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The night wind tugged at the dragon banner above the castle, making it breathe in the dark like some vast red-and-black beast uneasy in its sleep. Below, the camp still murmured and smoked. Hundreds of torches guttered against the spring air. Laughter flared too loud in one quarter, brittle as breaking glass. Somewhere a man sang off-key. Somewhere else, a horse screamed and was sharply soothed.
It was a pleasant night. That made it worse.
At dawn, seven would face seven. Swords had been sharpened until they whispered when drawn. Horses had been walked and watered and rubbed down. Maesters had laid out bandages and vinegar and clean linen, as if linen had ever truly stopped steel. Prayers - sincere and otherwise - had been offered up to gods who had witnessed too many such mornings to be moved by another.
Only the waiting remained.
Maekar Targaryen sat in the chamber granted to him, a high-backed chair drawn near the hearth. His helm and gauntlets rested upon the table beside him. The window stood open; cool night air brushed his bare forearms and stirred the embers at his back. He had not bothered with wine. He preferred his thoughts unclouded; wine dulled a man's edge.
“Father.”
He did not turn at once. He knew that voice in any weather - whether it came laughing, defiant, or trembling.
“You should be abed,” Maekar said.
“I can’t.”
Egg stepped fully into the firelight. The shaved head that had seemed bold and impish by daylight now made him look smaller. Younger. Too young for fields where princes bled. The day’s bravado had fallen away, and what remained was a boy trying his hardest not to be one. Maekar saw that and felt something tight and unwelcome stir beneath his ribs.
“Don’t fight,” Egg said.
The words were simple. They were not small.
The fire cracked; a knot burst and spat sparks.
“The challenge has been called,” Maekar said evenly. “It cannot be uncalled.”
“Let Aerion answer it,” Egg shot back. “He chose it. He wanted this. And you know Ser Duncan was right.”
Maekar’s jaw tightened beneath his silvery beard. “He is my son.”
“And I am not?” Egg's voice broke at the last word; that made Maekar rise. He crossed the chamber and lowered himself to one knee before the boy - not ceremonially, not as a prince, but as a father meeting a son at eye level. He set his hands upon Egg’s shoulders. The bones beneath felt too slight.
“You are,” he said. “Which is why I will not let the realm see our blood divide.”
“I don’t care what the realm sees,” Egg burst out. “I care what I see. I don’t want to watch you die for him.” That struck deeper than anger would have.
Maekar’s thumb brushed a tear from Egg’s cheek before it fell. The gesture was almost awkward, as if unused. “I do not fight for his pride.”
“Then why?”
Maekar’s gaze shifted, unfocusing slightly, as if he already saw the press of bodies, the churn of hooves, the crush of shields, the smell of warm blood rising in the morning air. “Because the dragon house must stand whole,” he said quietly. “If I refuse him before all those lords and knights, I teach them that Targaryen blood thins when it is shamed. That fathers turn their backs on sons.”
“He deserves it,” Egg whispered.
“Yes.” The word was hard and clean. “Yes,” Maekar repeated. “He does.”
Egg blinked at that.
“I am angry with him,” Maekar went on. “Furious. He has forced this. He has made spectacle of justice. But anger does not dissolve obligation.”
Egg’s hands curled into fists against his own sides. “Mother would say you don’t owe cruelty your life.”
That struck differently. Maekar’s expression altered - not softened fully, but shifted, as iron shifts when heated. “Your mother,” he said slowly, “would tell me a man must decide what he is willing to lose to remain himself.”
“And what are you willing to lose?” Egg asked.
Maekar did not answer at once. Instead, he drew Egg forward. He wrapped his arms around him and held him fully. Not stiffly, not briefly. Egg’s forehead pressed against his father’s chest; his heart hammered fast and frightened. Maekar felt it, and it stirred something protective and fierce and nearly unbearable.
“I miss her,” Egg said into the wool. “I miss her so much.”
“So do I,” Maekar answered. “Every day.”
He rested his chin atop the boy’s head. For a moment, he let himself remember her laughter echoing in stone halls. The way she had once laid a hand upon his arm and quieted him without a word. The way she had believed that he was better than his temper, that there was more to him than steel and severity. Silently, he reached up and unclasped the silver fastening that held his dark wool cloak; the clasp came free with a soft click. Egg stiffened slightly as the weight lifted from his father’s shoulders. Maekar drew the cloak from himself and wrapped it around the boy. Once. Twice. He folded the excess back so it would not drag on the ground. The wool swallowed his son nearly whole. The cloak smelled of smoke and leather and cold mornings on horseback.
It smelled of Maekar Targaryen, Prince of Summerhall.
“I am choosing you,” Maekar said quietly. “Do you understand that?”
Egg looked up, eyes bright.
“I stand tomorrow so that when this is done, no man may say our house faltered and that you carry that weakness in your name. I will not have your path shadowed by his folly.”
“That isn’t fair,” Egg said fiercely. “It’s his folly.”
“It is ours,” Maekar replied. “Blood makes it so.”
Silence stretched. Outside, a horn sounded once, low and distant.
“If you see Ser Duncan,” Egg said at last, voice tight with something like terror, “don’t seek him.”
Maekar’s gaze sharpened. “I will not,” he said. “But I will do what must be done,” he continued, very softly, as though he weren’t speaking of battle and blood and death.
Egg swallowed. It was no consolation – but it was the truth.
“When you come back,” he said stubbornly, “you’ll take back your cloak.”
A faint, fierce curve touched Maekar’s mouth. “I do not give my cloak away lightly.” He rose then, slowly. “Look at me.”
Egg did.
“Stand with your knight tomorrow,” Maekar said. “And do not be ashamed of me.”
“I’m not,” Egg answered at once.
“I know.” Maekar stepped back. For a long heartbeat he simply looked at his son - not as a prince measuring an heir, not as a commander assessing strength - but as a father memorizing the shape of his son’s face in firelight. There were tears in Egg’s eyes; the boy tried his best to stand straight despite them. Maekar lifted a hand and smoothed it once over the boy’s shaved head, almost awkwardly. “Go,” he said softly.
Egg hesitated. Then he threw his arms around his father again. This time, Maekar held him longer; long enough to feel the shape of him. Long enough to know what he would be leaving behind if steel chose poorly at dawn.
When Egg finally pulled away, the cloak trailing like a shadow too large to bear, Maekar did not call him back. He stood alone in the chamber. The night air pressed cool against his shoulders where the wool had been, but he did not reach for another cloak. He crossed to the table and lifted his helm. The steel reflected the firelight back at him, warped and red. His own face stared back - older than he remembered. Harder. The scars along his cheeks half-hidden beneath his beard.
Outside, the dragon banner breathed in the dark. Maekar stood a long while without moving. The chamber felt larger without the boy in it. Emptier. The fire had burned lower. Shadows climbed the walls and made giants of him. He could still feel the warmth where Egg had stood close, the slight pressure of small fingers gripping his sleeve. He flexed his hand once, as if the memory of that touch had weight.
The camp below had quieted. The laughter was gone now. Only the low murmur of distant voices remained, and the occasional stamp of a restless horse. Somewhere, a smith’s hammer rang once, twice, then ceased. Maekar stepped to the window. The sky above Ashford Meadow was strewn with cold stars. He had seen stars above battlefields before; they never changed.
The dragon house balanced on the edge of a blade. Maekar’s jaw tightened.
The wind rose suddenly, stronger now, and the dragon banner snapped hard against its pole, a sharp crack in the night.
At dawn, the horns would sound. Steel would meet steel. And whatever the gods chose to take from him, Maekar Targaryen would stand.
Somewhere below, a boy with a shaved head and a cloak too large was walking back to his knight. The dragon banner stirred again in the dark - and the night held its breath.