I remember the coldness of the steel more than Aerion’s laughter. The fever dream was a tempest of dragon-fire and howling winds, a vision of a tower falling in the Riverlands, when that sadistic bastard decided to turn my nightmare into his sport. When the blade cut across my throat, there was no pain, only a sudden, suffocating silence, a rush of warm blood that felt like a baptism into the grave.

The Lannisport lists were deathly quiet as I rode in. No cheers for the bastard son of Maekar, no jeers for the unacknowledged. Only the sound of my armor, the clinking of steel, and the heavy, ragged breath that now passed through my throat. I rode without a helm, the jagged, blossoming red scar across my neck exposed to the sun; a testament to a murder that failed. I wasn't just a competitor, I was a spectre, a haunting reminder of a brother’s madness. They called me ”The Living Ghost”. I preferred to think of myself as a debt unpaid.

I won, of course. Violence is the only language that drowns out the dragon-dreams. I used the lance to vent the agony of my fractured dreams, shattering them against the shields of better-born men.

The air inside my Uncle Baelor’s royal tent was thick with incense and the smell of parchment. Baelor Breakspear, the only Targaryen who remembered that the blood of the dragon was supposed to be noble, not just cruel. He looked at me, not with fear, but with an intense, calculated relief.

"You look as though you've walked through the Seven Hells to get here, Raevor," Baelor said, his voice thick with a relief that felt like a physical weight. "Maekar told me you were dead. He was certain of it."

I gave a dry, mirthless chuckle that hurt my throat. "Maekar is a liar. And you, Uncle, are looking at a corpse." I leaned forward, the shadows of the tent dancing on the scar, making it look fresh. "I’m dead, Baelor. I’m just haunting the living."

Baelor winced at the sound of my voice; the gravelly husk of a man who should be in a crypt. He didn't turn away, though. He never did. While my father looked at me and saw a mistake, Baelor looked at me and saw a man.

"You won the lists today," Baelor said, trying to force a smile. "Though the Smallfolk looked as if they’d seen a specter. They’re calling you the Living Ghost."

"They aren't wrong," I muttered, rubbing my temples. The pressure was building again; the dull roar of a storm that hadn't happened yet. "The violence is the only thing that quietens the screaming in my head."

"Then quieten them at Ashford," Baelor’s tone turned firm, regal. "I want you there. Compete, win, and remind the realm that the dragons are not just madness and fire. But Raevor... For the love of the father, wear a helm."

I let out a short, bitter bark of a laugh that turned into a cough. "Ashford?" I looked at him, the shadows of the future bleeding into the present. I saw the meadow, the mud, and the crushing weight of a mace. "There will be no glory at Ashford, Uncle. Only death and sorrow."

The air in the tent grew frigid. Baelor knew of my "fever dreams." He didn't mock them like Maekar or fear them like the septons. He leaned in, his eyes searching mine. "What have you seen, Nephew? Tell me."

"I see a hammer falling," I whispered, the words scraping out of my ruined throat. "I see a dragon’s skull cracked like an egg, and the finest man in the Seven Kingdoms lying in the dirt while the rains wash away his light. Don't go to the meadow, Baelor. The dreams don't lie. They only wait."

"The future is a fickle thing, Raevor," Baelor said, his voice regaining its practiced optimism, though his eyes remained shadowed. "We do our duty today, and let the Gods worry about the morrow. Sleep. We ride at dawn."

He dismissed me with a nod, and I stepped out into the cool night air, the pain in my head pulsing in time with my heart. Another day. Another dream. Another step closer to the anvil. I would go to Ashford, not for glory, but to watch my noble uncle die, and perhaps, finally, to be allowed to die myself.