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