Strange Trails - Chapter 16 - aesthenisia (2024)

Chapter Text

It was often useful to assume that being alone was a fundamentally fictitious concept in the Red Keep. The walls had ears, the tapestries had eyes, and all roads led back to Lya.

Lya told Jace before the night had ended.

“You’ll fix it?” She said, but what she was really saying was: you owe us this.

“I’ll fix it.”

He was not offended that Alder had not told him herself, mostly because of the nature of how he discovered the debacle in the first place. It was not entirely her fault. Word got around quickly, and there was, of course, his mother’s strict warning, where she called him to her receiving room that night and sternly told him that under no circ*mstances was he to lift a single morsel of his political acumen or influence in his shield’s assistance. If the queen was any less refined of a woman, it was likely she would have shaken him by his lapels to get the message into his thick skull.

He made sure to put up enough of a fuss to convince her that he was suitably distraught about her unjust declaration and to distract her from the fact that her edict only prevented him from offering advice to Alder directly, or blatantly attempting to influence the court. Two parameters he could easily work around. He wore out his mother quickly, who sent him away before she could eke any more specific promises out of him.

His first stop had been the raven tower, where a slew of young boys dressed in itchy-looking brown uniforms snapped to attention with hero worship in their eyes when he came up the stairs early the next morning. They whispered excitedly about his crown, his sword, how he slew his assassins like a hero of old (he wondered how often a certain storyteller wove her tales up here while she sent letters far beyond the horizon).

“You listen to me,” he had told the raven boys, handing them each a handful of coins. “If anything comes from the North, that letter is your first priority-”

“We understand, your Grace.” One of the older boys said quietly before he could finish, taking only one coin from the pile in his palm and tucking it firmly into his patched up pocket. “We heard the news, even up here. Louisa was our friend, and so is Lady Alder.”

“Louisa brought us cookies whenever there was any left over. We’re very sad she’s gone.” Another agreed, taking only one for himself as well. “And we all hated Angus anyway, the rotten little fink. Miss Lya got rid of him right quick when she found out what old Lord Blackbar had paid him to do.”

“Good lads,” Jace said with quiet pride. “And I’ll see what I can do about those uniforms of yours.”

The boys beamed at each other as he left, whispering joyously about no longer having any rashes or raw patches on their arms. Jace had done all he could with the money in his coffers, he reasoned. Now he just had to wait.

He’d never been very good at that.

He could see it weighing on her as the days passed, the way Alder’s shoulders seemed to buckle. She was practically silent in his presence, lost in her own mind with her answers to him coming short and clipped. He knew that feeling intimately, the sinking within the squall of doubt and fear, of drowning under the weight of the uncontrollable.

And with no dragon to assuage it. He tried to imagine what she would do instead. Move seas, form mountains perhaps, but there was nothing she could do while trapped in the stone walls with their roving eyes.

She avoided her brother too, who came to Jace’s room after a week had gone by. Strickon Tierney was a handsome man whose solemn weariness of face often enhanced that sense of tragic heroism the girls seemed to coo over. All Jace saw in the fine lines was fatigue and sorrow. A man growing older than his years.

“What can I do?” He asked without a greeting when Jace opened his bedchamber door, shoulder leaned against the doorframe. His voice was flat and carefully cold, gripped tightly between his teeth. “I cannot stand by uselessly again. I will not do it.”

“Your honor is worth-”

“Nothing is worth more to me than my family,” Strickon said, and it was a testament to either his trust in Jace or the depth of his turmoil that he even said it to the heir of his master. Jace felt his hand clench on the door until the wood bit into his skin. He knew that Luke often went to the young knight for counsel. That Strickon would come to him for advice instead was another beast entirely.

“We can only come if she calls. That’s all we can do.”

“She won’t call for me,” Strickon muttered ruefully as he bid Jace goodnight, waving away an offer of wine and commiseration, “I do not think she’ll remember how.”

The whole court knew by the week’s end, whispering behind their hands. Jace stayed far away from the halls filled with rumours for everyone’s sake, electing instead to sit in the nursery with his little brothers while Luke rocked Visenya back and forth in her cradle. Today, Luke had a look of quiet fury on his face, but he was biting his tongue hard enough to bleed and Jace could take a little solace that his brother was learning some self-control.

Learning was the operative word.

“Do you think-” Luke had started once, but Jace made a point of picking Viserys up and putting him on his shoulders to get away. He certainly did think, as he toted his screeching little heathen of a baby brother around, but if he thought too hard, he would act. He had to be patient.

Outside the window, a storm was brewing. He was running out of patience quickly.

Baela and Rhaena had abducted his shield again to do the things girls of their age did (and the things Alder had maybe forgotten how to do), but they were due back at any moment. Luke, unmollified but biting his tongue, stopped rocking their sleeping baby sister and crossed his arms.

“Nothing?” He asked vaguely, and Jace shrugged, bouncing Viserys in the process.

“I’ve been instructed-”

“f*ck off, as if that’s ever stopped you.” Luke said hotly.

“Yeah, f*ck off,” Joffrey added sagely from the floor, and although Luke’s cheeks coloured at his little brother’s words, the scowl did not disappear.

“Have a little faith,” Jace said, more to convince himself than anyone else as he deposited Viserys back onto solid ground, “Everything will proceed as it is meant to. I have…” no plan, no path, no contingencies. “Faith. I have faith.”

“Faith,” Luke echoed, as if Jace had cursed their bloodline with the word. “I see.”

“What a sorry state,” Rhaena said as she entered, holding a bag of candies in her hand. Jace’s brothers flocked to her, tugging at her skirts for access. She knelt to distribute the sweets, and Jace stood from the chaise when he saw Alder trailing after her and Baela, her gaze muddy and bleached like it had been the first day she had spent on Dragonstone so long ago. He was just standing there helplessly, he realized, and cleared his throat.

“So, how was…”

“Riding?” Baela filled in the gaps for him, her hair windswept and voice aggravated, “It was as it always is.”

So she’d had little luck too, he gathered as she tossed her gloves onto a nearby chair. Alder offered him a weak smile and a bow as she entered.

“Hello, your Grace.”

“Hello,” he echoed uselessly, and felt the sneaking urge to tear his hair out by the roots. Alder was summarily accosted by Aegon and Viserys, who collectively thought that she was the most wonderful person to have ever smuggled them wooden training swords. Viserys tugged at the sword sheathed at Alder’s side, begging to see the leaf-shaped blade.

“Please?”

“When you’re older,” Alder said patiently, pulling a dull wooden knife from her pocket instead. “Try this.”

“No-” Jace swooped to pluck the stick from Viserys’ ham-fisted grip, “He’s barely two, you can’t give him a stick. He’ll put out someone’s eye.”

“That’s my brother,” Luke said affectionately from the couch. Jace wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about Luke’s newfound confidence. He prepared to say something back about Aemond just to humble Luke a tad when Aegon tugged at his tunic, begging for attention of his own.

“Look!” he cried, “Snow!”

Alder’s face drained of all its colour as the three little boys rushed to the window, cooing about the white flakes beginning to drift through the air, thick and soft as eiderdown. Her lips parted as she listed like a ship in a storm, and Jace darted forwards on instinct as if to catch her, but she was simply sitting on the nearest couch, hands gripping the wooden back so hard that something cracked.

“Snow,” she whispered, like one might say ‘death,’ or ‘plague.’

“Boys,” Jace heard his voice say, uncharacteristically sharp and foreign to his ears. “Go to the other room, please. Put on your snow clothes and I’ll have Ser Vance take you out to play.”

Joffrey was the only one who looked back suspiciously, but led Viserys away by the hand with Aegon following doggedly after them. The door closed with a jarring snap, one which Jace felt reverberate through his body. Lightning seemed to run between his skin and muscles, slithering along viscera and bone. His hands clenched and flexed, and he felt his jaw tick.

“Alder-”

“You can’t ask,” she said, her voice remarkably even as she stared out the window. “Please don’t ask.”

“Ask what?” Rhaena said from where she was sitting on a nearby chair, her skirts spread like spring blossoms across the upholstery. “I don’t have to ask you anything. Jace, if you would be so kind as to summarize?”

Alder turned to him, face set in a stony mask, and he quirked his lips into a small smile before he turned to address his family. “In a week, Alder faces a petition in court on behalf of her house, where Lord Blackbar will attempt to requisition a maid he has abused. She sent a raven, I presume to ascertain that the maid has not been violated as Blackbar will claim, and though I cannot know the contents of the message, the maester at Castle Black will have needed to send a raven in reply before the snows hit. If he hasn’t, her defence will have to rely on the novel, shaky grounds of her house’s sovereignty. Of course, I am not allowed to know any of this, but I do,” he smiled at her, “I’m clever like that.”

“Jace-”

“You don’t have to confirm anything,” he waved his hand. “I’m not wrong.”

She was silent for a moment longer, before her head snapped up and she said, “So it was you who left those books about property law on my bed!”

”If books about property law were left on your bed,” Jace said purposefully, taking a seat opposite her and bracing his elbows on his knees, “It was because a serving girl, having been dusting in the library, thought they might be useful to your cause.”

“And I wonder who let a serving girl in the library to dust,” Alder replied acerbically. “Has your coin landed on the wrong side? Do you know what would happen if someone found out you helped me?”

“Helped you? With what?”

“Stop it, Jace!” she shouted, and then her face went blotchy red and white, fear and horror in equal measure warring in her expression. Her eyes flicked around the room. Luke, silent; Baela, tight-lipped; Rhaena, considering, her fingers weaving together. Conversely, Jace felt his grin go wider. There was the fight he’d missed so dearly. There was her fire. For a week, he had been haunted by a ghost, and now there was blood and anger and skin where once there had been intangible, unreachable nothing.

His grin fell in dismay when she dipped her head, paying deference to his station even though he wore no crown and was ostensibly acting the least princely he had allowed himself to be in a while.

“I’m sorry, your Grace, please forgive me for losing my temper,” she made to stand and bow, “I’ll fetch Ser Vance, the boys must be nearly ready-”

“Sit down.”

It was Luke who said it, his voice flinty. Alder sat, her cheeks still ruddy, hands fiddling with each other. Jace felt knocked off-kilter, as if everything in his life had been upended. Luke giving orders, Alder looking nervous. The only thing that remained the same was Jace hanging onto sanity by the tips of his fingers.

“We know,” Luke said, arms crossed, “Of course we know. We’re not fools. You’re smart enough to have found a way around this, and even if you hadn’t, you know as well as I do that he-” his finger pointed damningly at Jace, “-would have, if only you asked,” he squinted. “I don’t understand. You have threatened kings in their own halls, you jump into the faces of dragons. You are a hero well on your way to myth. So what are you so afraid of?”

Alder was silent, and the wind outside rattled the glass. Snow was falling faster, a flurry of white which even a Northerner would not let a child out into. In the next room, Jace could hear his brothers complaining to their nursemaids, laying more blame onto his shoulders. Gods, they hurt. They hurt all the time.

“I’m afraid…” her voice trailed off, and she looked as if she wanted to swallow her tongue. Jace wanted to hold her hand and tell her it was all going to be alright, but this was her battle to wage, her piece to say.

That was his faith. He had faith that she could say it.

“I am…afraid I will embarrass myself and my family,” she finally said, the words eking out between her teeth, “I am afraid that everyone will see a poor blacksmith’s daughter playacting in her mother’s old dresses. I cannot…I will not have Louisa suffer for my inability. She’s one of my people, now. I am responsible for her.”

The glasses on the table were shaking slightly, though no one else noticed. He steadied his own with a hand on the stem, and the brush of his thumb against the glass seemed to quell the worst of the tremors. Alder swallowed audibly.

“I am afraid because I do not know what I am doing, and I cannot ask you.”

Baela and Rhaena exchanged a look. Jace kept his mouth firmly shut as they did what he always saw them do, their uncanny exchange in all but words. His faith had paid off, no matter how much his siblings thought he had none. Alder looked at him pleadingly, and he wanted desperately now to pull her against his chest, comb his fingers through her hair and make his faith big enough for both of them.

Alas, her insubordination, Luke and the others had been able to abide. This urge, they could not.

“I know a dressmaker,” Rhaena began, “She’s a favourite of mine. We should visit together sometime, if the prince is willing to release you for a fitting. You are a lady, after all.”

Alder opened her mouth, but Jace tapped his finger gently against the pendant which lay around his neck, the gesture disguised in a languid, casual stretch. “I see no reason why not to let a lady indulge in feminine desires.”

Alder’s mouth formed silently and suspiciously around the ridiculous phrase that finished off his sentence, eyes narrowing. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“We’ll get you a dress,” Rhaena said firmly. “A dress as beautiful as any in the Seven Kingdoms. Jewels and slippers too, in your house’s colors. You’ll bring green back to the court. When they see the colour, they’ll think Tierney, not Hightower. If we make you into a proper lady, the whole kingdom will see you as you are.”

“A noble and benevolent defender of her house,” Baela affirmed, eyes glinting, “Have your brothers send money if they have it.”

“I already asked, but we have no money,” Alder told them, her voice raw even as her eyes grew to understand the game they were playing, “We barely have our land, and the taxes from the harvest went back into it already. The treasury does not pay me enough for silks or jewels, I-”

“So I’ll pay for it.” Jace heard himself say and found himself agreeing with the sentiment completely. “Consider it a gift, as thanks for your loyalty.”

“You can’t. It’s too much.”

“More extravagant gifts have been given to faithful servants. Land, armaments-”

“There’s a stark difference between bequeathing me a fallow field and giving your female shield silk and jewels, and you know it.”

“This isn't a strategy, it’s outside the bounds of my impartiality. Let me do this,” he said softly, breaking from their stilted, ragged veil of a pantomime, “Let me help you. I have all this money and power and what use is it if I do not help the ones I love?”

Alder’s eyes flew wide at the admission only she might have understood (although Luke’s lips appeared to flatten for the barest second. Jace often wondered how much he thought he knew). It was not the gifts he was offering anyway, not the material silk and gold. It was his help he wanted her to take. A reminder that she was not a lone island amid a storming sea. Those days were behind them both.

“Someone will know,” Luke said shortly, and Jace wanted for a brief moment to throttle him. “Come now, Jace. If she appears in a dress that costs the same as what you took from the coffers, everyone will know who and why, and not just her honour will be called into question. Don’t be a fool.”

Jace (who was willing to be foolish for once) swelled with the urge to shout, because who was he if he just sat by and did nothing?

His chest froze halfway there when Luke unclasped the bracelets which lay around his left wrist, setting the jade and silver loops gifted to him by their grandmother onto the table. Rhaena, knowing in her eyes, followed suit with a pair of ruby earrings and a garnet brooch from Garmund’s plentiful gifts to her, Baela setting delicate gold hairpins onto the wood beside them and pushing the spoils towards Alder.

“These are ours.” Luke told Alder quietly, “No one would know. Have the serving girls sell them for you in pieces. A thousand petty jewellers in the Landing would pay their weight in gold dragons for stones like these.”

“I can’t,” Alder said weakly, staring down at the stones and metal trappings as if she were afraid to touch them, “I can’t take these from you. They must be worth…too much.”

“And what is a woman’s life worth?” Baela asked sharply, “What is your home’s sovereignty? You’re standing for more than yourself, Alder, and we are your friends and allies. You must let us help you. Take them.”

Alder looked at him as if pleading with him to intervene. Jace held her gaze and unclasped his gold bracelet gifted to him by his grandfather the King, sliding it across the table alongside a pair of ornate filigree rings from his mother. They were gifts, symbols of love, but it was a small price to pay. He was willing to pay anything.

Alder stared at them for a moment longer before she slowly gathered them up in her hands. The metal that they handled so irreverently, she treated like shards of eggshell as she deposited them into a pocket of her tunic.

“A dress, you say?” She asked, her voice wavering. “I haven’t worn one of those in a long while.”

Across from him, Rhaena smiled. “No better time to begin again than now.”

A week passed, as time was wont to do. Days went, hour by hour, tumbling like lovers dawn over dusk over dawn. Alder read books of law and politics to Jace under the guise of helping him study for his own impending (though farther off) burden. She went to dress fittings with Rhaena and her ladies, and hunting with Luke and her brother, where the woods and muffling snow offered solace for whispered conversations. In between that, Jace and Rhaena sat together in his parlour, penning letters and bending their heads together.

Still, no raven came.

“This is going to work, right?” Rhaena said one night, closing a letter to Garmund with a nondescript seal of white wax. “It’s going to work.”

“It’s going to work,” Jace told himself, loud enough for her to hear it. “It will work.”

The night before the deliberation, he lay awake in his bed, staring at the moon glittering over the water. His fingers tapped his bedcovers restlessly for an hour before he swept them aside and crept out with a candle in hand.

Alder sat up at her desk in her little bedroom, dark shadows under her eyes. She didn’t even look up when Jace entered, only when he closed the cover of the book with a finger and set the candle down on her nightstand. She sighed, rubbing her eyes.

“Would you let me be doomed?” she asked quietly, and then, “Don’t answer that, actually. I don’t think I could bear whatever you told me.”

“Alright,” he replied softly.

“Not even Lya can find you here tonight. It’s too risky.”

“I know. I’ll leave before morning.”

“I wish I could just-” she made a choked noise, hands clawed and shaking, “I wish he could just die. Is that awful of me?”

He snorted, tugging her to lie with her head against the crook of his shoulder so he could feel her breath along his collarbone. “I fear that’s a question only you can answer. But for what it’s worth, I have never thought you were awful.”

She fell asleep shaking, and her sleep was fitful. Her fists curled into his nightshirt so tightly that he heard the fabric popping as he struggled to extricate himself. He slotted a pillow in his place between her arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her furrowed brow.

He slept about as well as her, the stones between them a thousand leagues of distance as far as he was concerned. He rose before the sun, and dressed himself before Simon could come do it for him. Dark burgundy trousers, brown boots, a maroon doublet with gold filigree. Not a hint of black to be seen.

His stepfather saw him when he came to his mother’s quarters and laughed, “Jacaerys, you never fail to- well,” he sneered and eyed Jace’s clothing, “I suppose it’s one of those things we’re not meant to talk about.”

“Exhausting, isn’t it?” Jace asked, ribbing slightly to test the evenness of his voice. Daemon clapped him on the shoulder, so he had passed the self-imposed test.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure how you stand it. The protocols, all the scraping and concession.”

“Sheer strength of will,” he said as the guards announced his presence to his mother and opened the doors. Daemon scoffed.

“Well, here’s hoping that your pet puts on a good show.”

That was Daemon’s nature. There were some battles Jace knew he could fight, and some he knew were not worth fighting. Some men couldn’t be reasoned with.

“Here’s hoping Emmon Blackbar plays the jester.”

Daemon snorted again as the doors closed behind Jace. His mother’s new quarters were opulent but sparse, bare walls gleaming in the morning light since they’d been stripped of the dressings of the last monarch which had graced these halls, waiting to be strung up with new tapestries and paintings. Rhaenyra was sitting in her dressing room, staring into the mirror as she spun rings across the table.

“Your Grace,” Jace said from the threshold and bowed.

“Come in.”

He did, though his feet stuttered at the threshold. His mother swivelled in her seat, her eyes roving his outfit. Her gown was gold silk, as if she had bathed in the sun of early afternoon and emerged dripping in its light. He felt dull and foolish by comparison, a boy playacting at princehood.

“You look handsome,” she said, reaching out to straighten his doublet. “Your hair is growing out.”

Jace tugged at his hair. The longer it got, the curlier it seemed, made curlier still by the inescapable dampness of winter. He liked it better this way, but it was as unruly as it could be, “Should I cut it?”

“I think you look rather dashing like this,” her smile curved mischievously, “I know some of the highborn ladies think so, too. The new Lord Baratheon’s sisters-”

“Please, Mother,” Jace said quietly, “Not today. Please.”

Rhaenyra’s snow-white brows raised. She had always been much better at knowing Jace than he knew himself. “What is it, my lovely boy?”

“Are you nervous?”

“This is not the first deliberation of my reign,” she replied tightly, but Jace saw through it. What she said was not a lie, but it was the first deliberation which mattered, which would set a precedent for centuries to come. His mother would have to choose between the sovereignty of a house she created and that of the North’s by extension, or the right of a lord to command his servant. It was messier and uglier than that, and they both knew it. A young woman’s life was at stake, and the place of a noble house his mother had created, and the young lord and lady she had elevated to prominence in her court.

They both knew what was right in their hearts. But in the end, she was the queen. All she had was the laws of men.

“Mother…”

“I know, Jace,” Rhaenyra said quietly, hand curling tight around the hilt of Blackfyre. “I know. I hope for all our sakes that your proficiency in oratory has rubbed off on her.”

It was always odd to him to see his mother with a sword in her hand. She wielded it well, and even had Daemon teach her how to use it if the need arose, but it always seemed to sit just a bit awkwardly in her hand. Just a bit unbalanced. In fairness, it was a comically large sword.

He’d picked it up once, long ago when his grandfather held the hilt for him.

“This will be yours one day, Jacaerys,” he had said, breath wheezing from the beginnings of a rising illness, “How does it feel?”

Too heavy, was what Jace had wanted to say. Too heavy back then, and it did not seem to have gotten any lighter.

“Go,” his mother said, as he hovered over her shoulder owlishly. “Go to her, but remember who she is when you see her next.”

Who she is when you see her next.. It was customary for every noble lord or lady invited to the Keep to be welcomed to court in proper fashion: by the queen when it was warranted, by a prince when it was necessary. It was a formality, a recognition of sovereignty, a snub if it did not occur. Alder had been in court for nearly a year, but never really as a lord or lady. To see her before she entered the hall was just a courtesy. Nothing more.

Who was he trying to fool? It was a lifeline.

A maid told him that Alder had been given a dressing room in the guest wing of the palace, her eyes shining with worry. He hastened there, bidding polite but brief courtesies with passing courtiers, his feet positively flying over the stones.

He hesitated outside the door.

“What are you doing?” he whispered to himself, where a sudden typhoon battered against his ribcage and blew his heart hither and yon with its winds. “Just open the door.”

Like magic, the door opened.

“I heard you talking to yourself outside,” Alder said from across the room. He rubbed his forehead as he came in, shutting the door behind him.

“I’m sorry, I just- I was expecting a letter from Garmund, but Sylvie said there was no one in the tower, which means they’re delivering the messages now-”

“Jace.”

He looked up. It was as if he had suddenly entered a dream. Motes of dust swirled in shafts of sunlight, glinting off of silk and skin and dark, dark hair. His lips parted of no volition, just sheer, visceral reaction.

Oh.

Alder’s hair was bundled up against the back of her neck, held in place with a delicate net of silver chains interspersed with green stones spidered through with iridescent cracks that covered the crown of her head. Her gown was dark green, the kind of green that was almost forbidden in this court that only someone so loyal to the queen could wear. Part of it spilled from her shoulders in curtains of silk, sweeping behind her as the heavy brocade of the bodice and skirts took over, embroidered with silver and a lighter green with twining, almost draconic branches.

She wore the dress like it was armour. It suited her perfectly.

“How do I look?” She asked weakly, gently swishing her skirts with one hand. She seemed just as in love with the craftsmanship as she was terrified of its meaning, “I’ve never had a gown made for me before, but Rhaena helped design it, and she assured me this dressmaker is wonderful and she was the darling of the court, so…” She made a bit of a helpless face, “Please tell me I will not be embarrassing myself.”

Jace’s mouth was very, very dry for a reason which had no physical cause. “Um.”

Suffice to say, he owed Rhaena a countless debt, possibly a lifetime's worth of owing. Not just for her cleverness, in dressing Alder in green and dragons that showed everyone just how favoured she was by the royal family. But because Jace couldn’t speak. At all.

And maybe that was for the best.

“You have to say something or else I will vomit, Jace, I will, and this dress will be ruined-”

“You look perfect,” he finally gathered enough of himself to say.

You are perfect.

She smiled at him, gentle and sweet. Blush rose in her cheeks as he took her hand, bowing so low to her that it was past the point of decorum, and then past the point of propriety. His knee was almost brushing the stone when he finally pressed his lips to her knuckles, where a delicate silver ring wreathed her finger, metalwork so fine that only she could have whispered it into shape.

“My lady,” he said as he rose. “Welcome to court. We are delighted to receive you.”

“So I don’t look foolish.” She surmised weakly, taking her hand back as if he’d burned her. “That’s good to know.”

“Anything but. However, it’s missing something.”

Jace turned to see Rhaena in the doorway, hiding something behind her back. He took a step away and tried his best to look dignified. Rhaena smiled mysteriously and co*cked her head towards the other door, which led into the halls that would take him to the throne room.

“Are you dismissing me?” He asked, and her smile widened.

“Ooh, he’s perceptive now.”

“Alright, I’m going,” he held his hands up as he made his way to the door. He stopped in the doorway, resting a hand there so that Rhaena would have to slam his fingers into pulpy fragments of bone if she wanted to close the door (Baela would not have hesitated, but Rhaena had merciful reservations), “Alder…”

Alder, who had been examining her hands and hems, looked up. “Hm?”

He offered her the warmest smile he could muster, “It’s going to be alright.”

She smiled back, tremulous but rife with faith, and Jace let the door close behind him with a jarring thud. His chest rattled at the sound, and he blew out a thin, long breath that shook his lungs against the cage of his ribs.

Oh, to be on dragonback right about now. He was coming to learn that being a Targaryen was much less draconic than everyone seemed to think, and it was to his detriment.

The throne room was filling when he snuck in, careful to warn the guards not to announce his presence and cause a stir. Luke and Baela were already there, observing the swelling crowd of courtiers clamoring not for legal precedent, but for blood sport. His heart was in his throat.

There was a reason his mother was nervous that she would not bring herself to name. The Reach was the home of the Hightowers and the Tyrells, two houses which were eminently fond of the Blackbars, and eminently important to the throne. He’d been forbidden from sending letters to the lady regent of Highgarden, and Rhaena’s betrothal could only extend so far.

He surveyed the room. His maesters had made him memorize the houses in various orders: alphabetical, by region, by date of founding, striking his palms with reeds if he got a single one wrong. His palms stung again as he examined heralds. Caswell, Massey, Frey, Corbray, Piper…

No banners from the Reach.

“Why are you smiling?” Luke asked, his voice vibrating with disgust, “Look at them! Jackals, hoping to see blood spilled like this is a tourney. It’s despicable.”

“Lord Lyonel has not sent anyone to speak in support of Lord Blackbar,” Jace murmured with dawning joy, “And if the Hightowers have not, neither will the Tyrells, or the Redwynes, or any other house of merit. He stands alone.”

“Many a mortal overestimates the conviction of a smitten man.” Baela chirped gleefully, “I knew she had it in her.”

“Rhaena did this?” Luke asked. Baela socked him on the shoulder, hard enough to bruise.

“Rhaena and Garmund.” Jace said purposefully, “I hear that Garmund was furious when he found out what Emmon had done. I’d happily give Rhaena all the credit, but I feel it is not the most accurate notion of what transpired.”

He thought back to what Garmund had said on their hunt, almost two seasons ago. I would do anything for my family. He was heartened to see that it was true. It did not stop his palms from sweating furiously.

His mother entered to the call of the herald, and Jace was surprised to find Strickon Tierney flanking her, his face shadowed by his Queensguard helmet. Only the line of his mouth was clearly visible, firmly shut and almost impossibly straight. His jaw was ticking visibly.

A cruel necessity, his mind supplied. A test. He caught the knight’s eye and inclined his head slightly, hoping to convey something useful with his eyes. Between the helmet’s metal arches, two dark eyes blinked emptily back at him.

Have faith

Rhaena came in as his mother sat, catching his elbow with a delicate hand.

“You’re shaking,” she whispered, and Jace inhaled sharply, blowing out one long breath to steady himself. His hands flexed, skin suddenly seeming too small to contain all of him at once. He wanted to grab the proceedings, puppeteer them with thin, invisible strings so that Emmon Blackbar acted like a fool and Alder did everything right. She was smart, she was capable, she knew what to do. Emmon Blackbar was the scum from the bottom of a boot.

“Faith,” Luke said as Emmon Blackbar entered. His voice was dark, “Have faith.”

Emmon had long since healed, no bruises or scratches left to scar his face. He wore black and purple, rich crushed velvet and ermine fur, and a sword hung at his waist, thin and long. It had clearly never seen any wear, but it was shiny, it was manly, and the jewel at the hilt glimmered as he stopped before the throne and bowed low.

“Your Grace,” he said as he straightened. His smile had too many teeth. His mouth had too many teeth. Jace clenched his fist and soothed himself by envisioning himself knocking each white shard of bone out of place, one by one.

Emmon looked up at the dais, and his eyebrows went up. Jace smiled down at him. None of them wore black today. Luke wore charcoal grey, Rhaena donned her gown of seafoam and Baela silk of royal blue. He would find no allies here.

Rhaena snorted softly, “He doesn’t even know what’s coming.”

The way she said it made Jace pause. There was Rhaena’s confidence in the face of uncertainty, and then there was the gloating cloud of her sheer, unfettered surety. It was very cloudy here all of a sudden. “What’s coming?”

“You’re about to see.”

“Lady Alder Tierney of Holdfast,” the herald cried. Jace held his breath as the hall’s massive doors opened. The last time she had come through them, she’d broken them down. Now, they yawned slowly, revealing not a soldier clad in armour, but a lady clad in silk. An avenging warrior all the same.

Alder walked in with her head held high, and the only reason Jace let his mouth fall open was that no one was looking at him. The whole court looked at her, and how could they not, when she was wrapped in the dress of a noble lady and undeniably a scion of her house.

But the silks were not what they whispered about. Settled around her waist and across her back were her two swords, gleaming silver in the shifting daylight.

“Rhaena…” he breathed, and then felt it choke off. Rhaena, standing primly beside her twin, made a smug face.

“As if I would let her enter unarmed. Perhaps I could give you a run for your money, oh great politician,” she whispered. “If you ever want to seat me on your Small Council, I’d happily accept.”

“Gods, if you orchestrated this,” Baela said with dawning awe, “He ought to make you Hand of the King.”

“I’d accept that too.”

The leather straps and sheaths of the twin swords had been replaced with gilded damask sashes that bound the blades and artfully blended into the embroidery of Alder’s gown, transforming the weapons into emblems. She had her hands laced primly in front of her, so they would not fidget as she stopped before the dais and sank into a deep, pristine curtsy. Her legs did not shake nor did her head sway as she rose. She looked perfect. She was perfect.

Gods, if he could just have a moment to breathe.

“She’s been practicing,” Luke muttered. On the other side of the throne, Strickon’s face was like dragonglass, sharp and utterly impassive. He did not move an inch, as if he was frozen in place by his armour, and Jace idly wondered if that was the case.

“Your Grace,” Alder said, her voice rich and calm as she spoke. Her deep curtsy did not falter despite its depth and duration. Jace’s mother lifted her hand and Alder rose with it, lifting her chin as she did so. The room was utterly silent as she stepped to the side, given a wide berth by the gathered lords and ladies. A berth of respect, even if it was begrudging and hesitant.

“I will hear the petition of Lord Emmon Blackbar, the plaintiff.” Rhaenyra said imperiously, not a single note of emotion in her voice.

Emmon Blackbar’s argument, unlike his outfit, was simple and scornful: “The serving girl, who carries my child, has been captured and taken to the realm of the Tierneys. I demand her return to me, as I have the right to command her. It is a matter of simple sovereignty, which Miss- apologies, which Lady Tierney must be unaware.”

“I assure you, Lord Blackbar,” Alder said coldly as the court tittered at the feigned slip of the tongue. “I am perfectly aware of what laws I bend to, as well as the propriety of this court. Already, your feigned slip of tongue shows the kind of honour you have.”

The crowd murmured in hushed tones. He knew that very few of them took Alder’s title seriously. To many, she would always be the smallfolk who rose too high, the one who had scorned them all with her humble roots in front of the throne on which his mother now sat. How many of them remembered that with shame rather than anger, it would remain to be seen.

“Is this not a matter of petty squabble?” Daemon asked, ever the thorny old man. Alder shook her head.

“No, my prince. Lord Blackbar was right. This is a matter of sovereignty. The North protects its own,” she said with a biting snarl to her voice. Her face was utterly still and calm, her hands poised and her head lifted high. She never really wore dresses, but her verdant silk gown was resplendent and made her look…well, perhaps it was Jace’s dreams and fancy, but it made her look like a queen. “For the lord of another house to demand a citizen of my family’s lands to be shipped south like chattel is a transgression we will not stand for.”

“She is my wife’s servant-”

“Under the pay and provision of the queen at the time, and now under the pay and provision of my family.” Alder said coldly, “And now you, a married man, erroneously claim a serving girl nearly fifteen years your junior carries your babe inside her. I must wonder how your lady wife feels about your petition here today?”

Jace knew he could not smile, and give Emmon Blackbar any sort of satisfaction in calling on his bias. Beside him, his mother’s fingers tapped the armrest of her throne slowly, purple eyes cold and dark. Emmon smiled a moldy, oily smile.

“And what would a crude, lowborn girl who cannot win a lord’s hand know of marriage?”

That got a few guffaws, and Jace left the list of lords he’d have to systematically dismember to the glaring eyes of Baela and Rhaena, who were undoubtedly crafting a list in their minds with more than just vague descriptions of appearance. He leaned forward despite a muttered protest from Luke.

“Lord Blackbar,” Rhaenyra said before Jace could do something so stupid as challenge the man to a duel, or simply call Vermax in to eat him and save the world from suffering his odious f*cking face any longer. “I do not believe the name and honour of Lady Tierney, who served me faithfully while you bent the knee to a usurper not a year prior, is in question. We are here to settle a matter of law, not a matter of your broken pride.”

On his mother’s other side, even Daemon seemed to scowl at the lord, although Jace was privately sure it had more to do with the insinuated slight against the queen than his belief that Alder was right in any case.

“A matter of law indeed.” Alder said smoothly, “Not a matter of a lecherous man who has beaten a young girl and seeks to break her more than he already has. If that was the matter at hand, Lord Blackbar, I assure you that this would not be a petition. This would be a bloodbath.”

“Do you threaten me, Lady Tierney?” Emmon’s voice curled in revulsion around the honorific, a last dying claw clinging to a sinking ship. Alder smiled pleasantly and with a very clear threat in her closed lips.

“I would remind the court that the maidservant resides in Holdfast. She has been hired by my family, and her employmeis nt secured by writ contract. Northerners are not just born, and by our laws, which a house of the Reach is mandated to respect regardless of proximity, she is one of ours. And we believe the words of our own.” She said calmly, taking a letter from her pocket and holding it out.

It came.

Jace had never felt elation like this. Somewhere, somehow, divine providence had answered his prayers to nameless and faceless gods, anything that would have seen or heard. Rhaenyra beckoned a hand, and a steward swooped the letter up and handed it to her with a deep bow. He held his breath as she unfurled it.

“My brothers have taken this maidservant to the maester of Castle Black, your Grace,” Alder continued as his mother read the scroll, “who has said unequivocally and would stake his life on his conclusion that there is no child. Even if there was a child, Lord Blackbar has no proof that child is his, unless he wishes to confess to rape in front of Your Grace.”

His lungs released from the iron vise surrounding them. He was free, they were free, and Emmon Blackbar was about to be buried in a mire of dirt and his own hubris. He was done, it was over. He would never recover from this, and no one would hold it against Jace’s mother for sending him far, far away.

He’d been right about Alder all this time. His faith had no other place but her.

“Well done.” Baela whispered gleefully as a murmur went around the hall. “That ought to do it.”

“It’s not over yet.” Luke said nervously. Emmon was no longer smiling, but he did not yet seem to think he had lost.

“The girl wanted it! She is a whor* who pursued me and now wishes to recant,” He protested, and it was Daemon who snorted and looked the man up and down.

“I sincerely doubt that,” he muttered just loud enough for the hall to hear. Jace heard a few scattered laughs, and Emmon’s face dropped when Rhaena joined in, all the prestigious girls who adored her and men who wanted her quickly following suit. He let himself laugh too, at the sheer hilarity of the lord’s rising flush, and even the more conservative members of court echoed the soft snicker he let out.

“Enough,” Rhaenyra said sharply, rolling up the scroll, and the room fell silent. Jace saw her grip was tighter on Blackfyre, fingers curled white-knuckled around the hilt. “Lord Blackbar, it seems to me that it is in your best interest to withdraw this petition posthaste, unless you have something to confess to which proves the serving girl is with child after all, and therefore your claim supersedes the sovereignty of a noble house.”

“And I should remind his lordship,” Lord Waynwood conferred as Emmon opened his mouth, “that no lord finds himself immune to the rules of law, especially before the queen herself. And I sincerely doubt Lord Commander Krester of the black brothers thinks so, either.”

It was not a closed secret who had trained the Tierneys in the arts of war. Emmon paled, and cleared his throat.

“I…withdraw my petition.”

Jace watched as Alder’s shoulders relaxed, and she blew out a long slow breath through her deep curtsy as Jace’s mother dismissed the court. He wanted to rush down, and he was not the only one: Strickon leaned forwards on the tips of his toes, mouth parted in abject relief as if to call Alder’s name.

Neither of them moved. Trapped by duty, once again.

“What a f*cking travesty,” Jace heard Emmon hiss to one of his consolers as Alder was flocked by the most liberal well-wishers of the court, mostly young knights and the brothers and cousins of Rhaena’s ladies, not even bothering to disguise his disgust, “What a farce. It makes you long for a different kind of future, doesn’t it?”

Jace felt his teeth grit, and swung his gaze to the throne. His mother’s hands clenched over the arms of the iron blades and he knew that she had heard it too. As if she could hear his thoughts, her gaze swung over to him. He begged her with his eyes. He had been controlled, he had been calm, he had done as she had bade him to do. All he wanted was one good fight.

She smiled at him, and motioned with a hand. As he made his way past and down the stairs, he could see the flash of Strickon’s teeth, bared in a wolfish smile.

“I mean,” Emmon was continuing, his voice pitched suitably low now, but clearly not catching that a prince was approaching his undefended spine, “the old kings would roll in their graves to see what the realm must suffer-”

“Lord Blackbar,” Jace said loudly, his voice cold and clear as a mountain stream. The departing crowd hushed at the ring of his voice. “I hear you long for a different kind of future. I must wonder what that future is?”

Emmon’s cheeks were mottled as he turned, lifting his chin in the face of evisceration, “Forgive me. I was simply expressing my disappointment in the outcome of these proceedings. Although I suppose an unorthodox monarch must beget an unorthodox outcome.”

“Unorthodox,” Jace mused, his voice sharp and silver, “I find it much more unorthodox for a lord to chase a servant across the continent on a fool’s mission. I suppose bastardy is only a shame for those with modesty.”

Mutters ripped through the crowd, and every ear in the room craned towards their conversation. Jace just looked passively at Emmon’s reddening face. He was dangling the low-hanging fruit right there, ripe and tantalizing, perfect for the plucking. All Emmon had to do to seal his fate once and for all was take it.

Alas, the man still had a semblance of self-preservation left in his skinny, overlong body, underneath the sumptuous furs and jewels. His brow contracted and he said nothing.

“It does not befit a man of your status to be a sore loser, does it?” Jace asked, just to rub it in.

Emmon’s face was puce, “No.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Nor does impertinence. Are you a schoolboy or a lord? Surely you know the proper way to address your future king.”

“No, your Grace.” Emmon grit out, his friends edging slowly away from him as if he’d contracted a plague. Behind him, Alder was smiling, leaning over to whisper something to Lady Massey which caused the great old woman to burst out laughing. Emmon whipped his head around, and his face grew redder.

“You’re dismissed,” Jace advised. Emmon bowed as if every stretch of muscle was agony to him, and beat a hasty retreat without another word.

“Incorrigible,” his mother said as he ascended the staircase and held out a hand to her. She stood in a flare of gold, and Daemon was snickering openly as Jace passed off his mother’s hand to him. “Utterly incorrigible, the both of you. She took a page out of your book.”

"What?"

She turned and handed him the scroll which had been the key, the seal, the saving grace. Jace unfurled it to see those fateful words and nearly burst out laughing when he read it. She had tricked Emmon with his own guilt. The idiot hadn't even asked to see the letter.

If he had asked to see the letter, he would have seen that it was blank.

Utterly incorrigible

“I try,” Jace said brightly. He had never felt lighter.

“Jace?”

“Hm?” he asked, tilting his head so that he could see her properly through the hair in his eyes. Her fingers carded a couple of the new curls away, twining them around her knuckles as she tucked them behind his ear.

“So, we’ve been at this for a while now-”

“Celebrating,” he said impudently, “It’s called celebrating.”

“-and I think you’re starting to get preoccupied by whatever goes on in that strange head of yours.” Her finger traced from his ear to his brow, lightly down the bridge of his nose. “So go.”

He shifted in the nest of blankets and cushions they’d created on her bedroom floor, propping himself on an elbow. It was midnight, and the castle was quiet, but his head was not. He’d had trouble focusing during dinner and its celebratory atmosphere, and only for the last two hours had his head been in the right place, but now they were sitting in a nest of their own making with a decanter of wine and two glasses and the winter wind on their bare skin, and he was thinking again.

“Jace,” she said again, rolling her bare shoulders. There were still faint lines where her skin had been rubbed raw by the rigid embroidery and stays of her gown, which flexed and bent as she raised the wineglass to her lip and took a sip. “Go.”

He groaned, hauling himself to his feet. “I promise you that I was fully dedicated to-”

“I know.”

“It is simply something I’ve been pondering for a few days,” he continued, hopping around as he tried to put both of his legs into his trousers, “Laws are always difficult, the wording is impossible, the Small Council are a bunch of pedants-”

“Excuses, excuses,” she sang, leaning back against the cushions and stretching out her arms that left languid lines across the cushions as he buttoned his jacket, “Just say you like it. You like the wording and the pedantry, you like the paper and ink of it all. It’s alright, someone has to be smart here.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but for a moment his lips could not form words. She lay there with her dark hair splayed across wide shoulders wired with muscle, a vision amid white cotton and wool-like seafoam. She co*cked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Just stay like that. I am trying to paint a picture of this in my head.”

She made a face at him and pointed at the door, “Go!”

“Do not move, and if you put on clothes, I will be very upset.”

A pillow hit the passage door just before he could shut it behind him.

There were plenty of reasons why Lord Waynwood was the best possible master of laws, and Jace’s favourite of them was that they kept to very similar hours. The guard standing outside his quarters nodded at him, yawning after he had passed by, before opening the door.

“His Grace, Prince Jacaerys of Dragonstone.”

“Prince Jacaerys,” Lord Waynwood said, standing as Jace entered. His desk was a mess of papers, and he was burning more candles at once than most families could possibly use in a year, bringing the room to such a heat that the windows were fogged and shaded with frost ferns. “To what do I owe this pleasure, so late at night? Might I offer you a drink?”

“No,” he could still feel the honey and wine buzzing under his tongue, “I’m not here for long, I apologize for disturbing you.”

“It’s never a disturbance when you come around,” Lord Waynwood said, perilously sincere, motioning to a plush chair. “If you would like?”

Jace sat, and it was about when he did that he realized he’d left his crown in Alder’s room. His hair was falling into his eyes without it. Lord Waynwood chuckled as Jace pushed it back behind his ears, coming to sit in the opposite seat.

“Laenor used to have trouble with his hair too,” he said fondly, “When we were both much younger and more spry. At every tourney, he spent every other movement shoving those curls out of his eyes, much to the delight of many ladies.” He sighed, the hazy eyes of a man reminiscing his bygone youth flickering in the firelight. “Except my wife, of course, but it was a bit troublesome all the same.”

“Oh,” Jace said, feeling off-kilter. He forgot, sometimes, that his father, whichever one people thought of, had been a young man once. Just as young as him, just as unsure. “I’ll be sure to cut it before my next tourney, then. It’d be a shame to repeat the mistakes of my father.”

“When are you thinking of competing?”

“I presume I’ll have to while on my tour,” Jace said. He’d been training to that effect: the joust, swords, arrows and the like. It was fun where it had once been tedious, because he’d finally met his match in Sers Strickon and Vance, who did not bite their tongues about his faults. He was getting on quite well, to the shock of all. “But that’s not why I’ve come.”

“Of course,” Waynwood sighed, “Forgive an old man for his late-night reminiscence. How can I assist you, my prince?”

“I want to propose a new law,” Jace said, folding his hands together. His voice did not shake as he put his precious words into the open. “In the Small Council. I want to propose a law that states that if a woman or child seeks refuge in the house of a lord, no other lord of another house may lay claim to that woman or child.”

“That is an astonishingly broad law.” Lord Waynwood said, though his face was considering as he leaned back in his seat, “And it will be vastly unpopular. Men chasing their mistresses and desiring to claim their bastards will decry it as a transgression of their rights.”

“How about this?” He had been prepared for this sort of criticism. “A temporal limitation. A lord has seven days from the time of the declaration of refuge to bodily reclaim the ward from the house in which they now reside. If they do not act with enough haste, the house of refuge retains lawful sovereignty over its ward.”

“Interesting.” Lord Waynwood mused. “And quite a bit more interesting is that Holdfast is often more than a week’s journey from anywhere south of Winterfell. Months, during the winter.”

“Has this court’s conduct not proven the necessity of this law?” Jace asked him, “Lord Blackbar sought to violate the sovereignty of another house because he deemed it lesser. This will protect the rights of the smaller houses to maintain their wards, while Great Houses reside close enough to their vassal houses to overcome the law if they deem something particularly expedient. It would protect only claimants of refuge, not criminals or soldiers, and would appear to lessen the hold of the crownlands over the continent. It will be a popular measure with the right phrasing.”

“All this for sovereignty?” Lord Waynwood asked pointedly. Jace smiled.

“A nobleman’s favourite word, I should think.”

“Have you told the queen about this?” Waynwood asked. He shook his head.

“I wanted your advice first, as the master of laws. I do not want to propose a sloppy piece of legislation to the Small Council. I welcome any criticism, but I caution you that I will pursue this law whether or not you give it credence.”

Waynwood looked at him silently, for so long that Jace wanted to start shifting in his seat. He restrained himself, staring down the old lord in the eye. Other days, he might have shaken, but not today. Today, they had won. Today, he was certain.

“I think your ideals are noble, and your pragmatism sound,” Waynwood said after a long pause. “With a few tweaks, I can see no reason not to propose this new law of yours.”

Jace exhaled sharply, a grin spilling across a face he usually kept solemn around members of the Small Council. “Excellent. I’ll put the law in writing and deliver it tomorrow night for your perusal.”

He was halfway out the door when Lord Waynwood’s voice stopped him once more.

“Prince Jacaerys?”

“Yes, my lord?”

Lord Waynwood was smiling almost wistfully. “My grandfather used to tell me about the reign of King Jaehaerys, you know. I imagine yours did the same.”

“He did,” Jace said, thinking back to the golden recesses of his childhood memories, when his grandfather was healthy and kind. Flawed, certainly, but no less loving than a grandfather should be. “He wanted me to be as good a king as his grandfather. It’s a large crown to fill, I will admit.”

“I’m not so sure,” Lord Waynwood said, “I daresay you’ll fit it quite well.”

It was as high a compliment as men of their status could give, to compare Jace to his venerated ancestor. Jace wished it made him as happy as she did.

“Not for a long time, if I can help it.” Jace told him, “As long as I can muster. Good night, Lord Waynwood.”

“Goodnight, your Grace.”

“Are you sure about this?”

He had been the one to suggest the ploy, but he appreciated her concern. “Of course I am.”

Somewhere in the trees, Vermax made a soft hiss, disgruntled about having to hide among the foliage. Jace had not wanted to bring him, but under the guise of a trip out to Dragonstone with Baela and Luke, it had been his only method of maintaining some semblance of plausible deniability. Even if they did trace this back to him, for all intents and purposes Jace was on an island across the bay playing cards with the future Lord of Driftmark.

The truth was that Lord Emmon couldn’t die, as much as Jace wanted him to. His mother wanted to put the whole matter behind them for the sake of diplomacy, and the bounds of his duty prevented him from prosecuting the lord to the fullest extent. He begrudgingly compromised after a meeting with an incensed Corlys and a reedy new Hightower emissary that lasted from dawn till dusk that while his wife could remain, Emmon would return to Bandallon in disgrace, never to return.

The Hightower emissary had been a cowardly little toothpick of a man, but he had made clear that if Emmon should find his death somewhere on the road home, the throne would be the first place they would look. His mother had done an excellent job threatening the man nearly to tears, but they both knew that Emmon Blackbar would, to the detriment of all, live until the gods saw fit to take him.

Hence, the plan. There was nothing a pious man feared more than his own sin.

The trundling carriage came down the path, its wheels cracking over the uneven dirt. A wholly undignified way to travel, Jace thought nastily, as it inched closer, bracketed by beleaguered guards attempting to keep up with the carriage with their halberds and elaborate helms.

“Ready?” He whispered as it neared. Alder looked at him with her teeth in a wide, sharp grin. Like an answer to her question, the dirt beneath the wheels opened up and swallowed the struts, sucking them in like a child shovelling sweets into its mouth. The horses jolted, failing to tug the carriage forward.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Emmon’s crotchety voice came, and one of the guards winced. They elbowed forward the youngest of the lot, who cleared his throat nervously.

“It appears that the wheels are stuck, my lord.”

The door slammed open, and Emmon came out without prompting. His rodent-like face scrunched in disgust as he descended the stairs and surveyed the mess for himself.

“Useless fool of a driver,” he snarled, “Push it out!”

The guard blanched and beckoned his fellows as Emmon muttered incessantly. Beside Jace, Alder slipped from between the trees, barely making a sound as she slithered from behind the trunks and crouched amid the voices. Jace felt that hum in the air, the hairs on the back of his neck raising.

Alder made her voice deep and croaking, holding the horn over her mouth to amplify the whisper, “Emmon Blackbar.”

The wind rushed, and the torches all went out at once. The horses spooked, rearing with great whinnies of fear, and the guards all sprung for their halberds, pointing them into the sudden darkness with cries of fear. Emmon paled.

“Who’s there?”

Alder was grinning, though doing a remarkable job at keeping the cackling levity out of her voice, “I saw what you did, Emmon Blackbar. We see all that has ever been, and will be.”

Emmon’s hand found the seven-pointed star around his neck, throat bobbing as he unsheathed the sword around his waist hesitantly. “I don’t believe you! Come out of there, coward!”

Alder’s cronish voice was gloating, “If you insist.”

There was a gurgling noise, joined by another, and another. The guards saw and felt nothing except the air squeezing from their lungs, wind refusing to enter as they gagged and held out their hands pleadingly to a heedless and invisible god. Emmon screamed, high pitched and girlish, kicking away one of his gagging, bug-eyed young guardsmen, who slumped prone across the ground the next moment.

“Who’s there?” His voice was terror-crazed. Jace was having the time of his life.

Out of the bushes, a form grew, slowly encased in rock and twigs until Emmon was faced with the stony silhouette of a veiled woman nearly ten feet tall, towering over him and obscuring Alder’s frame within its whirling facade. The whites of Emmon’s eyes reflected the moon as he screamed in terror, falling onto his brocade robes in his haste to scramble back.

“Who are you?” He stammered. Alder’s form shook, and then shifted, from a man bearing a crown to a warrior with a sword, and finally to a cloaked wraith before returning to its original shape.

“You have bastardized my name in your quest, boy. Do you not know who I am?”

“Mother of mercy.” Emmon blubbered. The stone figure grew taller, wind blowing dust into the pathetic lord’s eyes.

“Mercy? You ask for mercy when you pervert my domain for your own selfish gain? Oh, I have seen it, Emmon Blackbar. I will suffer your heresy no longer.”

Jace felt his blood chill. There was real anger under the voice, a deep, dark anger like the roar of a bear protecting its cubs, water crashing down a cliff’s face. The stones swirled with a renewed fury, but not that of a vengeful goddess. It was the fury of an angry young woman, which was all the more dangerous.

“Please,” Emmon pleaded, his eyes wide and terrified, “I’ll give you anything!”

“Anything?” Alder whispered, and the figure extended a creaking stone hand to caress Emmon Blackbar’s face. “Alright then, boy. You will never lay your hands on a woman again. Not your wife, nor any other, or you shall feel the wrath of the Mother. You will never share a bed with another, you will bear no child, and your line will end with you. That is your penance. Do you understand?”

To punctuate her meaning, the figure’s stone hand turned into an axeblade, held under Emmon’s wobbling chin. The man was weeping openly now, the front of his pants soiled and likely the back too. Jace had to shove his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing as Lord Emmon nodded.

“Say it!” The rage leaking into Alder’s affected voice caused the man to whimper, and he nodded more profusely.

“I understand!”

“Good.” The figure nodded, the axeblade becoming a hand once more, with fingers made of flint that scratched across his eyes quicker than a blink. The man howled in pain, doubling over as three deep, red marks appeared across his face, bleeding down the side of his jaw and into his mouth. Jace could almost see the figure smiling when it withdrew the limb.

“See this as my gift, so that you will not be tempted by your lust,” Alder crooned, her crone voice saccharine, “So you will always remember the promise you made. It’s not every day a man is given purpose by the gods. Wear it with pride, and perhaps I will see you again under better circ*mstances.”

The dryness of her voice betrayed how unlikely she thought it was that Emmon would see anything other than the seven hells when he died, but the man was in no position to be discerning tone. The figure collapsed slowly into stones as Alder retreated into the bushes once more, and Emmon crashed to the ground, sobbing with snot dribbling from his nose and his blood spattering the ground.

“My eyes, my eyes!”

“Well done,” Jace whispered over the sound of guards beginning to wake, and the continued heaving of the terrified lord. Alder smiled grimly at him as they began to walk away from the scene, where torches were being relit and Lord Emmon bundled back into his carriage with stinking, soiled trousers, howling about his lost sight.

“Did I seem impressive enough?”

“I almost thought you were a god yourself.”

She shuddered, elbowing him in the ribs. “Do you think he’s going to take the warning?”

Jace did not look over his shoulder at the scene unfolding far behind them as they pushed towards his snoozing dragon, hidden between a set of thorny blackberry bushes with steam wafting off of him in silver waves. “Belief is a powerful thing. And if it doesn’t work, we can always just smite him.”

She snorted, “Did you see that he pissed himself?”

“Something tells me that it will be the least of his worries from here on.”

Jace would never say it (because she would hold it over his head until he died), but Baela was nearly a better dragon rider after a year than he would ever be. The effort to keep up was all but exhausting the almost inconsequential gap in skill that he maintained through experience alone. She was truly her mother’s daughter.

“You can’t let Moondancer win,” he told Vermax, who shook his head as they glided through the air, “Moondancer is a baby and it’s embarrassing for both of us, but mostly you, if you lose to a baby.”

“What was that?” Baela called from above them, her voice crackling with delight as Moondancer bit through a cloud with a snap of her jaws. Jace held up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Nothing!”

Luke had already landed, but Vermax was a restless beast, and Baela was a restless woman, both of which suited Jace just fine on this bright, sunny winter afternoon. Soon, they would land and be bundled off to prepare for Rhaena’s betrothal celebration, with a wedding to come in the spring. Soon he would button his collar high to his throat, as was the latest fashion he had unwittingly set, and dance with a hundred women who wanted his crown. So yes, this restlessness suited him just fine.

Vermax and Moondancer seemed to get along splendidly, which was a relief given how temperamental they both were. Jace watched Baela go careening around the sky above the Kingswood, and remembered standing on the coastline far below, watching Vhagar and Seasmoke whirl around each other in the rare instances that the Velaryon siblings saw each other, instances few and far between even before the veil of death had fallen on them both.

Soon, it would be like that for him, too. He was expected to move to Dragonstone after his progress, and Luke and Baela would get married and live on Driftmark, where Joffrey was set to squire. Rhaena would be far away in Oldtown, where there was no room for Morning to accompany her. They would all be scattered in the wind.

He had always wanted to be seen as a man, and it was not until he was one that he yearned for his childhood once more. The curse of every man on the verge of twenty, he feared.

“I’ll race you to the Dragonpit!” He shouted, and was off before the wind could carry Baela’s cry at the injustice of his head start back to him.

Wind swept through his hair, pushing rosy blush into the apples of his cheeks as he pulled his dragon level with the spray of the sea before rising nearly vertically over the city walls. Vermax crowed, his whipping tail batting away a nipping Moondancer, and he landed with only a brief stumble, auburn claws hitting the sand not two moments before pearly white ones sent a plume flying right into Jace’s face.

“Serves you right,” Baela said smugly as he spat sand out of his mouth and shook it from his hair in a cascade. “Got to have you looking pretty for the ball.”

Jace made a face as he dismounted, “Rhaena’s lucky I owe her a debt, or else I would have countered every other expense she incurred planning this damn thing.”

In truth, he would let Rhaena have whatever she wanted from him if it made her happy. She loved Garmund, and Garmund loved her, and if it took roses shipped from Highgarden and vintage wine from the Arbor to show it to the world, Jace was happy to spend all the gold in the palace coffers.

“Alas,” Baela said purposefully, pulling her gloves from her fingers. “It’s the things we do for the people we love.”

Jace looked across the Dragonpit, to where Luke and Alder were engaged in a dramatic conversation that had Luke’s hands flying every which way and back again. “Tragic, isn’t it?”

Baela hummed in agreement, bidding Moondancer a mournful goodbye.

Garmund was standing on the battlements between the Keep’s entrance and Jace’s rooms when Jace returned, leaning against the snowy stones in far too much fur than the temperature warranted. Jace co*cked an eyebrow at him. “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere?”

“I’ve been exiled,” Garmund shrugged, standing upright, “Lady Rhaena’s ladies towed her off after she and the Queen received me in the Great Hall, presumably to truss her up in ribbons and gold filigree even though I reckon she would look perfect in a flour sack.”

“Oy,” Jace said, tugging off his riding gloves. “Enough of that.”

Garmund shrugged again, falling into step with him. Jace watched all the girls they passed smile and curtsy to him, and blush when Garmund dipped his head to them. “I saw your dragon up there over the coast as I was coming in. It was you, correct? Green as a spring leaf and snappish as a shrew, spewing fire all over?”

“Vermax likes to roast gulls,” Jace replied, “Far be it from me to deny him life’s simple pleasures.”

“It must be marvelous,” Garmund said, wistfulness leaking into his voice like seeping mist, “To see the world in such a drastically different way. What a sight it must be.”

It was. It was the zenith of his existence, to take his hands from the reins and arch them to the sky and scream so loud while the world far below could not hear it. The rush of wind through his hair. The whispers in his ears. Glorious.

“Morning will be old enough to bear two riders before the decade is out,” he said as they stopped before his chamber doors. “So perhaps you may not have to wait too long.”

“That’d be nice.” Garmund grinned and bowed, “I’ll see you tonight, Prince Jacaerys. And may I say something?”

“Of course.”

“Your shield, Lady Alder,” Garmund said after a brief moment of pause, “I was very glad to hear that she would be attending as a representative of her house tonight. I hope you will bring her to the wedding as a lady.”

Jace struggled not to narrow his eyes, attempted not to let his blood curdle. Was Garmund expressing something other than polite support? How dangerous would it be if he was? His tongue felt leaden and he answered hoping for the best. “I am sure Rhaena will ensure it. Until tonight.”

"And then we'll go hunting tomorrow!" Garmund shouted over his shoulder as he walked away. "Bring your brother and his one-handed friend, he seems like an entertaining sort."

"If you can wake up in time!"

Alder was not there to make fun of him as Simon buttoned his coat and brushed the sand off his head with a consternated look. Jace glared at himself in the mirror, at the deep red tunic he had chosen and the crown settled in his hair.

“Do I look alright?” He asked Simon, who blinked at him owlishly. He never really asked, and Simon, a whip-thin man nearing thirty, never commented with more than a scathing or approving look.

“Might I be frank with his Grace?” He replied shortly, and Jace nodded.

“Certainly. I appreciate honesty from the men I trust.”

If Simon was gratified to be counted among the men Jace trusted, he didn’t show it on his face. “You always tell me to pull out your red and black finery, and then you make faces in the mirror for an hour before you accept your fate. I feel inclined to tell you that you have a great many other things to wear.”

Jace tried to stifle a snort at the tone Simon had taken with him. He had always been the oldest brother, and it was a new sensation to be scolded like he often scolded Joffrey. “Do you have children?”

“No, just siblings. I’m the eldest of twelve.”

“How old are you, Simon?”

“I’m four and twenty, your Grace,” Simon said dryly, with the air of someone used to being told he seemed much older. In the prime of his life, and no doubt not entirely keen on dressing Jace at such an age. He worried his bottom lip.

“Do you…like being my manservant?”

Simon’s voice was wary, “It suits me very well, your Grace. You are a kind and gracious man to serve.”

The caveat of when you listen to me hung heavy in the air. Jace sucked gently at his teeth, staring himself down in the mirror. Now that he thought about it, the red seemed to make his cheeks too flush, and he always looked a bit miserable about the types of things he often wore.

“Would you be so kind as to fetch me something you think is more suitable?”

Simon moved as if he was sure Jace would reveal this was all an elaborate prank, walking over to a cedar closet and rifling through its contents before pulling out a stiff bundle of silk. Jace shed his tunic and let Simon tuck him into the new one, biting back complaints about how he could do up his own buttons.

It was for the best. Somehow, that Simon was a covert savant had completely escaped his notice.

“I didn’t even know I had this,” Jace said dumbly, staring at himself in the mirror.

It was a tunic jacket styled in the way of his father’s time, with a stiff, shallow collar and a doublet of deep, rich blue embroidered with silver thread. The buttons were large and made of bone, blanched white and etched with sea serpents. It was soft and flexible, moving as he did, and the embroidery blended with his silver crown.

“It was your father’s,” Simon said quietly, fixing the cuffs, “They had his clothes altered slightly to fit you and your brother, but they arrived from Dragonstone only a few months ago. You grew into them only recently anyway, so I haven’t had a chance to leave them around for you to grab in the mornings when you don’t call me.”

Jace looked down at the jab, and Simon only raised a deadpan eyebrow at him, a youthful smirk on his face that made him look his age. He grinned back. “I’m predictable, aren’t I?”

Simon shrugged genially, taking a step back to admire his work, “Not always. Sometimes, you still manage to surprise me.”

His mother recognized the tunic the moment he walked into the small waiting room where the rest of his family was, save for Rhaena and Garmund. Her mouth parted and eyes glimmered as he made his way towards her and bowed perfunctorily.

“Your Grace.”

“I remember this one,” Rhaenyra sighed, reaching out to rub the fabric of the embroidered cuff between two fingers. A small smile curved her face. “Your father wore it at Laena’s wedding. It suits you tremendously.”

His tunic was certainly nice, but he was not the sun in the sky. It was Rhaena’s day, and what a day it was for her. She wore a gown of moonlight silver, draped in a shimmering gossamer waterfall of fabric that shone under the candlelight. Her hair was bound up like a married lady’s might be, though half of it fell in tumbling coils across her shoulders and back. Jace laughed at the stupid look on Garmund’s face: that’s the look of a man in love

There was expensive dinner and expensive drinks, and Luke had to elbow him to stop tallying the cost of the whole affair in his head.

“The money is already spent,” he hissed, filling Jace’s cup with more wine, “So unfurrow your brow, drink some damn wine, and have a good time for once in your f*cking life, would you? Strickon, tell him.”

Strickon, helmetless and wearing only the bare minimum of his armour where he stood dutifully behind the table, looked at Jace. His eyes sparkled with mirth, “He’s right. Even Alder’s having a good time. Surely you can as well.”

Alder was sitting halfway down the hall, laughing with some of the Northern lords that Cregan Stark had sent down for the betrothal. She was wearing a new gown, a gift from her brothers that had come too late. It was a green so pale it was almost silver, exposing her shoulders and puffing between bands of silver gilt along her arms, falling in a cascade to her wrist. Beneath the heavy brocade panels of her skirt peeked gauzy waves of snow-white that seemed to glow in the low light of the hall. Her hair, still cut to her chin, hung free in soft waves that were speckled with silver snowflakes on chains so dainty they seemed almost impossible to forge. A spirit of winter, wandering among men.

“Where’d she get that one?” He asked Baela, “Your doing again, I suspect?”

“I designed the dress, though she won’t tell me where she gets her jewelry,” Rhaena answered instead, taking a sip of wine. “Lord Gage, bless his heart, was absolutely clueless about it all, and Ser Strickon was no better. I simply adore when men know nothing except how to throw money at things.”

Behind her, Strickon made a face, but did not rebuke his lack of expertise.

“Oh?” Garmund said from her other side. “Is that why you agreed to marry me, love?”

Rhaena pretended to admire her new jewelry, but her eyes kept flicking back to her betrothed, “Only partly.”

Luke made exaggerated gagging noises until Baela stomped on his foot, and everything was exactly how it was supposed to be.

Jace watched as Alder laughed and accepted some wine from the jovial wife of old Ser Coldwater. She was struggling with her billowing sleeves, and he could tell even from here that she was pinning them back with the help of the wind. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth.

After a while, his mother stood and made a speech about reconciliation and blessings of marriage, and the whole crowd roared for her, stamping its feet and banging its glasses. Alder winced at the cacophony and aimed a look up at the table, but Jace was pleased to see that nothing was bleeding.

The music began in earnest, and so did the dancing. It began with Rhaena and Garmund, soon joined by Rhaenyra and Daemon, and then Luke and Baela, Lord Corlys and Lady Rhaenys, Lord Waynwood and his wife. Jace, heartily warned not to dance during this round, felt a thousand eyes on him and struggled not to wince. It was getting tense, his lack of a wife or even a betrothed. People noticed. People stared.

Beside him, Joffrey tugged on the edge of his tunic. “We can dance if you want, Jace, since you’re lonely”

“Hm, maybe after we’ve finished dessert,” he replied, plopping his slice of cake onto his little brother’s plate. Joffrey’s eyes grew wide as saucers.

“Really? I can have another piece?”

“While they’re distracted,” he whispered, ruffling his brother’s hair. “It’s your first ball. I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yes,” Joffrey said under his breath before smearing whipped cream all over his mouth. The dance ended and when Rhaenyra came back to the table and saw her sons sharing a guilty, conspiratorial look, she just sighed and took another sip of wine.

A prince’s duty to his kingdom was to do battle, make war and peace in equal measure. Jace’s job in places like these was a battle of a different sort. A battle of wits with marriage-minded lords, a melee of dance partners jousting for a swing around the ballroom. He had a list, carefully curated, and his feet were starting to hurt about halfway through it. He smiled as if they didn’t to his latest partner, the sister of the new Lord Fossaway, who dropped hints that her hand had been purposefully left open just as his hand was, and that consequently their hands would perhaps fit very nicely together.

She was sly and cunning. Power-hungry. He kissed her hand politely as the dance ended and smiled all charming, escorting her over to her aspiring ladies-in-waiting lingering by the wall for her report.

The minute he turned his back, he blew out a long breath and permitted himself to search for a gown of silver-green.

She was standing by the refreshment table, looking over the array of fruit tarts with a confused look. There were berries there that didn’t exist in Westeros, bright red clusters and golden egg-like orbs covered in leaves as delicate as paper. Her mouth pursed as she squinted suspiciously at them, and he wanted to laugh for the first time since leaving the high table.

“Lady Tierney.”

Alder looked up at him, confused with her cheeks flushed high and bright. He bowed low to her, and held out a hand. “May I have this dance with you?”

She hesitated for only a moment before taking his hand in a firm, casual grip. He led her out onto the dancefloor where her skirts whispered over wood and stone. His arm hovered an inch above her waist as they faced off in opposite directions. The heat of her skin seemed to expand in the empty air.

“You seemed confused by the berries,” he said as the music started and they began the dance, a simple, almost rustic waltz. She scowled.

“I never saw something like them before. I was wary.”

“They’re from Essos,” Jace advised her as they came together, hands gripping as they spun slowly around each other. Her rough palms were warm against his softer ones, skin dry from the cold of winter. “They’re called sunberries, and Joffrey told Rhaena that they were used to represent good fortune and fidelity, so she simply had to have them.”

“Spared no expense, have we?”

“Not for her,” he couldn’t help but look while he could, relishing the brush of palm against wrist and the glide of their backs within an inch of each other. Up close, the silver snowflakes were impossibly intricate, and not silver at all, but steel. Through the parting of her skirt, heavy panels with subtle silver embroidery of leaves speared with pearlescent knives only visible in the right light and distance, white chiffon floated like air around her.

“Your mother is going to suspect something.” She remarked as they spun around. She’d been practicing, Jace realized, when she did not step on his foot once, remaining perfectly and politely distant despite their joined hands. He smiled again.

“I have to dance with every lady in the room at least once. I would not insult you at the one ball in which you are among their rank and file by passing you over. It would be a terrible political move.”

“You and your politics.” She said, her joking voice tapering at the end. “Jace…I…thank you.”

“What for?” He asked. “You are the triumph of the day. And if I forgot to tell you that you are beautiful, I’d die miserable.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.” She said, and he laughed at her obvious resistance to the urge to swat him on the arm as they finished with a flourish, faces six inches apart with their wrists brushing in the air. She curtsied perfunctorily and fell into step with him as they made their way back towards her little corner. The crinkled corners of her eyes were tense, and she kept rubbing her nose so that the bottom was red and beginning to flake.

“Are you alright? Is your head hurting?”

“It’s not that,” she said quietly, “It’s…it’s Midwinter. That’s all. I’m just being maudlin.”

Midwinter was the most sacred day of the year to those who followed the old gods, the beginning of the day’s return, when the sun would shine brighter at night for the months to come, and even in the bitterest cold, the spring would soon come. It meant rebirth, renewal. He had read all of this, of course, but she made it real.

“I wanted to go down to the festival some of the serving girls are holding tonight. Vance was going to meet me there.”

“You can leave whenever you want,” he said under the guise of pouring himself a glass of cider, “You do not have to stay here as long as you usually may, not for me.”

Alder chewed her bottom lip. The wine on the table shivered as if drops had fallen into its red depths, “But Gage wants me to charm some of the Westerland and Reach houses so that he can start sending letters to them. He knows I’m not charming, but he said to smile without teeth and to not talk about swordplay, and that I’d be fine.”

He snorted, “He’s a clever man, your brother.”

“That he is. When would it be acceptable to leave?”

“Do you want my politician’s answer or my real answer?”

“Whichever one would make Gage happier.”

“It’s not time. It’s people.” He angled his eyes to the left, where there was a group of men huddled by the table. None of them were heirs or prominent lords, mostly landed knights and second or third sons, but all of them were eyeing Alder. Maybe some of them wanted the prestige she had garnered, his ear and his mother’s. But some of them had a look in their eyes that was sickeningly familiar, from looking into plate-glass windows and shiny mirrors. Adoration.

“You had an audience you’ve been neglecting the whole night,” He added quietly, as if they were just discussing the weather. She turned to see a couple of the braver men smile and raise their glasses to her.

“You don’t mind?” She asked, and he put on a great show of grinning and clapping her on the shoulder in a brotherly sort of way as the first of her suitors approached (he was screaming inside, but she did not have to know).

“Dance with seven of them, with a few conversations with ladies in between. Start with him.”

“Lady Tierney,” the ‘him’ in question said after the whisper finished tumbling from Jace’s lips, bowing low. It took Jace a moment to place his name: Ser Alester Oakheart, the youngest son of the ruling lord, dressed in rich bronze gilt and as handsome and solid as the tree whose name he bore. In a political respect, an excellent match for her. Gage Tierney would surely be pleased that his investment in silk and silver was paying off. “May I have a dance?”

She looked back at him, only for a moment, and they both knew she could not refuse. She did not wait for his nod of assent before she turned back and accepted the outstretched hand.

“Certainly, Ser Oakheart.” She said, and was led onto the dance floor in a whirl of green and white.

Ser Alester was a good man, reputed high and low to be genteel and clever with enough honour to spare, and with plenty of land and money to provide a wife with anything she desired. Jace had met him once or twice, from attending tourneys as children, and liked him every time. At this moment, he wanted to rip the young knight’s head off his body.

A few women were hovering and shooting him glances. Lord Corlys was looking at him, and there were very few outlets he could have taken to escape his inevitable fate. Across the ballroom, Alder laughed at something Alester had said, her head tipped back in sheer mirth. The tightness in the corners of his eyes had long since disappeared.

He had a list. A long list, one not even half-finished as the night entered the later hours, where Joffrey was carted off to bed and Daemon was picking under his fingernails with a knife as he waited to spirit Jace’s mother away from the den of vipers he hated so much. He had a list and he had to tick it off.

He put his wineglass down and went to find his mother.

“May I have the honour of a dance, your Grace?”

Rhaenyra smiled up at him fondly, the bags under her eyes barely visible, and took his outstretched hand. “Of course.”

Seven men: Ser Alester Oakheart, Lorent Marbrand’s younger brother Heron, Lord Gregor Estren, Adrian Redfort’s cousin Tommard, Ser Alyn Piper, Ser Dustan Farman, and Ser Addam Costayne, who had a ridiculously handsome smile and a horrifyingly earnest sense of humour.

“She knows how to pick them,” Rhaena said, out of breath, something lingering in her voice that Jace couldn’t quite place. Down the reel line, Alder laughed breathlessly as Addam Costayne’s arm looped around her waist and swung her around, his black-crowned head dipping to whisper something in her ear. “A Costayne is a Costayne, no matter what order of birth he lands in. He’s got a sister, you know.”

“I know. She’s on the list.” Jace ground out as he lifted Rhaena by the waist to twirl her, which meant Addam was doing the same damn thing down the line. She landed primly on her toes, her expression dry and derisive.

“She’s beautiful. You could do worse.”

“I’m looking for a future queen of the realm. She will be second above all others, command the court, and marshal the ebb and flow of diplomacy. Forgive me for having standards higher than beauty. We cannot all marry the mortal embodiment of the romantic dreams we had in our childhood.”

Rhaena curtsied to him as the dance ended, and when she rose, her derisive look was gone. “I know. I’m sorry. I should not have said it like that.”

“I am sorry too,” Jace said quietly as he escorted her over to Garmund. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alder slip out of the room, the flash of green and silver like a streaking wolf as she flitted out the door. “I am simply…sometimes, I wish I could just be happy with what I’m meant to have.”

It was something that they always said about his Targaryen blood: fire always wants more. Maybe it made him awful, but sometimes Jace wished he could be content with a pretty, sweet wife with a good name. He wished he could have been content with Alder just as his friend. He wished he could be content to watch her marry Addam Costayne or Alester Oakheart, to release her from his service when he was crowned king, for her to council and accompany him without the strain against his skin, the fervent desire to track her every graceful move, the aching need to press her knuckles to his mouth.

Rhaena leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, “It is my greatest dream for you to have the life you desire, Jace.”

“It is my greatest dream for all my family to get the lives they desire,” he lied. It was his second-greatest dream, and the most attainable one. The next thing he said was unequivocally true. “I am happy I could start with you. Are you happy?”

Rhaena's warm hand covered his cheek, smoothing a thumb over his cheekbone. She smiled, "Jace, I have never been happier."

The rest of the night passed in a haze which ended with Jace wandering along the snow-dusted balcony near his rooms without a guard to watch him, staring up at the full, wide moon glimmering above the bay. It was so late that the castle was silent and still. He peered down into the small courtyard he’d been searching for, where fire glimmered in lanterns and cast shadows long and high across the walls.

“So,” he heard Vance say confusedly, “We’ve drunk strange teas and eaten strange cakes. What else happens at Midwinter?”

“Well, now we drink and tell stories,” one of the stablehands said, his voice rough and thick. There was the sound of liquid pouring. “Soon, when the liquor hits, we’ll sing.”

“Oh good, I can sing like a dove.”

“You sing like a twat.” Alder said, her voice alight with joy that wafted up to Jace’s ears a story above. She had changed out of her silk gown, and into a simple, thick wool dress. It was dusky lavender with white embroidery along the cuffs and hems which glowed yellow in the lamplight, homespun and comforting; once a spirit of winter, now a keeper of the hearth. Her hair swung in curls as she poured Sylvie a drink, “And no one sings until my brother comes. The singing is the most important part.”

“So tell us a story,” Sylvie said, her silvery voice light as a feather on the wind. Jace leaned his arms against the cold stone, the silk of his sleeves damp against the remaining snow. It was drifting down lightly now, speckling his hair and eyelashes, but he felt warmer than he had in months. They looked like a family, gathered around a collection of lanterns and candles in the center of a circle of buckets, crates, and thin pallets. Stablehands, raven boys giggling, old cooks and serving girls, the castle’s lifeblood. Jace was nearly certain that the dark head he was looking directly down on was Simon’s

“What story would I tell?”

“You’ve conquered dragons, won thrones, and you wonder what story you ought to tell us?” Lya scolded from her seat. “Come off it, we wash laundry all day.”

Vance said, “Tell us something embarrassing so that we can feel like mere mortals next to you.”

Alder made a considering face, though Jace could only see part of it from his perch. “That time I bruised my forehead back on Dragonstone and told you I got it sparring Bryn, it was because I tripped getting out of bed. I was so tired that I only took my hose half-off, and it tangled around my ankles.”

“The Queenmaker, good sers and gentle ladies,” Vance said theatrically as Jace struggled to stifle a snort amid the giggles. He had never heard that one. “Gods, the things we got up to in those days. Before everything became complicated, the good old days.”

“I’ve never been to Dragonstone,” another serving girl, Mara, said. “Is it nice? I’ve always wanted to see it.”

“When the prince goes back to Dragonstone once he’s married, I’ll see if I can have him take you.” Alder told her, though there was a tense longing stitched through the fabric of her voice. “I wish to go back, sometimes. I miss the training yard, the tower library, the beaches where Maddock made me run.”

Jace could see it all clearly in his mind, as if his sight travelled over the bay beyond the walls to his adolescent home. He had left books there, trinkets, old outgrown swords and memories of his coming-of-age. It was a fickle longing, the one for home. No sooner had he returned to the one he’d craved that he longed for the one he’d left behind.

“Hello, apologies for being late, I had to carry Lord Deddings back to his ch-”

Strickon, wearing the black and brown of a smallfolk, stopped dead in his tracks when he laid eyes upon his sister. His mouth parted as he was rendered momentarily speechless, dropping softly open. Granted, she was a sight to behold, but Jace figured they had different reasons for being so agog.

“Strickon,” Alder laughed, holding out a cup. “Have I got something on my face?”

“I’m sorry,” Strickon replied, his face breaking into a smile, “You looked like Mother in the light.”

Alder looked down at herself, “It’s her old dress. Louisa sent it down to me, along with the money for the gown. She let it out to fit me at the shoulders.”

“Louisa,” Mara said mournfully, “I miss her. She cannot write, can she?”

“No, it’s a miracle the package even made it to Winterfell. I’m told you’ll get a flurry of letters once the ravens can fly again.”

“I’m glad she’s safe,” Vance rumbled, voice dark and stormy, “And I think you’ll be pleased to hear what happened to Emmon Blackbar.”

“What?” Simon asked. Jace loved being right.

“He was blinded. Said the gods punished him on the road home. Made his nephew his heir and locked himself in a sept, hasn’t come out since returning.” Vance shrugged, white hand gleaming as he used it to brush his hair away from his face. “Cannot say I have much faith in gods, but they must have done something right.”

“Pity,” Strickon said dryly. “Are we singing? It’s Midwinter. We have to sing.”

Vance immediately pealed out into the bawdiest sailor’s song Jace had ever heard in his life, and the men joined in, forming a chorus that caused the women to giggle and shriek, and the distinct pitch of Sylvie’s voice joining the fray. The tumble of voices left room for the ghosts to chime in: not haunting, per se, but lingering, enjoying the warmth and vibrancy.

Jace hummed along, looking up at the stars as he attempted to parse out individual voices. The stars winked back as he found Simon’s tenor, Vance’s croaking scratch, Lya’s mellow hum. Strickon had the best voice by far, a clear, bell-like baritone he used to direct the melody away from a shanty and into an old folk song from the North he had heard Alder sing under her breath countless times before.

"Oh, Louisa loves this song," Sylvie said, before joining in.

The mountain ever somber, is where I went to wander, that’s where I’ll meet my father, it’s on my way back home.

“What are you doing up here alone?”

Jace turned, nearly slipping in the snow, to see Alder looking at him curiously with only the moonlight to light her way. He had not even noticed her leaving amid the chorus. Below them, Strickon was coaching the raven boys on the melody and lyrics, patiently repeating them in his smooth, honeyed voice.

“Would you believe he’s got the second-best voice of us?” she asked, moving closer. Jace felt as if he had entered a dream, where Love had come for him with arms outstretched. “Leafe’s is better, though you’d never be able to guess. They have our mother’s talent.”

“You sing well, too,” he whispered, so their tiny little paradise would not shatter at the sound. “I’ve heard it.”

“Not like him.”

The hill across the water, the emerald rising over, that’s where I’ll meet my mother, it’s on my way back home. .

“You know,” Alder said, coming close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating through her woollen dress. His frigid hands landed gently on her hips as she wound her arms around his neck. “Midwinter is for everyone. It’s a night where lords and servants come together and share a meal. Louisa will sit at a table with my brothers and the contents of a brothel, and they will all sing together. She won’t know the words, but they’ll teach her.”

It sounded like a beautiful dream. “They’ll sing?”

“They’ll sing.”

“Will you teach me?”

She smiled, adjusting his collar so that her fingers glided against the cords of his neck, glacial and delicate. Her voice joined the chorus, thready and quiet as she wove it into the fabric of the melody. “The river over yonder, a shining snake of silver, that’s where I’ll meet my sister, it’s on my way back home.”

Below them, the song continued, though her voice did not. He was too busy kissing her, warming himself with her touch. There was still a single snowflake pin stuck in her hair, forgotten behind her ear. He pulled it out as they parted, tucking it into his pocket.

“How would you like to return to Dragonstone with me, just for a few days?” He whispered, “I’ll tell my mother I need to check on some affairs, and we can invite Luke, Baela, Garmund and Rhaena for some time away. They’ll be so busy with each other that they will not even think about us.”

“So you were eavesdropping.” Her lips were close enough to his that each word caused them to brush lightly, sending shivers down his spine. “We used that excuse not two weeks ago when poor Emmon Blackbar met his fate.”

“So we’ll use it again. It’s my home, so I’ll go when I like and share it with whom I please.”

“The island ‘cross the water, in the shadow of the harbour, that’s where I’ll meet my lover, it’s on my way back home.”

“Say yes,” he whispered in her ear, the smell of evergreen wafting from her hair. “Say yes, so that for at least a few days, we can be happy. Say yes.”

Say yes to all of this, all of me, always.

She smiled, “Yes.”