𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 || Aemond Targaryen

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

122 AC

Dragonstone welcomed us not with fanfare, but with silence—an ancient, brooding hush that lingered over the black stone like a veil. Even in the dark, the fortress seemed to pulse with history, the air thick with salt and the unspoken weight of fire-born legacies. The wind carried the distant rumble of dragons nestled within the mountain's heart, a lullaby for those born of Valyria.

As I stepped onto the landing courtyard beside my mother, the worn stone warm beneath my boots from the lingering heat of Meleys' landing, I could not shake the feeling that this place already knew me. That I had been expected.

The flickering torchlight cast long shadows against the high walls as we made our way toward the chambers set aside for us. A servant greeted us with bowed head and hurried steps. We would not see Rhaenyra and Daemon until morning, I was told—too late in the evening for ceremony, even for kin.

But sleep did not come easily.

Not when the red priestess's words returned to me with such unrelenting force.

"The dragon you seek is where fire and blood meet."

And where else but here? Where the roots of fire and blood dug deepest? The seat of Targaryen might, and perhaps, the cradle of my fate.

Earlier that summer, I had stood waist-deep in the surf off Driftmark's stony beach, sun-glinted and laughing as I shouted for Aemond to stop overthinking it and just let go.

"You've fought Ser Criston Cole  in the training yard with half a sword in your hand, but you can't let your feet off the sand?" I teased him, flicking seawater in his direction.

He glowered, but his discomfort was evident. "Targaryens are meant for sky, not sea," he muttered. "Dragons do not swim."

"Well, maybe they should," I said, softer then. "Maybe the sky won't always catch you."

He stilled at that, visibly parsing the weight beneath the jest. Then, with that grim resolve that lived behind his eye, he took a breath—and dove.

He sank. Then thrashed. And I, laughing, hauled him upright by the arm like I would a half-drowned cat.

"You'll live," I grinned. "And next time, maybe try not breathing like a warhorse before you go under."

The lesson became a ritual. He never quite said he enjoyed it, but I could see the shift in him. He stopped fighting the water. He let me teach him. And in those quiet, glistening moments when we were nothing but girl and boy in the surf, I caught glimpses of the man behind the prince. Of someone mine.

In the present, I ran my fingers absently along the carved basalt of my chamber's window. Aemond had flown ahead earlier that day with Ser Arryk, part of the formal escort for the royal family. We would meet again in the morning, at the celebration for the new babe, Viserys. Another dragon heir born, another thread in the ever-tightening weave of fate.

It felt impossible not to think of the future—of thrones, of crowns, of dragons dancing and burning. Of the prophecy Melisandre had named. Two will rise to take all you hold dear, should you turn against them. The warning clung to my ribs like frost.

And Aemond. Always Aemond.

Our betrothal, once merely a contract inked in royal blood, had become something far more dangerous—something true.

I had seen it in the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching. I had felt it in the softness of his hand as he steadied me on Vhagar's saddle, in the rare smile he offered when I bested him in an argument. Aemond Targaryen was not a man given to warmth. But what little he had, he gave to me.