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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Categories:
F/MGenM/MF/F
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Relationships:
Aerion Targaryen (Son of Maekar I) & Rhaenyra TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Jacaerys VelaryonAerion Targaryen & Lucerys VelaryonHarwin Strong & Rhaenyra Targaryen & Laenor VelaryonAerion Targaryen & Aegon II TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Aemond "One-Eye" TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Helaena TargaryenDaemon Targaryen/Rhaenyra Targaryen
Characters:
Aerion Targaryen (Son of Maekar I)Rhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Joffrey VelaryonLaenor VelaryonHarwin StrongAlicent HightowerViserys I TargaryenAegon II TargaryenAemond "One-Eye" TargaryenHelaena TargaryenDaemon TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Baela TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonRhaenys Targaryen VelaryonSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonAddam VelaryonDaeron Targaryen (Son of Viserys I)
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Canon DivergenceTime TravelThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraI've fallen victim to the TikTok edits of twins Jace and AerionAerion Targaryen vs The GreensDragon Dreams (Questionable)Dark HumorUnreliable NarratorNo Beta We Die Like Aerion (The First Time)Dragon Dreams (Literal)
Language:
English
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Published:2025-12-18Updated:2026-07-17Words:374,422Chapters:36/?Comments:6,750Kudos:5,909Bookmarks:1,610Hits:240,697
Burn Them All
Anonymous
Chapter 3: Fathers and Bastards
Summary:
Jace has a crisis about their dad(s). Harwin gets exiled. Laenor becomes an unlikely co-conspirator.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jace woke him by shaking his shoulder hard enough to jolt the mattress.
"Aerion."
Aerion did not open his eyes at once. He did not like being dragged out of sleep. He lay there for a heartbeat, breathing, deciding whether this was an emergency worth acknowledging, or merely Jace having feelings at an inconvenient hour.
"Aerion," Jace whispered again, rawer this time. "Wake up."
Aerion sighed, opened one eye, and found Jace sitting up beside him in the dark. Moonlight slid through the narrow window, turning Jace's hair into a pale smear. His face was wet. His chest hitched like he was trying not to make noise.
Aerion blinked fully awake. He scanned the room on instinct—no screams, no footsteps in the corridor, no smell of smoke. Luke was a lump of blanket on the other side, asleep and unaware. The only danger here was whatever was happening inside Jace.
"What," Aerion said, flat. "Has someone died."
Jace made a strangled sound—half laugh, half sob—and wiped his sleeve across his face. "Stop. Stop being—just—stop being you for one moment."
Aerion pushed himself up onto an elbow. His hair fell into his eyes. He shoved it back, irritated. "Then speak."
Jace stared at him. His eyes shone in the dark, furious and terrified in equal measure.
"Is Ser Harwin our father?"
Aerion stared.
For a moment his mind went blank.
"Yes," Aerion said. There was no point lying to someone who had apparently started drowning in obvious truths. "Of course."
Jace's breath hitched. He flinched like Aerion had struck him.
Aerion frowned. "Why are you awake."
Jace's hands clenched in the blanket. "How can you say it like that."
"Like what."
"Like—like it's nothing." Jace's voice cracked. He shoved at Aerion's shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, hard enough to accuse. "How could you not tell me? How could you just—know—and not—"
Aerion's annoyance sharpened. "Tell you what."
Jace's eyes flashed. "That we're bastards."
The word landed in the bed between them like filth.
Aerion's face went very still.
"No," he said.
Jace blinked, furious and desperate. "You just said—"
"I said Harwin is our father." Aerion's voice stayed calm, but the calm had teeth now. "That does not make us bastards."
Jace sat there breathing hard, as if Aerion were making no sense on purpose. "It does. It does. Everyone—Cole—he said it in front of the king. He said it and Harwin—" Jace swallowed and his voice shook. "Harwin hit him. He hit a Kingsguard. In front of everyone. Because it's true."
Aerion listened, filed the details away, and felt a mild satisfaction that Cole had finally earned pain. That satisfaction did not help Jace, so he set it aside.
Then he shifted, propping himself up more fully, blanket slipping off one shoulder.
"Use the mind the gods gave you, Jace." Aerion said. "Ser Harwin is our father. Laenor is also our father. One is blood. The other is law. Law is what matters."
Aerion's voice was cool, instructive, as if explaining a tedious lesson. "He is Mother's husband. He claimed us. He holds us. We are Velaryons even if we have Ser Harwin's blood."
Jace shook his head, rapid and miserable. "But—Mother—she—she—"
"She made heirs," Aerion said, and the bluntness in it was almost merciful. "That is her job. That is the realm's ugly bargain. Do you think that she lives in a song?"
Jace's face contorted. "She betrayed him."
Aerion stared at him.
Then he said, very carefully, because this apparently required spelling out: "No."
Jace's voice rose, fierce and small. "She had children with another man."
Aerion's patience thinned. "Yes."
"And he's—he's our father—"
"Yes."
"And Laenor is her husband—"
"Yes."
"So she—"
Aerion cut in, flat as stone. "Father likes men."
Jace froze.
In the pause that followed, the quiet of the room pressed in hard. The only sound was Luke's slow breathing, oblivious and steady.
Jace's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again, as if the words were too large to fit through it.
Aerion watched him process it and felt a familiar irritation: Jace was clever, but he spent too much time trying to keep the world polite.
Aerion watched him, unimpressed. "Did you truly not notice that Father spends most of his nights out with Ser Qarl."
Jace's lips parted. His cheeks flushed. "That's— that's not— that's just—"
"That's exactly what it is," Aerion said. He rubbed his face with the heel of his palm, furious now for a different reason: exhaustion. "You are the eldest. You're meant to see what's in front of you. "
Jace's eyes shone again.
"You knew," Jace whispered.
"Yes," Aerion said, because lying would be stupid.
Jace's voice trembled. "And you didn't tell me."
Aerion's annoyance flared hot. "Because it does not matter."
Jace stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "It is— Aerion, it's everything."
"No." Aerion leaned closer. "What matters is this: we are Velaryons. We are Mother's sons. We are the heirs. The court may whisper whatever filth it likes, but Father stands in front of them and calls us 'sons' and dares anyone to contradict him."
Jace's hands tightened in the blanket until his knuckles showed pale. "But if they—if they say—if they prove—"
"They can't prove anything," Aerion said, too calmly for a child. "Let the fools whisper. Their words have no power unless you hand it to them."
Jace's breath hitched again. He made a small, ugly sound and turned his face away, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand.
Aerion watched him, and he softened the tiniest amount—enough to be annoyed about it.
Jace whispered, "I don't want them to look at Mother like that. To say those things."
Aerion's expression went hard again. "I'll make them stop."
Jace drew in a shuddering breath. The anger in him sagged into something exhausted.
He looked back at Aerion, red-eyed and shaking. "I hate them."
Aerion nodded once. "Good."
Jace stared at him for a bit longer, then his face crumpled again. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Aerion, like he needed to hold onto something solid.
Aerion went rigid. "Stop that."
Jace clung harder, cheek pressed against Aerion's shoulder. "No."
"We are not babes."
"I don't care."
Aerion's hands hovered, offended by the demand. He was not built for softness. He did not like being used for it.
Then, with a long sigh that made it clear this was a temporary charity and not a precedent, he put one arm around Jace's back.
Jace shuddered once. His breath slowed, still uneven, still angry, but less like panic.
Aerion stared into the dark over Jace's head, listening to Luke's sleeping breaths, and thought, with sour resignation, that this was what being the middle brother meant: doing violence to adults, and comfort to family, and pretending both were nothing.
"Go to sleep," Aerion murmured.
Jace nodded against him, a small, damp motion.
Aerion woke with Jace's arm still locked around his ribs.
He lay very still for a moment, staring at the canopy in the gray light, and considered—briefly, seriously—biting his brother.
Jace's breath was warm against his shoulder. Luke snored softly from his heap of blankets, limp and innocent. The room smelled of sleep and childhood and the faint tang of last night's tears.
Aerion shifted an inch.
Jace tightened like a reflex.
Aerion's jaw clenched.
He pried Jace's hand open one finger at a time, slow and careful. When the grip finally loosened, he slid out of bed with stiff precision, as if tenderness had left a bruise.
He dressed without calling for help. Shirt, hose, boots. He combed his hair with his fingers and told himself, sharply, that his next waking hour would be spent inventing new ways for Ser Criston Cole to suffer.
A plan. A proper plan. Something with witnesses. Something that would stain Cole in a way no armor could hide.
The thought smoothed the heat inside Aerion into a shape he could hold.
Then the door opened.
Rhaenyra stepped in. A maid hovered in her shadow.
Her gaze swept the chamber. It settled on Jace, propped on his elbows, blinking the fog of sleep from his eyes. On Luke, still a small, rumpled heap beneath the blankets. Then it found Aerion, already dressed and standing like a little knight.
"Good," she said softly. "You're awake."
Aerion didn't like that tone. It meant she was about to be gracious at him.
"What," Aerion said, flat.
Rhaenyra exhaled. "After the… events of the yard yesterday, your grandsire has reached a judgment."
Jace pushed himself fully upright, the sleep vanishing from his face. "Concerning Ser Harwin?"
A single nod from their mother. The very air in the room seemed to thin.
"Ser Harwin has been relieved of his command of the City Watch," Rhaenyra told them.
Aerion's stomach dropped and his anger rose to replace it, fast and hot, so it didn't look like fear.
Rhaenyra kept going before he could interrupt, as if she knew the first words out of Aerion's mouth would be a knife.
"Lord Lyonel has petitioned to temporarily set aside his duties as Hand. He wishes to return to Harrenhal. He will take his son with him."
Aerion stared at her.
It took him a heartbeat to hear the end of the sentence.
"To Harrenhal," Aerion repeated.
Rhaenyra's face stayed composed. Her eyes tightened, warning him without saying it.
Aerion didn't care.
"No," he said.
Rhaenyra stepped closer. "Aerion—"
"No," Aerion said again, clearer. He could feel the heat beginning to climb his spine, a serpent uncoiling. "He can't go."
Jace's face pinched with dread. "Mother, why—"
"Because Ser Harwin struck a Kingsguard in front of the king," Rhaenyra said, voice steady. "The court is a nest of teeth. Your grandfather thinks this will quiet the whispers."
Aerion's laugh was sharp and humorless. "It won't."
Rhaenyra's mouth tightened. "I know."
Aerion's hands curled at his sides; his nails pressed into his palms.
"This is her," Aerion said coldly. "This is the queen. She put Cole up to it. She wanted him to say it. She wanted Harwin to lose control. She wanted this. And you're letting her win."
Rhaenyra's gaze flicked to the maid at the door. "Close it, and come back later."
When the latch clicked, Rhaenyra turned back. Her voice softened, but her spine stayed straight.
"You don't know that," she said.
Aerion stared at her like she'd grown a second head.
"I know," he said. He took a step toward her. "I know because she benefits. She's been mocked. In corridors. In septs. In court. People laugh into their cups when she passes."
Rhaenyra lifted a hand. "Aerion."
He didn't stop. His hands were fists at his sides. His nails bit into his palms. Don't shout. Don't let the fire out. But it was building, a pressure behind his eyes, making the light seem too bright, Rhaenyra's face too sharp.
"You can make the king keep him," Aerion said. "You can ask. He will listen to you. He loves you. That pious cow cannot rule him!"
Jace flinched, making a small, strangled sound. He looked from Aerion to Rhaenyra, between awe and horror.
Rhaenyra's eyes flashed.
"Do not speak of the queen that way," she said sharply, looking at the closed door.
Aerion's expression went very still.
"Why not," he said. "She speaks of you worse, and she does it with prayers wrapped around it so everyone agrees. She speaks of you as a whore and a threat in the same breath."
Rhaenyra's jaw clenched. "If I beg the king to keep him, the court will hear what I'm admitting." she said. "I'm trying to keep you safe. "
"By sending Harwin to die?"
She froze.
Jace's eyes widened, confused. Luke stirred in the bed, muttered something, and rolled over, still asleep.
Rhaenyra's gaze pinned Aerion. "What did you say."
Aerion realized, too late, that he'd let it out.
He didn't take it back. He couldn't now.
Rhaenyra stepped closer. "Aerion," she said again, slower. "Explain."
Aerion swallowed. The heat behind his ribs stirred, restless, angry at being trapped in skin and bone.
"Harrenhal is cursed. He can't go," Aerion said, harsher. "He stays."
Rhaenyra reached for him. "I will write. I will send men with him. I will—"
"No. I want him here," Aerion insisted, taking a step back.
Rhaenyra's voice went soft again. "My love, we do not always get what we want. Sometimes… we must accept a loss to prevent a greater one."
Loss.
Dragons didn't lose. They burned what refused to be taken.
Then she shifted tactics, as she always did when she couldn't win by force.
"Listen to me," she soothed. "Harwin is not becoming a stranger. You'll write to him. I'll see that you can. You'll have him in your life."
Aerion shook his head once, violent. "No, I don't want letters."
Rhaenyra reached for him again.
"I don't want his letters," Aerion snarled, recoiling from her outstretched hand. "I want his sword here."
"Aerion," she warned.
He didn't care. He could feel the old madness crawling up his spine.
Rhaenyra tried again, softer. "I've been thinking of moving us to Dragonstone."
Aerion's eyes flicked up sharply.
"As Crown Princess, it is my right," she continued. "It will be ours, properly. Away from this court. Away from—" she didn't say Alicent's name. "And there… you might claim a dragon."
She leaned closer, voice warm. "You've said you won't wait for an egg. On Dragonstone, there are dragons that answer the true blood. You could choose one. You could have what you want."
Aerion stared at her.
On another morning, it might have worked.
But Harrenhal burned in his head. The knowledge that tasted like smoke.
"I don't care about that right now," Aerion said.
Rhaenyra's patience thinned. "You will care. It matters."
"It doesn't matter if Ser Harwin is dead."
Rhaenyra's face tightened again. "Aerion."
He turned away before she could touch him, before she could force him back into the shape of a child.
"Aerion," she called, sharper now. "Stop."
He yanked the door open.
The corridor beyond was bright with morning. Servants moved with lowered eyes. Somewhere, faint and distant, someone hummed a tune— green will learn she asked it wrong.
Aerion stepped out.
Behind him, Rhaenyra's voice followed, controlled and strained. "Come back."
Aerion ignored her.
Inside his chest, something old and hungry uncoiled.
The corridors of the Red Keep blurred into a tunnel of stone and torchlight. Aerion walked with a purpose so fierce it carved a path before him.
Servants saw him and lowered their eyes too fast. Courtiers pretended not to notice the child moving like a storm. Aerion's face stayed smooth, pale as milk, but his eyes didn't.
He threw his shoulder against the door to Ser Harwin's chambers and it burst inward with a shuddering crack.
Harwin was there, standing beside a half-packed trunk with a leather riding jerkin in his hands. The sight of the trunk was a slap. The sight of Harwin handling it calmly was worse.
Lord Lyonel Strong stood near the table, gatherinf papers. He looked up, startled, then immediately tired.
"Aerion—" Harwin began, his voice a rough caress of concern.
Aerion didn't hear it. "You can't go."
Lord Lyonel moved first, his heavy presence shifting to block the door from the view of the curious corridor. He shut it with his body blocking the view, then slid the bolt across. "Prince Aerion," he said, his voice low. "This is not the place."
"It's exactly the place!" Aerion's shout echoed in the room. He pointed a finger at Harwin. "He can't go! He's her sworn shield! He swore!"
Harwin dropped the jerkin into the trunk and took a step forward, his hands held out, palms open. "Little one," he tried. "You need to breathe."
"Don't you dare 'little one' me!" Aerion spat. The gentleness infuriated him more than any shout. "You cannot let that Dornish upstart chase you from this city like a whipped cur!"
Lyonel's head lifted slightly, the smallest flinch at the words. His eyes cut to Harwin, warning him.
Harwin's eyes never left Aerion's face. "Mind your tongue. These walls have ears."
"Let them hear!" Aerion's voice climbed higher. "Let them carry the tale to the pious whore and her white-cloaked mongrel! Let the whole keep know what they are!"
Harwin took another step closer. "Aerion."
The tone was gentle.
Aerion hated it.
He hit him.
A small fist against Harwin's thigh. It was like hitting a wall.
Harwin didn't even flinch. That was unbearable.
Aerion hit him again, his knuckles screaming in protest.
"Aerion." Harwin's voice went low. Calm. He sank down to one knee, bringing his face level with Aerion's, and caught Aerion's wrists in both hands.
Harwin's hands were huge. "Listen to me. I can only be your shield from afar now. They won't let me stay. The King has spoken."
"The King is a fool who listens to a cow!" Aerion screamed, thrashing against the grip.
"The King is still the King," Lyonel murmured from behind them.
Aerion tried to hit him again, a wild swing that Harwin easily contained, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. The proximity was maddening. He could smell the leather and steel and clean sweat of him, the scent that was being packed away in a trunk.
"You mustn't speak so of the Queen," Harwin warned, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. He glanced at his father, and brought one hand up and covered Aerion's mouth. "Hush now. Words are arrows here. You must not give them more to use."
There was wildfire in Aerion's blood.
He bit.
His teeth sank into Harwin's palm and he tasted salt, then iron. Harwin made a short sound—more surprise than pain—but he did not rip his hand away. He just held still, letting Aerion's fury spend itself on flesh.
Lyonel sucked in a breath through his teeth and turned his face away, as if watching would make it worse. His fingers pressed to his brow.
When the furious tension finally snapped, Aerion released his jaw, panting. His lips were smeared crimson.
Harwin looked at his bleeding hand, then back at Aerion's face, streaked with anger and unshed tears. The stern lines of his face softened into something unbearably fond.
"Seven hells," Harwin murmured. "There is too much dragon in you for such a small cage. You must promise to grow. You will need the room for all that fire."
Then, before Aerion could protest, Harwin pulled him into a hug.
Harwin's arms closed around him like a gate, hard muscle and heat, squeezing until Aerion's lungs complained. Aerion thrashed in his grip. He hated the strength. Harwin's heartbeat was steady while his own was a wildfire riot.
His eyes burned.
He wasn't crying.
His eyes were just… full of fire.
Harwin's voice vibrated against his hair. "You have to understand. There's nothing else I can do. This is me protecting you."
"I don't," Aerion choked, the words scraped his throat raw. "I don't understand."
Harwin loosened slowly but didn't let go completely, hands still anchoring Aerion's shoulders as if he expected him to explode again.
Aerion swallowed, hard.
"Stay away from fire," he said.
Harwin blinked. "What."
"I had a dream," Aerion said. "You die in it."
Harwin's smile came back, warm and sad. He ruffled Aerion's hair with his uninjured hand.
"I've been standing in fire for years," Harwin said. "I'm used to heat."
Aerion fisted his hands in Harwin's tunic. He wanted to shake him. "Swear it. Swear you will stay away."
Harwin's gaze held his, and the gentle dismissal faded. "I will be wary of fire," he said.
It sounded like a promise.
Aerion didn't trust promises.
He stepped back, dragging his dignity after him like a torn cloak. He wouldn't look at Lyonel.
Aerion turned for the door.
Lyonel moved first again, sliding the bolt back. The door opened onto the corridor's bright morning.
Aerion slipped out without looking back.
He made it three steps before voices leaked after him through the narrowing crack.
Lyonel's, low and tired. "That little boy loves you."
A pause.
Then Harwin's answer, warm with that reckless affection that made him both shield and weakness.
"He has good taste."
Aerion kept walking.
Laenor's rooms smelled of salt that didn't belong in King's Landing.
Perfume meant to conjure driftwood and sea-wind, a little brazier with something resinous burning, a window cracked just enough to let in the city's damp breath.
Aerion stood in the middle of it with his hands clenched so tight his nails had half-moons pressed into his palms.
Laenor was bent over a table, a map of the Narrow Sea unfurled before him, a cup of watered wine near his elbow.
He looked up when Aerion entered, brows lifting.
"Seven save me," Laenor said softly, more amused than alarmed. "That look. You've inherited it from your mother. The 'I'm about to bite the world' look."
Aerion took one step toward the table.
"When do we sail?"
Laenor's amusement thinned. "Soon enough."
"When."
Laenor tapped the map with one finger. Dragonstone. "Ships need to be arranged. Household moved. Your mother's people soothed. The king's mood managed. Politics done without anyone calling it politics."
Aerion's jaw worked. "Why are we leaving at all."
Laenor leaned back. He studied Aerion with fondness.
"Because this place is sharpening its knives," Laenor said. "And because sometimes you don't win by standing still. Sometimes you win by stepping out of reach."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "You're her husband."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "I am."
"You can't just let the Queen chase her—chase us—out of the city like whipped dogs."
Laenor didn't flinch at the accusation. He looked tired instead, like a man who had been losing the same argument in different rooms for years.
"I'm not letting anyone chase her," he said. "I'm taking her somewhere safer."
"That's cowardice," Aerion hissed. "You should be here. In front of her. Between her and the cow."
Laenor's gaze flicked toward the door on instinct at that word.
"Aerion," he cautioned. "Not so loud."
Aerion pressed on anyway. The fury kept his voice even.
"Why don't you protect her more."
Laenor closed his eyes, breathing through his nose.
"I do protect her," Laenor said. "I have protected her every day of my life since I stood beside her at the sept. Let the court think they're winning, so they stop pulling."
Aerion's lip curled. "And Harwin is gone."
Laenor's eyes softened.
"Yes," he said quietly. "And it is a loss."
Aerion stepped closer, until he was near enough that Laenor had to look down at him properly.
"I know he's my father," Aerion stated.
Laenor's whole body reacted before his face did. His head snapped toward the door. His eyes searched the corners of the room. The lightness in him vanished as if someone had poured cold water over a flame.
"Aerion," he hissed. "Gods—You must never—never—say such things. Not here. Not where the walls have ears."
Aerion rolled his eyes. "I've known for a while. Everyone with eyes knows."
"That makes it worse," Laenor said immediately. He stood. He crossed the room in two strides and checked the bolt as if metal could keep rumor out. Then he turned back, and he looked—finally—stern.
It didn't sit on him comfortably.
"You will not speak this truth. Not even in jest, do you understand? It is not a jest."
Aerion's expression went flat. "What truth."
Laenor stared, disbelief warring with panic. "Do not play—"
Aerion cut in. "Harwin helped Mother make us. Fine. But you claimed us. You stand there and call us sons. You put your name on us like a seal. So you are our father. Are you not? "
Laenor blinked.
The sternness faltered, replaced by something raw and startled. His throat worked as if he'd swallowed something too large. For a moment he looked young—too young for the crown's ugliness, too young for the way this city chewed love into strategy.
"Of course I am," Laenor said, very quietly. "Of course you're mine."
Aerion held his gaze without blinking, daring him to make it pretty.
Laenor exhaled, and some of the tightness left his shoulders. He reached out and touched Aerion's hair once, awkwardly gentle, like he didn't know where affection was supposed to go but wanted it to land somewhere.
"You're Velaryons," Laenor said. "All of you. Mine."
Aerion nodded once, brisk. The warmth in his chest didn't get to stay warm; it turned instantly into fire.
"Good," Aerion said. "Then you're going to help me ruin Ser Criston Cole's reputation."
Laenor froze mid-breath.
His eyes widened a fraction. Then he stared at Aerion long enough for understanding to click into place.
"Oh," Laenor breathed, and the corner of his mouth twitched up again. "So that's what this is."
Aerion looked unrepentant. "He hurt Jace."
"I know," Laenor said, softer.
"And he said it in front of everyone," Aerion added. "He wants the court to say it for him. He wants Mother to bleed in public and call it piety."
"Whispers inside the Red Keep are easy enough," Aerion went on, voice flat. "But to stain him, I need the city's mouth too—and I can't go alone."
Laenor's amusement returned, but it wasn't light now. It had edges, sea-wind sharp.
He crouched a little so he wasn't towering over Aerion. He studied the boy's face: the rage, the intelligence, the particular kind of ruthlessness that didn't bother pretending it was virtue.
Then he smiled—fond, resigned, and a little proud.
"Gods be good," Laenor murmured, shaking his head. "You are your grandsire's heir, through and through."
Aerion's chin lifted. "I am my mother's son."
"You are both," Laenor said, rising to his feet. "A terrifying combination." He glanced at the map of Dragonstone, then back at Aerion. "I will not promise you violence. Blood is a messy business, and the Queen's dog is well-guarded. But a reputation…" He let the word hang, a sly, knowing light in his eyes. "A reputation is a sail. It can be rent by a storm no one sees coming."
Aerion's lips finally twitched.
"Good," he said again.
Laenor sighed. "Go. Wash the defiance from your face before your mother sees it and guesses the rest. And for the love of all you hold dear, learn to hold your tongue."
Aerion turned to leave. At the threshold he paused, long enough to throw one last ember over his shoulder.
"I know when to hold it," he said. "And I know when to use it."
Aerion refused to be there for Harwin's goodbye.
He told himself it was because sentiment was foolish. He told himself he had no wish to watch the man pretend this retreat was anything but a defeat.
He didn't tell himself the other thing.
He didn't tell himself that if he stood in that room, he might try to stop the leaving with teeth.
So Aerion climbed the narrow stair to one of the high windows that overlooked the outer yard and the gate beyond.
From up there, he could see everything.
The Strong retinue had assembled. Saddled horses stamped and blew plumes into the chill air. Men cinched girths and checked straps. A steward gestured sharply at a boy struggling with an overlarge chest.
Harwin mounted last.
He swung into the saddle with easy strength.
Aerion watched his hands settle on the reins. Watched the stallion's ears flick back in response to a low command. Watched Harwin's gaze lift once, sweeping toward the keep's main doors.
Aerion's fingers dug into the stone.
Behind him, faint through the corridor, came movement. Rhaenyra's household shifting. Voices. The soft scrape of boots. Someone calling his name once, then letting it die.
Aerion didn't turn.
The gate opened.
The first riders moved out, hooves striking the cobbles with a rhythm that sounded like judgment. Lord Lyonel led, the Hand of the King reduced now to a lord father shepherding his disgraced son from the court.
Harwin followed.
Then—just before the arch swallowed him—Harwin lifted his head again.
This time he looked higher.
His eyes found the narrow window. Found the pale, furious face within it.
For a heartbeat Harwin didn't move at all. There was the smallest softening at the corner of his mouth, like he'd found something he'd been afraid would be missing. Like he was proud and sorry in the same breath and had no words left safe enough to spend.
Aerion's throat tightened with something vicious and hot.
He wanted to snarl. He wanted to throw the glass open and scream that this was wrong, that Harwin belonged inside these walls with his sword in his hand and his body between them and everything that wanted them bleeding.
He did none of it.
He stared back, hard as stone.
Harwin's expression shifted again. A quiet understanding, and a promise: I see you. I know. I'm still yours, even from far away.
Harwin turned his eyes forward.
He rode under the arch.
The Strong party vanished into the city's gullet, one horse and then another, until Harwin's broad back was the last dark smudge of him.
The gate began its slow, heavy swing inward.
Aerion pressed closer to the cold glass, as if the angle of his stare could force the iron-bound timbers apart, as if hatred had leverage. The world narrowed to a sliver of daylight, then to a line, then to nothing.
When the gate shut, the sound traveled up the stone like a blow. It echoed through the yard. It echoed through Aerion's teeth. It lodged in his bones and refused to leave.
Aerion breathed once. Twice. Each breath scraped.
His chest tightened until it hurt. The fire inside him surged looking for an exit.
He swallowed it down and tasted ash.
He stayed at the window another heartbeat longer than he needed to, as if staring hard enough might unmake the road.
Then he turned away from the light.
His face stayed smooth. His hands stayed steady.
Laenor did not go into the city in secret the way Alicent thought sin happened.
He went in daylight, with a hood thrown up for courtesy rather than concealment, and two men at his back who looked like they could break bones without raising their voices. People saw him and looked away.
Aerion walked beside him, small boots striking the stones with purpose.
Laenor glanced down at him, mouth twitching.
"You're going to wear a trench into the stone with that stride," he said.
Aerion didn't look up. "Good."
"That wasn't meant as praise."
Aerion finally raised his eyes. "I don't need praise."
"I know," Laenor said, soft enough that it landed somewhere tender. He cleared his throat and tried again, lighter. "I do need you to stop glaring at every wall. The walls are innocent."
Aerion's mouth tightened. "No one is innocent in this city."
Laenor exhaled through his nose.
They turned down a lane that smelled of fish and spilled ale. A drummer beat out a rhythm near a winesink, and a pair of players were arguing over a prop sword. A dockhand shoved past with a coil of rope on his shoulder, cursing cheerfully at the world.
Laenor walked as if all of it belonged to him, which in a way it did. The city had always liked him more than the court did. The smallfolk didn't care who warmed whose bed, only who paid in full and laughed with them.
Aerion watched him, measuring. The court liked to pretend Laenor was all silk and sailors' songs.
Aerion knew better.
Laenor stopped at a stall where a woman sold skewers of something charred and fragrant. He bought two without haggling, handed one to Aerion, and tipped the woman enough to make her blink.
"My prince," she breathed.
Laenor gave her a smile. "Don't call me that," he said easily. "Makes it sound as if I'm going to ask you for something."
She laughed despite herself.
Aerion didn't eat, holding the skewer like a sword.
Laenor leaned closer, voice dropping into the casual tone of a man gossiping about weather. "We are meant to be blending, little shadow. Eat."
Aerion's jaw tightened. He took a small bite.
A group of sailors sat on overturned barrels near the quay, passing a bottle between them. One of them looked up as Laenor approached and broke into a grin.
"Well, well," the man called. "Lord o' the Tides' pretty son comes slummin' again. Run out o' silk sheets up there, have ye?"
Laenor's grin sharpened. "Try that again and I'll push you in," he said, and it sounded fond.
The sailor laughed and slapped the barrel beside him in invitation. "Come drink, then. This swill'll put hair on yer chest. Or take it off. One or t'other."
Laenor didn't sit. He lingered, casual, as if he had nowhere else to be. He let the men look at Aerion.
Aerion stared back, unblinking.
Laenor tapped the bottle with one finger. "What are you lot whispering these days?" he asked. "Anything amusing?"
"Ain't you got yer own perfumed lot for whisperin'?" another sailor said, wary.
Laenor shrugged. "Court whispers bore me. City whispers have teeth."
That earned a few grins.
Aerion lifted his chin. He understood teeth.
The first sailor leaned in, entertained now. "Heard the queen's fancy dog got punched," he said. "Kingsguard. Pretty thing."
Laenor's mouth tightened. His gaze flicked to Aerion, warning.
"People say he smiled," the sailor went on, enjoying himself, "'cause he likes seein' men ruin 'emselves for 'im. A right prickly sort o' pride, that."
Laenor's voice stayed mild. "And what else do people say?"
The sailor tipped his head, scratching his neck. "People say… he don't look at women the way men do when they've got a hunger. People say he looks at women the way men look at a locked door they ain't got the key for."
Aerion's lips parted. He was listening now.
Laenor's eyes stayed on the sailor's face. "Do they."
"Aye," the sailor said, and then his grin widened into something sharp and knowing. "But doors get opened, don't they? One way or 'nother."
A couple of the men laughed, a coarse, agreeing sound. One spat a brown stream into the murky water.
Laenor didn't laugh. He let a beat of silence hang, then dropped the seed in the softest possible voice.
"Funny," he said. "I heard a different thing."
The sailor's grin stayed, curious now. "Did ye now."
Laenor turned his skewer between his fingers, as idle as any man killing time. "Heard a white cloak was seen on the Street of Silk."
The barrel-circle quieted, just a fraction.
"A white cloak," the sailor repeated, slow.
Laenor nodded. "Hood up. Walked fast. But it's hard to hide a man who thinks the world should kneel when he passes."
Aerion watched the sailor's eyes sharpen. Watched the delight creep in, because the smallfolk loved nothing so much as a high horse slipping in mud.
"That so," the sailor said.
Laenor tilted his head. "You tell me. You're the one with eyes. I'm only repeating what I heard."
From behind Laenor's shoulder, came Ser Qarl Correy, who leaned against a post and smiled as if he'd paid coin to watch this show..
His eyes met Aerion's for a heartbeat. Qarl's smile shifted—a conspirator's grin.
Aerion didn't smile back.
The sailor scratched at his beard, thinking. "Street o' Silk's got a dozen alleys," he said. "Any man could—"
"Of course," Laenor agreed smoothly. "Any man."
The sailor grunted, satisfied by the tacit permission.
Laenor added, conversational, "I heard he left with perfume on him. Expensive kind. Not the cheap rosewater the girls use. Something the highborn ladies wear."
Aerion's fingers tightened on the skewer.
The sailor made a sound low in his throat. He leaned to his fellows. "Perfume," he repeated, savoring it. "On that one. On the pious one."
Someone laughed. Someone else said, "Ain't he the queen's own sworn shield?"
The sailor's grin returned, mean and pleased. "Maybe he's sworn to more than one lady."
Laenor let it live. The men did the work for him, tasting the idea, improving it, polishing it into something they could carry in the city.
Aerion watched Laenor's face as he stepped back from the barrels.
Laenor looked calm. He looked… practiced.
It made Aerion's chest tighten in a way he didn't like. It felt too warm.
"You do that well," Aerion said, clipped.
Laenor glanced down. "Do what."
"Make poison sound pleasant."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "It's not poison. It's wind."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "Words are wind, but wind topples towers."
Laenor reached out and tugged Aerion's hood up properly, fingers brief and careful at the edge of his hair.
"Wind can also turn a sail," he said at last. "We'll need that too."
Aerion swallowed his reply. He did not like being steered, and he liked it less that Laenor could do it without force.
They moved again, deeper into the city, where the lanes tightened and the voices grew louder. Laenor stopped twice more—once with a fishwife who knew everyone's name, once with a pair of goldcloaks.
Each time, he dropped it the same way: gentle, and half amused, easily deniable.
A white cloak, seen on the Street of Silk.
Perfume.
Hood up.
Fast walk.
It was always the same picture. It didn't matter whether it was true. The picture was sticky.
By the time they turned back toward the gates, Aerion could feel the city carrying it already, passing it hand to hand with the simple joy of shared mischief.
He should have felt satisfied.
He felt hollow instead, anger still chewing on the inside of him because Harwin had left anyway.
Laenor noticed his silence.
They took a quieter street, where the noise fell back and the sea air pressed in. Qarl followed at an easy distance, pretending not to be a guard.
Laenor spoke without looking down. "You're still furious."
Aerion's voice came out flat. "Yes."
Laenor's lips curved. "At least you're honest."
Aerion's fingers flexed. "Why aren't you."
Laenor's steps slowed. "Excuse me?"
Aerion looked up at him, expression severe. "Why aren't you furious. She is chasing Mother away. She has chased Harwin away. She is—"
Laenor stopped. His hand went out, palm low, the silent gesture that halted Qarl as well. No witnesses close. No ears that mattered.
"I am furious," he said quietly. "I'm just not foolish."
Aerion's gaze stayed hard. "That sounds the same."
"It isn't," Laenor said. He hesitated, then added with careful bluntness, "You burn. I… I learned to swim."
Aerion's mouth tightened. "I'm not swimming if there's a chance to drown."
Laenor's eyes flicked over Aerion's face, and his eyes softened. "You sound like your mother," he muttered. "She said things like that when she was your age. She thought words could hold the world still."
They walked back to the Red Keep.
Inside, their household was already busy with preparations. Crates stacked in corridors. Servants moving quick, eyes down. A household preparing to become a ship.
Laenor navigated it with ease.
Aerion watched him adjust, sliding back into princehood without changing his face. Laenor nodded at a steward. Smiled at a maid. Said one harmless sentence to a guard.
"You heard it?" Laenor asked, voice light. "White cloak on the Street of Silk."
The guard's mouth twitched. "Who's saying that?"
Laenor shrugged. "City's saying it."
Aerion saw the guard's eyes brighten, as he tucked the gossip away like treasure.
They passed the kitchens.
A pair of scullery boys scrubbed a pot, arms red from it. One glanced up, spotted Laenor, and straightened too fast.
Laenor paused. "Any songs today?" he asked, cheerful.
The boys blinked. One swallowed. "Just work songs, my prince."
Laenor nodded, amused. "Work songs become court songs if they're good enough."
Aerion's gaze slid to the boys' mouths. Their teeth were chipped. Their lips were quick. Perfect carriers.
Laenor moved on. Aerion followed, and the rage in him shifted shape, sharpening into something usable.
In a quiet corridor off the main artery, Laenor finally looked down at him again. "All right," he said. "You've been vibrating with spite for an hour. What are you thinking."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "It needs a rhyme."
Laenor's brow lifted. "Of course it does."
Aerion's mouth twitched, the closest he came to smiling. "People remember rhymes."
"Laenor," Qarl said from behind them, voice faintly warning.
Laenor waved him off without looking. "He's right."
Aerion's chin lifted. "I'll make it."
Laenor's expression softened. "Make it clever," he said. "Not obvious."
Aerion stared at him. "I'm always clever."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Yes. That's what frightens me. You know, with that turn of phrase, you'd make a decent bard. If you ever tire of being a prince and a plotter."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Aerion said and then turned his attention inward, where words clicked into place. He didn't need to think long. He'd been thinking about white cloaks and prayers and men who smiled through blood.
He began softly, testing the rhythm under his breath.
Laenor watched, very still, as if witnessing something dangerous hatch.
Aerion spoke again, clearer this time.
"White cloak clean, white cloak bright—
slips out soft in dead of night.
Mother's beads and Maiden's sigh—
ask him where his incense lies.
White cloak prays, white cloak swears—
comes back sweet with foreign airs.
Kneel and bless and look away—
silk remembers what you pay."
Laenor held his breath for a beat. Then he let it out, slow.
"That," he said quietly, "is vicious."
Aerion's eyes burned with satisfaction that did not warm him. "Thank you."
Laenor crouched, bringing his face level with Aerion's.
"You know what you're doing," he commented.
Aerion's voice came out flat. "Yes."
Laenor's throat worked. He nodded once, small. "All right," he said. "Then we do it properly."
Aerion's gaze sharpened. "You'll spread it."
"I will," Laenor said, and then, with a wry tilt of his mouth, "Because if you start chanting that in the wrong hallway, your mother will bury me under Dragonstone."
Aerion rolled his eyes.
Laenor rose. He offered Aerion his hand.
Aerion stared at it for a beat too long. Then he took it as if accepting it offended him.
Laenor squeezed once, quick. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's go find the sort of people who can't resist a tune."
They started with the servants' stairs, because secrets ran faster there. Laenor found a laundry girl with fast hands and faster ears, and spoke to her as if he were sharing a joke.
"Have you heard the new one?" he asked, smiling. "The city's got a verse."
She blinked, startled. "A verse, my prince?"
Laenor leaned in a fraction, conspiratorial. "About incense."
Her mouth twitched before she could stop it.
Laenor recited it once, soft enough that it felt private, but clear enough to be remembered. The girl's eyes widened as the meaning caught up with the rhythm.
"That's… sharp, my prince," she breathed, a hesitant smile tugging at her lips.
Laenor's smile stayed easy. "It's only a rhyme," he said. "And what is a city, if not built on the songs it sings?"
Aerion watched her swallow it whole.
They repeated it twice more in different throats: a kitchen boy, a groom, a young guard who looked bored and became delighted the moment "white cloak" entered the air.
Aerion walked beside his father, face calm, hands clasped behind his back, the perfect little prince.
Inside, something old stirred.
At the end of the servants' stair, Laenor paused. His hand rested on Aerion's shoulder, weight warm and careful.
"You did well," he said, low.
Aerion stiffened out of reflex. Praise always felt like a hook.
Laenor didn't push it. He only added, softer, "And I'm sorry. About Harwin."
Aerion's jaw clenched. He didn't look up. "Fix it."
Laenor's fingers tightened once, then released. "I'm trying," he said. "This is me trying."
Aerion finally met his eyes.
Laenor held the look without flinching, and Aerion realized: he was afraid too. He just hid it better.
Aerion hated that the realization hurt.
"Good," he said, as he didn't know how to say anything else.
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Gods," he muttered, more to himself than to Aerion. "You really are my father's grandson."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "The Sea Snake would do worse."
Laenor laughed under his breath, quiet and real. "Yes," he said. "But you are still young."
They moved on, heading back into the bright arteries of the Keep, where people pretended not to listen and listened anyway.
Behind them, in a servants' stairwell, a girl began to hum under her breath.
White cloak clean, white cloak bright—
Another voice picked it up a corridor later, a boy's voice, cheerful and careless.
Somewhere above, in the clean halls where piety sat stiff-backed and watchful, the sound started to climb.
Aerion walked beside Laenor, small and straight, and did not smile.
But the castle had a thousand mouths.
It was a token but Laenor did not name it so.
He called it a detail: something small and innocent.
They were in one of the half-packed rooms near Rhaenyra's chambers, where servants moving too quickly to remember what they'd seen. The Keep had started to smell like departure—waxed rope, oiled leather, dust shaken out of tapestries.
Aerion sat on a trunk with his boots swinging, still simmering.
Laenor stood at the table, sorting through small items as if it were a game: ribbons, seals, scraps of cloth, a tiny vial of scent taken from a chest of travel luxuries. Ser Qarl leaned in the doorway, grinning.
"Your silence is screaming, lad," Qarl remarked mildly.
Aerion didn't bother to turn his head. "Silence is thought. You wouldn't recognize it."
Laenor uncorked the little vial and held it beneath his own nose, eyes narrowing as if scent were a language. "No," he said, and his voice was gentle but firm, "You are thinking like a boy who believes arson is a form of argument."
Aerion's head snapped up, his eyes glinting like sharpened amethysts in the dim light. "Fire is an argument. The final one."
"Laenor," Qarl warned, amused. "He's in a mood. The young dragon is feeling his fire today."
Laenor didn't glance back. He tipped a single drop onto a strip of pale ribbon and rubbed it between finger and thumb, testing how it bloomed. Something briny and sharp lifted, threaded with a sweet edge that made it expensive without being floral.
Aerion watched, unwillingly interested. The court thought Laenor was soft because he laughed. The court was stupid. Soft men didn't make it this long.
"What is that," Aerion asked, clipped.
Laenor tied the ribbon into a loose knot, then loosened it, letting it keep the shape of having been handled. "Seawind and amber," he said. "Not a brothel rosewater, but not a lady's lilac. It'll make people ask why."
Aerion's jaw tightened. "Because he's filthy."
"Laenor," Qarl said again, but there was a smile in it.
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Because he's being painted filthy," he corrected, and slid the ribbon across the table. "Don't make it crude. Crude is easy to dismiss. Make it plausible."
Aerion picked up the ribbon between two fingers. It looked innocent. He held it to his nose and felt the scent catch, clean at first and then sly.
It smelled like someone who wanted to look innocent while doing whatever he liked.
Aerion's eyes narrowed with satisfaction. "Good."
Laenor reached for a second thing: a cheap little brass token, stamped with a woman's face so worn it could have been a saint or a whore depending on how you squinted. He weighed it in his palm.
"This is too obvious," he said.
Aerion's gaze sharpened. "No."
Laenor looked at him.
Aerion leaned forward on the trunk. "The rumor is already out there. The Keep will only believe it if it has something to bite."
Laenor's eyes flicked over Aerion's face.
"All right," he said. "But it doesn't go in Cole's hand."
Aerion's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Near him."
Qarl pushed off the doorframe. "I can do near," he said, easy.
Laenor shot him a look. "You take undue pleasure in this."
"I take pleasure in you finally applying that mind to something besides wine and regret," Qarl countered, his grin unrepentant.
Aerion made a sound of disgust.
Laenor set the token down and tapped it once. "Near his cloak pegs," he decided.
Aerion rolled the ribbon around his fingers, imagining the Kingsguard corridor. The hooks. The polished helms. The smell of oil and leather and sanctimony.
His mind moved like a blade.
"And," Aerion said, the idea striking with perfect clarity, "it must be found by someone who already wishes him ill."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Now you're thinking like my father."
Aerion looked up, eyes bright. "Mmh."
Laenor reached out, adjusted Aerion's collar without thinking, then caught himself and pulled his hand back as if he'd touched flame.
Aerion said nothing.
Laenor cleared his throat. "Qarl."
"Yes, my prince," Qarl said, mocking.
Laenor's gaze went flat. "Do it."
Qarl saluted with two fingers, pocketed the token, took the ribbon, and vanished into the Keep's arteries.
They didn't wait long for the first bite.
It came that evening, in a corridor Aerion didn't even need to haunt anymore because the castle did the haunting for him.
A page-boy, one of the older ones, all elbows and eagerness, came skidding into a knot of servants near the kitchens, holding something up between his fingers.
"Look," he hissed, delighted. "Look what I found."
A laundry girl leaned closer, while a scullery boy stopped scrubbing. A pair of guards pretended not to listen and listened anyway.
The token gleamed dully in the torchlight.
"Where?" the girl demanded.
The page-boy's eyes were wide with the joy of being important. "By the white cloaks," he whispered. "Near their pegs. Right there. Just… sitting."
The laundress made a knowing sound in the back of her throat. "A token."
The pot-boy snorted. "For praying, is it?" he said, too loud.
The guards' mouths twitched.
Aerion stepped out of the shadow with Laenor at his shoulder, both of them moving as if they'd only just happened upon this interesting little world.
The page-boy froze when he saw them.
Laenor's smile was bright and harmless. "What have you found?" he asked, warm as sunlight.
The boy swallowed. "N-nothing, my prince."
Laenor's gaze dropped to the token.
"Oh," he said, mild. "That sort of nothing."
The laundry girl's face went a shade too blank.
Aerion tilted his head, perfect innocence. "Is that a saint?" he asked.
The page-boy looked trapped. "It's… it's just a coin."
Aerion's eyes widened. "Why was it by the Kingsguard's things?"
A heavy silence followed the question. Someone coughed. Someone else made a soft, strangled laugh and tried to turn it into a sneeze.
Laenor laid a hand on Aerion's shoulder. "Come," he said lightly. "Let knights worry about their own sins."
Aerion let himself be guided away, but he watched over his shoulder as the page-boy's story began to spread like rot through timber, and the scullery boy whispered something that made the guards glance at one another with new interest.
Laenor leaned down as they walked. "Don't stare," he murmured. "You'll make it look like you care."
Aerion's voice was flat. "I do care."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Care in private."
Aerion's jaw clenched, but he obeyed. It irritated him.
The sept came next, because Laenor insisted.
"It has to sound holy," he said later that night, seated at a table with ink and parchment while Aerion prowled in a small circle, restless. "Holy things get repeated."
Aerion stopped. "Holy things get forgiven."
Laenor's quill paused. "Not when they're used correctly."
Aerion watched him write, and studied the careful hand, the measured phrasing. Laenor the Velaryon was the kind of man who could steer an ocean.
Aerion's chest tightened again.
Laenor read aloud as he wrote, testing the sound:
"Let the faithful offer prayers for those who bear the purest white yet wander in shadow; for men who laud chastity but are rumored to know the scent of expensive secrecy; for sworn shields who shelter behind the Mother's mercy while their own falters."
Aerion's mouth twisted. "Too gentle."
Laenor didn't look up. "It's fine."
Aerion leaned over his shoulder. "Add 'temptation.'"
Laenor's quill hovered. "No."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "Yes."
Laenor met his gaze. "If we say temptation now, it points. We don't point. We imply."
Aerion's voice turned colder. "I want him to bleed."
Laenor finally looked at him, the candlelight carving deep lines of fatigue and resolve into his face. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he admitted, "So do I."
Aerion blinked, caught.
His throat tightened with something ugly and unfamiliar.
Laenor broke the moment first. He dipped the quill and added a smaller line at the end, almost casual.
"…and may the Crone's wisdom guide Ser Criston Cole to overcome the particular temptations that so famously test his vows, should the Seven will it."
Aerion stared at the name on the white parchment.
"That," he said, low, "is mean."
Laenor's mouth twitched. "Good."
Aerion watched him seal it, fold it, and press wax with a plain stamp that could belong to anyone.
Laenor handed it to Qarl without ceremony.
The sermon came three days later.
Aerion sat with Jace and Luke and tried to look bored.
The sept smelled of wax and breath and damp stone. Alicent sat in her place, spine straight, hands folded as if she were made of prayer.
The septon began with mercy, humility and the virtue of resisting desire.
He spoke of men who wore white and believed it made them clean. He spoke of those who preached purity with their mouths while their bodies carried other people's perfumes. He spoke of false shields who hid behind women's faith.
Aerion felt the room shift.
A lady's eyes flicked toward the Kingsguard line. A lord coughed into his hand and smiled into it. A septa pressed her lips together in judgment that looked almost pleased.
Alicent's gaze stayed forward.
But her fingers tightened on each other until the knuckles pale showed through the green sleeves.
Cole stood as he always did: silent, rigid, pious. His jaw clenched once, a tiny motion.
Aerion watched, pleased.
The court had begun to learn a rule: Ser Criston Cole did not react unless he was hit.
So Aerion and Laenor did not hit him.
They let the world do it.
The first "unfortunate encounter" occurred on the Street of Flour, where the press of bodies was thick and the air soured by cheap wine and the day's catch.
Aerion wasn't there, but Laenor was.
Qarl was there, too, for Qarl was Laenor's shadow.
A loudmouthed goldcloak called after a white cloak cutting through the street.
"Oi!" he shouted, laughing. "Back to the silk, are you? Or you going to confess first?"
Heads turned.
A hush rippled.
Cole stopped.
His shoulders stayed square. His head turned slowly.
The goldcloak's grin faltered, then returned, too bright. He'd expected a laugh, but he'd gotten something colder.
"Ser Criston," the man said, suddenly remembering manners in the most humiliating way. "No offense meant—it's just—the talk, you see—"
Cole's voice came out quiet. "There is much talk."
Qarl leaned against a stall post, examining a hangnail with profound interest.
Laenor stood a few paces off, his expression one of detached observation, as if watching a particularly tense game of cyvasse.
Cole's gaze slid, found Laenor.
He measured Laenor's presence—was it coincidence, or commentary?
Laenor offered a slight, indifferent lift of his brows. Not I, the look said. The city has its own voice.
Cole's jawline grew hard.
He turned back to the goldcloak. "You will guard your tongue," he stated, each word a chip of ice.
The man's neck flushed mottled red. "Aye, Ser. Only repeating what's said—"
Cole took one deliberate step forward.
The goldcloak stumbled back a step, instinct overriding bravado.
The crowd held its breath, like a beast leaning in for blood.
If Cole struck, he confirmed the gossip as truth that provoked violence. If he did not, the whisper would be seen as truth he dared not challenge.
Cole's hand clenched once, a white-knuckled fist at his side.
Then, he did the thing Aerion would have found most infuriating.
He mastered himself. He turned on his heel and walked away, his white cloak a banner of retreat.
The street released a collective, disappointed sigh. Restraint was not exoneration; it was fuel.
Laenor watched him vanish into the press, then turned slightly, letting his murmured words float to the ears of a nearby spice merchant and two wide-eyed fishwives.
"Such a struggle," he said lightly, as if speaking about a man fighting a fever. "The Mother is merciful."
Qarl made a strangled noise into his fist.
The goldcloak, left standing alone in the circle of attention, glared after the vanished knight. He hawked and spat into the gutter, his voice rising to claim the last word for the mob.
"White cloak clean," he said, and grinned.
By the time Laenor returned to the Keep, the ugly little rhyme had already sprouted a new line.
He found Aerion in a corridor near the crates, his back straight, hands clasped neatly behind him, the very image of a dutiful son.
Aerion's eyes flicked up. "Did he take the bait?"
Laenor's mouth tightened. "He didn't lash out."
Aerion's gaze turned flinty. "A coward's restraint."
"A knight's discipline," Laenor countered, then dropped his voice. "Which makes him a tougher knot to unravel."
Aerion's fingers curled slowly against the small of his back. "I'll unravel him all the same."
Laenor looked at him for a long moment. There was pride in that look, and dread, and a love that was trying very hard to look like caution.
"Not by burning," Laenor said quietly. "By steering."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "You think I can't steer."
"I think you can," Laenor said, and his voice went tender in a way that hurt. "That's why I'm here."
Aerion stared at him, offended by the softness, and grateful for it anyway.
From somewhere down the corridor, faint and sing-song, a servant's voice drifted—half-hummed, half-whispered:
"White cloak clean, white cloak bright—
slips out soft in dead of night…"
Aerion's mouth twitched, the barest flicker.
"Kepa," he said, his voice low. "It needs another verse."
Laenor sighed. "Naturally."
Aerion's eyes gleamed. "One about towers. And what he keeps in them."
Laenor's lips quirked upward, a father beholding his son's terrible, magnificent mind. "Very well," he conceded. "But make it sting."
Aerion's smile was a sharp blade finally drawn. "It will."
The chaos of the Princess's household departure was the perfect camouflage. In the whirlwind, a single dropped word, a muttered verse, a hummed tune, could slip into the current unnoticed and be carried far away.
By the time the first wagon creaked through the gate, the rumor about Ser Criston Cole was no longer a rumor. It had become a truth, a shared knowing in the sideways glance, the bitten lip.
There was no proof. Proof was for the Faith and simpletons.
This was better. It was scent and shadow, sanctimony turned inside out for all to see its seams.
In the training yard, a squire "accidentally" asked another squire if the Kingsguard had authority to arrest sinners in brothels. The question was loud. The laughter was louder. A man in white armor stood nearby and did not look up, which was its own answer.
On a servants' stair, two girls tussled over a perfumed ribbon found near the sept. "A lady's favor," insisted one. "A whore's fee," countered the other, then lowered her voice. "Or a penitent's offering, if the lady wears green." They dissolved into guilty giggles and crossed themselves, as if mirth could be absolved with a gesture.
In the small sept nearest the White Sword Tower, an anonymous donation appeared—a humble leather purse, light with coin. A scrap of vellum accompanied it.
For the struggle, it read, in a crude, unpracticed hand. For the white cloak that fights temptation.
The septon didn't have to invent a sermon. He merely chose the one that already existed.
Alicent listened with her mouth set in patient piety and her hands locked around her beads, clicking too fast.
Cole stood behind her like a statue that wished it could sweat without anyone seeing.
After, the court did what it did best: it savored hypocrisy the way it savored honey, slow and sticky and smug.
A lord murmured into his cup, "He chose the right woman to serve. They share a taste for... fervor."
A lady replied, her fan fluttering, "Aye. One with a prayer book, the other with a morningstar. Both leave marks."
Another voice, softer, delighted: "They match. Green and white. Virtue and vice."
And somewhere, always, the tune.
It had shed its original skin. It had grown claws.
"White cloak kneels, white cloak swears—
Leaves his virtue on the whores' stone stairs…"
Aerion heard it twice before noon. Once from a page boy hefting a trunk. Once from a scullion scrubbing a pot, her knuckles raw and singing with the rhythm.
He only watched Alicent snap at a handmaid for "clumsiness" when the girl's only sin was breathing too loudly in the queen's presence.
He watched Cole stand rigid by a pillar, jaw clenched, gaze fixed on nothing, as if by sheer will he could remain outside the story they were telling about him.
Good.
Let him choke on it.
Laenor found him in a corridor, a sea chart tucked under his arm and that effortless, untroubled mask he wore when he wanted the world to think nothing mattered.
"Smoke has a way of drifting," Laenor remarked as he passed, not breaking stride.
Aerion fell into step beside him, boots whispering on stone. "Sparks have a way of catching."
Laenor's mouth quirked. "Then we depart before some righteous fool starts counting kindling and calls it a pyre."
Aerion cut a glance up at him. Laenor's gaze remained fixed ahead, but there was a quiet steel beneath the easy smile—a strength that required no audience.
Aerion hated the small, ugly twist it put in his chest.
"You think leaving makes you wise," Aerion said, biting.
Laenor finally glanced down. "A wise sailor doesn't argue with a gathering storm," he said softly. "He reads it. He turns his ship. He's gone before the first wave gets there."
Aerion scoffed. "So we're fleeing."
Laenor kept walking, unhurried. "Call it what you like," he said. "Storms love to feel important. They want you to square your shoulders and stand there so they can break you and brag."
Aerion's hands curled, itching with plans and spite. "I could break it back."
Laenor hummed, a sound of genuine, un-mocking amusement. "You could set the very sea ablaze, too. It does not make it a harbor."
Aerion's jaw tightened. He glanced away, as if the tapestries deserved his anger more.
Laenor leaned down just enough that his voice dropped into Aerion's ear. "Survival is not surrender," he murmured. "It's positioning."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "A pretty phrase for running."
Laenor's smile turned keen at the edges. "Very well," he said. "Think of it thus: we are not fleeing the storm."
He straightened, adjusting the chart under his arm, his steps never faltering.
"We are leaving it behind to dash itself to pieces upon someone else's shore."
Aerion looked away, insulted by the sense of it.
He remembered it anyway.
His mother insisted they make their farewells before the tide turned.
Aegon found him first, in the chaos of the outer yard where men shouted about saddles and crates and whose chest belonged to whom.
He tried for careless and missed.
"So," he said, leaning against a post, "you're running away to your island."
Aerion glanced at him. "Relocating to Dragonstone. It is my mother's seat."
Aegon's mouth twisted. For a heartbeat the mask slipped and something lonely showed through, and petulant.
"Same thing," Aegon muttered, kicking at a loose stone.
Aerion watched him for a moment too long. Aegon hated being seen. He hated it because it proved there was something in him worth seeing.
Aerion's voice stayed flat. "Try not to fall off Sunfyre again."
Aegon went red to the ears. "I did not—"
"You did," Aerion said, serene.
Aegon's glare sharpened, but the sulk underneath it deepened. He shoved off the post with too much force.
"What am I supposed to do here now? Who's going to talk to me?" he snapped.
Aerion blinked at him. That question didn't make sense. Aegon had friends. Aegon had half the castle trained to laugh when he wanted it. "Anyone. You talk enough for three men."
Aegon's mouth opened. Closed. He looked away, jaw working.
"Forget it," Aegon said finally, voice too loud. "Go be… princely."
Aerion nodded.
Aegon turned and stalked off with the exaggerated confidence of someone abandoning you first so you couldn't abandon him first.
Aerion stood where he was, staring after him, thinking—irritated, unsettled, confused—
What in the Seven Hells was that about.
Aemond was harder to corner, because Aemond lived inside his own discipline.
Aerion found him in the gallery outside the library, standing with a book open but not reading it. Aemond's eyes were sharp and cold, fixed on the page as if daring the words to misbehave.
Aerion stopped beside him.
Aemond didn't look up. "You're leaving."
"Yes."
Aemond's fingers tightened on the book's spine. "Dragonstone."
"Yes."
Silence stretched.
Aemond's jaw worked once. When he finally spoke, the words seemed carved from him. "A safe journey, then."
Aerion tilted his head. "You could have said goodbye like a normal person."
Aemond's gaze flicked up, his eyes cutting. "Farewell."
The word sounded like he'd been forced to spit it out.
Aerion stared at him for a beat, puzzled by the effort it clearly cost. In Aerion's head, Aemond was made of pride and anger and that strange, hungry wanting to be enough. He didn't expect… reluctance.
Aerion chose the only response he trusted: prodding.
His mouth twitched. "You'll miss me."
Aemond's expression didn't change. "I will not."
Aerion leaned closer, because he was mean and because Aemond deserved it. "Who will you speak the High Valyrian with now? Helaena's beetles?"
Aemond went rigid.
But his eyes didn't flare, and his mouth didn't twitch. He gave Aerion nothing.
Which was, of course, an answer.
A small smile touched Aerion's lips. "You'll have to practice your conjugations alone. It might actually improve them."
Aemond's stare was pure ice. "I will claim a dragon soon," he said, very softly.
Aerion blinked, startled by the the words.
Then he recovered and made it ugly again, as he always did.
"Try," Aerion said. "I'll claim a dragon before you."
He walked away before Aemond could reply.
Behind him, he heard the faintest sound: a page turning.
Aerion didn't know if Aemond had started reading again—or if he was just doing something with his hands so he wouldn't have to do anything with his face.
Helaena caught him by the doorway as if she'd been waiting there the entire morning.
She held a beetle cupped in her hands, careful, reverent. Her hair was unbrushed, her eyes far away and too awake.
"Aerion," she said, solemn.
Aerion stopped.
Helaena opened her palms.
The beetle clicked once, loud in the hush between them.
"It says you're going," Helaena informed him.
Aerion stared at the beetle. "Does it."
She nodded once, in a sharp, birdlike motion. "It says the stone will forget how to echo properly. The whispers will have too much room and start to shout."
"It talks a lot for a beetle."
"It listens more," she corrected, tilting her head. Her eyes were startlingly clear and focused on him. "The songs won't stop, you know. The mean ones. They travel on spider-silk and sailor's breath. They'll find you on your island too."
Aerion's jaw tightened. "Do you want them to?"
Helaena considered this as if the fate of kingdoms hinged on her answer. "No," she decided finally. "A song that stops is a truth that died. These ones… they have sharp teeth. They're alive."
Aerion huffed a laugh that wasn't kind. "You're odd."
"Yes," Helaena said, unbothered. Then, quieter: "But you don't laugh at me."
Aerion's throat tightened, annoyed with himself. He didn't like the way that landed.
He reached out and tapped the beetle once, gentle.
"Aunt," he said, less sharp than he meant. "Take care of your… court."
Helaena's face softened. "I will."
Then she leaned in and whispered, seriously, "Tell the dragons I said hello."
Aerion stared.
"Fine," he said. "I will."
Helaena smiled, small and strange and real. She stepped back, letting him go. As he moved, she added, as though remembering a scrap of thread and offering it up without ceremony:
"You'll find silver in the smoke. The kind that sleeps and dreams of colder fires."
Aerion nodded, as it was the only thing to do when Helaena spoke in riddles. He walked on.
Behind him, the Red Keep buzzed and whispered and lied.
And somewhere, somewhere in the belly of the castle, a servant's voice rose—bright and delighted in its own wickedness:
"Green cloak prays, white cloak sins—
guess who the Mother never wins…"
Notes:
Aerion Brightflame's Campaign of Vengeance: Phase One Complete.
Laenor, internally: "Ah. He gets that from my side of the family. Definitely."
Harwin, showing off the bite to a confused stablehand: "See this? My son gave me this. The maester says it might scar. I'm hoping it does."
/Merry Christmas!/
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