Chapter Text
In the early months of 204 A.C, following weeks of correspondence, the Conclave at Oldtown determined that what was anticipated as a three-year winter had concluded prematurely.
The last snow was reputed to be unseasonably mild. Swift to fall and swifter still to melt.
He wraps his fingers around the interwoven stems, careful not to damage the supple blooms.
Through the slit in his helm, his betrothed's gaze burns into him, almost as oppressive as the thousand other eyes watching both of them, accompanied by raucous cheers so loud they reverberate through his body.
Jace shivers.
He hides his trembling with a smile, the thunder of his heartbeat drowned out by the surrounding clamor. It's not a boyish expression, not unencumbered or boastful.
Boyhood is long behind him.
He curls his lips into something more dignified. This is a historic day. An epoch to be immortalized in the histories and songs, the like to follow their house centuries after they are ash in the wind. His own performance must be exemplary, perfection down to the lay of his tunics, how he buries his nose to smell the blooms, his visible contentment afterwards.
Three generations have passed since the realm has seen a dragon. Three generations since House Targaryen's blood had more to show for it than a claim to the throne the Conqueror melted into shape with dread Balerion's breath.
Jace places the wreath of white roses atop his curls.
Baelor heaves his lance high as their audience's excitement gains fervor.
To Jace's right, King Daeron grins, wide and uninhibited, his years marked by the deep lines on his face, his strength and the years yet to come in his healthy pallor, the robust stamping of his feet against the boards to salute his son's excellent showing in the lists.
To Jace's left, the rest of Baelor's family observe with a myriad of expressions.
Prince Aerys looks keen to leave, unmoved by the pageantry and already missing his books. Prince Rhaegel beams, though his attentions don't settle on his brother or Jace, fluttering from one point to another along the jubilant mass and the various silken and glittering decorations gilding the tilts. He murmurs delightedly into his lady wife's ear. Jace can't quite distinguish Maekar's expression across the royal viewing box to the line of defeated challengers on the other end of the field, but doubtless he trades words with his brother because Baelor halts there a moment before continuing his victory procession.
The youngest of the children in attendance, Matarys, Aegon, and Daella, clap along enthusiastically, eyes large and gleaming at Baelor as he nears. Aemon claps just as well, eyes not so large but still rapt, flitting between Jace and his triumphant uncle. Daeron's head droops as he battles drowsiness, and Jace suppresses a wince as he jolts awake and knocks his knee against the arm of his chair. Valarr is likewise subdued, but completely lucid. Kiera beside him mirrors her husband's reserve. Though his inheritance is secure, he doesn't begrudge Baelor's heir his continued reluctance. If Mother had remarried and her new spouse was three years younger than himself, Jace would be similarly discomfited.
His fingers twitch as they abandon his wreathe where it lays. He lowers them to his lap, turning his thoughts from pointless hypotheticals and into the present moment.
The covetousness in Aerion's gaze is plainly apparent. Maekar's second eldest has been fixated the moment they arrived from Summerhall for the wedding and sighted Vermax in the courtyard. Since then, not a day has passed that Aerion didn't study Jace's dragon from the barest safe distance. At three-and-ten, he has ambition, if little else. He doesn't think the boy has it in him to kinslay—for multiple reasons, among them being the loss of his father, uncle, and grandsire's regard—but obsession frequently proved the foundation for fatal intent. The mosaic of a child's longing could shift so swiftly from one sunrise to the next, gaining more drastic hues until the pattern itself outlined disaster. Aemond was proof enough of that.
Aerion would have more of a chance claiming Vermax were he Jace's betrothed.
But Aerion is not full-grown or near it. He is not the man trotting around the list field, plated in black and red, a circlet of gold around his helm. He is not Baelor Breakspear, heir to the Iron Throne, beloved of his people, admired for chivalry, judiciousness, valor, honor, his mettle tested by war, and with almost a decade of governance as his Father's Hand. Seasoned in battle as in diplomacy, an accomplished quill to rival his sword and lance. Though there are more years between Jace and his betrothed than himself and King Daeron II's grandchildren, the choice of husband—what little there was—could only have been Baelor.
Fire made flesh bound once more to the throne, he thinks.
And Viserys' blood, his littlest brother's legacy safeguarded. Even here, concerns of succession needs be put to rest.
It's a small price to pay in comparison to what is owed.
Baelor descends from his horse to approach the royal box.
Jace rises with the others to meet him.
There are seven-hundred-and-seventy-seven steps from the bottom of Visenya's Hill to the doors of the sept his betrothed was named for.
Jace does not climb them, nor does he arrive by wheelhouse. He does his grandmother proud. Backlit by the setting sun, he arrives on dragonback, as Princess Rhaenys did at her own wedding. To her, to Aunt Laena, and to his mother, he prays for courage as Vermax descends onto the partitioned plaza. The crown of white roses, anchored to his curls by interlocking braids, themselves anchored with pearled pins, may have lost a bloom or two during the short flight but, upon cautious examination, reveals itself otherwise undisturbed.
Vermax doesn't lash his tail at the smallfolk shamelessly ogling them from beyond the circle of Gold Cloaks. He shows his displeasure with growls and chirps and trills. Extends his wings in warning. Jace hushes him, reciting High Valyrian entreaties for calm under his breath. When Vermax settles enough for Jace to dismount, he brings their foreheads together gently. Vermax snuffles.
Jace whispers, "I know."
He enters the sept alone.
From entrance to altar, there are eighty-six steps. The distance seems greater with the sept so populated, fit to bursting with nobility and smallfolk alike. Hours of practice prevent Jace from tripping on his feet as he walks the central aisle. Gooseflesh spreads where his doublet opens to reveal his upper-back beneath the neck. He squashes the compulsion to cover it with his hands or, bar that, claw the skin to pieces.
Baelor stands tall a tier below the septon. Broad shoulders back, barrel chest rising and falling steadily, mismatched irises appearing as dark pools from the space between them, the thirty or so steps Jace yet has to take. His boots have been buffed and polished, and his doublet is a black velvet embroidered with deep crimson, in the same style as Jace's albeit without the subtle Velaryon silver trimmings. The three-headed dragon across his sternum spits red, ruby flames that glitter under the abundant candlelight. With the dying sun shining through the sept's impressive glass roof, he is every inch the Targaryen heir, the warrior-prince.
They'd shorn the stubble from his jaw in the early morning, shorn any hint of its return again once the tourney was behind them and the ceremony loomed. Noble as he is—royal as they both are, though the title has loosened its grip on Jace with circumstance—he could've kept it. Could've insisted, in that forebearing subtlety that is his way, that there was no need. Propriety would've bent its spine to him.
He hadn't.
Instead, he'd shorn what evidence he could of the years between himself and the new bride he would take to wed. Jace could ascertain as much, though his betrothed admitted nothing of the sort. The image they make beside each other, himself half a year past his fifteenth nameday, his soon-to-be husband less than a year from his four-and-thirtieth, has escaped neither of their notices since this affair's devising.
They do not speak of it. They do not need to. Duty's demands dwarf discomfort.
It is a mercy, Jace knows, that his betrothed takes no joy in so young a bride. A mercy more that he has heirs already. Better still to have learned from their months of acquaintance that Baelor is a man of moderation and not excessive pride, brutality for brutality's sake. Mother would've despised this for him, her efforts to hide what he is come to naught, but at least his husband will not be as Uncle Aegon was.
Baela would've made a far more beautiful bride than I, Jace thinks.
Would that he could've given her the wedding she wanted, the wedding she deserved, as grand as this one is, free of war and unmarred by bloodshed.
But then, Baela is dead.
She is gone with all the others, every member of his family he'd yet to lose, Mother, Father, Rhaena and Joff and Aegon and Viserys and Grandsire. Gone with the rest of their dragons save Vermax, and out of his reach.
His eyes sting. He blinks back the ache.
There is no place for grief here, no room for fear or the pall of defeat. He was a prince three moons past; he's to be Prince Consort soon enough. Prince Consorts with dragons cannot be seen to dread. To doubt.
He's kind, he reminds himself.
Tested by more years than he can claim for himself, and more trials. And they understand each other—a blessing that would do his nerves well to remember.
What is left of his house in this future forced upon him, ravaged by the death of Jace's loved ones and the ruin left in their wake, needs Vermax. Needs everything he signifies restored to the Crown. The thread of their impossible existence couldn't be left to fray in the wind. Not for all that it implies. The last dragon was similarly scaled green but she hatched weak-bodied and remained so, barely capable of supporting her own bones, the sky forbidden to her by atrophied wings.
Vermax grows larger, mightier, every year.
Vermax flies.
Jace arrives at the altar to take hands with his great-grandnephew. Together, they ascend the last set of steps toward indomitable alliance.
For the realm, he thinks.
For the wellbeing of their house. For the promise he made to Mother.
For Viserys.
Baelor removes his cloak to drape it around Jace's shoulders. (It's not a weight he ever expected to carry. Not a rite he foresaw himself experiencing from this side. To say nothing of the cloak itself emblazoned with Targaryen heraldry and Martell embellishments as opposed to Velaryon.) Baelor thumbs his knuckles as they take hands again. Baelor glances at him, mismatched irises heavy with awareness but free of censure. Tis a comfort. Meagre, perhaps, but a comfort nevertheless.
The septon binds their hands.
A breath, two, three—Jace can't count them, too busy with marshalling his tears, here with a thousand-thousand witnesses, a thousand-thousand threats—the buzzing of an aged voice ceases.
They make their vows.
"Father, Smith, Warrior. Mother, Maiden, Crone. Stranger. I am his and he is mine, from this day until the end of my days."
The Valyrian oaths keep to the confines of his memory. Mother's words to Daemon, Daemon to her, the oaths that would've been Baela's in another life.
Baela is gone.
Baelor is here.
Baelor does not move. They discussed it a number of times prior to this day, but it appears he's committed to paralysis lest Jace's senses quit him at the final hour. Considerate or insulting, he can't decide. The threat of Vermax might allow him to escape unaccosted, but what then? The last dragon in three generations fleeing from his own house? They wouldn't survive it. Then what would he tell his family, when it came time to join them in endless dark?
Jace tilts his face upwards and leans in. His new husband bends to meet him. The Sept of Baelor erupts in applause. The kiss itself is chaste with formality. It lingers for certainty's sake.
When they separate, his husband looks away first.
The task of weathering felicitations from the numerous great and lesser houses lasts a indolent eternity. He smiles where he ought, says exactly what he ought, dips his head in acknowledgment, and makes certain they're aware that he knows them each by name. It's a familiar dance, albeit performed by a different peerage than those he knew, but he's had nearly three moons to learn them.
His husband's knuckles are soft compared to the calluses of his palms and fingerpads. The undertone is more olive than his own, faintly pockmarked by swordsteel or shield, spear or hammer, a brother's mace. The barely-there pressure of Jace's hand over his husband's is the only part of him that doesn't feel leagues removed.
Beyond the walls of the Red Keep, Vermax circles the city and the bay. Aimless, restless. Crooning softly to the starry sky. Calling for those who will never again answer.
Jace smiles and nods to the Freys as they finish their greetings and make for their seats.
"Lord Cregan Stark," the herald announces.
Jace lifts his head so fast the motion jostles the artfully errant strands of hair not secured by braids into his crown of roses. Some distant part of him registers his husband glancing over from his periphery, but the observation is summarily dismissed.
"Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. With him, his son Edric Stark, and his daughters, the ladies Sarra and Raya Stark."
He spoke to Edric and Lady Sarra when they arrived at the Keep earlier in the week. They were as aloof as he expected from Northerners and manuevered around his inquiries about the whispers that their father was long-past and buried. The South had sworn it so, Baelor had attested to Cregan's dwindling health upon his visit a decade past, so surely—surely—
Cregan's children refused to provide answers. Jace had assumed a fresher loss than was rumoured.
But there he stands.
Back bent, aye. Once-youthful face bearing deep line upon deep line, his dark hair shot through with silver, his beard fully grey, walking slow and shadowed by his eldest daughter in the event of an incident, but walking unassisted, Ice slung over the shoulder of his third son. There breaths Cregan, his friend, his brother, his Stark grown older but yet living.
Stubborn old wolf.
Cregan and those accompanying him bow and curtsy once they finish crossing the throne-room-turned-banquet-hall. King Daeron greets House Stark's grizzled lord, Baelor following soon after. If father and son are surprised at his attendance, or for that matter, his status amongst the living, Jace lacks the presence of mind to recognize it.
Cregan's felicitations are rasped and less verbose than the Reach and Riverland lords who preceded him, but they carry the intensity of command.
Endeared, elated, Jace beams. It's an unabashed thing, bright and blinding. The sight of his friend alive and in front of him is the first true happiness he has felt since the day dawned. Propriety alone keeps him on this side of the royal banquet table. Propriety, and his husband's hand in his.
Steely grey eyes burrow into him.
"You've gotten old," he says and casts aside the instinctual internal lecture on maintaining princely airs.
That wintry gaze slides along his form, scrutinizing his face, his hair, the breadth of his shoulders and the curve of his waist. The small of his back tingles with remembrance, as does his nape. Jace's left palm smarts with the sense-memory of an old wound. Cregan's severe expression cracks with amusement. His laugh is weaker than he remembers, but no less recognizeable or well-received.
Jace's heart jumps in his chest.
"Meantime you, Prince Jacaerys, are every inch the boy I remember."
Jace flushes. He can't help it.
"Age hasn't stolen your impertinence, I see."
"Only my vigor, my prince."
Jace grins. "Nay, that tale is tall indeed, my lord Stark, for your legs yet have the strength to bear you. You cannot deny this."
At six-and-ninety, without the aid of a cane or another body to support him, he may as well be the North's own miracle.
What a pair they make.
"Jacaerys speaks truthfully. Your vitality lies plain for all to see."
Although the words themselves are innocuous, the tone of them mild, they pull his focus from Cregan as abruptly as if he's been dropped into a frozen river. Jace turns toward the voice that spoke them, flushing for a second time when he meets his husband's eyes and those of this father beyond him. Fortunately, Baelor does not condemn him with his gaze, but the curiosity in it, and the unspoken reminder of their audience and circumstance, is enough for Jace to chide himself in the privacy of his own mind.
"I yield to your highness' wisdom." Cregan dips his chin. The curl of good humor to his lips smooths out into his usual solemnity. "Beg pardon for my late arrival and my children's deceit, you've these old bones to thank for it. I did not wish to foster false hope should the journey have proved too much for me. They comported themselves appropriately?"
"Most appropriately," King Daeron responds. "Perish all elsewise thoughts of your death or their misconduct, Lord Stark."
"As you say, Your Grace."
"Lord Guthrey Corbray," the herald announces next, allowing Cregan and the rest of the Stark party to excuse themselves to their table, "and his wife, the lady Bethany Corbray."
Jace peels his attentions away, chewing his inner cheek to prevent from embarrassing himself further by following Cregan with his eyes. There would be time later for them to trade far more meaningful words. If not, he'd make time.
A callused thumb drags subtly across his knuckles.
Iron coats his tongue.
He swallows and smiles at the Corbrays with his lips pulled shut, blood sliding down the back of his throat.
The last house arrives and are announced several minutes later. When they find their seats, King Daeron lifts his cup and begins his speech. The words blur past Jace with overexposure. They commend their union, purporting the strengthened state of the realm and the firm health of the Crown, as well as the hope of further bounty. The mark of Jace's ability to provide it prickles beneath the notch of his spine where his neck meets his shoulders. He keeps his countenance composed, placidly agreeable if not quite confident.
In truth, he can promise Daeron and Baelor no more than he already has.
The viability of his womb is untested. It was promised to Baela and she had not the tools to make use of it nor he the time or interest with war providing only uncertainty. As for Vermax—well, Vermax will do as he wishes once Jace is removed from the board. He knows his dragon and while his cradle-born loyalty has always cleaved him to Jace's will and wishes, rarely has he been so compliant with others. Gods be with whomever attempts to claim him next. Odds are Vermax would dive for the rocks and kill them both.
The eggs on Dragonstone are a lost cause, as—he has found—are their prospects within the Keep. He allows himself a barely-there glance at Cregan before raising his chalice with King Daeron as he finishes his toast.
Jace drinks deep.
He resists the urge to pick at his meal. It's an ungainly habit, one he thought he left behind him with his boyish years. He beats it back to eat diligently and with the grace expected of royalty.
It is too soon and not soon enough that his husband rises from his seat and extends a hand to him. The serving maids and cup-bearers retreat from the throne room floor as he and Baelor arrive at the center. Jace maneuvers his limbs into the starting position. He blinks. The music begins. As he is a better dancer than he is a minstrel, and with the aid of their endless rehearsals, he doesn't need to think about his movements to tender an elegant performance.
Age aside, their height difference is at risk of making their wedding dance a bizarre travesty, but they are well-practiced at making up for it. Baelor is not so different from Daemon in the length of his body, and Father is—was—a menace on countless fronts, in the training yard as he was with teaching Jace how to lead Baela, Rhaena, and Mother, or any lady he found himself in the position to dance with. The first lesson was how it felt to follow. Evidently, that portion of his edification couldn't be trusted to someone else. Another one of Daemon's many eccentricities. Baelor is far more generous in comparison, the epitome of a gentleman when the dance requires them to step in and make physical contact.
It concludes with their right palms hovering over each other's cheek, their free hands extended in the opposite direction, mimicking dragon wings.
What began as two melded into one.
Their audience applauds. The musicians strum, blow, and strike their instruments anew, this time into a livelier tune as the floor fills with more finely-dressed figures.
Jace goes through too many partners to track.
A veritable sea of bodies engulfs him, forcing him to trade arm for arm for arm, long tresses flashing past him, ebony and wheat and scarlet lined with silken ribbons and framed with precious gems, short tresses that float and curl and lay flat and no tresses at all, wide figures, tall figures, young and old and clumsy and lightfooted. After an awkward turn with Baelor's uncle Bloodraven, Jace lands in the arms of Lord Baratheon's heir. He finds a bold scoundrel not dissimilar to Lord Manderly's eldest whom he treated with in White Harbor, though markedly more irreverent. Ser Lyonel makes a jape at seeing three of him which startles a laugh from Jace. When he tells him to consider laying off the dornish reds, Ser Lyonel balks and defends his overindulgence as tribute.
He crosses paths with his husband many times as they do their due diligence prancing with the lords, lordlings, and ladies, but Baelor eventually excuses himself from the floor to mingle with their guests not interested in dancing. He leaves Jace with a kiss on the back of his hand as he goes, as dutiful a new husband as he is an heir. Jace finds it hard, though not impossible, to loathe him just a little bit for it. Would that the role came as smoothly for him this night. He visits his cups more than he ever has in his life, though not so much as to muddle his senses entirely. No good could come from undoing their work at so late a stage.
He wonders if this is how every young—or perhaps not young at all, but no less vulnerable—lady, and those lordlings marked as he is, feel when their parents promise them to distant strangers. He at least had the privilege of knowing his betrothed from infancy and enjoying her company. Had Baela not been the most prudent candidate to wed, there would still be the assurance that any abuses of him would be answered with extreme prejudice by Crown and family. It was Grandsire's way and Mother's and later, Daemon's.
Funny.
Jace has never seen the Keep so full of Targaryens.
He has never felt more alone.
Daemon would think this comical. A son wed to a great-great-grandson while appearing the opposite in body.
Queer customs, the Green Queen once said. She was right in that much at least.
Ugh.
Jace gags at the thought. To rid himself of the taste, he reaches for a tidy cluster of grapes on the tray of a passing servant. The nausea is easier than the rage. Easier to swallow and easier to banish than his impotent anger. Than the loss.
Mother would not be as amused as her husband to see him sold like this. Not with the scales so balanced against him. Rhaenyra the Queen would think alliance prudent; Rhaenyra the Mother would never allow him to be wrested from her arms.
The mark of what he is itches with acute awareness.
Jace is motherless.
A king wears his Mother's crown and weds his heir to hers, yet there can be no retribution when said king and said heir carry her youngest son's blood. Jace can no more free himself from the responsibility of preserving Viserys' lineage than he can save her from Sunfyre's maw. The gods in their cruelty saw fit to place him here; all that he can do is protect what remains.
Jace finishes his grapes and takes another moment to catch his breathe between dances, turning his attention to his new royal father while he waits. He spots him conversing with Cregan. King Daeron's expression isn't immediately concerning but all the same, Jace searches for his husband amongst the crowd and finds Baelor glancing in his father's direction as a grinning Damon Lannister chatters into his ear.
As his gaze travels again to the royal table, Jace catches his niece's eyes where her husband waits with his arm outstretched. Elaena's gaze sharpens and she tosses her impressive braid behind her ear as she accepts Lord Penrose's offer, not breaking eye-contact as she does so.
Jace weighs his options.
Without appearing to rush, he makes for the royal table, timing it so he arrives when Elaena and her husband have joined the dancers. The worst happens: Elaena turns forbodingly on her heel, jaw firmly set as Lord Ronnel flounders beside her. She begins again toward the direction they just came.
To Jace.
Blessedly, King Daeron raises his hand and the music comes to a halt.
"A brief respite, my lords, my ladies. As a consequence of his belated arrival, Lord Stark hasn't had the opportunity to present his wedding gift and desires to rectify this."
Cregan bows to the king, then nods silently at where his children sit. Edric rises, along with another man Jace doesn't recognize but who bears the Stark sigil.
The whole banquet hall watches them pull a heavy chest from under the table. Jace doesn't recognize it either but they must've brought it with them when they entered. Cregan was too effective a distraction. Would that he did not fall prey to it as he notices the thick leather padding on the trunk's handles. The sweat beading on Edric and the other man's brow as they lean away from their burden even as they bear it forward. He rounds the banquet table to stand beside his old friend. Before he can say anything—he can't find the words, can't muster coherency from his racing thoughts—a familiar presence appears at his side, familiar calluses sliding against his.
He peers upward into Baelor's mismatched irises. They widen with realization.
The trunk thuds against the bare marble. Cregan extends his arm and his son relinquishes Ice from his shoulder. There, wrapped tightly around the guard, is a leather cord bearing a single key. Cregan fits it wordlessly into the trunk's iron lock. He lifts the arched lid and Jace knows before he sees it.
King Daeron's chair screeches as he stands. Multiple gasps echo through the hushed hall as realization sets in. Princes, princesses, lords, ladies, and servants angle themselves for a better look.
Oh, Jace thinks as he registers the sight before him.
In a shallow, metal bowl sculpted to form and decorated with utilitarian cut-outs along the body, half-buried in the center of a bed of large, dark rocks which radiate heat as if freshly pulled from a furnace, sits a dragon egg of shimmering silver and speckled with palest orange where it tapers.
Oh, Jace repeats. He tears his eyes away for only a moment to meet Cregan's. You stubborn old wolf, too leal for your own good.
King Daeron's face is dark with displeasure and Jace realizes then that Baelor didn't warn him. In the moment, it doesn't serve to question Baelor's reasoning. Jace turns to his great-grandnephew, to his brother's grandson, to the king.
"Your Grace," he begins, prohibiting any chance of dismissal in the strength and clarity of his voice, "the egg is mine." That, at least, is the truth. "It was entrusted to Lord Stark at the outbreak of war with my uncle, The Usurper."
This too is honest.
"The North was promised the first daughter of mine own blood, and Vermax blessed this pact with an egg for her when the time came." Jace swallows. "Lord Stark presents his gift to remind me of the oaths I made before," well, before everything. Jace clears his throat. "Before taking your son to wed. As my Mother's heir, the egg was mine to entrust."
You cannot punish him, he implies with his eyes. That agreement was made decades before ours. Only, Daeron is king and while his reputation is that of a fair one, and Jace mostly believes it, kings will do as they wish.
But the egg is Vermax's and Vermax is mine.
King Daeron gauges him. His attention slide to his son, to the place where their hands meet. It returns to Jace. "And yours to reclaim, Prince Jacaerys."
Of course.
It's as much an order as it is a statement of fact. The Crown has never borne the theft of their dragon eggs with mercy. Cregan Stark is no thief, but the knowledge that he has lived these long years in possession of something so precious to their house—and more dangerous for what it could accomplish in someone else's hands—is a difficult matter to forgive.
Nevertheless, it's his son's wedding night. Nevertheless, the egg has returned home.
(He's half right.)
Jace lowers his head without bending his back or knees—a prince's bow. Acquiescence without submission. After another tense moment, King Daeron the Good smiles longsufferingly. The expression bears teeth.
"So I am to give a granddaughter to the North, am I?" He chuckles, gaze passing over Jace to his son. "You must be certain to seed another, my boy, for we are blessed with many princes and too few princesses."
A five-fingered weight settles at the midpoint of Jace's spine, Baelor huffing good-naturedly as the space between their bodies narrows. "As our king commands."
King Daeron chuckles and the tension eases as their guests join in on the laughter. The candles burn another quarter before Jace manages to slip away from the royal table. Baelor and the king hover over the egg, their family around them, Maekar only just pulling his sons' hands away from touching the silver scales.
If it's viable, they won't burn. Live dragon eggs regulate their own heat; it is only the empty ones, the dead, the unborn, which do not. Somehow that knowledge has been lost to the Crown, to Viserys' legacy, in the decades since Jace's brothers sat the throne. He doesn't know how—not with Baela and Rhaena having survived to remember it, to say nothing of the maesters and dragonkeepers—but it remains the reality, however unlikely.
Much like his existence here, so far from where and when he belongs.
He finds Cregan in his allotted seat, watching the dancers as they stamp and spin and curl into each other's embraces. Lady Sarra rises and curtsies to him, giving up her chair to Jace as she braves the floor. Jace leans close, careful to keep the distance within the appropriate margin.
"You wait until my wedding feast to make it known to me that you live? Has age so grown your penchant for theatrics?"
Cregan grunts.
"Has it also chipped at your wits?"
Lord Stark doesn't roll his eyes as he faces him, but Jace can tell it's a near thing. Seventy years haven't killed the boy of one-and-twenty forced too young to step into his father's boots.
"You and your Baela are a match made by the old gods and the new."
The response is a surprise. Jace smiles, delighted. Then he remembers.
"Were," he corrects Cregan, stealing the old wolf's goblet to wet his parched throat. "As I read it, her defence was just. You earned the threat."
Cregan snorts but doesn't deny it.
"And our Aeggie, how was he?"
He's prepared for the way Cregan frowns. He's prepared, but it doesn't lessen the pain.
"Haunted. He loathed this place, but he found some consolation in your sisters, and your brother when the Oakenfist brought him home. His wife too, as I hear it."
"Good," Jace says.
"The boy begged tales of you. Of when you flew North."
"Swear to me you didn't tell him about my slip from Vermax's saddle."
"Afraid I can't do that, my prince."
Jace elbows him. More gentle than he typically would, in respect of his staggering age. Cregan raises a silver brow as if catching the thought. Jace sets his stolen goblet on the tabletop. He sobers, placing a hand on Cregan's bowed shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Cregan."
"The fault does not lie with you." Cregan sighs. "My boy fought bravely. He did his father proud."
"Did you ever meet Daeron yourself?"
Cregan shakes his head. "But Rickon believed in his cause. He rode South when the call came," he snorts with no small amount of affection, "said it was his turn to war for a Targaryen prince and what kind of man would I be to begrudge him."
Jace's smile is slight and rueful. "Like father, like son."
"Aye. Like father, like son."
During the subsequent lull in their conversation, King Daeron shuts the trunk with Vermax's egg with a dull thud. Baelor slides around his family members and through the throng. Behind him, the King directs two knights of the Keep to lift the heavy chest. Ser Roland follows his prince.
Cregan takes Jace's hand from his shoulder to stroke the faint scar on the meat of his palm. He slips the key over the scar and closes Jace's hand into a fist around it. When he looks up, Cregan's stare pierces him.
"We should have more words, my prince. A private audience. Soon."
Jace looks at the key again. He nods.
"Soon."
A broad palm pushes into his sightline. The back, he knows, pockmarked. Shield or spear or mace.
Baelor waits.
Jace already knows what he'll say.
"Come," his husband urges. "It's time."
A force above his disordered mind and heart compels his body to obey. He takes Baelor's hand and rises. Jace doesn't turn to Cregan again. He can't bear it. Can't afford it. Cries of approval split the air, an amalgamation of congratulations and carefree suggestions. Catcalls all. Baelor endures them with a charitable expression.
Jace focuses on keeping his breathing stable.
Over the moonlit Blackwater, Vermax's flames ravage the hapless wind and waves. He does not turn his sights toward the Keep; he knows his orders. Fortunately for everyone involved, they knew better than to insist on a bedding ceremony. No command could've stayed Vermax's fury at that. Jace has never been able to hide his fear from him, whatever the distance between them.
He and his new husband leave the boisterous Great Hall behind them.
The walk to the royal apartments is little changed. Maegor's Holdfast is largely unaltered from how he remembers it, with the interior furnishings more foreign than the exterior, albeit still richly embellished with the characteristic black and red and gold. Even the specific rooms for the heir are the same.
Mother's chambers, a lifetime ago.
Baelor leads him inside, ordering the Keep guards to deposit their burden beside the cold hearth. They depart and Ser Roland shuts the door from the outside, the sound of shifting armorplate indicating that he's settled into his watch.
Jace shivers.
Baelor drops his hand like a hot coal, fleeing to take one of the candles and lighting the hearth. It catches immediately, well-prepared and merely awaiting their arrival. Jace tarries in the middle of the spacious room, his husband's doubleted spine his sole observer.
"I would ask forgiveness for my Father's demands."
Unseen, Jace wraps his arms around himself. Unseen, he nods. Unseen, his shoulders drop.
His guard does not.
"He is the king and we are newly wed." He pauses. "It was not unreasonable."
"Not unreasonable." A sigh. "But indelicate."
Unbidden, Jace laughs. His chest aches.
"You needn't apologize for your father's ambitions. We are heirs you and I. We do what we must."
Jace stares into the growing flames. He shivers. He unbuttons his doublet anyway.
Pressure on his fingers. One eye as deep and as dark as his own, the other, a dull blue in the limited light. Baelor doesn't speak, though his gaze overflows with words.
Jace scowls.
Petty principles have no place here.
"Save your pity," he snaps. "I have no use for it."
He fights Baelor's grip to try the next button. His efforts are to no avail. Baelor's grip is iron.
"You were reared as an heir so I will speak to you as one." His husband's voice is low and steady. As unrelenting as his touch. "I will have no pleasure nor children from your body this night or many, many nights to come. Sons and grandsons my father has aplenty, and three granddaughters to dote upon."
"The North—"
"The North do not lack for daughters at present."
Jace glowers. "Don't be clever."
"Then do not pout."
"I'm not—" He cuts himself off. Fixes his expression and straightens his shoulders. "I'm old enough."
His new husband grimaces. "Not for me."
Jace scoffs, unimpressed and unconvinced.
"I thought we both understood comfort had little bearing in this. Turn your eyes elsewhere if you must. The Crown's demands require nothing of our own satisfaction. Yours or mine."
Baelor's gaze hardens.
"I will not rape you."
Jace flinches.
The sudden movement gets him nowhere. Not until Baelor remembers his grip around Jace's hands and releases him. Baelor steps back.
And back.
And back.
He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, turning once more to stoke the hearth.
A wardrum pounds where Jace's heart should be. He wraps his arms around his chest to contain it.
"There will be talk," he murmurs.
"So long as we are seen to be affectionate and you do not betray our marriage bed, their talk amounts to naught." His husband pauses where he pokes the logs. "And you have a dragon. Their tongues will mind themselves."
Their tongues did not mind themselves when it was my Mother, Jace doesn't say.
"When Kiera gives your son his heir in three moons? Or the year after that?"
"They will grow and they will wait, until the day we give them their betrothed."
"How long?"
How long until the harmless gossip of court and countryside sharpen into deadly accusations? How long until they try and try and try again because a child won't quicken in his belly, or worse—he loses the babe?
Baelor does not answer.
Jace watches him for a long time.
Eventually, he slips into their bed alone, legs curled near his chest. Baelor tends the fire from a chair he collects elsewhere in their chambers. The trunk containing Vermax's silver egg is open, situated a safe distance from the flames but close enough to feel their warmth.
Jace falls asleep studying his husband's pensive profile. The darkness doesn't offer peace or solace.
Only oblivion.