Chapter Text
The sun during a King’s Landing summer had always seemed too cruel to the princess. While the other children of the Red Keep ran through the courtyards under the watchful eyes of guards, Valarr observed the world through the slits of stone windows, shielded by shadow and the scent of incense and old parchment.
She was the firstborn of Prince Baelor, the heir to the Iron Throne, yet she lacked her father’s robustness. Valarr was a creature of contrasts that confounded the eye: her hair was a deep brown, inherited from her maternal lineage, but a single streak of ghostly white sprouted from her right temple, descending like a scar of snow to her chest. And then there were the eyes – one a soft, translucent violet, the other a warm brown, like the lands of Dorne.
“You are the balance of the Realm, my little star,” her father used to say, kissing her brow. But Valarr felt she was, in truth, a walking fragility.
On that day, the heat was suffocating. Valarr wore a sumptuous gown of Myrish silk in pale lavender, its long, flowing sleeves embroidered with tiny pearls mimicking dewdrops. The bodice was tight, reinforced with silver threads tracing intertwined dragons, and at her neck rested an amethyst pendant cut into the shape of a teardrop.
The septas had released the girls to study in the garden. Valarr had chosen the Queen’s Ballroom Garden, accompanied by Septa Marlowe and two Gold Cloaks. As she walked, her protectors maintained a respectful distance, but the clinking of the guards' mail was a constant reminder of her gilded confinement. She held an illuminated manuscript regarding Old Valyria, her thin, pale fingers tracing the scales of the drawn dragons.
It was then that the garden’s silence was shattered by the metallic ring of spurs and a laugh that did not suit the peace of the place. Aerion emerged from behind an ivy-covered archway. He was seventeen – two years older than Valarr, a constant reminder that he had been born while the maesters were still trying to help Valarr’s mother conceive an heir.
Aerion wore the opulence of a prince who believed himself a god. He clad himself in a doublet of velvet as black as the abyss, with high collars trimmed in scales of scarlet leather. Upon his chest, the three-headed dragon was wrought in genuine rubies that seemed to pulse under the sunlight. A cloak of red silk fell from his shoulders, fastened by gold brooches in the shape of dragon claws. He did not walk lightly; he laid claim to every space around him.
The reaction was immediate, septa Marlowe turned pale, pressing her hands to her chest in a hurried, nervous curtsy, her lips moving in silent prayer. The two Gold Cloaks straightened their postures, hands resting instinctively on the pommels of their swords. There was fear in the guards' eyes – not the fear of an enemy, but the fear of a prince whose instability was as famous as his beauty.
"The Little Dove has left her golden cage," Aerion mocked, stopping a few paces from her. He ignored the septa and guards entirely, treating them as irrelevant furniture.
"Cousin," Valarr replied softly, lowering her eyes. She remembered her father’s warnings: Stay away from Aerion. Your cousin’s blood boils too fast, and that is very dangerous. "I was merely reading."
Aerion approached, invading Valarr’s personal space with predatory confidence. His scent was an intoxicating mixture of myrrh and something reminiscent of sweet smoke. He reached out and, before she could recoil, his fingers caught the white lock of her hair. He tugged it slightly, forcing her to look up into his face – a mask of beauty and dark desire.
"Why do you strive so hard to hide within the towers?" he whispered, his voice thick with an intensity that made her shiver. "They say you are a fragile, princess. Conspirators say that brown hair of yours is a sign that the dragon’s blood is dying in you. But I do not see that..." He squeezed the white strand between his fingers, his violet eyes glowing like wildfire. "This is the fire. It is what remains of our glory. You will be mine, Valarr. You are the heir, and I am what you need so you do not burn alone."
Valarr felt her heart hammer against her ribs like a literal caged bird. Behind her, one of the Gold Cloaks stepped forward, but a frigid look from Aerion over his shoulder froze the man in his tracks.
"I am the daughter of the Prince of Dragonstone, Aerion. I belong to the Realm, not to you."
Aerion released her hair with a sharp motion and let out a short, dry laugh – a sound that made Septa Marlowe visibly tremble.
"The Realm is a monster of a thousand heads, cousin. It will devour you if you try to rule it with sweetness. You need a master. And my Uncle Baelor may be the 'Breakspear,' but he has forgotten that dragons do not break spears... they melt them." He stepped back, his eyes roaming over Valarr’s delicate figure, from the discreet circlet on her brow to the pearls of her dress, with a hunger she could not fully comprehend, but which terrified her. "Enjoy your books, cousin. But remember: paper burns. Blood does not."
Aerion strode away, his red cloak billowing behind him like a moving pool of blood. Valarr looked down at the book in her hands, but the illuminations of the dragons no longer seemed so distant or mythical. For the first time, she felt that the Iron Throne was not a seat of honor, but a funeral pyre that Aerion was eager to light.
She touched the white lock, feeling the heat where his fingers had been. Her father’s warning echoed in her mind again, but now accompanied by a grim realization: Aerion did not just desire her place, he desired her soul.
The encounter with Aerion left a trail of unease that even the scent of the garden’s roses could not dissipate. Valarr climbed the spiral stairs of the Tower of the Hand with slow steps, the weight of her Myrish silk gown suddenly feeling heavier than usual. With every step, the sound of her cousin’s silver spurs echoed in her mind.
Upon entering her chambers, she dismissed her handmaidens with a soft gesture, wanting only silence. The tower was her sanctuary, decorated with tapestries chronicling the tales of ancient queens and porcelain vases brought from Essos. She walked to the tall window where the sea breeze blew, fluttering the white streak in her brown hair.
Below, King’s Landing spread out like a carpet of clay rooftops, but Valarr’s thoughts were turned toward the royal apartments, where her mother, Princess Jena Dondarrion, rested.
Valarr sat on her softly upholstered bench, clutching a small pendant that held the image of the Seven. Her mother was in the advanced stages of a new pregnancy. Jena’s womb was now the center of all court gossip and hope.
“If it is a boy...” Valarr thought, feeling a lump in her throat.
Westerosi politics was a board of thorns. If the baby were a male, Valarr’s position as "the jewel of the succession" would change. She would still be the daughter of the heir, but the realm always preferred a son’s sword to a daughter’s smile. Would a brother mean freedom from the clutches of suitors like Aerion? Or would it mean she would be sold into a political marriage even faster to secure the new prince’s alliance?
And if it were a girl? A little sister with health as fragile as her own? Valarr feared for Jena; she feared the blood that the Targaryens seemed to shed so easily, whether on battlefields or in childbeds.
She closed her eyes, and for an instant, Aerion’s voice whispered in her memory: "You are the heir, and I am what you need so you do not break."
There was a part of her – the part that carried the blood of old kings – that shivered at the fire he promised. But her soul, sweet and cautious, yearned for the peace her father represented. She looked at her own pale hands and thought that if her mother’s baby were born a boy, perhaps Aerion would turn his eyes away from her. But deep down, something told her that her cousin’s obsession was not merely for the title she carried, but for what she was.
"May the Gods protect my mother.” Valarr whispered to the empty room. "And may they protect me from what is to come."
The sun began to set, staining the sky a red that mirrored Aerion’s cloak, and Valarr remained there, like a princess of glass waiting to see if fate would bring her an ally or a new chain.