Archive of Our Own ^beta

The library of the Citadel smelled of dust, parchment, and the weight of time. Scrolls layered like sleeping serpents slumped upon carved oak tables. Towering shelves reached far above Rhaegar’s head, their ladders creaking like old bones when moved.

It was late. The novices had withdrawn, leaving only the candlelit silence and Rhaegar’s solitary presence beneath the stone arches. He ran his fingers along the spines of worn volumes, the titles in faded Valyrian and High Tongue. He had not come for history — not truly — but for the unseen threads that pulled history forward. Dreams. Prophecies. Warnings.

He pulled free a thin folio titled On the Nature of Dragonflame and the Skies , but it yielded little. Another volume, Signs and Portents in the Reign of Aenar I , proved more philosophical than prophetic.

And then his hand stopped on a thick book, bound in pale leather cracked from age. No title graced its spine, but embossed on the front in faint silver were the words:

“The Lineage and Lives of the Children of Viserys I Targaryen”
By Maester Orwyle, in the Twenty-Third Year of Aegon III’s Reign_

Rhaegar turned it over slowly.

As soon as he opened it, the book did not begin with the expected introduction, nor even the eldest heir, Princess Rhaenyra. The pages fluttered once, then stilled—already opened to a section well-thumbed and faintly stained, as though returned to time and time again.

The chapter heading read: “Of the Princess Helaena: Sister, Wife, Mother.”

Rhaegar paused.

He did not know much of her beyond the basics—wife to Aegon II, queen consort during the Dance of the Dragons. She was said to be gentle, withdrawn, prone to dreams that were dismissed by most. He would not have lingered on her account, were it not for the margins.

Someone had written there. Tiny, sharp script. Clean lines — not careless jottings but deliberate corrections, as if the book’s writer had erred and the truth demanded precision.

He leaned closer.

📜 Excerpt I:

Maester Orwyle's Account:
“The princess Helaena was a curious child, known to spend hours murmuring to herself and collecting insect specimens. While not academically inclined, she had a fondness for gardens and embroidery.”

[Annotation in the margin]:
She kept a record of over thirty species. Labeled them accurately in both Valyrian and Common. Academic disregard is the maester’s failing, not hers.

Rhaegar blinked.

He read the passage again, and then the annotation. The handwriting was steady, measured — not a scholar’s formal hand, but that of someone who took care with their words.

📜 Excerpt II:

Orwyle's Account:
“Some considered her touched in the head, for she often spoke of things she claimed would come to pass.”

[Annotation]:
Said “would” — not “might.” She was never unsure. Most misheard her as a child and never corrected the error in their memory.

A faint chill traced down Rhaegar’s neck. He was familiar with that tone — the defensiveness worn like armor by those whose loved ones had been poorly remembered. But here, there was no overt sentiment. Just quiet correction. As though the writer could not bear to let misrepresentation survive.

He turned another page.

📜 Excerpt III:

Orwyle’s Account:
“Though of pure Valyrian descent, Princess Helaena did not possess the striking beauty often associated with Targaryen princesses. Her features were plain, and her demeanor too timid for courtly admiration. She was more remembered for her eccentricities than her elegance.”

[Annotation]:
You never saw her at dawn, hair undone, laughing at nothing. You never stood near enough to see how violet her eyes truly were. Quiet is not plainness. You write as if loudness makes a woman more worthy of being remembered.

He shut the book halfway, brows furrowing.

There was something strange about it all—not the account itself, but the way it had been touched. Annotated. Cared for. The book had been used, certainly, but only this chapter bore any marks. The others, he found with a quick scan, remained untouched. No one had taken the same interest in Rhaenyra, Aegon, or Aemond. Only her.

Only Helaena.

And whoever had done so had come back again and again.

Rhaegar opened the chapter once more, and this time, he read slower.

Not for the maester's words — but for the ones in the margins.

📜 Excerpt IV:

Orwyle’s Account:
“It is said that during the fourty-sixth nameday celebration of His Grace King Viserys I, the Princess Helaena made an odd pronouncement between courses, causing brief amusement among the lords gathered.”

“Beware the crow with no beak, the sickness wrapped in mind. It will not knock.”

“Though her meaning was unclear, her words were laughed off as childish fancy. The rest of the feast continued uninterrupted.”

[Annotation]:
Spoken in the Great Hall. Three weeks later, the Red Death reached King’s Landing. Entered through the harbor district. No warning. No symptoms at first. The “crow with no beak” was later identified as the dock rat—carried the fever but never showed it. “Sickness wrapped in mind”—the first signs were hallucinations before collapse. We thought she was speaking in riddles. She was naming what had not yet come.

Prophecy.

Rhaegar leaned forward.

The mention stirred something inside him — not awe, but recognition. He, too, had dreamed. He, too, had seen things that others refused to name. What if this girl—this queen—had dreams like he had?

📜 Excerpt V:

Orwyle’s Account:
“There are few records of what Queen Helaena saw in her dreams. Some scribes claimed she spoke of rubies shattering and a death of a dragon by the stag’s antlers.”

[Annotation]:
Told me once: She spoke of her dream. She told me once that there will be a time where no dragons roam the skies. I just laughed then.

Rhaegar frowned, fingers tightening on the edge of the page. Told me once. That was the first shift. The first personal touch. The note wasn’t just a correction anymore — it was a memory.

Whoever wrote this had spoken to her. Not as a chronicler. As a companion. A confidant.

But Rhaegar’s hand stilled on the page. His breath caught when he realized.

The hairs on his arms stood.

These were not the dreams of the mad. These were warnings. Visions. And this man — whoever he was — had been the only one trying to understand her.

Stag antlers. Death of a dragon.

He had seen it too. Not in words, but in dreams. Always the same dream about a battle. A crowned stag sigil. 

It was the Baratheons’. He knew that. And he fears a rebellion from them. But who can trust a prince’s dreams when Lord Baratheon does not show any signs of revolt?

This is what he was researching for in the huge libraries of the Citadel.

Could Helaena have dreamed of the same one?

Could this mean that Rhaegar’s father was the dragon to die at their hands? Is this enough proof?

Rhaegar leaned forward to study the ink more closely.

He turned the page again, now nearing the end of Helaena’s chapter. The entries had grown shorter, fragmented — as if the maester had grown uncomfortable with her story.

The final section was titled simply: “The Passing of Queen Helaena.”

He slowed his reading.

📜 Excerpt VI

Orwyle’s Account:
“Following the death of her second son, Prince Maelor, the queen Helaena grew increasingly despondent. Confined to her chambers, she was seldom seen and is said to have taken little food or rest.”

“In the final days of the 130th year, she leapt from Maegor’s Holdfast into the inner courtyard of the Red Keep.”

“Some whispered it was grief. Others said madness. Regardless, her passing was quiet, and her body returned to the crypts with all honors due a queen.”

There were no annotations in the margins.

No correction. No memory. No protest.

Just the silence of white space.

But as Rhaegar looked closer, his breath caught.

The page was warped, ever so slightly. Stained in places, as though the parchment had once absorbed water. No ink. Just salt.

He reached forward and touched the edge of the page.

It crackled beneath his fingers—stiffened by time, but not untouched.

Tears .

Whoever had annotated the chapter had come this far… and stopped.

Not because there was nothing left to say. But because there was too much.

He turned the next page — and something thin slipped loose from between the binding. It drifted softly to the floor. 

Another paper.

Folded in half, browned and delicate from age, the edges flaking like dried leaves. He stooped and picked it up gently. There were no seals. No signatures. But when he unfolded it, the writing was unmistakable — the same hand as the annotations.

But this wasn’t a note. Or a correction.

This was something private.

A letter.

To you, my only peace,

They laughed when you spoke of crows without beaks and songs wrapped in sickness. They thought it was poetry. Or madness.
But I remember the way you gripped the table that night, the way your voice shook not from confusion, but from urgency. You were trying to warn them.
You always tried.

They write you now as quiet. As meek. As delicate. A moth in the shadow of dragons.
But I remember the fire.
You held it close, silent and secret. You bore it alone, and never asked for pity.

They say Maelor’s death broke you.
They will never know the truth.
It wasn’t only grief. It was guilt. For bringing him into a world that had no place for a child born in shadows.
Our child.

No one will ever know. Perhaps that is for the best.
But I will not let you be remembered as something tragic and trembling.

You were strong. Stronger than me. I tried to win the war. I fought with everything I had, believing that if we won—if I helped the true queen take the throne — I could return to you. Stand beside you. Speak the truth at last.
But when I returned, you were already gone.

I’ve read your words again and again. I write in the margins so they will know what you really said. What you really saw.
They will never carve your story in stone, but I will etch it in ink.
And when the ink runs dry, I will come to you.

That night in the garden… when you pressed my hand to your belly and laughed—do you remember? I do. I will never forget it.
You once told me of the storm coming. I thought I’ll be fine as long as I have you. But your breathing stopped before I could come back to you.

Wait for me, wherever you are.
I will finish this. I will write every word true. Then I will follow.

Yours, in every breath,

— J

The words blurred before Rhaegar’s eyes, not from tears—not yet—but from the sheer weight of what he held. This wasn’t just grief. This was history rewritten in silence. A love story never spoken aloud. A warning shouted into a void.

And he, too, was chasing prophecy. Chasing ghosts.

But perhaps he had been wrong to believe he was the first.

He folded the letter carefully, reverently, and placed it back between the pages of the book. The annotations now read differently. Not as academic notes.

But as elegies.

Rhaegar sat in silence.

The candlelight trembled beside him, casting long shadows across the stone table, across the open book that now looked less like a ledger and more like a grave.

He had come for answers. For signs. He had chased prophecy across scrolls, maps, constellations — believing always that the future could be shaped by knowledge. That it could be understood , if only one knew where to look.

But what he had found was something else.

A love buried beneath footnotes. A grief that lingered in the margins of history. The kind of sorrow that could only be written in silence, and sealed between pages no one else ever opened.

He looked down at the last page again—the one warped by tears.

‘She leapt from Maegor’s Holdfast.’

He read the line again, and again.

So few words to mark the end of a life. And yet… someone had wept here. Someone had loved her enough to write her back into truth, line by line. Someone who could not bring himself to correct the final page.

And that letter… “I will follow.”

Rhaegar closed the book gently.

The air felt heavier now, like the room remembered something it had tried to forget.

He pressed a hand to the leather cover, fingers brushing over the faded silver embossing.

Who was he?

Had he lived long enough to finish his corrections? Or had he truly followed her, as he promised?

Rhaegar swallowed the thought.

A Targaryen, no doubt. The ink was too raw, too knowing. This had not been written by a stranger.

He looked up only when the sound of soft footsteps echoed near the end of the aisle.

An older maester appeared in the archway, robes trailing, lamp in hand. He stopped upon seeing Rhaegar, blinking in mild surprise.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing at once. “Forgive me — I did not expect anyone to remain at this hour.”

Rhaegar said nothing at first. His hand still rested on the book.

The maester approached slowly, lowering his voice with reverence. “Might I ask what it is you seek, Prince Rhaegar?”

The prince did not lift his gaze.

Instead, he asked quietly, “Who was Helaena Targaryen?”

The question seemed to take the old man aback.

He glanced at the table — at the pale, cracked volume resting beneath Rhaegar’s hand.

When he saw the title, his expression shifted. Not to surprise — but to something gentler. Almost solemn.

“That book,” the maester murmured, “has not been touched in many years.”

Rhaegar’s eyes finally met his. “But it was once.”

The maester nodded.

“Yes. Often.” He said quietly. “The maesters here know of him. Even if a hundred years had already passed, my prince.”

Rhaegar’s chest tightened. He knew, instinctively, what he would hear next—and yet he waited.

“Prince Jacaerys Velaryon,” the maester said. “Eldest son of Rhaenyra. He came here after the war, though he was no longer needed in court. No longer young, and never crowned. He did not ask for prophecy. He did not ask for dragons. They say, he only asked for this .”

His hand brushed the cover lightly.

“He returned to this book again and again. Always to the same chapter. He said nothing. Wrote quietly. And when he left, he always touched the page with her name as if it were sacred.”

Rhaegar glanced down. He thought of the tears. The silence. The final promise in the letter.

“And what became of him?” he asked.

The maester hesitated.

“He lived in the Red Keep. Alone, mostly. When his mother was crowned, he deviated from the court. No wife. No heirs. No memorial.”

“And his death?”

Another pause.

“They say he leapt from the highest tower of the Red Keep. A quiet death. As hers was.”

The silence that followed was deep and still—like the pause between the turning of pages.

The maester hesitated, then lowered his voice, as though even stone walls might listen.

“There were… rumors,” he said. “Prince Jacaerys was meant to ride to the Gullet, to go with his dragon to aid his brothers. But a letter came. From Queen Helaena.”

He folded his hands. “He never went. All those who did perished.”

Another pause.

“Some whispered that she foresaw something. Others said it was simply a plea… from a woman to the man she once loved.”

His gaze drifted toward the book Rhaegar held.

“There were already rumors of their closeness before the war. But nothing was ever written. Not in official records.”

A thin, weary smile.

“Maybe some truths are too soft for history to carry.”

Rhaegar bowed his head.

The story was finished, and yet somehow, it had never truly begun.

When the maester left, Rhaegar returned the book to the shelf with quiet hands.

He lingered for a moment, eyes grazing the worn spine as if afraid the weight of the story might vanish if he let go. Then he turned from the archives and walked the long corridors back to his chambers, each step accompanied by silence so thick it felt like it clung to his cloak.

That night, he found no rest.

He turned beneath the weight of his sheets, the candle burned low, and still, sleep did not come. His thoughts were trapped in the lines of that annotated book—the corrections, the tears, the letter.

But when sleep finally claimed him, it did not bring the usual dreams of flame and ruin.

He was in the gardens of the Red Keep, though they looked newer, greener—blooming with a softness the present day no longer knew. The stone was less weathered, the trees taller, and the scent of roses filled the air.

Ahead of him, seated on a bench beneath a flowering tree, were two figures.

Their backs were to him.

A woman with long silver hair, intricately braided, dressed in a soft green gown. And beside her, a man with dark curls and a noble bearing, his posture straight even as he leaned toward her in confidence.

The man spoke first, voice quiet, uncertain:

“What if the child has dark hair like mine? They will say things… cruel things. About you. About your honor.”

He paused.

“You don’t deserve that.”

The woman was silent for a moment.

Then she stood.

She turned to face him—to face the man —and even in a dream, Rhaegar felt something ancient stir. Her face was young, lovely, proud. She had all the markings of a Targaryen princess: the high cheekbones, the pale lashes, the eyes like lilac dusk.

She smiled, warm and bright as spring.

“Even if our child is born with dark curls,” she said, guiding his hand to her growing belly, “they will be loved. Fiercely. That’s all a child ever needs.”

The man closed his eyes as he embraced her, his forehead resting against her body.

“I only wish,” he whispered, “that one day, we may walk freely. Without hiding. Without fear.”

There was a stillness, then — gentle, peaceful. The kind that dreams are made of.

Until Rhaegar realized the woman was no longer looking at her lover.

She was looking at him.

Right at him.

Her eyes locked with his—knowing, clear, and completely unsmiling.

The garden around them began to fade into shadow. The wind stilled. The moment shifted. Then it was just the two of them in complete darkness, facing each other.

And then she spoke again, her voice soft and distant, as if carried from another world.

“Prophecies are not meant to be understood, prince. They do not unfold by the will of men. Don’t try to change them. Because if you do…”

She took a step towards him.

“They come—and they take.”

Her eyes darkened.

“I tried,” she said softly. “I saw his death—Jacaerys. In the sea, beneath the Gullet. So I changed it. I told him not to go. I thought I could trick fate.”

A pause.

“And fate took our son instead.”

Her voice cracked, though she did not cry.

“You call it madness. But it was guilt. Knowing that my child died in his place.”

“That I bartered one life for another — and the gods still took both.”

She stepped closer in the dream. “Do not make the same mistake, Rhaegar.”

He had come seeking signs. Instead, he had found a love buried beneath footnotes — and the cost of tampering with fate.

Helaena had tried to change the future. And prophecy had punished her for it.

Then a whisper.

 “And this is not a dream. You invaded the memory of the dead.”

And before he could move, before he could even speak her name, the vision scattered like mist in morning sun.

Rhaegar awoke with a gasp.

The light of dawn had just touched the sky.

He sat upright, sweat clinging to his back, his heart pounding not with fear—but with the ache of something ancient pressing down on his soul.

He knew who they were now.

The silver-haired woman.

The dark-haired prince.

Helaena. Jacaerys.

The dream lingered—no, not a dream. Helaena had told him it wasn’t. It was a memory.

They had loved one another. Deeply, wholly, impossibly. And no one remembered.

No songs. No tapestries. Only this hidden book, sealed and tear-stained. A love left to rot beneath years of dust and silence.

Was that what it meant to be Targaryen? To burn with love, and be devoured by it?

He had come seeking answers about prophecy, the stag-sigil that haunted his sleep—the sound of hooves and the crash of hammers.

He had seen it more often now. Its shadow grew longer with each dream.

Instead, he had found a tragedy.

But perhaps he was meant to see it. Because now, Helaena had given him exactly what he was looking for. 

The dreams he has were prophecies like hers. And they were not meant to change it.

What came would come. He must not run from it, nor twist its meaning into something glorious. Helaena had tried to do the same. It had broken her.

Let it come. Prince Rhaegar says in his mind.

And in time, he too would burn — as they had.

With a love too fierce to survive—and a fate etched in rubies, ash, and antlers.

The crowned stag still watched him from the edge of every dream.

And when Robert Baratheon came for his life, the rubies of his armor would scatter, and it ended the reign of the dragons in Westeros.