The southern winds carried the bitter taste of salt and smoke. Ever since the news of King Viserys’s death had reached Oldtown, the world had grown darker for {y/n}. She was no longer the hospitable guest sent from Dragonstone; now, she was a hostage of House Hightower.
Another summer had arrived, one of those where the sun was so heavy that even the hard stones of Dragonstone seemed to sweat. The scent of salt and sulfur rose from the island and danced in the air, but this time the heat alone could not explain the Targaryen family’s melancholy.
Maekar Targaryen had never imagined he'd fall in love again at thirty-seven. But especially not with {y/n}, who was the same age as his eldest son, Daeron.
The fire was dying. It had been a slow unraveling over the last hour, cinders collapsing in on themselves like exhausted hearts. The green glow of the lake above the Slytherin Common Room windows cast shadows that moved even when the fire didn’t, strange and ghostly. Most of the castle slept. But not you. Not him.
The Ashford tourney grounds rang with steel and laughter, banners snapping in the summer wind, yet to Aerion it all felt like an insult, a noisy, vulgar celebration of men who were not him, of eyes that strayed where they had no right to linger.
You are Hogwarts’ Head Girl: responsible, academically gifted, painfully organized, and unfortunately tasked with keeping the school’s biggest troublemakers under control.