Chapter Text
When Prince Jacaerys Velaryon hears a dragon's strident warning cry pierce the white stone walls of the Eyrie, his heart drops to his feet and bursts open like an overripe peach.
It is not as powerful a sound as that of a dragon grown and old and weathered by battle, still shrill and soft at the edges with youth in the same manner that fat clings to Luke's face with boyhood. The very mountain the Eyrie rests on does not quiver as it would if Vhagar were to roar her might at them all, nor do the torches at the walls tremble and clatter to the ground as they would if Meleys came to roost her voice to these halls. The screech does not even send the soft hairs at Jace's nape standing tall with beastly fright as Caraxes's distorted snarls often do, or twist the wriggling guts in his belly into sailor's knots as the Cannibal's hiss at hunt did.
In fact, at any other time, it'd soothe his mind and allay all his wayward fears as flutes and harps did the lords and ladies at King's Landing's court.
This dragonsong had been the lullaby Joffrey and Aegon the Younger and Viserys the Youngest had been raised upon, after all, crooned at them when the moon fell and its dancer took to the skies, carrying on her spread wings spring's green and on her crest the pearls of the Velaryons, bright with the moon's shine. Its source's head Jace had borne upon his lap dutifully, pleased to find the unruly beast had a fondness for him, even if she had scratched his thighs bloody with her horns and croaked in what Baela's laughter had belied as amusement. Its certainty he'd followed as a bloody comet in starlit flights, knowing even as a boy of one-and-ten that he and his Vermax could never be lost so long as they had another dragon's call to lead them home.
This cry, promising blood or no, was as comforting to him as his mother’s voice.
Alas, these are times like no others, times of war and banners and burdens greater than the shoulders bearing them. Peace could not so easily be found amidst the storm brewing above them, waiting to rain down dragonglass and demon's blood as the Doom did all fool enough to remain in Valyria as the fourteen fires raged and bubbled for ten long years, waiting to arise and pay back all slights ten-fold.
Peace could not so easily be delivered now onto Jacaerys's uneasy heart, even if its deliverer was Princess Baela Targaryen and her wicked Moondancer.
(Jace had last heard Moondancer’s bewitching tune as he’d dived off Dragonstone's edge, filling the membranes that lifted Vermax's wings as bawdy songs and wind lifted sails. It had been a farewell then, if only for a time, and a gift as well, wishing him fortune and goodwill in his trials ahead. He'd seen a shimmer of green at the edges of his vision, far beyond the scarlet bulk of the regal Meleys, cursing him with a bite of longing for that which he was leaving, that which he'd had each morrow and each night for so very long that he could hardly imagine its absence now.
But still it had been a gift, a dragon's pact. Come back to me live and well, said both rider and beast in their sinuous way, no words and great intent, as it ought to be with dragons. Come back to me and hear my song once more, as you have for half your life now. I shall sing it for you then. All there's left for you to do is return.
Jacaerys had taken it for the fretful challenge it was, dipped in fright and Targaryen red with horrible possibilities, and he'd urged Vermax to spread his wings further and screech his very own farewell back. His temperamental beast had, something pleased in it, always rising to baits and challenges faster than his rider, the wild fury in him a mirror of Jace's secret trove of rages. Vermax had understood, as Jacaerys had: they would return, aye, as they always had, no matter how far they wandered or how quick they flew. Dragonstone was Vermax's lair and now Jace's as well, Prince of Dragonstone he'd been named, and not even the Stranger would rip them from it just yet.
As Vermax batted his wings, spurned on by his rider's nervous conviction and unshakeable purpose, Jace had thought to look back at Dragonstone and burn into the soft flesh of his eyelids the likeness of his home. He wouldn't see it for a moon if he was lucky, perhaps even two if he was not, longer than he'd gone without the sight of stone peaks and smoking mountains and black beaches of dragonglass since he was a boy and Joff a babe. He felt sick for the scent of home already, salt and smoke and brimstone, and for the crisp winds, heavy with lightning and rain in autumn and brisk with fury in summer.
Already the tunnels of the Dragonmont called to him in sweet tones, brimming with sweltering heat that recalled to him being a babe with a hatchling nosing at him jealously, hissing at all but his mother when they came close, already viewing the boy as rider and treasure both. And oh, the small towns with the weathered sailors and fishermen and the grinning barmaids and quick-handed mothers, full of hard people that were unfailingly kind and happy girls that gave Rhaena flowers and sang her songs, and giggling boys that made fools of themselves to charm Baela. Jace and his brothers were well-liked round Dragonstone, as was his mother, who made a point to wander round inns and paths with a son or stepdaughter by her side once every moon, seeing to the needs of her people with her feet in their land, and not only in her throne room.
Laughter was never very far in Dragonstone, dreary as it was seen by all foreign to it. Jace missed it dearly even as he departed from it. But he did not look back, for madness lay in the ways of the past, he knew; no man could keep his wits about him if he wept for what lay behind him, blind to the world before him. Jace was a man like any other, ordinary except in the ways that he was not, and he would suffer and strife as any man would. He would have to do better than most, however, for he was a son and a Prince and a dragonlord, and one day, he'd be a husband and a king. Moreso, he was Strong, for all his mother and he had spent six long years and a lifetime despite pretending it was not so, protecting the ears of the children from the barbs and their eyes from the truth for as long as they could.
Still he would not look back. If he did, he was lost. Mayhaps, in truth, they all were.)
Though the cry is no threat, is more greeting and warning than assured peril, Lady Jeyne Arryn's guards startle, hands falling on swords with the clatter of chainmail and steel, the heads of courtiers and smallfolk waiting to give their petitions swiveling about with fear. Dragons are no common sight round the Vale, rendering all who approached both Jacaerys and his beast frightful and wondering in equal measure, and the panic rapidly overcomes all vestiges of awe. Ladies rush away from the windows with screams and rustles of heavy skirts, men gazing at all corners of the room like Moondancer would crash through the pale marble and bathe them all in flame for the pleasure of it. The smallfolk huddle close and begin to pray to the Mother for mercy and the Father for protection, holding children close to their breast and folding over to give them what shelter they can provide.
Once, long ago, Jace's mother had done as much for Luke and Jace both, bearing the Dowager Queen's assault in their stead with nary a flinch. She had not thought to hesitate, putting her body before theirs as shield and comfort both as easily as others might draw breath. No prayer had left her lips as the King's dagger hovered above her eye, threatening to claim from her what was demanded of her son, her dearest Lucerys. No prayer had left Jacaerys either as he shoved Luke behind him, into the safety of Lord Corlys, his grandsire in name, a protection as old and true and brave as the seas he'd voyaged, just as the men shoving children behind mothers now.
Their mother had bled then for their folly without a word of reprimand or complaint or pain. She had never begrudged them the thread in her flesh or the chip in her bones or the way her hand was never been quite the same afterwards. She had never mourned the blood she'd lost, or the former friend of hers drawing it. She had thanked the gods no harm had come to them and kissed their brows, scolding them for their recklessness as she tucked them into bed for seven nights, three spent on Driftmark and four on Dragonstone.
But though she'd given thanks to nebulous gods perhaps old or perhaps new, she had not prayed. After that, in truth, neither had Jace.
Seeing the fear that turns worn faces wide-eyed and ghastly, tears running and hands shaking in plea, Jacaerys feels reason return from amidst the cold dread encroaching his heart. He straightens his shoulders as a Prince ought to, as his mother does, and forces his feet forth, lifting his hands in the manner of the placating lord.
"Peace!" He calls, keeping his voice firm and his manner soothing, leaving no room for doubt. "It is no Green beast coming to your halls! Her cry is familiar to me, my Lady, and she means us no harm!"
Lady Jeyne narrows her eyes, as frigid and light a blue as the surcoats of her men, her mouth curling into an unyielding line. Despite the passage of the years, Lady Jeyne remains as beautiful a woman as the voices of the Realm claim, coils of honeyed hair woven with the blue flowers of her gardens and rubies as red as the Redfort's coat of arms looped round her pale throat. It is a louder claim than she realizes to one such as him, accustomed as he is to the danger of rumor and suggestion, or perhaps it is precisely as bold as she wishes it to be, much like the field of red the embroidered falcons of her gown fly across. Perhaps she has found in cloth and jewelry that which she cannot claim in bride’s cloaks and names—her lover’s mark, bold and true, present by her side now even as Jessamyn Redfort’s long face and earnest smile are not.
When she rises, she stands taller than many a knight, as Jace is told many women of the Vale and the North oft do. She needs only to raise her chin, looking down on Jace with the bare beginnings of hostility, for her people to pin their gazes on him, some mistrust overshadowing the fear swimming in their eyes. He'd call it a ploy if he did not see the tension of the Lady Jeyne's fingers at her sides, leaving the skin of her knuckles pulled tight and stark, all the color gone from her cheeks leaving her looking half a ghost and half a wraith. The fear beyond the ice is real as anything.
As is the threat of her guards, looming with hands still at their hilts, ready to draw steel.
Jace almost barks a laugh, a reflexive, bitter thing. Lady Jeyne's alliance with the Blacks is a settled matter, meant to be sealed in dragonfire in nary a fortnight, a moat built on the mount of Aemma Arryn's ashes and Lady Jeyne being the twice contested Maiden of Arryn as well. Jace had returned to the Eyrie after ensuring the support of the Three Sisters merely as a courtesy, wishing to discuss tepid details and arrangements for whichever dragonrider was to stay with Lady Jeyne before he made his departure and headed to White Harbor, the first of his Northern designations. It had been a simple act of goodwill; nothing went quite as far in times of banners and war, same as dragon wings roused the loyalty of men far more passionately than that of any raven. Jace had been right about that, and he was right about this.
Yet how quickly indeed did an alliance all but sealed begin to turn to bitter dust in the wind, when the threat of the unknown came a-knocking. 'Twas a bitter pill, yet in no way unfamiliar, in no way surprising. War was bitter and life was not much sweeter, if you intended to survive it. Lady Jeyne is both. Jace supposes it is how she has managed to keep the Eyrie's ancient weirwood seat under her, despite even the most distant of cousins having perhaps the better claim on account of the cock between his legs.
"What is the meaning of this, Prince Jacaerys?" Lady Jeyne asks, the velvet lining of courtesies doing naught to disguise the steel of her tongue.
"The dragon is one of ours, Lady Jeyne," Jace responds most agreeably, lowering his hands now that the worst of the screams has ceased. "It may yet be the very one to protect you for the duration of the war, as we earlier discussed."
"Ah." Her lip curls, half a snarl and half a sneer, and finally thins into something that could almost be affable. "A fellow Targaryen, then?"
Jace's cheek twitches against the jibe, gentle and sly though it is. His temper smolders, fiery where it collects in his chest, a snarling thing that claws at his ribs as Vermax does the ground when Jace curbs his rage by means of word and touch. He can feel his mount curled at his belly, a burning coil twisting within the frozen wriggle of his guts, itching to sink teeth into the object of Jacaerys's ire as he has since he was naught but a hatchling biting at his swaddling clothes for their offense against the Prince. The reminder of what Vermax wishes to do—for him and yet not, always wishing to protect Jace and yet always wishing for blood—winds tight as a fisherman's knot to the drop of his stomach. Here lies the beast that embodies all the fire in Jace, demanding retribution for all slights and a fist to all faces that sneer his name and twist its sound into bastard.
His very best companion, his Vermax, a part of his soul as much as Jace a piece of his, wishing now and always to set the world alight to give Jace the beauty of a pyre. Always chewing at his fingers when they were drake and child, mindful to sting but never maim, explaining in flushed spots the matter of teeth and quick offense to a boy who'd yet to meet either. Hissing jealously at all but the babe’s mother when they came close, already viewing Jace as rider and treasure both, as the Prince giggled on and on. Perpetually stuck at Jace's side, nosing once at his knees and now curving down to do so at his neck, the heat a comforting reprieve that almost made him say the words of dragonfire mindlessly, the trick his beast had used on him for years and years on goats and walls and now people as well.
(Jace's lord father had said once that Vermax had in him all the ill-temperament Jacaerys did not. His mother the crown Princess had laughed till her cheeks were red and her eyes wet patches of indigo in the sunlight, merriment shimmering in them as her son and his beast rolled about in the cliffs of Dragonstone. They were like children, pushing each other down and pressing teeth to necks both scaled and of flesh, growling and grunting and laughing, a tangle of wings and arms and tails. For all they'd struggled ferociously, though, until Jace was red in the face and bubbling blithely, all threat of ripped throats was an illusion easily vanquished, as both dragon and boy gentled their offending teeth to nuzzling noses and tender snouts that said what all Dragonkeepers in the island knew: though both Prince and beast could bring upon the other harm, the sun would first set on the East than their blood flow from each other's teeth.
The future queen had seen as much, beaming pride rendering her eyes bright and her face soft as it so rarely used to be in King's Landing. See, Laenor? She'd said, brushing at the spots of dirt on Jace's cheek and rubbing her thumb at the scrapes on his palms, raw with Vermax's scales. He's just as ferocious a little thing as his mount.
Jace's lord father had snorted, the furrow to his brow smoothing as he ruffled his son's hair. They looked nothing alike, he and this father his mother had provided for him in name, though not in the blood rushing through Jace's veins. But it was this man that had taught him and his brothers to swim from their mother's arms and into his, to hold a sword and swing, to tell the time off nothing but the sun's climb in the sky. It was this man that had soothed them through common colds and comforted them through the great terror of Redspots, holding Jace and then Luke in his arms morrow and night with barely a year in-between both bouts, as their mother wept in her chambers and bruised her fingers on the twist of her rings, the only one in their family who had never caught the disease in childhood.
This man had not been his mother's husband, Jace knew, aside from a cloak his mother had saved for Jace's future bride. But he had been her dearest friend and the father of her children, in the way he told them tall tales of voyages and Stepstones and climbed into bed with them in the stormiest nights in Dragonstone, and the manner in which he took Luke flying upon Seasmoke as oft as Syrax and her rider took Jace upon the skies, their hatchlings trailing behind them and screeching the joy of their bonded.
Ser Harwin Strong was of his blood. This, Jace knew as certainly as he'd been born knowing Vermax was his own. But Ser Laenor Velaryon was his father, in name and word and love, if not in everything else.
Aye, vicious little thing, had said Jace's lord father, each word soft at the edges, tripping over the other in the honey-soaked ways of affection. He takes after you, then, our boy.
Jace's mother had laughed, a sound echoed by Syrax's squawk as Vermax clashed into her in the sky, leaning her shoulder into that of her husband. That image of them, weary and still smiling their fondness, is the last that remains of them in Jace's head.
That he does, Laenor. That he does.)
A dragon, Jace knows, is not as simple a beast as a dog or even a wolf. Fire is unruly and destructive and utterly unstoppable, just as the gods so many worship, and what are dragons but fire contained in scales and bones and lethality, coiled into the shape of flesh? Is it any surprise, then, that their nature is that of the flames within the Dragonmont, claiming all they wished for their own with easy temerity, with impunity? After all, who could stop them? Who would dare try?
Dragons are on this day as they have always been: unbending with all and compliant with few, unquenchable in their caprices and most oft tumultuous in their brazen desires. To seek to tame them, then, is folly. To attempt to force them is naught but the act of one wishing for the Stranger's hand.
A dragonrider knows a truth he is never to forget, should he wish to keep in hand his life and his dragon alike. He knows, in his heart of hearts, black and fiery as the insides of the Dragonmont, that nothing can be done to bend a dragon's will to a shape other than its own. A dragon is what he is, a beast capable of great monstrosity and destruction and delighting in both, even if he will find in his rider something to cherish and love in his turn. A rider and a dragon are one flame in two bodies, and one shall always burn brighter and the other shall always risk falling to the first. Between a dragon and he who claims him there is love, trust, faith—and still there is ruin.
Vermax and Jace are as one, from the cradle to their very last fire, but only in the way of sea and sailor; one can kill and the other knows this, and still he loves and trusts and wanders into the depths of it, courting death with as much respect as there is affection. Perhaps dragonlords are temerous as their mounts in that. Mayhaps this marriage of the blood and the fire, which will always end in ashes, is the thread that binds them. But Jace is not fool enough to forget as the dragonlords of old did.
Be it by means of the dark magics of Asshai or the coaxing words of Valyria, by whip or chain, a dragon cannot be forced to do another's will. He never will, and all who try otherwise will be dust in the wind or food for his belly soon enough. A dragonrider is no different, in his way. A foolish dragonrider is no different at all.
In all truths both old and new, Jace cannot curb Vermax's nature, nor can Vermax sway his own. Still they are as one. Still Vermax is the certainty in Jace where there is none.
Still he ignores the snarling of his beast in his belly, chafing at the Lady's slight as only the proud and powerful do. Jace is a Targaryen and a dragonrider, has been from the moment Vermax hatched to him in the cot. The blood of the dragon runs thick and hot in his veins, burning all else. But for all that he's as much a beast as the green flying round the Eyrie now, warning all who may wish to strike it of the Prince's protection, Jacaerys need not be a monster. He hath no need nor wish to be another Maegor upon this earth.
He shall leave that task to his uncles, as quick to anger as he and as slow to forgive as their mounts, as quick with their mouths as they are cruel with their fingers. They shall do better at the task than he and his kin. They always have.
It is trying to push the simmering anger down deep into his bones, besieged by flesh and skin both. A practiced struggle, made swift by many a year at the task, teeth that sometimes feel sharp as steel sheathed by a mouth he forces away from a snarl and into the curve of a wan, faint smile. Something affable, even as his hands come together against the small of his back, a coil of violence contained beneath a velvet cloak. Jace is the blood of the dragon, but the blood of the Strongs runs through his veins, tempering all the maddening heat with something older and no lighter. It is said the Strongs of Harrenhal are as the Starks of Winterfell—come from the oldest blood of all, that of the First Men, ancient in ways few could ever hope to understand. They were a harsh, stoic people, as wild as they were cold, and they could endure the darkest nights and longest blizzards with nary a cry, patience the blade they wielded best.
This is the blade Jace sharpens now, though it is heavier and harder than that of anger. He is here not in the name of war, but in the name of peace. He will keep his head. He will curb his rage. He will be patient, even as the truth weighs heavy and restless. Strong as Jace is, there would never be a claim he had that would not be denied. Targaryen he'd been born, there would yet still never be a slight he wouldn't wish to repay two-fold. Velaryon he'd become, there was not a single storm the gods could send he wouldn't weather, even if it cost him limb and bone. Mayhaps it was folly to try and forge these lumps of coal into the Valyrian steel needed to lead the kingdom, and more foolish still to try and make the hand holding the sword a kind one despite. But still Jacaerys would try.
What was the point otherwise?
"Aye," Jace intones, dipping his head, ever so genial. Playing the fool as she plays the host. "Likelier than not, 'tis so. May yet be a Velaryon, however. My brothers have dragons of their own, and Arrax is big enough for war."
Lady Jeyne opens her mouth to speak, her eyes chip of ice off the Wall, but alas, her words are forever lost when the wooden doors of the High Hall open and a steward bustles in, red-faced and rather harried-looking. He bothers not with propriety or courtesy, running through the room in an uneasy whirl of blue muslin and dark brown hair, falling into a bow before the lord's high seat, where Lady Jeyne shall remain for as long as she yet lives.
"M'lady," gasps the steward, sweat glistening at his temples. "Begging your pardon, but the matter is of the utmost importance."
"Rise and speak, Elfric," Lady Jeyne responds, her face cast in steel.
Elfric rises, his jaw set into a quivering line, and presses a hand to his chest, seeming to find words foreign and lost. Jace knows the words he seeks, could say them in his stead and rid them of their pain, but it is neither his place nor a clever thing to do. He played the fool about dragon and rider both to Lady Jeyne, even though he'd know Moondancer's cry even if he had no ears to listen with and no memory to speak of. Alas, the fool he shall have to remain.
Even so, he does not bother feigning surprise when Elfric finally admits, voice thick with strain: "The Princess Baela of House Targaryen has landed in our courtyard, m'lady, astride her beast. She hurries to your seat as we speak, escorted by the Maester."
"Did she say what matter required such urgency as for her to arrive unannounced?" Lady Jeyne asks, cocking a sharp brow.
Elfric shakes his head. "No, m'lady. She demanded an audience at once and would not be deterred."
Despite himself, Jace's mouth twitches. Alas, that's Baela indeed, unyielding and as adverse to compromise as her Moondancer, wanting it all or wanting nothing and doing naught by halves.
(When she turned one and ten, she'd wished to fight as a knight and so her father had given her a wooden sword and taught her as he'd taught Luke and Jace, finding in her a far more proficient blade than in them. Before her next name day had dawned, Baela had run circles round Luke and Jace both, pounding them to the dirt with a rogue's grin and a dragon's fiery gaze. With the blunt tip of her oaken blade to his throat, Jace had seen in her the entire world and its ruin, and he'd smiled so wide his bruised cheeks had ached, for he'd wanted it all.
Princess Baela, our bold Dragonknight, he'd said, half a tease and half a praise. She had not flushed as he was wont to do, but smiled instead, pleased as she rarely was, tapping her blade to the yapping pulse at his throat as tenderly as a kiss to the cheek. He had flushed, at that, dipping his eyes with a flutter to his lashes, even as she helped him to his feet.
The rogue Princess, Luke grumbled in agreement, rubbing at his swollen wrists sullenly.
Even then, Baela's startled laughter, raucous and rough at the edges with exertion, was the sweetest sound Prince Jacaerys had yet to hear with his own two ears.)
However, his mirth lasts not. Jace is no fool. A dragonrider would not be allowed out in times of war for meandering flights or banalities, much less sent to the Eyrie when their allegiance remained unclear still to all except its Lady and the Prince of Dragonstone. He'd sent a raven from the Three Sisters before returning to the Eyrie, confirming both had bent the knee to Jacaerys and his Queen both and the terms of their alliance, aye, but it hardly could've had the time to arrive in half a day and half a night, nor his mother mustered a complaint or a dragonrider to guard the Eyrie in so short a time. Nor would she, so adamant in her attempt to staunch the ceaseless oozing of war's wound, resort to dragonfire over disagreeable terms, much less those her trusted heir had agreed upon.
There was, alas, but one reason for a dragon—for its rider—to present itself before Lady and Prince alike. News too sensitive in time and matter alike had befallen them all, and it had been entrusted to Baela to deliver them at once. Of the dragons at the Blacks' bosom who'd yet to taste battle or sharpen their teeth upon its calamity, Moondancer was the fastest. The distance Vermax could make in half a day at haste, Moondancer could cross in half of that with fervor still swelling despite. To send her was to warn Jacaerys, who knew her and her rider, of the battles awaiting.
To send her was to say tragedy had made its lair in their home for the third time in as many days.
Despite himself, Jace feels his blood run cold once more with fright, a fist squeezed tight and bloody round his shriveling heart. He thinks of his mother, face ashen with childbed and eyes dull with grief, trembling on stiff feet behind the Painted Table and refusing more than a single draft of milk of the poppy. I need my wits about me, she'd insisted when Jace had tried to wheedle and needle after she'd returned from meeting the Greens' envoys. She'd stood tall and proud as any Queen ought to, the line of her spine unyielding as the Dragonmont beneath the burden of the Seven Kingdoms, beneath the weight of the crown and its demand of war and duty of peace. Yet still there had been a sheen of sweat to her brow and an odd hue to her complexion, and still her arm had been cold and clammy where it looped through his, so alarmingly different from the line of heat she'd always been.
Jacaerys had supported most of her weight all the way from the Painted Table and to her chambers, merely a moment's respite allowed to a new monarch. When she'd sat, ginger and wincing and going paler still, he'd thought for one horrid moment that she'd faint and never open her eyes again, leaving him to reclaim the Throne without blood and fix the Kingdoms without war all on his own. She had not. Yet still, when he'd kissed her cheek before his departure, it'd been cold as Dragonstone's water lapping at his feet, cold as she had never been, even after Joff and Aegon the Younger and Viserys, their youngest.
What if it's her who's gone to the Stranger now, gone to the only lands in the world where Jace can surely not follow, by means of seas nor wind? What if childbed fever took hold on the morrow and she'd already gone, the place where her dead babe had lied rotting her from within? Or if a blade in the dark had been missed by her husband and slipped past her Queensguard, finding in her heart a ready mark from her enemies? What if Jace were to find himself without a mother, the one thing he'd never had want of, meant to ascend as King on the morrow, with his mother's ashes still heavy in the wind?
What is he to do then but rage and weep, before all Seven of the Kingdoms and the burden of preserving them fell down on him and his slight shoulders? Before he's to be a King, a husband and a father to three children that ought to be his brothers, all because of the Greens and this treacherous war of theirs?
Jacaerys shudders and tries to shake away such black thoughts. His mother shall be fine, he reminds himself stubbornly. Maester Gerardys had said as much when Jace had questioned him before he mounted Vermax, demanding he keep a close eye on the Queen's condition and nurse her health back to the summer sheen it'd boasted before the untimely labors and dead babe. Your loyalty is to your Queen and her heir, he'd reminded the man, voice low and sharp. Do well, and do not forget. Maester Gerardys had nodded placidly enough, though there'd been something or the other nervous to his manner, as though he had not known Jace since he was half as tall as him. Such had had to be enough for Jace, though how could it ever?
Still, his mother ought to be well. Syrax will help her regain her strength swiftly, he knows, as Vermax did he when he fell ill in childhood. It was the way of dragons and riders. It had been for as long as magic had been at all. The Queen had her mount and she had her loyal husband, mad and impudent though he may be, and she had Maester Gerardys and her maids, and she was not alone.
Jace frets, wondering what else it could be, then. His grandsire, who'd taught him the ways of knots and ships and fish? Had the Sea Snake's wounds struck him dead now, when he'd pledged to Jace's mother once more, after the uneasy distance the death of Jace's lord father had wrought between them? Was Luke—frightened and small and brave despite it all, his little Luke—to be Lord of the Tides now, in the midst of a war, when he'd have to lead a fleet? What of his wife? How did she fare? And her granddaughters? Were Baela and Rhaena to grieve a grandsire as they'd grieved a mother, as the Greens spat in the face of their loss once more?
Surely not. Jace's grandsire had stood tall as High Tide but two days ago, voice low and yet booming still through Dragonstone's halls like a whale's cry. Lord Corlys Velaryon had no dragon to speak of, nor would he ever, but still he roared in his way, and still he commanded with one fleet the fear of the Targaryen’s great beasts. The well of his life would not so easily run dry, for he was as a drowning sailor clinging to the wreckage of a sunken ship, fighting the tides to his very last breath even as his lungs filled to bursting with water. Mayhaps the Seven have preserved me for this one last fight, he’d told his Queen at their first council, as placid about this as he had been about Jace’s blisters when he’d taught he and Lucerys the ways of the rope. There was no fear in him at the storm looming ahead, ready to claim his lifeblood as the Triarchy had tried, once and for all.
(All his fear had gone to Luke instead, pale as a sickly babe and with a frightened mare’s look in his eyes, gripping the edge of their fiery Painted Table until his nails cracked in bloody stubs against the smooth dragonglass. He’d hidden it beneath the sleeves of his doublet, had curled the tips of his fingers into the safety of his palms with the nervous ease of long practice, but Jacaerys had seen the angry red flesh and the tremble his brother sought to hide. He understood the weight of the eyes upon him as only one who knew his name did not match his blood could, for he was now one head of his mother’s, and as much a reflection of the ruler she’d be as her own likeness was. It was too heavy a burden for his young shoulders, Jace knew, and yet how was he to claim it all for his own, as he’d done since that blood-soaked night in Driftmark? How could he take Luke’s hands into his own as he had in boyhood, mindless of the torn flesh against his own hard palms, sheltering with his body the frame of his brother?
He could not. War was afoot now, a knife at all their throats, and it’d put them all to the torch as easily as wood if they did not keep their wits about them. They were dragonriders, he and his brother, just as their mother. They were not boys any longer. They were the wings the future of the Realm sat above. They were the Prince of Dragonstone, heir to the Iron Throne, and the future Lord of the Tides, as much a King of the Narrow Sea as Daemon had ever been. They were dragons in a pit of snakes of green, as they’d always been, and now they had to let wings of black spread across the sky as though Balerion, the late King Viserys's mount, had once again come alive.
They were the sons of the Queen and theirs were the duties that lay heaviest, aside from her own. They were to bear them as such. Jace could no more spare his brother than his mother had been able to spare Visenya the knife of time. He’d wanted to, so viciously his throat had swelled with it, the words tasting of ash and blood on his tongue. He had wanted to hold Luke’s hands and protect him from it all, even if it meant flying to all Seven of the Kingdoms in his stead without a moment’s rest.
But Luke, for all his fright, had never taken kindly to being the one left behind. He put on a brave face each time, even as tears found their home in his eyes, and he made his face a mask of stone so very much like Mother’s, it was eerie in the sweetest manner to behold. His brother would not perish as birds did, Jace knew, crushed with nary a peck and trill. Luke had always been vicious when pushed to the limits of his self-possession, armed with bared teeth and fiery spit, and he would not be as the dragons in the Pit, chained and fed as whelps were. He was a drake, but big or small, a dragon was a dragon. It was no slave, it was no pet, it was no horse. It was no dog to be kept in a kennel and forgotten for a season.
And Luke, boy or not, would put on a brave face and rally support for his mother’s cause, even if Jace locked him in Sea Dragon Tower and bid none let him leave at all. He’d call to his Arrax and climb out the window and onto his back, shaking like weirwood leaves in the autumn chill as he’d be. Why, Jace knew his brother would first die with terror in his breast in their mother’s name than remain snug and safe while those he loved fought the dragonrider’s war.
And so he’d spoken, willing his mother with his gaze to listen, to acquiesce, to show her people a most decisive Queen, even as he could feel his brother’s fear and hers despite. He’d willed her with all but words, as he’d willed from her the truth six long years ago, pressing his hands to the void heat of the Painted Table so he did not press them to his brother’s. She had looked back at him, a maid of the waves adrift in an ocean of grief already, and seen a son and another and more still. Jace was her heir. Jace was the hand that carried out her will, and so he asked her to will it. Her eyes had said, but you were a babe only a day or so ago. Where did the time go?
Am I to send you out to uncertain lands with nothing but wings and parchment to guide you and protect you? Am I to pray for a safe return each night? Is the thread that binds the Kingdoms to be that of my children?
Jace’s had said one thing only. Yes.
She’d sent them, frightened little Luke of the tides and dragonstone little Jace of the flame, one to the storm and one to the cold. And off they’d both gone, both with parchment in hand and wings beneath their backs, her thread of black to bind the kingdoms as one.)
The Sea Snake and the Black Queen, Jace reasons, would not so easily fall, be it to disease or sword or poison. They had yet to bare their fangs fully, and they would not yet die without doing so. All this—and more—does Prince Jacaerys think in but an instant, as the Lady Jeyne frowns at her steward. The fears of a dead mother and another grandsire at the Stranger’s hall, of a crown that should not be his for another lifetime, are wickedly persistent, but he straightens his back beneath the weight of them and waits for his betrothed to stride through the open doors amidst the murmurs and whispers of the Eyrie’s court.
He is his mother’s son as Luke is his lord father’s, and he will show no fear, no weakness, no chink in his scales amidst allies he had no trust for beyond battle. He is a dragon amongst falcons. He will not be the blade to the heart of this alliance so soon after its birth.
However, it is not until Princess Baela strides through the High Hall’s great doors, weaving past guards and ladies and petitioners as needle does thread, that the Prince of Dragonstone thinks that mayhaps it is not a mother or a grandsire that has gone under the Stranger’s cloak. That, mayhaps, it is the very worst thought—the very unthinkable one, so preposterously implausible it had slid right through the cracks of all other sensible horrors—that has come to pass.
A chill goes down his spine and carves for itself a home in his belly, squirming as the unruly gusts of Shipbreaker Bay, knocking everything that lived and didn’t to its death quite callously. It was a weather most foul, bringing even Dragonstone’s tempest to stark shame, and Jace’s own brother had doubtless been upon those winds for a time by now. By all accounts he may have already returned home, to their mother and her protection, to the safety of fire and brimstone—but what if he had not? Storm’s End was infamous for its rage, from whom none were afforded impunity, and the Prince Lucerys would be no different. If the sky had opened its wrathful tears and screams upon Luke and his mount…
Jace feels sick burn the back of his throat, which tightens in the manner of the hangman’s noose with each of Baela’s piercing steps, followed by the hurried steps of the Maester. Oh, gods, he thinks as the High Hall begins to swim before his eyes as Dragonstone once had, when he and Luke had fallen while climbing the hatcheries of the Dragonmont and Jace had gotten a draft of the poppy’s milk for the pain of it.
(Silly boys they’d been, thinking themselves so clever to do their running and climbing where none could see them and thus none could scold them or warn their mother of their mischief, sneaking out of bed at the hour of owl and through the halls they’d learned like old texts. It’d been just a bit of fun, harmless and sweet, a new exploit to tell Baela and Rhaena about when they returned from their moon in Driftmark, escorted by their father. Until Luke’s feet had slipped on the dragonstone, that is, smoothed by dragonfire before the time of the Conqueror and smoother still then with the years and years that had passed. Jace had caught him, of course, hadn’t even thought not to, and they’d gone down in a tangle of shrieks and limbs they laughed about endlessly come next season, to Rhaena’s anguish and Baela’s annoyance.
They’d not laughed that night, though, when the weight of two wiry boys had been slight and still too much for Jace’s hip, which had fractured like old marble when a blow landed on it, turning his shrieks to howling and crying. Luke had grown frightened at that, doe-eyed and pale beneath his mop of curls, for Jace had always been quiet and quieter, even as he grew bruised under the tutelage of the master-at-arms and bloody at the task of riding his green beast. Jace had lain weeping in the flickering darkness, his brother a heavy weight against his chest, and told himself, he weighs nothing. Nothing at all. He is my brother. He weighs less than the wind.
And still he'd not been able to rise, finding his leg stiff and unable to bear his weight without blinding, maddening pain. Each attempt had been met with greater pain and cries smothered against his arm in vicious bites, for the Prince refused to frighten his brother further with his quivering screams, much as it burnt to hold them. Jacaerys had huffed between breaths that it hardly hurt at all, that all would be well in no time at all, that there was no trouble in hand. They'd been lies, if pretty ones, and Lucerys had always been clever, even when he'd been young and foolish as green boys are. Scarcely had Jacaerys tried for a smile amidst sweat and tears than Luke had hoisted his larger frame onto his back, grunting terribly all the while, and nary had Jace voiced alarm, biting down on a cry of pain at being jostled, than his brother had claimed, it is quite alright, brother. You're not heavy. Not heavy at all.
Still had his voice cracked and legs trembled with the effort, each step a slow-dawning agony. Jace had said, put me down. You can let me go. We'll find a way, eh? We always do.
Lucerys had taken another crumbling step and replied, through halting breaths: You are my brother. You've carried me since I was Joff's age, and now I shall carry you. This is the way.
And thus he'd carried his weeping, silent brother through the Dragonmont, even as it seemed he would tip over and fall once more. Jace had vowed to not make one a sound, for each step was another pain he forced upon Lucerys, and he would not force another if he could spare it. The cavern of his mouth lay bloody and bitten to tatters by the time they emerged into the black dunes of Dragonstone's shores, the hour of the nightingale dyeing the sky in the first streaks of ruddy red and blushing pink. The shrieking of their mounts—who'd landed by their sides as they made the stumbling, halting trek across the beach—was such that at last the guards came to investigate the cause, finding crumpled on the sand the two princes, looking worse for wear than they had since the Lady Laena's funeral upon Driftmark.
A maid had been sent to summon the Princess while the boys were carried to Prince Jacaerys's chambers, where Maester Gerardys fell upon him and his bruised hip, swollen like a plum, with poultices and herbs and plasters. A dozen times and more still had Jace thought to scream as Maester Gerardys worked, wracked by so tempestuous a barrage of pain, he shook with it from the tips of his damp hair to the balls of his filthy feet. A dozen times and more still had he held each cry in, smothering them all to breathless whimpering, forcing upon his gritted teeth something approaching a smile for his brother, who claimed it was his duty to stay by Jace's side and would not be persuaded away.
It does not hurt at all, said the Prince to himself, convincing his feverish mind as Luke had tried to convince him. It doesn't hurt in the least. It's just a bruise. It's so silly an ache. Doesn't hurt at all, not at all…
Maester Gerardrys had solved the matter at last with a honeyed draft of warm milk of the poppy, which had gone down like swill and nearly came up in half a breath. The world swam then, bright and colorful as only Pentoshi paints and Tyroshi dyes were, flames of red and blue licking at the walls and bleeding pink puddles to the floor. He'd laughed himself silly with it, seeing the black dragonstone and creeping dawn from the windows blur into a color that reminded him quite a bit of Arrax's belly, which he'd giggled to Luke, quite merry.
Neither Maester nor servants had understood, but Lucerys had smiled with eyes of jade that were distinct amongst the haze. He'd held his brother's hand in his own as at last his mother arrived, harried and drawn with concern, and had not let go until Jace slumbered and awoke once more.
Yes, Luke had agreed, resting his head at his brother's breast, so very heavy and yet not heavy at all. Quite so.)
Oh, the world blurs now as well, like blood in the whirling tides, the pale marble of the High Hall marred by the blushing hues of Lady Jeyne's gown and the flickering flames of the torches on the walls. Why, he can almost see the blood puddled pink as dawn on the floors, the green of his brother's eyes, the only clear thing in a world gone hazy and mad. His head pounds with it, as though he were lacking in air, and perhaps he is. His lungs feel bloated as the faces of the drowning, aching and clogged, and he fears they may fail him in a moment or two, regardless of who he stands before.
There is a touch of blithe hysteria to the thought that he may yet collapse before the Maiden of the Vale, lovely as spring flowers and frigid as the castle she presides over, making a fool of himself at the worst of times. He's unsure he can help it. He's unsure of much of anything, holding onto sanity with the bruising of his knuckles against the lean muscle of his back, kneading until all feeling flees his hands.
He'd sent his brother to Storm's End, and now here Baela was, coming to a stop before Lady Jeyne nary a few steps from him. The Maester shuffles past her and to his Lady’s side in a most awkward, helpless dance, but Jace hardly notices. Baela is the one thing he sees. She's a distinct figure in a most disconcerting hall of pale, drawn faces, a taste of home in a place so very far from it. She casts a dashing, austere visage in a black dragonrider's coat, supple leather molded to the shape of a dragon's scales, her pale hair woven into intricate braids threaded with black steel and black pearls alike flowing into one sole plait of silver and ebony at the middle of her back. Her gloved hands fold at her front as they have for as long as Jace has known her, a warrior’s grace flowing like water through her smooth joints and to the tips of her rough fingers hidden beneath worn leather. They are still, so very still, as perfect a contrast to Jace’s hands quivering anew beneath his cloak as night is to day.
She is beautiful, her face set in steel beneath the rich brown tones of her skin as though it were the sheath to the blade of her bones. The light of day streams through the window and pools in the fragile, burnished skin beneath her eyes, glinting gold in the pathways of her cheeks, her lifted chin that of a Princess both unused and unwilling to bend—that of a future Queen, so very stern and yet so full of light.
And still, Jacaerys cannot miss that she is clad in naught but black, in the manner of a Targaryen gone not to talk, but to war. From the soles of her boots, the ones Luke gave her for her name day when she wore a hole through her old favorites, to the pearls in her hair, Baela has appeared in haste before ally and betrothed alike in the manner of the deepest extremities of mourning, dyed in soot and shrouded in silver, standing unbent but not unbroken beneath the great shadow cast by the Stranger. He could dismiss it for histrionics, a statement drawn in sands as dark as Dragonstone’s shores, a warning of the price for denying the Black Queen.
But Jace’s mother does not wish to rule with flame and fist, and she would wait for word from him before sending Baela to turn the Eyrie into Harrenhal's most unfortunate companion. She had not. She had sent Baela regardless, without the scrolls of an envoy in hand, with the hairs at her forehead and nape made damp with sweat and tall with the wind, telling him the secrets of her haste in each raised curl. Telling him in the jut of her jaw, sharper with tension that it'd been when he'd last glimpsed her, skulking around the steep rocks that led to Vermax's lair, wishing not to say her farewells and wishing less to see him go without them. There had been a shadow cast over her face then, as there was one now.
But the shadow here was a shadow he had not seen in many years, since he was lingering like an awkward wraith at her side, clueless as to how to soothe her heart when his was so heavy already, some dark, stale gale covering them both. This is a shadow Jace has seen encroaching upon his own mother's face, growing each day, with a father gone and a daughter dead and a throne usurped right out from under her. It is grief, wretched and rotten as the dead at their feet, and Jace feels his stomach turn and sink.
He sent his brother to Storm's End, because his brother was frightened but he was no coward, and he would not remain if Jace were to leave. He willed his mother to send them. He willed this.
He sent his brother to Storm's End, and now Baela is here.
"My Lady," Baela intones, her voice sounding awfully distant, as though she were speaking through ferocious winds. Her bow is impeccable.
Her voice is grim.
The Lady Jeyne dips into her own curtsy, for though she is the lady of this Hall, Baela is a Princess of the realm. His betrothed's next bow is for him, merely a dip of her head that has been their half-shy, half-pleased acknowledgement of each other for many a year, even before she was to be his and he hers. He returns it without a moment’s thought, strings moving his wooden body unseen, a great chill rendering him limp from within.
"My betrothed," she says, the stiff formality made warm by an affection as proud and fierce as his Baela.
It assuages his fears, if only a little. If only enough so that his voice softens from the icy slopes he'd adopted in the Eyrie's Hall, into something only hers.
"My betrothed," Jace responds, relieved to find his voice steady, dipping his eyes with a flutter of his lashes. It is a reminder of a lighter, simpler time, with wooden swords and brave dragonknights.
This is a time of dragons and war, and still his brother is at Storm's End and Baela is here.
In her hands, she bears no parchment for the Lady of the Eyrie, though Jace had bore her one and then another, one from the Queen and one from the Three Sisters. In her hands, she bears nothing at all, though at her hip there is a slim dagger that used to belong to her mother back when she was of an age with Baela where a sword ought to be.
(The dagger had been a gift from Jace's lord father to his lady sister, brought back from his warring on the Stepstones, an exquisite monstrosity that made up for its delicately ornate gold pommel with the blue and gold of its silver blade. It was wickedly sharp, but Jace had been told it served a dragonrider like Lady Laena little, and so she'd saved it among her treasures and set it aside for a child. Nary a few moons ago, come the latest name day for the twins, Daemon had presented Baela with it, saying it would serve her where it had served her mother not, as Lady Laena would have wanted.
Baela had not parted from it since.)
At this sight, Jace thinks of his brother's small, serious face on their last night together, before Jace had at last made the claim that drew them from home. Luke had never looked quite so grim, quite so old, his brittle bird's bones standing in stark relief against the soft porcelain of his cheeks, still that of a boy and little else. He was small, barely of a height with Jace and still so much slighter, and yet he'd stood taller than he was as he held his betrothed's hand, a presence as heavy as Vhagar's, indomitable as he had not been since he'd taken the eye of the old hag's rider. Lucerys's gaze was wide and wet and haunted, with a light in its swimming depths that burnt like the black candles of Old Valyria. It was not a pleasant light. It was a feverish one, half mad with some treacherous ghoul only he could see, animal in its fright, and yet—
Yet there had been a certainty to him that Luke had lost to the blade he'd put through Aemond's eye, the eye he'd taken for Baela and Rhaena but mostly for Jace. Since then that certainty had only ever come back in the manner of the tides, touching the tips of his toes in brief snatches now and again, spooking whenever it rose too high and fleeing at once. Blood had stolen it. Blood restored it. That final night, it had drowned Luke to an odd, hazed serenity Jace had only seen in King Viserys when they played the part and supped and danced, of a gaze with Luke in hue and wondrous sorrow. It had frightened Jace, raised his hackles, but Luke was indeed implacable even to his older brother, who could argue him out of anything if he tried.
Jace had tried.
He found out that night what he'd always known, however distant a truth it had to be in order to be borne: that Luke could talk Jace into everything. Standing witness beneath the stars, watching blood drip and join as one in the firelight, it was for Jace as it had always been— show me a cliff and stand at its edge, brother, and there I shall be, holding your hand.
What a fatal way to love any one soul, especially one the tides had laid claim to. What a terrible thing to know, when he'd sent his brother to Storm's End, where there was nobody to hold his hand and staunch the blood dripping from it.
And still Baela is here, and Jace is going to be sick.
"Princess Baela," Lady Jeyne drawls, her voice a pleasant crawl of ice, and still no chillier than Jace feels now. "We were surprised to hear of your arrival. Surely there's reason for your considerable haste, so great you sent no word and waited not to land in my courtyard?"
The people of the Eyrie remain still, in the way of those used to their liege's whipping tongue and frigid manner, but still the discomfort running rampant is belied by the shifting of skirts and the gentle rattling of blades and chainmail. Dragonstone taught Jace what King's Landing did not—in the faces of the people, happy or drawn, and their bodies, scrawny or full, the measure of a ruler could be found. In the still faces and restless hands, some dirty but none thin to breaking, Jace could find a people beloved by their Lady, and thus loyal to her in ways of mind and flesh. He finds, too, in their flighty eyes and nervous, tight mouths that the Lady Jeyne is cross and of that, they are wary.
Jace may not know Lady Jeyne Arryn enough to see in her ivory face her anger, but he knows enough to look for it in her people instead.
Baela the Bold, Baela the Brave, does not flinch. Her chin rises a nudge, skirting the line of propriety as defiantly as is her habit, her plush mouth drawing in the beginnings of a scowl. There is a shadow crossing the threshold of her eyes, like a dragon's flight dimming both moon and sun with the veil of her wings, and it is stubborn and relentless. It will not leave.
It is frightening. Somewhere along the arch of Jacaerys's ribs, Vermax growls and paws uneasily, digging claws into stone as though it were bone, kneading it to bits and rubble. He is unsettled, discomfited by the chill of the wind and the fist pressing down on Jace's chest alike. Along the scrapes of Vermax's first licks of fear, there is a wish for flight, for escape, for freedom from the chains of the uncertain. Jace is unsure whether the desire is Vermax's or his own.
He doesn't think it matters anymore, if indeed it ever did.
"I do apologize for being discourteous, my Lady, but I come bearing urgent news from Queen Rhaenyra." Baela speaks in the manner of a Queen, gracious and indomitable still, unmoved by the force in Lady Jeyne's gaze. "It is paramount for both you and the Prince Jacaerys to be made aware of them at once. I'm afraid it…it cannot not wait."
At the tail of her statement, Baela's voice falters, merely a minor crack from a minor fall. Yet even so Jace hears in it a portent of calamity great enough for his nails to dig gouges into the leather of his gloves, twins to the marks of Vermax's teeth at the cliff's edge where he lingers, pacing round in tight, furious circles. There is a hazy heat in Jace's nose, a roiling stinging like the smoke of the Dragonmont. The back of his throat tastes like blood.
Baela never stutters, never stammers, never minces her words. She speaks with as little hesitation as she fights, twisting her tongue into a blade in her opponent's guts. She is all the sharper for Lady Jeyne, who bows little and and bends less, and still she had tripped over the truth, the easiest of all roads to tread, like a fresh hatchling. Still her throat bobs as she swallows, as though there were rocks in her spit, tearing her up from the inside with every moment that went by.
Or perhaps that is Jace, who sees how Baela's muscles tense into that of a coiled snake. He knows the name to this particular warrior's stance, for it exists only in the language of Baela’s body, a tongue he has grown fluent in. It is called fear, and he'd thought it gone, for he had not seen it when the Greens declared war or when Vaemond bled out before them, for all her alarm. Fear, he had not seen in her since Rhaena had caught the Redspots when she was two-and-ten, and Daemon had forced Baela from her side wailing and kicking with all her strength, for Jace and Luke had both met the disease and lived when they were still young boys, while Baela had not. Daemon had confined her to the Windwyrm tower, concerned in that odd, jagged way of his with her well-being and how she'd fare against a foe she could not cut with word or sword, and no matter how she raged or beat against her doors or threatened her guards, there had been no response.
(Luke had remained by Rhaena's side, loyal as any one dog, reading her old Valyrian scrolls from Dragonstone's vast, grim library, which Jace liked more than any other hall. They spent the time during which Rhaena did not agonize with itchy bouts practicing their words as one, giggling through poor attempts and smiling at better ones. The rest of their time was spent with Luke applying salves to her patches of sores and rashes with whimpering, sympathetic noises at her pain and gentle fingers, or holding her hand while she slept fitfully, curled at his side and leaning into the cool touch of his skin like a cat in the sunlight.
Jace himself tended to her each morning, dismissing her maids to fix her pillows himself as they despaired, righting her blankets and finding her more or less as she and him saw fit. He would needle relentlessly until she ate light meals through wan smiles and faint tears, bringing Luke and her honeyed peaches and smashed oats and berries, as well as pitcher after pitcher of water, playing for them both the role of mother his own could not. His pestering was such that Luke complained of it, claiming he had one mother and had no need for another, even though the tinge of longing in his eyes betrayed him. He missed their mother, of course, who was as vulnerable to the Redspots as Rhaena and Baela, having gone twenty odd years without ever fighting the red beast and finding herself now mightily susceptible to it, same as her new husband.
Still he stayed, sleeping in the chair by Rhaena's side for a night until at last Jace had found them curled round each other in her bed on the morrow like drakes hatched together, as he once had come the end of their first night together on Dragonstone. They said nothing when he woke them to press a cold rag to Rhaena’s forehead, trying to quell her newest bout of fever, and so neither did he, contenting himself with tucking them in and letting them doze. So went the days for them, as Jace never failed to see them at least once on the morrow and once at night, bringing his mother and Daemon news, though he never stayed for long. He left Luke to his dragon twin and ebbed instead to his own.)
Then there had been the fear of all the gods old and new in her, and often had Jace found her in the sept of Dragonstone, praying to the Mother for Rhaena's recovery and to the Stranger so that he may take a great many years to arrive before them both, and to take one only if he would take the other as well. Jace had not prayed since Driftmark, then, and he knew Baela hardly prayed at all, beholden by no vows to no gods, but he'd knelt by her side and prayed with her nonetheless, for Rhaena and for Baela and for mercy, the one thing she would not ask for.
(Night after night spent in the sept, day after day in her chambers in the Windwyrm tower, and at last, the last of Rhaena's rashes had faded, her fever had broken, and Maester Gerardys had declared her well.
'Twas the last time Jace saw Baela cry, throwing herself upon her sister like a woman mad and knocking her to the ground, seeming the smaller of the two for once when she wept into Rhaena's shoulder. Rhaena had taken it quietly, smiling her tender, wide grin that had once been for Baela alone and now was for them all, nuzzling her chin at Baela's shoulder in a manner that remained theirs and only theirs forever. It reminded Jace of Vermax and his nosing, a dragon heeding only one rider, a dragon hatched to someone having one twin soul only, even if he later found different riders.
Baela and Rhaena were like that, hatched to each other in the same womb, tied together in a knot not even the gods could untangle. He'd like to see them be fool enough to try.)
That same fear was in her face now, though where once it had been a live, crawling thing licking through her face like flames, it was now sewn to her skin in heedless patterns of thread to flesh. There had been a terror of what could happen then, a feverish hope that it would not come to be and a maddened despair that it would. This is far more final. 'Tis the last stitch in a long line of delicate embroidery, the killing blow to a dying man. This? Oh, this is mournful.
The Lady Jeyne frowns, her mouth thinning into a pale taut line. "Well, out with it, Princess. We grow no younger, nor your news less urgent."
Baela swallows, a strained thing Jace can hear as clearly as a casket dropping into the sea. She looks lonesome as a ship adrift like this, neither by his side nor Rhaena's nor that of Rhaenys, knowing something he doesn't and solitary for it. When her mouth opens with a whistling inhale, no words fall from it, stuck to her tongue and the bridge of her mouth, perhaps, or the line of her teeth as they clang together. Her face darkens at that, twists with some humiliated frustration that falls tragically short of any and all surprise, the look of the first born daughter who waged all battles with equal fervor. She hated defeat. She hated the failure of it.
Jace wonders who she thinks she's failing now, she who's never truly failed at all. And then her eyes roll slowly to him, unwilling and agonized in their trailing, an apology contained in dragonglass depths. Baela looks at him with a remorse so great a dragon's heart may not be big enough to contain it, lowering her gaze to the floor in nary a moment, as though it were unbearable to look at him knowing what she did. As though the sting of the grief she was to give him was too cruel for her to take.
Jace finds his heart to be his throat's prisoner rather suddenly, or perhaps not suddenly at all. There's that cold again, that unspooling dread deep in the pit of his bowels, where Vermax growls like a creature possessed, whimpering as he goes round and round in circles. There ought to be comfort in it, in his beast tracing the patterns of his belly with talon and wing as he paced his temporary lair, huffing and puffing smoke and heat. There was none.
There was only fear, the coldest sting in his chest, biting his fingertips until they remained unfeeling. In the back of his head, Jace sees eyes of dark violet and eyes of light green, his favorite faces in all of the world, and he does not see them smiling. There's no joy to the last visage of them imprinted in his mind, drawn with fear and grief alike, sleepless bruises beneath hazy eyes that seemed to know too much and see too little, chapped mouths bitten raw in twin nervous gestures. There's no comfort in seeking the warmth of their memory and finding instead clammy cold, whispering oh, but they may be gone.
Jace sent his brother, his first everything, his mother's precious boy, to Storm's End. He willed it. His mother allowed it. And he'd left her, because he'd willed that, too.
And now here was Baela.
The word loosens from his tongue of its own accord, unbearably gentle and as steady as an insult. "Who?"
His eyes upon her are encouraging, still, flat. She looks sickened by it. Her face curdles like milk, into the same expression of the girl grabbing his hand and weeping for her mother, and Jace’s world sets to crumbling. Baela lifts her chin, blinking against a sheen of tears a Princess may not allow herself and swallowing against something Jace can only wish to know. This time, when she inhales, it is in the manner of a dragon preparing to breathe fire.
Still her lashes flutter, restless and much too heavy. Still she does not look at her betrothed.
When she speaks, it is so low he thinks the word madness. There's no other explanation for it, really. It's just a name, hardly an answer, hardly anything, and it is madness. What else could it ever be?
Jace prays, as he has not prayed in years and years, to the Mother and the Father and all the gods he knows and all those he does not, both old and new. There's no reason to this. It's simply a rumor. Madness and folly and rumor. The truth, the unshakeable truth, the sole truth—it is not this. It is that Jacaerys Velaryon draws breath and thus so, too, does Lucerys, his friend, his brother, his shadow. That truth, that was as essential as food and drink, will not be so easily contested.
And yet one word, a simple name, decimated it, and took with it Jace.
"Luke," Baela says, low and somber and still ringing. Then, louder, as the world slips from Jace's reach, beyond a veil of darkness: "There's been word of dragons dancing above Shipbreaker Bay a night ago, my Lady, and—and the Prince Lucerys is dead."