Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The wind from the Stormlands carried salt and cold. It struck the dark stone walls of Dragonstone, making the gargoyles on the towers grimace ominously in the dim light. The sky hung heavy over the island, painted in shades of ash and rain.

Jon Snow stood on the battlements, watching the raging sea. He was cold, but he had long since grown used to the feeling. The cold that came from the North was different—it froze not just the body, but the soul. Here, the wind was alive, like a dragon’s breath, and perhaps that was why he felt like a stranger in this place.

The footsteps behind him were light, almost silent, but he would recognize them anywhere.

“You're not sleeping,” her voice came.

Jon didn’t turn immediately. He knew she stood just a few steps away, wrapped in a dark red cloak, watching him as intently as always.

“Sleep doesn’t come to me,” he finally answered, turning around.

Rhaenys Targaryen.

She was his sister. Or rather, his half-sister. His mother was Lyanna, hers was Elia. Their father was the same, and his name hung between them, heavy as a searing blade.

Rhaenys was a Targaryen to her very core—her hair gleamed with soft silver, and her violet eyes held unfathomable depth. But there was something else in her, something sunlit and southern, left over from Dorne. She never shivered from the cold and always met the world head-on, without a trace of hesitation.

“It’s never truly quiet here,” she said, stepping closer. “Do you hear it?”

Jon listened. The whisper of the waves. The wind wandering between the towers. And in the distance—the deep rumble of a dragon.

“I hear it,” he said quietly.

Rhaenys smiled slightly.

“Then you’re starting to get used to it.”

But he knew that wasn’t true.

Chapter Text

Dragonstone was steeped in ancient magic. Here, in the Chamber of the Painted Table, the Targaryens had forged their plans, bending Westeros to their will. Jon felt that legacy in everything—the cold touch of stone, the scent of sulfur, the flickering torches casting long shadows on the walls.

This was where he met Rhaenys most often.

“You were never meant to be born,” she said one day, and there was no anger in her voice, only weariness.

Jon lifted his gaze to her.

“I know.”

Rhaenys traced her fingers over the old lines of the map on the Painted Table.

“You’re a ghost, an echo of a choice that should never have been made.”

“And you’re a ghost of a past that should have died,” he replied.

She gave a bitter smile.

“In that, we are alike."

And it was true.

Chapter Text

Rhaenys did not like being pitied. Jon learned that quickly.

“I remember the fire,” she told him one night as they stood by her window.

Outside, a dragon flew over the shore, its massive wings slicing through the air. Primordial fire burned in its eyes.

“The day I died,” she continued.

Jon knew she hadn’t died. Something had saved her that day when the Mountain came to kill. But she still considered herself a ghost.

“I don’t remember my mother. I don’t remember Elia, I don’t remember what she was like. Only the warmth of her hands. And the fire.”

Jon remained silent.

“And you?” she asked, turning to him.

“I remember the cold,” he admitted.

Rhaenys studied him closely.

“You never said you feared fire.”

He turned away.

“And you never said you feared the cold.”

She didn’t answer.

But a moment later, her fingers brushed against his hand.

And he realized—they feared the darkness equally.