A song of Fire and Blood

Chapter 2: A Song of Ice and Fire

283 AC - Tourney of Harrenhal

The gods were watching.

Rhaegar Targaryen stood beneath the heart tree, his silver hair catching the moonlight, his violet eyes locked on the woman before him. Lyanna Stark, wild and untamed as the North itself, wore a simple white gown, the fabric thin enough to shiver beneath the winds that howled through the godswood. They had come here, beyond the eyes of men, to bind themselves in secret, beyond the reach of the world that would never understand.

The septons of Westeros would have called this blasphemy—marrying beneath the eyes of the old gods, the nameless, faceless spirits that whispered through weirwood leaves. But the heart tree did not judge. Its bloody gaze only watched.

Brandon Stark would have called him a thief. Robert Baratheon would call him a monster. Even his own wife, Elia, would weep at what he had done. But none of it mattered now.

Only the prophecy mattered.

The ceremony was solemn, spoken in hushed words, their fingers intertwined as their vows were whispered into the night. There was no audience save for the trees, no witnesses save for the wind. But when Rhaegar slipped the simple silver band onto Lyanna's finger, he knew the gods had heard them.

A gust of wind rushed through the grove, making the leaves tremble like living things. Then, the sky split.

A streak of fire burned across the heavens, bright as the sun, falling toward the earth like a blade of light. Rhaegar froze, his breath caught in his throat. Lyanna turned, lips parted in wonder, as the burning star raced toward the land, falling in the distance, beyond the lake, beyond the hills.

"It's a comet," she whispered.

"No," Rhaegar breathed. His heart pounded like a war drum, his mind spinning. He had seen this before, in prophecy, in dreams of fire and shadow. "It is a sign."

For years, he had sought the meaning of the prince that was promised. The scrolls of Asshai, the whispers of the pyromancers, the cryptic words of the maesters—he had searched for the answer in books, in battle, in the sadness that clung to his soul like a song unfinished. And now, the answer had fallen from the sky.

His children.

His son, Aegon, was strong, but Elia was frail, too weak to bear another child. The dragon has three heads. His house, his destiny, could not be fulfilled through her alone. That was why he had taken Lyanna. That was why he had followed the call of prophecy.

The star had fallen on the night of their wedding. A new dragon had been born somewhere in the world, a child of fire and destiny. Could it be his own future son, yet to come from Lyanna's womb?

He turned to her, searching her face for fear, for uncertainty. But she was looking at him, eyes dark as a storm, filled not with doubt, but something else—something like fate.

"You think it means something," she said.

"Yes." His voice was hoarse, thick with the weight of the moment. "It means everything."

He did not know that far away, in the ruined halls of Harrenhal, another child had been born beneath that falling star. A boy with silver-gold hair and red eyes, a boy whose mother had burned away the moment he entered the world. A boy named Aerion Starborn.

Rhaegar did not yet know of him.

But prophecy was already in motion.