dragon flame | j. velaryon

The realm called them the Dragon Flame twins.

Jacaerys and Maella Velaryon, Princess Rhaenyra's firstborns, were said to be one soul divided by birth: sun and shadow, moon and stars, fire and blood, salt and sea. The smallfolk whispered that they were more dragon than human, for no cradle could hold one without the other, no nurse could quiet one if the other cried, no locked door or watchful septa could keep them long apart.

They shared a cradle as babes, then a bedchamber as children, sleeping curled around one another like two hatchlings in a single nest. Their devotion was not gentle, nor easily understood. It was private, primal, and absolute. A love born not of softness, but of survival. There was possession in it, but not the kind sung prettily by bards. It was the possession of flame over ash, of blood over bone, of a dragon circling what was hers and daring the world to reach for it.

The servants whispered. The court watched. The septas prayed.

But Jace and Maella cared little for the names others gave them. Before the realm had called them bastards, before lords had learned to smile with knives behind their teeth, before their mother's crown became a war waiting to happen, they had belonged to each other.

And neither had ever learned how to stop.