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Winterfell got the raven announcing Luke’s murder a day after Jace arrived. The timing was a blessing, in a strange way. The aloof Lord Stark became Cregan, and Cregan knew which words to say, and knew when to be silent. He’d been on the road Jace now had to walk on for years, and did what he wished others would have done for him when his brother Willam died. He held Jace’s arm and listened and then let the silence settle between them before taking him out to the training yard.

“Here,” Cregan said as he turned to hand Jace a dull sword. “Let the posts have it, boy.”

Jace felt the fire in his throat leave his mouth before he could think the better of it. “Despite my designation, I am still a man, my lord. The same as you,” he said primly, holding his gaze and waiting for Cregan to agree before taking the sword. He’d wait as long as it took.

Cregan tilted his head as if to see him better, and his dour face broke into a softer look at Jace’s challenging gaze. “Aye, so you are, my prince. I’ll not make that mistake again. A slip of the tongue.” Jace nodded as he took the hilt of the sword from Cregan, and Cregan brushed his fingers against Jace’s in apology.

Jace hit the wooden posts listlessly at first. Luke was dead by the time Lady Arryn toasted Jace. Another swing. Luke’s cloak washed up on the shore for Mother to find when Jace promised Lord Manderly that Joff would be his goodson. A hard hit. Aegon and Viserys wept themselves to sleep for a week by the time he landed in Winterfell. He was hitting the posts with ferocity by the end, all thought in his head forcibly driven out with the effort it took to keep his shoulders from shaking and his aching hands from letting the sword go. He was thankful for the sweat coursing down his face; the tears wouldn’t show so easily that way. He couldn’t ask to be seen as a man and then cry a moment later.

“How long can I do that for?” he asked Cregan, grasping for breath and using the opportunity to surreptitiously wipe his face dry.

“Nowhere near long enough, I’ve found,” Cregan replied, pretending he didn’t see.

“Does it ever stop?” The ache in his chest that had already been there when he started swinging hadn’t left yet; it had only gotten harder to breathe since he stopped, actually. He thought he might have to dig it out to stop it. Unthinkingly, his hand worked against the furs on his chest as if he could reach in to loosen whatever was choking him, and Cregan stilled him.

“I don’t know,” he said gently, cradling Jace’s hand in his. Jace didn’t pull away. It got a little easier to breathe, but only a little.

Mother was right–they did have much in common.

—

They spent the next week hunting, and Jace got to help Cregan prepare more of the food stores with what his people would need to survive the winter. Lord Cerwyn became Daryn, and the castellan became Bastian. The men-at-arms became Tall Robb, Little Robb, Tall Jon, and Rory, but he was still Prince Jacaerys to them, even though he told them to call him Jace repeatedly. The closest he got with any of them was when Rory called him Prince Jace before reddening and apologizing. “It’s no slight against you, my prince. You can be intimidating,” Cregan said with a small smile that made Jace blush for some reason.

They spent the week after that settling what lordly affairs and smallfolk scores they could, so that they could avoid letting them fester with the enforced proximity winter would bring. Fights could be saved for when the sun’s warmth returned. By then, they both knew Cregan would ally with Queen Rhaenyra, but neither of them mentioned it, not wanting to bring Jace’s visit to an end. Once the matter of Lord Stark’s allegiance was settled, Jace would have no reason to still be there. Neither of them wanted him to leave so soon. Even Vermax, irritated at first by the cold and snow, grew to like and trust the people around them, laying a clutch of eggs that Jace saw settled in the hot springs.

Jace found that he truly liked the man, when he could ignore his grief. There was much to like–his even temper, his seriousness of purpose, his sense of justice, all things he could see demonstrated in his words and actions. He also found that he wasn’t anywhere near so intimidating as he was upon first glance. He was tall, but not as tall as Daemon. His shoulders were wide, but not impossibly so, eyes dark, but not always, not in the dim outdoors light of the early afternoon. Jace wondered what they might look like in the light of a spring’s morning, or a late summer’s evening, when the sun was said to last until the hour of the eel. He caught himself thinking he’d have to see them for himself and make this trip again.

His hands suited him, strong when drawing a bow or heaving a carcass but soft enough to play with Rickon or guide a girl lost in the maze of anonymous rows back to her family in the winter town, where he showed Jace how Northerners would shelter themselves from the cold in the moons and likely years to come. He was being shown the other people Cregan had to consider when making his decisions, and put faces to the delays Cregan warned of. Jace could hardly hold the schedule of the army being dispatched against the man upon seeing how they all had to prepare for possibly not returning.

He looked older than his years, and Jace wondered if he ever looked young in his life, and caught himself wishing they knew each other as boys. His mouth was grim when speaking of serious topics, but never with Rickon or Sara. His smiles were rare, but that was good–they made his stomach twist and Jace couldn’t concentrate on anything when they occurred. He nearly even stumbled getting off Vermax with a thrilled Rickon in his arms, with Cregan gazing up at them with an affectionate smile. They were something worth earning, more of a treat than a fresh peach or lemon custard. Sweeter too.

He was a beta, true, but they were more common in the North; betas tended to make betas regardless of who they paired with. “The alphas killed each other too much during the winters,” Cregan said, confirming what Jace had heard in his studies. The attributes that made alphas so admirable in the south were liabilities in the north, where cohesion was prized and egos cost lives in the cold; Cregan’s alpha uncle Bennard seemingly proved this observation further with his own usurpation attempt. It was eye-opening to see the deference other lords and ladies gave him and Cregan, with no narrowed glances or snide remarks that he could notice. Perhaps they meant it up here, or perhaps their manners were better in hiding any disdain they felt. Either way, it was heartening to see his banners’ fealty and how easily Cregan accepted their loyalty, with none of the cringing apologies southern betas or omegas sometimes used.

I want to be like him, he thought, and he didn’t feel shame at the thought. Unlike Daemon or Grandsire, he could reasonably become more like Cregan; it wasn’t such an impossible goal. He tried to stop himself from wondering what else he might want, and succeeded. He tried to stop from wondering if Cregan noticed things about him too, and if he might want anything from Jace in return outside of their negotiations. He failed at that.

—

He and Baela didn’t keep secrets from each other, none like these, anyway. They couldn’t–he caught her out in her lies when he saw the twitch of her lips trying to fight a smile, while she could tell his from the flush in his cheeks as he told his own. Besides, this sort of thing was hardly something to keep secrets about. It was easier to follow the gait of a handsome sailor or study the chin of a beautiful lady with a daringly cut neckline and then knowingly glance at each other, grinning at the thought they shared. It never went beyond looking for either of them, and never would.

He reminded himself of this as he failed to chase the image of Cregan in the hot springs from his mind as he lay in bed. He tried to recall Baela at the beach when they last visited Driftmark not two moons ago, clothes all wet because she had jumped into the waves to retrieve Rhaena’s kite, or after she got off Moondancer, exhilarated and sweaty and happy to get off her dragon because she’d be able to see him. But he’d never shared a bath with her and seen a warm expanse of skin scarred through battle and familial treachery. She seemed keen to show him, but he was fool enough to gently refuse before they got married. He wished he weren’t so gallant now. If he were less gallant, he’d have another image to focus on rather than what he just saw.

But nothing could move him from the image in his mind. Since his presentation, he’d hardly been wholly separated from other men, still training in the yard with them, but he certainly hadn’t shared a bath with one. Cregan was true to his word though, seeing him like any other man, and men shared baths in the large hot springs. He studiously focused on looking anywhere but Cregan’s direction as he slipped into the water, but the heat must’ve gone to his head, because even just Cregan’s chest and shoulders were enough to make him dizzy. He felt frozen to his spot in the pool as Cregan dunked himself and reemerged with his hair all wet, strands sticking to his neck. He wanted to run his fingers through them and he submerged himself before he did anything so stupid.

When he reemerged, Cregan was settled against the ledge, shoulders and chest looking even broader with the way his arms were resting on the rocky ledge. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked gruffly. Jace nodded slightly, wanting to be polite but also wanting to go back to his room before he made a fool of himself. “Not all of our guests can stand the heat of this pool, but I thought you’d like this one.”

He thought of something I might like. Something in his stomach twisted at the thought, and he was thankful the heat of the pool already made his cheeks flush. Cregan shouldn’t have been able to see the effect he was having on Jace, and as a beta, he wouldn’t be able to detect any scent of pleasure, but his eyes didn’t leave Jace as they were in the pool, like he couldn’t turn away for the life of him. Jace supposed he was making a spectacle of himself, so he said his thanks and left as quickly as politeness allowed.

Guiltily, he took himself in hand alone in the bed, and thought about someone he shouldn’t have thought of. When he got back to Dragonstone, he could return to normal and think about his betrothed. No one would ever have to know about this but him.

—

Jace was awed by the godswood when Cregan finally led him there. There he felt a power he hadn’t known before. He’d been raised in the Faith of the Seven, of course, and was educated in the history of its triumph in Westeros, but the Stark godswood sent a jolt through him he’d never before felt in a sept. It scared him to think this would be part of the realm he’d rule one day, when it was clearly beyond their control, and had been for generations. Maybe such a force wasn’t meant to be controlled by men, or Targaryens. He’d have to read what the Good Queen had to write about the North when he got back home, and if she had a similar sensation when she was here on her own trip.

But he felt comforted there too, strangely enough. The world was much bigger than he was, and there was so much he still didn’t know, possibilities he hadn’t known enough about to even consider in the first place. That meant he could still learn much and more, and use the new things he learned to secure Mother’s crown, and obtain the justice they needed to get for Luke. The path to victory wasn’t so narrow as he or anyone else imagined.

Cregan had agreed to Jace’s demands, and made one of his own. It was no trouble to promise a daughter to the north; once Baela visited and met the man, she’d agree it would be the finest match that could be made. She’d like the lord almost as much as Jace did, and she’d pretend to be sore that she wasn’t the one marrying into House Stark, teasing them both with a grin. The only problem he foresaw wasn’t a problem at all; it was his own impatience that troubled him. I want us to be family now, right at this moment. But there was nothing to be done about that.

Cregan told him that for the pact to be faithfully made true, his gods needed to hear them. Not only would Jace and Queen Rhaenyra have his word, but so would the old gods, and they would be more exacting in holding him to his promise. Jace agreed, and so found himself in front of the heart tree with Cregan. Jace didn’t know what he’d have to say or do in order to appease these gods he knew naught about, so the lord would have to take the lead in this situation, but he did have one request.

“Could we pray for our brothers as part of the pact?” Uniting their families meant all of them, after all, and if he were listened to about any one thing, he hoped it was this. He didn’t know how to miss Luke yet, and he hoped they could help him learn that.

Cregan looked pleasantly surprised by the request and agreed. “Of course, Jace,” he said as he pulled off his glove from his right hand and waited for Jace to do the same with his left. Once he did, Cregan grabbed his hand and interlocked their fingers between them. They were standing very close together, and even though their hands were bare in the cold, he felt overheated where he was touching Cregan.

“What do I do?” he whispered. “Must I speak to them?”

“No. We speak our oaths but our prayers are silent. They can hear what’s in our hearts.” The world was tinted red where they stood, and Cregan was quite handsome in the light. They would hear a little too much from Jace, but it couldn’t be helped.

Jace began simply, but the more he thought, the more absurd the prayer became. He hoped their brothers might find each other, but then he didn’t know if their brothers would be in the same place, or rather, he didn’t think so and didn’t want to admit it. He said as much, and Cregan looked at him softly before saying, “I think that there’s a heaven just for well-loved younger brothers. They could be there together.” Jace didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he nodded instead. Cregan was right. They could be there together. He revised his prayer to include that and then he supposed it ended.

“Luke is a good big brother. Willam will have someone to mind him with love,” Jace said, trying to reassure Cregan. Is. Should he say was? He didn’t know. Did Luke stop being a good brother when he died? Maester Gerardys hadn’t included a similar example in their grammar lessons in the Common Tongue or High Valyrian. He’d have to ask if any such tense existed in the world when he got back home.

Cregan nodded seriously. “Just like I did.” He didn’t know which word to use for Luke, but he knew which one he’d use for himself as long as he lived, and if he knew about himself, he knew about Cregan.

“Do. Just like you do,” he corrected gently. Cregan might have been a beta, but he wasn’t inscrutable in that moment like they could be sometimes. Cregan looked at him with a bit of wonder. He looked his age, finally. So that’s what it takes.

Cregan’s mouth quirked into a faint smile. “Like I do,” he said quietly. Another smile, Jace thought, but he’d never seen this one before. He was thankful he didn’t have to respond, because he wouldn’t have been able to find his tongue quickly enough.

He looked up at Cregan expectantly, and the lord seemed to find himself after a few more moments. “For the oath, just repeat what I say, and I’ll make a cut on my hand, and then one on yours. We’ll press them together, and then the pact will be sealed.” It seemed simple enough. Cregan said the words, and Jace repeated them, words of honor and respect and obligation to and for each other and their houses, duty and devotion that wouldn’t end with death.

Jace was startled when Cregan pulled a bit of dragonglass out to cut his own hand, but not so startled that he didn’t offer his hand without question. The matching cuts on the palms of their hands were joined, and their mingled blood dripped into the snow as their fingers linked together. Cregan kissed where their thumbs overlapped, so Jace kissed at their pinkies, mirroring him, catching his eyes over their hands. The pact was set. The air felt heavy with the feeling of an ancient energy he couldn’t describe in the Common Tongue. Maybe words for the feeling didn’t exist in any language he knew, and it was something they could only keep between themselves. He felt like his heart might beat out of his chest.

“Valyrian marriages look like this.” He felt stupid as he said it, breaking the spell of their ritual and the quiet of the woods.

Cregan responded, “Do they now?”

Jace flushed. “Yes,” he said. Why did he mention it? He was just nattering on because the moment felt too heavy for him. Mother said he shouldn’t let his nerves guide his tongue, and here he was, ignoring her advice.

“What’s missing, then?” Cregan asked, curious. He didn’t seem to think Jace was being stupid.

“A chalice, to mingle the blood. One drinks it afterwards. And then I’d make a cut here—“ he touched Cregan’s lip, “—and you’d make the sign here. Fire on me, blood on you.” He didn’t know why he touched Cregan’s face to show him, or even thought of which glyph would go on him so quickly. That arrangement felt right to him though, with the red of the leaves of the Stark godswood surrounding them. Cregan knew more about blood than he did, after what happened with his uncle, and Jace certainly would always know more about fire.

“Aye. Forgive me, Jacaerys, I don’t seem to have one ready at hand. Next time you come,” he said dryly.

Cregan knew that Jace would be married to Baela the next time he came up north. He was only teasing Jace, and it was working. Jace blushed and said, “Don’t make fun of me, my lord.”

“I don’t make fun of anyone, my prince. Don’t Targaryen kings take who they want?” Jace’s stomach gave a flip at the thought. Aegon the Conqueror had his two wives, but it could be accommodated by the Andals–an alpha with a beta and omega under his power, such was the nature of things. An omega with two betas couldn’t be countenanced. Maybe in another world. A possibility. Something else to win. He gave Cregan’s hand a squeeze, making sure their blood mixed and mingled further. The cut had stopped hurting, and it felt like their heartbeats matched through their hands. They kept their fingers linked together, longer than Jace thought they needed, but as long as they wanted.

When they moved to separate, Cregan brushed his lips over their overlapping thumbs again, hardly fit to be called a kiss like the one earlier. Whatever he’d learned about betas felt desperately untrue in that moment–no alpha had ever made his hands tingle in such a way. Betas had their own power, and Jace could feel it, through his hand and with every breath he took. He’d have to read more about it later. The unease he felt earlier was quelled slightly. They weren’t family yet, but they shared blood now. There was a part of Cregan in him that couldn’t be taken out anymore, and that surely was what made him feel this way.

It would have to suffice.

—

He never answered Cregan’s question, he realized much later on. It was just as well. He was no Targaryen anymore, and he was no king. He was in no position to take who he wanted.

He hadn’t kissed Cregan either, not the way they wanted to. He wanted to respect his future wife, but they hadn’t gotten married. He’d done everything all wrong. He was even giving Cregan the wrong daughter. The ride between Castle Cerwyn was too short for Jace to breathe through his shame and when they landed, Jace felt like he had a stone lodged in his throat. He felt like he shouldn’t have gone to Winterfell.

All they had between his first visit and this one were the letters they exchanged, with the allusions neither could spell out in their entirety, with the extra eyes reading their every word, and unsaid wants frozen in that early winter stay. Maybe the heart tree knew what he wanted, but how could it tell anyone, much less Cregan? Besides, he was foolish to believe any interest Cregan extended to him would survive his bearing two baseborn children from other men. He was also foolish to believe rumors of his affection for Daeron would leave Cregan unmoved. As they landed, Tessarion roaring as she sank into the snow, he tried to temper his expectations. Cregan was being exceedingly generous by taking Aemma in, and Jace wouldn’t let himself think more was possible.

—

Cregan looked more beautiful than he remembered as the Starks met him outside Winterfell’s western walls, where no one in the winter town would be displaced by Tessarion landing and where she’d be able to hunt in the wolfswood at her leisure.

It hadn’t been that long for him to change so–did Jace forget the details of his face? His bearing? It felt like he did. Cregan’s dark hair didn’t shine like this in his mind, nor was his back so straight. Were they getting older so quickly? The Cregan of his memory seemed dull next to who he saw; he silently apologized as he approached the real man for the insult of his faulty recall.

Cregan’s face hardened the closer they got, with only the briefest flash of warmth when he recognized what Jace and his daughter were wearing, their matching cloaks shimmering in the winter sun. Otherwise, he seemed ill-humored as he saw Aemma squirming, with the man who had a hand in the situation leading Jace by the arm. He’d get even more ill-humored when he found out there would be another one soon enough. Cregan was more intimidating than an alpha, truthfully, all his rage kept in him with no easy way to sniff it out when hidden or calm him down when it came out, just like Baela. Daeron was undaunted but Jace worried for him, irrationally; he would be the only target for Cregan.

“Lord Stark,” he said gladly when they got close enough. “Lady Gilliane, Sara, Master Rickon.” He’d drop down to shake the boy’s hand if Aemma weren’t in his arms. He had shot up like a weed in the time since his first visit, and he probably would remember this one. Lady Gilliane looked grim and Sara’s smile faded as they took in Jace’s appearance, only Rickon unfazed by him in the way of a boy seeing a dragon for the first time he would remember. He kept trying to peer behind them to where Tessarion was snorting with displeasure, too cold and watching her rider walk away.

He’d been fascinated by Vermax too, but was too young to remember Jace’s first visit and their flight together. The boy would never know his dragon now and Jace could feel his limited good cheer start to drain rapidly. His smile probably resembled more of a grimace when he turned back to look at Cregan.

“May I present Prince Daeron and our Aemma?” He wouldn’t use Waters; everyone knew what she was. Daeron smiled charmingly, and it was enough for Sara, who smiled back. Lady Gilliane didn’t crack, however, nodding once in acknowledgment and curtsying sullenly. Cregan looked like he could throttle Daeron right there and made a little movement hardly anyone would call a bow. Not the finest start to the visit he could hope for.

If things start badly, it only means they can get better later, Rhaena used to tell him. She didn’t get flustered when things went awry from the beginning, and neither would he today. He took a deep breath and tried to regain his smile. He was happy to be there, and he should show it. He only hoped they would grow equally happy to see him.

—

The godswood was as moving as ever. He could still believe the trees were alive, watching him and hearing him. Judging him quite harshly, too.

“Tell me the truth of it, Jace. No one but me can hear you. What are they doing to you in King’s Landing?” Cregan could only hold his tongue for so long. Daeron and their daughter had hardly gotten settled in their quarters when the lord spat out some excuse about blessing their safe arrival and took Jace out so they could speak in privacy. Cregan was wrong though–his gods would hear him too.

“What do you know?” he asked faintly.

“Nothing. I know nothing, my prince. I wanted to hear it from your own tongue. I heard some–” Cregan couldn’t find a word he wanted to use but his distaste was clear. “I heard some gossip and resolved only to hear from you. I knew we couldn’t be as forthright in our letters as we wanted to be.”

Jace couldn’t find the words immediately, but Cregan didn’t push him to speak. He would wait as long as he needed to. Jace’s prayers hadn’t worked, and the courage he tried to build up over the flight sapped from him in the cold. They stood in silence until Jace choked out, “They’re only doing what I asked for.”

Cregan looked disgusted. Disgusted at him. Jace wanted to curl away from the look, more painful than claws swiping at him. “You didn’t ask for this.”

“I was captured and everything went wrong! Grandsire broke with Mother, Ulf and Hugh betrayed us, Mother spent more time looking for me than ruling. Our loss is my fault, Cregan. I did.”

“You can’t believe that.” He did believe that. He swayed a bit at the full burden of failure and they sank to their knees together in the snow. Cregan held him more tightly. “Why were you there where they captured you, Jace?” he asked.

“I was trying to save my brother.”

“Why did you do that?” Jace looked at him as if he lost his mind. Cregan urged him on. “Why did you try to save your brother?”

“I loved him.”

“You love him. And your mother loved you. These are no crimes to be punished for, Jace.” Cregan meant what he said. Jace met his eyes and saw a faith he couldn’t fathom.

He wept so hard he could barely breathe. Every one of his failures he tried to ignore and tried to forget came rushing back at once. The clothes and trinkets they had to use for Luke’s pyre. The funerals no one had for Mother or Daemon or Addam. Netty alone in the world after believing in him and trusting him with her life. Rhaena fending for herself in Oldtown. Grandsire dying alone. Maester Gerardys teaching him about what his place in the world could be and getting torn in half for his trouble. Baela marrying someone else. Alyn losing his closest brother. A prophecy he couldn’t fulfill. Cregan held him through it all, stalwart as ever. Cregan was wrong, he did deserve the punishment. All those people he loved, he let down, and what could he do about it? Cry in a better man’s arms and fuck their murderers. He hadn’t even been able to tell Cregan one thing he planned on telling him.

They made to rise and Cregan caught him when he stumbled. He felt so tired suddenly.

Sometimes what you need is a good cry, you feel better after, Mother would say, but he still felt wretched. There was no fixing what was broken in him. He’d have to live with it and then he’d die with it. Dragonfire would burn every speck of him down, his weak flesh, his broken parts, all scattered to the wind and gone for good, but he didn’t think his uncles would give him the honor of even that when the time came. He’d be buried with it too, and his body would turn to dust along with the broken things in him. He’d never be rid of them. That thought only made him feel more tired.

Daeron was pacing by the door back into their quarters. When Jace got close enough, Daeron looked alarmed, and glared at Cregan. Jace must have stunk of distress and looked horrible. Jace waved him off and stuck by Cregan. “It wasn’t him,” he said hoarsely as they entered, and Daeron accepted it warily, still glaring at Cregan. Cregan looked evenly back at him. He was guiding Jace by his elbow and Jace could feel the tension in the rest of his body, and how much Cregan was holding back at the moment. They needed to be separated, quickly.

“Uncle, could you please ready Aemma in the nursery? I’d like to introduce the both of you to everyone properly.” Daeron nodded and left, Cregan tracking him until he turned the corner.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t tear his head off where he stands, my prince,” he said into his ear.

“He’s the best one of the lot. I’d rather not see you waste your efforts on him.” He smiled up at Cregan wanly. Cregan looked mutinous but stayed with Jace. His hand hadn’t left his elbow since he helped Jace stand up. Jace let himself lean against Cregan for a moment before remembering himself and straightening out, following Daeron. He did have to introduce both Daeron and their daughter to everyone, he hadn’t lied about that.

He met the nurse who would feed and look after Aemma, a sweet-looking omega woman named Thea Poole. Daeron’s manners were the most endearing Jace had ever seen them, putting the woman at ease with a glance and a word, kissing her hand with a flourish. It might be the only time she’d ever meet a Targaryen alpha, silver and shining the way they were described in the stories, and the look on her face made it clear she’d tell the story as long as she lived. Daeron also made a good impression on the servants and guards, warm without being overly familiar.

Neither Cregan nor Lady Gilliane were so easy to charm, however. The poor start they had upon their arrival did not improve. Lady Gilliane was terse in her manner with Daeron, hardly rude, but nowhere near friendly or welcoming. Whatever charm Daeron had did not appeal to her in any way, and she turned out to still be warmer than Cregan. Their meeting in the solar with the castle’s maester turned out to be painfully awkward from where Jace was sitting with Aemma, Cregan answering Daeron’s questions with short replies, not willing to engage further than he needed to. Daeron gamely kept trying to continue their conversation, complimenting the castle and Rickon, and Cregan kept trying to end it. It took Jace and Maester Hendrys’ combined efforts to smooth it over and keep it from becoming anything worse than awkward.

Finally, Jace took pity on them, and asked Cregan where Sara had got to. He hoped meeting Sara might salvage their arrival. She was out in the glass gardens, so he, Daeron and their daughter all went out to meet her, where she was standing next to a basket full of carrots she had pulled out, cleaning her hands in a bucket of warm water.

“Her name is Sara, Sara Snow. Cregan’s sister.” Daeron was too tactful to give an indication of judgment upon hearing her full name. He didn’t hesitate as he took her hand and kissed it like she were a lady, not minding how clammy they were.

“He likes botany. I don’t think he’s seen some of the Northern plants you have in your garden,” Jace told her.

Sara nodded, and gave Daeron a small smile. “Do you now, my prince?” She’d let him carry on his side of the conversation more amicably than her brother, and Jace was relieved to have brought him out to her. She would meet Daeron on his own terms, same as she did everyone.

“Yes. I’ve read all about flora of the North, but a page can only tell you so much about a thing. I’ve always wanted to see it for myself. I’ll have to visit in the spring and summer to see the wolfswood in its full glory, but the glass gardens are already quite impressive,” he said, looking around at the rows of food.

“One could say the wolfswood is in its full glory now. Snow can only hide so much. If you’re interested, we could walk out sometime and I could show you some of the trees you may not get so far south,” she said. But she saw how his face fell at the thought and recovered with, “We needn’t stray so far to find something to your taste however. What kind of plants appeal to you most, my prince?” With that, they were off, wandering through the rows talking about a particular subject Jace couldn’t profess to have ever been well versed in.

Jace’s eyes wandered as their discussion faded behind him, taking in the volume and variety of plants in the gardens. He saw more colorful plants set in a different part of the gardens, and walked off to examine them further, as curious about them as Aemma was. He smiled when he noticed the orange tree in a corner, and the flowers blooming on it. He let Aemma make a grab at the different flowers they saw, and then pulled her away before she could tear their petals, making her laugh at their game. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daeron looking at them fondly and smiled back at him, but that only seemed to fluster his uncle.

They all walked out together once Daeron’s tour was over, his uncle carrying the basket of carrots for Sara. “I’d like to take some seeds back, if you don’t mind. Helaena mentioned that some of her caterpillars might like a different variety of sorrel more. We’ll try and see if they get any bigger or hardier living off them.”

Sara smiled at him. “What a notion that is. Of course you can take them, as long as you write back to say what happens. I’ll get some seeds of the northern types of the plants you mentioned too, if they exist, not just the sorrel.” They made it to the outside of the kitchen, and she took her basket back, waving them goodbye as she entered it.

Daeron seemed heartened by the reminder that not everyone in Cregan’s family hated him, enough to tell Jace so. Jace shrugged as best he could with Aemma in his arms. “I’m sure Rickon doesn’t hate you either,” he assured him, and Daeron laughed in spite of himself as they went to the guest quarters, where baths were ready for them.

—

Dinner was quiet, with Aemma being tended to in the nursery and Cregan taciturn with his guest, with no Sara to ease the conversation along, tending to the sick daughter of one of the men-at-arms. Jace supposed it was the best Cregan could do in the situation. For all he still knew, Daeron could have been one of the people who made Jace feel so low. It was a wonder he was being this civil, if that’s what he thought of his guest. Daeron tried to keep the mood light, telling Cregan and Lady Gilliane about their stays in Darry and Oldcastle, and Lady Gilliane responded well enough, asking after Lord Locke and offering her opinion on the man, one of her suitors before Lord Stark won the day.

“He keeps a decent enough beard now, does he? That is good to hear. When he was courting me, he could hardly grow one and the scant hairs he called a beard made my brother snicker,” she said off-handedly, smiling at the recollection. “Aemma wouldn’t have had anything to pull on in our youth.”

“Yes, he was quite accommodating about that. Quite accommodating about his books too, he let us take a look at his library and borrow a few that we don’t have in the Red Keep,” Jace said.

“Was he now?” Cregan asked curtly. He realized he was coming off as rude and fixed his face. “Feel free to take a look at ours too. I suspect we might have a few more titles that didn’t make it down south.” Daeron got excited in spite of himself, but only Jace could tell, since Lady Gilliane was a beta as well, and neither of the northerners could see the twist of his fingers in his napkin.

“I’d appreciate that,” Daeron said, smiling back hesitantly. Cregan didn’t smile back, but he didn’t look murderous anymore, only stern, so it was an improvement. Perhaps Rhaena was right, and the entirety of their short stay wouldn’t be as disastrous as the start had been. Finally dinner was over, and Lady Gilliane excused herself to go to bed, the rest of them standing up to head to their rooms as well.

Daeron offered his arm to Jace, like he expected Jace to follow him. “I’ll be sharing a bed with Cregan.” It wasn’t a question. Daeron looked like he got slapped, but wisely held his tongue as his eyes darted between the two. Cregan’s self-control was admirable, but it surely had a limit like anyone else’s, and any uncivil response from Daeron would push it past where it could hold.

“Very well,” he said flatly. “You’ll know where to find me if you have need of me.” He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, and then shut it when he seemingly thought the better of what he was going to say originally, then he continued, “I had some questions for your Maester Hendrys, besides, if I may ask them? I wouldn’t want to disturb anyone.”

It was absurd to ask–Daeron was a prince, and if he wanted to interrogate the maester until morning, it was his privilege–but he was asking to acknowledge Cregan’s primacy in his own castle. Cregan nodded once. “He keeps odd hours. I suspect you’ll be the one disturbed once he keeps you up past sunrise asking about the number of flaps of dragon wings it took to get you up here.”

Daeron’s mouth quirked, like he was trying to fight a smile. “A worthy question. I only hope it doesn’t take so long to answer. Have a good night,” he said, and then left them, following a servant who would lead him to the maester.

—

Jace followed Cregan back to his bedroom. It was the first time he’d ever been there. During his first visit, they had spoken all through the night, but in Cregan’s solar, or the library. The appearance of staying in his bedroom for hours would have suggested another type of intimacy that wouldn’t have been helpful to his cause, nor would it have been true. But Jace supposed the appearance they gave didn’t much matter anymore.

Cregan was changing out of his clothes and into his nightshirt, and Jace could hardly move. It was like that time they shared the bath in the hot spring, where he really wanted only to look at the other man rather than do anything so useless like move or breathe. Cregan got his nightshirt on and even took the top knot out of his hair. Jace realized he could do what he wanted this time, and got closer so he could run his fingers through the loosened hair. Cregan stilled under his hand, and seemed to hold his breath as Jace did what he’d waited years to do. Cregan’s eyes seemed to look at his lips, and then down to his neck, which got him frowning.

Jace realized what he must’ve been frowning at, and pulled away. “The King put it on when–when this all started.”

Cregan’s face darkened. “What is that to me?” His glower softened–it wasn’t Jace he was mad at. “He isn’t here. Only we are.” Cregan got behind Jace, gently moved his hair aside, and unclasped it. He set it in a drawer under the bed, forgotten for the time being. It wouldn’t exist for the next few days.

Cregan helped him change out of his clothes, taking the cloak and hanging it next to his own. Cregan got one of his own nightshirts out for him but Jace turned away so he could take off the rest of his clothes and put it on without Cregan noticing Jace’s belly. Cregan didn’t question it, setting everything else of Jace’s aside so it could be laundered the next day. When Jace turned around, Cregan was smiling at both how the shoulders were slightly too wide and the sleeves too long for Jace. Then he opened the bed curtains and Jace got into the lord’s bed, turning to his side to look away from Cregan before he got too nervous to stay. Cregan got in behind him, shutting the curtains. He hadn’t turned down the fire, but the curtains did their job, and it was dark where they laid.

It was so much easier to speak into the dark, Helaena had been right about that. He felt his resolve recover when he didn’t have to look at the other man.

“Daeron thinks he loves me.” He felt Cregan stiffen behind him, where his arm was pressed into Jace’s back.

“Do you care for him?”

“Yes? No. I don’t know. I see him and I see his brothers in his place. I wake up in his arms sometimes and out of the corner of my eye I see Aegon instead. Walk out of a hallway and feel Aemond press a hand into my back before I realize it’s him and relax. He scares me until I realize it’s him. Sometimes he scares me anyway. I can’t forget what the others have done, but he makes it easy. Too easy sometimes, and then someone mentions Bitterbridge and a coldness passes across on his face. But I think he’s trying to make amends, in his own way. I don’t know if it’s enough.” Where had all this come from? Aegon surely scared him, and Aemond had before as well, but he didn’t let himself think Daeron did, not until now.

He felt Cregan’s hand twitch behind him. Such a gentleman. He reached behind himself and pulled Cregan, letting Cregan press his chest against Jace’s back and wrap an arm across Jace’s waist. Cregan pulled his hand away to get it on Jace’s neck instead, pushing the shoulder of the too large nightshirt down slightly so he could brush his fingers and lips against the exposed skin there in reassurance instead. Jace could only take a shuddering breath at the feeling and lost his tongue. Cregan’s hand felt like it burned on his shoulder, and kept lowering down his arm. If it got it across his waist and explored the rest of him so intently, he was going to notice the state Jace was in, so Jace had to say it before it was too much of a surprise.

“I’m having another child. It was the condition to bring Aemma here.”

Cregan’s fingers stopped stroking along his shoulder. “A condition? Set by?” If he said Daeron, his uncle would wake in the Stark crypts for the rest of his days, Jace could tell by the tone of his voice, guest right be damned.

“Aegon. Daeron hadn’t agreed, nor Aemond, this time.”

“This time?”

Jace took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started from the beginning, the choice Aegon put to him and Jace’s fears if he made the wrong one. Cregan kept quiet, listening, and holding him more closely as he continued. He omitted the vulgar details but Cregan understood what he skipped over, since two babes couldn’t have happened any other way. He explained in a way that it was clear to Cregan that they hadn’t been his choice, not in the way the rumors portrayed, and that Daeron was being as helpful as he possibly could be.

Finally he finished and Cregan was quiet for a few moments. He hadn’t let go of Jace. “You didn’t ask for any of this,” he said, repeating what he said in the godswood. It was like he hadn’t listened to a word Jace said.

“I did, my lord,” he said quietly. For the first time, he wished Cregan was some other designation. He wanted to know his mind without asking so he could know if Cregan was more distressed or angry or disgusted and respond in a way to alleviate his worries.

“You didn’t want any of this,” Cregan said instead. Jace wished he hadn’t. He wished he could agree, but he couldn’t make himself entirely forget what his heats and confinement had felt like, the thrill of his body pressed against someone else’s. They made me want it, he thought, but it sounded pathetic in his head so he didn’t say anything.

Cregan realized he wasn’t going to say anything, so he asked a question he must’ve wanted to ask from the start. “The story about you and Daeron–that was one of the rumors I heard. Why do you protect them so?”

“It’s not them I seek to protect, Cregan. It’s you. You and everyone else I have left. I didn’t want you marching after me. You know as well as anyone we can’t have another war now. You know better, in fact.” No one knew how long the winter would last, and even in the best circumstance, a war had to be provisioned, its men marched and fed and clothed. It would be taking the food out of the mouths of the people of the North if Cregan were to do anything rash, and they both knew it. Alyn, Baela, and Joffrey had different options available to them, being able to turn to the sea for their protection and needs on Driftmark, but Cregan and the rest of the North were isolated in the worst way.

Cregan held his silence upon hearing that. Jace was right, unfortunately, and Cregan couldn’t argue with him. “What is it that you wish me to do, then? I asked after you wrote me that story, and you never said.”

It was so much easier to answer such a question with him knowing the truth. “I burnt the letter you sent me after I told you. I truly didn’t see what you had written. I was scared of what you might have said.”

“Oh, Jacaerys,” Cregan breathed into his hair with a sigh. “What did you have to be scared of?”

You, he thought, but he decided against saying it. “What you might have thought of me. It made me look quite silly, didn’t it?”

“It seemed an odd situation to me,” Cregan said carefully, not agreeing with Jace. “What did you think I’d write back to you?”

He hardly would’ve put quill to paper and call him a stupid whore, but there were more genteel ways of saying such things. “I thought. I thought you’d be disappointed in me somehow. I thought whatever understanding we had reached before wasn’t true anymore.” He still hadn’t turned to look at Cregan, picking at the furs nervously. Cregan covered his hand like he had years ago. He was so warm pressed against Jace.

“I promised you a place here, as long as I lived. That hasn’t changed,” he said.

“A place, aye. The dogs in the kennel have their place, my lord, as do–”

“Have I been so inscrutable, Jace? Let me remedy that, then,” he said, interrupting Jace. He brushed his hair aside carefully and kissed the back of his neck. “I want to marry you. I want to be your husband. I want you to be mine, and I to be yours in turn. Are my intentions clearer now?” Jace couldn’t speak upon hearing this. He wanted to hear Cregan’s words in his mind forever, and not chase the sound of them away with his own voice. But he’d have to speak eventually. He tried to memorize exactly what he just heard before continuing.

“You deserve better than what I can now give you. As does my daughter,” he said quietly. Cregan squeezed him carefully, minding his belly.

“I want you, Jace, not what you think you can give me. You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”

“Can’t I? How could you still want me, Cregan?” It was hard to believe; he’d been sullied and Cregan knew the truth of it unlike anyone outside of the Red Keep. He couldn’t see what a marriage to him could bring Cregan other than jests and judgment.

“Because you are still that same man who flew up here asking for the North’s help, the man who earned my respect with his heart and honesty.”

He’d flown up to ask for help on Mother’s behalf to win a war. He couldn’t fly anymore, he didn’t have a mother, and they had lost that war. Cregan was speaking about someone long since gone and refused to admit it. “I don’t remember being that man.”

“You are. If you don’t remember you can believe me.” Jace had to turn and bury his face in Cregan’s chest; he desperately wanted to believe him, and couldn’t let himself. “I have the dragonglass whenever you’re ready.”

Cregan could cut to the heart of any matter. Northern bluntness, true, but as a beta, he had to rely on his words. He couldn’t smell distress or despair or confusion, he simply asked and trusted Jace to tell the truth. Jace hardly trusted himself to tell it anymore but he didn’t have to play games with Cregan, or account for decades of hurt. If Cregan could be honest with him, it was the least he could do to be honest in return.

“You can’t respect me anymore. I gave up.”

“You were in an impossible position. Many people owe their lives to the terms you accepted. I owe my life to the terms you accepted. Not one of us can forget that.” He didn’t disagree with what Jace said, he noticed absently.

“But if I called, you would have come?”

“Yes.”

“I should have. You should have continued the march south.”

Cregan said nothing, just kissed along where a mating bite would go. “They would have killed you.”

“I keep dreaming I died in the Gullet. I was supposed to.” Jace stopped, the unspeakable truth on his tongue. But if he couldn’t tell Cregan, who could he tell? “I wish I did.” Jace was cut off from continuing as Cregan silenced him with his thumb on Jace’s bottom lip.

“What would you have me do without you?” Cregan kissed along his jaw, beard tickling, then finally his mouth. Jace was in the godswood again, being cherished by Lord Stark. They clasped their hands together again, a pact renewed. It was their first kiss, and Jace knew he would remember it for the rest of his life.

He looked at Cregan’s not so much larger hand against his. The scars on their palms had healed long ago, but he could still remember the feel of the cuts they made like they had done it earlier that day, and how their heart beats lined up. He hadn’t known hearts could do that before that day. The shock of pain then was invigorating, and he missed the feeling and what it represented. Cregan chose to have Jace’s blood in him, and remembering that made Jace feel powerful in a way he hadn’t in years.

Cregan, who could ally with anyone he wanted, had chosen him and his family. Would have become his family, however many years into the future, when their trueborn children were old enough to marry. Might still want to be his family, or so he said. He couldn’t mean it though, not anymore. Not after seeing how weak Jace was. He wasn’t one to spare anyone’s feelings but he was kind enough not to have mentioned how wretched he found Jace now. He’d be unable to hold his tongue for so long though. Jace pulled his hand away at the thought.

He didn’t want such thoughts to mar his visit. He’d make himself miserable and everyone else around him would be miserable as well. “Please forget what I told you while I’m here,” he said, whispering into Cregan’s ear. “Please don’t look at me and think of it.”

Cregan stiffened again next to him. It was an impossible thing to ask, he supposed. “I will,” he said quietly, kissing the side of his jaw.

Jace finally relaxed and allowed himself to feel how exhausted he was. The travel and emotion of the day caught up with him, and he was safe in Cregan’s arms, if only for this moment. He was about to doze off into a fitful sleep when heard Cregan say quietly, “Do you know how much I wish I could say the same as you?” Jace was startled back into wakefulness. Cregan answered Jace’s unspoken question. “That I could say I fought to save Willam, or Arra.” Both his brother and his wife had been carried off by illness. There was no fighting some things in this life, not with a sword or a dragon, at any rate.

“But I failed,” Jace whispered back. He didn’t want to argue with Cregan, but trying meant little and less. Trying got him the same as failing, why couldn’t Cregan see it?

“You gave yourself a chance,” said Cregan, but he had taken too long to respond and Jace had already fallen into an uneasy sleep.

—-

Uneasy as it was, he slept deeply, and woke up alone. Cregan couldn’t lie about in bed the way Jace could, and probably left to attend to his lordly duties, and it was good enough motivation to get up himself. Jace got out of bed to see a hearty breakfast by the fireplace, kept warm for when he finally got up. He dug into the sausages, bread, and mushrooms and nearly finished the eggs when Cregan returned.

Cregan smiled down at the scene. The last time Jace visited, he’d impressed Cregan by how much he could eat. “It doesn’t really show, my prince,” he’d said, eying him with a small smile. “I don’t think we’d be able to host you over a hard winter.” Jace was able to read his face enough by that point to know he was teasing him as a friend, and he ate an extra egg in response, which got Cregan to laugh.

“Do you want to see the eggs? You must tell me which one she’ll have,” he asked once Jace finished up. Jace nodded excitedly. Since all his clothes were taken to be laundered, Cregan gave him his own clothes to wear, from when he was younger and a little shorter. They were certainly more suited to the climate than Jace’s were, and made him look like a northerner, but he also supposed the man just liked to see Jace in his own things, the same way Aemond or Daeron liked it in the Red Keep. He looked quite satisfied as he helped Jace put on one of his cloaks, and then they both headed out of the room and into the courtyard.

The springs underneath Winterfell had different entrances based on what they were getting used for. There was an entrance to maintain the pipes that flowed the hot water through the walls and that filled the baths in the castle, as well an entrance within the castle with steps that led down to pools where people could luxuriate for a longer time in something deeper than a tub. The entrance Cregan was leading him through was disguised as part of the kitchen, a false door in the pantry that hid the stairs they went down.

He couldn’t see the eggs through the steam of the hot springs, and he’d already started to sweat under the clothes he had on. Cregan pulled the brazier from where it hung closer to them both, and the five eggs came into view. An echo of Vermax sang to him in his chest when he saw them, and he had to clutch his chest for a moment at the pang of it. He didn’t know which one to pick, and he didn’t know how to choose. Mother would know, or Rhaena, or Luke. His hand hovered over one after the other, until he stopped at an opalescent egg. He stopped because he was surprised by a fluttering in his belly right then, the first movement of any kind he felt from this babe. He couldn’t read any signs; that was a bit of mysticism he had no head for. He didn’t take this as a sign either, but.

But it was as good a choice as any. “This one. She’ll have this one.” Cregan nodded and gently swung the brazier back over the steaming heat. As soon as he and Daeron were gone, Cregan would pick it back out and place it with his daughter in her crib, the only gift Jace could give her that meant anything. Not Thea or anyone else in Winterfell would breathe a word of it to an outsider, Jace was certain. His only concern was what would happen, after, if there was an after worth speaking of.

“If it should hatch–”

“When it hatches, my prince.”

Jace smiled weakly at Cregan. The man had an infectious belief in him, and his daughter, apparently. “When it hatches, I’d not see you eaten out of home and hearth or burned for your kindness. Write to me about how well a hunt of yours went, and I’ll find a way to send help here, food and maybe a dragonkeeper to aid you.”

Baela and Alyn could help with the food. Many of the dragonkeepers had died during the war, but enough survived to tend to Tessarion, Vhagar, and Morning. He’d have to think about how he’d get even one up north, but he had the time to think about it. One wouldn’t be needed for years, even in the most optimistic case.

Cregan said, “Aye, a hunt. Although I don’t know if food would be so necessary. This winter hasn’t been anywhere near as cold as the last one I remember. Who is to say if it won’t end before the creature needs to be fed? But one must prepare for the worst, of course.”

Cregan was right–the winter had been oddly mild. The forty foot snow drifts he warned Jace about didn’t seem to be even ten feet high, and the flight wasn’t as brutal as Daeron or Jace anticipated. One day they actually started sweating under the furs. He thought Cregan had been exaggerating the extremity of the winter up north, but then Lady Darry and Lord Locke had also confirmed what he’d said, with their longer memories taken into account as well. But like he also said, it could turn for the worse easily. It all seemed like quite a bit of prediction for something that very well might not come true, so he only nodded and went back up the stairs, taking Cregan’s arm to steady it although he didn’t really need it.

—

Aemma was missing from the nursery when he got there to see her. One of the servants informed him that she had been taken by Daeron and they seemed to be wandering around Winterfell with Thea. He found them in the kennels, where Aemma was fascinated by the dogs and the noises they made, and where Harlan the kennelmaster was kind enough to show her a puppy that was the runt of his litter, and who couldn’t even bite, he was so weak. Daeron seemed shocked by the outfit Jace had on, but found his tongue eventually. “Do you want a puppy, my love?” Daeron asked Aemma, as if she’d really answer. Thea was less enthused about the prospect of minding a dog alongside a babe but wisely kept her silence.

Jace looked up at Cregan hopefully. “Would you mind a dog running underfoot?”

“No, although I suppose Lady Thea recalls too well a dinner we once had where one ran her over as she tried to take a tankard of ale to her father.”

She smiled wryly at him at the memory. “I only hope this one proves to be better mannered than that cur was. I’d prefer to be run over when my hands are empty, thank you,” she said to the dog.

“That one will be for Aemma and Rickon. See to it he learns not to shred every rug,” Cregan said as he nodded to Harlan once, who bowed in reply.

The mention of the boy made Jace worried. Once they walked out of the kennel, he found a more private spot where he could ask Cregan, “Your son won’t be too upset by the girl?”

“He’ll learn not to be upset if he is,” he said, but Jace couldn’t help his face from falling at the answer and Cregan pulled him closer to embrace him. Jace felt some of his worries vanish, but not all of them. “He’s young. He’ll hardly remember a day without her here, I promise.”

Jace had loved growing up with his brothers and sisters, but he also knew how resentfulness could fester and turn malignant easily enough between children. He hardly thought any such behavior would find the encouragement found in the Red Keep, but he didn’t think he was being absurd given his experience. Cregan saw how bothered Jace seemed and came up with an idea.

Rickon was with the maester in the Great Hall, reading a simple history of the North aloud, stopping when the group all entered. Cregan gestured to Daeron and he got the meaning quickly enough, putting Aemma into the lord’s arms.

“Rickon, Prince Daeron and Prince Jacaerys will be leaving soon enough, but Aemma will be staying with us.” Rickon sat up a little straighter in his chair, looking at the babe with more interest. “Will you help me and Lady Thea and Maester Hendrys take care of her? Since we’re all older, it’s our duty to do so.” That seemed to get him excited, the idea that he was someone older and he had a shared responsibility with the adults in his life.

He nodded excitedly. “Yes, Father,” he said seriously, peering at the girl. He brought a hand towards her and let her grab at his finger, shaking her little hand solemnly. His wasn’t so much bigger than hers, to Jace.

“Thank you so much, Master Rickon. I’d like that very much,” Jace said, beaming at the boy.

Rickon looked away bashfully, and seemed to have lost his tongue. “He only does that for the pretty faces,” Cregan teased as he ruffled his son’s hair. “What do we say to ‘thank you’?”

“You’re welcome, my prince,” Rickon said, still turned away.

They were about to leave the boy to his lessons when he tugged on his father’s cloak. “Is she my sister now? Like Aunt Sara is your sister?”

Jace looked up to Cregan, who smiled. “Aye, a sister, like Aunt Sara is mine.” Rickon was pleased as he picked up his scroll and continued with his history and reading lesson, kicking his dangling feet in delight. Jace felt warmed through at the image, Cregan with his daughter in his arms and Rickon happy about the prospect of her being there. He startled at the feel of a hand on his elbow. It was Daeron, who was inscrutable in both his bearing and scent. He was hiding what he felt, for whatever reason. He let himself be escorted out of the Great Hall and towards the stables, where Daeron wanted to show Aemma the horses.

—

Daeron had spent the morning with Aemma, so after they saw the horses, Jace spent the early afternoon with her and Thea, going back to the nursery to play with them both and Thea’s recently weaned son Theo (“Why shouldn’t I name him after me?” she’d asked with a laugh) and then getting her to eat and nap. He could have spent hours watching Aemma sleep, frankly, catching up on lost time, but he did have a question for his uncle, so he set off to speak to him. He knew he’d find Daeron in the library, taking Cregan’s invitation up and perusing the titles for anything else he might have been missing.

“How have you enjoyed Winterfell so far, uncle?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s been marvelous here. Utterly marvelous. Have you seen the godswood? Like something out of a story. And Maester Hendrys is a marvel of his own.” Jace held his breath and waited to hear what else he had to say about the maester, and if he had been told about the dragon eggs in the springs, but Daeron only continued about how interesting their talk was, how it veered from dragons to clothes to myths. “I didn’t know a man of such imagination would be maester here.”

“I suppose Lord Stark values such a mind, to help him consider things that mightn’t occur to him alone. It speaks well of his own imagination too, I think.”

Daeron’s face fell at the mention of the man, but he recovered gracefully. “Just so. He’s certainly all that he’s been made out to be. I can see where his reputation comes from. Quite a character he has. Surprising to think he’s so near to our age.” He clearly didn’t want to keep talking about him, so he turned and pretended to keep looking at the bookshelves.

Jace tried to summon the courage to ask his question. He didn’t think Daeron would agree, but asking wouldn’t hurt, and if there were the slightest possibility Daeron would say yes, then any awkwardness would be worth it. “I’m happy we agree on that. I’m happy we agree it’s marvelous up here as well.” Daeron stilled where he was, hands frozen where they were on the bookshelf and back stiff. “Might it be possible to leave me here when you go back, uncle? I might stay only a moon or so, perhaps.”

Daeron turned to look at him and looked truly stricken at the request. “I’m sorry, Jace. That is out of the question. I worry about how my brothers are handling your absence already, as short as it has been. I fear the realm wouldn’t survive you staying for a moon, which would be quite the waste of all our efforts, wouldn’t it?” he said with a weak smile. Jace figured he would say as much, but it was still disappointing to hear, and he couldn’t hide his disappointment.

Daeron frowned and then looked thoughtful for a few moments, and came upon an idea. “It would be a shame to come up all this way and then not visit the Wall, though. I’d quite like to see Castle Black, come to think of it, always have.”

That would mean one or two more days with Cregan. Jace beamed at Daeron, and couldn’t help hugging him in joy. It felt like the happiest he’d been in years. Daeron smiled back slightly, but his scent was an odd mix of pleased and sour, and he could barely bring his arms up around Jace. “Thank you, uncle,” Jace said.

“Don’t thank me,” Daeron said faintly. Jace wasn’t hugging him anywhere near tight enough for his voice to sound so strangled, and he let go, squeezing his elbow in thanks instead. Daeron caught his eyes like he was about to repeat himself, and then shook his head softly as if to himself. He turned back around to the bookshelf, but caught Jace’s back with his hand as Jace turned to leave, pressing back slightly before letting him go.

—

Daeron announced his intention to leave for the Wall shortly after he mentioned it to Jace, planning to get there late at night. He politely refused to take an early dinner. “I’m afraid I can’t find my appetite at the moment, my lord,” he said, smiling at Cregan as he said his goodbyes in his solar. “I’ll be sure to eat well when I return, however, you have a very capable cook.” Tessarion was easy enough for Daeron and Jace to find, napping by the walls facing the wolfswood after hunting for boars and eating them as she pleased. Daeron didn’t look back as he got on her and took off, wings kicking up snow flakes as she got airborne.

There was a hint of a grin on the lord’s face when Jace returned inside Winterfell’s walls to Cregan. “I won’t ask what brought that on,” he said.

“You have some idea of where his interests lie. If he’s read about it in a book, he wants to see it,” Jace said, by way of explanation.

“It would be a pity to miss the Wall, then,” Cregan said, as he caught on. He seemed thoughtful as he considered the gesture, and held his tongue.

“And what of your interests, my lord?” Jace asked, pushing him playfully by the shoulder. He wanted Cregan to be as happy as he was in the moment.

“My interests are yours while you’re here, my prince,” he said. It wasn’t his intention, but he only made Jace more aware of how little time they’d have together, all told. Cregan might be able to neglect some of his duties to attend to Jace while he visited since it wouldn’t be a very long visit at all. Cregan wouldn’t like him so much if he showed him how morose he felt already, and he took a deep breath against the feeling. He was being unbearably silly, being in Winterfell with Cregan and already missing him.

Jace took his arm, thankful Cregan couldn’t detect his melancholy. “Very well. I have an insatiable need to know of your logging records for the past five years, my lord.”

Cregan looked at him twice in surprise before a startled laugh bubbled out of him. I’ve never heard that before, Jace thought, and his melancholy didn’t feel so heavy with the sound of it warming him as they went to see if Rickon was done with his lesson.

—

Their evening was enjoyable. With Jace explaining his relationship with Daeron to Cregan, he was sure another dinner with his uncle present wouldn’t have been so awkward, but it was undeniably less stilted without him there. Lady Gilliane was quieter than the night before, but Sara was there to keep the conversation going. It felt good to be treated like anyone else at the table, and dressed like anyone else, and not stared at for too long by anyone, at least not in a knowing way. The few stares he noticed in Winterfell were more curiosity for Targaryens in general and Daeron got looked at more, quite frankly; the Good Queen’s visit had been more than a generation ago, and there had been too much bustle in the castle last time he visited for everyone to have gotten a good look at him.

Once dinner ended, Jace followed Cregan to his bedroom again. There was something he wanted to show Cregan that he was too irrationally worried to show him while Daeron was still in the castle. They changed into their sleep clothes and robes, but didn’t go to bed immediately. Instead, they sat by the fire as Jace wrote out the instructions Aemma would need to command her dragon, and how to pronounce them.

He went through them with Cregan and hearing the language of his ancestors come out of Cregan’s mouth was a joy he hadn’t anticipated. Cregan was a quick study, and identified the commands when Jace said them easily enough, even if he needed more practice with certain sounds. “We can practice those again tomorrow,” he said with a kiss.

Cregan looked at him consideringly from where he was seated. “You must have full confidence in me remembering this all. I might need the reminder of how to say lee-kerry in five moons.”

“Lykirī,” Jace corrected quickly.

“See? Already I need your aid, my prince,” he said, standing and pulling Jace into arms. Jace got his arms around his neck.

“Very well,” he said, and went over the words again, giving Cregan a kiss for every one he identified correctly. When Cregan pronounced them well enough, he opened his mouth under Cregan’s, kissing deeply. Finally, he said the phrase, “Avy jorrāelan.”

Cregan mouthed the words after hearing them. “You haven’t taught me that one yet, my prince.”

“I haven’t, no. I’ll have to come back to tell you what it means, won’t I? You need the reminders, and it would be a shame to wait until you forgot them.” It was bravado he didn’t really feel. It had been a close run thing with Aemma, and who was to say if he’d be so lucky with the next babe? He wanted Cregan to get it right at this moment because Jace didn’t know if he’d ever come back, and he suspected Cregan had the same worry. Maybe if he said it, it might come true. He had to come back to tell Cregan he loved him in High Valyrian and in the Common Tongue. He had to survive that long. He tried to make himself believe it.

“Sound reasoning,” Cregan said, nodding. “Otherwise Aemma will tell the poor creature lee-kerry and I fear it will hardly be calmed by that.” Jace looked up at him. They were standing near the fireplace and the light from it made him look incredibly handsome.

Jace let his surge of hunger lead, and brought Cregan down for a kiss. He teased the man by turning his face so it landed on his cheek, and then did it a few more times as Cregan pretended to get frustrated, and tried to kiss him faster. He finally met the man’s mouth, and opened his own. Cregan’s hands tightened on his body, and Jace pressed against him, getting Cregan’s thigh between his legs and sighing into his mouth. The warmth from the fire paled in comparison to the warmth building in him everywhere he was pressed against Cregan. He shifted a leg and noticed that Cregan was stiffening already too, with just kissing.

He turned Cregan around to push him toward the bed. Cregan let himself be pushed, getting his robe and shirt off before lying back. Jace didn’t know what he wanted to do–he wanted to keep kissing him, and much more than kiss him, but then he wanted to keep looking at the man underneath him too, his muscles and his scars. He could start by taking off his own robe. Then he got a knee over Cregan’s hips and hovered over him, still deciding on what to do, when Cregan got a hand under his thigh. He could look later. He dropped some of his weight on Cregan as he kissed him again, grabbing Cregan’s hand on his thigh and pushing it under his nightshirt, and then slipping his hand down the waistband of Cregan’s threadbare trousers.

Cregan pulled Jace’s hand off him and pushed him off. “I’d not use you roughly,” he said regretfully. Not like the others used him, he meant.

“But I want you.” He surprised himself as he said it. He’d never been so genuinely forward with anyone else before, he didn’t think. He didn’t think he could be. What did it say about him, that he still could be after what his uncles did to him? Whore, he thought, and the shame of it curdled in his mouth. He’d just told Cregan yesterday night everything that had happened to him, too. What did he expect the man to think of him now? He couldn’t forget that much about him so quickly.

Cregan was silent for a few moments. He was probably thinking the same as Jace. Jace was ready to apologize for the request when Cregan leaned in and kissed him once more, unlacing his trousers and pushing the waistband down. “Like this,” Cregan said, turning Jace to his side and slotting behind him, pulling the furs over them. Jace tugged his nightshirt up, and he could feel Cregan’s cock bump against his back before moving down. “Keep your thighs together,” he said, as he pushed between them with a groan.

“Too late for that advice, my lord.” Cregan tsked at him in admonishment.

Cregan didn’t need any sort of oil, Jace was so wet, and they were getting sweaty besides. His cock slid easily against Jace’s cunt, the head of it bumping against Jace’s balls as he pushed forward. Both of them gasped at the feeling, the thrill of something new and wanted igniting in them, between them, swallowing them up together. Jace found Cregan’s hand at his side and he linked their fingers together, Cregan gasping into his ear and squeezing his hand before letting go to grab at his hip. Jace brought his hand up to wind his fingers through Cregan’s hair instead, tugging on it gently as Cregan moved behind him.

Jace hadn’t known desire could feel this uncomplicated. Cregan’s thrusts were losing their rhythm, and his loss of control made Jace’s toes curl. Cregan was still only in between his thighs but Jace felt owned, down to his marrow, both of them under the furs and sweating under the warmth they built. Every hard brush of Cregan’s cock against his clit and balls shocked him, Cregan’s free hand touching him everywhere he could reach, gentle strokes along his chest and cock and thighs. Finally he set his hand out in front of Jace to brace himself, and started thrusting harder, chasing their finish.

He untangled his hand from Cregan’s hair and moved the hand Cregan had braced against the bed to the soft swell on his belly. He turned his head to Cregan and whispered, “You’ll do this to me one day, won’t you?” He tightened his thighs and that was all Cregan needed to peak with a grunt against his ear, hot come coating Jace’s thighs and cock. That was all Jace needed as well, the thought of Cregan someday slipping his cock in and making his own claim taking him over the edge.

He wanted Cregan in him, but he already was, the blood in his veins pumping along until he died. He wanted Cregan to change him, but he already had, the one scar he ever chose shared on their palms. He wanted Cregan to fuck him again already, he realized, hiding a shocked laugh against the pillow. What did that make him? Insatiable, he thought. His uncles might have been right about him, and he felt sick in the place where he’d just felt giddy excitement.

He brought a hand down to where Cregan’s come was pooled on the skin of his thighs, and gathered what he could. Jace brought his hand up to his mouth, and moaned as he licked it clean. The clamor in his head still did not quiet down. He’s seen the real you, a desperate whore, why would he want to marry you? Cregan pulled his hand away and kissed him, kissed the taste of his own come out Jace’s mouth and the wretched thoughts out of Jace’s head. Jace wanted to do this forever.

—

Jace slept in again. He felt Cregan wake up and leave the bed but Cregan kissed him before he left his chamber and that settled him back down. But the raised voices through the slightly open door to Cregan’s solar were enough to wake him up a few hours later. He had a mind to ignore it until he heard his name. Eavesdroppers rarely heard well of themselves but he hardly heard well of himself when spoken to his face these days. He’d take his chances overhearing. He got up and put a robe on, and crept toward the door quietly to hear better.

He heard Lady Gilliane say, “Stop toying with the boy already.” There was a dangerous rattle of a cup against a saucer as she said it.

“I do not toy with the man, Mother.” Cregan’s correction made Jace blush, and he was glad there was no one in the room to see it.

She laughed at his correction. “At my age, you’re all still boys to me. You know the Blackwood girl would be a more suitable marriage prospect.”

“I also know she’s more interested in Lady Sabitha and the pleasures of maidenhood,” Cregan said, with a smile in his voice. Jace had heard rumors enough of Black Aly, and the fondness Cregan evidently held for her was merited. He had no doubt it could grow to something more if given the opportunity, and Lady Gilliane had no doubt herself, apparently.

“Understandably so,” she said wryly, “But such pleasures inevitably end for lords and ladies of consequence. You’re far too old to play the fool in such a matter.” There was a slight rattle of ceramic against something hard, so she must’ve put her cup of tea back down.

“I barely even know the girl, Mother. We’ve exchanged a greeting and a goodbye at most, and it was barely a goodbye with the way our forces were moving. She wouldn’t have enough love for me to propose a marriage, or for her to accept.”

She scoffed at that. “You think we marry solely for love, my lord? You have your name to consider, your banners, your son–”

“All of which Jace would be able to manage ably and whole-heartedly,” Cregan said, with no doubt in his voice.

“It isn’t his ability I have my doubts about, nor his heart. He was a prince before, no one can deny that. Everyone knows what he is now in the Red Keep. No one can deny that either. Can you keep the respect of your banners with him as a husband?” Cregan was quiet. “Is he someone you would want Rickon to marry, if he were a man grown?”

Silence followed her question. She wasn’t wrong. Cregan oughtn’t lower himself by offering for Jace’s hand, Jace told him as much already. It was good he heard it from someone else. He should have agreed with her, but he couldn’t find the will to raise his voice to do so in time. “If Rickon could marry someone with half the fortitude, half the honesty, and half the fire of Jacaerys Velaryon, I would consider the boy very blessed indeed. Please Mother, I will not be moved from my course.” Jace felt warm all over at the words, foolish as they were.

She sighed resignedly. This was a discussion they must’ve had before. She probably thought seeing the reality of what he had turned into might have changed Cregan’s mind. Jace thought the same thing. He walked as silently as he could back to the bed so he could get back under the covers and pretend to be asleep before Cregan got back in, preferably to wake him up with another kiss.

Jace finally did scramble out of bed shortly after though, and sadly without a kiss, because the sheets certainly had to be laundered after the night they had, and Cregan had apparently asked for them to be washed. The laundresses giggled behind the door from the sight of him flailing trying to cover himself up, not unkindly, and he changed quickly so he could leave them to their work, smiling back at them as he left. The giggles turned into shy blushes, and their curtsies were respectful, even though they didn’t have to do them anymore. It felt like a good start to his day.

The rest of the day passed pleasantly too, he was thankful to see. It almost felt like the type of day he might have all the time if he stayed with Cregan. He spent some of it with Aemma, carrying her around the castle to explore with her again as Cregan saw to settling some disputes in the winter town. Then it was time for her nap, so he went and intruded on Rickon’s lessons in the Great Hall and compared how he was taught about the history of the Seven Kingdoms to what the boy was hearing. It mostly lined up in facts, with some new ones about Northern alliances Jace hadn’t heard about before, but the interpretation was different than what he’d ever heard.

Maester Hendrys kept darting his eyes at him as he spoke to RIckon about what the Targaryens meant to the North, and what made the King Who Knelt so different from the other lords in the realm at the time of the Conquest. Jace had to calm the older man’s nerves, saying, “I can hardly burn you for your words anymore, now can I? And they wouldn’t say I’m in the family anymore either.” He hated the note of bitterness with which he said the last part, but thankfully Rickon seemed to have missed it. Still, the maester was sensitive enough to Jace’s situation to change the subject, changing the lesson to Rickon’s numbers.

Cregan was pleased to see them all together when he returned. “How is Rickon faring, in your view?”

The boy’s eyes widened at the question and he was agog looking at Jace waiting for his answer. Jace smiled gently at him. “Quite well. Better than I did at his age. He is an heir to be very proud of,” Jace said. Rickon’s smile got wider and he beamed at his father. “He needs to keep working hard at his lessons though.” Jace looked seriously at the boy as he said it, and Rickon’s face got serious in turn as he nodded in agreement.

“I will, Prince Jacaerys,” he said.

Maester Hendrys approved of the scene as well, and got up, beckoning the boy with him. “Very sage advice, my prince. That also means your lessons in the yard, lad.” Rickon jumped out of his chair in excitement, bowing quickly and nearly running out to the courtyard to train with his blunted steel sword.

They were then nearly alone in the Great Hall, with some of the servants cleaning and tending to the fire. Cregan leaned over and spoke into his ear, “I do believe Lady GIlliane is in her quarters, and my sister in the glass gardens. Would you like to visit the very likely empty library with me?” Jace got damp between the legs just from the tenor of his voice.

He nodded shakily. “I’d like that very much,” he said, giving him a small kiss. They could hardly run to the room the way Rickon ran to the yard, but it felt quite tempting the whole walk there.

—

The day ended pleasantly too. The dinner that night was intimate, just Cregan and Jace in his solar, then they got in the bed and spoke for hours. Jace asked the questions he’d wondered about since the first time he visited Winterfell. He learned that Cregan thought himself quiet and shy as a boy, and Jace told himself to ask Lady Gilliane if he wasn’t exaggerating a bit. He learned that his marriage to Arra was what he’d hoped his own marriage to Baela would look like, the friendship and closeness they had in childhood turning into a married couple’s intimacy.

They even shared some similar guilt over a stolen future, the promised one Jace took from Baela and the possibility of any RIckon’s birth took from Arra. It was so easy to think Cregan shouldn’t have blamed himself for Arra’s death. Why then did it feel impossible for Jace to think the same about himself, he wondered. But he held his tongue; he did ask Cregan to forget what had happened to him.

“And you? I’ve only ever known the man,” Cregan asked with a small grin.

“True enough. I suppose I was quite serious,” he said, and then stopped himself. He didn’t want to think of himself as a boy. He’d only think of the things he’d ought to have done differently, how none of this would have happened if he’d been smarter or faster or knew better when there was still enough time for things to change in their favor. He took a shuddering breath, trying to collect himself.

Cregan wound his fingers into his hair without pulling or hurting him. “I’m glad that hasn’t changed,” he said, kissing his nose lightly.

Jace smiled at him weakly. “I don’t think it can, my lord,” he said.

They got tired eventually, and readied to go to sleep. Before they did, however, there was the creak of the door and the light steps of Rickon enter. “May I stay with you tonight?” he asked, looking at them both hopefully.

Cregan turned to Jace as he explained, “He likes to share his grandmother’s bed most but occasionally asks me, when he remembers I exist.” Rickon looked shameless at this explanation of his preference, smiling widely and nodding at his father in agreement.

Jace didn’t say anything, just moved over. Cregan moved to the middle and Rickon got under the covers in his spot. “He thinks I keep that spot warm just for him,” he said, pretending to grouse. Rickon gave his father a kiss on the forehead and the exaggerated frown on Cregan’s face disappeared as he pulled the boy into his arms, Rickon’s laughs fading as they all fell asleep.

—

Rickon woke up first, and was quite insistent on Cregan and Jace waking up at the same time as well. They broke their fast together before Rickon started his lessons. Cregan’s duties for the day kept him inside with Jace and Aemma. They were in his solar, going through the letters sent to him from his banners.

“The Crown decided to raise taxes, and I sent ravens to my banners asking them about the state of their accounts,” Cregan said, explaining the disordered state of his desk. “Maester Hendrys took a look at their responses and was kind enough to leave his notes for me.” The desk had a map of the North on it, and the letters were placed in the space of the lands that corresponded to the lord or lady from which they came.

Jace hadn’t known that. Daeron had kept it from him, probably because he was overruled on the matter in council and hadn’t wanted to give Jace the idea that he could change the minds of his brothers. He was annoyed on his behalf, and Cregan’s; it was absurd to raise taxes at the start of winter, even with the incremental increases they were asking for, at least for the North. There was hardly anything to tax, with the way trade decreased with the snows and ice, and the harvest tax had already been collected.

How much did that Myrish lace cost, or the necklace in Cregan’s drawer, he wondered. He tried not to get angry with his daughter in his arms, but it was hard not to, when even his humiliation had a price others had to pay.

The lords and ladies had submitted what Cregan asked for, and the maester had given his recommendations, written in the margins of those letters. The final say would be Cregan’s however, and he would make the decision with the weight it deserved.

“What options do you have?” Jace asked.

“We could lie, and say we have less than what we actually have,” he said easily, knowing he didn’t have to worry about Jace telling them such a thing. “But is it worth risking raising King Aegon’s ire by sending less than what he expects when his vindictiveness is known?”

“I will try to intercede with them on your behalf, my lord,” Jace began, but Cregan’s grimace kept him from speaking further.

“You needn’t do anything on my behalf, Jace. You’ll be busy enough–” he gestured at Jace’s stomach, “–without needing to attend to my own concerns.”

“I’d like to,” he started, and then stopped when he couldn’t continue with his next thought. Let me be useful to you, he thought, but Cregan wouldn’t have liked that. He’d do it anyway, regardless of Cregan’s wishes, and Cregan seemed to realize it from the look on his face.

He shook his head, but his small smile belied his feelings. “More stubborn than a mule,” he said with a huff as he moved over. “Come here, then, and have a better idea of our situation.” Jace shot up and stood next to Cregan, handing Aemma over to him so he could lean over and read the letters and the notes on the desk. The map had its own notes as well regarding land use, Cregan’s and the maester’s that he could recognize, and an unfamiliar hand as well, all in dialogue with each other.

Jace turned to Cregan, and Cregan could see the question on his face. “My father’s notes. Thankfully Bennard never added any of his own, else I’d have to draw over them, and add hills and trees where there aren’t any,” he said dryly. Jace could barely hide a laugh behind his hand.

Jace read all of it, asking questions all the while, and Cregan ably answering them while he played with Aemma. Jace had been educated on the basics, had known timber and wool were the goods the North was reliant on, but seeing this level of detail, down to the acreage used for the different activities indicated, was new to him. He’d already gotten some ideas he wanted to ask Cregan about, and how they could be facilitated, but there seemed to be one single glaring problem that would impact any idea he had. He’d only seen the Kingsroad noted as the major route in the North, with the offshoots marked in a lighter color.

Cregan let out a heavy sigh when Jace asked about the state of the roads. “That has been a longstanding problem. The Kingsroad is hardly fit to be called one in the spring, the muddy mess it is, and the less said about the roads leading to it, the better. We spend time and coin maintaining the Kingsroad, and we hardly have any left over to improve it, much less expand it. And the lords and ladies all want the routes to pass a particular way, of course.”

“Are the lords and ladies so quarrelsome? And would Lord Manderly prevent a better road if it would impact his own trade?”

“No, Lord Manderly wouldn’t mind a better road. Traders would want to go to White Harbor regardless, with the network of merchants and ships already there. And I have no doubt we all could reach some sort of accord as to the placement of routes. The real problem is that we don’t have enough people for such an endeavor, never have. Lord Manderly tried to pay for some improvements on his own this past summer but there weren’t enough people to work on it. Anyone in the North who could work on the road would be needed more on their farm or in the forest.” This would be especially true now, when taxes were increasing and they would need to send more coin or wool or timber to King’s Landing, and the last two being easier to come by.

Jace was able to see his meaning. “And any elder who might have been able to work, however slowly or feebly, didn’t live through the winter so as not to eat through your food so quickly.”

“Aye, exactly.”

“I can speak to some of the council members about this as well–”

Cregan interrupted him. “You needn’t–” Cregan stopped to reconsider the words he’d use. “Don’t put yourself in their debt on my account.”

“This is something to take seriously. It wouldn’t be them doing a favor for us. They’re interested in getting more out of the North.” Cregan acquiesced to the point, and Jace noticed belatedly he was thinking of the North as ‘us’.

An idea came to him. “Could we use some of the wildlings, perhaps? Ask them to come down and work here on the road?”

Cregan looked very skeptical. “It would be hard to convince everyone involved, in truth. None of my banners would want them here and I doubt any wildling would want to work at something that might look to threaten them even the slightest bit more.” He wasn’t wrong about that–if goods could leave the North more easily because of the improved roads, armies and weapons would certainly be able to move more easily as well. How were the wildlings to know they wouldn’t be used against them? Jace could hardly tell Cregan the armies would be for a threat far larger than wildlings; he’d sound ridiculous saying so.

“What if I were the one to recommend it to them?”

Cregan still looked skeptical, only less so. “They might be a little more willing to consider the idea if it came from you,” he admitted.

Jace’s face fell at the look on his face. “Because I’m a silly omega.”

“No, because you, like your alpha uncle, are a silly southerner.” That shocked a laugh out of Jace, and Aemma laughed along with him.

“Well, in that case,” he said with a grin he couldn’t suppress, “I can’t help being one.”

“You can’t,” Cregan agreed. “For now. Live here with me for ten years, and then people may judge you for saying such a thing. Not like you, my dear,” he said, looking down at Aemma. “You’ll be a Northern girl through and through, and you won’t have an ounce of silliness in you.”

He tickled her and she screamed in delight, making the point a little less convincing, but Jace had to take a breath at the thought anyway. Cregan was right, in his way–her accent would be different than Jace’s, her bedtime stories would be different than his, even the design and cut of her clothes different than what he’d known as a boy. She’d be nothing like him. It was for the best, of course. If he never returned, all she’d have of him were his eyes. He only hoped they wouldn’t give her as much trouble as they gave him. He looked back at them and tried to enjoy the sight, instead of starting to miss them already.

—

It was time for bed again, and Jace was happily curled into Cregan’s side. Jace, notwithstanding some of his more melancholy moments, had grown used to the routine of spending his days in Winterfell and felt quite settled in already. He didn’t need novelty or to be constantly entertained, but after his night at Castle Cerwyn, he did have some curiosity about one thing. “I have a question. Why didn’t you mention your custom about counting beams when I first visited you? I only learned it because Daryn mentioned it to me.”

Cregan looked at him with a hint of amusement. “Custom? Hmph. More of a superstition, truth be told. It only works the first night under a new roof, so I only had the one time I could tell you.”

“Then why not tell me the first night?”

Cregan blushed under his beard. “I didn’t want to seem like such a bumpkin to you, with your southron ways. What would you have thought of me if I told you such a thing the first night here?”

Jace chuckled against his chin. “Fair enough. I might have wanted to make a wish though.”

Cregan looked down at him thoughtfully and then seemed to come to a decision, rolling out of bed and putting out the fire in the fireplace. He put on his own robe and then helped Jace put on his own. “Come,” he said, and Jace took his arm and let him guide him out of the room, torch in hand. They went down the hallway to another room, cold and unused, and Cregan lit the fire there instead.

They both curled up together in the bed, warming it and each other quickly enough. “What was that for?”

“Your new roof…or ceiling, more like it. You haven’t seen these beams yet, have you?” He hadn’t. He stayed in a different room during his last visit.

“Does it work that way, my lord?”

“I don’t know, my prince. You’ll have to make your wish and see.”

Jace made a show of pretending to think. “I wish you’d kiss me.”

“Make a better one–I was going to do that already.” Cregan pushed him over so Jace was under him, and made good on his declaration.

—

Later, when they were tired and sweaty and Jace felt the slightest twinge in his right thigh, he peeked out of the bed curtains to count the beams. One, two, three, four. He went to sleep with his wish on his mind.

—

Jace and Cregan had to wash after the night they spent. Things got perhaps a little too heated and they both reeked of sweat, their own and each other’s. Jace loved the hot springs when he visited the first time, and he was looking forward to using them again. The tubs in the castle had hot water piped to them and they had been bathing in those, but the pools felt like true luxury. He and Cregan were in the room in the castle where they could change into robes, collect their towels, and take the stone steps down into the caves with the hot springs for bathing underneath the castle. They were changing out of their clothes when a servant sheepishly opened the door and announced Prince Daeron’s return.

“I heard you were going to the hot springs. I’d heard so much about them, and I find I have need of them now, after my trip to the Wall. May I join you?” he asked Cregan hopefully.

“Aye, my prince,” Cregan said stiffly. He could hardly refuse a guest, as much as he wanted to refuse this one at this particular time. “Follow us.”

The springs they used for washing were closer to where the stairs let them out, while the ones they were using for the eggs were set more deeply through the tunnels, hotter and larger than the ones used for washing. There was no chance Daeron would see them, but Jace couldn’t help his twist of nerves as they all entered the bathing cave.

Daeron’s eyes were wide, and he stopped walking to take the pipes and stonework in with wonder. He peppered Cregan with questions, good ones by the thoughtful way Cregan was answering. “If only Longstrider had seen this!” he said.

Cregan smiled in spite of himself. “I don’t know if he considered a castle’s heating comparable to the Wall, my prince, as wondrous as it is. He was meant to have visited during his travels north, much like yourself. There was a rumor he included it in the second volume–”

“The lost one? For the lesser marvels?” Daeron interrupted, excitedly.

“Aye, the very one. But Brandon Wildbane, he hadn’t wanted the man to roam so freely in the heart of the castle, when he’d been making eyes at Lady Glenys the way he had been. Either he kicked him out or threw his notes in a pool, the story goes. Northmen do not take competing suitors lightly.” He smiled at Daeron grimly, who met Cregan’s eyes steadily and smiled back tightly.

“I didn’t hear that part of the story,” was all he said in response.

They got to the pool and they all stripped, setting their robes aside neatly and entering the warm water. The two men made a move towards Jace, stopping when they saw the other one move. He bit back a smile and parted his hair neatly in two. Never let it be said he wasn’t fair. Cregan got on his right and Daeron got on his left, and they washed their own sides of Jace’s hair, brushing out the tangles with their fingers. They were both good at it, neither of them tugging or pulling painfully.

When they were done, he waded away from them both and rested on his own ledge. He asked Daeron about his trip to the Wall, and his thoughts on it, and Cregan was at ease enough to answer some of the questions Daeron had about it. Daeron had asked similar ones up in Castle Black, and he didn’t know if the responses he got were real or if they were exaggerated to tease him or get more resources out of the Crown. It was quite nice, sharing a bath like any other man, laughing and joking and not being judged on things he couldn’t control.

By the end of the bath, it was clear even Daeron and Cregan seemed to tolerate each other better, if not outright get along. Jace didn’t think their pride or jealousy would allow for a true brotherhood to form, but they were trying to be amiable, which was all he could ask for. What mattered was that they seemed to trust each other’s judgment, their daughter staying with Cregan and Jace staying with Daeron, which to Jace seemed to be the truest show of respect either could make to the other.

Daeron made the first move to leave. He wanted to see Aemma and he wanted to pick out more titles from the library. Jace thought about staying, but then he noticed how wrinkled his hands had gotten, and figured it was a good enough time to leave as well. They toweled themselves off, but the steam billowing from the pools made the effort seem futile, and then got their robes back on to go up the stairs. They collected their clothes and Daeron looked like he was about to say something, but then he saw Cregan’s hand in the small of Jace’s back. “I’ll see you at dinner, nephew,” he said before blushing and leaving to his room.

When they got to Cregan’s bedroom, he unwrapped his hair as he laid on the rug by the fire to dry it out, feeling drowsy from the warmth of the fire after the heat of the spring. Cregan seemed like he’d move to do the same but stopped halfway down, kneeling by Jace. Jace blinked up at Cregan, who was looking down fondly. “Next to me,” he demanded, tugging on Cregan’s arm.

“Not yet,” Cregan said, stroking Jace’s face. “Let me look at you first. I’d like a picture of you, just like this. Just for me. Perfect. All mine.” All his, with another man’s babe in his belly. Was the lie for himself or for Jace? It didn’t matter in the moment. It felt true enough. Jace brought Cregan’s hand to his lips to kiss.

“All yours, my lord.” Cregan licked his lips unthinkingly when Jace agreed, and seemed to come to a decision.

“Can you turn around?” Jace turned over, and Cregan arranged him to his liking, with his face on the rug and his ass in the air.

“I wanted to do this in the springs. Perhaps I should have done it,” he said thoughtfully, before bringing his mouth down on Jace’s ass, tongue pressing against his entrance. Jace cried out before he could stop himself, hands working uselessly against the fur of the rug. He had no need to stop himself, he realized, and kept his hands where they were. Come to think of it, he would quite like for Cregan to know how much he enjoyed what he did to Jace.

He let himself push back against Cregan’s mouth, and when one of Cregan’s hands started to stroke Jace’s cock, he couldn’t help the gasps he let out, or the way his hips moved between the two feelings, thrusting for more of Cregan’s hand or his mouth. He reached his finish quickly enough, but if Cregan needed Jace for anything, he was out of luck. Jace felt so drained he didn’t think he could move a finger. He worked on moving his mouth, trying to regain the feeling in his face, when he felt a warmth on his lower back, some of it dripping down his ass.

He turned his head as best he could and saw Cregan look back at him sheepishly, face red and his cock getting softer, glistening at the tip. He reached back to run his fingers against it lightly, and a few more drops came out, Cregan hissing in feigned pain. If it truly hurt it was easy enough to pull away, but he let Jace touch him as much as he wanted, and Jace got to lick the come off his fingers when he was done.

Cregan finally did get down next to Jace, pulling him so he could lie on his side after taking off his own robe and using it to clean up Jace’s back. He still felt seared where the come had landed on him though, and the swipes of fabric against his skin had been half-hearted. “We might need to take another bath,” he said drowsily into Cregan’s chest.

“We might,” he agreed. “Sleep first.” He nodded and the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Cregan, looking down on him fondly, fanning out Jace’s hair for him so it could dry better.

—

Daeron’s arrival cast a pall on the dinner that night. Not in terms of rapport–they all found a way of talking to each other pleasantly enough, and enjoyed each other’s company, but in terms of what it meant. It meant that the visit was over and that the next day Daeron and Jace would be leaving for who knew how long. It was hard to fully enjoy Sara’s smile or Rickon’s chatter knowing it would be the last time he’d see or hear it for a while. He found it hard to eat and by the state of the other plates on the table, so did others.

Dinner felt like it ended far too soon, and Sara and Rickon looked sad to say goodnight to him. Even Lady Gilliane, who wasn’t at all supportive of Cregan’s intentions towards him, looked downcast at the prospect of his leaving. He wondered if Cregan’s mood would sour so much without him around as to bother her and felt a twist of guilt in his chest as he bid her goodnight. Daeron looked like he wanted to ask a question before he set off to bed. “If you don’t want me to, just say so, but could I stay with Aemma tonight? I was gone for some days and–”

“Of course. You needn’t explain yourself to me,” Jace said softly. He thought it would be easier to leave if he stayed away that night and let her sleep through it like it was any other night. Daeron was going to do what he should’ve done. He felt like a wretched father. “You’re the one she’ll miss the most. I’m sorry I sent you away. Besides, you need to tell Thea all about her.”

Daeron opened his mouth like he was about to argue one or two of these points, and then deflated. “Aye, I do, don’t I?” He took Jace’s hands in his. “I’m glad we’re doing this. You chose well. Cregan’s a good man,” he said, some pain in his voice.

Jace nodded as he pulled his hands away. “He is, isn’t he?” He’s better than I deserve, he thought dispassionately. “Go on, uncle, see your daughter. Before you know it, she’ll have all her teeth and be unrecognizable to you.”

Daeron let out a small laugh at that. “Ours, Jace. She’s ours,” he said, and then he left to see her.

—

He thought he’d be too sick with regret to do anything more than sleep when he got to Cregan’s room, but he was wrong. The lord looked at him with real longing; Jace had told him to forget his situation for the days they had together but it seemed he couldn’t deny it anymore. They fell upon each other as the door closed, Cregan’s hands curling gently around his jaw and neck and kissing him deeply.

He got a hand on the clasp of Jace’s cloak and waited, and Jace nodded. He took Jace’s clothes off and led him to bed, pushing him to lie back. Cregan kept the bed curtains open, this time. The flicker of the fireplace illuminated the room. Cregan was looking at him intently as he took off his own clothes.

“I’d like to touch you.” Jace nodded shyly at him. He started at his feet, running a light finger down his arch. He kissed the inside of his ankle. Then he kissed the inside of his knees, both of them and then both of them again once Cregan realized how sensitive Jace was there. Cregan got settled between his thighs, and the grip of his hands right above his knees made more warmth build up in Jace. He had to gasp once Cregan started to lightly bite down the inside of his thighs, alternating with wet sucking kisses that were sure to leave marks. He finally had to twist his hands through Cregan’s loose hair, wanting to get his hands on him somehow.

Cregan avoided his cock and cunt, kissing his hips and all over his stomach, and then up his ribs to his chest, and then down his arms. He kissed his hands, the backs of them and the palms, pressing his cheek against where Jace’s shared scar used to be for a moment.

All along, he kissed where the quarrels had got him. That was the most shocking feeling of all, that his scars felt so sensitive; he thought that those places were hard now, untouchable, but Cregan was showing him he had been wrong about that. Finally he got up to his neck, kissing along where a mating bite would go on one side and where there was another scar from a quarrel on the other side, the one that should’ve killed him.

He had to close his eyes at the feeling, and put his hands on Cregan’s back. It all felt so good and he forgot he could feel this way. His mind and his body could finally both agree that they liked this without a single qualm. He wanted to be there, and he wanted to stay there.

“I’m glad you’re here now, with me,” Cregan said roughly, and then kissed down his jaw, up his face, his eyelids, and then his mouth.

Cregan seemed to think Jace was someone else, to care for him so. None of the words he was thinking of seemed like a suitable response, so he put his left hand over Cregan’s heart, and then put Cregan’s right hand over that, their shared scars joined where their shared blood pumped. “I’m always with you,” he said, feeling foolish as he said it.

Cregan didn’t seem to think he was foolish. He had that look of wonder on his face again. His mother didn’t seem so off the mark, calling them boys. “You always are,” he said, giving his hand a squeeze.

He pulled away, sitting back against the headboard and then pulling Jace so he could sit in front of Cregan, back to chest. He could rest his head perfectly in the crook of Cregan’s neck, and settled against him. “Show me what you want,” Cregan said, resting his hands on his bent knees, bracketing Jace’s own.

Jace closed his eyes as he grabbed one of Cregan’s hands and pulled it towards his hips, pushing two of Cregan’s fingers into his cunt. They both gasped at how easily they slid into his warmth, and by how wet he’d gotten, just with his kisses. He took Cregan’s other hand and got it on his neck, pleased by the perfect weight of it there, less severe than the necklace he’d have to wear again soon enough. He rode Cregan’s hand as he stroked his cock, and came with a sigh, kissing Cregan giddily. Cregan pulled his fingers out and seemed like he’d put both of them in his mouth, but Jace only let him suck one of them clean.

He brought the finger he hadn’t sucked on up to his own lips. “Shall I tell you what I taste like, my lord?” As a beta, Cregan wouldn’t be able to tell certain things the way an alpha or another omega could.

“Please,” he said, licking across Jace’s mating gland, making Jace shudder in pleasure. He wanted so much more. He wanted Cregan to bite him there, giving him another scar he wanted. He put the finger in his mouth and moaned around it, and Cregan’s hand twitched against his throat. He licked it clean and pulled it out with a pop, curling his hand around Cregan’s wet hand.

“I taste like I want you. Like there’s a hunger in me only you can sate, my lord,” he said, pressing his cheek against Cregan’s and rubbing the skin raw against his beard. He hoped he could still feel it as he flew away with Daeron the next day.

“How shall I sate it, my prince?” Jace couldn’t begin to tell him. He wanted everything from Cregan, his body, his mind, his time, and he didn’t know where to start telling him knowing it had to end before he’d even get the most miniscule fraction of any of those. He wanted to see that look of wonder Cregan gave him again, the one that warmed him through in a way no one else’s glance ever had.

“May I do the same to you?” he asked. Cregan pulled his face away so he could look at Jace questioningly. Jace extricated himself from his embrace and took Cregan’s previous position at the foot of the bed, and got his hands on Cregan’s ankles, rubbing his thumbs against the bony parts on the sides. Cregan nodded hesitantly; these kinds of touches must have been novel to Cregan. He couldn’t think of anyone else who might’ve done it to him, his demeanor being what it was; he seemed too capable to express desire for such a thing, or for anyone to think he’d want it, Jace supposed.

He kissed the same places that Cregan did. He liked that they both had dark hair on their bodies, unlike his uncles. He kissed the insides of his knees but it didn’t do much for Cregan, but kissing the backs of his knees made him shiver a bit, and Jace smiled into his skin at the feeling. He mouthed at the insides of his thighs, almost sure he had to be the only one who’d ever done this to the man.

Like Cregan did for him, he avoided his cock, and he kissed every scar he saw. He didn’t have as many as Jace, but the ones he had were bigger, some knife slashes across his arms, and one on his calf from when he fell out of a tree trying to impress his brother. The largest were two large crossing slashes across his back that Jace had only caught glimpses of before. Cregan turned around so Jace could study them more, and settled on his front.

Cregan told him a few nights ago that Bennard had accused him of some false outrages during the beginning of his usurpation and had him whipped to scare him off challenging him for his lordship. “He only deepened my resolve to see him off,” Cregan had told him. “I might have only killed him before, but I gave him to the mountain clans to use as they pleased when I married Arra instead of getting any sort of dowry. They say he curses me for not being a kinslayer every day he still wakes.” He’d liked every smile he’d ever seen from Cregan until then, but not that one.

He traced them with his fingers lightly, and then his lips, and then his tongue. There was such a tension in Cregan’s shoulders as Cregan held steady under the attention. He hooked his chin over Cregan’s shoulder and said into his ear, “I’m glad you’re here with me. As you’ve been made.” He kissed down his jaw, and then turned him around so he could kiss him on the mouth more easily. Jace could see how wet at the tip of his cock he’d gotten, and how hard. “I also want whatever would please you, Cregan.”

“This pleases me,” he said. He seemed to believe it. Jace had told Cregan to forget what happened to him for the time they shared, but Jace hadn’t been able to, as much as he tried. He couldn’t forget, and he could only see how much unburdened pleasure he took from Cregan’s desire compared to that of his uncles. I want to make him feel good, he thought, and there was no way to show how much he wanted it without reminding him of what was waiting for him in the south. He’d simply have to say it, unfortunately.

“Please, my lord? You can’t shame me.” Cregan’s eyes widened when he said that, and then dropped to his mouth. Jace brought Cregan’s hand up to his mouth again. “Aye? This?” Cregan nodded.

Jace hated doing this for Aegon. He seemed to relish in making Jace choke, particularly when Jace refused to put any effort into it and simply left his mouth open. Aegon meant it as a humiliation, and Jace took it as one. But he was finding doing it for Cregan to be quite enjoyable, the weight of his cock on his tongue a new way to know him. He worked a hand on the shaft and explored with the other one, trying to draw out different noises from Cregan. He liked having his balls touched, and the place right behind them too, working his hips minutely and then forcing himself still once he regained control, hands tight on the bedding.

Jace wanted to see him lose it. Jace appreciated that he never lost it. He concentrated on sucking harder and then relaxed his throat to try and take more of him down. “Gods,” Cregan breathed out, and Jace had to look up at him. Cregan was looking down at him, mouth open and panting. Jace brought Cregan’s hand up to his head, and he worked his fingers through Jace’s hair. He caressed Jace’s scalp where his fingers were tangled, and Jace finally had to close his eyes at the feeling, working his mouth as best he could.

“I’m close,” Cregan whispered. Jace squeezed the older man’s thigh to let him know he heard, and pulled back off his cock a bit to use his tongue on the head again. Cregan swore loudly and came, warm seed flooding Jace’s mouth. He swallowed most of it, some leaking out as he kept his mouth on Cregan’s cock, milking out everything he could. He chanced a glance back up, and Cregan was red in the face, groaning at the sight.

“It’s too much,” he said, but he wasn’t pushing Jace away, so Jace didn’t move, and only sucked harder. Finally, Cregan pushed his shoulder and Jace let him out of his mouth, giving it a last wet kiss before he pushed Cregan back and crawled up so he could get in his arms. Cregan got his fingers in his hair again, and kissed him hard, over and over. He let himself be kissed, exposing whatever parts of him Cregan wanted to get his lips on, his neck, his shoulders, his jaw, his mouth again.

The fall of Cregan’s dark hair was its own curtain, and made a world where only they existed. He and Daeron would be leaving early tomorrow. He really should have gone to sleep already. Cregan’s hands were warm under his thighs where he was pulling them around his waist, and he stopped worrying about the flight back the next day, and how he’d feel on it. That was in a world he didn’t need to acknowledge yet.

Once they were done, they were on their sides, studying each other’s faces. Jace didn’t know how Cregan could keep growing more handsome as the days passed; it didn’t seem fair, or possible. He didn’t know what he could say, or how he was supposed to leave the next day. He’d retreated into a fantasy of Cregan while at the Red Keep, and every moment with him surpassed his imagination.

Cregan broke the silence. “Sōvēs,” he said carefully, pronouncing the unfamiliar sounds slowly but correctly. “If she wants the dragon to fly.” Jace smiled, giving him his reward in a kiss. Cregan went through nearly all the rest of the commands correctly, getting his kisses for a job well done. The only one he had trouble with was the usual one.

“I don’t really believe you can’t say that one, my lord. You might be teasing me,” he said, mock outrage in his face.

Cregan grinned, and ran a soothing hand down his side. “Lee-kerry, my prince,” he said, and then he kissed Jace again. “I want my dragon to be calm.”

—

The morning of their departure had arrived. Jace had woken up in Cregan’s arms again, and he didn’t know how he was meant to give this up. It had only been a few days of this joy, where the feelings he wouldn’t let himself think about during his first visit were allowed to bloom in full, and where they grew much faster than he thought possible. He supposed it had to be possible when they had to fit moons and years into days. I don’t want to wake up without him there, he thought.

But he’d have to. He pushed himself out of bed, waking Cregan up, and got dressed in his own clothes. He even got the necklace Aegon had given him out of the drawer under the bed and put it in his pocket. Then headed to the nursery. He got Aemma dressed in her wolf’s head cloak, and tucked a blanket around Daeron, still sleeping in a makeshift bed on the floor, before taking his daughter to breakfast with him.

They broke their fast in silence. Jace had his daughter in his arms, and even her babbling seemed to be quieter. Jace couldn’t find the words he wanted to say to Cregan, or rather, he knew which words he wanted to say, and judged them all unwise. Forget me, tell me you’ll wait for me, forgive me, all of them spun in his head as he looked at the man for what would be the last time in moons, if not years. He didn’t want to forget Cregan like he forgot him before.

He didn’t want Cregan to forget him either, but then thought about the image he was presenting, what his uncles had turned him into. There had to be something better for Cregan to think of. Then Jace remembered what Sara had shown Daeron, and what else caught his eye during their trip to the glass gardens. It would have to suffice for the time being.

Jace took Cregan to the glass gardens. The majority of the growing things were the hearty staple foods, but he remembered where the treats were, the flowers that added color and the fruits that sweetness to their winters. Aemma seemed to enjoy visiting it again, looking at the flowers and grabbing at the ones near her again. He let her chubby hands reach for them as he scanned the rows of plants.

He found the not so large tree he had been looking for, and tugged Cregan along with him. The oranges were small and a bit lumpy, not at all what he was used to seeing in King’s Landing, but the flowers were just the same. He pulled Cregan closer and brought a flower on the branch up to Cregan’s nose.

“That’s me. I mean, that’s what my scent is like. It’s like my mother’s. If you ever wondered. I hadn’t–” He cut himself off, the fondness in Cregan’s face making it hard to continue. How could anyone continue under that gaze? All he wanted to do was kiss him. “I hadn’t anything to bring you. And I didn’t tell you what it was the first time I visited you, I don’t know why I didn’t. I thought you might want to know.” Cregan might want to think of him this way when he was gone. “And perhaps you can show Aemma too,” he added.

“Thank you for telling me. I didn’t ask anyone here what it was after you left because I’d hoped you’d come back to tell me yourself. When it seemed you were lost–” He stopped as he searched for the words. “It was good I didn’t know what it was.” He wound his fingers through Jace’s hair and brought him closer. They were nearly kissing. “I’d have searched for you in every garden and keep we passed and I don’t think we’d have gotten to the Trident.”

What was he supposed to say to that? He couldn’t find the words, so he turned his face up and kissed Cregan instead.

“Must you return to them?” Cregan breathed into his ear.

“Yes. They’re the only ones with war dragons. They have Aegon and Rhaena.” There’s no other way I can protect you all, he thought. Cregan would hate to hear it, same as Baela and Alyn, but that was the truth of the matter, and they all knew it.

“We can fight. We can win,” he said between kisses, and Jace had to pull away.

“How? And the cost? It’s no victory if you can’t see it, Cregan. If you were to fall–” He looked at his daughter and then back up at the man beseechingly. He didn’t have the words for such an outcome. It was a chance he couldn’t imagine taking, or surviving if it went awry, the image of the winter town in front of Winterfell burnt to ashes too easily formed in his mind, and the castle another Harrenhal. Vhagar could do it, and her rider would have no qualms about it, the Riverlands showed that much. Aemond promised to protect him from Aegon, but who could protect anyone from Aemond, if it came to it?

“The cost is already too high, Jace.”

“I can pay it,” he said. He could take it. They’d done what they’d done to him and he was still alive. There wasn’t much else they could do, surely. “Do you trust me, my lord?”

“You must ask?”

“It seems I do. You must hear your own answer.” Cregan had been one of the first men to heed him without second-guessing him; it would have been unbearable if he started now.

“I trust you, Jace.”

“Then trust me in this.” Cregan looked pained at his request, but eventually acquiesced with a nod of his head.

“As you wish, Jace,” he said defeatedly.

“I wished for something else counting your beams, my lord,” he said, trying for levity. Cregan let out a little huff of air, the closest he could get to laughing.

Cregan admitted with some difficulty, “I feel quite useless, only watching you return to that snakepit. Is there nothing else you’ll let me do for you?”

“You’ll have my daughter. You’ll treat her the way I wish I could treat her.” Jace had to stop and smile weakly when he remembered words he had used long ago. “You’ll mind her with love. That is far from useless. Her first nameday will be quite soon, and I’ll miss it. I’ll miss it and I won’t feel so sore about it, knowing you’ll celebrate it the way I would. It’ll be nicer here, in fact.” No one here would have a snide word about a bastard girl being loved, Cregan would see to it.

Cregan looked down at the girl in Jace’s arms. “Oh, it will be quite memorable, my prince. She’ll wish she could remember it when I tell her about it in a few years,” he said, smiling at her.

“Then be sure to describe it in great detail in your letter to me, afterwards. Daeron and I will want to know every single thing that happens,” he said.

Cregan’s face got thoughtful at the mention of his uncle. “He hasn’t been what I expected, from the stories, or your letters.”

“What did you expect?”

“More of a villain,” Cregan said simply. “Someone who would act like he’d set fire to a defeated town.” He had been that person. Perhaps he still was that person, given half the opportunity. Jace didn’t think so, and it made no difference to the people who died there.

“What did you get?”

“Someone like you.”

“Oh?” Jace said, teasing Cregan. “Should I be concerned?”

“Not at all. He’s nowhere near as handsome as you are, nor anywhere near as confounding.”

Jace had to smile at the description of himself. “And you like that about me?”

“It seems I do,” Cregan said softly, grabbing Jace’s chin to study his face for a few moments before kissing him again.

—

He had to go back to the nursery. Daeron would want to say goodbye to Aemma too. Leaving the glass gardens, he saw he didn’t have to walk far at all; Daeron was in the godswood, contemplating the heart tree. The sight made him belatedly realize that there wasn’t a sept in Winterfell. He didn’t doubt Maester Hendrys’ ability, but Aemma wouldn’t be able to grow up in the full light of the Faith without a sept, or a septa to guide her. He tried to stammer out an apology over such obvious oversight as he handed Aemma over to him, but Daeron interrupted him.

“I thought the same thing the day we got here. When I went to the Wall, I went to the sept in Castle Black, on the advice of Maester Hendrys. I didn’t feel anything there like the way I felt in the godswood here. I don’t think any of our god’s seven aspects live so far north, nephew.” He blew a raspberry into Aemma’s cheek to make her clap in joy as Jace was shocked into silence by what Daeron said. His most pious uncle, admitting to something that sounded quite a bit like blasphemy to Jace.

“Hendrys and I spoke about that, during our night together. It seems assignments to Northern houses are a popular choice for maesters with less orthodox thinking. And I suppose you got me used to changing my mind,” he said with feigned reprimand for Jace. He blew on her face again, laughing with her. “We needn’t put them out to such an extent, building a sept for empty ceremonies. And besides, I think the old gods might listen to her. Why wouldn’t they? My perfect girl,” he said into her hair. He didn’t mention Ser Harwin’s blood as a reason why the old gods might listen to her, for which Jace was grateful.

“She can learn about the Faith when she spends time with you,” Jace said, with a faint smile. He wouldn’t mind that, someone like Daeron or Maester Hendrys’ teaching her about truly believing without making her feel weak or stupid.

“We’ll see. She may want to stay up here. Who wouldn’t?” It all looked so beautiful as they stood there, even with the cold and the snow. The day was getting brighter, lighting up the red leaves, and they knew they were delaying what they had to do. They walked back together to the courtyard, where their bags were packed for them, and where Cregan was waiting with his household.

Daeron handed Aemma over to Cregan, and picked up the bags, since he’d be the only one who could get them on Tessarion. They all walked out towards the wolfswood together, and Daeron whistled loudly three times, Tessarion replying with a roar. She flew to where he was waiting, landing neatly without protest; it seemed she got used to the cold as well. He got their bags secured and then walked back over, saying his goodbyes to everyone, kissing Aemma one last time, and leaning over to say something into Cregan’s ear, to which he nodded seriously in reply.

Jace did the same, but it took him more time, with Sara, Thea, Theo, and Rickon all wanting to hug him. He clasped his left hand to Cregan’s right as a reminder of what they would always share, and made himself let go, otherwise he’d stand there for hours. He ran his hands through Aemma’s hair, and brushed his thumb against her cheek. She’d be someone completely different the next time he saw her, if he ever did again, and he needed to remember her like this. She grabbed his hair tightly, and he carefully prised her fingers off him, kissing them and making himself turn around and walk towards Daeron and his dragon.

Jace told himself he wouldn’t turn around to look as he walked away, nor as Daeron pulled him up to sit behind him, getting his saddle chains on. If he turned around he wouldn’t leave. He turned around to look. Sara was waving goodbye with Rickon, who was nearly in tears but manfully trying to hold them back, a proper little lord already. Theo looked close to tears looking at Rickon, and Thea looked sadly at both Jace and Daeron, the omega woman made miserable by their misery. Cregan wasn’t exceptionally large, but his cloak made him look huge against the bundle in his arms. Cregan delicately lifted Aemma’s arm, letting her wave goodbye as well. When did she learn that, and where? Who taught her? He didn’t know at all. She had an orange blossom stuck in her hair.

He couldn’t do this. He absolutely couldn’t do this. He had no other choice. He tightened his arms around Daeron, Tessarion taking off. He was silent upon the ascent, praying to Meleys so that she’d watch over the children; he imagined the higher up they got, the more likely it was she’d hear.

I want them to know love like I knew it. It was the simplest request he could make.

—

They landed to eat a few hours later, and ate their lunch of cheese and dried meat in silence, hunger finally defeating the sorrow they felt. When they finished, Daeron didn’t seem in a rush to get back in the air. It seemed like he wanted to talk. “He’s quite handsome,” he said casually.

“I suppose so.” Jace knew he wasn’t the best judge. Jace thought Cregan was the most handsome man in the world, but he could have looked like Tyland or Aegon and he would’ve thought the same thing. He knew he saw the people he loved in a different manner. Father was the most gallant man in the world, Mother the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, Baela was the bravest and most steadfast woman in the realm, and Cregan was the most handsome man ever to exist, easy as that. It was all true to him; it didn’t have to be true to others.

They stood in awkward silence for a few moments. Daeron realized Jace wasn’t going to say more, and continued, “You mean to marry Lord Stark.”

Not this. Not here. Jace was trapped with him in this nameless field and Daeron knew it. “Perhaps. If he’ll have me.”

“He’ll have you,” Daeron said ruefully, turning away with a knowing smile on his face. Jace could have slapped it off. Daeron presented it as a simple statement of fact, but Jace knew better. His uncles would keep changing Jace from the man Cregan had known and he’d see some other creature where Jace stood one day, one he didn’t respect anymore. One he couldn’t love anymore. Jace wouldn’t want to hear which one it would be when it happened.

“So you say.”

“Why shouldn’t he? You’re kind. Intelligent. Determined.”

Jace replied snappishly, “Are you the Good Queen reborn? Who are you trying to convince? According to your family, I’m a bastard. I have no titles, no dragon, no land, no money, and someone else’s children, we’re not quite sure whose. He could do better. He should do better, if he has a care for his station.” Another statement of fact, one that was correct this time. He should have supported Lady Gilliane’s argument when he overheard them, as embarrassing as it would have been to be caught lurking.

Daeron sounded irritated when he said, “You mustn't talk about yourself that way.”

“‘One must face and name the truth of one’s circumstances,’ isn’t that what Septon Merrick once wrote? I am merely trying to apply his treatises to my life.” Jace couldn’t see but he knew Daeron was pursing his lips hearing that. All Daeron could do was stew until he thought of another work to use against Jace. It would buy him some quiet until Daeron thought of an appropriate response. Daeron loved Septon Merrick in particular so it would take longer than usual this time.

A few more moments passed in blessed silence. “Your children are mine, anyway.”

Gods be good. “You know this one–”

Daeron cut him off. “They’re both mine.” He punctuated the statement with a cold kiss to his neck, as if they were lovers and he had the right to do it. Jace pulled his hood back up and crossed his arms as he walked off and waited for Daeron to ready Tessarion. He’d heard enough.

—

Jace saw the appeal of asking questions during this mode of travel. No one could overhear them but the gods and the dragons, and none of them would tell someone else, presumably.

“Why did you agree to take her up to Winterfell?” he asked during the next day’s lunch, after departing from Oldcastle; the winds favored them and they covered more ground on the first day of the return trip. Lord Locke hadn’t commented when he requested separate rooms this time.

“You wanted it,” he said, like it was that simple. Jace wanted many things. Why should he get this one? “Your concerns were reasonable, and I shared them.”

“You shared them, and yet you couldn’t think of another resolution? Are you so powerless at court?” He didn’t ask to hector the man, either, he really wanted to know Daeron’s own estimation of his influence.

Daeron was quiet as he thought of his response. “It’s what my half-sister did with you,” he offered, evenly. Mother had been the heir and the most she could do was take them somewhere else too. There were larger forces than just themselves at work, and that hadn’t changed from when he was a child. If anything, they had gotten worse, with Mother usurped, her name and cause spit on, and not even a beta on the Small Council now. “I would very much like for things to be different, Jace.”

“So you keep saying, uncle,” Jace said, without any heat. It wasn’t Daeron he was truly angry at, he was just the only person who he could strike out at in this empty field. He was angry at King Viserys for everything, Otto for his ambition, Father and Laena for dying, Mother for bearing him, Ser Harwin for looking at her, Daemon for backing Viserys in the Great Council, King Jaehaerys for making the wrong decision that cost them all. He could have yelled at them all, and he’d have to die to do it. He was angry at himself, more than anyone, but self-hatred hadn’t gotten him anywhere yet either.

Daeron could see he didn’t want to argue, and didn’t respond. Jace knew Daeron had to feel the same anger he felt; he wondered if he was angry at the same people, or if he also thought about Ormund and the other people in Oldtown who lied to him. He wondered if Daeron’s self-hatred would get him anywhere and if he were the one doing it wrong. The thoughts made him lose his appetite and he wrapped up his bread and cheese to eat later.

—

In the Vale, after leaving Darry, Daeron tried to broach another topic.

“There have been rumors of a maiden with a dragon around here.”

“And? What business is that of ours? Are we to chase down every rumor of a troll or gnome we hear? We’d never get back to the Red Keep,” Jace said dismissively.

“There is no need for facetiousness. You know perfectly well it could be true. A skinny brown girl on a brown dragon, they say.”

Jace’s heart was in his mouth like they just took a steep dive. Netty. His sister.

“What about them, then?”

“Would you like to find them?” Jace couldn’t answer yet. Daeron was leaving something out. “Of course we’d have to find some way of containing her…”

“Containing her?”

She was a threat. Every dragonrider with a dragon would be a threat until they were brought into the fold. Poor Rhaena learned the hard way with her marriage, but at least she had Morning to console her. Jace had the same yawning gap in his chest as Baela, their brothers, and Helaena, half their hearts gone. Even Aegon, if he ever had a heart to begin with. Rhaena had a last name to protect her, at least; what would they do to Netty? All she had now were her wits and her dragon, no thanks to him.

“I misspoke. That wasn’t the word I wanted to use.”

“But it’s the word you meant. No. Leave them alone, for me. Please. It’s probably not even them.”

“Just another rumor of a gnome?” Daeron asked lightly. Jace couldn’t even laugh, only nod weakly.

I’m sorry, Netty. This is all I can do for you, now. Even though they were flying back south, Jace felt colder as they went along. He thought all the remaining pieces of his heart were already accounted for and scattered, in Oldtown, in Driftmark, in Storm’s End, hidden in the Vale, but here he was, flying further away from other pieces in Winterfell he could only hold and touch and love for a few days. Days out of a lifetime that seemed more interminable the further he flew away from them all.

—

King’s Landing was finally within their sight. They’d be back at the Red Keep soon and it took all of Jace’s strength to wrap his arms around Daeron as best he could and tightly clutch his uncle’s riding leathers. If he let go, his hands would be free, and if his hands were free, he’d undo his chains and throw himself off Tessarion. Daeron would chase after him and he’d likely be caught mid-fall. He didn’t want to be caught. He wanted anything but to be back with his uncles. He closed his eyes and rested his head against Daeron’s upper back, swallowing back his nausea at the thoughts. They were only thoughts. He had to remind himself that they were only thoughts, and that they could stop if he only stopped thinking. It was his own fault for thinking such things. He’d asked for this.

It was just as well they were flying against the wind, Tessarion’s wings beating powerfully. Close as he was to Daeron, he couldn’t tell how Jace was feeling with Jace’s scent blowing away behind him. If he kept quiet and if the wind favored him, Daeron wouldn’t know, and if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t ask any awkward questions. He held on and hid his face against Daeron’s shoulder, and if his uncle sensed any tears, Jace could blame the wind whipping into his eyes.