(The Private Solar of Runestone - Late Spring, 126 AC)
The wind outside was howling, battering the high towers of Runestone with the fury of a late spring storm, but inside Aeryn's solar, the air was still. It was the stillness of a crypt, or a bank vault.
Aeryn Royce-Targaryen sat at his desk, the light of a heavy bronze oil lamp illuminating the stack of parchments before him. He was thirteen years old now. His shoulders had broadened, his face had lost the last traces of childhood softness, sharpening into a mask of angular, Valyrian beauty.
He was reviewing the quarterly report from the Institute of Public Improvements.
Item 4: The cement mixture using volcanic ash from Dragonstone has successfully cured underwater.
Item 5: The semaphore tower on the Witch's Isle is operational.
Efficiency. Progress. Order.
The door opened.
Aeryn didn't look up. "I told you, Casper, the budget for the harbor dredging is approved. You don't need to ask twice."
"It is not Casper, My Prince."
The voice was old, brittle, and heavy with dread.
Aeryn stopped writing. He looked up.
Maester Helaebar stood in the doorway. He held a silver tray. On the tray sat a single scroll. It was sealed with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, but it was also bound with a ribbon of green silk.
"From the Capital," Helaebar whispered. "A royal proclamation. It was brought by a raven that flew through the storm."
Aeryn put down his quill. He felt a sudden, sharp drop in his stomach—a sensory input he usually associated with a rapid descent on Vermithor, but this time, he was sitting in a chair.
"Leave it," Aeryn said.
"My Lord, the bird... the message is marked 'Immediate'. It is an announcement of..."
"Leave it," Aeryn repeated, his voice dropping an octave.
The Maester placed the tray on the desk with trembling hands and fled the room, closing the heavy oak door behind him.
Aeryn stared at the scroll. The green ribbon mocked him. Green for Hightower. Green for the faction that was slowly choking the life out of his father.
He reached out with his mechanical hand. The bronze pincers pinched the wax seal. Snap.
He unrolled the parchment. The calligraphy was ornate, written by the High Septon himself, full of flowery praise and religious nonsense.
In the Light of the Seven, and by the Will of His Grace, King Viserys I Targaryen...
Aeryn skipped the preamble. He scanned for the names. He found them.
...announce the holy union of Prince Aegon Targaryen and Princess Helaena Targaryen.
...to preserve the purity of the blood of Old Valyria.
...the wedding shall take place on the first day of the coming month.
Aeryn stopped reading.
He sat there, frozen.
His mind, usually a storm of calculations and variables, went silent.
Helaena.
He thought of the girl who sat on the floor counting bugs. The girl who spoke in riddles because the reality of the world was too loud for her. The girl who had looked at his burned, ruined hand and didn't see a monster, but a broken thing that needed to be held.
She was soft. She was the only innocent thing in the entire Red Keep.
And Aegon.
Aeryn closed his eyes. He didn't see a prince. He saw the boy who laughed when Aeryn fell. He saw the bully who spent his nights in the Flea Bottom fighting pits, who drank until he pissed himself, who took what he wanted because he had been told the world belonged to him.
Aeryn opened his eyes.
Logic tried to intervene.
Analysis: This is a traditional Valyrian custom. Sibling marriage consolidates the claim. It prevents Helaena from marrying a rival Great House that could threaten the succession. It is a politically sound move by Otto Hightower to lock down the dragonriders.
Conclusion: It is efficient.
"No."
The word slipped out of his mouth. It wasn't a thought. It was a reflex.
Efficiency be damned.
Aegon was a rot. He was a variable of chaos. Placing Helaena in his care was not a marriage; it was a sacrifice. It was feeding a dove to a viper because the viper was hungry.
Aeryn looked at the letter again. By the Will of His Grace, King Viserys I.
"You let them do it," Aeryn whispered.
He could see it. Viserys, sitting in his chair, rotting away, nodding vaguely as Alicent whispered in his ear about tradition, about duty, about how happy they would be. Viserys, too weak to fight, too tired to see the horror in his daughter's eyes.
And Alicent. The woman who wore the Seven-Pointed Star around her neck. She preached piety, yet she was forcing her daughter into an incestuous bed with a monster she herself couldn't control.
Hypocrisy. Weakness.
Aeryn felt a heat rising in his chest. It wasn't the warm hum of calculation. It was a searing, liquid fire. It started in his gut and rushed up his throat.
His mechanical hand, still resting on the desk, began to twitch. The servos whirred, clenching and unclenching. Clack. Clack. Clack.
He couldn't breathe. The room was too small. The air was too thick.
"She is... she is good," Aeryn said to the empty room. "She is the only good thing."
He remembered her letter. The green spider is weaving a blanket...
She knew. She had known. And she had no one.
Aeryn stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the stone floor.
He looked at the lamp on his desk. It was a heavy piece, cast in solid bronze in the shape of a dragon's claw holding a glass sphere filled with oil. It was beautiful. It was durable. He had designed it himself.
Aeryn grabbed the lamp.
He didn't think about the physics. He didn't calculate the trajectory. He didn't estimate the force required.
He screamed.
It was a raw, guttural sound, a roar that tore through his throat, bypassing all his filters, all his discipline.
"DAMN YOU!"
He spun and hurled the lamp with all his strength against the stone wall.
CRASH.
The sound was deafening. The thick glass sphere shattered instantly. The bronze claw dented the granite block. Oil sprayed across the room like black blood, splashing onto the tapestries, the floor, the maps.
The burning wick hit the oil-soaked tapestry. A flame roared to life.
Aeryn didn't move to put it out. He stood there, his chest heaving, his hands shaking—both the flesh and the metal.
He wanted to burn it all.
He wanted to fly Vermithor to the Red Keep and melt the Iron Throne into slag. He wanted to tear the Hand's pin off Otto Hightower's chest along with the flesh beneath it. He wanted to grab his father by the shoulders and shake him until the King woke up from his twenty-year nap.
They sold her.
For a crown. For a claim. For power.
The door burst open.
Aegis rushed in, spear raised, followed by two Shadows. They had heard the crash. They saw the fire climbing the tapestry.
Aegis didn't ask questions. He didn't panic. He dropped his spear, grabbed a heavy wool rug from the floor, and smothered the flames with efficient, brutal motions.
Within seconds, the fire was out. The room smelled of smoke, burnt wool, and spilled oil.
Aegis stood up, his face impassive. He looked at the shattered remains of the lamp. He looked at the dent in the stone wall.
Then he looked at his Prince.
Aeryn was leaning against the heavy oak desk, gripping the edge so hard his knuckles were white. His head was bowed. His breathing was ragged, like a man who had just run a mile uphill.
"My Lord?" Aegis asked quietly.
Aeryn didn't answer immediately. He stared at the shards of glass on the floor. They glittered in the gloom like broken diamonds. Like a broken future.
Slowly, the heat in his chest began to recede. But it wasn't replaced by his usual cold. It was replaced by something harder. Something darker.
Before, Aeryn had been building a fortress to keep the world out. He had been playing defense.
But now... now they had touched his family. They had touched the one constant he cared about.
"Leave the glass," Aeryn said. His voice was a wreck, hoarse and cracking.
"My Lord, it is sharp. You could cut yourself," Aegis noted.
"Leave it," Aeryn ordered. He straightened up. He adjusted his tunic. He forced his shaking hands to be still.
He walked over to the spot where the lamp had hit. He touched the dent in the stone. Bronze against granite. The bronze had held; the glass had broken.
"Viserys is dead," Aeryn whispered.
Aegis stiffened. "The King is dead?"
"No," Aeryn corrected, turning around. His eyes were dry, but they burned with a terrifying intensity. "The man is alive. But the King... the father... he is dead. He died the moment he signed that paper."
Aeryn walked back to his desk. He picked up the scroll with the green ribbon. He crushed it in his mechanical fist until the parchment tore.
He felt a profound sense of resignation. He couldn't stop the wedding. It was happening in days. By the time he flew there, the bedding ceremony would be over. The violation would be complete.
If he intervened now, it would be treason. It would be war. And his machine wasn't ready for war. Not yet.
But he could ensure that they never felt safe again.
"Aegis," Aeryn said.
"Commander," the Unsullied replied.
"How many spies did Casper catch last week? The ones from Daemon?"
"Three, My Lord. They are in the black cells."
Aeryn looked at the oil stain on the wall. It looked like a shadow.
"Bring them up," Aeryn said.
"To the interrogation room?"
"No," Aeryn said. He walked to the window and threw it open. The storm outside blew rain into his face, cold and stinging.
"Bring them to the surgery," Aeryn said. "I have... frustrations... I need to work out."
He turned back to his Commander.
"And tell Casper to prepare a ship. A fast one. We are sending a wedding gift to King's Landing."
Aegis nodded once. "It will be done."
The Commander left.
Aeryn stood alone in the wreckage of his solar. The broken glass crunched under his boot.
He had tried to be the architect. He had tried to be the builder. He had tried to stay above the emotional muck of his family.
But they had dragged him down. They had broken the glass.
"I'm sorry, Helaena," Aeryn whispered into the storm. "I wasn't fast enough."
He touched the scar on his arm.
"But I promise you... when I come home, I will not be the boy who builds towers. I will be the dragon that burns them down."
He blew out the remaining candle. The room plunged into darkness, save for the lightning flashing over the sea.
The Bronze Prince was gone. The Lord of the Machine had taken over, and this time, the machine ran on hate.