The air in Dragonstone was thick with salt and warmth that morning. The volcano's breath rose through the halls like incense, curling between the tapestries and the painted pillars of the nursery. Outside, the sea broke endlessly against the black cliffs, the sound like distant drums.
Aemma Arryn sat in the window seat, her children at play before the fire. The twins were near two years old now—Rhaenyra bright as sunlight on gold, Maekar quieter, his silver hair falling across a face too thoughtful for his age. Between them, resting upon a bed of ash and silk, lay two dragon eggs. One had split its shell. The other had not.
The living hatchling was small still, though fierce in her beauty—golden as new-forged coin, eyes bright as molten brass. She purred in the heat, wings twitching. Rhaenyra called her Syrax, after the Valyrian goddess of flame and flight.
"She'll outgrow this chamber before long," Aemma murmured, smoothing her daughter's hair.
"She's mine," Rhaenyra declared, with the stubborn pride that came so easily to her. She stroked the dragon's snout and laughed when it hissed softly, a curl of smoke rising from its nostrils. "She listens only to me."
Across from her, Maekar watched in silence. The other egg—his—sat untouched beside the hearth, its shell green veined with gold. It gleamed like glass but remained cold beneath his fingers.
He touched it now, running a thumb along the seam where the shell had refused to break. "Maybe it sleeps too deeply," he said.
Aemma turned at the sound of his voice. "It will wake when it's ready, my love."
He looked up at her then, his lilac eyes catching the firelight. "Or maybe it dreams of fire."
The words sent a small chill through her, though she could not have said why. Maekar spoke rarely, but when he did, his words were chosen too carefully—never babbling like other children his age, never lost in simple play.
"Where did you hear that, sweetling?"
He smiled, that calm little smile of his. "From the egg, perhaps."
Rhaenyra giggled. "Eggs can't talk, silly!"
Maekar's gaze lingered on his sister a moment longer. "Maybe not to you."
---
Viserys's voice carried faintly through the open window—warm and full of nervous laughter. Aemma turned her head and saw him below, standing beside his brother Daemon. Both were clad in riding leathers, their dragons behind them like living shadows.
Caraxes hissed and stretched his wings, red as spilled wine beneath the sun. Daemon's hair, white as winter, caught the wind as he spoke. Viserys listened with that boyish grin of his, the same one that had won her heart years ago.
"He looks well," Aemma murmured, more to herself than the children. "And restless, as ever."
She had heard him pacing long into the nights these past weeks. The summons to the Great Council weighed heavily upon him. The old king's health was failing, and soon the lords of the realm would gather at Harrenhal to decide his heir.
Daemon urged him to go and claim it—before the council met. Otto Hightower counseled patience, and duty, and prayer. Aemma had given her husband quieter advice still: Win hearts before thrones.
Viserys had smiled at that, weary and loving. "You sound like your father, my dove."
Now, watching him from above, Aemma could not help but see the boy he had been—the dreamer who spoke more of dragons than of crowns. He would make a kind king, she thought. Perhaps too kind.
---
"Mother?"
Rhaenyra's voice pulled her back. The girl was holding Syrax in her arms, small hands wrapped around the dragon's slender neck.
"Careful," Aemma warned. "You'll scorch your dress."
"She won't hurt me."
Maekar stood nearby, his gaze fixed on the window. He watched his father's dragon, Balerion's shadow lingering over Dragonstone though the beast himself was long dead. There was awe in his eyes, yes—but something colder, too.
"Do you like dragons, Maekar?" his mother asked gently.
He turned his head, considering the question. "They're what make us strong," he said after a pause. Then, with that same strange calm, "But strength is only useful if others forget how dangerous it is."
The words made Aemma frown, though she could not place what troubled her about them. She reached out, brushing a lock of silver hair from his brow. "You speak so wisely, my little one. You'll be a prince to be feared."
Maekar smiled. "Feared people are easy to rule, Mother. It's the ones who love you that are dangerous."
Aemma laughed softly, thinking it a jest. "You've been listening to too many of your uncle's tales."
---
Below, the dragons roared—Caraxes lifting into the sky, wings cutting through the mist. Syrax stirred in Rhaenyra's arms, answering the call with a hiss.
"Say goodbye to your father," Aemma said, gathering both children to the window.
Rhaenyra waved eagerly. Maekar only lifted his hand halfway, watching in silence as the two riders took to the air.
The wind from their passing rattled the shutters. Aemma held the children close, her heart full and uncertain.
"Your father will return with honor," she whispered.
Maekar leaned his head against her shoulder. "Or not at all," he said softly.
She felt his words like a pebble dropped into deep water, ripples spreading unseen. She turned his face toward her, kissed his brow, and told herself it was only the strange talk of a clever child.
But when she looked down again, his eyes were fixed on the empty sky—cold, calculating, and far too old.
---
That night, after the torches were dimmed and the nursery lay quiet, the embers in the hearth glowed faintly against the black stone walls. Syrax slept curled in her nest, her golden scales shimmering in the light.
Beside her, Maekar's egg lay still.
He sat awake in the cradle beside it, small hands resting on his knees. In the silence, he could hear his mother's breathing from the other room, the slow crackle of fire, the faint roar of the sea below.
"Dream of fire," he whispered to the egg. "And wake."
For a heartbeat, the gold-veined shell seemed to shimmer—only faintly, like heat over sand.
Maekar smiled. Then he lay back, eyes open to the dark, and waited.