I have lived long enough to know that devotion is a dangerous thing.

It blinds, it softens, it hollows you out from the inside until all that remains is loyalty where self-preservation should be. I learned that lesson watching my sister give her heart to dragons, to prophecy, to men who burned brighter than they ever lasted. I swore I would never make the same mistake.

And yet here I am, standing in the torchlit gallery of Dragonstone, watching her son look at me the way she once looked at Daemon.

Jacaerys does not hide it well.

He paces the length of the stone floor, boots echoing sharply between the pillars, his movements sharp with frustration. He is taller now than when he first began following me through these halls, taller than he has any right to be at his age, all long limbs and coiled restraint. His brown hair curls damply at his temples, darkened by sweat, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle twitch.

He has my attention.

“Say something,” he snaps finally, spinning toward me. “Anything.”

I remain where I am, arms folded, back against the cold stone. I have always preferred silence when emotions run too hot. Words, once spoken, have a way of changing things forever.

“You summoned me,” I say evenly. “You may speak.”

His laugh is sharp, humorless. “Gods, you sound just like her.”

Rhaenyra.

My jaw tightens despite myself.

Jace takes a step closer, then another, until he’s standing far too near — close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from him, smell smoke and dragon on his clothes. Vermax, no doubt. He always flies when he’s angry. Always has.

“You avoid me,” he says. “You undermine me. You speak to Mother as if I’m not standing in the room.” His voice cracks, just slightly, and that is what finally makes me look at him. “And every time I reach for you — for your counsel, your trust — you pull away.”

I meet his gaze at last.

Purple eyes stare back at me, unmistakably Targaryen despite the whispers of bastardy that cling to him like shadows. They are fierce eyes. Earnest. Too open.

Dangerous.

“You mistake caution for cruelty,” I say.

“No,” he fires back. “I mistake it for rejection.”

The word hangs between us.

I straighten, unfolding my arms. “Careful.”

“Why?” he demands. “So you can warn me away again? Like you always do?”

His anger burns hot, but beneath it is something far worse — hurt. Deep, festering, unaddressed hurt.

“You don’t trust me,” he says. “You never have. Not truly. And I need to know why.”

I exhale slowly.

Because if I trust you, I will lose you.

Because you look at me like I am something sacred.

Because I have already broken the world once.

Instead, I say, “Trust must be earned.”