Chapter Text
4 years earlier
Summerhall
Summerhall lay in the stillness that precedes dawn, its halls quietly filling with the soft scuff of servants and the changing of the guard.
The pale fingers of first light crept through the stained-glass windows, beginning to bathe the corridors in shy, colored tones.
A pair of maids bowed their heads on instinct as a prince's door slammed open, a violent sound in the peaceful hush.
Their eyes met in silent, urgent understanding as Prince Aerion—Maekar's second son—strode past in a tempest of motion.
They could hear the ragged pull of his breath, and one, daring a glance, saw the turmoil in his lilac eyes before he vanished around a corner.
When they realized his path led only to his sister's chambers, their hands flew to the seven-pointed stars hidden beneath their dresses.
(The young prince, they knew, found the very symbols of the Faith an offense within his walls.)
It was mere moments after her door crashed shut behind him that the first scream tore through the silence, and chaos took hold of Summerhall.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
"From your blood..."
The words were distant, twisted, coiling through the air like smoke from a pyre.
They thrummed in the heavens as dragons roared, and the world dissolved into a searing, blinding orange.
Her brother was beside her, his hands cradling her face as if she were something sacred, even as the world burned.
When his lips met hers, the taste of copper flooded her senses—a sharp, metallic truth beneath the impossible warmth that enveloped them.
A kiss too tender to be her brother's.
Hands too gentle to belong to him.
"...will come the dragon reborn."
His whisper was a brand against her soul.
"You are the dragon. We are the dragon. Can't you see? Our House will rise again with us."
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Aerea woke to a violent jerk as her sheets were ripped away, the sudden chill a stark blasphemy against the heat that still flushed her skin.
Before she could gasp, the solid weight of her brother pinned her to the mattress.
Her eyes flew open to dazed confusion, finding only the blurry silhouette of Aerion above her.
His hands were already on her, rucking the frail silk of her nightgown toward her waist.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thighs—a calculated thing meant to shock her fully awake.
"Aerion—?"
"Wake up and open your fucking legs," he commanded, leaning down until his breath ghosted her face.
In the murky light, his lilac eyes were glassy and bloodshot, windows to a frenzy she knew too well.
A smirk threatened the corner of her lips.
Her gaze met his not with fear, but with a sharp, amused curiosity.
"Wha—" The word was smothered as his hand clamped over her mouth.
He drove his knee between her thighs, prying her open with brutal impatience.
In an instant, the amusement shattered, eclipsed by a flash of pure, incandescent anger.
Aerea's hand flew up—a hard slap that glanced off his jaw and neck.
Her nails, finding purchase, scrabbled and then anchored, carving bloody trails into his skin.
He groaned, not in pain but in profound annoyance.
She used that desperate leverage to try and haul herself from beneath him.
Aerion was forced to free her mouth to seize her wrists, his other hand frantically working the laces of his breeches.
The moment it came within range, Aerea sank her teeth into his forearm—a deep bite that drew a metallic taste and a sharp hiss of pain from him.
His grip faltered.
She seized the opening, driving her heel hard into his stomach.
The kick sent him stumbling back across the rumpled sheets.
"Stop, you fucking animal!" she shrieked, the sound feral in the sunrise's fragile stillness. "Listen to—!"
He recovered with a predator's speed, his hands snapping out like manacles to seize her by the ankles.
With a brutal heave, Aerion dragged her back down the bed, her body a useless weight against his raw strength.
She let out another shout—piercing, high-pitched, a sound meant to shatter glass and his concentration alike.
She saw the vein in his neck throbbing, a frantic drumbeat of pure rage, and even in the shadows she could feel the heat radiating from his violently flushed face.
"Stop fighting me!" he commanded, his voice a guttural roar that seemed to shake the room around them. "I SHALL PUT THE DRAGON IN YOU! AND FROM OUR BLOOD, OUR HOUSE SHALL BE REBORN!"
A laugh burst from her—a sharp, wild sound of pure adrenaline and fraying sanity.
It was more hysteria than humor, and for a precious second, it stunned him.
She used it, wrenching one ankle free from his slackened grasp and tumbling from the bed in a heap of limbs and silk.
She scrambled to her feet, but he was already on her.
The pounding and the voices outside the door were a distant, irrelevant thing.
Aerion closed in, his arms banding around her torso and lifting her from the ground.
Her scream was cut short as he threw her forward onto the mattress.
The impact stole her breath.
Before she could inhale, his weight was on her, crushing her into the sheets. He wrenched the silk of her nightgown to her waist again.
"Stop fighting, bitch—"
"What did you see?!" she snarled, the words tearing from her throat. "Aerion, WHAT DID YOU SEE?!"
His hand fisted in her hair, wrenching her head back. His lips were at her ear, his voice shredded with a madman's certainty.
"I saw you, Aerea. I saw stone eggs cracking. I saw our House rise from our union—a new era of dragons born of our fire! Our dragons will return to the sky, and it will be because of this."
The weight of him crushed her into the mattress, his knees pinning her hips. She writhed, desperate for a breath not choked by fabric and his body.
Her muffled words finally broke into sound just as she felt him tear at her smallclothes, just as she heard the crude sound of him spitting into his palm.
"From our blood—" Aerea choked out, the prophecy a ragged breath as she felt the slick, intruding touch of his fingers against her, "—will come... the dragon—"
Aerion froze.
The world stopped.
It hinged on that single, fractured breath.
Aerea's eyes darted in the sudden stillness, her entire being focused on the silence that had swallowed him.
The only sounds were the ragged symphony of their breathing and the muffled shouts from the hall—a world away.
Then, his hands seized her shoulders and wrenched her over so hard the room spun in a dizzying lurch.
Her brother's eyes, wide and burning, searched hers. His hands cradled her face, his thumbs pressing hard against her jawbone in a gesture caught between a caress and a threat.
"You saw it too," he whispered, the words stripped raw.
A harsh, breathless laugh escaped her.
Her eyes, dark and unblinking, held his.
"When have you ever felt a thing I did not?" Her voice was a low, venomous caress. "You fucking bastard, your dreams are mine. We are the dragon, can't you see?"
The truth of it hung between them, a sacred shroud.
For a suspended moment, they shared a trembling breath, twins crushed beneath the weight of their shared delusion.
Then the boy closed the distance. His lips crashed against hers with a starving urgency.
His tongue slid into her mouth as his hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back to deepen the kiss.
She gasped against him, the sound swallowed by his groan of triumphant pleasure.
This time, it was Aerea who jerked her own nightgown up to her waist, who parted her legs in a desperate offering as he moved against her.
The pressure was a dizzying promise.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The doors to the princess's chambers groaned open, sending Prince Daeron stumbling forward from where he'd been leaning against them.
The little prince Aemon caught him, his own gaze snapping to the figure in the doorway.
Aerion stood framed in the threshold.
His shirt was open, revealing scratches on his chest, and a fresh, bloody wound bloomed on his lower lip, dripping crimson onto the pale fabric.
Yet, his expression was one of obscene victory, a smirk that did not reach his glazed eyes.
The look he gave his brothers was of pure challenge and disdain.
His gaze drifted past them, over the cluster of guards and the pale-faced Maester Melaquin.
He arched a single brow in amused curiosity.
"Such a fuss..." he drawled, swiping the blood from his chin with the back of his hand.
The Lord Commander moved, a hand closing around Aerion's arm.
"My prince—"
Aerion yanked back hard immediately, his lilac eyes sparking with sudden, volatile anger.
Around them, the guards tensed.
Every soul in Summerhall knew the prince tolerated no one's touch but his twin's.
"Let him go."
The command came from Daeron.
As the eldest son present, the burden of authority fell to him in their parents' absence, much to his discomfort, his eyes fixed warily on his younger brother.
"Go, Aerion. Just go."
A mocking smile was his only reply.
Aerion offered a bow so deep it was an insult, then turned and melted into the corridor, his hands clasped behind his back.
The silence he left behind was thick with something foul hanging in the air.
Daeron was the first to breach the room, a hand pressed to his own chest as if to steady a racing heart.
Aemon, barely more than a child, trailed behind, his face pale with terror.
In the corridor, a small figure peeked out from another doorway.
Aegon, the youngest, exchanged a wide-eyed glance with the ashen-faced Maester before moving to follow his brothers.
A guard gently but firmly held him back.
"Sister?" Daeron called, his voice hushed.
Aerea sat on the edge of the ravaged bed, her gaze fixed on the floor.
Her lips were pressed into a tight line, as if she were deciphering some terrible secret in the patterns of the rug—a sight that made Daeron shiver, his own eyes darting around the room for an unseen thing.
"Ae—" He knelt before her, the name dying in his throat as he saw the faint, rust-colored stain of blood on her lips.
Daeron recoiled, a grimace twisting his features.
Then he threw a hand up, a silent command for the guards to halt and for Aemon to come no closer.
The girl's eyes lifted.
The most terrifying thing, for the eldest brother, was not the violence he had presumed.
It was the preternatural calm those eyes held.
A serene, glassy stillness that mirrored a placid sea after a storm.
And within those lilac depths, he saw it—the same mad triumph that had glittered in Aerion's gaze.
A hand lifted slowly, brushing dark strands of hair to tuck them behind her ear.
"Sister, are you all right?" he asked, already doubting the very question.
Aerea simply smiled, a knowing curve of her lips, and nodded.
"I had the same dream as he did," she stated, her voice eerily even. "The dragon demanded our blood. I gave mine."
Her smile did not waver; if anything, it deepened with amusement as she swiped her stained lips.
"He had to give his, too."
The prince's face went slack with horror.
His hand, which had been hovering near her temple, recoiled as if from a venomous serpent.
Aerea watched the motion with a tilt of her head, a glint of perverse curiosity in her eyes, before she rose with grace.
She moved past him to the window, flinging the curtains wide. The dawn's invasive light poured in, gilding the wreckage.
"Aerea, you were screaming," Daeron said, his voice hollow, his eyes trapped by the evidence on the linen.
Dark, red stains against the white sheets.
It was impossible to tell if they were hers or her twin's.
"Yes, because he startled me," she sighed, the sound dripping with theatrical boredom. "You know how he is."
"My princess, your well-being is our only concern... Maybe you should let me see you..." Maester Melaquin ventured, his voice unsteady.
He nodded almost imperceptibly to the Lord Commander, who began to shepherd a stunned Aemon toward the door.
"Gods above," the princess whirled around, her voice sharpening. "Aren't you all freaking out a little? Since when does a girl need a maester for losing her maidenhead?"
Daeron flinched as if struck.
"You cannot—! Aerea, this is not—!"
"Get out of my rooms, you pests," she commanded, cutting him off. "And send the maids. I require a bath."
Daeron's fingers trembled at his sides, looking at her. The princess stared back with her brows arched.
He was no stranger to the twins' eccentricities—to Aerea's chilling nonchalance or Aerion's violent whims.
When their parents were present, at least they would wear the mask of civility, their madness tempered to a low simmer.
Yet he had seen their physical clashes since childhood and had long been aware of his brother's crazy possessiveness over his twin.
But this, although expected, was a new, unfathomable tier of insanity.
And by every god that ever was, he would not bear the weight of it.
He stormed out, the need to escape the room's tainted air overriding all else.
"My prince!" The Maester called, trailing behind him in a flutter of robes and panic. "We cannot simply— They are five and ten! Unmarried! This is an abomination before the Gods!"
Daeron spun around, raising a trembling hand to silence the man.
Aerion would try to flay the man alive for that, he thought, a cold spike of fear piercing through his discomfort.
The Seven were not his siblings' gods, and their prudish customs were meaningless to them—worse than meaningless, an insult to the blood of the dragon, as they always said.
His face was pale with rage and anxiety.
"Then write to my father!" he snapped, his voice fraying. "Write to King's Landing and tell him to cut his visit short. Tell him to come back and deal with his two little psychopaths himself!"
He dragged a hand over his face, his words dropping.
"I will not govern this madness! Let them fuck! Are they not brother and sister? Let him wed her, then! Or let the gods strike them down—I care not. But do not make me their warden."
The Maester's eyes widened.
Instantly, his gaze dropped to the floor in submission.
"At once, my prince."
Daeron did not wait for another word.
"I need a fucking drink," he muttered to the empty air.
The prince moved past his youngest brothers as if they were mere pillars in the hall.
Aemon drew Aegon back from Aerea's open doorway. The boy craned his neck, his gaze locked on the threshold.
"Why did she scream like that?" little Aegon whispered, his voice small. "Did Aerion hurt her?"
"No, Egg," Aemon replied, his hand ruffling his brother's silver hair. "You know how they are."
The boy pouted, his childish mind cutting through the excuses.
"Yes. They're weird."