boots on damp stone, the occasional creak of ancient walls. Jace walked a step behind her, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression composed, though tension seemed to hum beneath his skin.

They’d dismissed the attendants hours ago, choosing the quiet of the outer courtyard to breathe. But the quiet hadn’t brought peace. Only space wide enough for words neither wanted to say.
s
Maeryn sighed and stopped near the broken arch of a collapsed tower. He fallowed. Her gaze lifted, tracing the blackened edges against a slate sky. “It’s dreadful,” she said finally. Her tone was soft but distant, “This place. The air still smells of old fire. Like it’s never forgotten what it was made to burn.”

Jace said nothing at first. His jaw tightened, and when he spoke, his voice was quieter than she expected. “Harrenhal remembers everything.”

He watched her as she brushed a her fingers against the charred wall a delicate, pointless gesture, as though she could feel its pain. “One of the guards,” she murmured after a moment. “The older one...he reminded me of someone, though I couldn’t think who.”

Her words were almost lost to the wind, but he heard them. And before he could stop himself, something sharp in his chest softened some small piece of him that still remembered the girl before the war.

“That dreadful guard,” he said, his voice dropping lower, closer, almost reluctant. “From when we were children. The one who fell asleep at the door.”

Maeryn turned toward him, startled the faintest flicker of recognition lighting in her eyes.

He took another step closer, close enough that his breath fogged the air between them. “Dont you remember?” he asked. “The rats would crawl over him while he snored. Your mother threatened to have him flogged.”

She blinked, lips parting in surprise. “You remember that?” They began walking together again.

His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I remember you screaming when one of them ran across the floor. You threw your book at me instead of the poor thing.”

A faint, broken laugh escaped her, quick and startled. “thats right you dared him to catch one,” she said, her voice trembling faintly, either from the chill or something else.

“And you cried when he tried,” Jace murmured. “Said he’d hurt it.”

Something flickered behind her expression “I was a child.”

He stopped walking, and she followed,they faced one another in the ghost-light courtyard. "A dramatic one"

The silence between them thickened so complete it seemed even the air dared not move. The mist hung low, pale and unmovin. even the crows had gone still on the shattered ramparts.

For a heartbeat a single, fragile heartbeat she saw him as he had been before the fire and the crown and the war. The boy who had dared a guard to catch rats just to make her laugh. The boy who’d once smiled without bitterness.

Her chest ached with it. Her mouth parted, as if she might speak, say something to bridge the years. His name hovered there, unspoken.

But Jace saw it saw the way her expression faltered, the way her composure cracked for just an instant and it was too much. He shook his head once, sharply. The tension snapped back into his shoulders like nothing had happened.

“Forget it,” he muttered, voice rougher now, retreat already written in it. “It was a long time ago.”

Before she could answer, a voice called from across the courtyard.
“My Prince!”

They both turned. A guard stood near the archway, half bowing, very nervous "May we have a moment?”

Jace rolled his eyes, He didn’t look at the man. he looked at her. His eyes lingered a moment too long, as if part of him wanted to stay exactly where he was.

Finally, he exhaled, the faintest hint of a smirk ghosting across his mouth. “Do not get into trouble,” he said quietly, almost an echo of something he’d once said long ago when he’d meant it as teasing, not armor.

Her lips curved just slightly, though her eyes didn’t soften. “When do I ever?”

He hesitated, as if he might answer, then turned away. His cloak caught the dying light as he walked toward the waiting guard, each step deliberate, distant.

Maeryn stood where he’d left her, the mist curling around her boots, her pulse still loud in her ears.
_
The great hall was colder than it should have been for supper. The fires burned high in the blackened hearths, yet the heat never seemed to reach the table. Shadows crawled across the stone like living things, stretching long over the gathered lords and their wine cups.

Jace sat at the head beside Maeryn, posture straight, expression composed into the princely mask that had become second nature. The Riverlords spoke endlessly petitions, boundaries, taxes all droning noise that filled the hall but touched nothing real.

He didn’t hear most of it. Not really. His focus, however unwilling, kept drifting sideways.

Maeryn sat beside him, every inch the picture of control. Her face was smooth, her voice soft where it needed to be, cool where it wasn’t. She had that careful grace she used when she wanted men to underestimate her a faint tilt of the head, a ghost of a smile that promised patience but warned of fire.

He watched her from the corner of his eye as she spoke politely to Lord Piper, as she corrected Lord Strong’s suggestion without ever raising her voice. The faint lift of her chin, the poise, the steady calm it was infuriating how effortlessly she could charm a room that only hours ago she’d nearly burned with her silence.

She reached for her cup, pausing only when one of the servants set down a new dish before them. Carrots, roasted and spiced nothing remarkable, yet he remembered. He didn’t know why.

She’d always liked them. Even as a child, she’d stolen his off his plate when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Without glancing her way, without thinking it through, he slid it over towards her.

It was nothing. A simple movement one more in a night full of empty courtesies.
Except it wasn’t.

Maeryn stilled. Her gaze shifted toward him, sharp at first confused then uncertain.

He didn’t look at her. His expression didn’t change. The lords were still speaking something about the Blackwoods and trade routes but all he heard was the sound of her quiet breath beside him.

When she didn’t move, he finally turned his head a fraction, meeting her eyes for just a heartbeat. His face was unreadable, cold, but his eyes… his eyes gave him away.

A dead stare—steady, unblinking, and yet there was something beneath it. Not softness. Not quite guilt. Just the barest flicker of memory of an instinct he hadn’t been able to smother.

He didn’t know why he did it. He told himself it was nothing, habit maybe. Reflex. But he knew better. Somewhere deep down, beneath the armor of distance and anger, he still remembered the smallest things about her. The things that didn’t matter. The things he wished he could forget.

Maeryn’s fingers brushed the edge of the plate. “Thank you,” she whispered, the words almost lost in the clatter of silverware.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

When he looked away again, his jaw was tight, his knuckles pale against the goblet in his hand. The lords kept talking about borders and alliances, and he nodded when expected, but his mind was elsewhere caught on the faint sound of her fork against porcelain, and the quiet, maddening knowledge that even after everything,
he still remembered she liked carrots.

It was late by the time the councilmen finally dispersed. The fire in the ruined hall had burned down to embers, and the corridors were cold again filled only with the echo of their footsteps and the soft hum of distant wind.

A servant waited at the end of the passage, bowing low before gesturing toward one of the few chambers that had been restored enough for comfort. The door was tall and heavy, the iron hinges whining as it opened to reveal a room lit by two dim candles and a hearth barely clinging to life.

“will this due, Your Graces,” the servant said, bowing again. “The bed has been freshly made, and water for washing has been brought in.”

Maeryn’s eyes swept the room once, quiet and assessing. The bed large, carved from dark wood sat at the center, draped in crimson and black. The air smelled faintly of lavender and smoke.

Her lips parted, she took a breath “Do you not have separate chambers prepared?”

The servant blinked, uncertain, his gaze flicking toward Jace as though seeking permission to answer.

Jace’s eyes cut to her not cruelly, but sharply enough to silence the question. “Of course not,” he said flatly. “We’re wed. There’s no need for pretense here.”

Maeryn’s chin lifted just slightly, “Of course,” she nodded but her eyes betrayed a flicker of discomfort she quickly buried.

Jace glanced at the servant, his tone clipped. “You may go.”

The man bowed again and backed out of the room. Maeryn waited until the door clicked shut before exhaling softly and turning toward the hearth.

Jace stepped farther into the room. His voice came quieter now almost exhausted. “I promise not to keep you up too late,” he said, a ghost of wry humor threading through the formality.

Her brow arched faintly at that. “How considerate of you.”

He almost smiled almost but it never reached his eyes.

For a moment, neither spoke. The air between them hung thick and alive, too aware, too heavy with everything unsaid.

Jace crossed the room and sat at the desk, pretending to care about the papers scattered there border reports, dull ink, meaningless words. His quill moved, but the words came out wrong. His focus slipped again and again, drawn back to her. Always her.

Jace wasnt sure how long it had been but long enough that Maeryn sat by the fire, tucked neatly into the chair like she belonged there legs curled under her, shoulders loose, hair unbound. She wasn’t trying to look regal, or seductive, or anything at all and somehow that made it worse.

He hated that she looked comfortable here.
He hated that she looked beautiful doing it.
He hated more that he noticed.

The sound of her turning a page cut through the quiet.
The smallest sound and it crawled beneath his skin.

She looked up once, just briefly, catching him staring.

His throat tightened.
He masked it with cruelty.

“Do you enjoy it?” he asked. His voice came out too calm, too sharp.

Her eyes lifted, puzzled. “Enjoy what?”

“The attention,” he said. “The way they look at you.” His tone dripped with disdain, but it was hiding something else something uglier, far more dangerous. “You must thrive on it.”

Her expression barely shifted, but he saw the flicker the faint sting that flashed across her face before she smoothed it away. “If I recall,” she said evenly, “you were the one glaring at them, not the other way around.”

Jace’s jaw clenched. “I was not glaring.”

“Oh, of course not,” she said softly, closing her book with deliberate care. “I must have imagined the way you looked ready to set poor Lord Strong’s bannerman on fire.”

“Watch your tone,” he muttered, though it sounded weak even to himself.

She stood slowly, the firelight catching in her eyes. “Why? You’ll glare me into silence too?”

The words hit harder than they should have. He looked up sharply, the muscle in his jaw ticking once before he dropped his gaze again to the desk, his knuckles white around the quill.

“you should go to bed,” he said finally, voice low, almost strangled.

“I intend to,” she replied, turning away. “You seem in desperate need of sleep yourself.”

He didn’t answer just watched her move, his breath shallow. she reached to snuff out one of the candles. The room dimmed.

And still, he couldn’t stop watching her.

Every movement she made the soft brush of her hair across her shoulder, the curve of her hand as she reached for the bedcovers drew something up inside him that he didn’t want to name.

He told himself it was hatred.
It had to be.

Hatred was safer. Hatred he understood.

But when she slipped beneath the blankets, curling slightly on her side, her face half-hidden in shadow that quiet, maddening ache rose in him again, deep and hot and wrong.

He tore his gaze away, forcing himself to stand. His chair scraped the stone sharply, breaking the silence.

Her eyes flicked toward him just once, questioning, before she turned back to the wall.

Jace began removing his jacket, every motion deliberate, automatic. His fingers fumbled slightly at one of the clasps.

He could feel her awareness of him even though she wasn’t looking.
He could feel himself unraveling under it.

When he finally laid the jacket over the chair, he exhaled through his nose quiet, strained, like the air itself resisted leaving his lungs.

He stood there for a moment, motionless, eyes tracing the edge of the bed. She looked so still too still the kind of stillness that wasn’t sleep, but surrender.

He hesitated before crawling in, careful and deliberate, every movement betraying how much he didn’t want to be there or perhaps how much he did. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and he shifted until he was as far from her as the bed would allow, lying stiff on his back with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

The silence stretched between them thick and suffocating. The crackle of the fire was the only sound. For awhile they just laid there, in tense silence

“Can’t sleep?” her voice broke the quiet, soft and drowsy, but with that hint of sarcasm she always carried when she didn’t want to sound vulnerable.

“I do not wish for small talk,” he muttered. but his voice lacked conviction.

She sighed, rolling onto her back, eyes tracing the ceiling. “This place is freezing.”

“Yeah,” he said after a pause. Then, quieter, almost begrudgingly, “I can add more wood to the fire.”

He sat up before she could reply, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The boards creaked softly under his boots as he crossed to the hearth. She watched him in the flicker of the firelight the broadness of his shoulders under his shirt, the faint glint of light catching in his hair. Her eyes lingered a little too long before she realized it and rolled them at herself, turning back toward the wall.

When he returned, the fire burned brighter, casting a warm glow over the room. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, staring into the flames before sighing and slipping under the covers again.

The bed shifted. The air felt smaller now.

He let out a low breath, the sound half irritation, half defeat and then, without a word, he reached for her.

Maeryn stilled instantly. “What are you doing?” she asked, her tone caught between suspicion and disbelief.

“You’re cold,” he said simply.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously, “I am.”

“Okay then,” he murmured, voice low, steady. “Be quiet.”

And before she could argue, he pulled her toward him.

She hesitated, her body tense, caught somewhere between protest and something far more dangerous. the kind that comes when fear and longing blur together.

His arm wrapped around her waist, drawing her back against his chest. She could feel his breath against the side of her neck uneven, warm.

He reached up, brushed her hair away from his face with a single, absentminded motion, fingers grazing her skin. Then, with a slow exhale, he buried his face against the curve of her throat.

Maeryn closed her eyes. She didn’t move didn’t dare.

The warmth of him seeped through her, steady and real in a way words never were. His hand stayed at her waist,

He told himself it was only to keep her warm.
But his heart betrayed him with every beat.

She told herself not to read into it.
But she couldn’t stop listening to his breath, couldn’t stop wishing this was something more than mercy.

Chapter Text

The fire had burned low by dawn, nothing left but faint embers pulsing orange in the gray light.

Jace hadn’t slept. Not truly.

He’d drifted somewhere between waking and dreaming, his mind caught in that terrible stillness where thought and feeling blur together. Maeryn was warm against him soft, steady, her breathing slow and even. Her hair brushed his jaw each time she shifted, her scent faint lavender and something else uniquely her clinging to him like a ghost he couldn’t shake.

He should have pulled away hours ago. Should have kept the distance he was always preaching about.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.

Her back pressed to his chest, her heartbeat faint against his arm. It should’ve been unbearable, that closeness but it wasn’t. It was worse. It was comfortable.

And gods, how he hated that.

He opened his eyes to the thin grey light seeping through the cracks in the shutters. Her hair glowed faintly in it, a halo of silver and gold. She looked… peaceful. Like someone who hadn’t known war. Like someone who hadn’t been destroyed by him.

Jace’s throat tightened.

He loosened his arm slowly, carefully, the way a man might disarm a weapon he built himself. She murmured faintly in her sleep, shifting closer for a second seeking the warmth he was trying to escape. The sound undid something in him, quiet and cruel.

For a moment, he stayed his hand hovering above her side, not touching, not retreating. Just stuck.

Then, forcing a slow exhale, he pulled away completely.

The cold rushed in immediately, biting at his skin as he sat up. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet. He glanced once over his shoulder.

She didn’t stir.

Her hand had slipped onto the pillow where his arm had been fingers curled faintly into the sheets, as if searching for what had vanished.

It nearly broke him. nearly.

He rose quietly, grabbing his jacket from the chair, the leather cold under his fingers. His movements were precise, deliberate the way they always were when he didn’t trust himself.

At the door, he paused. But did not turn back.

He hated himself for it. For wanting to stay. For wanting to touch her again.

Then he left.

The door shut softly behind him, sealing in the warmth he couldn’t allow himself.

In the corridor, the air was colder, cleaner easier to breathe. He leaned back against the wall for a moment, closing his eyes, the sound of her quiet breathing still echoing somewhere in his mind.

He needed space. Control. Distance. Anything to stop this slow, dangerous unraveling.

He straightened his cloak, forced his expression back into something sharp and princely, and walked down the corridor toward the council chamber, pretending he hadn’t just spent the night holding the woman he swore he hated.
-

When Maeryn entered the great hall, the morning light was already streaming through the high windows, spillin over the long table. Lords murmured in small clusters maps and ink scattered across the table like the remains of another long, sleepless night.

Jace was standing at the head of it, every inch the prince again composed, commanding, cold. Whatever softness had existed the night before was gone, buried beneath armor she’d seen too many times before.

He looked up the moment she stepped in.
And gods, not even a flicker of care.

“Thank you for finally joining us,” he said dryly, loud enough for the men at the table to hear.

The words landed like a slap.

Maeryn’s face didn’t change not even a blink. “I was under the impression this was a meeting of boarders, not a morning sermon.”

A few of the lords shifted uncomfortably. Jace’s jaw ticked, but he only hummed, feigning amusement. “Then you were misinformed. We’ve already covered the important matters.”

“Then I’ll not waste your time further,” she said, calm and pleasant as if she hadn’t just bled from the wound he’d opened. “Please — continue.”

Jace met her gaze, eyes unreadable. For one fleeting second, something flickered there guilt, maybe. before it vanished, replaced by practiced indifference.

“You don’t need to be here,” he said flatly. “There’s nothing in this discussion that requires your attention.”

Her spine straightened, every inch of her the princess he refused to see her as. “I see. And what would you suggest I do, Your Grace?”

He didn’t miss the bite in her tone. It almost made him smile
“Make yourself busy,” he said, waving a dismissive hand toward the open doors. “Explore the castle. Charm the servants. I’m sure you’ll find something to occupy your time.”

Her lips curved, the faintest ghost of a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And when you’ve finished being condescending?”

“I’ll find you at supper,” he said simply.

She held his gaze for one long, heavy moment daring him to soften, to be the man who’d held her the night before but he didn’t.
Of course he didn’t.

“Fine,” she said at last, voice cool and smooth as glass. She gave a shallow nod to the lords, every inch the poised princess, and turned on her heel.

Her cloak brushed against his arm as she passed, and neither of them looked back.

But as she left, the scent of her lingered faint, maddening and for the first time that morning, Jace’s hand stilled on the edge of the table, his knuckles tightening just slightly.

-

The corridors were quiet in that strange, uneasy way that followed long arguments and longer silences. The council chamber still hummed faintly with distant voices men debating things they didn’t understand, filling the ruined keep with arrogance and stale air.

Maeryn found him leaning against the open archway of one of the outer halls, where the wind came through cold and clean. The light slanted across him sharp against the planes of his face, catching in his dark hair. He looked like he’d been carved from the same stone that built this place.

“You’re not in council,” she said, her voice measured, the faintest trace of accusation beneath it.

He didn’t turn. “Couldn’t stand the noise inside,” jace said after a moment. His eyes tracked the rippling pool of rainwater below, where the sunlight fractured in it like shards of broken glass. “Every man with a title believes himself a tactician.”

Her lips curved, not in disbelief. “And you don’t?”

That pulled his gaze to her. His eyes were dark, unreadable, but not as cold as usual. “I know I’m not,” he said. “The difference is I know when to stop talking.”

The honesty in his tone caught her off guard. It wasn’t laced with scorn just quiet truth. Something small and real that had no place in the battlefield of their marriage.

“Perhaps you should remind them how to listen” she said softly.

For a heartbeat, the corner of his mouth twitched not enough to be a smile, but close. “And you think they’d listen?”

“I think they’d attempt,” she replied,

He looked at her then, really looked not as his wife, not as the enemy she’d somehow become, but as the woman she had been before all of it. For one fleeting instant, the tension in his jaw eased.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, tone returning to something steadier, practiced.

“Walking,” she said.

His brow lifted slightly. “Walking,” he repeated, as if the word itself was ridiculous.

“It helps me think.”

“It helps you avoid,” he countered, but the words lacked venom. Then, quieter “Still — I can’t say I blame you.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “Would you like to join me?”

He exhaled slowly, gaze flicking back toward the open door behind him. “Enjoy it? No,” he said, voice dry. “But I’ll do anything to escape that room. Besides—” His tone hardened just a little, that cruel edge returning to remind her who he was. “It will help the illusion that we’re a happy union.”

The words hit like a slap, though she didn’t let it show. Her smile didn’t waver. “Then let’s keep the illusion alive,” she said, voice low and even.

They fell into step, walking through the long hall. his boots echoed softly against the flagstones, the sound filling the silence that stretched too thin between them. The air smelled faintly of smoke and damp stone; the light from the high windows came in slanted, fractured beams.

Jace was the first to break the silence not because he wanted to, but because the quiet pressed too hard against his thoughts.

“Half of them can’t read the maps they’re arguing over,” he said, his voice sharp and clipped. “Lord Piper nearly turned the river upside down. Gods forbid anyone point that out" he sighed "they’d call it treason.”

She said nothing.

He glanced at her sidelong, then kept talking anyway. “And Strong.. he keeps repeating himself. I think he’s hoping if he says something enough times, it’ll start to sound clever. But no one is listening"

Maeryn didn’t respond. her eyes focused straight ahead.

It only made him talk more

“Do you know, one of them actually suggested redrawing the borders because he didn’t like how the ink had dried?” Jace scoffed, gesturing with his hands now, frustration spilling through motion. “As if the shape of the realm depends on his bloody sense of symmetry.”

Still, she walked beside him, silent and composed, her hands folded loosely before her.

He huffed out a dry breath, throwing his hands in the air. “It’s like talking to children. Each one louder than the last. I’d rather sit through a sermon from the High Septon.”

she still did not answer

He gestured again broad, impatient sweeps of his hands as if he were still in that council room. “And then there’s the Freys — gods, the Freys. They’ve got more opinions than sons. I swear, if one of them brings up another marriage alliance, I’ll throw myself out a window.”

That earned him the faintest flicker of movement a small exhale, maybe a sigh. But still, she said nothing.

He slowed, his hands falling back to his sides. “You’re not even listening,” he muttered, half to himself.

“I am,” she said finally, voice even, eyes still ahead.

He frowned, studying her profile. “You just enjoy watching me suffer.”

A corner of her mouth curved barely. “Perhaps.”

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head, but the edge in him dulled a little. His hands stilled. The rhythm of his complaints faded.

They walked on in silence for a moment more, their steps matching unconsciously. Then, as they turned the corner, he said quietly almost to himself
“Lord Piper’s map still looked like a blind man’s compass, though.”

The words slipped out softer this time, without bite.

And Maeryn laughed quiet, unguarded, before she could stop herself.

He looked at her then.

For a single heartbeat, his gaze softened. The tension in his mouth loosened his shoulders eased. He didn’t mean to, but he smiled small, startled, like the memory of something forgotten.

And gods, it undid her.

But just as quickly, he caught himself the flicker gone as if it had never been there. His expression closed again, the armor sliding neatly back into place.

“You shouldn’t laugh at me,” he said, but it wasn’t cruel. It was soft.

“alright” she replied.

They kept walking. The silence that followed wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t full of hate either .something uneasy and fragile hovered there instead, the ghost of what they’d been before everything went wrong.

When they reached the far end of the corridor, he stopped, glancing back toward the chamber. “They’ll notice I’m gone,” he said.

“You should go back then,” she murmured, looking up at him.

He hesitated the faintest flicker of something in his eyes before he turned away.

But as he walked back toward the council hall, she saw it again the smallest, unwilling smile tugging at his mouth.
_
The fires they’d built in the shattered hall hissed and spat, steam curling upward where damp met flame. The air smelled of ash and rain and something almost peaceful, for once.

Jace sat opposite Maeryn at the long, battered table. The wood was uneven, blackened at the edges, warped like an old scar left by fire. Between them, two thin candles burned low, their flames bowing and shivering with every draft that slipped through the broken stone.

For a long while, neither spoke.

Maeryn had abandoned all pretense of courtly composure her hair had fallen loose from its braid, silver strands catching the dim light like threads of moonlight. Her shoulders had relaxed, her usual poise dissolved into something quieter. She looked tired but in that exhaustion, she looked real.

Jace didn’t know why that unsettled him so much.

He watched her from the corner of his eye, his thumb tracing the rim of his cup in slow circles. He could feel the pull that dangerous, traitorous pull the urge to speak to her like he used to, before everything turned to ash. But he hated that urge. He hated her for stirring it.
He turned his head toward her really looked at her.

He cleared his throat before the silence could turn unbearable. “They’ve been at it all evening.”

Maeryn stirred, blinking like she’d just woken from a trance. “What has?”

“The dragons,” he said, nodding vaguely toward the shattered archway. “Vermax and… what’s yours called again?”

Her mouth curved faintly. “Vhaelyra.”

“Right,” he said, “They’re restless. Circling each other. Growling. Making that damned sound like—” He hesitated, his tone turning begrudging. “—like they’re calling to one another.”

A faint hum escaped her, the sound barely audible over the fire. “They’re probably bonding.”

“Bonding,” he repeated flatly. “Is that what you call it when they’re one roar away from setting the bloody sky on fire?”

Her lips twitched almost a smile. “They’re dragons, Jace. That’s how they talk.”

He gave a quiet scoff. “Then they’ve been talking all damn day.”

She tilted her head, amusement flickering across her face. “Perhaps they’re drawn to each other.”

“Oh, of course,” he muttered, feigning disinterest as he swirled the wine in his cup. “Let me guess they’re in love now.”

Maeryn leaned back in her chair, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion, voice calm but laced with quiet challenge. “Perhaps they are. Maybe they don’t complicate it the way we do.”

He stared at her, The way the candlelight caught in her hair, gold bleeding into silver, and for the first time in what felt like years, she didn’t look like an enemy. The sharp edges of her defiance softened in the flicker of the firelight, her lashes brushing her cheeks as her head tilted in thought.

And gods help him he hated that she could still look like that.

Because beneath every jagged breath of resentment, every word meant to wound, he still loved her. He knew it the way one knows a scar beneath the skin, old and aching, impossible to forget.

She wasn’t just the daughter of the woman who had broken his mother’s life apart.
She wasn’t the greens peace he’d been forced to marry.

She was Maeryn.

The girl who used to read to him in the courtyard when they were children, her voice soft and sure over the pages he’d only half listened to. The girl who had raced him through the keeps halls barefoot, both of them breathless with laughter. The one he had dreamed, once, in foolish boyhood, of marrying before the world had taught him what that dream would cost.

His throat tightened. He couldn’t speak. The memory was too cruel, too sweet like a cut reopened by the warmth of her nearness.

When she finally looked at him, it wasn’t deliberate just a glance, a flicker of her eyes meeting his across the candlelight. But it struck him like a blow. For that single heartbeat, they weren’t prince and princess, enemies bound by duty. They were children again reckless, bright, and unbroken.

He forgot to look away.
So did she.

Then the fire popped, loud enough to shatter the silence. She blinked, pulling back slightly, her fingers tugging at a loose thread on her sleeve.

“Did you truly forget the name of my dragon?” she asked, her voice light, careful a small thread reaching out, though she didn’t know why.

Jaces chest ached with something close to guilt. He cleared his throat, forcing his tone even, though it came out softer than he meant.

“No,” he said quietly. “I remember.”

Her brows lifted, faintly curious.

He hesitated then met her eyes again, the faintest ghost of a smile touching his mouth before vanishing.

“I was the one who helped name her after all"

Her lips parted, surprise flickering across her face and something gentler too, though she tried to hide it.

He looked away first this time, back to the fire, jaw tight. The warmth in his chest hurt worse than any anger ever had.

Then, Jace tried again his voice lighter, as though pretending he could undo the tension that hung between them. “You’ve barely said a word tonight”

Maeryn’s eyes stayed on the fire. “Because I have nothing left to say,” she replied .

He shifted in his chair, the old wood creaking beneath him. “You could at least try.”

That earned a quiet, humorless laugh from her. “Try? To what end, Jacaerys?”

He hesitated not from uncertainty, but from the faint, unwanted realization that he missed the way she used to say his name. The softness it used to hold before it became an accusation.

“You asked to come,” he said at last.

Her head lifted, gaze cutting toward him. “Did I? Or did you tell me I had to?”

The faint trace of warmth he’d carried slipped from his expression. “The queen wanted us both here,” he said flatly.

Maeryn tilted her head, the light catching in her pale hair. “So that’s it, then,” she murmured. “Everything you do is because the queen commands it.”

He exhaled sharply, his patience fraying. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No?” she said, her voice rising, though it never lost its calm edge. “Then tell me, Jacaerys. what do you do for yourself?”

Her question landed harder than she intended.
He stilled. The air between them turned brittle.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low stripped of the gentleness from moments before. “If it were for myself,” he said, “I wouldn’t be wed to the sister of the man who killed my little brother.”

The words cut clean through the room.

Maeryn froze, her lips parting slightly. The hurt that flashed across her face was small controlled but it was enough.

“So that’s what this is,” she said softly. “That’s what it’s always been.”

“Yes,” he said, the word falling from his lips like something rehearsed. “Of course it is. You know that.”

For a long, unbearable moment, she said nothing. Then she rose slow, deliberate her every movement a careful restraint.

“I was nothing but kind to you,” she said, her voice trembling only once before it steadied. “espically when we were children. I never laughed at the rumors, never spoke against your mother. I defended you when others didn’t at that dreadful supper with the king. I tried—” she broke off, swallowing hard. “I tried to be decent. To be more than my brother’s shadow.”

Jace let out a dry, bitter laugh. “And yet here we are.”

"and yet here were are" She stepped closer. “You’re punishing me because of Aemond.”

His head snapped toward her, his temper unraveling. “I can’t punish Aemond!” he shouted. His voice cracked against the stone walls, sharp enough to make the candles flicker. “Don’t you understand? I can’t!”

Maeryn’s expression didn’t waver. Her shoulders squared, her chin lifted but her eyes, gods, her eyes said everything. The anger was there, yes, but beneath it… the hurt. The disbelief. The quiet, hollow ache of someone realizing just how deep his hatred truly ran.

“You can’t punish him,” she said softly, “so you punish me instead.” She said mainly to herself

Jace’s chest heaved, his pulse thrumming in his ears. He opened his mouth to speak to deny it but nothing came out. Because it was true. Every word of it.

“I married you for peace,” he said, voice low but shaking. “And all it brought me was a reminder that Luke died for nothing.”

The name hung in the air like a ghost.

Maeryn’s chest tightened, but she forced her voice to stay calm. “How do you think Luke would feel,” she said softly, “if he saw you now?”

That silenced him. Jacaerys froze, the firelight flickering across his face painting every fracture, every line of guilt he tried to hide. He looked at her, really looked, and for a fleeting heartbeat, she saw the boy he used to be lost, angry, aching for something no crown could give back.

But he said nothing. The only sound was the wind groaning through the cracks in the castle walls, and the faint, distant rumble of two dragons outside restless,

Maeryn turned away first. “You think you hate me, Jacaerys Velaryon,” she said. “But all I see is a man who hates himself.” And before he could respond, she left the room,

The night stretched endlessly.

Jace sat slumped beside the dying fire, his elbows on his knees, his hands tangled in his hair. The hall was empty now the echo of her footsteps long faded but her words remained. They clung to the stones, to his skin, to the back of his skull where guilt festered like rot.

He’d tried to shake it off. Gods knew he had. But the truth in her voice the quiet, steady way she’d said it was impossible to outrun.

He hated her for being right.
He hated himself more for needing her to say it.

The fire cracked, throwing gold and shadow across the walls. He stared into it until his eyes burned, he thought about his childhood

Luke, grinning, teasing him when they were boys. Luke, who used to nudge him in the ribs and whisper whenever Maeryn walked by.
“She likes you, you know.”
“She laughs at your awful jokes.”
“If you don’t tell her you love her, I will.”

Jace’s throat tightened painfully. He could almost hear it now that easy, breathless laughter that Luke carried with him like sunlight.

He would not recognize me, Jace thought. Not this.

Not this bitter, spiteful creature that the war had carved out of him . a man who could look into the eyes of the only person he’d ever loved and see nothing but a battlefield.

He had Maeryn now. Gods, he finally had her.
The girl he’d once had begged to marry. The girl who read to him when he couldn’t sleep, who’d laughed when he fell off his dragon, who’d once touched his cheek and told him he’d make a good king one day.

And this was how he treated her.
This was what he’d become.

A man who broke the one person who didn’t deserve his anger.
A man who spat venom because he couldn’t bear the weight of love that still hadn’t died.

He stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. His chest ached as if something inside him had cracked wide open.

The fire hissed low in reply, collapsing into embers.

Jace dragged a hand down his face, jaw trembling, breath shallow. He hated himself for the weakness, for the guilt, for the gnawing realization that Maeryn hadn’t been his enemy at all.

She was the last person left who reminded him of who he’d been before.
Before crowns.
Before death.
Before war turned his heart to ash.

And he’d destroyed her too.

He turned away from the fire, the cold crawling into his bones. There was no redemption in him. No peace. Just the hollow sound of his own heartbeat and the memory of a her voice saying the one thing he couldn’t deny

Luke would not recognize you now.

He needed air.

Outside, the night was cold and colorless. The mist still clung to the ground, glowing faintly beneath the moonlight. The ruined towers of Harrenhal rose around him, black and broken against the silver sky.

He expected to find the dragons asleep but they weren’t.

They were together.

Vermax was sprawled along the edge of the courtyard, his wings folded close, his great head resting against Vhaelyra’s neck. The silver-blue dragon’s eyes were half closed, her breath rising and falling in slow rhythm with his. Smoke curled lazily from their nostrils, glowing faintly orange in the dark.

It was almost… tender.

The sight stopped him cold.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. The night was still except for the slow, rumbling purr that passed between them not the sound of beasts at war, but of creatures content.

He’d never seen Vermax like this calm, docile, unguarded. The same dragon that had torn through clouds of arrows now lay as though the world had nothing left worth fearing.

Jace felt something twist deep in his chest. Jealousy, maybe. Or grief. He couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

Vermax’s eye flicked open at the sound of him his lit-pupiled, molten gold in the moonlight and blinked at him lazily before closing again, utterly uninterested in his rider’s presence.

Jace let out a bitter huff. “So that’s all it takes,” he muttered. “A little warmth, and even dragons forget where they belong.”

But his voice lacked bite. It fell flat into the night, devoured by the vastness of the ruined keep.

He dragged a hand through his hair, his gaze fixed on the pair of them two creatures born of fire, who should have known nothing but destruction, lying in peace like the war had never touched them.

His chest ached.

He wondered if Maeryn had fallen asleep by now or if she was pacing her chamber again, thinking of leaving.
He almost hoped she would. It would be easier that way.

Easier than facing the truth that had been gnawing at him since she’d said Luke’s name that the hatred he’d fed for so long had started to rot inside him, hollowing him out until there was nothing left but pride and ashes.

The wind shifted, carrying the faintest sound of the dragons’ slow breathing. Vermax’s tail brushed against Vhaelyra’s, the motion unthinking, natural.

Peace.

Jace turned away, jaw tight, forcing the thought from his mind.

he said quietly, his voice almost gentle. “Stay here, then. Enjoy your peace. Someone should.”

He walked back toward the keep, boots scuffing softly against the blackened stone. Behind him, the dragons didn’t stir two great shapes curled together under the moon, warm and alive in a place that had forgotten what warmth felt like.

And though he didn’t look back, the sound of their steady, untroubled breathing followed him all the way to the door

The hour was late.
The fires in Harrenhal had long since burned to embers, their faint glow throwing broken light against the ruined stone. Outside, the wind groaned through the cracks, cold and restless, carrying the distant sound of dragons shifting in their sleep.

Chapter Text

The fire in their chambers burned low, a dying orange glow that carved shadows into the stone. The rain against the window was steady the kind that made the whole world sound tired.

Jace stood in the doorway, half-turned as though he might still leave. His cloak hung loose over one shoulder, his hair damp from the walk across the courtyard. He looked hollow, the way a man does when he’s been fighting something he’ll never win himself.

Maeryn sat by the hearth, the light painting her in gold and shado, She didn’t turn when he entered.

“If you’ve come to argue,” she said evenly, “at least do it quietly. I’ve a headache.”

He closed the door behind him with a soft click. “I didn’t come to argue.”

“Then what?” she asked, her voice calm“To tell me again how I’ve failed you? Or do you just like watching me kneel so you can feel taller?”

He flinched at that, a subtle, involuntary twitch of the jaw. “No.”

“Then why are you here?”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t say. The truth tangled in his throat because I can’t stop thinking about you, because you’re in every damned corner of my mind, because I hate myself for hating you, because you make me remember what I lost. Because every time I look at you, I see Aemond’s smirk and Luke’s ashes and everything I can’t undo.
But all he managed was a quiet, “I don’t know.”

That made her look up. Slowly.

Her eyes caught the firelight soft, and unflinching. “You always know,” she said. “Except when it matters.”

He took a breath that trembled on the way out and stepped closer. “You look—” He stopped, biting back the word beautiful. It felt cruel now. “Tired,” he finished.

She let out a low, humorless sound. “I could say the same.”

That sound did something to him that dull, defeated sound. He hated it more than shouting. He’d rather she scream. Scream and break something. Scream his name the way she used to when it meant something.

He shifted, restless. “You shouldn’t drink so late,” he said, nodding at the cup by her chair.

“You shouldn’t come here at all.”

That silenced him.

The rain pressed harder against the glass. The fire hissed.

He stayed by the door for too long, his thoughts circling like hounds. He told himself he was here for the realm for appearances, for unity, for peace. That they needed to keep the illusion of stability. That this wasn’t about her.
It was a lie, and he knew it. But it was easier than admitting he didn’t know who he was without his anger.

“Maeryn,” he said finally, voice low.

She stood before he could continue, the hem of her gown brushing the stone. “Don’t.”

He froze.

“Don’t say whatever it is you came to say,” she went on, voice trembling but sure. “You’ll make it sound reasonable. You always do. You’ll say something polished and half-honest, and I’ll believe you for a night, and then tomorrow you’ll be cold again. Cruel again. Because that’s who you are now" she paused "That’s all you know.”

He swallowed, chest tight. “You think I want to be this?”

She didn’t answer, and that was worse.

“I didn’t—” He stopped himself. The words felt dangerous, traitorous. I didn’t want this war, I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t want to lose you.
Instead, he forced out something safer. “I’m doing what I must. For peace.”

Her laugh was soft, bitter. “You keep saying that, as if peace has ever been what you wanted.”

He clenched his fists. “And what do you think I want?”

She stared at him, her expression calm but her eyes bright. “To hurt me. To make me pay for Aemond. You said it yourself”

The silence was instant and sharp. He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t.
Because she was right.

He hated Aemond for taking Luke, and he hated her for being tied to that hatred, for having the same blood, for reminding him of everything he couldn’t avenge without destroying himself.

And yet, gods help him, he loved her. Loved her in a way that felt like drowning.

He wanted to say it. To choke it out. To confess it just once. But his tongue refused, his pride barricading every word.

He took a step closer.

“Do you love me?” The question came out rough, desperate, as if dragged from him by force.

She blinked, startled, then tilted her head. “No.”

It was calm. Simple. Cruel in its truth.

He nodded, slow, jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached. “Good,” he said hoarsely. “You shouldn’t.”

Something flickered in her eyes pity, maybe. The kind that gutted more than hatred.

“I believe I could,” she whispered after a moment.

He looked up sharply, meeting her gaze.

Her voice softened. “If you’d let me.”

That did it. His breath hitched, his heart hammered once against his ribs, and he hated how much hope hurt. He wanted to tell her to stop, to stay, to try again but he couldn’t even decide which.

“When I was a child,” she said quietly, “I was in love with you. Hopelessly...foolishly”

He blinked. “You were?”

She smiled faintly not kind, not cruel. “I begged my mother to ask for a betrothal. I thought if we were promised, you’d always look at me the way you did back then. Like I was yours.”

He let out a broken exhale, something between a laugh and a sob. For a heartbeat, he almost smiled. Almost.

But then she said, too softly, “Truthfully, I can see why she never agreed.”

The smile died before it could form.

“I don’t hate you, Jacaerys,” she murmured. “But I can’t keep trying to save something that doesn’t want to be saved.”

He stared at her, caught between rage and heartbreak. Between wanting to fall at her feet and wanting to leave her hurting like he did.

“I’ve begged the gods to make me hate you,” she said, voice trembling, “but I can’t. I can’t love you either. And I’m tired.”

“Maeryn—”

“No.”

He shut his mouth, throat burning. The fire crackled

“I’m doing what I must,” he said finally, barely more than a whisper. “For peace.”

She looked at him then not angry, just sad. “And you think peace will fill the hollow you’ve made?”

“You should rest,” he managed after a long moment, his voice a rasp.

She gave a quiet, empty hum. “You always say that.”

“I’ll come to bed later.”

“I know.”

He lingered, staring at her the silver of her hair, the shadow under her eyes, the way she’d stopped reaching for him long ago and then turned away before he could break.

The door shut behind him, sealing the warmth inside.

Across the hall, he pressed a trembling hand to the cold wall and let his head fall forward. He told himself it was about the realm, about duty, about peace. But his chest ached like a wound that would never close.
_
The door shut softly behind him, and for a long moment, Maeryn didn’t move.

The fire hissed, throwing long, unsteady shadows across the chamber. She just stared at the door, at the empty space where he’d stood, at the faint echo of his voice still hanging in the air. The silence was deafening.

Then it hit her.

He’d asked if she loved him.

The words replayed over and over in her head, quiet but sharp, cutting deeper each time. She didn’t understand why he’d asked not after everything, not after the months of venom and silence and bruised pride disguised as diplomacy. He didn’t want her love. He never had. So why ask?

Her chest tightened. Maybe part of her had still been waiting for it some impossible moment of honesty, some flicker of warmth beneath all his restraint. Gods help her, she had been waiting.

And there had been moments.

In this cursed, crumbling fortress this hollow echo of peace they were both pretending to believe in there had been glimmers.

A look across the table when their dragons quieted at the same time. His voice softening when he told her to eat. The rare smile fleeting, small, unguarded that she’d caught when he thought she wasn’t looking.

For a heartbeat here and there, she’d thought maybe the boy she’d loved was still buried somewhere under all that armor and rage. Maybe he still remembered the girl who plaited flowers into his hair.

Maybe, for a moment, they’d both forgotten to hate each other.

But it never lasted.

Her throat went tight as she remembered his voice, cold and sharp, cutting through her months ago when the anger still burned bright between them:
I can’t punish Aemond.

He’d said it like it was a fact.
Like it was her fault that her blood was his.
Like Luke’s death had been something she owed him penance for.

She could still see the look on his face when he’d said it calm, almost detached, as if cruelty had become routine. And she’d told herself she’d stopped caring. That she’d grown numb to it. But she hadn’t.

Her eyes burned. She blinked hard, refusing to let tears fall.

The rain pressed harder against the window. The night was endless, grey and cold a reflection of everything she felt hollowing inside her. She stood slowly, her bare feet silent against the stone as she moved to the window.

Beyond the glass, the courtyard was slick with rain, the dragons restless. She could just make out the faint glow of the torches flickering against the mist. The world outside felt freer than anything in this room.

For the first time in months, she let herself imagine it walking away. No Peace. No council. No prince with eyes like storms and words like knives.

Just silence. Real silence.

Her breath fogged against the glass as she whispered to no one, “He doesn’t love me.”
Saying it aloud made it real and strangely lighter.

She watched the fog of her breath fade, replaced by her reflection in the rain-streaked window. She barely recognized herself this woman who’d spent so long trying to rebuild something that had already burned to ash.

He wanted peace for the realm.
She wanted peace from him.

Her hand dropped to the latch of the window, fingers trembling. She thought of the road that wound through the forests below Harrenhal, the one that led nowhere in particular and how good nowhere suddenly sounded.

Maybe she’d go there.
Anywhere but here.

Anywhere away from Jace.
Away from his careful cruelty.
Away from the peace that wasn’t peace at all just another kind of cage.
The corridor swallowed her whole.

Its shadows clung to her like memory damp, cold, and unwilling to let go., every step whispering against the silence of the sleeping keep. She didn’t light a candle. She didn’t need to.

By the time Maeryn reached the courtyard, the night had thickened into fog. The moon hung low, swollen and pale, its light spilling like quicksilver over the ruined stones.

And there they were the dragons.

Vhaelyra’s scales shimmered beside Vermax’s darker hide, the two beasts lying so close their tails brushed, curled together like two halves of something once whole. Their breathing rose and fell in unison, slow and steady, as if untouched by war, by grief, by the quiet ruin of their riders.

For a moment, Maeryn just stood there, watching them.
This was peace not the hollow kind her husband preached at councils, not the kind forged in blood and politics.
But the kind born of creatures who did not lie.

Her throat tightened.

“Goodbye, Vermax,” she whispered, the word faltering halfway out, dissolving into mist.

The dragon stirred, one eye cracking open, he exhaled a low rumble, not hostile merely aware. Then he settled again, untroubled.

Her gaze softened. She turned to her own.

“Vhaelyra,” Maeryn murmured in soft,

The great dragon lifted her head, eyes like molten moons catching Maeryn’s reflection in their depths. A low vibration rolled through the earth a note of recognition, devotion, and something older than language.

“Shhh,” Maeryn whispered, pressing her palm against the warm curve of her dragon’s jaw.”quite"

Vhaelyra’s breath fanned across her face hot, steady, alive. And for a fleeting second, Maeryn faltered. Leaving this place meant leaving him. Not Jace she’d already lost him . but this last anchor to the girl she used to be.

Still, her decision held.

With quiet, practiced motion, she climbed into the saddle. The leather creaked softly beneath her hands, the gesture automatic, sacred.

She looked once over her shoulder, at the shattered towers of Harrenhal looming through the fog.
A place of ghosts. Of broken vows. Of love turned to ash.

He’ll think I went home, she thought.
And she almost smiled.
Let him. Let him search east, toward the capital, toward the false peace he was building stone by stone. Let him believe she’d gone to bend to duty again.

Maeryn leaned forward, her forehead pressing briefly to the smooth scales beneath her hands. she breathed. “Fly.”

Vhaelyra stirred wings unfurling with a slow, graceful violence that shattered the still air. The downdraft sent ripples through the mist, scattering it like smoke from a dying fire.

The earth fell away beneath them.

The castle, the war, the man all shrinking, swallowed by distance and shadow.

The river wound below them, a silver blade slicing through the dark. She turned west not toward safety, not toward anything certain, but toward freedom.

The wind tore through her hair, pulled tears from her eyes until she could no longer tell if they were from the cold or the ache in her chest.

She didn’t look back.
_
Dawn crept over Harrenhal like an unwanted gues pale light spilling through broken arches, cutting through the mist that clung to the blackened stone.

The first thing Jace noticed when he woke was the silence.
Not the ordinary silence of morning, but the kind that feels wrong.
Too still. Too hollow.

He rose from the bench by the dying fire, rubbing at his eyes. He’d fallen asleep there, still dressed, the chair half-turned toward the door. He meant to go back to his chambers, but everytime he tried he couldnt move.

The air was cold enough to sting his throat as he crossed the hall. He didn’t even realize where his feet were taking him until he stepped out into the courtyard.

That’s when he felt it the emptiness.

The space where Vhaelyra should have been was bare. Only scorched prints remained in the stone massive, recent, still steaming faintly from the dragon’s heat.

A sharp unease crawled up his spine.

“Vhaelyra,” he muttered under his breath, scanning the sky. Nothing. Only the wind and the fog.

Then a low, restless growl pulled his attention left.

Vermax was pacing.

The dragon’s great tail swept across the ground in short, agitated strokes, his head lifting every few moments to sniff the air. The sound he made low and keening wasn’t one Jace had heard before. Not anger. Not hunger.
Loss.

Jace stepped forward slowly. “What’s wrong with you?”

Vermax turned his head sharply, exhaling a gust of smoke that brushed past his rider. His eyes were bright, searching the horizon and there, just for an instant, Jace swore he heard it too a faint, distant echo.
A dragon’s cry, far away, swallowed by the wind.

His stomach dropped.

“She’s gone,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Vermax rumbled again, wings flexing, as if to follow. But Jace raised a hand sharply. “No. Stay.”

The dragon obeyed reluctantly, lowering his head with a low growl.

Jace turned in a slow circle, scanning the sky again, the ruins, the river that cut through the mist below. Nothing but grey.

He thought of the night before her face in the candlelight, the exhaustion in her voice when she’d said she was tired of fighting.
He thought of how he’d left her there, alone.
How he hadn’t said anything worth remembering.

For a moment, he let himself believe she’d gone home. That she’d simply flown east, back to King’s Landing back to Alicent, to safety, to something that made sense.

It was easier to believe that.
It hurt less.

He ran a hand through his hair, forcing down the rising panic, the guilt, the anger that had nowhere left to go.

The wind shifted, carrying nothing but the smell of rain and smoke. Somewhere far off, thunder rolled.

Jace turned toward the sky, squinting against the light breaking through the fog. "They just went home"

But even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.

He lingered there a long time after, watching the horizon until the sun was high enough to burn the mist away and there was nothing left above the ruins
_

The world below her blurred into a sea of green and gold as she descended fields, rivers, and distant villages rolling beneath the clouds like a painted map.

Vhaelyra’s wings cut through the morning air with smooth, rhythmic strokes, each beat stirring Maeryn’s hair against her face. The wind burned her eyes, but she didn’t blink. She just flew.

She didn’t know for how long an hour, maybe two. Time felt slippery up here. The further she went, the easier it became to pretend she could keep going forever.

Until the ache in her body and the trembling in her dragon’s muscles told her otherwise.

When she finally spotted a stretch of open hills below soft green slopes scattered with wildflowers and the glitter of a narrow stream she guided Vhaelyra down.

The dragon landed with a deep, shuddering breath, claws sinking into the earth. Maeryn slid from the saddle, her boots hitting the ground with a muted thud.

The wind here was cooler, smelling of pine and distant rain. There were no villages, no watchtowers, no banners nothing. Just open land and silence.

“Go,” she whispered, running a hand along Vhaelyra’s scaled neck. “Hunt.”

The dragon blinked at her before spreading her wings and launching herself into the sky with a low, rippling roar that echoed off the hills.

The ground trembled beneath Maeryn’s feet, and then there was only the sound of the wind and her own heartbeat.

She stood there for a long moment, her cloak whipping around her, her hair tangled and wild. The adrenaline that had carried her this far finally began to fade.

It left her hollow.

Her legs gave out before she realized they had, and she sank to the grass, her breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls. The earth was damp and cool beneath her palms.

She looked around at the endless hills, the jagged horizon, the clouds streaked pink and silver above and the realization settled heavy in her chest.

There was nowhere to go.

Freedom, it turned out, was terribly lonely.

She lay back on the slope, eyes fixed on the sky. The clouds drifted lazily overhead, untouched by fire or crown or duty. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to be one of them light, untethered, belonging nowhere.

Her throat tightened.

She thought of her mother sitting at her writing desk, opening the raven that would tell her Maeryn was gone. She would send someone. She always did.

Aemond, most likely. He’d find her. He always found what shouldn’t be found.

And if not him…

Her stomach twisted.

Then it would be Rhaenyra.

And she knew exactly who Rhaenyra would send.

Jace.

The thought cut through her like cold steel.

She closed her eyes, exhaling through her nose, forcing herself to laugh a small, broken sound.
“He’ll be thrilled,” she whispered. “He’ll probably toast to it.”

The image of him standing in the courtyard, arms crossed, satisfied that she was gone hurt more than she wanted to admit.

She dug her fingers into the grass beside her, grounding herself in the cold earth. The world had gone quiet again, except for the soft hum of wind and the distant, echoing roar of her dragon somewhere beyond the hills.

The quiet should have been comforting. But all Maeryn could feel was the weight of being utterly, completely alone for the first time in her life.

She stared at the sky until her eyes blurred, whispering to no one,
“Perhaps this is what peace feels like.”

But it didn’t feel peaceful at all.
_

Chapter Text

The council chamber was stifling.

Scrolls and ledgers cluttered the long oak table lists of the dead, burned fields, empty storehouses, and broken vows. They called it restoration. A word that sounded clean, but stank of blood.

Rhaenyra sat at the head, her crown heavy, her face drawn and pale with sleepless grief. Across from her, Alicent stood draped in blue silk, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone white. The air between the two women pulsed with all the years that hadn’t forgiven either of them.

And between them, Jace stood.

He looked every inch the prince he was expected to be polished leather, steel-straight posture, hands clasped behind his back , yet there was something fractured beneath the calm. His eyes were ringed in sleepless shadow, his jaw too tight, his voice too even.

“She left Harrenhal three nights past,” he said. “No sighting since. No rider reports. No smoke, no fire. Nothing.”

Alicent’s composure cracked first. “Because you let her go.”

Jace’s head lifted sharply, his voice clipped but controlled. “I didn’t let her do anything. She left in the night. No guards saw her. No one knew until morning.”

“You could have gone after her.” Alicent’s tone trembled “You could have taken your dragon, you could have searched yourself.”

His reply came too quickly. “I have duties.”

She scoffed, bitter and low. “And your wife was not among them?”

Rhaenyra stirred but didn’t intervene. Her eyes were downcast, as though she didn’t want to look at the wreckage of another thing falling apart.

Jace’s voice hardened. “The Riverlands are still in chaos, the fleets are unaccounted for, the smallfolk starve — I can’t—”

“Don’t talk to me of duty,” Alicent snapped, stepping forward now, all the quiet dignity gone from her voice. “You are her husband. That was your duty. And she is gone.”

The words landed like a lash.

Jace’s mouth twitched before his mask settled again. His tone went cold a weapon of control. “I can’t stop the realm every time Maeryn decides to throw a tantrum.”

The silence that followed was sharp enough to draw blood.

Rhaenyra’s head lifted slowly. “Careful,” she said softly not for Maeryn’s sake, but his.

Alicent’s expression broke into something raw and unrecognizable disbelief, rage, grief all twisting together. “She isn’t a tantrum, Jacaerys. She’s my daughter.”

Regret burned hot in his chest, rising too fast to hide, but pride kept his voice even. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You did,” Alicent hissed. “You meant it.”

Rhaenyra’s sigh filled the silence like the weight of the crown itself. “Enough. Quarrels won’t bring her back.”

But before the air could ease, another voice slipped into the chamber smooth, low, and venomous.

“Perhaps the prince’s concern is not her absence,” it said lazily, “but the embarrassment of being left before the peace he preached was ever truly won.”

The room went still.

Jace’s blood turned to ice. He didn’t need to look to know the voice.

Aemond stood in the doorway, the torchlight glinting off the sapphire where his eye should have been. His hair fell loose around his face, catching the pale light like glass

Rhaenyra’s voice was low with fatigue. “Aemond.”

He inclined his head. “Your Grace.” He turned to Alicent. “Mother.”

Alicent’s hand had gone rigid against the table. Her composure was a fragile thing now all that grace barely holding together.

Jace forced his voice calm, though it scraped like glass on his throat. “You find this is amusing?”

“Amusing?” Aemond’s smile was faint “No. I think it’s fitting.” He tilted his head, voice smooth. “The prince of peace, left behind by the peace he bled for.”

Rhaenyra’s tone cut across the tension. “Enough, Aemond.”

He didn’t look at her. His gaze was fixed on Jace steady, assessing, cruelly calm.

Then, to The Queen, as if nothing were wrong: “Don’t trouble yourself, Your grace. I’ll take Vhagar and bring Maeryn home.”

Jace’s head snapped up. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Aemond’s lips curved, not into a smile, but something more dangerous amusement without warmth. “Someone should. She is my sister, after all.”

“She’s my wife,” Jace said sharply, his restraint finally cracking.

“And yet,” Aemond said, voice barely above a whisper, “she ran from you.”

The words landed like a blade through bone.

The chamber went silent. The torches guttered. Even the air seemed to pull tight in its lungs.

Rhaenyra looked between them, her expression unreadable. Her voice, when it came, was calm “Aemond will find her.”

Jace turned to her, disbelief hollowing his voice. “Your Grace—”

“You said yourself the realm needs tending,” she said coolly, not meeting his eyes. “Then tend to it. Let another handle what you’ve lost control of.”

He felt the words like a blow not from her, but from the truth underneath them.

Aemond inclined his head with mock grace. “As you command, Your Grace i’ll bring her home.”

Rhaenyra didn’t see the smirk that followed. Jace did.

Something inside him cracked.

He could see the future written in Aemond’s face the cruelty waiting behind that calm, the satisfaction of a man who would find her just to twist the knife deeper. He imagined Aemond’s voice echoing across the sky before his own, her eyes lifting to see the wrong dragon first.

He couldn’t bear it.

But they were watching every eye, every whisper, every ounce of his mother’s judgment pressing down on him.

So he swallowed the scream clawing its way up his throat and nodded stiffly. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

Aemond’s smirk deepened. “Of course it is.”

Rhaenyra looked tired beyond words. “Then it’s settled.”

Alicent turned away, one hand pressed to her mouth. Her shoulders trembled once before she mastered herself again.

Jace didn’t look at her. Couldn’t.

Because in that moment surrounded by ash, politics, and the ghosts of everything he’d ruined he realized the truth he’d been trying not to face.

He wasn’t angry because she’d left.
He was angry because he knew exactly why she had.
-
Aemond stood at the window, one hand braced against the stone sill. Beyond the glass, His reflection stared back calm, composed, unblinking the mask he had worn for so long it had nearly become truth.

He didn’t turn when the door opened behind him.

“Aemond,” Alicent said softly.

He exhaled once, steady, before glancing over his shoulder. “Mother.”

She stepped inside, her expression tight with something between fatigue and worry. The hem of her gown brushed softly against the floor. “You intend to leave,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Before dawn?”

He nodded. “Vhagar doesn’t sleep as deeply as others. She’ll be ready.”

Alicent came to stand beside him at the window. The two of them stood in silence for a long moment framed by the same pale firelight that had always made them look more alike than either would admit.

“You mean to find her,” she said quietly.

“I do.”

Her gaze flicked toward him. “And bring her home?”

“That,” he murmured, “depends on whether she wishes to come.”

She studied his reflection in the glass. “Aemond…”

“She’s my sister, Mother. I would not harm her.”

Alicent studied him, searching for sincerity. She had learned, long ago, that Aemond’s truth was rarely simple. “And this is not some… cruel thing you’ve decided to do. Not vengeance against Jacaerys.”

Aemond’s eye flicked toward her, glacial blue glinting in the firelight. “Why can’t it be both?”

The words were soft, almost gentle and that was what made them dangerous

Alicent exhaled slowly, the faint tremor in her hands betraying her calm. “Because we are at peace, Aemond. The realm cannot bear another war born of pride. Nor can I.”

His head tilted, the faintest hint of amusement ghosting across his lips. “I’m not starting a war, Mother. I’m ending a humiliation.”

“You will not harm her,” she said sharply.

He turned then, fully facing her. The firelight caught the sapphire in his eye, making it flash like ice. “I have no reason to harm her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

“You mean, this time,” she countered quietly.

Aemond’s jaw twitched, but his tone remained maddeningly calm. “Bringing her home will be punishment enough. For him.”

Alicent’s breath caught. “Aemond…”

his voice low, deliberate. “Imagine it, Mother — the look on Jacaerys’s face when he sees her return at my side. When he realizes that all his power, his dragons, his peace could not bring her home, but I could.”

There was no malice in his tone. That made it worse.

Alicent reached out, resting a hand on his arm. “You are my son,” she said softly. “And I know your heart, no matter what mask you wear. But I will say it once more you will not harm her. Not in word, not in deed. You will bring her home safely. Nothing more.”

For a moment, silence. Then Aemond inclined his head, the gesture slow and smooth as a blade sliding into its sheath.

“Of course,” he said, almost pleasantly. “That will be more than enough.”

Alicent’s hand fell away from his arm. She turned toward the window, unwilling to meet his gaze. Because she knew he would keep his word.
-
He found Aemond in the outer courtyard, speaking to a pair of dragonkeepers. The torches burned low, the sky just beginning to pale toward dawn.
Aemond was already dressed for flight black leather, silver clasps, sword at his hip, every inch the perfect Prince he fancied himself to be.

“Leaving early,” Jace said, his voice cutting through the chill.

Aemond didn’t turn. “Duty rarely waits for the sun,” he replied, tone calm maddeningly so.

Jace’s boots struck the stone as he closed the distance. “You’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?” Aemond finally turned, his single blue eye gleaming with faint amusement. “Serving our queen? Finding my missing sister?”

“She’s my wife,” Jace snapped.

Aemond smiled faintly the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eye. “Yes, so I’ve heard. And quite the union it’s been, hasn’t it? The servants talk more than the ravens these days.”

Jace’s eyes narrowed. “Careful.”

“Oh, come now, Nephew,” Aemond drawled. “I’ve heard the stories. The shouting. The slamming of doors ...the crying.” He tilted his head slightly, mock sympathy dripping from his voice. “And then there’s you storming off to brothels like a common drunk to remind the court you still have a pulse. A tragic picture of marital bliss.”

Jace’s jaw clenched hard enough to ache. “You’ve always loved the sound of your own voice.”

“And yet it’s still preferable to your temper,” Aemond said smoothly. “Tell me, Jace what does it feel like to be the reason Maeryn fled Harrenhal? To lose the one woman who might have softened you?”

“Say her name again,” Jace warned, voice low, dangerous.

Aemond stepped closer, unbothered. “Maeryn,” he said deliberately, savoring it. “My sweet sister. Forced to play wife to a man who looks at her like she’s another enemy to conquer. And now, I who am apparently the monster in this family... must halt my duties, delay my queen’s commands, and chase after your wife, because you couldn’t keep her from" He paused smirking " flying away.”

Jace’s fist twitched at his side, his voice breaking through clenched teeth. “does this amuse you?”

Aemond smirked, the expression sharp as glass. “Immensely. The gods do have a sense of irony, don’t they? You blame me for your ruin ...though you find new ways to destroy what you love all by yourself.”

The words landed like a slap too fast, too precise.

Jace’s breath came hard through his nose. “You think you know anything about love?”

“I know what it does to men like us,” Aemond said, his voice low, dangerous in its calm. “It makes fools of one, corpses of the other. Tell me, which are you becoming?”

For a moment, they just stood there firelight dancing between them, both breathing like dragons straining at their chains.

Then Aemond’s smirk softened into something colder, almost bored. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her for you. Someone in this family still knows how to finish what they start.”

Jace took a single step closer, his voice sharp enough to cut. “If you so much as frighten her—”

“You’ll what?” Aemond interrupted, his tone soft but mocking. “You’ll do nothing. You never do.”

He turned then, cloak snapping behind him as he strode toward the Dragonpit. “Get some sleep, nephew,” he said without looking back. “You’ll need it when you have to thank me for bringing her home.”

Jace stood there, fists trembling, watching his uncle disappear into the pale dawn and for the first time since Maeryn left, he truly understood what it felt like to lose someone twice
_
The tavern was dim and low-ceilinged, thick with smoke and the sour smell of rain-soaked wool. Every wall seemed to lean with age, and every face at the tables had learned how to ignore what didn’t concern them.

It was the kind of place no one would think to look for a princess.
And that, Maeryn had thought, made it safe.

She moved quietly between the tables, sleeves rolled up, braid half-unravelled, the rough cloth of a serving apron tied around her waist. For a week now she’d scrubbed tankards and poured ale, and no one had looked at her twice. No whispers. No pity. Just silence.

The door blew open with a burst of wind and wet air. Every head turned.

Aemond stepped inside.

He looked wrong here too tall, too sharp, too composed. He shut the door behind him with unhurried grace, his gaze sliding across the room until it landed on her.

Then came that smirk. Small. Certain. Cruel.

“Well,” he drawled, walking forward, “I expected a chase, at least. But this? Less than an hour’s flight from King’s Landing? I’ve had hunting dogs show more imagination.”

Maeryn stiffened, keeping her eyes on the rag in her hand. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“Oh, on the contrary,” he said, leaning against the counter. “When word reached me that my dear sister had gone to ground in a tavern barely past the city’s shadow, I simply had to see it myself.”

“You’ve seen it,” she muttered. “Now leave.”

He ignored that, letting his gaze sweep the room with quiet contempt. “Gods, Maeryn. You might as well have hung a sign above the door Princess hiding here. Did you truly think no one would notice a girl with silver hair scrubbing mugs for drunks?”

Her jaw tightened. “I wanted peace.”

He gave a low, amused hum. “Peace,” he repeated, tasting the word as if it were foreign. “You call this peace? A smoky den full of thieves and whores, less than fifty miles from the Red Keep? You’re either brave or stupid. I haven’t decided which.”

She met his gaze finally, eyes steady, tired. “It’s better than court.”

That earned her a soft laugh real. “Then our standards have fallen indeed.”

“Go home, Aemond.”

“And leave you here?” He glanced around again, with disgust. “Among men who can’t spell your name, drinking ale that could strip paint? I think not.”

“This is my choice.”

“Ah,” he said lightly. “And choices, dear sister, have consequences.”

Her temper flared. “You’d know something about that.”

For a heartbeat, his smirk faltered, then returned sharper. “Touché.”

He studied her more closely, his voice dropping. “You’ll be pleased to know the court is quite dramatic over your absence. Your husband is beside himself pacing halls, sleepless, utterly bereft.”

Maeryn’s hands froze around the mug she was drying. “Is he?”

“Oh yes,” Aemond murmured. “Wringing his noble hands, sighing your name at every sunset. It’s really very touching.”

“Then why didn’t he come himself?”

That drew a true grin razor-edged and knowing. “Because, sister, duty makes cowards of even the boldest lovers.”

Her throat tightened. “And what brings you, then?”

He leaned in slightly, voice low. “Someone had to. Rhaenyra’s orders, Jacaerys’s silence — take your pick.”

"I Do not care"

He swept his gaze around the tavern as though the cracked mugs and sagging beams personally insulted him. “Were you hiding,” he asked, voice smooth and cutting, “or just hoping someone would bother to find you?”

Maeryn set the rag down, her eyes narrowing, the flicker of the hearthlight catching on the faint smudge of ash on her cheek. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“Oh?” His tone sharpened, almost lazy in its mockery. “Forgive me — you’re merely serving ale under a false name in a hovel that smells of sweat and stale bread. I’m sure it’s all very noble rebellion.” He tilted his head, smiling faintly. “If you were going to run, sister, you might’ve at least made it interesting. I expected a chase.”

Her voice lowered, roughened by fatigue. “I didn’t run to be found, Aemond. I ran because Jacaerys hates me.”

For the first time, his smirk wavered. He blinked, then gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Hates you? I thought he was just angry.” He leaned an elbow on the counter, watching her with a predator’s amusement. “i remeber the way he used to follow you I thought he’d start fetching your slippers next. It was embarrassing, really.”

She rolled her eyes, biting back her temper. “You never could resist cruelty.”

“Only honesty,” he corrected lightly. But his voice softened just a fraction, the edge thinning. “Do you remember that dreadful dinner we had before the war?”

Her brows furrowed. “No.”

“Pity,” he said, feigning nostalgia. “You sat beside me. Jace couldn’t stop staring at you. Half the table noticed ...especially Baela.” His lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “It was pathetic. I almost pitied him. A prince, so enthralled he couldn’t hide it. And now you tell me he hates you?” He gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

Her eyes darkened. “He hates me because of you, Aemond. You killed Luke.”

Something flickered in his expression a tiny fracture in his mask. “It was an accident,” he said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered."He wont forgive me"

The words lingered

For a long moment, he just looked at her at the weariness in her posture, the frayed ends of her braid, the hands that had once been soft now stained with work. Then his tone shifted, unexpectedly calm. “Come home with me.”

It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t even sharp. And that made it worse.

She frowned her voice cracking. “Please don’t make me.”

He regarded her in silence, something unreadable flickering behind his eye. “Mother will be furious,” he said finally. “If she finds out I saw you and left you here.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” Maeryn murmured. “Tell her I’m safe. Tell her whatever you must. You can… keep tabs on me, if it pleases you. And when I’m ready to come home, you can bring me.”

He considered her for a long time, head tilted slightly, the firelight glinting off the sapphire that filled his ruined eye. When he finally nodded, it was slow, deliberate.

“Stay, then,” he said simply. “Play at being ordinary. Scrub mugs, serve drunks, convince yourself this is freedom.” His gaze softened in mock sympathy. “But don’t lie to yourself you’ll never outrun who you are.”

“I never could,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Aemond’s smile returned, faint and cold. “Good. Then you’re not as foolish as I feared.”

He stepped back toward the door, letting the wind and rain leak through the crack as he opened it. “I’ll tell Mother you’re alive. That should soothe her nerves and give Jacaerys something to choke on.”

She looked up sharply. “Aemond—”

He turned, eyes glittering faintly with humor. “Next time,” he said, almost soft “try hiding somewhere worth the trouble. If you must exile yourself, at least do it with style.”

The door shut behind him with a whisper of rain.

Maeryn stood still, staring at the empty doorway, her pulse echoing in her throat. The tavern around her buzzed faintly again laughter, footsteps, the creak of wood but it all sounded far away.

 

_

Chapter Text

Daemo leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. His gaze swept the room once before settling on Jace, a faint smirk curving his mouth. “You always were your mother’s son.”

Jace’s quill snapped between his fingers. “If you came to offer comfort, spare me.”

Daemon stepped forward, lifting one of the maps from the table. It was so covered in scribbles it was barely legible inked circles over half the realm, entire ranges X’d out, rivers redrawn by desperation.

He raised an eyebrow. “Seven hells, boy. You’ve redrawn Westeros more times than the maesters of Oldtown.”

Jace ignored him, shoving a pile of scrolls aside. “There are villages past the Trident she might’ve—”

Daemon dropped the map flat on the table with a thud. “You’ve got scouts in every bloody corner already, haven’t you?”

Jace hesitated jaw tight then nodded once.

Daemon’s smirk faded. “And what do you think you’ll do when you find her? Chain her to the throne?”

Jace looked up sharply “She’s my wife.”

Daemon tilted his head. “ And she chose to leave.”

The words hit like a slap.

Jace exhaled shakily, raking a hand through his hair. “Aemond knows where she is,” he muttered. “He knows, and he’s sitting somewhere laughing while I—”

“While you tear yourself apart?” Daemon interrupted. “He’s always been good at that.”

Jace’s hand curled into a fist. “He’s protecting her.”

Daemon blinked. “You sound jealous.”

Jace laughed bitterly “Maybe I am. Gods, the whole bloody realm already thinks I’m unfit to rule after my mother. They whisper I’m weak. That I lead like a scholar, not a dragon.”

Daemon said nothing.

Jace’s voice cracked. “And now I can’t even keep my wife. Tell me, what does that say about me?”

The silence that followed was long and heavy.

Daemon finally sighed His tone softened not kind, but real. “It says you’re just a man. That’s the one thing the crown doesn’t forgive.”

Jace stared at him, jaw trembling, throat tight.

Daemon gave a faint shrug. “Find her, if it eases your mind. But she’s not a piece to be recovered. Not a duty to fulfill. She’s gone because she needed to be. And until you stop trying to control what left you, you’ll lose everything else too.”

Then he turned, his cloak trailing behind him as he left the chamber.

Jace stayed where he was surrounded by maps and silence, the candlelight flickering over the chaos he’d made.

He looked down at the maps again, at the red lines that carved across the realm like wounds that refused to close.
_
The council chamber was suffocating.
The fire burned too hot, the air thick with smoke and damp wool and unspoken truths. Scrolls and maps littered the long oak table smudged with ink, stained with rainwater ike the aftermath of too many restless nights.

Aemond stood before the queen’s table, straight-backed and immaculate despite the weather. His cloak still dripped faintly onto the flagstones, his gloves folded neatly behind his back. The firelight caught his hair like spun silver, gilding one side of his face while the other was lost to shadow. His expression was carved from ice composed, unreadable, too calm to be honest.

To Rhaenyra’s right sat Jace.
He hadn’t spoken since Aemond entered. His posture was rigid, his hands clasped on the table before him the knuckles white from how tightly he held them. Beneath the soft flicker of the torches, his eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, but the anger beneath it burned bright enough to fill the room.

Rhaenyra leaned slightly forward, her voice steady but strained. “You’re certain?”

Aemond inclined his head in that infuriatingly slow, deliberate way of his. “Quite. We searched the coasts and the river valleys, every stretch from the Trident to the western ridges. Not a trace. No tracks. No fires. No wings in the sky.”

Rhaenyra’s jaw tightened. “And Vhagar?”

“She saw nothing,” Aemond said smoothly. His tone was soft deferential, but practiced. “The rains were heavy, the clouds thick. She tires easily of aimless hunts.”

Rhaenyra studied him for a long moment, her eyes shadowed and hollow with suspicion she no longer had the strength to voice. At last, she nodded. “Very well. You’ve done your duty.”

Aemond bowed with perfect grace, one hand pressed briefly to his chest. “Always, Your Grace.”

He turned to leave and that was when Jace finally looked up.

Their eyes met across the table.

For a breathless heartbeat, the chamber went still.

Aemond’s single sapphire eye gleamed like frost catching the firelight, cool and unreadable. His mouth curved, faintly, into something that wasn’t quite a smile just enough to be cruel. Jace’s hands twitched against the table. His jaw flexed once, twice, as though he were physically swallowing the words clawing at his throat.

Then Aemond inclined his head in mock respect a gesture so polite it bordered on insult and turned. His cloak whispered softly against the stone as he strode from the room. The heavy doors shut behind him with a final, echoing thud.

For a moment, all that could be heard was the fire crackling in the hearth.

Then Jace spoke low, shaking with restraint.
“He’s lying.”

Rhaenyra didn’t look up. “I know.”

Jace blinked, disbelief flashing across his face. “You know?”

“Sometimes,” she murmured, still reading, “lies are easier to live with than truths we can’t change.”

Jace stood sharply, his chair scraping against the stone. “You think this is peace? My wife is gone, and you sit here letting him smirk and spit lies in your face!”

Rhaenyra’s eyes lifted slowly. “And what would you have me do, Jace? Drag him back and torture the truth out of him? He thrives on your fury. Don’t feed it.”

He barked a short, humorless laugh, pacing. The firelight flickered against his cheekbones, throwing his features into sharp relief the hollow under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. “He’s mocking us. Mocking me. He knows where she is.”

Rhaenyra’s tone didn’t waver. “Then find out.”

That stopped him cold. “What?”

“You heard me.” Her voice was quieter now, heavy. “If you’re certain he’s lying, then go. Prove it. But understand this—” her eyes found his, sharp and cold “—if your temper drives you to ruin, I will not save you from the wreckage.”

He stared at her, chest rising and falling unevenly. “You think this is about my temper?”

She sighed weary, knowing. “With you, it always is.”

For a moment, the room held its breath.

Jace’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, then forced the words out through clenched teeth. “I’ll handle it.”

Rhaenyra didn’t stop him.

He turned sharply, the echo of his boots striking the marble in furious rhythm as he left. The doors slammed behind him, the sound reverberating through the chamber like thunder.

For a long time, Rhaenyra didn’t move. The candlelight trembled over her hands, pale against the parchment.

The courtyard was empty except for them.
Fog rolled in from the cliffs, wrapping the yard in thin white mist. The torches hissed and sputtered, shadows shifting with each flicker of light. The stone underfoot still held the day’s chill hard, unyielding, like the men standing upon it.

Aemond stood by the wall, cleaning his sword with slow, careful strokes. Each movement was deliberate, surgical.
He didn’t look up when Jace entered, but his lips twitched faintly the smallest ghost of a smirk.

“I wondered when you’d come,” Aemond said softly. “I could almost hear your temper rattling from the council chamber.”

Jace’s voice came rough, cracking through the silence. “You lied.”

Aemond finally looked up, one pale brow lifting. “You’ll have to be more precise.”

“You knew where she was,” Jace spat. “You stood there feeding my mother that story about storms and valleys. You knew.”

Aemond’s gaze flicked over him, calm and faintly amused. “Perhaps,” he murmured. “But you’ve always preferred the chase, haven’t you?”

“Don’t play games with me.” Jace’s voice shook, his hands trembling at his sides.

“Games?” Aemond smiled faintly, sheathing his sword. “You call this a game? You, pacing like a rabid dog because you can’t control what you’ve lost?”

“Where is she?”

Aemond sighed soft, deliberate. “Safe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’ll get.”

Jace’s composure snapped. He stepped forward and shoved Aemond hard against the stone wall, the sound echoing across the yard. “You always have to twist the knife, don’t you?” he hissed. “You think this makes you clever? You think you still have control?”

Aemond didn’t resist. He tilted his head, calm even with Jace’s hand fisted in his collar. “You’re shaking, nephew.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “Why are you really angry? Is it because of Maeryn… or because of Luke?”

Jace froze.
His grip loosened slightly. His breath came shallow, uneven.

Aemond’s tone turned quieter, colder. “You’ve spent half your life hating me because it’s easier than admitting what truly destroyed you. You can’t punish me for killing him, so you punish her instead.”

“Don’t,” Jace warned. “Don’t you dare bring her into this.”

“Oh, but she’s already in it,” Aemond said “Every cruel word you gave her, every cold look.. you carved it from the grief you never buried. You wanted her to hurt like you did.”

“Stop it.”

“Why?” Aemond asked, almost gently. “Because I’m right?”

“Stop!” Jace’s shout cracked across the courtyard. “You killed him!”

Aemond’s expression didn’t change, but something in his voice softened like a blade pressed against skin instead of plunged through it. “No,” he said evenly. “War killed him. The same war that killed Helaena’s boy... a child, butchered in his bed while he slept.” His single blue eye caught the firelight, flickering cold. “We all bled for that crown, Jace. You, me, your mother. There are no innocents left... only survivors.”

Jace’s face twisted, his chest heaving. “You think that excuses you?”

“It explains me,” Aemond said quietly. “It excuses nothing.”

“You’re a liar.”

“And you’re a coward,” Aemond replied, not missing a beat. “You hide behind your grief like it’s armor. You’ve built your entire life out of it. Luke dies, and you stop being his brother.. you become his ghost. You haunt yourself, and now you haunt her.”

Jace took a step back, his eyes burning red. “You don’t know what I’ve lost.”

Aemond followed, voice dropping to a whisper. “You’ve lost everything you ever loved because you only know how to love things that hurt.”

“Shut up,” Jace snarled, trembling.

Aemond didn’t. “You married my sister... a girl who worshiped you. And you destroyed her because you didn’t know what to do with her kindness. She loved you through your hate, through your guilt, and that scared you more than war ever did.”

“Stop it!” Jace roared and then his fist connected with Aemond’s jaw. The sound cracked through the courtyard like thunder.

Aemond stumbled a step, then steadied himself, the faintest smear of blood at his lip. He wiped it away, looked at it and smiled.
“There you are,” he said quietly. “The prince they whisper about. The one who burns everything he touches.”

Jace’s voice broke. “You think this is strength? You think this makes you right?”

Aemond’s tone turned colder. “No. It makes me honest. I don’t pretend the war made me good. But you—” he leaned closer “—you still pretend you’re not made of the same fire.”

Jace’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, fury and guilt tangling like wire in his chest. “I hate you,” he whispered.

Aemond gave a faint nod, his voice almost tender. “I know. It’s all that’s left of you.”

They stood in silence the torches spitting, the fog curling between them like ghosts.

Then, finally, Jace spoke again, his voice raw.
“You think I’m angry because she’s gone?” His breath hitched. “I’m angry because I made her want to be.”

That, for the first time, seemed to cut through Aemond’s armor. His expression flickered not pity, but something dangerously close to understanding. Then it was gone.

He turned his back, retrieving his sword. “If she’s alive,” he said quietly, “pray she never looks at you again. If she’s dead…”

He paused, his voice lowering to a whisper.
“Then you’ll finally have your war back.”

He walked away, leaving Jace in the silence.

The courtyard seemed to breathe around him rain hissing faintly in the distance, the stone still warm beneath his boots.
Jace stood frozen, jaw trembling, his hands shaking.

He hated Aemond.
But gods help him .. he hated himself more.

The storm had moved in by nightfall.
Thunder rolled low over kingslandin, distant but constant, like the heartbeat of something dying.

Jace hadn’t left the yard since Aemond’s words.
He stood under the archway, half-soaked, staring off.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there long enough for the torches to gutter out, for the wine on his tongue to turn bitter, for his fury to rot into something colder.

The echo of Aemond’s voice wouldn’t leave him.

“War killed him.”
“You haunt yourself.”
“You only know how to love things that hurt.”

He wanted to scream.
He wanted to tear the truth out of Aemond’s throat and crush it but the worst part was, he already knew it was true.

He had haunted Maeryn.
He’d looked at her and seen ghosts. He’d held her and tasted blame.
He’d turned her love into penance and then wondered why she ran.

He pressed his palms to his face and drew a shuddering breath.
The night smelled like salt and smoke.

And then somewhere above the dragons roared.

It started as a low, shuddering note that rolled through the stone under his feet, enough to make the courtyard tremble.
Then another higher, strained, full of something like grief.

He froze.
Every keeper within earshot was already running their torches flaring in the mist, voices raised in alarm.

Jace moved without thinking. His legs carried him across the yard, down the winding path toward the pit.
The air grew thicker the closer he came heavy with the scent of fire and rain.

When he stepped onto the overlook, the sight below stole the breath from his lungs.

“Vhaelyra…” he whispered.

Maeryn’s dragon.

The world seemed to stop moving.

Vhaelyra was flying low, her roars growing louder, more erratic searching, calling.
She landed hard in the courtyard below, the ground trembling beneath her weight. Her wings folded in, trembling. The sound that followed was like nothing Jace had ever heard a low, broken wail, deep enough to shake the air.

“No…”

There was no rider.
No flash of silver hair.
No movement in the saddle.

Just the dragon.
Alone.

By the time Jace reached the pit, he was running.
The dragonkeepers scattered at his approach no one dared stop him.

Vhaelyra was pacing, restless, snapping her tail against the ground, her breath steaming in the cold.

“Where is she?” Jace demanded hoarsely, his voice breaking as if the dragon might somehow answer. “Where is she!”

“Jace.”

The voice came from behind calm, low, and all the more cruel for it.

He froze.
That tone. He’d know it anywhere.

He turned sharply. “Aemond.”

His eyes were red-rimmed, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts. “Her dragon’s here,” he said hoarsely, pointing toward the pit, where Vhaelyra paced and keened in anguish. “Her dragon’s here — but she’s not.”

“I see that,” Aemond said quietly. His gaze drifted toward the creature, the faintest crease forming between his brows.

“Then tell me where she is.”

Aemond didn’t answer at first. He took a long breath, slid his gloves back on one finger at a time, and said, almost to himself, “I’ll look for her.”

“No.” Jace’s voice cracked like lightning. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Aemond’s head turned, slow and deliberate. His expression didn’t change, but his jaw tightened. “I’m faster,” he said evenly.

“Tell me where she is.”

The silence that followed stretched,
Jace took a step closer ..close enough to see the rain to bead on Aemond’s collar, for their breaths to cloud between them.

“Tell me where she is!”

Aemond’s nostrils flared. His voice, when it came, was cold. “As your uncle, I am advising—”

“As your prince,” Jace snapped, cutting across him, “I’m demanding you.”

That got a reaction.
Aemond’s lips curled not quite a smile, not quite mockery something in between. He let out a low, humorless laugh, a scoff that carried years of rivalry and disdain.

“Fine,” he said at last, voice dripping with irony. “Your Grace commands, I obey.”

He adjusted his gloves, his tone sharp with deliberate indifference. “She’s in a village near the Trident. Nothing remarkable...a river port, a few farms. She works at a tavern there. The sort of place that stinks of ale and mud.”

Jace blinked, disbelief flickering across his face. “She—what?”

“She hides among smallfolk now,” Aemond said simply, his smirk softening into something crueler a mirror of pity and contempt. “Pouring drinks, changing her name. Pretending she isn’t who she is. You’d almost admire it, if it weren’t so pathetic.”

Jace’s eyes flashed, grief boiling over into fury. “You think this is a game to you—”

“No,” Aemond said smoothly, cutting him off, that calm, sharp edge returning. “It’s a lesson. You wanted peace. This is what it costs.”

Jace took another step forward, trembling with restrained violence. “If you’ve done anything—”

“Don’t finish that,” Aemond warned softly. “You’ll regret it.”

Their gazes locked and for a long, breathless moment, neither moved.

Then Aemond exhaled slowly, stepping back. “Go, then,” he said, his voice quiet but heavy. “Find her. If she’ll let you.”

Jace didn’t answer.
He didn’t even blink.

He just turned toward Vermax his boots striking the stones like drumbeats and the rain swallowed the sound of Aemond’s final words, spoken too low for anyone else to hear.
_
The rain hadn’t stopped.
It came down in sheets cold, relentless soaking through leather and bone.

Jace had made it.
Though half of him still wasn’t sure if he should have.

he’d flown through wind so fierce it had nearly ripped the breath from his lungs.
Every mile felt like a reckoning a whisper from the storm itself: Aemond sent you here to break you. To show you what you lost. To remind you what you destroyed.

By the time Vermax landed in the clearing beyond the village, Jace was shaking from exhaustion, from fear, from something heavier.
He slid from the saddle, resting one trembling hand on his dragon’s neck.

“Stay here,” he murmured.
Vermax rumbled low in answer, steam rising from his nostrils in the cold rain.

Jace pulled his soaked cloak tighter, drew his hood low, and began the long walk through mud and shadow.
The village lights flickered ahead small, flickering embers against the endless dark.
Every step felt heavier than the one before.

When he reached the tavern, the noise hit first laughter, clinking cups, the hum of fire and warmth. Too alive for the storm outside.
The door creaked as he pushed it open, and the room quieted for just a heartbeat.

He lowered his hood, water dripping onto the straw-covered floor, and moved toward the counter.
His voice came rough. “I’m looking for a girl. Pale hair. Young.”

The innkeeper frowned, wiping his hands on a rag. “Haven’t seen anyone like that, ser. You want ale?”

No one had seen her, they’d said.
No girl with silver hair.
No stranger answering to that name.

Jace had almost turned to leave.
Almost believed Aemond had sent him here as punishment a cruel jest to send him chasing ghosts until he shattered.

And then he saw her.

She was near the hearth, half-turned toward the light, her hair loose against the dark of her cloak.
Her cheeks flushed with warmth, a faint smile playing at her lips as she listened to a man beside her.

She laughed.
Soft. Unburdened.
The sound undid him.

For one heartbeat, everything else fell away the storm, the war, the grief until there was only her.
Alive. Whole.

And then came the memory.
The one that gutted him.

They weren’t close anymore.
He’d been cruel. Short-tempered. Cold.
He’d made her a stranger long before she’d run.

Yet there she was laughing.
And gods, she was beautiful like that.
Beautiful in a way she never could be beside him.

It struck him like grief, how light she looked when she wasn’t afraid of him.

He had once had all of her her loyalty, her gentleness, her strength.
But she had never truly had him.

Now, looking at her, Jace finally understood
He’d won battles, not hearts.
And somewhere in the wreckage, he’d forgotten how to be hers.

Then it happened.
Her laughter stilled. Her eyes found him.

The warmth vanished like breath in winter.

She froze her face pale, eyes wide.
The man beside her turned but Jace barely saw him.
His gaze locked on her, the only thing that still mattered.

She muttered something he couldn’t hear, touched the man’s arm, and rose.
Her movements were sharp, panicked nothing like the woman he’d just been watching.

“You can’t be here,” she whispered when she reached him. Her voice trembled but her words struck like steel.

“Why not?” he asked quietly, eyes following the nervous dart of hers across the room.

“Jace,” she breathed and gods, the sound nearly undid him. The nickname he’d once forbidden her to say, the one that used to mean home.

A shaky smile tugged at his mouth. “I missed hearing you call me that.”

“You need to leave,” she urged. “Please. Before someone sees.”

He looked at her really looked. the faint dark under her eyes. The way she still carried herself like a princess pretending not to be one.
He tried to joke. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

She didn’t even blink.

Instead, she caught his arm and dragged him toward a shadowed corner. Her fingers trembled.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

He stared back. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here now.”

He laughed softly a broken, disbelieving sound. “You can’t just say that. You’re my wife. You can’t run away from—”

“I did.”
Her voice was flat. Final.

“Maeryn—”

She looked away, jaw tight. “You don’t get to say my name.”

“I thought you were dead,” he said quickly, desperate to keep her near. “When your dragon came back without you..I thought ... Aemond told me where to find you.”

Her eyes flashed. “He shouldn’t have.”

“Then what was I supposed to do?” His voice cracked. “Pretend you never existed?”

Her hands fell away. “Tell the court I died. You’ll be free to play king again.”

He shook his head, stepping closer. “I don’t want freedom. I want you. You think I flew through a storm because of duty?”

“I think,” she said softly, “you came because guilt feels easier than love.”

He went still.
Rainwater dripped from his hair, sliding down his jaw, but he didn’t move. “It wasn’t duty,” he said hoarsely. “It was you. It’s always been you. I can’t live without you, Maeryn.”

Something flickered in her face not warmth, but heartbreak. She gave a small, hollow laugh.
“You can’t live with losing me? Jace, you couldn’t even look at me when I was yours.”

He flinched like she’d struck him.

Her eyes shimmered, voice trembling but steady. “Nothing’s changed. You were cruel. Angry. You made me feel like a ghost in my own home. You only want me now because you finally know what alone feels like.”

“Maeryn—”

“Don’t.” Her voice cut sharp.

He caught her wrist before she could pull away. His hand was shaking. “Please. I’m begging you.. give me another chance. Let me make this right.”

Her voice broke. “There is no right. There’s only what’s left.”

“Then I’ll fix what’s left,” he whispered. “I’ll be better. I’ll be what you deserved—”

“Stop!”

Her voice tore through the tavern like a crack of thunder.

Everything fell silent.
The laughter. The chatter. The fire seemed to dim.

Dozens of eyes turned toward them.

Jace froze mid-breath, his hand half-raised, rainwater dripping from his cloak.

Maeryn stood before him, chest heaving, her cheeks flushed and wet. Tears trembled in her lashes, but her spine stayed straight.

And in that silence, her voice came low, shaking, but clear enough for all to hear.

“Please,” she said. “Let me live out my days away from everything. from duty, from the blood we spilled. Don’t make me come back just to be your wife.”

The words struck harder than any sword.

Jace’s face changed the composure cracking, piece by piece, until only the boy underneath remained.
His lips parted, his breath hitched, and he looked lost.

“Come home with me,” he whispered. “Please.”
The plea scraped from his throat like it hurt to say.

Maeryn’s lips parted. For a moment, she almost said yes.
Almost.

But then she looked at him really looked and saw what she’d run from all along
A man who wanted to love her, but didn’t know how.

Her eyes filled, but her voice was steady.
“I already am home.”

The words broke him.
Not loudly. Quietly the way a heart cracks when it’s already half gone.

He just stood there, the stormlight catching the tears that finally fell, his mouth open like a prayer he couldn’t finish.

Around them, whispers returned. Chairs scraped softly. The world moved on.

Maeryn didn’t.
She turned, walking back to the hearth, each step measured, careful like she was holding herself together by sheer will.
She picked up an empty mug, just to have something to hold.

Jace didn’t follow.
He couldn’t.
-
The rain had softened to a mist the kind that clung to skin and hair, that carried the smell of wet earth and woodsmoke.

Jace stood outside the tavern beneath the awning, hands buried in his cloak, head bowed. He’d been there for what felt like hours. The puddles around his boots had stopped rippling. The storm had moved on.
But he hadn’t.

When the door finally creaked open, she stepped out hood drawn, breath visible in the cold air. She froze the instant she saw him.

“Seven hells,” she whispered, her voice tired. “You’re still here?”

He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed red from exhaustion and tears that hadn’t stopped. His voice came out hoarse, trembling.
“I couldn’t leave you.”

She frowned, the faintest edge of disbelief cutting through her exhaustion. “Jace, you can’t just you don’t belong here.”

“I don’t belong anywhere else,” he said, his breath catching.

Her face twisted . pity and frustration mingling into something that hurt to look at. “Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “What are you hoping to find?”

He hesitated. The words gathered in his throat, jagged, fragile. “You. Just you.”

She shook her head, rainwater running down her cheek like a tear. “You can’t keep doing this. You saw me. I’m alive. You can go back now.”

He laughed but it came out broken. “Go back to what?” His voice cracked, raw and trembling. “An empty castle? An empty bed? To everyone pretending not to see that I’m coming apart because you’re gone?”

Her jaw tightened. “You chose that life"

He stepped closer, eyes glistening. “And I’d throw it all away if you asked me to.”

Her voice hardened, trembling with the effort of control. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“I mean every word,” he said fiercely. “You asked what’s changed? Harrenhal.”

She frowned. “Harrenhal?”

He nodded, chest rising and falling like he was trying not to break apart. “Being around you again… talking the way we used to, hearing you laugh.. gods, the way you looked at me—”
He stopped. His throat closed on the words. He swallowed hard, his eyes falling shut as his voice cracked.
“The way you used to.”

She stared at him, shaking her head slowly. “Jace…”

He opened his eyes, tears blurring everything. “Don’t tell me this is duty. Don’t twist it into something clean.”

“Then what is it?” she whispered.

“If I met you for the first time in that tavern tonight,” he said, breath trembling, “if you’d smiled at me like that… I would have loved you right then.”

She blinked, scoffing. “How do you know that?”

He let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Because I’ve filled myself with rage, Maeryn. With hate. With guilt. There’s nothing left of me but ruin.”
He took a step closer, rain dripping from his lashes. “And through all of it, the one thing that’s never changed..not once...is how I love you.”

Her breath hitched. She wanted to believe him. Gods, she wanted to.
But her voice came quiet, trembling. “You loved me like a wound, Jace. And I bled for it every day.”

He flinched, the sound that left him half a gasp, half a sob.
“I know,” he whispered, his lip trembling. “And I hate myself for it. I don’t even know who I am anymore without my anger. Without—” His voice broke completely. “Without you.”

“Stop,” she whispered. “Please, stop.”

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, tears streaming freely now. “I can’t stop loving you. I can’t stop seeing you every time I close my eyes.”
His voice collapsed into a sob as he spoke. “You were right to leave me, but gods, I can’t live knowing you did.”

She stepped back, covering her mouth as if his pain were something she could taste.
“Go home, Jace,” she said softly, her voice breaking.

He took a small step forward, almost pleading. “I am home when I’m with you.”

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head, “Don’t make me do this.”

He laughed again, breathless, desperate. “I’d crawl through every battlefield again if it meant you’d look at me like you used to.”

She turned her face away, her voice trembling. “And then what? You’d just forget? You’d go back to being angry the moment peace bored you?”

He reached for her, his hand shaking midair. “I swear to you, I’d spend the rest of my life making it right. I’d burn the world down if it meant I could start over with you.”

She looked at him
And for the first time since she’d seen him, her voice softened not kind, but final.
“Then burn it without me.”

The words shattered him. His lips parted like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out just a small, strangled sound, his body trembling under the weight of it.

Her hand hovered for a moment as if she might reach for him then fell back to her side.
“Goodbye, Jace.”

He shook his head, choking back another sob. “Please. Please don’t walk away.”

But she already was.
Her cloak caught the faint light as she turned into the street, her figure fading into the grey of dawn and rain.

He stood there long after she was gone, tears falling soundlessly. Then the sobs came sharp, ragged, uncontained breaking from his chest in waves he couldn’t stop.

He pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle the sound, but it didn’t matter. The world had already heard him break.

Vermax’s distant roar answered, low and mournful as though even the dragon understood.
_