God-Child-Soldier

II

Jace awoke warm-clothed and cool-skinned, with a sharp pain in his ass.

Not a metaphorical pain, like Lucerys was when he was feeling left out. An actual physical, aching, jabbing pain right where most men were meant to sit. How fucking dignified, an injury befitting of great kings. Jace was relatively sure he was the first Targaryen to ever break his ass.

When more of the aching fog cleared, he had room for real thoughts that should actually be running through the minds of princes with proper priorities, such as where was he, how did he get here, and where the fuck was his dragon?

He sat up with a small groan, and then decided that standing would have to be the next step because he could not sit. And so Prince Jacaerys Velaryon, second in line to inherit the Iron Throne, was forced to haul himself to his feet with the help of a rough-hewn wooden table. At least he wasn't in pain in a literal sense anymore. Just his dignity was bruised now.

The room which swam into view was small. Two narrow beds tucked against the far wall, a hearth which burnt in the center of the room, setting a warm golden wash against the stone walls. Two chairs and a table that seemed apt for helping a man stand but not exactly steady for sitting at or other use. A chest of drawers and a small, rickety desk. This was the home of two people, well lived in and blissfully empty for the brief moment. He must have dragged himself here after his fall, before he had passed out. He did distinctly remember movement between falling from Vermax-who was undoubtedly winging his way back to Dragonstone alone to personally give Rhaenyra Targaryen apoplexy-and waking up here.

Jace, still slightly delirious even in his humble opinion, decided to rifle through the drawers in search of a map. He knew he must have landed close to the coast, but he also knew that he had been flying high enough that much more than his ass should hurt. Something was already amiss.

The amiss-ness of it all proved stronger when he reached out to open a drawer and found it to be made of stone rather than wood, which ground out loudly as he wrenched it open. It took nearly all his strength to open the damn thing, and almost his arm right out of its socket, and he was rewarded with-

"Cloth," he hissed through his teeth. He tossed aside the few sets of brown and grey women's clothes, smallfolk cloth rough even under his gloved hands. There had to be something more, there had to be. Or else he was going to start screaming (or something equally embarrassing).

"Oh."

No map to be seen, but a knife lay at the bottom of the drawer, partly wrapped in the same rough brown cloth. When he lifted it, the heft of the knife was flawless, weighty enough to cause damage but light enough to carry without hindrance. A knife so fine could not be found anywhere across the Seven Kingdoms. Which begged the question:

"Who in the Seven Hells lives here?"

Jace was about to leave the knife where it lay when he heard the thunder of hoofbeats. Relief blossomed in his chest, and he scrambled to his feet, stumbling for the door. Hoofbeats meant knights, which meant-

His hands hit the locked door, followed by his body a moment later. He bounced off the wood with a groan, barely managing to twist and avoid damaging the parts that hurt further.

"Can things not be easy?" he snarled, picking himself from the packed dirt floor, "Why must things always be so difficult?"

The door, the only thing which had borne witness to his foolishness, did not answer, likely by virtue of being inanimate. Jace hated it with the ferocity of a thousand suns anyway.

He felt for the wrought-iron doorknob, but it did not turn nor click. His blood turned to ice, a state which did not suit a dragon prince. He pulled with all that he was, but as Aegon had always been too delighted to say, Jace had never been particularly strong in musculature. The knob did not budge.