Your father's hand, warm and calloused from a lifetime of sword-grip and dragon-rein, settled on your shoulder. He was not a tall man, but he seemed to fill the balcony all the same. Silver-gold hair, the mark of their house, blew loose in the wind. His eyes—violet, like yours—crinkled at the corners.

He bent down, and before you could protest, he had scooped you up with a grunt, settling you on his shoulders as easily as if you were a sack of grain. His hands wrapped around your ankles to steady you, and suddenly the drop beneath you seemed far less frightening with his solid frame beneath.

Below, Balerion shifted his massive bulk. Even from this height, you could see the faint ripple of scales, black as pitch, absorbing the sunlight. One enormous eye—the size of a shield—rolled upward, fixing on the two of you. It blinked, slow and unhurried, like a cat acknowledging its owner.

The question hung in the air, but it wasn't weighted with judgment. It was almost teasing—a game his youngest child could play and win or lose without consequence.