JACAERYS VELARYON

The salt wind off the Blackwater Bay tasted of iron and endings; a metallic tang that coated your tongue and settled in the back of your throat like a swallowed scream. You had been flying for what felt like hours, though the sun had barely shifted in the sky — a pale, watery disc hanging low over the eastern horizon, its light diffused through a haze of smoke and sea-spray that turned the world into something painted in watercolor, all soft edges and bleeding colors. Moondancer's wings beat beneath you in a rhythm that had become as familiar as your own heartbeat, the pale green scales of her neck warm against your inner thighs, the leather of your saddle creaking with each downward stroke. She was young, your dragon, barely more than a hatchling grown large enough to carry a rider, and her enthusiasm for battle had startled you at first — the way she dove toward the enemy ships with a keening cry that sounded almost like laughter, the way fire blossomed from her jaws in great gouts of white-gold flame that turned the air to steam.

You were not a warrior. You had never pretended to be one, not even when Jace had come to your chambers just a few hours ago with his jaw set and his eyes bright with that particular light they got when he had decided something and would not be moved. "I'm going," he had said, and you had known without asking that he meant the Gullet, the blockade, the madness that your mother had been planning from her war council for weeks. "I'm going, and you're staying here. That's final."

You had laughed at him then, the way you always did when he tried to be stern with you, when he forgot that you had been born two minutes before him and had spent every day of your fifteen years reminding him of that fact. "Final?" you had said, reaching up to ruffle his dark hair — the same brown as yours, the same brown that marked you both as Strongs in all but name, the same brown that the court whispered about behind their hands. "Since when do you get to decide what's final for me, little brother?"

He had caught your wrist, his fingers tight enough to bruise, and for a moment the laughter had died in your throat at the expression on his face. Fear. Real fear, the kind you rarely saw in Jace. "This isn't a game," his voice dropped to a gravelly, quiet tone. "This isn't one of our adventures in the caves beneath Dragonstone. People are going to die. I don't want you to be one of them."

And I don't want you to be one of them either, you had thought, but you hadn't said it. You had simply pulled your wrist free, kissed his cheek with the casual affection of a lifetime's habit, and said, "Then we'll just have to make sure neither of us dies. We made a pact, remember? When we were seven. No dying without the other."

He had groaned, dropping his head into his hands, and you had known you had won. You always won, when it came to Jace. He could argue with your mother and broker alliances with the Starks and the Arryns, but he could never say no to you. Because Jace was your twin, your other half, the person who had shared your cradle and your secrets and your first taste of wine stolen from the kitchens. You would follow him into fire itself if he asked, and he knew it, and hated it, and loved you for it anyway.

Now, suspended above the chaos of the Gullet, you wondered if you had made a terrible mistake.

The battle had begun at sunrise, the Triarchy's fleet emerging from the east like a swarm of black beetles against the pale sky. Ninety ships, the scouts had said, and you had thought that number abstract, meaningless, until you saw them spread across the water like a stain. The Velaryon fleet had engaged them head-on, the Sea Snake's ships cutting through the waves with their sea green sails bright against the grey.

You had stayed close to Jace at first, Moondancer's smaller frame darting between the larger dragons like a minnow among sharks. The two of you had fought in tandem, the way you had practiced a hundred times above the cliffs of Dragonstone — Vermax breathing flame onto a Lysene galley, Moondancer sweeping in to finish what he started, your fire hotter and wilder than his, less controlled but somehow more devastating. You had whooped with exhilaration, the wind tearing the sound from your lips, and you had seen Jace turn toward you once, his face split in a grin that was all teeth and triumph, and you had grinned back, certain in that moment that nothing could touch you, that the two of you were invincible, that the stories they would tell of this day would be stories of glory.

Then the world had turned to chaos.

A Tyroshi warship had come up beneath you, its deck crowded with crossbowmen, and Moondancer had shrieked as a bolt grazed her wing, the sound piercing your ears like a needle. You had pulled her up, hard, climbing toward the safety of the clouds, and for a moment you had lost sight of Vermax in the smoke. When you found him again, he was below you, diving toward a line of galleys with the reckless abandon that was so characteristic of your brother, and you had started to follow, to call out a warning, to do something—

But another ship had emerged from the smoke, a Myrish vessel with scorpions mounted on its deck, and you had watched, frozen, as one of those great bolts flew true, striking Vermax in the belly with a sound like a cracked rib, burying itself deep into the flesh before the beast could even exhale.

The scream that tore from the dragon's throat was not a sound you had ever heard before, not from any beast, not in any nightmare. It was a sound of pure, animal agony, of something ancient and magical being torn apart by crude iron and human malice. Vermax's wings faltered, beat once, twice, and then he was falling, tumbling through the air like a broken kite, his green scales dark with blood, his tail lashing uselessly at the sky. You saw Jace's small figure clinging to the saddle, battling with the straps, right up to the split second he realized he had no choice but to leap.

He hit the water hard, a white splash swallowed almost immediately by the churning waves, and for a heartbeat you could not breathe, could not think, could not do anything but stare at the place where your brother had disappeared.

And Moondancer, feeling your panic and your grief, dove before you could even command her, wings folding against her sides as she plummeted toward the water. The wind screamed in your ears and you could see the wreckage now — a floating spar from a shattered ship, and there, clinging to it with white-knuckled desperation, was Jace.

He was alive. He was alive, and he was looking up at you, face pale and streaked with blood — his own or Vermax's, you couldn't tell — and his mouth was moving, shaping words you couldn't hear over the wind and the screaming of dying men. You thought he might be saying your name, or perhaps he was cursing you, or simply praying to gods he had never believed in. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except reaching him, pulling him from that water, holding him close and never letting go.

Moondancer was still diving, still screaming toward the surface when you saw what Jace must have seen a moment before you — the Myrish crossbowmen on the nearest ship with their weapons raised and their faces dark with the grim determination of men who had been taught to fear dragons and had learned to kill them instead. You saw the bolts fly, a dozen of them, a cloud of iron death aimed directly at your brother's exposed back.

Time did not slow. That was a lie told by poets and singers, a romantic fiction that had no place in the reality of war. Time moved exactly as fast as it always had, and you moved faster, because you had to, because there was no other option, because Jace was your twin and your heart and the other half of your soul and you would not, could not, watch him die.

You hauled on Moondancer's reins with a strength you didn't know you possessed, screaming a command that was a raw wordless need. The dragon shrieked, wings snapping open with a crack like breaking bones, and she twisted in mid-air, her body interposing itself between the crossbow bolts and your brother. You felt the impact as a series of dull thuds against her scales, felt her shudder and falter, and then you were sliding from the saddle, dropping the last ten feet into water that was cold as a knife and dark as ink.

The shock of it drove the breath from your lungs, but you didn't stop, couldn't it, kicking toward the surface with limbs that felt heavy and slow. You broke through gasping, salt water burning your eyes and throat, but you could see Jace now, close enough to touch, his eyes wide with terror and… relief, maybe, or fury, or the same desperate love that was clawing its way up your throat.

"You idiot!” He was shouting, his voice raw and broken, barely audible over the roar of battle. "You absolute fucking idiot, what are you doing?! You were supposed to stay safe!”

You reached him, your fingers closing around his wrist with a grip that would leave bruises, and you pulled him close until you could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. He was shivering, you realized, and his lips were blue, but he was alive, he was ALIVE.