Chapter Text
Dusk descended upon Lys with a chill most unseasonable for the heart of spring. The sea exhaled a bitter breath against the windows of the Rogare manse, and in the highest tower chamber the curtains, wrought with threads of gold, stirred and shuddered at each restless gust, wavering candle flame upon it’s wick.
On the pale marble tiles lay Aerion, yet not in reverence as he was wont to kneel before retiring. His garments, once fastidiously arranged, had fallen into disarray; the pale silk was marred by a deep and spreading crimson that crept toward the cuffs, and between his thighs the blood ran warm in a slender stream, tracing uncertain paths across the cold stone until it gathered in a small, glistening pool.
His hands, fine and delicately boned, were stained alike, and he regarded them as though from a great remove, unmoored from chamber and body both. The dark red had crept beneath his nails and settled into the lines of his palms, rendering visible the ruin of yet another hope, though not wholly his own.
This one had endured five moons of cautious vigils and watchful glances, of whispers exchanged behind closed doors and smiles that faltered before they reached his eyes. Once more his womb had been spoken of as fertile ground awaiting its harvest, for so it was desired by all. Five moons in which, despite the nausea that plagued him and the weariness that lay heavy upon his limbs, he had permitted himself to believe, though against his better judgment, that fate might not be altogether cruel.
Now there remained only silence and the first breath of night that slipped through the narrow casements and brushed against his fevered skin.
He thought of the two that had come before, whose names would never be spoken. He thought of the measured gaze of Lotho, in which impatience no longer troubled to disguise itself. He thought of the Free Cities, and their palaces of shining marble and perfumed air, bright as their underneath the sun.
What worth was the last omega of his line, if even the blood of the dragon would not take root within his womb? His lord husband’s harsh words stole back into his mind.
Though a somber mist seemed to settle upon his shoulders, a mantle of ill omen laying there by merciless gods, beneath it all that numbed his limbs, something yet smoldered stubbornly.
He had always been a restless being, after all.
As if summoned by one bitter thought, the doors of his chamber were flung wide, striking the wall with a report that set the flames to quivering. Aerion closed his fingers slowly, staining anew the hands already darkened with blood.
The scent came before the man himself, fermented Lysene ale clinging thickly to the natural musk of an alpha, claiming every inch of the chamber as though by right, forcing him to draw into his lungs that which he found most loathsome.
“My sweet dragon, you should have seen the faces of the envoys from Myr when I laid the contract before them. Not one dared come empty-handed; they brought laces so fine they won’t crease. For our heir, they said, as though they could already hear him wail.”
Lotho laughed, a deep and satisfied sound that rolled about the chamber walls. The contrast was grotesque; as he enumerated gifts and shallow assurances, Aerion’s gaze remained fixed upon his own hands, still steeped in darkened red. His husband’s scent mingled with the metallic tang in the air, forming a miasma that churned his stomach. Nausea rose swift and violent to his throat, and for a fleeting moment he was forced to close his eyes.
His jubilation was a physical affront, cruel in its ignorance, for the celebration had come too soon, or else far too late.
“...and from Tyrosh, ah, from Tyrosh they have sent an entire chest of red corals, polished bright as rubies. A cradle may be carved from it. Can you imagine? A cradle worthy of the blood you bear. Dragon’s blood beneath the roof of Rogare. The lords near quarreled for the honor of standing godfather.”
He strode a few paces, the chiming of rings against rings marking the measure of his exultation.
“There is more. A small galley, gifted by a captain who swore fealty to our future son ere he has drawn his first breath. A ship, Aerion. He told me it ought to bear the name of the firstborn you grant us,” he continued, “Five moons, my dear. Five moons, and already they are merry. You told me you felt strong this time, do you recall? I announced before the council that the lines of Rogare and Targaryen would bloom ere the next summer’s turn. That the bankers of Braavos should envy us not only for our coin, but for our progeny.”
He drew nearer still.
“When he is born, we shall grant him a ceremony the like of which the Free Cities have never witnessed. I would have all men know that it was you who gave me an heir, the last omega of your line at last fulfilling what the gods ordained.”
He paused, but only long enough to draw breath and reclaim his fervor.
“And if there be more than one? They say blessed wombs are oft prodigal in their gifts. Two little dragons beneath my roof. Would that not be a splendid blow to those who doubt you? To those who whisper that your blood has grown thin?”
Still blind to the truth spread stark upon the marble, he laughed again.
“Ah, Aerion, my dear heart, you have made me the most envied man in Lys. When our son enters this world, all shall remember this night as the prelude to a new age for House Rogare. And I, generous as ever, shall share my joy with the whole of the city…”
At last, the torrent of words ebbed. Slowly, his brow furrowed, and his gaze fell; finally, he saw the red. It was not festive as the promised coral, nor bright as wine in a crystal cup.
“There will be no coral cradle,” Aerion said. “Nor any ship christened with a chosen name. There is no heir to celebrate.”
His fingers parted slightly, and the fresh blood slipped down the side of his hand.
“It endured five moons,” he added. “Long enough for all to deceive themselves. Once more.”
For the span of a heartbeat Lotho stood unmoving, shock carving severity into his features. The hand that clasped his signet ring slackened and his expansive bearing drew inward. The proud lift of his chest sank and his gaze traveled over the floor, to the stained garments and the near translucent pallor of Aerion’s face. The hand that had gestured so grandly now tightened into a fist, opening and closing.
“Did you send for anyone?”
Aerion inclined his head by the barest measure.
“No.”
The Magister’s eyes caught the light from the candles, and within them flared something that bore no kinship to grief. The shift began there, subtle as a tremor beneath still water, between the sobriety he strained to maintain and the agitation that climbed his breast.
“Five moons,” Lotho repeated, yet now the words rang not with pride but with accusation. “Five moons, and you remain alone when you bleed?”
Aerion set one hand upon the floor and rose. The effort was plain to see, though he did not permit weakness to bend his spine nor bow his head.
“We have endured this before. I know the end when it comes, husband. You might strive to learn the same, rather than fix me with that pitiable countenance.”
Lotho stepped forward. He was a man of extremes; in triumph he grew loud and prodigal, promising kingdoms as though they were trinkets, and in restraint he turned cold as coin newly minted.
Between those two tempers lay danger.
“You are not fashioned of glass, Aerion. Or are you?”
There had been other nights when frustration had hardened him into rough handling, fingers fastening too tightly about a slender arm, a shove against stone that left faint purples beneath silk. Yet there had also been reprisal; the blood of the dragon did not suffer humiliation unanswered, and Aerion had learned to return blow for blow, with a strength startling in one of such elegant builds.
Lotho knew it. He knew that the body before him could become a blade. Even so, his hand rose and seized Aerion’s chin in a possessive grip, the pressure of it sufficing to leave its mark.
“Tell me,” the man drawled. His dark eyes were fixed upon his own. “Was it weakness, or neglect?”
With swiftness and devoid of hysteria, Aerion caught his husband’s wrist. His fingers, still stained red, closed around it with equal force.
“Careful,” he warned, near gentle. “I am weary, not defenseless, husband.”
The pressure increased until Lotho felt the protest of bone beneath skin. Then Aerion released him, casting his arm aside with abrupt disdain. Wounded pride kindled in the Magister’s breast, for he had need of Aerion still.
He had need of his womb, and of the ancient name he bore.
Still, after a moment of tense silence, the man coldly commanded, “You will bathe. See that this… filth is washed from you. I will not have you lying about in blood like some dockside wretch.”
His gaze moved once more over the marble floor, over the darkening stain that spread in testimony of what had been lost. Yet no softness entered his expression.
“Compose yourself. Whatever has passed, it shall not be spoken of beyond these walls unless I decree it. The servants need not see you thus,” he adjusted the signet ring upon his finger. “I shall await you tonight in my chambers. You would do well not to keep me waiting.”
Without seeking leave, he turned. His steps echoed across the marble as he quit the chamber, closing the door behind him with firmness.
Aerion clenched his fists until his nails bit crescents into his skin.
He imagined the towers of Lys wreathed in flame and the other Free Cities bowing beneath the roar of a dragon long since turned to dust.
He wished to burn it all.
To burn the palaces wherein men presumed to decide the fate of his womb. To burn the very name of Rogare until nothing remained but ash scattered upon the sea wind.
If he could not beget heirs, he thought in this dark hour, he might yet beget ruin.
And still, when the small hours crept upon him and weariness settled heavy upon his shoulders, he remained seated before the near spent brazier.
The blood of the dragon ran within his veins, yet there were no dragons left in the world.
There remained to him only the memory of fire.
-
It was deep into the night when silence fell upon the Rogare manse, save only for the distant murmur of the sea against the harbor. Within Lotho’s private chambers, the candles had burned low and their wax already pooled thickly upon gilded trays. It reeked of wine, sweat and the cloying perfumes favored by the Magister at his side.
Aerion lay upon the disordered bed, sheets twisted about his bruised hips. He stared upward at the painted ceiling, where pale nymphs and sea spirits danced in eternal delight. His breathing had long since steadied, though the loathing had not; what was demanded of him as wifely duty he endured with his mind turned elsewhere. It did not stop his lord husband from conquering his body once again in that very mattress, and, by contrast, he seemed restored by it, reclined against the carved headboard with one arm resting carelessly behind his head.
“I have heard a curious thing,” Lotho began. “Whispers carried by captains out of Pentos and Myr alike. It seems your princeling brother wanders the Free Cities. They call him Egg, do they not?”
An absent hum left Aerion’s dry lips. He did not draw his eyes away from the ceiling.
The man continued, “A fond little name for a dragon’s get. He strolls from port to port with that monstrous knight of his, the one said to be taller than a gate and twice as stubborn as a mule.”
At that, pale lashes lowered a fraction. He had no wish to conjure the image of a shorn silver head and earnest violet eyes, and beside him the towering shadow of a loyal dog.
He had never cared for the boy. Even before Ashford, there had been something in his brother’s earnest righteousness that grated against him, and after the tourney, the sentiment had curdled like spoiled milk. The memory of bruises on his body and the disapproval in his father’s eyes made him clench his fists around the linens.
“I do not concern myself with wandering children,” he said, smoothly despite the angry simmer underneath his skin. “The Free Cities are full of them.”
Lotho gave him a short laugh.
“This one is no common waif. He is a Targaryen, and where one dragon’s whelp goes, eyes follow. So do opportunities.”
His energy had long returned to him in restless measure. It was always like that; a predictable unpredictableness that Aerion despised with all his might.
“Imagine it, another son of Valyria beneath my roof. The last omega of his line already in my bed, and now a princeling at my table.”
Aerion turned his head then, slowly, regarding his husband with an expression of disdain.
“You wish to make a spectacle of him.”
“Of us,” Lotho corrected. “A feast, envoys summoned to witness it. Let them see that House Rogare stands so secure in its alliances that dragons come willingly to our hearth.”
Willingly. Aerion wanted to snort. Had he not been banished to Lys, he would have never set his feet in Essos.
“It would do you good as well, to be seen beside your brother,” his husband continued, a tad soberly. “It would silence whispers.”
“I have no desire to acknowledge him, nor to indulge the city in pageantry for a boy who fancies himself a hedge knight’s companion.”
Lotho’s expression hardened, “Your desires are not the only coin in play.”
“You mistake me. It is not whim that guides my refusal.”
“Then what is it? Petty jealousy? Old rivalries from boyhood?”
A humorless smile curled in Aerion’s mouth.
“You think me so small?”
“I think you Targaryens incapable of indifference to one another,” argued Lotho, ignorantly, pathetically.
The sound of his voice grated his ears. Aerion rose from the bed, gathering his discarded gown from the floors, and moved toward the open casement, where the night air slipped in, salty and cold.
“You would invite him here not out of reverence for my blood, but to display it. See, Lys, how dragons dine beneath my roof,” he jested.
“And why should I not?” Lotho asked, dumbly. “The boy’s presence would draw every notable house in the city to my halls.”
“You would drag him into Lysene intrigues all so you may boast of hosting a dragon. It is pitiful.”
Lotho rose now as well. His posture began to change, much like in the earlier hours.
“You forget yourself.”
“I remember myself very well.”
They will measure him against me, Aerion thought. They will count my failures and weigh them against his youth.
It disgusts him.
“You crave another dragon beneath this roof because one has not squeezed out the heir you desire. Say it plainly,” he spat.
The silence that followed was an answer enough.
Color rose faintly along Lotho’s cheekbones, be it from embarrassment or rage.
“You will attend the feast,” the man declared, as if wanting to diverge the topic. “Whether you greet him warmly or not is your affair. But he will be invited.”
In his sleeping gown, with the thin silk whispering about his ankles, Aerion took one last glance at Lotho before striding toward the doors.
“Do as you wish, husband.”
He did not look back as he crossed the chamber. At the threshold he paused only long enough to gather what remained of his composure, then drew the doors open and departed without awaiting dismissal.