Chapter Text
The Grand Sept of Baelor swallowed up the sounds of the outside world. Light poured through the high arched windows in long, molten shafts, washing over marble and crystal, over carved saints and kneeling sinners alike. Incense lingered thick in the air, sweet and heavy, threaded with the scent of molten wax. Somewhere beyond the pillars, prayers murmured softly, indistinct voices rising and fading like breath.
Laena Targaryen knelt before the Mother’s altar, her head inclined beneath a pale veil that softened the sharp lines of her composure without diminishing them. One by one, she lit the slender candles before her, each movement well practiced. Flame touched wick, wax softened, and with each small act she bowed her head in silent offering.
Grant me patience, she prayed. And sanctuary.
The faint sound of footsteps reached her across the marble, unmistakable. She knew that cadence too well: unhurried, assured, carrying the quiet arrogance of someone who moved through the world as though it would always yield. She did not look up.
“Do the Seven answer you often?” Aerion’s voice murmured, pitched low enough to remain contained within the alcove. “Or do they tire of the same request?”
Laena’s fingers tightened slightly around the taper before she set it carefully back into its holder. Only then did she turn her head a fraction, acknowledging him without granting him the satisfaction of her full attention. “This is a holy place.”
“So I’ve heard,” he replied, stepping closer. The scent of him cut cleanly through the incense, grounding him in a way that felt almost intrusive. He did not bother to kneel.
“You thought the gods might save you from me?” he continued, his voice softer now, edged with quiet amusement.
“I require saving from no one.”
A faint smile touched his mouth at that, subtle but sharpened by interest. “And yet you come here.”
Laena rose smoothly, allowing the veil to fall forward and shadow her expression completely. The movement was intentional, a dismissal without spectacle, an end to the exchange that did not invite escalation. She turned toward the Stranger’s alcove, already withdrawing.
He moved in step behind her. The Sept was vast, but in his presence it seemed to narrow, space bending subtly to his will.
“I’m praying for Kiera and the babe." She lied evenly as she approached the carved statue, its face hidden beneath stone robes. “I also prefer the quiet.”
“I know a quiet place we could go,” Aerion replied, leaning slightly closer. He did not touch her, the absence that pressed just as insistently as contact might have.
Laena ignored the suggestion entirely, lifting another candle and setting flame to wick. The soft glow caught along the edges of the statue, flickering in the folds of carved stone.
“You avoid me,” he continued behind her, his tone light but persistent. “Hiding behind Kiera’s skirts.” He paused just long enough for the weight of the words to settle. “But here, you cannot run.”
“You mistake avoidance for fear,” she replied, her voice steady as she placed the candle among the others.
“Do I?” He moved to her side, the motion almost languid in its confidence. A predator did not hurry when the outcome felt assured.
Laena stepped aside before he could complete the arc, drifting away with quiet precision toward the Warrior’s altar. She moved without haste, always careful, always aware of the eyes that might turn if she gave them reason. He followed.
“You’re very composed,” he remarked, as though offering a compliment.
“And you are very persistent.”
“I enjoy resistance.”
The faintest flicker of annoyance crossed her features before she smoothed it away.
“This is not a game.”
“It is to me.”
That drew her to face him fully, though her veil still obscured much of her expression. The light caught in his eyes, turning them molten, sharpening the intent that lived there.
“You risk scandal,” she said quietly. “Even here, whispers carry.”
“Then let them.”
She brushed past him, the lightest accidental brush contact of sleeve against sleeve.
He laughed softly behind her. “You truly believe piety will shield you?”
“I believe self-control might.”
That stilled him, if only for a moment.
“Ah,” he said, his gaze sharpening. “And which of us lacks it?”
The question hung between them, taut as a drawn string.
“If Valarr had a cunt,” she said coolly, turning back toward the Mother’s altar, “you’d try to fuck him too.”
Aerion’s laughter came low and dark, entirely unbothered. “Probably true.”
She did not rise to it, did not grant him the reaction he sought.
“You’ve already done this one,” he added, glancing toward the candles she had lit, his tone edged with quiet smugness. Still, she remained unmoved.
“You could make this easier,” he continued after a beat, his voice lowering. “Stop pretending I do not interest you.”
“You mistake pursuit for inevitability.”
“Your denial of me now will make you taste all the sweeter.” He responded softly, lips parting into a smile.
Silence followed, thick but not empty. Candlewicks crackled softly, and somewhere beyond them footsteps echoed faintly across the marble. Life continued within the Sept, indifferent to the tension drawn tight between them.
~~~
Aerion had not expected this encounter to thrill him as much as it did. For months she had been little more than an absence, an idea carried across Blackwater Bay, something reported to him in letters and passing mentions. Laena at Dragonstone, in its windswept terraces. Following in her mother’s shadows, tucked away behind stone and salt and distance that made her unreachable. It had been an irritation then, a quiet one he did not name.
He had not realised how much of her he had missed until she was returned to him. Not that she returned for him. Duty had brought her back to King’s Landing, summoned to attend to her brother’s wife as the birth drew near, drawn into court again by necessity rather than choice. And yet she was here now, moving through halls he knew, breathing the same air, no longer separated by leagues of sea and castle walls that even he could not breach.
Within reach. The thought had settled into him slowly at first, and then all at once.He found her everywhere now. In corridors. In gardens. At feasts where she kept herself carefully surrounded, always just beyond the point of easy access. He loved the subtle ways she avoided him without ever making a spectacle of it. It might have frustrated another man. It delighted him.
Because the level of avoidance meant she felt his attention. That was the part that lingered, that sharpened something low and restless in his chest. Not her words, not her refusals which he expected, but the smaller betrayals she could not fully conceal. The stillness that came over her when he entered a room. The fraction of a second too long before she turned away. The careful control that only mattered if there was something to contain.
He had been denied the slow unfolding of that. Had missed whatever she had been in those years away, unguarded, perhaps, or softer in ways he would never now be allowed to see. Dragonstone had kept that from him, hoarded it behind its strong walls and storm-wracked cliffs.
He did not like being denied. And now she stood within arm’s reach, and he understood the loss for what it was. Time had been kind to her. She was the vision of a Princess of Dragonstone. Storm hardened, stoic if not a little sullen. But under the shell of that woman was the young girl he’d once known, sweet and easily flustered. He just had to try harder to see her.
The space between them in the cloister felt charged. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, in the way she angled herself just enough to avoid the suggestion of closeness while never quite retreating. It was a boundary drawn without words. One he had every intention of testing.
Because this was the first time he had been allowed to stand this near her without interruption, without witnesses pressing too close, without the easy escape of distance. No sea. No stone. No excuse. Just restraint. That was where the thrill lived. Not in touching her, but in the knowledge he could. No longer denied by circumstance but governed only by will. It sharpened his awareness of every inch between them. A held line rather than an uncrossable one.
He wondered, not for the first time, whether she understood that. Whether she realised that what she called endurance, what she wore so carefully as composure, only made the distance more precise. More intentional. Something to be closed, not respected.
She had been safer at Dragonstone. Untouched by the slow erosion he had begun, almost idly, when she returned. Here, in King’s Landing, within his orbit, within his grasp, there was no such safety. And as he watched her hold herself steady beside him, unflinching, unyielding, Aerion found that what he wanted was no longer simply her attention.
It was the moment that control fractured. And the quiet, inevitable satisfaction of knowing he had been there to see it happen.
~~~
At last, Laena spoke again. “You may follow me through the corridors,” she said, her voice low and controlled. “You may corner me in the shadows. But you will not claim me in the sight of the gods.”
Something shifted in his expression at that, subtle but unmistakable. “Would you wager on it?”
She moved to leave, stepping past him with careful precision. This time, his hand shot out and caught her wrist, his grip firm enough to stop her without spectacle.
“Pray harder, Laena,” he murmured, his tone dropping into something darker, quieter. “You’ll need it.” He released her just as quickly and withdrew, leaving her alone.
The Sept emptied gradually after midday prayers, its vastness reclaiming itself as the crowd thinned. Noblewomen drifted out in clusters of silk and murmured conversation, while Septas moved through the space with quiet purpose, their hymns lingering even as the last voices faded.
Laena remained kneeling longer than necessary. She knew better than to move too soon. If Aerion intended to follow, he would wait. He always preferred it that way, spaces where discovery was possible but not guaranteed, where the risk sharpened everything and her reputation bore the greater cost.
Only when the final echoes of footsteps dissolved into silence did she rise. And, as expected, he was already waiting. He stood in the side colonnade beyond the main hall, near the narrow-arched passage that led toward the gardens, the only exit that avoided the scrutiny of the main stair.
“I thought you had made your leave,” she said evenly as she approached.
“I had more prayers to attend to.”
“No,” she replied, continuing past him without slowing. “You attend me.”
His mouth curved faintly at that, but he did not deny it. She moved into the garden with purpose, cutting a direct path away from the Sept and its watchful eyes. He fell into step beside her.
“You left before the final hymn,” he observed.
“So did you.”
“I suppose I did.”
They entered the narrow stone corridor. It was open to the inner garden on one side. Ivy climbed the arches, leaves stirring softly in the breeze, while the distant murmur of a fountain blurred the edges of sound. It was a space that invited secrecy without fully granting it. Intimate, but never safe.
Laena slowed, despite herself, and stopped beneath one of the arches where sunlight filtered through the leaves and dappled her veil.
“You need to put this to rest,” she said firmly.
“I grow curious.”
“About what?”
He stepped closer, the distance between them narrowing with quiet intent. “About how long you can stand beside me without breaking.”
Annoyance flickered in her eyes, quick and sharp.
“You mistake my refusals for something else,” she said. “You imagine I enjoy this.”
“You know your pulse races when I enter a room,” he replied softly, watching her. His hand lifted then, a departure from the restraint he had maintained for so long. His fingers brushed lightly along the curve of her neck under her veil, barely there.
Laena’s chin lifted in defiance, her composure holding. “If you seek a reaction, you will be disappointed.”
“Do you push me away because you wish to,” he murmured, leaning closer, “or because you must?”
The thin fabric of her veil hovered between them, a fragile barrier that did little to lessen the tension. She moved to pass him, but he shifted just enough to remain in her path, refusing to yield the space.
“You corner me in holy places now?” she asked coolly.
“I wanted to see,” he said, studying her expression, “whether sanctity strengthens you.”
“And?”
“It makes you sharper.”
She attempted to move again, and this time his hand rose to brace against the archway, closing her in.
“You should be careful,” she said softly. “What if someone sees?”
“Yes,” he replied. “What would they see?”
She held his gaze. “Impropriety.” The word lingered between them, heavy with implication.
“How long,” he continued, his voice low, “before you stop enduring… and start wanting?”
Laena did not retreat, leaning toward him. “I will endure you.”
The shift unsettled him, subtle but real. For the first time, the balance tipped, if only slightly.
“Endurance,” he echoed. “Is that what you call this?”
The sound of approaching footsteps broke the moment. Laena stepped back at once, and Aerion withdrew just as quickly, his posture shifting seamlessly from predator to prince.
Two young Septas rounded the corner, their eyes lowering respectfully as they passed. Laena inclined her head with perfect composure and continued on toward the gardens Aerion remained where he was, watching her retreat.
She had not faltered. And for the first time, he found himself wondering whether he was testing her restraint or his own.