The air inside the humid pavilion hangs heavy, thick with the cloying scent of lamp oil, damp canvas, and the press of too many bodies gathered too close together. Smoke curls lazily upward from guttering lanterns, blurring the painted seams of the tent ceiling, while the low murmur of the smallfolk rises and falls like a restless tide. Children sit cross-legged at the front, wide-eyed and breathless; behind them, farmers and tradesmen lean shoulder to shoulder, their laughter easy, unguarded.

On the makeshift stage, the story reaches its triumphant end.

The painted wooden dragon—brightly colored but crudely carved—rears back on its strings, its wings jerking in uneven beats. Opposite it stands a puppet knight, all polished tin armor and exaggerated bravery. With a flourish, the knight raises his tiny sword, the puppeteer’s voice rising high and bold as he declares victory—

—and with a sharp tug of the strings, the blade comes down.

The dragon’s head lolls. Its neck bends at an unnatural angle, “severed” in a way meant to amuse rather than convince. The body collapses in a clatter of hollow wood.

For a heartbeat, there is silence—

—and then the pavilion erupts.

Laughter. Cheers. Applause.

A child squeals with delight. Someone calls for the knight to take a bow. The puppeteer obliges, making the little figure puff out its chest in victory while the fallen dragon lies limp and forgotten in the dust.

But at the very front of the audience, where a high-backed chair has been placed apart from the others, there is no laughter.

Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen sits motionless, a chalice of dark wine cradled loosely in his long fingers. The torchlight catches in his silver-gold hair, casting shifting reflections across his sharp, pale features. His violet eyes—cold, unblinking—are fixed entirely on the broken puppet.

His jaw tightens.

The faintest twitch betrays the tension coiling beneath his skin, the muscle feathering along his cheekbone until it stands stark and visible. To the crowd, the scene is nothing more than a jest—a simple tale of heroism.

To Aerion, it is something else entirely.

An insult.

A warning.

A lie.

“A dragon…” he murmurs, so softly at first that it is nearly swallowed by the crowd’s fading laughter. Then, louder—sharp enough to cut clean through the noise—“slain by a commoner?”

The words fall like a blade.

The laughter falters. A few heads turn.

Aerion rises.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The silk of his doublet whispers against itself as he stands, the fabric catching the firelight with an oily sheen that makes him seem almost otherworldly, as though he does not belong to the same earth as the people around him. His gaze never leaves the stage as he steps forward, each movement measured, precise.

“Is this what passes for amusement?” he continues, his voice low but carrying, threaded with something dangerous, something unhinged. “Is this what the rabble cheers for now?” His lip curls faintly. “The death of kings?”

On the stage, the puppeteer—a young girl, no more than fifteen—goes rigid.

Her hands tremble on the strings. The knight puppet jerks awkwardly, then stills entirely as her smile falters and dies on her lips. Fear floods her expression, wide and immediate, as she watches the prince approach.

Around them, the crowd begins to shrink back, bodies shifting, eyes lowering. No one speaks. No one dares.

Off to the side, just a few paces away, Egg feels it—the shift.

The air changes.

What had been warm and stifling now feels cold, suffocating in a different way. His stomach drops as he looks at his brother, really looks at him—and sees it.

That look.

The one that never ends well.

There’s a sharpness to Aerion now, a brightness behind his eyes that has nothing to do with reason. It’s something older. Darker. The kind of madness that clings like smoke, that smells of burned things and spilled blood.

Egg’s pulse begins to hammer.

“Aerion…” he starts, uncertain—but when his brother reaches the stage, when his hand lifts toward the girl, fingers poised to seize—