Chapter Text
She does not see him until it is too late.
The Gullet is a scattered mess of splintered ships and oars, with sailors and mastheads floating alike as flotsam, and Baela knows her grandsire is somewhere amidst the wreckage, the Sea Snake far too stubborn to be killed by the waters he calls his true home. But Jace is nowhere to be seen and she cannot use Vermax as a marker anymore, the young dragon’s body succumbing to the waves long before he took his last breaths. Her eyes furtively scan the wreckage as she looks for a shock of red and black amidst the broken wood, the olive green dragon crying out for his mate as Moondancer (seemingly) curses the dragon that set them upon this path.
But Baela’s twin and her unruly mount are the least of her worries at the moment, her concern growing into panic as Jacaerys continues to elude her eyes. And suddenly, there it is: a head of dark hair and a red cape, clinging to a piece of driftwood amidst the wreckage. He has a bolt in his shoulder, yes, but that is a wound that can be easily healed. Her own father bears the scar of a fiery arrow from his time in the Stepstones, a story he had often regaled the twins with in their early years. Perhaps she and Jace will do the same once this cursed war is won, their children’s eyes going wide with awe as their lord father recalls the incident with his usual animation.
The relief on her face slackens into shock as the second bolt hits his neck.
At first Jace is confused, but that feeling gives way to resignation as he feels the arrow pierce his throat, his eyes searching the horizon for Baela before he sets his sights lower. And there she is, aloft in the sky, holding onto her saddle with trembling hands. He wants to tell her to leave, to depart this site of wreck and ruin and go straight to Dragonstone. No harm can come to her behind those walls, the two women he loves most shielded alike by the stone and magic that form the island fortress. But she does not leave — not at least until his vision has left him, images of his brothers and his mother flashing behind his eyes as he closes them for good.
Jace does not hear the anguished cries that follow.
The sound tears through her throat without preamble and is echoed in Moondancer’s anguished cries, Baela’s vision blurring with tears that come hot and fast. She has no idea what to do or what to think, for there is no other thought in her head beside a denial of the sight below. Perhaps she blinked wrong, one panicked thought insists. Perhaps it is a wrong body, a hopeful voice pipes up - but he is right there, afloat thanks to a piece of wood, the slow lapping of water a prelude of the wave that will eventually swallow his body whole.
No.
It is a single word that cuts through the growing din in her head, delivered in a voice that sounds suspiciously like her father’s. The waves will not have him - not while his body is still warm; not while she can still do something. So she swoops down low, taking a deep breath after commanding Moondancer to hover close. And then, Baela jumps.
The water is unexpectedly cold and the air is knocked out of her lungs by each wave that hits her chest, but Baela does not relent, swimming closer to Jacaerys’s prone form before she hooks an arm below him. “What the fuck are you looking at?” She barks at the stunned onlookers. “Get in the water and help me retrieve the prince!” Alyn of Hull is the first to jump into the cold water, breaking a few soldiers out of their stupors as they swiftly follow. She swims back to her mount, and it takes three men in total to lift Jace’s body and drape him over Moondancer’s back. His face looks peaceful, and one would believe the young prince to be asleep were it not for the arrows sticking out of his frame.
Her grandsire instructs his men to retrieve Vermax’s body and his first mate does not falter before he begins to snap bolts in half, taking care to leave arrowheads in the entry wounds. “To stem the flow of blood, my lady,” he explains as he tosses the splinters into the water before bandaging Jace’s wounds shut, strapping the prince’s body into the back of her saddle. She hooks one of her chains onto him as she hooks the other into her riding coat, checking each fastening like her mother taught her even in the haze of her panic.
“Sire!” A man calls out, his fellow sailors huffing as they tug the ropes to fasten them to the mast.
The Queen Who Never Was lets out a groan as she lurches to the side, her net lifting young Vermax’s pale, limp form out of the water. The dragon is light enough for the ship to carry, but his body would begin to putrefy by the time they would arrive at Dragonstone’s shores, and that is something Baela cannot have. She is debating the merits of Moondancer trying to carry her mate in her claws when a roar splits the sky, a familiar grey silhouette appearing like the answer to her prayers as Addam of Hull arrives on Seasmoke. He surveys the sight grimly, brows furrowed as he works upon formulating a plan. But then his eyes land on the metal and wood sticking out of Jace’s neck and his expression twists into one of sheer heartbreak, fighting tears as he hoarsely instructs his mount, who does not need to be told twice.
Seasmoke gently lifts his son with a mournful croon, looking for all the world like a dragon cradling its hatchling on the latter’s first flight.
Addam of Hull does not linger, taking off for Dragonstone the moment he deems Vermax sufficiently secured. This leaves Baela and Jace amidst the wreckage of the Gullet, her eyes scanning the skies for her sister and her beast before she takes flight, her grandsire and his fleet following her to the Blacks’ stronghold. Somewhere, Sharako Lohar’s body is sinking towards the seabed, her blood drawing every shark in a hundred-foot range.
Baela hopes they are as merciless with their teeth as the pirate was in her attacks.
Moondancer keeps them both warm on the flight back, something Baela is particularly thankful for in this particular instance. The longer Jacaerys’s heart is kept beating, the more effective any attempts by the maesters will be, and Alyn’s bandages ensure that the blood circulating through the former’s system stays within his body. But his heartbeat is not as loud as it would be during dragonflight, something Baela blames on their less-than-favorable flying conditions. I simply cannot hear it, she tells herself, even if it is a comforting lie designed solely to keep her nerves steady. Besides, Jace is too stubborn to just die, she muses, her lips almost curving into an exasperatedly fond smile despite the gravity of their situation, for he takes after her own father too much in this regard.
Despite the weight of his quarry, Seasmoke is not too far behind, the gray dragon’s wings buffeting her faster towards Dragonstone. It is nightfall by the time they arrive and Moondancer instinctively finds her path to the Dragonmont, Seasmoke circling the castle. The dragonkeepers, nonplussed at first, raise their eyebrows in consternation as they see the riders descend, three of them scurrying frantically towards the edge while three hurry to retrieve ropes. “Jace?” A voice calls, and Baela’s blood run cold.
Rhaenyra’s face goes through a maelstrom of expressions, shifting from a pleasant smile to a pinched mouth and furrowed brows, a muscle ticking in her jaw as her eyes grow flinty. “Jacaerys?” She says again, the Black Queen’s tone remarkably measured for this situation. “Jacaerys, your queen demands an answer.” Whatever fortitude Baela retained drains out of her in that moment, crumpling under the weight of what the silence conveys. Rhaenyra does not speak in return, pointedly turning away before she delivers her next question with a shaky breath. “What did you do?”
The silence remains.
“What did you do?” She repeats her query, the shrill urgency in her voice breaking the younger woman's heart furthermore. “What did you do?” She turns to her step-daughter next, shaking her shoulders with each repetition as if daring her to correct Her Grace. “What did he do?” And Baela cannot take it anymore, choked sobs escaping her throat as grief wracks through her body, her legs eventually giving way to the ground beneath her. She does not feel disparaged when the Queen rushes to reach out towards the body hoised upon the keepers’ shoulders, forcing her eyes open to confront this monstrous reality as she brushes one dark curl with trembling fingers.
“My baby,” she breathes out, a watery laugh breaking the silence before it turns into a sob. “My baby.”
Because Baela has lost her betrothed, yes, but Rhaenyra has lost her firstborn. He is the product of a love long lost, a part of her heart that lived outside her body; her heir, her greatest champion, her closest confidant. And now he is gone, an outcome that was entirely preventable if he had simply chosen restraint. A third child, all casualties of a war she did not choose to start but must finish. Rhaenyra knows she will never have justice — how can she, when nothing will bring back her children, each snatched from her arms with such violence and cruelty? Whatever crumbs she can take, however, she will snatch and devour, burning everything else in her path if need be.
Those thoughts do not occupy the forefront of Rhaenyra's mind yet - for she is, right now, just a mother unable to tear her gaze away from her son’s peaceful face, hoping against hope that those same eyes are deceiving her. The dragonkeepers do not move, not even when Seasmoke enters the lair with Vermax clutched in his talons, letting their queen proceed at her pace. But there is only so long they can stay — not if they want their prince’s body to remain fit for cremation.
“No,” she stutters as they take a tentative step forward, “where-where are you taking him?” It prompts Baela to finally get to her feet, walking over to the former as she gently puts an arm around her.
“Your Grace,” she begins softly, “you know Jace. He will be more comfortable in his chambers.” It is the only way she knows will get Rhaenyra’s consent to move him, lest the heat accelerate onset of decay. “Let him lay in his bed, yes?”
“Do not condescend to me,” the older woman snaps back, “I know his condition.” But the words have done their job, and she does not protest any further, letting the keepers carry the late Prince of Dragonstone back to his apartments with Baela following suit, the latter confident in her assumption that the queen does not want her around as of now. A part of Rhaenyra must certainly hold her responsible for the tragedy that has befallen them, and the younger woman does not begrudge her that, for she knows she would feel exactly the same were she in her position. After all, was it not Baela’s duty to look after him? To temper Jacaerys’ worst impulses, be the voice of reason when his own has forsaken him?
She was meant to look after him as he was her, she thinks as she leads the procession, two hearts joined as one through fire and blood. Their love was to be forged through the Fourteen Flames, the only necessary witnesses to this union a Valyrian priest and their dragons, the latter perched upon the cliffs of Dragonstone as they watch their humans seal a bond long written in the stars.
She was meant to stand by him through darkness and light, Baela thinks as Jace is laid in his bed, the keepers too hesitant to do anything resembling an actual funerary preparation lest it unbalance their Queen. Except he is now in the darkness, and gods above she wants to follow him into it, to stay in the darkness with him. But it is a shadowed land she cannot access, not without causing further—and irreperable—damage to both parents.
Instead she is stuck in this twilight - caught between the world of the living and the shadow of his heart, with no intention of forsaking either.
And it is unjust that she cannot have both, Baela laments angrily as she paces by the side of Jace’s bed, for why shouldn’t I? Why should she have to lose her other half of her heart when Helaena gets to keep Aegon still, broken and mangled though he may be? Not to mention Aemond - her other bloodthirsty, covetous sentinel, a successful lunatic willing to wade through blood and death to get what he desires. Perhaps he is more dragon than man, the only one in their line to understand that the most valuable trades in this world are made in blood.
Luckily for her, Baela thinks as her eyes land upon a shelf of books, she has plenty of it spare.