The snake's appetite. || Maekar Targaryen

Logic. Pride, and ruin.

"The Targaryens are merely men with hair too fair and a troubling penchant for arrogance."
Meredith of House Ashford does not believe in dragons, nor in the myths that sustain them. In a realm that bows at the mere passage of Prince Baelor, she sees only rusted gears and a dynasty clinging to a fading glory. But when the brutal, inflexible Prince Maekar arrives at her castle gates, Meredith commits the most dangerous sin of all: she corrects him.
What begins as a sharp exchange in a dusty courtyard spirals into a lethal game of wits. In a night defined by shadows and fresh ink, Meredith violates the Crown's own designs to prevent a massacre that only she can foresee. She possesses the logic to save the realm; he possesses the pride to raze it to the ground.
Caught in a suffocating stalemate within the silent halls of Ashford, they find themselves bound by a truth neither can afford to admit. Maekar demands obedience, but Meredith only offers the cold, hard reality of the blade.

In the dance between the Serpent and the Dragon, one misplaced word is all it takes to trigger the collapse. And at Ashford, the wrong path leads to more than just dust-it leads to total ruin.