kattstarves
They said she jumped.
From the highest tower of the Red Keep, a blue scarf fluttered down into the Blackwater, and with it died the brightest thing in Prince Maekar Targaryen's life.
He never found her body.
Only silence remained.
Years passed and the grief hardened him. The realm came to fear the stern, unyielding son of the dragon, a man forged not by fire, but by loss.
But ghosts have a way of lingering.
At the great tourney at Ashford, amid banners, blood, and the roar of cheering crowds, a voice carries across the field, warm as summer and sweet as Mothers embrace.
It stops him where he stands.
He does not know why it unsettles him.
He does not know why it feels like standing at the edge of that tower again.
He only knows that something he buried long ago is stirring and somewhere beyond the reach of dragonfire and duty, a past he never laid to rest is walking toward him.
In his mind he buried her long ago. But in his heart she is more alive as ever.
And what if the dead are not always gone?
And if fate dares to return what he lost, the question will not be whether he still loves her.
The question is:
Can the man forged by grief love the woman who chose freedom over him?
Or will the weight of crown and memory destroy them both?