The great bronze doors of the Tower of the Sun's throne hall boomed shut behind Thaddues, sealing away the murmurs of the Dornish court. Beyond them, the corridors of the Old Palace stretched beneath carved sandstone arches, where torchlight flickered against pale stone and cast long, wavering shadows across the procession.
Princess Maris walked with a stiff, regal posture, her silk skirts whispering softly against the floor. Beside her, Princess Dareya tugged gently at the hand of the boy who would one day stand among the greatest archmages the world had ever known. Merlin hesitated at the threshold of the grand hallway, his wide eyes darting toward Thaddues, searching for a sign.
Thaddues offered the boy a single, slow nod—a silent contract of trust.
Relief washed over the young face. Merlin let out a quiet breath and allowed the princesses to guide him toward the guest chamber, his small boots echoing down the dark corridor until the sound faded entirely.
Thaddues did not turn toward his own designated chambers. Instead, his gaze settled on the solitary figure walking toward the sun-drenched archway leading out of the old palace: Princess Deria Martell. At her old age, her silhouette bore the weight of a century and two decades of survival, yet her posture remained remarkably composed, one hand resting lightly on the arm of a waiting handmaiden while another attendant followed a respectful pace behind.
To Thaddues' heightened senses, however, every step she took seemed pulled from a well that had finally run completely dry.
Quietly, like a phantom drifting through the ancient stone halls, he fell into step beside her.
The corridors of the Old Palace gave way to dusty, open-air arcades, where the brutal midday heat had begun to soften beneath a dry desert breeze. For a long time, neither spoke. The only sounds were the whisper of their robes and the distant, rhythmic crash of the Sea of Dorne against the cliffs below.
"You should be resting, Lord Peverell." Deria said quietly, breaking the silence without looking back. She seemed to have known he was following her the entire time.
"Rest is a luxury for those whose hours aren't meticulously counted," Thaddues replied, his voice low, even murmur.
Deria slowed her pace slightly, letting him come alongside her as they entered a chamber—her very own. Her pale face carried a subtle, translucent quality under the harsh sunlight, like fine porcelain stretched too thin across the bones of an ancient lineage.
"The conversation in the hall went as well as could be hoped," Deria remarked, her thoughts turning back to the delicate web of diplomacy they had just spun. "That Targaryen Princess was a woman shaped by denied crowns and dragon blood, but she is not blind. I only hope that whatever terms you struck with her... whatever understanding you reached... unfolds in your favor."
"My favor is usually something I carve out myself," Thaddues said. "Though I appreciate the sentiment, Princess."
"It was not merely a sentiment," she said as she arrive at her bed, "Leave," she command her people.
They all bowed at her and him before they exit the room. Deria turned to face him, her dark eyes hollowed by an exhaustion older and deeper than any political fatigue. "Dorne may stand apart from the Iron Throne, but we do not stand apart from its wars. When dragons fight, the fire spreads farther than their borders. If your path spares Westeros another such calamity, Dorne will sleep easier for it."
Thaddues stopped a few paces away. His eyes narrowed slightly as he scrutinized her—not just as a monarch, but as a living monument of time.
"Which brings me to why I followed you," Thaddues said. "When I saw you in that hall, when I stood near you... I felt it."
Deria's brow twitched, but her mask remained firm. "Felt what?"
"The rot magic of a God," Thaddues said plainly, stepping closer. "The fraying tether. It wasn't just the burden of your years, Deria. You tried to use the relic again, didn't you? And it has almost killed you."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Deria did not flinch, nor did she offer a frantic denial. Instead, her eyes narrowed slightly as his words settled into her mind.
"So... gods are real?" she asked softly. Remembering the very woman that give her the relic.
Thaddues offered no answer. His face remained a hard mask, leaving her question to hang unanswered in the dry air.
A serene, hauntingly beautiful smile finally touched her pale lips. "I know what I did."
"You speak of it as if it were a simple transaction," Thaddues said, a sudden edge of genuine frustration sharpening his voice.
"Because after a lifetime of duty, everything becomes a transaction," she answered, her voice steady, carrying a quiet, terrifying conviction. "Drawing upon that power a second time was a price I paid willingly. It was the only weapon Dorne possessed should Princess Rhaenys choose to unleash dragonfire upon Sunspear. Had that day come, thousands of Dornish men, women, and children would have perished. If my remaining years were the toll required to spare them, then I surrendered them without hesitation. I have no regrets, Lord Peverell. Not a single one."
Thaddues stared at her, a deep, unsettling dissonance churning within his chest.
"It doesn't have to end here," he said suddenly, as he walk near her. Sitting at the edge of her bed. "The relic that consumed your life force was never meant only to take. Used differently, it can restore what it claimed. I have a ritual that can prolong your life."
Deria saw it immediately. The fear of death which the man infront of him cannot hide.
A faint smile touched her lips — gentle, almost amused, and unexpectedly warm.
"So," she murmured, "even you are troubled by death."
Thaddues paused, wondering if his mind arts was wasnt able to hide his reaction. His fingers tightening around the bedsheet in the bed .
"I decline, Thaddues," she said, her voice filled with an awful, quiet honesty. "To accept that would be to drag myself back into the mire. Do you know what it means to carry the weight of an entire realm for over a century? To wake every morning calculating the body count of a war you cannot win with swords, watching friends and siblings turn to dust?"
She shook her head softly before a chuckle escaped her mouth.
"Dying is not a tragedy for me," she whispered. "It is the only rest I will ever be granted. By allowing the end to come, I am finally allowed to lay down the burden. Do not steal my peace from me out of pity."
Thaddues didn't know how to react. He could not fathom it. To him, life was the only true currency. He had died once already, and he had no intention of doing so again. He sought power, knowledge, and mastery, but all of it rested upon one unshakable conviction: he would conquer death. To him, death was not a release. It was the ultimate enemy, an unacceptable defeat.
Yet here stood a woman who had lived a century holding the keys to her own salvation after burning away her soul on a forbidden relic, actively choosing to let the flame extinguish itself simply because she was tired.
It made everything profoundly, infuriatingly complicated. It repulsed him, yet the absolute purity of her conviction left an uncomfortable ache in his mind. How could someone hold so little regard for the one thing he would tear the heavens apart to secure forever?
"You are a stubborn fool, Princess," Thaddues said quietly, though there was no malice in his voice—only a heavy, tragic resignation.
"Perhaps," Deria replied with a soft laugh that ended in a faint, ragged cough. "But I am at peace."
Before Thaddues could reply, a sudden, jarring sensation washed over him.
Thaddues turned away from Deria, his body going completely still. He rose and walked to the edge of the terrace, looking beyond the sun-baked dunes, beyond the shimmering waters of the Sea of Dorne, his gaze fixed on the distant eastern horizon.
"Thaddues?" Deria asked, noticing his sudden change in demeanor. "What is it?"
He didn't answer. His gaze remained fixed on the eastern horizon, as though he were seeing something no one else could.
The heat of the Dornish sun beat down mercilessly upon the sandstone flags of the outer courtyard. The air inside the parley hall had been heavy with political maneuvering and the bitter sting of defeat, yet outside the desert sun proved no kinder.
Princess Rhaenys swept through the courtyard gates, her silver-gold hair whipping around her pale face in the hot desert draft. She couldn't wait. Not a day, not an hour. She needed to reach Viserys, she needed his answer before she could decide. And above all, she needed the sky.
In the center of the vast, dust-choked outer courtyard lay Meleys.
The Red Queen's scales gleamed like fresh blood against the pale Dornish stone. The dragon's chest heaved with deep, labored breaths, sending shimmering waves of heat across the yard, her scales still carrying the terrifying mark of being forcefully subdued.
"Meleys," Rhaenys called out, her voice striking the courtyard walls in the soft, commanding cadence of High Valyrian. "Dohaeris, Meleys. Rytsas."
She strode forward across the scorched stone, reaching out a leather-clad hand toward the massive, horned snout of her beast. She needed the familiar comfort of the saddle. She needed to leave this godsforsaken place behind.
She took another step. "Meleys... Sombōr."
The crimson dragon's eyes—vast orbs of molten gold with slit pupils—snapped open. They held neither recognition nor warmth, only the absence of the bond that had once united blood and shadow.
Before Rhaenys's fingers could graze the scales, Meleys lurched backward. Her wings unfurled with a sound like tearing canvas, battering the courtyard walls and sending up a blinding cloud of sand, loose gravel, and dry embers. Dornish guards at the perimeter stumbled back, steel hissing from their scabbards.
A sound tore from the dragon's throat. It was neither the low rumble of recognition nor the obedient growl of a dragon awaiting its master, but a sharp, furious hiss that promised only death.
A plume of black smoke erupted from the creature's nostrils, trailing sparks that scorched the stone flags at Rhaenys's boots. Meleys bared rows of dagger-like teeth, her horned crest rising in warning, her entire posture radiating a cold, territorial hostility. Whatever had been done to Meleys had left no trace of the bond they once shared.
Rhaenys stumbled back, her boots skidding on the dirt-covered stone. Her hand remained frozen in the air, trembling.
"Meleys?" she breathed, disbelief plain upon her face. "Meleys... it is I."
She stepped forward despite the danger, her hand reaching toward the crimson dragon.
"Dohaeris."
Meleys snapped her jaws, the sound echoing off the high stone walls like a thunderclap. A burst of warning fire washed across the flags just inches from Rhaenys's boots, forcing the silver-haired queen to leap backward as the heat singed her cloak.
Meleys let out one final, echoing roar that rattled the courtyard structures, lashed her tail against the stone, and turned her head away, refusing to bear her former rider.
Rhaenys stood alone in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by whispering guards beneath the towering walls, her chest heaving as she stared at the beast that no longer knew her name.
For the first time since claiming the Red Queen, Rhaenys stood before her dragon as a stranger.
TBC.....
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