Chapter Text
“Pālēs, Vermax!” Jacaerys shouted. (Evade, Vermax!)
Arrows hissed past close enough to brush his hair, and the green dragon rolled hard to one side, losing more height than Jace liked. He pulled sharply on the reins, his fingers aching around the leather while smoke and splinters tore through the air around them.
“Vēzot, Vermax! Sōvēs!” he yelled. (Up, Vermax! Fly!)
But to him they were climbing slowly, too slowly, and a sick mixture of doubt, shame, and confusion settled in Jacaerys’s chest as Baela and Moondancer cut through the battle with sharper, riskier turns, diving in and out of range with barely a falter. Vermax was larger, yes, but Moondancer seemed to fly better. Their flames reached nearly the same distance, and Jace could not help feeling useless beside her.
Moondancer had already saved them once, when a scorpion had caught Vermax. By luck, nothing more than luck, the barbed iron had lodged in the straps of the saddle instead of tearing into Vermax’s flesh, yet the grapnel and its trailing chain had dragged at his dragon as though it meant to pull him from the sky. That was what unsettled Jace most. Vermax was no Vermithor, but he should not have tired so quickly, should not have dipped so low beneath the pull of that iron. It felt as though he had no strength in him, no endurance.
A quieter, crueler voice in the back of Jace’s mind answered before he could stop it.
It was not Vermax’s fault. It was his.
He was his mother’s heir, and yet he had only ever given his dragon the attention expected of him. Enough training to be proper, enough command to look the part. He had thought the long flights to the Vale and the North proved him a dragonrider, had mistaken the ability to remain in the saddle for hours, to cross leagues of open sky and arrive where he was meant to arrive, for mastery.
But this was not the road to the Eyrie, nor the cold, wide emptiness above the Neck, nor the proud descent into Winterfell with lords watching from below. This was battle. Here, distance meant little. A dragon had to twist, climb, dive, recover, strike, and vanish before iron could find scale or wing. A rider had to think faster than arrows flew, had to read smoke and sails and scorpions all at once, had to know his dragon’s strength as well as his own breath.
And Jace did not.
Watching Moondancer vanish into the smoke and burst back out with terrible grace, he saw the truth of it, but there was no time to regret it and no time to turn back. He could not leave Baela alone. No matter how skilled she was, if he fled, every eye, every scorpion, every bow on those ships would turn on her and Moondancer.
So Jacaerys tightened his grip, forced himself to breathe, and urged Vermax onward through smoke, screams, and chaos, careful not to lose more height, careful to look everywhere at once, as if fear alone could keep them alive.
“Dokimarvose, Vermax,” he said, his voice rougher now. (Focus, Vermax.)
The dragon beat his wings and climbed.
Jace swept the hair from his face and narrowed his eyes, searching the ships below for scorpions. His effort was rewarded when he spotted a cluster of men hauling one into place, its great iron bolt already turning toward him. This time, he saw it with enough time to act.
He yanked hard on the reins, and with the pull came a command he did not speak, barely even noticed. Vermax understood. The green dragon cut sharply upward, wings beating hard as the scorpion bolt screamed past beneath them, tearing uselessly through the space where they should have been.
Instead of flying on, Jace looked around again. No other scorpion turned toward them, none that he could see. “Paktot, Vermax,” he breathed, though the word was more for himself than for his dragon. (Right, Vermax.)
He guided Vermax into a tight arc, then sent him diving back toward the ship that had fired on them.
“Dracarys!” Jacaerys shouted.
Vermax leveled out above the deck and opened his jaws. His flames poured down hot and bright, and the speed of their pass made quick work of the ship. Men vanished beneath fire, sails caught, wood cracked and blackened, and before the smoke could swallow them, Vermax beat his wings and climbed again, carrying their momentum upward.
I can do this, Jace told himself, a fragile hope stirring in his chest. We can do this.
The nearby ships had no scorpions, or else had not managed to mount them in time. Jace pushed Vermax into a wide half-circle, intending to burn several vessels in a single sweep. That was the intention, at least. It took three commands and three separate bursts of flame to finish the work, and the failure stung more than it should have. Part of him had expected one clean pass, one great stream of fire like the songs promised. Instead, there was breath, correction, another breath, another pull of the reins.
Still, the ships burned.
Jace swallowed his frustration and kept moving. Vermax climbed once more, and this time Jace took care to keep to the windward side of the smoke, where it would not blind him.
A shrill, whistling roar cut through the air. Jace turned, recognizing the sound at once.
Moondancer.
His eyes widened when he saw Baela and her dragon fleeing from another dragon, one he had never seen before. The beast was large, larger than Seasmoke and Syrax at least, with muddy brown scales and a dreadful, ugly look to it. It burned through ships as it flew, enemy and allied vessels alike, caring little for banners or men, its attention fixed on the smaller, quicker dragon ahead of it.
Baela.
Jace’s heart lurched hard enough to hurt. “Aderī, Vermax! Sōvēs!” he commanded. (Quickly, Vermax! Fly!)
Vermax answered beneath him, banking toward the chase as Jace fixed his eyes on Moondancer. His thoughts raced as fast as his pulse. Who in the Seven Hells was riding that dragon? Had the greens had the same idea as them? Had they found another rider, another beast, another piece moved too late onto the board?
Whatever the answer, the brown dragon did not seem aware of Vermax. Not yet, and Jace meant to make use of that.
“Elēnās, Vermax,” he said, pulling the reins. (Bank, Vermax.)
He kept Vermax high enough not to lose their advantage, but not so high that Baela would be alone for long. Another scorpion turned below, and he saw it in time. Vermax slid aside from the bolt with a sharp beat of his wings, arrows scattering uselessly beneath them as Jace guided him higher, just enough to come at the larger dragon from above.
“Vēzot, Vermax,” he urged. (Up, Vermax.)
Moondancer banked hard to the right. The brown dragon tried to follow, but its larger body scraped against the side of a Triarchy ship, tearing through rigging and slowing just enough for Jace to seize the chance. He drove Vermax down from the sky.
“Angōs, Vermax!” he ordered, the wind lashing against his face as his eyes fixed on the rider. (Attack, Vermax!)
Vermax roared and plunged after them, claws stretched, wings tucked close, but before they reached the other dragon, by some miracle or curse, Jace saw the figure mounted upon its back.
Rhaena.
His mind froze. For one terrible heartbeat, there was no battle, no smoke, no screaming, only the impossible sight of her clinging to a dragon she should not have had.
His body moved before his thoughts could. “Inkot, Vermax! Daor!” he shouted, hauling back on the reins with all his strength. (Back, Vermax! No!)
The green dragon twisted aside at the last moment, too late to miss entirely. The claws of his right foot scraped across the brown dragon’s back, shallow but enough to draw an answering roar of fury, and now they were the ones being chased.
How is Rhaena riding that dragon? Why is she attacking us? Jace thought, looking back over his shoulder. The brown dragon came after them slowly but surely, ugly head low, wings beating with heavy purpose. Jace could try to confuse them, could make them crash into a ship as Moondancer had done. Against any other rider, he might have tried.
But it was Rhaena.
If he misjudged even once, she could be hurt, or worse. With no good choice left, Jace turned Vermax away from the heart of the battle, meaning to draw the brown dragon out of the smoke and chaos long enough to lose it.
“Aderī, Vermax! Naejot!” he called, urging him higher toward a narrow passage between the rocks of a small islet. (Quickly, Vermax! Forward!)
Jace looked back, only to see the brown dragon turn away from him and fix its attention on Moondancer once more. Baela’s dragon had let out a furious shriek, and Baela herself did not seem to have seen Rhaena. Moondancer was already angling toward the larger beast, ready to strike.
Jace turned Vermax after them, but movement below caught his eye. Several nearby ships were raising their scorpions, all of them taking aim at the two dragons about to collide.
“Dracarys!” Jacaerys commanded.
Vermax opened his jaws and bathed the ships in flame. Through the corner of his eye, Jace saw Moondancer avoid the direct clash at the last possible moment, slipping beneath the brown dragon and raking her claws across its underside in a maneuver so reckless it was almost beautiful.
The brown dragon screamed in pain. Steaming blood poured from the wounds, and then the beast snapped into a wild frenzy, spewing fire in every direction without aim or reason. Moondancer’s cry made it clear she had been struck. She was quick, yes, but she was still small, and her scales were not yet strong enough to shrug off the flames of a larger dragon.
The blood drained from Jace’s face.
“Naejot, Vermax! Daor Angōs—Jās!” he shouted, releasing the reins and gripping the handles of the saddle instead. (Forward, Vermax! Do not attack—move him away!)
He hunched low, pressing himself close for the impact. The command had been clumsy, but the thought beneath it was clear enough. Vermax beat his wings hard and slammed into the maddened dragon without opening his jaws, without reaching fully with his claws. It was not a killing strike, but a desperate shove, flesh against flesh, wing against wing, meant only to force the larger beast aside.
The sound of the collision thundered through the air. Both dragons roared as they tangled for a breath, wings beating wildly while they fought to recover their flight, and Jace forced his eyes open as they spun, just long enough to see Moondancer struggling upward, wounded but still flying.
Relief lasted less than a heartbeat.
A hot red spray struck the left side of his face. Jace cried out, squeezing his eyes shut as the burning liquid seared his skin, and a horrible roar of pain filled his ears. With effort, he opened the eye that did not burn and saw the scorpion bolt buried where Vermax’s neck met his shoulder.
Then came the sickening drop in his stomach.
They were losing height.
“Vēzot, Vermax! Sōvēs, dohaerās!” he shouted. (Up, Vermax! Fly, obey!)
Vermax tried. Jace felt him try. His wings beat once, twice, fighting the pull of the sea below, then another wet, brutal sound tore through the air, and Vermax’s cries sharpened into something almost unbearable. His wingbeats faltered.
Jacaerys felt the wound as if it had been struck into his own flesh. Vermax’s fear crashed through him, raw and enormous. For one cold, impossible moment, his mind slipped sideways, and suddenly he was looking up at the sky, but not through his own eyes. Primitive terror swallowed him. Fear. Exhaustion. Pain.
So much pain.
Jace gasped and opened his right eye again. He was back in the saddle, chest tight with anguish, tears threatening to break free.
“Vēzot, Vermax! Sōvēs!” he cried, his voice breaking. (Up, Vermax! Fly!)
But the green dragon, now streaked red with his own blood, was falling faster and faster. The sea rushed up to meet them, dark and merciless, until Vermax struck the water with a force that shattered the world into cold, foam, and pain.
For a moment, the dragon thrashed beneath him, then his movements began to slow.
Jace found a small, terrible window of clarity. His shaking hands moved to the chains fastening him to the saddle. He could unhook them. He could try to swim free. He could live, perhaps, could fight the water and pray the gods had not finished with him.
But he did not.
In that instant, he felt what he now recognized as his dragon’s thoughts, felt that Vermax did not want… did not want to die alone.
Jace wept from his right eye and undid the chains, not to escape, but to stand. The water dragged at him, cold hands pulling at his legs, yet he forced himself from the saddle and threw his arms around Vermax’s neck.
“Lykirī, Vermax,” he whispered, pressing his burned face against blood-wet scales. (Calm, Vermax.) “Nyke iā syt. Nyke iā syt.” (I am here. I am here.)
Vermax’s pained whimpers faded little by little. The fear did not vanish, nor the pain, but something almost childlike washed through Jace in its place, a fragile calm, a frightened creature made safe by the only thing left to give him.
Company.
Jacaerys Velaryon sank beneath the waves of the Gullet with his arms still locked around his dragon. His last thoughts were not of the Iron Throne, nor of crowns, councils, banners, or the war that had swallowed them all. They were of Baela, wounded but alive above the smoke, of his mother, who would wait for a son who would never come home, and then, at the end, of the name that had followed him all his life like a shadow.
Strong. Bastard. Lie.
Perhaps, in the end, he had proven it false in the only way the world ever seemed willing to understand. He had not abandoned his dragon, had died with him, as a true Targaryen might, and he had died in salt and sea, beneath the waves of the Gullet, as a Velaryon should.
For the first time, Jacaerys felt trueborn.
“Pay heed, little wolf,” said the pale man beside him. “The Dance of the Dragons was the wound from which House Targaryen never truly healed, but the death of the black prince was the stroke that made the rest near certain. With her eldest son gone, Rhaenyra’s mercy thinned, grief sharpened into suspicion, and suspicion began to cut at her own council.”
The boy barely listened. His eyes stayed on the prince sinking through the dark water, arms still locked around the neck of his dragon even as the beast no longer moved.
“But why does he not let go?” he asked. “If he swam up, he might live.”
“A rider’s bond with his dragon is not a small thing,” the old one said. “Deeper, mayhaps, than the bond between a boy and his wolf. He was true to his companion, and true to his blood. In the end, he honored more than one house.”
“Fire and Blood?”
“Perhaps.” The old man’s one red eye remained on the sinking prince. “Or perhaps The Old, the True, the Brave.”
The boy drifted closer. “But so many deaths could be stopped.”
“No.” The answer came softly, but there was iron beneath it. “We are here to witness. What was, what is, what shall be. Not to mend it, not to break it. Come. There are other days to see.”
The boy would have followed, had the prince not shifted then, just enough for his face to turn toward them. Pale, bloodied, half-hidden by the black water, one side marred and blackened, yet still familiar in a way that struck too deep. Not the same face. Not truly. But close enough to hurt.
Dark hair, a long, solemn face, and a quiet, noble melancholy that did not belong to someone so young.
The boy thought of a brother he had not seen in what felt like a lifetime, and before fear or sense could stop him, he reached out.
“Wake up,” he whispered.
The old one turned sharply. “Little wolf.”
“Wake up,” the boy said again, louder now, reaching for the prince, his hands passing through him as if grasping at water. “Wake up.”
“You cannot,” the old one said, not as a warning but as a simple truth. “This is only a memory.”
But the prince moved beneath the boy’s hands, and at last his palms found the prince’s face.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The dark water stirred around them, and something in the memory shifted out of place. The old one stared, and the calm that had clung to him for years beyond counting cracked at last.
“Breathe,” the boy pleaded, his eyes gone white. “Breathe. Please, breathe.”
The dark around them tightened. The drowned dragon faded, then returned, then faded again. The prince’s body shuddered, caught between death and something worse, and the old one reached for his pupil with sudden urgency.
“Leave him,” he said. “Now.”
The boy did not.
“Breathe,” he said, and the word passed through the water, through the prince, through years not yet born. “Breathe.”
The old one seized his shoulder.
That was when the memory tore.
The sea vanished. The dragon vanished. The Gullet itself split apart into flashes of root, blood, stone, wing, and fire. The boy was flung backward, the old one with him, but Jacaerys Velaryon was dragged with them too, still caught in the boy’s grip, torn from the place where he had died and hurled through the deep memory of the world.
Through what had been.
Through what would be.
Through what now might never come to pass.
And still, somewhere inside the storm, the boy held on.
“Breathe,” he kept saying. “Breathe. Breathe.........”
“BREATHE! BREATHE, MY PRINCE, BREATHE!”
The voice was deep, rough, and full of panic. The first thing Jace felt was the burning in his lungs. He tried to drag in air and found he could not, his own hands clawing at his throat as though something had closed around it, while the panicked voice kept shouting instructions somewhere above him, distant and half-buried beneath the pounding in his ears.
At the edge of it all, another voice rose sharp and hysterical, breaking into sobs and frightened cries.
“BREATHE… slowly! Breathe in… and out!”
That deep voice struck him as strangely familiar. The familiarity reached him before the words did, and somehow, it began to steady him. His hands slipped from his throat and pressed against something soft beneath him, and little by little his lungs remembered how to work. The ringing in his ears faded, and only then did Jace realize it had been there at all.
He opened his eyes.
He was in a bedchamber. A thin sliver of light crept through the window, pale against the walls, and several women stood nearby, staring at him in terror with hands pressed to their mouths or clutched over their hearts. Serving girls, his mind supplied, though he did not recognize them at all.
His breathing eased at last, and only then did he understand the position he was in. He was on all fours atop a bed, shaking with a lingering, unsteady weakness. Slowly, he pushed himself upright and turned toward the source of the deep voice.
The armor was the first thing he noticed. Darkened steel, chased faintly with gold. Not unfamiliar. Then the golden cloak at one shoulder, the cloak of the City Watch. And finally, the pale, frightened face of a man whose features Jace had begun, shamefully, to forget.
“Ser…” His voice came out hoarse and broken. “Ser Harwin?”
The man in question let out a sharp, high breath no one would have thought him capable of making, not after one look at that face, then pressed a hand to his chest and managed a weak smile. “My prince… what was—?”
He stopped himself, shook his head, and turned sharply toward one of the serving girls. “Fetch the maester. Now.”
Jace did not stop staring at him. His eyes only left Harwin when he heard the broken breaths and thin, desperate hiccups beside him, and when he turned, his eyes widened further. This time no words came. He simply lunged forward and wrapped the boy at his side in his arms.
“Luke… Luke, how are you—?”
But the boy began speaking first. “Jace…” Luke hiccuped, trying and failing to force the tears back. “What happened? Why couldn’t you breathe? I was so scared…”
“I… what?” Jace stopped, still holding his brother tightly, then slowly turned back toward Harwin, who was watching him now with open caution. His mind offered him the only answer that made any kind of sense.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” he said with a strange, distant calm. “I did not think I would come back to the Red Keep.”
Ser Harwin went pale again and made a strained sound that was not quite a word.
Luke fought his way out of Jace’s embrace just enough to look up at him with a deep frown, his grief and fright apparently forgotten in favor of outrage. “What in the seven hells are you talking about? You cannot say things like that, or I will tell Mother.”
Jace let out a faint laugh. “And I will tell her how you just spoke.”
Luke paled at once.
“Though perhaps we should hope not to see her for a long while,” Jace added, and Luke’s frown deepened.
“Why would you say that? Did you hit your head? Is that why you are speaking nonsense?”
“My prince,” Ser Harwin said carefully, taking a step closer, “you are alive, for which I am very grateful. If Prince Lucerys had not cried out, no one would have known you were choking. I still do not know what could have caused it.”
Jace stared at him, confused, and then, little by little, he began to notice the things he had missed. Luke was small. Not merely shorter, but younger, rounder in the face, thinner in the shoulders, with wide, frightened eyes. Jace had not seen him like this in years.
Slowly, he looked down at his own hands.
No calluses. No old marks from reins or practice blade. They were smaller than they should have been, softer than he remembered.
“But… I…” Jace swallowed, his throat still raw. “I died. Vermax and I fell into the Gullet. A scorpion struck us, and…”
“A battle?” Luke said, his eyes brightening. “What happened? Who were you fighting? Was Vermax big? As big as Syrax? Or was he as large as Meleys?” He looked ready to burst with excitement.
Jace stared at him, stunned by the way his brother spoke of his death. Ser Harwin, however, seemed to relax at those words.
“Ah. So it was a great battle, my prince.” He gave him a small, careful smile, the sort a man gave a frightened child when he wished to believe there was nothing to fear. “I fear Vermax, though he grows large and strong, much like you, is not yet ready to be ridden, much less into battle. Do not fret. It was only a dream. A very vivid one, mayhaps, but still a dream.”
“A dream?” Jace said, and at once felt fire run through him. It did not burn, but wrapped around him, warm and certain, and his mother’s words came back to him from Dragonstone, about Aegon’s dream, about the burden passed from heir to heir. “No… no, it cannot be,” he whispered, beginning to sweat.
“The library” whispered a voice and jace eyes looked around.
“My prince?” Ser Harwin asked, his smile fading.
Jace looked at him, suddenly unable to stay still. “Ser, please take me to the library at once. I need to see something.”
Harwin raised his brows. “My prince, the Grand Maester is on his way. We should—”
“This is more important, Ser Harwin.” Jace climbed down from the bed, swayed for a moment, then steadied himself and took a firmer step. “Luke can tell the maester we went to the library.” His mouth twisted slightly when he noticed how high the door stood above his head.
“But, my prince…” Harwin began.
The door opened before he could continue, and Grand Maester Mellos entered with the serving girl behind him.
“My prince, what is the matter?” Grand Maester Mellos asked, coming closer, his eyes moving over Jace’s face, then to his throat and the sweat on his brow. “Let me see you.”
Jace stepped back before he could stop himself, and though it was only a small movement, Harwin noticed, Mellos noticed, and Luke, who had climbed down from the bed after him, hurried back to his side and caught at his sleeve again, still pale, but unwilling to let his brother go too far. Jace barely felt his hand at first. The sight of Mellos struck something loose in his mind, fresh and sharp, and for a moment the bedchamber was gone.
Dragonstone. The painted table. The chamber dim with firelight. His mother stood at the head of the table, one hand pressed against the carved stone, her eyes wet and red with grief.
“Tell me again,” Rhaenyra said, her voice low and unsteady. “Tell me what they…..”
Mysaria stood before them with her hands folded into her sleeves. “The king died in the night, Your Grace. His body was not shown, not to the court, not to the realm. The doors were watched, the servants kept close, the ravens delayed. Those who knew were made to hold their tongues while the Queen and her father moved.”
Daemon’s jaw tightened. “Who helped them?”
“The council,” Mysaria answered. “All save Lord Beesbury. He spoke for you, Your Grace, and for that they killed him.”
Lord Corlys’s mouth pressed into a hard line, his fingers tightening against the edge of the table. Rhaenys looked away, though not before Jace saw the anger in her face.
Rhaenyra swallowed, and a tear slipped down her cheek before she could stop it. “And my father?” she asked, anguish breaking through her voice at last. “What happened to him in the end?”
Mysaria lowered her eyes. “No pyre was given, Your Grace. My spies saw him still in the royal chambers days later, the corpse already deep in decay.”
The memory broke there, leaving Jace once more in the Red Keep with Mellos standing before him, wearing that same careful concern he always wore. It made Jace’s stomach twist. The man had never needed to raise his voice to be cruel; he did it with soft words, patient smiles, corrections offered as counsel, and little looks when no one important was watching, always making Jace and his brothers feel as if they were troublesome little princes being humored rather than heirs of royal blood. Green enough in silence, green enough in service, green enough that Jace could not bear him near.
“As you can see, I am well,” Jace said, though his voice still scraped in his throat. “It was only a bad dream. Now I need to go to the library.”
“My prince, I must first make certain that—”
“You can see that I am standing and breathing,” Jace said, sharper than he meant. He caught himself, drew a breath, and spoke lower, though not softer. “If you believe I must be examined, speak to my mother. Until then, Grand Maester, I have no need of your attendance.”
The title came out wrong, too cold to be courtesy, and the chamber fell quiet. Ser Harwin’s hand lifted as if he meant to step forward, then stopped, his eyes moving from Jace to Mellos. Mellos’s brows drew together, his mouth tightening for a heartbeat before his polite concern returned. Luke looked from the Grand Maester to Jace with wide eyes, his fingers tightening in Jace’s sleeve. The maester was the one who usually spoke down to them, all calm smiles and careful words, and seeing Jace answer him so plainly left Luke caught between fear and admiration.
Jace did not wait for Mellos to answer. Still sweating, with too many thoughts crowding his head, he walked toward the door, searching his old memories for the way to the library. He slowed only twice at the turns, confused for a moment before finding the right path, then continued quickly, with Luke close at his side and Harwin a step behind them.
“Jace, what are you doing?” Luke asked, watching from beside Ser Harwin as his brother moved along the shelves, passing from one book to the next, reading the spines of old tomes only long enough to dismiss them.
Cold sweat ran down Jace’s back. Part of him wanted to turn, pull Luke into his arms again and never let him go, but he needed to see something, needed to find proof that this was not a… He slowed, his fingers still on the spine of a heavy book. A what? What was he even looking for?
“Answers,” said a voice behind him.
Jace nearly dropped the book when he turned. A one-eyed man stood a few paces away, where no man had been a moment before. For a foolish heartbeat his mind gave him Aemond, but the thought died as soon as he saw the red eye, the old face, and the strange, unnatural way he held himself. Beside him stood a small boy with dark red hair and blue eyes, watching Jace with open wonder, and something beneath it that looked dangerously like hope.
“Who are you?” Jace demanded, then stopped. His voice had come out deeper, the way he remembered it.
The red-haired boy looked close to bursting. “I thought you said we could not interfere,” he said, glancing at the one-eyed man with doubt and a little satisfaction he failed to hide.
“We should not be able to,” the man answered, his gaze fixed on Jace. “I tried more than once, and never could. Not as you did.”
Jace forced himself to breathe and reached for the nearest lamp, meaning to use it as a weapon if he had to, but his hand passed through metal and flame without feeling either. He stared, tried again, and still felt nothing.
“What in the seven hells?”
“My prince,” the one-eyed man said, “calm yourself and listen.”
Jace turned on him, still half ready to strike, though he had no weapon and, it seemed, no body solid enough to use one. “Then speak.”
“History has changed. Your death was real, and yet this moment now stands before it.”
A chill passed through him. “You speak in riddles.”
The man looked to the boy, whose certainty faltered beneath Jace’s stare. He shifted on his feet, suddenly shy. “I think it was me.”
Jace’s frown eased only a little. “Why?”
“Because you reminded me of my brother.”
The answer was so simple that Jace did not know what to do with it. For a breath, something in his chest loosened, almost enough for a smile, but then he shook his head. “No. This is a fever dream, or I am still drowning.”
“Look around you,” the old man said.
Jace did. The library remained, but wrong, dim and still, the dust hanging in the air, the light dull against the shelves. Then he saw himself a few paces away, a boy once more, holding a book too tightly in both hands, with Luke beside him and Ser Harwin behind them, frozen in place, their faces fixed in worry.
Jace moved toward Luke before he could stop himself. “What sort of sorcery is this?”
“I do not have all the answers,” the one-eyed man said, and there was urgency in his voice now. “Our time is short. My pupil did something I cannot fully explain. It seems we drew your mind back to this moment in your past. Why here, I do not know, though I begin to suspect…” His red eye moved briefly toward Ser Harwin. “Yes.....the blood. It may be the blood.”
“My mind?” Jace said, turning back to him. “the past?”
“Think of it as a dragon dream, if that helps you bear it. One of those visions that haunted the blood of Old Valyria before the Doom, only this is not merely a dream, Jacaerys Velaryon. Your death was real. This chance is real. What you do with it is now yours to decide.”
The edges of the man’s shape began to thin.
“No,” Jace said, stepping closer. “Wait. What chance? What are you?”
“The Others are real,” the boy said quickly, fading as well, the words tumbling out before he lost them. “And dragons will be needed, they cannot all die in the Dance.”
“The Others?” Jace repeated. “The Dance? What do you mean?”
He looked down and saw his own hands beginning to vanish.
“Will you act,” the old man asked, his voice growing distant, “or will you let the same tale be told again?”
“Wait,” Jace said, reaching for him. “Come back.”
“We will try.”
Then the library moved again.
Jace opened his eyes to find his small hands clenched around the book so tightly his knuckles had gone white. It was a heavy tome on the flight of the Targaryens from Valyria, its old leather cover creaking beneath his grip.
“Jace?” Luke asked.
Jace looked from one side to the other. There was no red-haired boy, no pale one-eyed man, no strange stillness in the air, only the library and its shelves, Luke beside him, and Ser Harwin watching with clear concern. Yet the words remained, circling in his head.
Dragon dreams. The Others. The Dance.
He turned to Harwin. “Ser Harwin, where is my mother?”
The knight frowned, still unsettled by whatever he had seen on Jace’s face. “My prince, the princess entered her labors some hours ago.”
“The babe is coming?” Luke asked, his face lighting up again after the scare. “That is good, is it not? Jace, we have to find him an egg.”
Jace blinked, and the name came to him before he could stop it. “Joffrey.”
“What was that, my prince?” Harwin asked.
“I said my brother is right,” Jace answered, already moving. “We should find an egg, and we must find Laen—” He stopped, the name catching hard in his throat, then corrected himself. “Father. We must find Father. He should be at Mother’s side when the babe comes.”
He took Luke’s hand before leaving, holding it tighter than he meant to. Luke glanced down in surprise, but did not pull away.
Elsewhere in the Red Keep, Queen Alicent had been woken from an uneasy sleep and brought in haste to her daughter’s chamber. Helaena lay tangled in her sheets, her hair damp against her temples, her cheeks flushed, her small hands twitching against the blankets. A serving woman held a cloth to her brow while another stood near the door, twisting her fingers together and looking ready to flee if the queen’s temper turned on her.
“Where is the maester?” Alicent demanded, though there was more fear than anger in her voice.
“We sent for him, Your Grace,” one of the women said. “He was called to see the Velaryon princes.”
Alicent’s mouth tightened. She looked back at Helaena, whose eyes moved beneath closed lids, then toward the door. “Then send again, and fetch any healer who can be found. I will not have my daughter left waiting because Mellos is busy with Rhaenyra’s boys.”
Aemond stood near Ser Criston in his nightclothes, pale and rigid, one hand gripping the knight’s sleeve. He had not cried, but his eyes were too wide, fixed on Helaena as her fingers clenched and unclenched against the sheets.
“My queen,” Criston said, low and controlled, though his hand had settled protectively on Aemond’s shoulder, “I will bring the Grand Maester myself if he delays.”
Alicent was about to answer when Helaena screamed.
The serving woman dropped the cloth. Aemond flinched hard against Criston, and Alicent crossed to the bed before anyone could stop her. Helaena’s eyes flew open, wet and unfocused, both hands clutching at the sides of her head.
“Noise,” she whimpered, shaking. “Too much noise.”
“Helaena,” Alicent breathed, gathering her daughter into her arms.
The girl clung to her, still trembling. “Too many,” she sobbed against her mother’s shoulder. “The voices are wrong.”
Alicent held her tighter, all thoughts of Mellos, Rhaenyra, and the Velaryon princes pushed aside by the feel of her daughter shaking in her arms. “Hush now. I am here. You are safe.”
But Helaena shook her head, her fingers twisting in Alicent’s sleeve.
“No,” she whispered. “Too much noise.”
End of chapter