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Darkness gathered within the castle corridors, and upon its breath came a chill wind, soft and gentle, as if it sought to soothe the stone itself. The candles had long since guttered out, and in the courtyard naught but the whisper of leaves drifted through the shadows, not daring to disturb the hush.
The night seemed longer than it ought to have been. Every living soul had fallen into slumber, leaving the venerable keep to its solitude.
It was the hour when even the gods were said to sleep.
And yet from the depths of the halls came the sound of measured footsteps, threading amid the gloom like an echo that would not be stilled.
A low, ponderous groan broke from the crypt below, as age-worn hinges stirred after years of neglect. A lone figure slipped within, and the great slab fell shut once more, sealing the black vault behind him.
The chamber bore the lingering traces of its master’s presence. A cloak of deep crimson was draped across a carved chair, its clasp glinting faintly in the meagre light. Fine linen and silk rested where they had been loosed, pale against the stone.
Upon a small table stood a silver goblet, a dark trace clinging to its rim. The air held the fading scent of wine and warmed skin.
Beyond it, the great bed, hung with heavy curtains embroidered in thread-of-gold, kept its secrets well. Beneath their shelter, the prince slept on, his breathing slow and even, unaware that another had crossed his threshold.
He was enfolded tightly in dreams, denied the mercy of waking.
Deep below dwelt a dead calm.
It pressed close and oppressive, thick as the glassy plane that stretched without edge or end.
A steady tread drew nearer now.
There was nothing here.
He stood at the heart of that emptiness, unable to stir. Ice bound his limbs, crept into his flesh, and settled deep within his veins, until even the thought of movement seemed a distant thing.
Crack.
The fragile calm shattered as crystal beneath a hammer’s fall.
The lucid expanse beneath his feet split asunder, and from its riven seams welled a viscous tide, rich as lifeblood from a fresh-wrought wound.
The ground quaked. The void bled outward yet.
His heart struck once.
And with that stroke rose a blaze, viridian as venom, haloed in a pallid gleam.
Its tongues crept toward him. Breath fled his lungs. A bitter reek, sharp as brimstone, coiled about him.
The conflagration coursed along the fractures in his direction, as though sworn to him by some unseen covenant.
Heat climbed skyward, warping the firmament until it shimmered like iron drawn from the forge.
He remained transfixed. Not by choice. His body had turned traitor, denying him command.
Far off, something shifted.
No form. No shade. Something vast.
An outline took shape within the emerald inferno.
Scales caught the lurid glow, scarlet as newly spilled blood, rimmed with gold that burned with its own sovereign radiance. A troubling familiarity lay within that vision, and the knowing struck deeper than dread.
Wings unfurled, immense, spanning above the seething blaze. For a heartbeat they eclipsed the heavens entire.
The creature’s gaze passed over him, as though he were naught but a wraith.
A roar tore through the vaulted dark. The flames leapt forth.
Something nudged his shoulder, muttering in a low murmur.
With sudden violence he surged upright, seizing the intruder’s wrist with a force startling even for him. His sight remained clouded, yet through the lingering haze he caught the wan gleam of white-gold curls.
His grip slackened as recognition dawned.
A weary breath slipped from him.
“Aegon… what mischief is this?” He dragged a hand across his face, wiping the chill damp from his brow.
A savage throbbing beat against his temples, and a leaden fatigue pressed upon him with but a single pleading thought — to send his younger brother from his sight. One night. One wretched night would have sufficed. So ran the bitter whisper in his mind.
No answer followed.
Daeron turned his head toward the presence beside him, a reproach already rising to his tongue. But he halted ere it could be given voice. The words withered within his throat, and his lips parted of their own accord.
The figure by the threshold stood taller, leaner. Not the form he had expected to see. It held itself too still.
Silver hair fell across a pale temple, and violet eyes regarded him with such intentness that it bordered upon cruelty.
Aerion stood at the foot of his bed.
The air grew close and weighted, laden with moisture. Through the open casement stole the scent of rain. Somewhere beyond the walls, the quiet faltered, as though rousing from troubled sleep.
He tried to grasp some sense of the moment, yet his thoughts slipped from him, fractured and unsure. Had he taken too deep a draught again? Or was this but another phantom of the night, clothed in seeming flesh?
With effort, Daeron studied him. He bore himself firm, almost regal in carriage. Yet there was something in his gaze, a hush so profound it seemed to smother the space entire.
He knew well his brother’s unbending will. “Has aught befallen…?”
Again, nothing.
His patience began to fray. His voice came dry as dust. “Aerion. What would you have of me?”
But no word was given.
When he desired a thing, he spoke it plainly. When he did not, he departed. Such had ever been his way. And now that silence drew taut within him like a drawn bowstring.
At last the youth stirred, scarcely perceptible, shifting his weight as though the floor itself might mark it. His attention fell upon the rumpled sheets, upon the darkened trace left upon the pillow, and then, with unhurried deliberation, returned to Daeron’s eyes.
A brief flicker crossed them.
Oh.
The understanding came, and with it a faint disquiet. Aerion had not come to him so since they were boys.
How had he failed to see it sooner?
As Daeron regarded him more closely, the composure he had first taken for pride seemed less certain. Aerion’s hands were knotted in the fabric of his breeches, his mouth set in a thin line, as though some inward burden had sunk into him.
For a time neither spoke.
The moment stretched, straining toward something that did not come.
Then came the soft patter of rain beyond the casement, a quiet rhythm in the night. Only then did it occur to Daeron how long he had left him standing there.
He drew back.
The boy turned away, smooth and unhurried, as though nothing at all had passed between them. For a heartbeat he lingered so, his shoulders set just a shade more firmly.
He meant to leave as quietly as he had come.
If Daeron let him slip away now, he might never learn what had brought him there. Not this time. Perhaps not ever. The thought sat ill with him.
At worst he might earn a bruise for his trouble, one that would linger for days or a sharp tongue that might have startled even their father.
Daeron shifted in the bed and drew the coverlet aside.
He made a small motion of his head toward the empty space beside him upon the mattress.
Aerion hesitated.
Then he yielded at last and came forward.
The bed dipped slightly as Aerion slipped beneath the coverlet, leaving a careful distance between them.
For a fleeting moment Daeron was reminded of nights long past, when such visits had been common enough. A bad dream, a quarrel, some childish fear and Aerion would appear at his bedside, silent yet stubborn in his resolve to remain.
But such days belonged to another time.
They lay upon their backs, gazing at the cold stone ceiling whilst the rain fell softly somewhere beyond the chamber walls. He felt the stiffness of his brother beside him, the chill that had wrapped itself about them both, and the dull, leaden numbness that spread through him.
He swallowed.
“Aerion…”
The name lingered upon his tongue, as though the rest of the thought would not follow it forth. He almost scoffed at himself for the attempt.
“Is aught amiss?”
Aerion’s fingers twisted in the linen once more.
The gesture roused an old memory — small hands clutching at their mother’s gown whilst she laughed softly above them. It came so vividly he could almost hear her humming again. But the sound faded as swiftly as it had risen.
“Do you take me for one who would spill the blood of his own kin?”
The words struck him before their meaning could fully reach him. Daeron glanced toward him, and what he saw there gave him pause.
There was something raw in Aerion’s expression, something too naked to be feigned.
“What are you speaking of?”
Aerion shifted then and faced him. In the dimness his eyes caught the faint glow, bright as wet glass.
“Everyone seems to think so.” His voice was quiet, almost careless.
Yet a darker thought surfaced all the same.
You have given them cause enough.
“I suppose it would be difficult not to believe it.” Aerion said.
Those same violet eyes had once looked at him with something like wonder; now there was nothing of it left.
“Men believe many things.”
Silence settled between them.
Sweat cooled upon his skin, leaving him keenly aware of every touch of linen.
“And what do you believe?”
Daeron’s mouth curved, though there was no mirth in it. A faint ache gathered behind his eyes.
“Nothing.”
Lightning flared beyond the narrow window, pale and sudden. In that fleeting brightness Daeron understood that he had no wish to pursue whatever this was between them.
He had not the strength for it tonight.
The warmth at his side pressed too close, suffocating rather than comforting.
He closed his eyes.
The scent of flowers reached him all the same. A ghost of gentler days. He squeezed them tighter. Not now.
“You were not in the hall tonight.”
Daeron exhaled slowly. “You are most observant.”
“Father noti-”
He gave a short, humourless laugh.
He could almost hear that cold, measured voice again. The quiet disappointment that cut deeper than any rebuke.
“You come to me in the dead of night,” he said, voice edged with sudden irritation. “Speak in riddles and now you would list my failings as well?”
“I-”
“You grow bold. Either go and leave me be, or stay and be silent for once.”
The words left him with a sour taste, at odds with the wine upon his lips.
Aerion did not answer.
Foolish boy.
Yet a darker thought came unbidden. The same cruel murmur that passed from whisper to whisper throughout the castle.
No. He had done with such poison long ago.
Had he not?
And what right had he to judge? Their father had found little cause for pride in either of his sons.
They had only brought him shame in different ways.
Yet one had always been easier to forgive.
When he turned toward him, the sight that met his eyes gave him pause. At some point Aerion had turned away, and he had not even heard it. He seemed smaller now than when he had first come to stand beside the bed, the proud line of his shoulders drawn tight.
Perhaps he had gone too far.
Daeron drew a slow breath.
“You should rest,” he said at last.
Even as he spoke, he felt something give way between them, quiet and final as ice breaking beneath an unwary step.
Daeron turned away before he could see the faint tremor that ran through the boy.
The morning stole in softly, as though the night had never been. Birds sang in the courtyard, and a light breeze wandered between the walls, bearing with it a cool and gentle solace.
Without, the dew shimmered in the pale light, and the sky took on hues of grey and muted rose. Slowly, and without haste, the court began to rouse, as it always did, waking to the new day.
Yet within the prince’s chamber, none of it reached.
The doors stood shut and unmoving, the thick-woven curtains falling in long folds, admitting neither light nor sound.
Everything lay as it ought to have been.
Within the room, only the subdued rustle of linen bore witness to his restless turning upon the feathered bed. Dust wove wandering threads through the air.
He moved beneath the covers, as though clinging to the frayed edge of something already slipping from his grasp. It unraveled from him, thread by thread, leaving him reaching after what would not remain.
His hand followed that loss, guided by no thought, as though it remembered what he did not. His fingertips brushed against a place that should have held warmth.
Nothing.
He opened his eyes, and found the space beside him bare.
No one.
A dream. It must have been, or so he believed. The notion sat wrong within his chest.
It had never been enough; the fire had gone to ash.
He drew his hand back, and left it as it was.