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When dawn spills its pale light across the jagged stones of the Cave of Red, the air hangs cold and still. Shadows cling to the crumbling walls, and the scent of sea salt mingles with something fouler, something old. Daervon and Aemond walk in silence behind the silent priestess, each footstep echoing with grim finality as they descend into the heart of the mountain.

The dungeon is carved into the bone of the earth, lit by flickering candlelight that casts grotesque shadows across the walls. Rusted chains dangle from iron hooks, and the air is thick with the stench of rot and dried blood—memories of torment etched into stone. Torture implements line the walls like relics of cruelty, glinting faintly in the light, waiting.

At the center stands Calista Norwich, her robes the color of dark red, her eyes reflecting a calm that borders on ominous. She turns as they enter.

“My Lords,” she greets them with a slow incline of her head, the tone reverent, yet heavy with unspoken burden. Then, after a breath, her voice deepens. “There are truths I must lay bare before we begin. Things you must know before the summoning.”

Daervon steps forward, his jaw tense, his hand unconsciously brushing Aemond’s. “Speak, Lady Calista,” he says, voice low but resolute. “Let us hear it.”

Calista’s gaze flicks to him, then to Aemond, then back. “Before the Unburnt Prince takes hold of your mind completely, we must find you an anchor—something strong enough to keep your soul tethered to this world.” She paces slowly, her fingertips grazing the stone wall as if listening to the past. “For that, we must summon him. You must face him. But you must not give in. Keep your mind clear. Steady. Or he will consume what remains of you.”

Daervon nods, a chill settling in his chest. “I understand.”

But Aemond—Aemond moves like a shadow drawn by fury, stepping in front of Daervon in an instant as Calista lifts her hand to the priestesses.

“Chain him,” she commands, cold and absolute.

“You will do no such thing.” Aemond’s voice cuts through the chamber like steel unsheathed, and he positions himself between them, his hand on the hilt of his dagger, his lone dark lilac eye blazing with protectiveness. His breathing sharpens, his shoulders coiled with rage. He would gut every priestess in the room if they dared touch his husband.

But Daervon, heart pounding with love and fear, places a hand gently on Aemond’s chest. His touch softens the dragon within. “It’s all right,” Daervon whispers, eyes locked with his husband’s. “I will be fine.”

“No,” Aemond growls under his breath, his voice tight. “Not if they chain you like a beast.”

“Is it a must?” he asks, desperation threading into his voice, his throat tightening around the question. His whole being trembles at the thought of Daervon in pain, in chains. His beautiful prince—his anchor to sanity—reduced to a prisoner in this cold, cursed place.

Daervon cups Aemond’s face, thumbs brushing along the scar that mars and defines him. His own hands tremble slightly, not from fear of pain—but fear of what he might become if he fails. If the Unburnt Prince swallows him whole. “I’d lose my mind if I lose another person I love,” he breathes, voice raw. “If I don’t do this... if I don’t face him now, I might lose myself anyway. This is the only way.”

Aemond falters, eyes glistening. There is a storm inside him, a chaos only Daervon can soothe—and now Daervon is slipping from his reach. But at last, he steps back, though his hand lingers on Daervon’s wrist as if afraid it might vanish.

The priestesses move forward. Daervon raises his arms willingly. Cold metal clasps shut around his wrists, his legs shackled beneath him. The chains pull taut, suspending his arms at shoulder height. He kneels on the unforgiving stone floor, the weight of restraint sinking into his bones. He is trapped now—physically, mentally. Alone but for the presence of his beloved, and the looming shadow of something darker.

His breath hitches. In his mind, he already feels it. A presence pacing behind his thoughts. Watching. Waiting.

Calista steps forward, her hand warm against his sweat-damp brow. Her eyes look almost sorrowful. “The Unburnt Prince feeds on your despair. He drinks of your sorrow. And you, my lord... have known much of both.” She leans in. Her voice falls to a whisper. “It is going to be painful.”

A sharp breath escapes Daervon’s lips. For a moment, he closes his eyes, and his fingers twitch against the iron biting into his wrists. The cold chains rattle faintly with his trembling. But when he opens his eyes again—lilac and haunted—they gleam with fierce, worn determination.

“Do it,” he says, voice low but firm, the edge of fear well-hidden behind the steel of resolve.

Calista turns then, her gaze falling to the silver-haired prince standing tensely nearby. “Prince Aemond. No matter what you see or hear—do not let him free.”

Aemond says nothing. His jaw clenches tight enough to tremble, and his lone eye glints with something dark and dangerous. But he nods once—reluctantly. The agreement tastes like ash on his tongue.

The pain Daervon is about to face feels like a blade against his own flesh. He would trade places if he could. Burn the world if it meant freeing him. But for now, he stands, watching the love of his life kneel in chains. He already hates this.

Calista begins to chant. Her voice is ancient in tone, the cadence of a thousand rituals echoing in each word. Her palms press harder to Daervon’s skin. His eyes close. Shadows seem to deepen. The candles lining the dungeon tremble. Flames flicker—some extinguishing altogether. Cold settles into the stone floor.

Daervon's face twists, a groan curling from his lips and then, suddenly, a scream—ragged, raw, and agonized. The sound tears from his throat like a wounded beast. His chained body jerks violently as if struck by invisible fire.

Aemond flinches at every cry. His knuckles go white. He reaches forward on instinct, only to stop himself with an oath, hands hovering inches from the air around Daervon’s suffering body. It is a torment unlike any other—to see the man he loves more than life itself shattered before him and be powerless to intervene.

Calista’s chant ends. Silence crushes the air like a weight. She withdraws her hands slowly, though her eyes remain fixed upon the prince bound before her. The priestesses relight the flickering candles one by one, and with each flicker of flame, the shadows retreat from Daervon’s still form.

His eyes open. But they are no longer lilac. They are silver now—bright, unnatural, glowing like molten moonlight. A gleam of madness lives in them, cold and inhuman.

Calista does not flinch. “What are you?”

The figure tilts his head, the silver chains clinking against his slight movement. The smirk that spreads across Daervon’s face is nothing like him—it is cruel, smug, and wicked.

“You ask who I am?” The voice that answers is his, and yet not his—deeper, edged with a dark seduction. “If you do not know, then you are ignorant.”

“What is your purpose?” Calista’s voice remains calm, unmoved.

“To free the world from undeserving rulers.” The Unburnt Prince grins wide now, vicious. “That is my destiny. And I will serve it, no matter the cost.”

He yanks against the chains, the iron groaning in protest. Blood begins to streak from his wrists, but he doesn't stop. Doesn’t flinch. If anything, he relishes it. The silver in his eyes glows brighter, licking like fire.

“Unchain me,” he snarls at the head priestess.

“You have no voice here,” Calista replies evenly. “I take orders from the Lord of Light alone.”

A laugh rises from the prince’s throat—low and venomous. “No lord stands above me,” he hisses. “I command even unclaimed dragons without lifting a finger.”

But Calista doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer. And that silence irks him. So he turns his head. To the other Targaryen in the room. His expression shifts. Pain distorts his face suddenly, and a single tear rolls down his cheek. His voice softens, desperate. “Aemond… it hurts.”

The moment the words leave his lips, Aemond surges forward.

“Prince Aemond—!” Calista starts.

“Shut the fuck up,” Aemond growls, the words laced with fury and fear. He falls to his knees in front of his husband, his hands cupping Daervon’s face with tender desperation. His thumb brushes the tear away. “Where does it hurt, my heart? Tell me. Tell me and I will take it from you.”

For a heartbeat, the Unburnt Prince melts into his touch. He closes his eyes, breathing in Aemond’s scent like a starving man at a feast.

Then—he chuckles.

“My one true love,” he whispers, voice dripping with amusement. “It only takes one tear.”

Aemond’s expression hardens, his hands faltering as the realization sets in. He draws back slightly, studying the bruised wrists bleeding against cold iron.

The Unburnt Prince pouts, mockingly. “Now that you’re here… free me. Or do you still find the view as breathtaking as you did in King’s Landing?”

“Let go of him,” Aemond whispers, and this time it is not a command but a plea. “Please.”

But the reply cuts sharp.

“I am here because of you, Aemond,” the Unburnt Prince says, his voice sinking like poison into the marrow. “You made him weak. You broke him with your lies. With your betrayal. Poor Daervon. His heart—so soft, so desperate to love—it couldn’t take the weight of heartbreak. It shattered. And I rose from the ruins.”

Aemond says nothing. Instead, he wraps his arms around the chained body, folding Daervon close to him. He presses his cheek to his beloved’s shoulder, even as the silver eyes burn above him. He ignores the smell of blood, the tension in the air, the sting of Calista’s disapproving eyes. “I know,” he breathes into Daervon’s neck. “I know. I am sorry.”

The Unburnt Prince leans in, breath curling against Aemond’s ear. “You will die alone,” he whispers. “Cold. And grief will be your only companion.”

But Aemond doesn’t flinch. He closes his eye, holding Daervon tighter, arms trembling with the weight of love too great to contain. “Come back, my love,” he mumbles, low and desperate, as if his voice alone could summon Daervon from the abyss. “Come back to me…”

But Daervon Targaryen is already slipping.

Somewhere deep in the tangled ruins of his mind, Daervon is not in the dungeon. He is in their bedchambers—bathed in candlelight and drowning in sensation.

His fingers clutch silk sheets, knuckles pale. His cheek is pressed into the mattress, lips parted, breaths coming ragged between soft, broken moans. The press of Aemond’s chest against his back, the fever of skin against skin, the way their bodies meet in rhythm—it is overwhelming, raw, holy. Aemond’s mouth leaves a burning trail along his spine, each kiss anchoring Daervon more firmly to this bliss, to this man he loves with a devotion deeper than his Targaryen blood.

Aemond moves inside him like a storm—reckless and reverent all at once—until they both shatter together, gasping, clinging. Daervon’s eyes flutter shut, a sigh escaping him, peaceful, spent, loved.

But Aemond does not rest.

He turns Daervon to face him, crashing their lips together with feverish need. Daervon kisses back instinctively, fingers tangled in familiar pale strands of hair—until a tremor runs down his spine. Something is wrong.

Aemond’s hair feels... different.

Shorter. Messier. Curled.

He opens his eyes—and the world stops. It isn’t Aemond who lies above him. It is himself. Or rather, the reflection of himself he has come to dread.

Dark lilac eyes meet a mirror image twisted by madness—curls spilling over a face identical to his own but silver in colour, save for the inhuman glow in those merciless eyes. Silver, like molten ice. Unnatural. Possessed.

The Unburnt Prince smiles. A wicked, seductive curve of lips. “What’s the matter, love?” he murmurs, lips brushing Daervon’s throat as he plants kisses down the length of his collarbone. “Don’t I please you?”

“No—” Daervon breathes, struggling to move, to breathe, but he is pinned. The Unburnt Prince’s weight crushes him down, one hand locking around his throat.

“You’re nothing but a bastard son,” the Prince snarls, voice dipped in honey and poison. “No matter how you try, how hard you ache to be good, you’ll never be more than the stain they whisper about behind closed doors.”

Daervon chokes on air. His hands claw at the mattress, desperation in every nerve. “Stop—get off—”

“Why are you still fighting me?” the Unburnt Prince hisses, eyes gleaming. “Have you forgotten what they said about you?” His voice softens, turns coaxing, darkly intimate. “They already see you as a monster. So be one.”

“Shut up!” Daervon screams—but no sound escapes. He wants to cover his ears, wants to curl into himself, but he can’t even twitch.

The Unburnt Prince leans close again, mouth brushing Daervon’s lips like a cruel imitation of Aemond’s kiss. “I would’ve given you everything. A crown, the seven Kingdoms bowed at your feet. You deserve their fear. Their loyalty. I never would have broken your heart.”

He trails his hand down Daervon’s chest. “Not like he did.”

Daervon’s body trembles. His mind is screaming. This isn’t real. This isn’t Aemond. He tries to cling to anything—anything—and finds it in the only thing that has ever made sense: Aemond’s love.

His Aemond. His husband. His ruin. His salvation.

He clings to the memory of his voice, the touch of his hand, the way his single eye sees only him.

“Aemond,” Daervon whispers into the dark.

As if summoned, a new voice breaks through the fog. “Come back to me…”

The Unburnt Prince snarls in frustration. “He cannot save you. You will yield. One way or another—I will return.” His hand grabs Daervon’s face roughly, forcing their eyes to meet. “You are mine, and I’ll carve the world with your fire.”

Then—light. Everything tears apart. The grip loosens. The weight disappears.

Daervon falls—no, rises—into pain. Into the sting of his bleeding wrists. Into the shallow breath of the waking world. His limbs feel like lead, but he is no longer suffocating. He is wrapped in warmth. A familiar scent clings to him. Leather. Smoke. Aemond.

“My love,” Aemond whispers, lips brushing Daervon’s fevered forehead. His voice is trembling, frayed, brimming with adoration and torment. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Daervon hums softly. His lashes flutter. He wants to say something. Anything. But exhaustion drags him under like a tide.

His final thought before the dark claims him again is of Aemond’s touch. How it always brings him home.

And how he hopes he never forgets what it feels like.