The throne room glows red and gold in the morning light, all polished stone and banners and heat caught beneath the high ceiling. The Iron Throne looms above it all like a dark blade-teeth mountain, ugly and magnificent, and before it stands Prince Daemon Targaryen with a chain of Valyrian steel in his hands.

Princess Rhaenyra stands still while he fastens it around her throat.

She is all sharp youth and stubborn chin, trying very hard to look older than fifteen, and nearly succeeding. The steel catches the light like smoke-colored water. Daemon's fingers brush the nape of her neck only a moment longer than they need to.

"There," He says, stepping back just enough to look at her, "Better than anything the goldsmiths in this city could make."

Rhaenyra touches the necklace and tries not to smile too broadly, because she knows he sees through her when she is pleased, "It is too fine for the tourney."

"That is precisely why you should wear it."

"And if my father says it is excessive?"

Daemon's expression bends into something dangerous and amused, "Then tell him I said so."

She huffs a laugh despite herself, "That is not the protection you think it is."

He leans nearer, voice lowering, that conspiratorial tone he reserves for her and no one else, "The world is a very dull place, little niece. You must wear your splendor where you can."

Rhaenyra meets his gaze. There is warmth there, and pride, and the restless hunger that never leaves him, "You mean I must wear yours."

Daemon's smile deepens, slow and wolfish.

Before he can answer, the air itself shudders.

A roar splits the morning open.

Not the familiar cry of one of the dragons kept in the Pit, not the dull distant thunder the city has learned to live beneath. This is a vast, scraping bellow, low and black and old-sounding, like boulders grinding together under the sea. It rolls over the Red Keep and makes the metal in the throne room sing.

Rhaenyra's head jerks toward the windows. Daemon goes still.

A second cry follows on its heels, higher, greener, quicker. A sharp, trilling shriek that rises into a needling keen and rattles the glass in the narrow windows. It sounds almost petulant, almost young, and then turns savage at the end.

Then the third.

The third is not a roar so much as a wound in the sky.

It tears downward in a furnace-bright scream, long and violent, like iron dragged across stone and thrust into flame. Men at the far end of the hall flinch. One of the Kingsguard turns instinctively toward the doors as though expecting the dragon itself to come through.

Rhaenyra whispers, half to herself, "Those are not ours."

Daemon is already moving toward the windows, all lazy ease gone from him, "No."

Another pass overhead, wings beating, one set heavier than the rest, another faster, another with a strange uneven cadence that makes the banners twitch on the walls.

Rhaenyra follows him to the window slit, peering out over the city. She catches only shadow and scale and sun on wings before they pass beyond view toward the Dragonpit.

"Who is it?" She asks.

Daemon does not answer at once.

His jaw hardens, just slightly.

When he speaks, his voice has gone flat in that way it does when something strikes too close, "Family."

Outside the Dragonpit, the ground still trembles from landing.

The smell hits first: hot scale, ash, sulfur, horse-sweat, old stone baking in sunlight.

Zavara settles like a piece of midnight torn loose and given breath. She is vast, black-scaled, and silent now after that cavern-deep roar, her throat still vibrating as smoke leaks in thin ribbons from between her teeth. Her eyes, molten and watchful, track everything.

Beside her, Malokyl paces in a smaller, nervous half-circle, green scales flashing bright and dark as he turns. He snaps at the air and rattles a low, agitated croon, wings twitching with youth and pride.

Xerion lands hardest and latest, blood-red and monstrous, his scales so dark in places they look lacquered. He lowers his great wedge of a head, opens his mouth, and lets out a short, searing blast of sound that makes a nearby stableboy drop to one knee and cover his ears.

"Sagon iēdrosa (Be still)," Alyssa says.

Not loudly. She never needs to be.

Zavara stills first.

Malokyl takes another resentful step and folds his wings with a slap of leather.

Xerion's smoke-thick breath streams sideways, but he does as he is bid, or perhaps as Aerys is not there to forbid him.

Aerys is already swinging out of the saddle.

He hits the ground with the carelessness of someone who has never learned to fear falling. A squire rushes forward with a hand extended and thinks better of it when Aerys looks at him.

"Where is the wheelhouse?" some functionary asks breathlessly, pale and sweating, "Your trunks are to be--"

Aerys ignores him entirely. He strips off his gloves with his teeth, throws them at no one in particular, and snatches the reins of the nearest horse.

"Red Keep," He says, as if the man is deaf, "Now."

"My prince, a wheelhouse has been sent--"

Aerys is already in the saddle, "Then let it arrive after me."

He digs in his heels and is gone in a spray of dust and curses, riding hard for the castle road with his silver hair flying loose behind him like a banner.

Alyssa watches him go with all the tenderness one might reserve for a knife left unattended in a nursery.

"Seven save us," Aeryn mutters, climbing down more carefully from Malokyl. He lands, straightens his cloak at once, and squints after their brother, "He has been in King's Landing for half a breath and already he looks as if he means to start a war."

"He only looks that way when he is in a good mood," Alyssa says.

There are, as promised, only two horses left ready at hand. One is already taking Alyssa's weight as she mounts in a smooth, practiced motion.

Aeryn turns toward the second, then toward her, then toward the second again as realization dawns like insult.

His face pinches, "No."

Alyssa glances down, "No what?"

"No, I am not riding behind some pox-ridden porter while you thunder off after him," He plants a hand on her stirrup, scandalized, "I ride with you."

She stares at him, "Do you?"

"Yes, I do."

"You whined for three days about the last time."

"Because you drive a horse like you are fleeing judgment."

"I usually am."

"Alyssa."

"Aeryn."

He lowers his voice, darting a look at the Dragonpit keepers and stablemen pretending not to listen, "I will not arrive at court covered in dust and smelling like mule."

She arches a pale brow, "Then you should not have been born to this family."

He glares, then jabs a finger toward the road Aerys has taken, "If he reaches the Red Keep before us and speaks to anyone first--"

Alyssa's expression changes, the sarcasm vanishing as quickly as it came.

She holds his gaze for a beat, then jerks her head behind her, "Get on."

Aeryn does not thank her. He never does when he feels he has won something. He gathers his cloak with theatrical care and climbs up behind her, muttering the entire time.

"Do not ride like a maniac."

"Hold tighter if you're frightened."

"I am not frightened."

"You are always frightened."

"I am alert. There is a difference."

Alyssa snorts and kicks the horse forward. He lurches and catches at her waist on instinct.

Aeryn stiffens as soon as his hands close around her, as if he resents the need for balance itself, "If you tell anyone I nearly slipped, I'll deny it."

"If you fall, I'll tell everyone."

He leans closer so his words strike hot at her ear, "Your hair looks awful."

"Good," She says, and digs her heels in.

The horse surges.

He swears, and Alyssa smiles for the first time since landing.

Their arrival at the Red Keep is almost absurd in its lack of ceremony.

No gathered lords. No craning courtiers. No rows of servants rehearsed into graceful welcome.

Only startled guards at the gates, a scrambling steward, and the sort of frantic whispering that spreads when important people appear where no one expected them.

The herald, red-faced and out of breath, nearly trips over the words when he finally gets them out.

"Princess Alyssa Targaryen. Prince Aeryn Targaryen."

Alyssa swings down before the horse has fully stopped.

"Where?"

"My lady, I--"

"Where is my brother?"

The man swallows, "The guest wing, I think. Or... someone said he asked for wine. And women."

Aeryn drops from the saddle and lands badly, catching himself with a hiss, "Of course he did. Gods forbid he arrive anywhere and not immediately debase the household."

Alyssa tosses the reins at a page and starts walking.

Aeryn falls in beside her, then half a step behind, because that is their rhythm when things turn serious.

The Red Keep swallows them in red stone and torchlight and the smell of rushes, wax, hot bread from some distant kitchen, and old smoke in the walls. Servants flatten themselves to corridors as they pass. Some stare. Most look away too late.

Alyssa catches the whispers anyway.

That is her. Blackwing.

Aeryn the Lesser--

Is the red one here too?

She keeps walking.

They do not have to search long. Aerys leaves a trail through any place he enters, and in this case the trail is laughter, spilled wine, and one startled maid fleeing a corridor with her cap in her hand and her cheeks on fire.

Aeryn makes a strangled noise of disgust, "He has not even changed his boots."

Alyssa shoves open the chamber door.

The room inside erupts in startled shrieks and drunken giggling.

Aerys lounges half-sprawled on a cushioned chair he has dragged too close to the hearth, one boot off, the other still on, a cup in one hand and a whore on each arm and at least three more scattered through the chamber as if he found a brothel and emptied it into the nearest guest room. Someone has already uncorked another jug. One girl is sitting on the edge of the bed wearing a pearl chain that absolutely does not belong to her.

Aerys looks up.

His smile blooms slow and delighted.

"Sister."

Alyssa stands in the doorway with both hands braced on either side, breathing hard from the walk and fury, "How."

He glances around him, then back at her with maddening innocence, "I beg your pardon?"

"How the fuck did you do this so quickly?"

One of the women gasps behind her hand, equal parts scandal and amusement. Aeryn pinches the bridge of his nose like a pious aunt.

Aerys laughs outright, rich and bright and vile, "King's Landing is a generous city if one asks the right questions."

"You were here less than an hour."

"I move efficiently."

"You move like an infection."

He grins wider and lifts his cup in salute, "And yet still invited everywhere."

Alyssa steps in, jaw clenched. The women part before her by instinct, drawn by rank or danger or the look in her eyes. Maybe all three.

"Out," She says, not looking at them.

Aerys says, "Stay."

The room freezes between command and command.

Aeryn slips inside, shuts the door behind him, and leans against it with folded arms.

"Pathetic," He says, surveying them all with naked contempt, "Truly. We have not even paid our respects and he is rutting in the guest wing like a kennel hound."

Aerys' gaze flicks to him, bored, "You may leave too, if the sight of women pains you."

Aeryn's nostrils flare, "The sight of you pains me."

Alyssa takes two steps toward Aerys and stops close enough that his amusement sharpens.

There is always a moment with them, before the break, before the strike, where the room seems to understand what they are about to do.

Aerys sees her anger and feeds on it. He always has.

He leans back, one arm sliding free from the woman beside him, and tilts his head like he is considering something indecent.

"What is this?" He purrs, "Jealousy?"

Alyssa's mouth goes thin.

He presses because he cannot help himself, "You could have said something years ago, Alyssa. Saved me the trouble. Did you want to be the one to take my purity?"

The room goes dead silent.

One of the women gives a shocked little laugh and then clamps both hands over her mouth when Alyssa moves.

She is on him in an instant.

The cup flies. Wine hits the hearthstones. Aerys is half on his feet when she drives a shoulder into his chest and sends him backward over the chair. It cracks under their combined weight with a splintering snap. The women scream and scatter, skirts and hair and bare feet everywhere.

Aerys hits the floor laughing, actually laughing, and catches Alyssa by the wrist as she swings for his face. He twists, she snarls, they crash into a low table and send fruit and cups skidding.

"Say it again," Alyssa hisses.

"Which part?" Aerys asks, grin blood-bright now where she has split his lip with the heel of her hand,"Purity? Jealousy? Sister?"

She wrenches free and punches him square in the mouth.

His head snaps back. The women shriek louder.

Aeryn throws up his hands, "Gods, you are both animals."

Aerys catches Alyssa's forearm and yanks. She stumbles, kicks, and catches him in the ribs. He swears, more startled than hurt. They grapple like they have done this a hundred times, and they have, elbows, knees, hands in sleeves, no grace to it at all, only familiarity and fury.

Aeryn's voice cuts through the mess, sharp with disgust and something meaner beneath it.

"Look at you. The Dire and the Dread, tearing at each other in a whore-stinking room before we've even been seen at court. Mother should have left you both in the Vale to kill one another and spared the rest of us the spectacle."

Alyssa snatches the nearest thing to hand, Aerys' discarded boot, and hurls it without even looking.

It strikes Aeryn square in the side of the head.

He yelps and staggers into the door, "You!"

Aerys barks a laugh, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, "Well-thrown."

"Shut up," Alyssa rounds on both of them, chest heaving, hair half-fallen from its ties, knuckles reddening, "Both of you."

The women have retreated to the far wall, wide-eyed and clutching at one another. One is trying very hard not to smile.

Alyssa points to them, "Out."

This time Aerys says nothing.

They go quickly, skirts rustling, heads bowed, slipping through the door one by one around a furious Aeryn rubbing his temple. The last one lingers just long enough to give Aerys a look that promises she can be found later if he survives his family.

When the door shuts, the chamber feels suddenly smaller.

Aerys sits amid wreckage and splintered wood, breathing hard, his lip bleeding, one cheek already darkening. He looks beautiful and awful and seventeen. Alyssa stands over him like judgment with wind-burned cheeks and a torn sleeve. Aeryn straightens his collar with trembling fingers, dignity rebuilt by sheer force.

For a moment no one speaks.

Alyssa breaks first, "Do not fuck anything up."

Aerys' eyes lift to hers. The grin is gone now. Something older sits in its place.

"I haven't yet."

"You are trying."

He rises slowly, not taking her offered hand because she has not offered one, "Trying would look different."

Aeryn scoffs, but the sound is thin, "Please. We have been in the city less than a day. There is still time for him to murder a lord and bed his widow."

Aerys ignores him.

His gaze stays on Alyssa.

The room stills around that look, and something passes between them, wordless, edged, old as two years and older than that. Ash. Heat. A scream swallowed by smoke. Stone black as night and shining. Aeryn sees it too and goes quiet despite himself.

None of them say Valyria.

None of them ever do.

But the silence changes shape, heavy and immediate, as if a fourth thing has entered the room and taken up space among them.

Aerys reaches down, retrieves his other boot, and turns it in his hand.

"When the king learns we are here," He says at last, voice low, "the castle will wake."

"It already has," Alyssa answers.

Aeryn looks from one to the other, swallowing once.

"Then perhaps," He says, trying for sneer and landing closer to fear, "we should try not to look like a curse before supper."

Aerys' mouth twitches.

Alyssa bends, snatches the boot from his hand, and shoves it against his chest hard enough to make a point.

"Wash the blood off your face," She says, "And if you so much as breathe in the direction of another whore before we are presented, I will geld you myself."

Aerys' eyes flash, delighted again because she is furious and alive and looking at him.

Alyssa stares at him one heartbeat longer, then turns toward the door, "Aeryn."

He pushes off the wall, shooting Aerys a venomous look as he passes, "Monster."

"Lesser," Aerys says softly, not even glancing his way.

Aeryn's shoulders go rigid, but Alyssa catches his sleeve and keeps him moving before the room explodes again.

At the threshold she pauses. Without turning, she says, "This is King's Landing. Not the Vale. Not the sea. Not--"

She stops.

The unfinished words hang in the chamber like smoke.

Behind her, Aerys says nothing.

When she finally looks back, he is standing in the wrecked room with blood at his mouth and fire in his eyes, half-dressed and half-feral, and for the briefest instant he looks not like a prince, not like a boy, but like the red dragon he woke beneath Dragonstone, something old and hungry dragged into daylight.

Then he smiles, easy as sin.

"I know where I am, sister."

Alyssa opens the door and leaves before she can hit him again.

Aeryn slips out after her, muttering curses under his breath.

Inside the chamber, Aerys listens to their footsteps fade, then turns toward the shuttered window where distant cheers from the tourney grounds begin to rise.

He licks blood from his lip and laughs once, low.

Above the city, somewhere beyond stone and banners and bells, three dragons answer one another across the sky.

—

By the time they are seated in the royal box, the heat has turned mean.

It presses beneath silk and leather and jewels, catches beneath collars, sinks into the wood of the viewing stands until even the rail feels warm under Alyssa's fingers. The tourney grounds below are a bright blur of banners, horses, dust, and men pretending glory is not just blood in prettier clothing.

Alyssa sits upright and still in a gown black as fresh-forged iron, the sleeves scaled in red stitching that catches the sun like dragonhide. Bronze detailing curls around her bodice in hammered patterns, Vale severity married to Targaryen arrogance. Her hair falls half down her back in pale waves, half pinned away from her face, and she can feel the weight of eyes on her before she turns to find them.

The court stares in pieces.

At her.

At Aeryn beside her.

At the empty seat where Aerys should be.

At Daemon, whenever he enters the field.

At Viserys, whenever he shifts on the king's seat.

At Queen Aemma's absence, though no one says it aloud yet.

Aeryn leans close enough that his shoulder brushes hers and murmurs without moving his smile, "They are staring at you."

"They are staring at your mouth," Alyssa says, eyes on the lists.

He bristles, "My mouth?"

"You look like you are about to swallow your own tongue for want of hearing yourself speak."

His smile tightens, "I am merely being observant."

"You are being desperate."

He smooths his cuffs, wounded and vain in the same breath, "You might try gratitude. I am the only reason this does not look like some grim little vigil. You sit like a widow at your own wedding."

Alyssa glances at him at last.

Aeryn is beautiful in the way soft things often are, carefully dressed, bright-eyed, groomed too well for a boy who pretends he does not care what people think. Malokyl's green catches in the enamel clasp at his throat. His expression is polished into courtly composure, but she can feel the nervous agitation humming under it. He cannot bear being overlooked, and today all of King's Landing is threatening to do exactly that.

"Then chatter," She says, "You are good at it."

He draws breath to retort, then stops as movement below catches the eye of half the box.

Ser Gwayne Hightower is riding the perimeter before his tilt, helm tucked beneath one arm, all bright plate and practiced charm. He slows his horse beneath the royal seats, glancing up once toward the king, once toward Queen Alicent's place, then, deliberately, toward Alyssa.

Daemon is across the grounds at the edge of the lists, stripping one glove off with his teeth, not yet mounted for his next pass.

Gwayne sees him. Smiles.

And then calls up, loud enough to carry, "Princess Alyssa. Will you grant me your favor?"

The box stills.

Aeryn makes a tiny, scandalized sound through his teeth, "Oh, he cowardly little peacock--"

Alyssa does not look at Daemon. She feels him anyway, like heat off open flame.

Gwayne's smile is all polished insolence. It is not desire. Not truly. It is politics and vanity and a hand laid on a blade to see who bleeds first.

Alyssa rests one elbow on the rail and looks down at him with cool interest, "Would it help you?"

A few courtiers nearby try not to look delighted.

Gwayne inclines his head, "I should be honored."

Aeryn whispers, sharp with glee and alarm, "Do it."

Alyssa grabs her black and bronze favor from her chair.

Then she drops it.

Gwayne catches it cleanly.

There is a ripple through the stands, not loud, but unmistakable. Surprise. Delight. Offense. Gossip born before the ribbon even reaches his gauntlet.

Aeryn exhales a laugh under his breath, " If Daemon was not angry before, he is now."

Only then does Alyssa glance across the grounds.

Daemon is looking at her.

No smile. No visible rage. Just that terrible, level stare he wears when he is most dangerous, as if he is already deciding whether what he feels is insult or admiration.

Alyssa lifts her chin one fraction.

He turns away first.

Below, Gwayne binds the favor and readies himself with visible satisfaction. The tilt begins. Lances crack, horses thunder, men cheer. Dust rises. Gwayne is good, but Daemon is better, and better in ways that infuriate men like Gwayne because Daemon makes cruelty look effortless.

Aeryn narrates half the passes under his breath, a running stream of snide commentary and self-importance.

"Too high, too slow, Gods, Hightower sits his horse like he is afraid to bruise it--"

"Quiet," Alyssa says, though not because she minds the noise.

Aeryn glances at her profile and goes quiet anyway.

When Gwayne falls and Daemon rides on, the roar of the crowd swells and breaks against the royal box in waves. Alyssa barely hears it over the blood in her own ears. Daemon's eyes flick once toward the stands as he circles back, and she cannot tell whether he is looking for her or through her.

Then the day rolls onward, because tourneys do not pause for pride.

Ser Criston Cole enters the lists and the mood shifts.

Aeryn notices first because he notices any man the crowd looks at too quickly, "Who is that?"

Alyssa follows his line of sight, "Dornish."

"He looks poor."

"He looks dangerous."

Aeryn sniffs, "Same thing, usually."

Criston rides without ornament, without peacocking, without trying to be seen. The kind of man who makes less noise than the room and yet somehow becomes its center. Daemon clocks him too, Alyssa sees the way his posture changes, not much, but enough.

The pass is brutal.

Wood bursts. Horses scream. Men shout themselves hoarse.

Criston unhorses Daemon.

For half a heartbeat the world seems to stop.

Then the crowd erupts.

Aeryn's mouth falls open in delighted horror, "Well."

Alyssa does not move, but her pulse kicks once, hard. Below, Daemon hits the ground and rises with all that coiled, murderous grace, his pride wounded more deeply than bone. The shift from tilt to rage is immediate, and familiar. Dark Sister flashes free in the sun.

Aeryn hisses a laugh, leaning in, "Now there's the father."

Alyssa's jaw tightens, "Be quiet."

Ser Criston dismounts to meet him, shield up, morningstar in hand. What follows is not pretty. It is not courtly. It is two men trying to make a point in steel and impact while thousands cheer because they do not understand they are looking at temper, not sport.

Daemon is all speed and fury.

Criston is discipline and timing.

When Daemon is finally beaten back and the field moves on without him, the air in the box feels tighter. Hotter. Not because he has lost, men lose, but because everyone has seen him lose in front of his brother, the court, the realm.

And because Alyssa gave her favor to a man who rode against him before that.

Aeryn slowly turns his head toward her, eyes bright with the kind of curiosity that borders on hunger, "Do you think he blames you for that?"

Alyssa keeps her gaze on the field where squires are already rushing in, where men reset lances and adjust tack and pretend the moment has passed, "I do not care."

Aeryn watches her a second longer, "Liar."

Before she can answer, there is a stir near the far entrance and a herald's call. Another knight enters the lists.

Aerys.

He wears crimson and black with little restraint and no modesty at all, his armor worked in dark red enameling that catches the sun like fresh blood on steel. Xerion's sigil has been worked over his breast in a way no one approved and no one dared stop. His helm hangs at his side as he rides the line, silver hair loose at his shoulders because he knows what it does to people when the light hits it.

He does not look toward the king first.

He looks up toward the royal box.

Toward Alyssa.

Aeryn shifts at once, straightening, leaning a little more into her space as if proximity might redirect that gaze by force.

Aerys lowers his lance in a lazy salute to the stands, but the angle is wrong for Viserys and perfect for Alyssa. Then he wheels his horse with a flourish too sharp to be accidental and rides for his place.

"Show-off," Alyssa says quietly.

Aeryn hears the note in it and pounces, "You sound pleased."

She does not dignify that with an answer.

Across the field, Daemon is walking off the tourney grounds, helmet under one arm, fury simmering in the line of his shoulders. He does not look back.

Aerys rides past him on the rail.

For a heartbeat, father and son are side by side, Daemon on foot, breath hot from defeat; Aerys mounted, bright with anticipation and too much confidence. Aerys turns his head just enough to glance down. Daemon looks up.

No words carry this far.

They do not need to.

Alyssa sees Daemon's mouth flatten. Sees Aerys smile, small, private, provoking. Then Aerys rides on, and Daemon keeps walking toward the shadows beyond the lists, toward the castle, toward whatever news is already moving through its halls on silent feet.

Above them, the crowd screams for sport and knows nothing yet.

"Ser Jason Lannister!" the herald calls.

Lannister gold flashes on the opposite side. Jayson sits his horse with all the confidence of a man who has always been admired for how he looks doing something, whether or not he is best at it.

Aeryn gives a low hum, "A lion. How fitting."

Alyssa glances sidelong, "What does that mean?"

"It means he will smile while trying to kill our brother and call it courtesy."

"That sounds more like a Hightower."

Aeryn's mouth twitches despite himself.

Below, Aerys rolls his shoulders once and settles in the saddle. Even from a distance Alyssa knows the signs. He is not merely preparing to joust. He is preparing to perform.

For her.

For the crowd.

For Daemon, even if Daemon is no longer watching.

For every eye in the realm that ever slid past Aeryn and stopped on him.

The flags lift. The horses rear into motion.

They charge.

Aerys rides too hard and too beautifully, almost reckless in the line of it, lance low, body angled forward like a hunting hawk diving. Jayson is solid, practiced, disciplined, but Aerys is spectacle with teeth. At the last instant he twists just enough to make the pass uglier than it needs to be, the strike slamming into Lannister plate with a crack that draws a collective shout from the stands.

Splinters fly.

Jayson wrenches in the saddle.

Aerys keeps his seat and drags the moment out, looking back over his shoulder before his horse has even slowed, as if to make sure the entire box saw exactly how he did it.

Aeryn's hand clenches white on the rail, "He nearly broke form."

"He did break form."

"He will be called for it."

"He wants to be."

Another pass. Another thunder of hooves. Dust rolls up and clings to sweat-damp skin.

Aerys takes the second tilt as if the lists are a battlefield and the rules an insult. He rides Jayson closer to the barrier than courtesy allows, forcing him into tighter ground. Jayson answers with growing anger, and there it is, the thing Aerys seeks every time. Not victory. Escalation.

"Pathetic," Aeryn mutters, but his eyes never leave the field, "He has no idea how to take a simple win and keep it."

Alyssa does not answer. She is watching the set of Aerys' shoulders, the angle of his hand, the dangerous delight in the way he leans into the speed. She knows exactly what he is doing.

Stealing.

He is stealing the crowd's breath. The box's attention. Her attention.

And because she knows it, because she hates that he knows her well enough to do it, she gives him none of the visible reaction he wants.

Her face stays still.

Her pulse does not.

On the third pass, as the horses are being turned, Ser Harrold Westerling moves behind Princess Rhaenyra and bends to speak at her ear.

Alyssa catches only the change in the girl's face.

It is immediate and terrible.

Rhaenyra goes pale, all the color draining from her with such swiftness it looks like a trick of light. She turns to Ser Harrold, says something Alyssa cannot hear, then rises so quickly her chair scrapes.

Alicent is on her feet at once, "Rhaenyra--"

But Rhaenyra is already moving, skirts gathered, eyes glass-bright and fixed on the exit. Alicent follows without hesitation, one hand reaching and missing, then catching her train instead. The women nearest them begin whispering before the two are halfway down the steps.

Aeryn twists in his seat to watch them go, "What?"

Alyssa's gaze flicks once toward the retreating princess, toward Ser Harrold's grave face, toward the place on the king's dais where Viserys has gone too still.

Then she looks back down to the field.

Aerys is already setting for the next pass.

Aeryn stares at her, "Alyssa."

"Sit down."

"Something has happened."

"I know."

"You're not going after her?"

Alyssa turns to him at last, and there is iron in her voice, "No."

It is not cruelty. It is calculation. Rhaenyra has Alicent, guards, the whole damn castle at her back. Aerys has himself, a lance, a temper, and an audience.

Aeryn reads some part of that and makes a face like he has bitten something sour, "You choose him every time."

Alyssa's expression does not change, but the words land.

Before she can answer, the horn sounds.

Aerys and Jayson break into the charge again.

This time Aerys rises in the stirrups a fraction too high, inviting danger on purpose, drawing a ragged cry from a pocket of spectators who understand just enough to know he is risking his neck for flourish. His lance meets with a splintering crack. Jayson's answers. Both men reel.

Jayson loses the saddle first.

He crashes hard in a shine of gold and dust and curses.

The crowd erupts.

Aerys wheels his horse, rips off his helm, and lifts it high, sunlight turning his hair pale-white and his blood-bright armor into a flare on the field. He is grinning, wide, vicious, exultant, and he looks straight at the royal box as if there is no king, no court, no realm, only one pair of eyes he means to drag onto him and keep there.

Aeryn laughs once, thin and bitter, "There. He's done it. He's stolen the whole field."

Alyssa stands.

Not in applause. Not in delight.

She stands because she cannot bear to sit when Aerys looks like that, too bright, too wild, too close to the edge he has been riding since he came back from the Smoking Sea. The crowd mistakes it for support and roars louder.

Aerys sees her rise.

For one dangerous, stupid second, triumph softens into something like satisfaction.

Then he turns his horse in a sharp circle, basking in the noise, and Alyssa feels dread slide cold under all the heat of the day.

Beside her, Aeryn stays seated out of spite for two breaths, then stands too because he cannot stand to be left lower than either of them.

"Happy now?" He says, voice low and ugly, eyes on the field and not on her, "He gets the cheers. You get to pretend it means nothing. I sit beside you and may as well be air."

Alyssa's hand closes on the rail hard enough to hurt.

Below, Aerys salutes the stands one last time, all blood and beauty and menace, and in the space left by Rhaenyra's sudden absence and Daemon's hard loss and the king's gathering grief, the crowd gives itself to the easiest thing in the world:

A spectacle.

The Red Ruin gives them one.

And in the royal box, with whispers spreading like spilled wine and bad news moving through the castle unseen, Alyssa keeps her face still and watches her brother shine like a blade held too long in flame.

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[ what do we think so far? ]