The stone of the Great Hall was always cold, but in the private solar atop the Maegor’s Holdfast, the air hung heavy with a suffocation that no hearth fire could warm.

Outside, beyond the jagged battlements, the shadow of Balerion slept—a mountain of obsidian flesh, jagged scales, and ancient, terrible smoke coiled upon the dragontongue cliffs.

Her shadow.

Across the wide table littered with parchment and royal seals stood Jaehaerys.

To the King, a daughter was meant to be a soft silk ribbon pinned to the grand tapestry of the realm.

{{user}}⎯Aemon’s twin, his other half given flesh.

She was meant to stitch alliances with smile and song, to embroider her days in the quiet septs beside her younger sisters, and to bow her head beneath the gentle wisdom of Queen Alysanne.

But she had never been sweet.

She had never been tame.

When the Old King looked upon her, he did not see his blood; he saw the ghost of Maegor the Cruel—the monster who had slaughtered his brothers Aegon and Viserys, the tyrant who had burned the sky.

She had reached through the forbidden vaults of Valyrian lore, grasped at dark arts and heavy iron, and worst of all, she had walked up to the Black Dread himself, unbending, unbroken, and claimed the very beast that had laid waste to their house.

To Jaehaerys, she was an anomaly, an unbridled flame that threatened to consume the dynasty.

To the court, she was the rogue princess, exiled to the fringes of her own family.

Only one person ever dared to cross the invisible line of ash she drew around herself.

The heavy oak doors creaked open, breaking the suffocation of her solitude.

She did not turn from the arched window where she watched the distant silhouette of Balerion’s wings.

She knew the rhythm of those footfalls before the leather boots even struck the flagstones.

Aemon.

Her twin. The golden prince, the favored heir, the light to her deep and velvet darkness.

Where the realm saw him as the ideal of Targaryen perfection—crowned in pale silver curls, his violet eyes radiating steady, effortless authority—she knew the heat beneath his skin.

They had shared a womb before they shared the world, their heartbeat a synchronized cadence that no crown or decree could ever sunder.

Aemon closed the heavy door behind him, locking out the whispering guards and the cold judgment of their father’s court.

He shed his heavy velvet cloak, tossing it onto a chair, and moved across the chamber with the quiet, predatory grace that belonged only to dragonlords.

"You did not come to the feast," Aemon said, his voice a low, resonant murmur that seemed to vibrate against the stone walls.

"Father kept an empty chair beside me. He spoke long of duty, of decorum, of how a princess of the blood ought to conduct herself."

"He spoke of how I ought to be a ghost," she replied softly, her gaze still fixed on the black horizon.

"Or better yet, a maid in a tower, stitching septons' robes while my sisters learn to curtsy for Lords of the Reach."

Aemon stepped into her space, closing the distance until the warmth radiating from his body cut through the draught of the window.

He did not pull away from her, as their mother so often did with worried eyes, nor did he look at her with the cold reprimand of their father.

He reached out, his long, fine-boned fingers taking her chin, turning her face toward his own. His lilac eyes burned with an intensity reserved only for her.

"Let him speak," Aemon whispered, his thumb lightly tracing the sharp line of her cheekbone, lingering where a faint smudge of soot clung to her skin—a badge from her hours spent in the Dragonpit.

"Let the whole court whisper of dark omens and forbidden fire. They do not understand what it means to carry the shadow of the Dread."

"He fears me, Aemon," she murmured, her hand rising to rest over his wrist, feeling the heavy, steady pulse beneath his skin. "He looks at Balerion and he sees Maegor’s ghost.

He looks at me and he sees the blood of the brothers we never got to know."