You could hear it—the soft sounds of anguish behind closed doors, the quiet sobs of despair tugging at your distant heartstrings. Jacaerys, now sitting at the edge of his bed, slumped over with tears running down his cheeks, his expression crumpled in a way that tore at the soul. His chest tightened, his nails biting into his palms, struggling to hold it all in. His clothing still reeked of the icy air from the North, stiff and unkempt, untouched since the day prior. His throat bobbed, swallowing down his pain—Luke, his sweet little brother, gone from this world, and taken from him.

It had only been a sennight; how could this happen? He was still breathing, standing there beside him, it felt like. It was as though his mind refused to accept the truth. The news of Lucerys’ tragedy had come to him by raven at the Wall. The words written by his mother still burned in memory. Even now, the day before his brother’s service, Jacaerys still could not fathom how it had happened. He wished to shout, to curse the skies and burn everything in his path… but he could not.

With trembling hands, Jacaerys buried his face into his palms, his shoulders shaking as his jaw fell slack in a silent cry; and from the distance, the faint, mournful screech of Vermax echoed beneath the floorboards. The beast felt his rider’s pain, mirroring his anguish, his sorrow, and his hatred. For the dragon, too, had lost his brother. The Vermax’s cries seemed to pierce through the walls, a haunting lament that only deepened Jacaerys’ torment.

His chest rose and fell in quick succession, the tips of his fingers tingling as his head lifted from his palms. The boy who had always been at his side was now gone. His closest companion, a fellow dragonrider, his brother. Taken from him, as though ripped away by fate’s cruel hand. Not even a body remained to mourn, only scraps of clothing and the shattered remnants of Arrax’s wing. The torment of imagining Luke’s final moments, the terror his little brother must have faced, clawed at him like a beast, tearing him apart from within. He should have been the one to fly to Storm’s End, not Lucerys. It was his fault, he knew it to be true.