Chapter Text
Movie nights had started like most bad ideas presented to her life nowadays: with Howland being strategic and Lyanna being too tired to tell him to sod off. He timed it well, the clever little crannogmen bastard. Only ever showed up on nights she wasn’t working, after a job, always when her defences were at their lowest. Never asked. Just came ‘round like it was normal for someone to decide this — her flat, her sofa, her air — was his too. Popcorn in hand. Film picked out. Big green eyes like a bloody rescue dog that had somehow learned the schedule of her trauma. This was week two. The second time she’d let it happen. And now Rhaegar fucking Targaryen was here too, being an accomplice to the occupation of her place for this idiotic thing. Of all films, Reed had brought Nosferatu. The old one. Grainy black-and-white misery with a monster who didn’t talk and died for love or hunger or whatever it was people like Rhaegar called ‘tragedy’ when they wanted to sound poetic.
Howland had passed out midway, hand still in the popcorn bowl, mouth hanging open like a half-drugged dormouse. She sat between him and Rhaegar, spine tight, face blank. The lights were low. The heating had kicked on. Outside, the wind was doing its best imitation of a dying dog. She wasn’t about to say it was the best part of her week. Or that it made her feel anything. But it was something. That warm, quiet kind of something she didn’t know what to do with. She didn’t like it. But she didn’t kick them out, either. Her knee was touching Howland’s. Her shoulder nearly brushed Rhaegar’s. His arm was on the back of the sofa. She could feel the heat of it at the nape of her neck, just behind her head. She’d spent Yule surrounded by people she didn’t think she’d enjoy being around so much. Rhaegar had been there. He’d won at Jenga — bloody show-off. Benjen sang karaoke like someone was squeezing a cat. They exchanged gifts. She almost laughed. Almost let herself forget what she was. What she carried. She’d watched her brothers watching, her friends in particular Rhaegar, and hadn’t liked the way they softened. The way she softened.
And now he was here. Watching Nosferatu . Saying stupid things. His voice broke the quiet like a cello string pulled taut, then plucked just once, low, resonant, unexpected. — “This part always gets me.” — He said it almost to himself, like a confession left on the windowsill for the wind to take.
His eyes never left the screen, but the corner of his mouth curled, soft and crooked, like he was remembering something painful wrapped in silk. The kind of memory you don’t talk about unless there’s darkness and old film grain to hide behind. It wasn’t dramatic. Wasn’t performative. It was quieter than that, like a man watching a wound he never stitched properly start to bleed again, and letting it.
Lyanna blinked, turning to him, careful not to move too much. She didn’t look at him right away. Just kept her eyes on the flickering screen, her jaw set like she was chewing on something bitter. It came out dry, flat as frostbite. — “The lass sacrificin’ hersel’, that what gets ya?” — She said it like it tasted stupid in her mouth. Like she was already halfway to calling him out for being soft.
No inflection, no warmth — just a bite of sarcasm, like she was flicking a cigarette ash in his direction instead of asking a real question. Her eyes cut sideways, sharp and wary, watching him the way a feral dog watches a stranger get too close. She wasn’t asking. She was testing.
Rhaegar didn’t blink. — “No.” — He said it softly, but with that same unyielding calm he always wore, like a well-cut suit.
Not defensive. Not dismissive. Just certain, like the word had been carved into stone centuries before he spoke it. His gaze stayed on the screen, but something in it turned inward, as if he wasn’t watching the film anymore but remembering something darker behind it. It wasn’t the girl that moved him. And Lyanna felt it, in the stillness that followed — that No wasn’t just an answer. It was the start of something else. Something heavier. Something he hadn’t meant to share but did anyway, like blood rising to the surface without a wound. She didn’t look at him, not really, just turned enough to catch the shape of him at her side — too close. Close enough she could feel the shift of his breath before he spoke, the heat from his arm slung casual as sin over the back of the couch. His hand hovered somewhere behind her head, like it had ideas.
She should’ve moved. Should’ve said something sharp enough to draw blood. Instead, her brain went sideways — back to Winterfell, Yule night, too many bodies in too small a space, laughter rattling the windows like a storm just waiting to break. Her brothers had watched the room like border guards, eyes trailing every poor bastard she dragged in with that look. But Rhaegar? No. Rhaegar they watched like they were trying to work out what his angle was. What she saw in him. He’d wrapped them quick — charming, polished, that slow-burn charisma he wore like a velvet noose.
It had been… nice. That word made her want to punch something. She didn’t like that she remembered the way her brothers laughed. Didn’t like that she’d stood there, drink in hand, thinking fuck , I missed this. That they were still alive. Still whole. More or less. She, Howland and Sigorn had caught the night train back. Rhaegar ran home, apparently — idiot . She didn’t ask why. Didn’t want the answer. It had been one of those rare nights where the ghosts shut up and the house didn’t creak like it was grieving. One of those nights she let herself forget how bad the world was. Just for a minute. Didn’t mean she trusted it. Didn’t mean she trusted him. But now here he was. Sitting at her side like he belonged there. Like the world didn’t end every time she let someone get close. And she still hadn’t moved.
“Orlok. Dying for love.” — Rhaegar continued it like he was reading poetry off a headstone. Low. Calm. A little too calm, like the kind of still water that hides something moving underneath.
His voice threaded into the room like smoke, soft-edged but soaked in something weighty. Not sentiment exactly — no, he wasn’t that obvious. It was quieter than that. Older. Like he’d seen it, lived it, maybe even bled for it once, and hadn’t quite forgiven himself for surviving. Lyanna didn’t like the way the words curled in the air between them. Too intimate. Too slow. It felt like he was peeling something back — not just from the film, but from her. And from himself. She didn’t trust words like that. Not when they came wrapped in velvet and grief.
She stared at the screen, then at him. — “Ye think so?”
“Vampires know when dawn is coming. You can feel it far before you see it.” — He muttered it like a secret meant for no one, or maybe for the ghosts clinging to the wallpaper. Barely above a whisper, but it sank into the room like fog.
Lyanna heard it anyway. Of course she did. She always caught the quiet things. The cracks people didn’t mean to show. There was something old in the way he said it. Not theatrical. Not trying to impress. Just true. And it stuck under her skin like ash. The line wasn’t about sunrises. Not really. She knew what it was to feel the edge of something ending before the light ever touched it.
“Dunna sound like love,” — She muttered back. — “Sounds more like hunger, that.”
“Hunger’s easy to fix.” — He smiled without teeth. — “Passion’s harder. And for vampires… Humans too, I suppose… Getting close enough to burn is part of the thrill.”
Lyanna squinted, eyes narrowing like she was trying to make out a threat through fog, or like her vision had just gone fuzzier again, not that she’d admit it. Her fingers curled tighter around the edge of the cushion, knuckles white, body still but coiled, like a cigarette before the light.
She tilted her head, voice dropping into that flat, bone-dry register she used when she was about to verbally knife someone, casual, bored, biting. — “If this yer way o’ tellin’ me yer into kinky shite, I ain’t the one, mate. No kink-shame, aye, but there’s easier ways t’ get yer bloody fix.”
The words came out like smoke — slow, sardonic, and sharp at the edges. She didn’t look at him when she said it. Couldn’t. He was too close. And that hand of his, hovering behind her head like it knew the rules she’d broken just by letting him in the door — too fucking close. The tension hung between them like storm air, buzzing. Like she’d struck a match just to prove she wasn’t afraid of fire — even if her whole body was already bracing for the burn. His fingers ghosted the nape of her neck — the soft skin just beneath the hairline where the pulse thrummed faint and stubborn. Too gentle, like he was testing fire with a bare fingertip, or tracing a secret he didn’t quite trust.
He leaned closer, voice dropping low enough it almost slipped into a growl, rough around the edges but careful, like a knife wrapped in velvet. — “It’s not about the blood,” — He said. — “When I feed, it’s… connection. The emotion changes everything.” — The words slid under her skin, colder and hotter at the same time. Not a plea. Not a threat. Something else. Something heavy. Something she didn’t want to admit she wanted to hear.
Her breath hitched — not because she wanted it, but because she felt it. Fuck. There it was. That slow, creeping heat under her skin that wasn’t fear, wasn’t fight, wasn’t anything she knew how to manage. She wanted to hit him. Or kiss him. Or disappear into the floor and bite her own goddamn tongue off for feeling anything at all. She was too smart for this. Too damaged. Too fucking doomed.
“Sometimes it’s about fear,” — Rhaegar said. — “Taking someone down an alley, making them feel it. Or being with someone… Really with them… And forgetting the sun.”
Their eyes locked, his indigo depths swallowing her whole, and suddenly her hands sweated like she’d plunged into ice water. She didn’t know what to do with them — fidgeted, traced invisible lines along her hairline, near the temples, her cheekbones. And then him, leaning in closer, close enough she could feel his breath. The breath he shouldn’t have
Rhaegar’s voice dropped to a hushed murmur, like a secret meant only for her ears, soft but insistent, threading through the quiet like smoke curling from a dying fire. His words lingered close, almost a caress, as his gaze locked with hers, steady and unyielding. — “Passion,” — He breathed, voice low and smooth, — “you can try and shut it out forever. But I’m telling you… let someone swipe you off your feet. Dipping your toes in won’t kill ya.”
There was a weight behind it — not just a dare, but something almost tender, an invitation wrapped in the quiet urgency of a man who’s tasted the burn and knows the sting of holding back. She had to think fast. Couldn’t let this slide. She knew exactly what would happen if she didn’t strike first. So when he moved to lean in more, she turned on a dime and punched Howland’s leg. The boy jerked awake, eyes wide and blinking like he’d seen a ghost. Rhaegar’s hand slid off her face, retreating back to the couch’s edge — where it belonged. She caught the flicker of frustration in his eyes. She could tell. But dipping her toes in that fire? No bloody way. She wasn’t about to wreck everything.
Lyanna glanced at Howland, dry as dust, — “Howl, this a double feature or what?”
The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on — like fog and cigarette smoke and bad decisions hanging low in the air. Lyanna wasn’t in the mood. Hadn’t been for weeks. The movie ended, the boys filtered out with their fanged banter and half-fanged grins, and she finally exhaled like she'd been holding her breath the whole time. Too close. Too warm. Too many feelings crawling up her spine like rats. She waited until the last pair of boots disappeared down the stairwell, then let her head tip back, eyes squeezed shut. She could still feel Rhaegar’s presence like heat off a smouldering ember. Fucking ridiculous. This was why you didn’t get close to the people you worked with. This was why you strung along half-decent men like Sigorn until they finally got bored and left — clean, safe, manageable. No fires. No mess.
Eight hours of sleep, that’s what she needed. Proper sleep, not whatever fitful snatches she’d been getting lately. Maybe the twisted shit in her stomach was just exhaustion. But no. She didn’t get sleep. She got dead faces. Usual stuff, really — burned eyes, bleeding mouths, hands reaching for her through the veil. She woke up with sweat between her shoulder blades and the old, demon cursed tattoos on her wrist burning like someone pressed a hot coin into her skin. The daemon marks. She never did get rid of those. Thought about it. Didn’t. Might be a ward. Might be a target. Most days, she forgot they were even there. But this morning, they weren’t subtle. They screamed. And Lyanna did what she always did when something screamed: she ignored it. Howland was already at the office when she trudged in, hoodie up, sunglasses on despite the overcast sky. His boots were kicked off, his laptop humming like a quiet little beast. It was his day off, but he liked being around. She let him. One of the only things she did let.
“Yer ten o’clock?” — He asked, without looking up. — “Mister Scaramanga, lookin’ for his missing son. Oh, and, are ye alright?”
“Nope,” — She muttered, flopping into the chair. — “Demon brands’re burnin’ today. No idea why.”
He blinked at her. — “Want me to look into it?”
“Nah.” — She yawned into her palm. — “I’ll do what I always do. Ignore it ‘til it goes away.”
Howland tilted his head, brows drawn together, voice low with quiet skepticism as he asked, — “That actually work?”
Lyanna said it with a dry smirk and zero hesitation, eyes on the floor like she’d already buried the proof, — “Aye. Every time. Jobs. Friends. Love.” — Her tone was flat, clipped, like each word was a door she’d already slammed shut.
And that was when the front door opened. Both Lyanna and Howland turned toward the sound. A woman stepped in — older, wrapped in a dress that looked like it belonged to another century. Full-length, high-necked, sleeves trimmed with lace like she’d clawed her way out of a Victorian funeral portrait. Black as a starless sky. A hood covered her face. But the second she stepped across the threshold, the air changed. Heavy. Charged. Like something ancient had stirred. The woman pulled the hood back. Old, yes. Skin like crumpled paper. Deep creases carved into her cheeks and mouth. Her hair was silver-white, falling in waves over her shoulders. She didn’t wear glasses. No cane. Just wide, milky eyes that stared straight ahead — blind, but not unseeing. Lyanna knew immediately what she was. She didn’t need the second sight to feel the scream coiling in her throat.
“Go get some caff, aye,” — She told Howland, standing slow.
He glanced at the woman, then back at her. — “What?”
“I said,” — She snapped, sharper now,— “go get some caff. Just round the corner, aye? Take yer time.”
He opened his mouth to argue, saw her face, and wisely decided not to. The door shut behind him with a soft click. Silence. Lyanna faced the woman. Her heart was already beating a warning in her ears.
She spoke the old words, ancient and rusted in her throat, something dug up from her bloodline, — “Tá tvoĭ golos mértvykh ag caoineadh do chroí.” — Y our death sings within you; I hear it still.
The older banshee answered in kind, her voice like wind scraping across ice, — “Ya vizhy tvoĭ pechal' — ní eagla orm.” — I see your sorrow — I do not fear it.
A chill spidered down Lyanna’s spine. — “Ye ‘ere to speak yer price, then?” — She asked, voice flat.
Because she’d made a deal. A reckless, aching, desperate deal. And she knew better than to think the old kind forgot. But the woman shook her head — slow, deliberate. Not yet, child . Relief. Dread. Hard to tell which tasted stronger.
“I’m ‘ere t’ warn ya,” — The woman said.
Lyanna tensed. — “Of what?”
“Ah had a vision,” — the woman said, — “o’ ye. An’ someone wantin’ tae harm ye. Somethin’ pure evil. Ah saw yer soul dragged tae the other side.”
Death. The banshees never came knocking unless death was already listening at the door. The woman went on, — “Summat dark’s bein’ called up. An’ they’re usin’ ye as the conduit, like. I saw a dagger, three bloody rubies. Marked wi’ a three-headed dragon.”
Lyanna didn’t breathe. Oh, good. Perfect. Cursed brands flaring. Banshees at the door. Visions of her soul being dragged across the veil like it owed someone money. All before noon. She lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, inhaled deep.
“Oh, grand,” — She muttered. — “Just bloody perfect, innit.”
She hadn’t seen one like that before — but she’d felt the shadow of it. The kind of thing that stank of blood rites and bad intentions. A dagger, ruby-eyed, dragon-clawed. Something ancient and wrong. She’d seen the emblem once and knew who might have this dagger. Rhaegar didn’t smell like her death. And he hated magic — loathed it in that way only someone touched by it could. That should’ve ruled him out. But the old woman hadn’t lied. Old banshees never did. Their visions weren’t dreams. They were warnings. When the woman left — no fanfare, no lingering gaze — Lyanna was left in the stillness. Cold air. Burnt cigarrent. Tattooed wrists aching like they remembered something she didn’t want to. She should’ve gone to sleep. Or drunk herself into pretending. Instead, she hit the bottle just enough to tip her balance and decided that knocking on a vampire’s door uninvited in the middle of the bloody night was a good idea. She didn’t call. She didn’t knock twice. She just showed up. The concierge was too busy flirting with his phone to stop her, as always. She ghosted up to Rhaegar’s floor, boots thudding dully against concrete, and knocked like she meant it. It took a minute, maybe two. When the door swung open, she was greeted by rumpled hair, a half-buttoned shirt, and the unmistakable smell of sex in the air. Well. That tracked.
“Lyanna,” — Rhaegar said. Voice low. Eyes tired. — “Now’s not a good time.”
Aye, no shit. — “Somethin’s off,” — She said, already walking past him. — “Didn’t call. Sue me.”
From inside the flat, a woman’s voice called out, smooth as silk sheets and smug as hell. — “Darling, who is it?”
“It’s…” — Rhaegar sighed. — “Work.”
Lyanna gave him a look as he buttoned his shirt up with deliberate slowness. — “Sorry for barging in on yer party, really. But this’s important.”
The voice again, more annoyed now. — “Can you send them away?”
Oh, brilliant. Lyanna Stark: investigator, banshee, and now… cockblocker. Fucking gold star. Rhaegar stepped in front of her. — “I mean it, Lyanna. If you’ve got something, make it quick.”
She swallowed the humiliation, straightened her spine, and said flatly, — “Ye got a dagger, aye? Silver, with three rubies and that dragon emblem of yer kin.” — The shift in his face said it all. She’d hit a nerve. — “Ye got it with ya?” — She pressed.— “Locked up? Ward on it? Summat like that?”
Rhaegar crossed his arms, one brow raised, eyes narrowing just a bit like he wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused. His voice was low, stray calm but sharp as he asked, — “Are you drunk?”
“Not nearly enough,” — She deadpanned.
Rhaegar replied calm, steady, like he was telling her something obvious but important. No flair, no extra words, just firm enough to put her at ease, —“It’s safe.”
“Good,” — Lyanna’s voice was rough, dragging through the words like gravel under her tongue. She muttered it low, half-swallowed, sharp with that kind of dry, biting sarcasm that’s less about humor and more about holding back a storm, — “Grand. Just fucking peachy, that. Righ’ then, I’m off. Should’ve called, I know that. Sorry for… wreckin’ yer night of tantric meditation or whatever seven hells this is.”
“Lyanna,” — He said, eyes narrowing. — “Are you alright?” — Rhaegar’s voice was calm but edged with concern, his eyes narrowing just enough to catch the faintest flicker of something off in her. He didn’t sound accusing or demanding, more like a quiet question hanging in the air, careful but sharp, like he was trying to see through the cracks she didn’t want him to find.
“I’m fabulous,” — She said with a too-bright smile. — “Night.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She just turned on her heel and left, the elevator swallowing her whole like a metal coffin. The city outside was cold and damp, street lights flickering like they were too tired to keep pretending. She didn’t head home. She walked. Needed to breathe. Needed to not feel like the sky was pressing down on her ribcage. And that’s when she noticed it. The car. Black. Tail-lights off. Following her just close enough to be polite, just far enough to be a threat. She made three lefts. Dead ends, all of them. Then the window rolled down.
A voice from the car, low and accented, — “Slyshu moroz idyot za toboy.” — She stopped cold. I hear frost follow you. Old words. Banshee words. Trust words. An old way of saying: I know what you are .
She turned her head slowly. A man was driving. Northern face, sharp eyes. In the passenger seat, a woman leaned forward, shadowed and silent. Lyanna’s mouth was dry. Her voice wasn’t. — “Ya nye idú odná,” — She said. I do not walk alone. A lie, but a convincing one.
The woman in the passenger seat tilted her head, then asked softly, — “Mechtáesh v peple ili v kostyakh?” — Do you dream in ash or bone? The question was ancient. Poetic. A banshee’s riddle. A way of asking: Are you one of us?
Lyanna stared at them. Something ancient twisted in her gut. Curiosity or instinct… Maybe both. — “Tol’ko v otgóloskakh,” — She answered. Only in the echoes.
The car jerked to a stop. The back door cracked open like it had a plan of its own. Run, she should’ve — legs ready, lungs pulling cold air sharp enough to cut. But no. Lyanna moved forward, she was after all made of something stubborn and broken. Slid into the back seat, the smell of stale smoke and something older, heavier, wrapping around her like a damp coat. The man in the driver’s seat stared straight ahead — dead eyes or just pretending, Lyanna didn’t care either way. The woman beside him flicked her gaze back to Lyanna. Older, older than Lyanna by a decade at least. Her eyes were that milky sort, the kind that whispered about darkness creeping in, the kind that meant you didn’t see much but saw everything anyway.
She reached out a pale hand that was cold. — “Yer Lyanna, aye? Daughter o’ Lyarra, daughter o’ Arya Flint.” — Banshees counted by bloodline. Female blood. Family that wasn’t just family but a chain of ghosts and grudges.
Lyanna’s voice was tight but steady, like steel under rust. — “Aye. That’s me. And who’re ye, then?”
“Dacey Mormont,” — Came the reply. — “Daughter o’ Maege.”
Lyanna narrowed her eyes. — “An’ what’s it you want from me, exactly?”
The man finally spoke, voice low and flat. — “We’re here tae watch yer back. Ye’ve got nae one lookin’ oot for ye, so we’re here tae sort it oot.” — Weird.
Dacey nodded. — “Ma mum sent me. She spoke tae ye, but she couldn’t hang aroond on this side much longer. Not no more.”
Of course she couldn’t. Banshees like that usually crossed over. Old wives’ tales said they stopped aging, but Lyanna knew better — myths were for fools or those desperate to believe in miracles. This wasn’t just a warning anymore. Protectors sent. Stakes raised. This was serious. Real serious. And just her luck, she was right in the middle of it.
***
A bad feeling. That was the inelegant term for it. A human term, clumsy but accurate. Rhaegar had long since learned to trust the architecture of discomfort — the way a thought lingered too long in the marrow, the way instinct curled in the gut like smoke before fire. The girl he’d fed from — sweet, bored, and willing — hadn't even finished buttoning her coat before his mind was elsewhere. Not on blood. Not on the next lie or cover-up or crime scene. On her. On Lyanna. She’d been off. Off in the way storms were off — too quiet before they ripped open the sky. She’d come to his place earlier, uninvited, glassy-eyed and jittery, demanding answers about his family's dagger. The one with runes burned into the hilt and old magic still sleeping in its spine. Older than her, older than him. It wasn’t just an heirloom. It was protection — and a warning.
Then she’d left. Quick as she came. And he’d let her go. Stupid. Now, in front of her apartment, he stood still and silent like the night itself. He didn’t knock. Didn’t call. Just entered. She wouldn’t care. She’d came into his home without calling so he was maintaining the energy. But the apartment felt wrong. Still. Too still. Not the comfortable chaos of Lyanna's usual presence — ashtrays, coffee mugs, boots abandoned mid-hall. No, this was vacant. The hollow echo of something recently alive and now gone. They weren’t working a case. She had no reason to be out. And even if she did — she’d have left a mess. A trace. A voicemail laced with sarcasm. Something. Instead: silence . He swept the place like a predator, not a partner. No blood. No violence. Just a creeping sense of absence. Then the door clicked open. He moved before thought — pure speed, pure instinct — reaching the entry just as the other intruder stepped inside. Not her. Sigorn. Of course.
“You?” — Rhaegar’s voice was dry, unimpressed.
“Aye, me,” — Sigorn said, eyes narrowing. — “Wha’ y’doin’ here, like?”
“Looking for Lyanna,” — He answered simply. — “She came to my place earlier. Didn’t look right.”
“She didn’t look reet?” — Sigorn echoed. — “An’ so what, you just turn up at her flat in th’middle o’ the night? Could’ve just rung her ye ken?”
“You’ll forgive me if concern isn’t something I schedule,” — Rhaegar replied, voice cool as grave dirt. — “I was feeding, Mister Judgement.”
Sigorn muttered. — “Came t’talk to her about a case. Body turned up. Hockey lad. Ripped t’shreds.”
Rhaegar’s eyes sharpened. — “Torn how?”
“Like the kind of torn you don’t get from a bear or a pissed-off junkie,” — He said, jaw tight, eyes not quite meeting Rhaegar’s. — “Looked wrong. Looked... familiar.”
The words hung. Unspoken: Like that first case. Rhaegar didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe. But something shifted in his chest. Cold. Mechanical. — “You think it’s connected?”
“Dunno. But it reeks of it.” — Sigorn’s jaw twitched. — “Ye said she came t’ye. She say owt about why?”
“A dagger,” — Rhaegar murmured, almost to himself. — “She asked about one of my family’s blades. It felt like she… Was being watched. Like something was pressing in.”
Sigorn's gaze hardened. — “An’ you just let ‘er walk?” — His voice came low, sharp, like a blade against frost. Sigorn didn’t raise it, he didn’t need to. The grit in his stare did the work for him.
Rhaegar didn’t meet Sigorn’s eyes when he said it. His voice came out low, measured, but hollow at the edges, like a bell that had cracked beneath the surface. — “Yes, I did,” — He said quietly. A pause, taut as wire. His gaze drifted to the door, to the dark, to the empty space Lyanna should’ve filled. — “Now she’s gone.” — It wasn’t an admission, it was a confession. And it sat heavy on his tongue like blood.
Detective Magnar suggested calling Howland. Practical enough — if Lyanna had slipped off somewhere, the boy might have a lead. They didn’t have to wait long. Howland showed up less than twenty minutes later, breathless, half-dressed like he’d been dragged from bed in a hurry — pajama bottoms, a stained T-shirt that looked like it had seen better decades. The boy’s disheveled presence was oddly grounding, a flicker of messy humanity in the calculated chaos. Sigorn wasted no time and sat Howland down, firing questions about where Lyanna might have gone. But the boy only shrugged, vague and useless until the detail that made Rhaegar’s mind slow to catch fire. An old woman came by this morning. Weird. Dressed all in black.
Sigorn cut in, voice low and laced with disbelief. — “Howland, ye callin’ an elderly woman weird?”
But the boy insisted. Blind. Barely clothed, like the cold didn’t touch her. And Lyanna — well, Lyanna had acted strange around her, told Howland to go fetch coffee and take his time like she wanted to buy herself space. Blind old woman . The word settled in Rhaegar’s gut with a slow, insistent pressure. Banshee . The myth clawed its way up from the dark corners of his knowledge. It made sense, in a way he didn’t want to admit. Then Howland dropped the detail that chilled his blood beneath the ancient layers of control.
“She was actin’ fine before it. Well, not fine-fine,” — The boy added. — “Her tattoos… they were burnin’ up.”
Rhaegar’s eyes narrowed, a cold smile threatening but never quite forming. The demon marks — the same ones from their first case. The nightmare they’d thought was dead and buried.
“The demon one,” — He murmured. — “From our first case?”
Howland nodded, yes. The pieces were sliding together, the game tightening. And Lyanna? Somewhere caught in the middle. The city’s shadows folded around them like a shroud, thick and merciless. Demons and banshees — too much for one night, even for someone who’d long since learned to live with the unnatural bleeding into the mundane. It had crossed a line, and Rhaegar felt it deep in his bones — the kind of ache that no century could dull. Lyanna was missing. Gods, she was always missing when it mattered most. Hope was a luxury he couldn’t afford, but he dared not believe she’d find her way back on her own. The guilt sat heavy on his shoulders as the engine growled beneath them, tearing away from her empty apartment. He’d suggested regrouping at his place — not because he wanted company, but because the thought of sleep without answers was a torment he wouldn’t inflict on himself. No leads, no clues, only the nagging dread that time was slipping away.
He ordered the others to go home. Sigorn looked like he had other plans, prowling the city instead of retreating to the dull comfort of bed. Rhaegar, too, refused the surrender of rest. The cold weight of guilt followed him like a shadow as he stepped into his own dark refuge. He should have taken her in. Should have locked the door and thrown away the key. But Lyanna was the type of storm no cage could hold — closed off, sharp-edged, impossible to reach. And yet, in her absence, he felt the echo of all the years he’d spent pushing people away, distancing himself with vampire-cold neutrality. Her emotional exile struck a chord somewhere deep — reminding him of those who once tried and failed to crack his own fortress. It was too much, and not nearly enough, all at once. He barely had time to breathe before the impossible happened. She was there. Sitting on his sofa like a ghost slipping through walls, the faint scent of smoke and iron clinging to her. As if waiting. As if she belonged.
He moved toward her, fast, silent, voice low and rough with the tension of relief and disbelief. — “Lyanna. Where have you been!?”
She answered, and it was strange, the way her words didn’t quite fit her voice, like a song he only half remembered . — “Love, I was just about.” — There it was. The familiar deflection. The quiet storm behind those words. And somewhere, buried beneath it all, the raw pulse of something dangerously close to trust.
***
The car reeked of smoke and something older. Not the cheap stuff that clung to bars and regret. Clove and myrrh. Funeral incense. A scent that crawled down her throat like mildew in a coffin. Meant to mask rot. Meant for the dead. Lyanna didn’t say anything. Just sat still, her hands on her lap like they weren’t itching to punch through a window and bolt. Her banshee gut was twisting wrong — bad wrong — but her pride was louder than instinct, and her instincts had been wrong before. She’d trusted people before. That went well. The driver said nothing. The woman — Dacey — just stared ahead, clouded eyes like twin moons veiled in fog. Lyanna had seen that look before: banshees about to go to the other side. Half here, half there, like radio static. She should’ve turned around when Dacey said her mother sent her. Maege was older than dirt and twice as dangerous. But a part of Lyanna — a stupid, starving, desperate part — wanted to believe someone gave enough of a damn to send help.
They pulled up to the cemetery like they were driving into a memory. — “Moon’ll be near full come tomorrow, it will,” — Dacey said, tilting her face to the sky like she could see it.
“Aye,” — Lyanna muttered, already regretting everything.
The gate moaned open. The wind hissed cold. Her boots crunched over dead leaves and older bones. She followed them, deeper and deeper between the crumbling gravestones and whispering pines, until they reached the crypt. One of the old ones. Stone carved, iron-wrought, door slightly ajar like it had been waiting. Her gran used to talk about crypts like safehouses. Back when witch-hunts were real and banshees had to bury themselves to survive. Not history class stuff — blood memories. Lyanna’s ancestors had curled up in tombs with their babies and prayed the fires didn’t reach them. So aye, she followed. But halfway down the stairs, the air changed. Smoke gave way to sulfur. Not metaphorically — real, industrial, egg-rotten sulfur. The kind that coats your tongue and makes your teeth ache.
Lyanna stopped. — “Summat’s off wi’ this.”
The crypt was wrong. Markings on the stone — she knew some of them, and they weren’t banshee glyphs. These were older. Hungrier. Red symbols carved in a language that wasn’t dead, just buried. The altar looked like something ripped from a hell sermon. She turned. Dacey and the driver were at the entrance, staring down at her. Still. Silent. Eyes fogged over. Puppets with their strings cut.
“Oi,” — Lyanna said, stepping toward them, heart pounding in her throat. — “Snap out of it.”
They didn’t blink. Then something grabbed her from behind. Pain shot through her ribs as she was flung like a ragdoll against the crypt wall. Her skull cracked against stone, stars exploded behind her eyelids. And then — “‘ello, weee banshee,” — Said a voice.
She knew that voice. She peeled her eyes open. Blood blurred her vision, but she’d know that grin anywhere. The man standing over her wasn’t a man anymore, but the voice? The voice still belonged to a piece-of-shit named Erik — the bastard who killed Howland’s boyfriend, the bastard who yanked her into all this arcane horror in the first place, mouths before. He looked better now. Or worse. Depending how you define ‘fully possessed demon skin-suit’. His eyes glowed red. His smile was stretched too wide, teeth like needles.
“Erik?” — She croaked.
He grinned wider. — “Glad tha remembers me. Me puppets chose well, didn’t they? Weren’t easy, draggin’ ’em out the ground an’ back on their feet, but for thee? Worth every drop.”
Lyanna spat blood. — “Feckin’ do it then. Just kill me, ya bastard.”
“Ahh, not yet, lass. Tomorrow’s the big day, innit? I’m workin’ for someone new now… Aye, even hell’s got bleedin’ managers.” — He chuckled low, like it were all one big piss-take. — “An’ ye? Ye’re on the menu. Main bleedin’ course. Ritual centrepiece. That banshee blood o’yers? Cherry on top, that is.”
She tried to stand. Failed. Her vision flickered. The tattoos on her arms were burning again… Her warning signs… Screaming through skin and ink. — “Ye were warned when I caught ‘im,” — Erik said. — “But nooo, too bloody stubborn t’ask for help, weren’t ya? Thought ye could handle it. All on yer own. I ken I could get ye to be dafter than usual on this earth, but didn’t think it’d actually work.”
“Ye don’t even ken how much I’d like tae piss on yer grave again.” — Lyanna said it with a voice like gravel and frostbite, low, slow, and mean enough to make the dead twitch. There was no shout in it, no flare of temper. Like she was stating the weather. Or a promise. Her lip curled just a little on again , like it was a joke only she found funny, and meant every bloody word of.
He knelt beside her. — “We’ll see how long ye last when the veil tears an’ ye’re the rope.”
Lyanna’s head throbbed. Darkness crept in from the edges. Her fingers twitched uselessly against the stone. No one knew she was here. No one was coming. And the crypt smelled like her grave.
***
Rhaegar’s chest tightened as he found her there — Lyanna, in the flesh. His mind grasped at the fragile thread of relief, the bitter taste of guilt lingering at the edges. She had come to him. And he had done nothing. A tactical failure, a personal one, and the weight of it pressed down like the shadows that never left him. So now that she was here, he closed the distance without thought, pulling her close, desperate for the proof that she was real, that she was safe. Then, as if waking from a fever dream, he stepped back. His eyes scanned her — the usual clothes, the same ones from earlier, neat, familiar.
“Where have you been? I was worried something happened to you,” — He said, voice low, restrained but sharp with that undercurrent of barely controlled worry.
Her answer came slow, oddly measured, — “I was jus’ thinkin’… ’bout us.”
Us . The word stuck in the stale air like a misplaced note in a symphony. Us ? Not a word she would use, not in the context of now. His gaze narrowed subtly. The night had already carved small fissures in her usual energy. She’d been strange before — off balance, the faint scent of drink clinging to her like a second skin. Not unusual for a Northerner, but this? Talking about us ? That pricked his carefully composed mask.
Rhaegar’s voice was careful, measured, each word weighed and stretched just so, like a blade barely sheathed. — “Us, in…” — He began, the pause hanging heavy, sharp with unspoken questions. There was a quiet intensity beneath the surface, the faintest edge of disbelief, as if he was testing the ground, trying to grasp a meaning that didn’t quite fit. His tone was low, controlled, but threaded with a flicker of something rare for him, vulnerability disguised as calculation.
Before he could finish, Lyanna sprung over the sofa with an unsettling energy, eyes flicking with a wild, unnatural glint. — “Us, daft sod. You an’ me. Two pies in a pot.”
That was the moment the cold certainty settled in his bones: this wasn’t Lyanna. At least, not entirely. The cadence was wrong, the spark in her eyes too erratic, as if some foreign force toyed with her strings. Fae trickery, a curse, or something worse — a spell meant to unthread the tight weave of her mind. His mind clicked into gear, the analyst overriding the man. Panic was a luxury he couldn’t afford now; calm was a weapon. He had to play this carefully.
“You looking for something then?” — His tone was clipped, probing.
“Nothin’ serious,” — She said, voice all dipped in mockery and a bit colder than usual. — “Don’t reckon ye’d like that. Nor that yer husband material.”
A barb, sharper than he expected. The raw sincerity under that strange performance made his chest ache with something unspoken. Rhaegar’s voice was calm, almost amused, but there was a razor-thin edge beneath it — like a blade hidden beneath silk. His words carried cool, practiced detachment, but if you listened close enough, you’d catch the quiet sting of something more — maybe a challenge, or a reluctant hope.
He asked it like a question that didn’t quite want an answer, teasing the air with a touch of dark wit and the faintest trace of wounded pride. — “And what am I good for then?”
She circled the sofa like a predator closing in, her presence close enough to feel the slight heat against his skin, but the distance remained a chasm. — “I reckon ye know what.”
Rhaegar’s voice dipped low, the calm veneer cracking just enough to reveal the cold calculation beneath. There was a hesitant sharpness to his words, like a blade held too close to his own skin,measured, wary, but laced with the flicker of dawning dread. — “No, I don’t…” — came out slow, clipped, as if forcing the admission past a stubborn guard inside him, already sensing the poison beneath the surface.
Before he could finish, her hands were on his face — grasping, pulling him in. The kiss was immediate, fierce, but beneath the surface, something was terribly wrong. The taste wasn’t right. The familiar salt and smoke that was Lyanna’s signature was absent, replaced by a bitter, sulfurous tang that screamed of the unnatural. He pushed her back, and the face — his Lyanna’s face — melted away like wax under a cruel flame. Beneath it twisted a visage he knew far too well. Remick. Erin… What was the name? The now demon from their first case, the shadow they thought had been vanquished. There was a demon in his home. That was the first and only thought that mattered — clean, clinical, unadorned by panic. The thing wore Lyanna’s face like a party mask — almost convincing. Almost. But he knew the way she stood. He knew how she breathed. He knew the angles of her mouth when she wanted to lie and didn’t. This thing got the mechanics right, but the soul was counterfeit.
It said, — “‘ello, darling,”— with a grin her mouth would never make.
And that was enough. He moved like instinct, like fury carved into elegance. Across the room in half a blink, centuries of discipline discarded for raw, brutal need — get it out. Get it away from her. From him. From the memory of her. His shoulder slammed into it hard, harder than he’d meant to, and the momentum carried them both into the wall. But demons, as ever, were dramatic little pests. It raked a claw across his chest — deep, wet — and threw him like he weighed less than his sins. Blood — his own — hit the floor. It hissed where it landed. The thing smiled wider, lips parting in a grotesque parody of affection, Lyanna’s blue eyes aglow with something eldritch and wrong. He hated it.
It turned toward the far wall, and Rhaegar knew what it was going for before the bastard even moved. The stash. The dagger. His legs moved before his mind could catch up. The pain in his ribs lit up like stained glass under pressure, but he didn’t care. He reached the demon just as its hand curled into the shadowed alcove where the blade had been hidden — the very same dagger Lyanna had asked about hours ago. That question — so casual, tossed into the conversation like a coin down a well — had that been her? Or had the thing been watching even then? Gods, he loathed demons. Not for their horror — but for their intelligence. He wrenched the weapon free before the thing could, turned it in one hand like a memory, and drove it up to the creature’s throat.
“Aye, that’s more like it, bloodsucker,” — the demon crooned, still in her voice, still wearing her teeth like they were souvenirs.
“I know this dagger can summon your kind,” — Rhaegar said, coolly. —“Let’s test whether it can exorcise you too.”
The thing grinned. — “Ye wouldn’t kill ’er. Ye’ve not got the balls.”
Rhaegar’s gaze didn’t flicker. — “This isn’t her body. Just a bold-faced lie trying to be her bones.”
“Ye sure about that, darlin’?” — it asked, stroking down his chest with mock-intimacy. — “I were just wi’ her. She felt bloody lovely. Warm. Scared. Tasted o’ grief an’ ash. Just yer type, eh?”
His hand twitched on the hilt. — “What did you do to her?” — He said, voice lower now, almost quiet, too quiet. The kind of calm reserved for men who’ve already decided someone is going to die.
“Gentleman never kisses an’ tells,” — The demon purred. Then, with theatrical delight, it licked him, cheek to jaw, sulfur coating his skin like rot in a cathedral. — “But I’ll make an exception. She screamed, once. Weren’t pain, pure bloody rage. Then I shut her up proper, didn’t I.”
Rhaegar didn’t feel the blade coming. He saw the movement, saw the gleam of claws, the faint twitch of muscle just before it struck. But he didn’t move. Not in time. The claw drove straight through his neck. There was a sickening crunch. A bloom of pain like a flare behind his eyes. Blood surged out hot, thick, choking. The dagger fell from his hand as the world reeled. He dropped to one knee.
The demon whispered, close now, breath curdled and triumphant, — “Shame, love.”
And then everything — light, sound, rage —slid sideways, the world spinning into the dark. Not death — no, not for him — but something close. A fall through memory, through failure, through the taste of sulfur and regret. And Lyanna’s name, unspoken, cracking like thunder through the silence as consciousness slipped away. When he came to, someone was saying his name. It was a low murmur at first — gravel in water — but then a sharper edge cut through the fog, and he snapped upright like a man waking from the gallows. Every inch of his body screamed. His neck, in particular, felt like a desecrated altar — bloodied, torn, violated. A hangover from the seven hell, if the hells drank sulfur and bled regret. He blinked. Once. Twice. Not a demon. Just Howland. Knife in one hand, blood on both. The boy’s expression hovered between terrified and proud — like a squire who’d stitched his knight back together with fishing twine and a prayer.
“Righ’,” — Howland said, a little breathless. — “ I found ye here wi’ yer neck all torn t’ fuck, didn’t I? Had to do summat, didn’t I?”
Charming bedside manner. Rhaegar didn’t waste breath replying. His eyes flicked to the window. The light was different. Shit. They'd lost the day. The sun had already gone and buried itself. Darkness had returned like a debt collector. And Lyanna — was still missing. Howland helped him to his feet with a grunt, and Rhaegar allowed it. Pride could wait. He needed information, not dignity. Sigorn arrived not long after, carrying tension in his shoulders and sweat down his collar. Together, they looked like a tragically mismatched rescue party: the academic, the blunt instrument, and the vampire who’d let a demon through his front door wearing the woman he couldn’t admit he cared about.
Ideas were flung like stones in a flooded well. Howland, always the scholar, suggested another locating spell — same trick they’d used before. Rhaegar bit back the urge to laugh. The demon wasn’t a fool. Not twice. He would have picked a place beyond divination, somewhere ancient and foul, where the echoes of old rites could drown out any spell’s whisper. Sigorn, ever the practical one, mentioned CCTV. Surveillance. Cameras. As if Erik was going to swing by a Tesco with Lyanna in tow and smile for the lens. No. They didn’t need eyes. They needed ears.
Rhaegar rose, slower this time, adjusting the ruined collar of his shirt. He spoke without looking at them, — “I could hear her.”
Sigorn gave him a look that suggested he already regretted being here. — “Oh, grand. This’ll be a bloody good one, won’t it?”
Rhaegar ignored the sarcasm. It was a mild relief, in fact, someone else’s cynicism to cradle his own. — “Every human heart sounds different,” — He explained. — “Like a fingerprint. Unique rhythm. Cadence. Slight fluctuations in pressure, flutter, tone. No two are the same.”
“Righ,” — Sigorn replied, crossing his arms. — “Sounds dead reasonable. So what’re ya gonna do, sit in yer penthouse and wait for her soul to start hummin’?”
Rhaegar turned to face him fully then, the weight of five thousand years settling behind his gaze. His voice was low, cold. — “It’s not humming. It’s the cadence of her heart, unique, unwavering. And yes, I will find her, if you keep your pie whole. I know precisely what must be done.”
That silenced the room. Because beneath the sarcasm and the blood and the clock ticking down on Lyanna’s life, there was this: he could. He’d done it before, in the old world, before wires and satellites replaced instinct. When the heart was the only drumbeat a vampire needed to track prey or lover. Rhaegar retreated to his office — a sanctuary where the chaos of the city thinned to a murmur, and the noise of too many souls pressing close could be momentarily silenced. Alone, he could wield his senses without restraint, though tonight demanded a rare edge. He reached for the vial resting by his century-old relics, a slender vessel of viscous darkness: Vigil’s Vein . A cruel elixir, lethal to any mortal fool daring enough to taste it, but a boon for those of his kind — a rare fusion of vampire blood steeped in the shadow essence of a night demon. A predator’s gift, sharpening senses to impossible clarity: a sensory amplifier, a hyperawareness serum.
Sigorn and Howland waited silently, their eyes flicking between him and the vial. Without ceremony, he downed the bitter liquid. The acrid taste clawed at his throat, but it was the familiar burn in his stomach that marked its arrival. Suddenly, the world unfolded in overwhelming detail — a sprawling tapestry of whispered conversations, the hum of distant engines, the sigh of waves brushing the shore. Every fragment of sound within miles bled into his consciousness, threatening to drown the precision he required. So, he closed his eyes. He focused — not on the noise — but on the singular rhythm he knew better. Lyanna’s heart. Her pulse was a map of veins and defiance, a haunted syncopation that sang of damage and survival. Like a war hymn, muffled but relentless, pressed through broken ribs and stubborn flesh. He traced it — faint at first, but unmistakable — the beat that carried her across the city’s shadows. A cemetery. One of the crypts. Rhaegar opened his eyes slowly, meeting the stunned gazes of the others. His own eyes betrayed the answer: black as the void, veins etched in ink-dark spiderwebs — markings left by the Vigil’s Vein, a sign he’d crossed a line few dared approach.
“Found her,” — He said, voice calm but edged with the iron certainty of a man who’d never forgotten what was at stake.
***
Lyanna felt the hours slip through her fingers like blood on cold stone. Her head was pounding, a relentless drum behind her eyes, and the two puppets — dead shells of what once might’ve been a banshee and her protector — loomed over her like bad memories. Trusting Erik, that bastard demon, had landed her in this nightmare, shackled and helpless, with the stench of burning wax and old iron suffocating the stale air. Erik’s back was to her, fingers flickering as he lit candles, tracing a circle on the cracked floor. The weak glow didn’t fool her — this wasn’t dawn creeping through a window, no sunlight warming the world outside. Maybe she’d slept minutes, maybe hours, but the whiskey still pounding in her veins told her she’d lost track of time long ago. She tried to move, but before she could stand, claws bit deep into her shoulder, and gods, if she got the chance, she’d piss on that daft’s grave, as she promised.
“No, no, no, darlin,” — Erik hissed, voice syrupy and cruel, — “we’re not there yit.”
Lyanna shot him a look sharp enough to slice through the shadows. — “You’re the daftest date ah’ve ever ‘ad.”
“Yer reet brilliant, me best wee banshee.” — He crooned, like she was some twisted prize.
Then he shoved her down hard. She hit the floor, the cold biting through her skin, while he kept working the altar, setting up whatever sick ending he’d planned for her. She weighed her options — running was stupid, and no one was coming, not for her. Sometimes she went days without a word from the outside world. Maybe she could snatch the dagger. Maybe she could kill the bastard and disappear. Probably just a fantasy for a dead girl waiting for her death. Her thoughts shattered as Erik sliced his palm, black blood dripping onto the pentagram. The air thickened and shimmered. A portal tore open like a wound.
“Naegorax,” — Erik whispered in Valyrian, voice low and trembling with dark devotion. — “Vestri iā banshī ēdruta. Vezof anha.” — translation, I offer you a banshee’s sacrifice. Come to my side .
Laughter crawled through the portal, cold and hungry. — “Good. Good. Kill her. Kill her now.”
Erik grabbed her hand like a leash, lifting her off the floor, pulling her toward oblivion. She dangled, suspended between terror and rage, when the iron door slammed open — an interruption like a goddamn miracle. Two puppets snapped their heads toward the noise as gunshots cracked like thunder in the crypt. Sigorn. The cavalry — finally.
“Put ’er down or I’ll shoot!” — Sigorn’s voice echoed sharp as a blade. Brilliant plan, if you don’t count demons being practically bulletproof. But hey, who asked for logic in a hellhole?
“Please tell me ye lot ain’t daft enough to just barge in ’ere with that daft plan.” — Lyanna spat the words out sharp, like acid on her tongue, her voice thick with that rough, no-nonsense edge only years of fighting and disappointment could carve. The silence hung heavy for a beat, like everyone was waiting to see if she’d bite back or shut up, she chose the bite. — “Aye, sorry. Thought ye lot were more intelligent than that. Shouldn’t ’ave given ye that kinda credit.”
Her words hit like stones, sharp and unpolished, carrying that raw bite she never bothered to soften. She spat them out, ragged breath scraping her throat, muscles screaming under skin that felt like it’d been through a meat grinder. Legs heavy as lead, but still enough to swing — enough to plant a kick straight into Erik’s jaw. That got her a breath, maybe two, a heartbeat stolen from the edge of the abyss. She twisted, dagger catching the dim light, a quick slash between her clavicle and neck — pain flared, hot and sharp like fire on broken glass, but damn if it didn’t feel like the only thing keeping her alive. Then he shoved her down, slammed her back into cold stone, and her vision faltered, shadows folding in on themselves like they wanted to swallow her whole.
But through the fog, something moved — Rhaegar. Black eyes smoldering like coals beneath a midnight sky, veins webbed dark and alive across his face. Silent, lethal, like a storm that breaks without warning. And for once, maybe she wasn’t just hallucinating, bleeding out alone in some forgotten crypt. Maybe it wasn’t just the whiskey talking or her mind unspooling into madness. Her eyes squeezed shut, blood dribbling from the dagger wound, hearing dull and distant like it was underwater. She’d been in this crypt all night — seven hells, maybe all day too — and aye, this was shaping up to be one hell of a night-day-night cycle she’d never want to repeat. Somewhere, someone was calling her name, but the weight of silence wrapped around her tight. The portal slammed shut; gravity shifted, and for a moment, she felt… peace. Maybe she’d die here. Maybe this was it. But if she did, she wouldn’t be alone. Better than dying like all the rest — forgotten and alone.
Her mouth was forced open; she tried to warn the idiot messing with her, but her hand was heavy as lead, the blood flooding too fast, and the dark pulled at her like a tide dragging her under. Then came that strange warmth pressed to her lips — warm, metallic, a promise whispered in a graveyard chill. It tasted of earth, old iron and ancient scars, with a bitter sweetness like dried pomegranate seeds sunbaked and fading. The blood pulsed softly, a ghost’s heartbeat caught beneath a veil of fog. Drinking it was like holding a ghost’s hand — cold, but insistently alive. It dulled the agony, but more than that, it muted the screaming inside, that endless wail clawing at her skull. Still, it left a hunger behind, a desperate ache for touch, like a frozen soul craving a single spark of warmth in a winter grave. It tasted like memory, loss, desire — like a quiet comfort for a creature caught, forever, between life and death.
Lyanna found herself hauled up by hands that were firm but not gentle. Her breath was shallow, slow — no wild surge of adrenaline, just the raw fact of being alive, clinging to the edge. The half-held her close, but it wasn’t comforting. Not yet. Then she cracked her eyes open and saw it — Rhaegar. Black eyes on black, pulsing with something dark and dangerous, the veins webbing across his face like shadowy scars. She hadn’t imagined that then.. Now, more than anything, she felt the weight of him holding her, close to his chest, like he was keeping her tethered to this mess of a world. The others circled around, but her focus was all on him. Gods, what had he done to himself this time?
Lyanna’s voice was sharp, biting through the haze. — “What the fuck ’ave ye done? Did you swallow Venom or summat?”
“Demon blood,” — He said, like it was just another damn ingredient in his long, dark recipe.
“Oly fuck.” — Lyanna spat it out sharp and clipped, like a curse she’d been holding back but finally let loose. Her voice was low, rough around a edges, like gravel scraped across broken glass, carrying that raw, unfiltered edge only someone who’s seen too much could muster. It wasn’t awe. It wasn’t fear. It was that brittle, dark kind of disbelief that tasted more like exhaustion than anything else.
Her fingers went to where the dagger had sliced her — no fresh blood, just a jagged scar that ached like a hangover she couldn’t shake. They helped her to her feet and ushered her upstairs. And upstairs confirmed everything she already suspected. Her vision — Gods, it was perfect. Clear as it’d been years ago, before everything cracked and bled out. She could see every flicker of light — from the stars overhead to the glowing veins of the city’s nightscape. She stopped on the grass, breath hitching, as the cold wind bit at her skin. She was seeing again. Then, a hand settled on her shoulder — warm, steady. She turned. Rhaegar. The black webs on his face had faded, shadows retreating like the last ghost of a bad dream.
“Are you okay, Lyanna?” — His voice was low, tentative. — “Are you still hurt? I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”
She blinked, feeling something she almost forgot she had, a flicker of hope. — “I can see,” — She said, voice rough but steady, like she’d been fighting for every blink. — “I can see.”
Rhaegar’s voice cut through the fog, low and frayed. “What do you mean?”
She blinked. Once. Twice. The world didn’t vanish. No blur. No static. No goddamn shadows swallowing the edges. Just light — real light — and detail so sharp it might’ve drawn blood. Her breath caught halfway up her throat, thick with disbelief and something dangerously close to hope.
“I can see,” — She muttered, like it might vanish if she said it too loud. Then louder sharper, harsher, like spitting glass. “Like… See see.”
She looked around, eyes darting, almost afraid to trust it. The cemetery spun out around her in perfect clarity: broken angels and moss-bitten headstones, frost-glint on iron railings, the sickly blue of night pressing down overhead. Even Rhaegar — his face pale and marked with the fading black veins of whatever hell he'd dragged through to get here — looked human again. Close. Too close.
“What the fuck…” — She whispered, the words dragged out of her like breath after drowning.
Her fists clenched, instinct. She didn’t know if this was real or some mercy hallucination before the end. Didn’t matter. Her body still ached like hell, her blood still felt too thin, but she could see. She could see. And that terrified her more than the dark ever had.
***
Title: Night hunt
I watched the city hold its breath under a dead sky, the silence thick as blood in the alleyways. Erik — demon, corpse-puppeteer, nightmare reborn from the hellfire I thought sealed him away — he came back darker, crueler, dragging death behind him like a leash. Should’ve been a victory, but it tastes like ash in my mouth. Lyanna. Her heartbeat — thin, stubborn — pulls me through the shadows like a damn magnet. I hear it clear in the quiet, a ragged rhythm I know better than my own damn name. Proof she’s still here, still fighting through the cracks. But the clock’s bleeding out fast, and every beat I chase only tightens the noose around her throat.
The cemetery was a frozen breath, cold stone and colder souls crowding the night. Erik’s altar — blood-slicked, malice-steeped. By the time we got there, the nightmare was already deep in motion. Lyanna, stabbed, broken, life seeping out like it’s some cruel joke the gods played just to watch me scramble. I broke my own vow. Tore out my heart like it was a rag doll, feeling that ancient fire rip through me — pain and power tangled so tight it almost burned me alive. The ritual — brutal, merciless — my blood spilled into her mouth not just to patch flesh but to chain us tighter, whether we wanted it or not.
She’s fragile, yeah — more than just skin and bone. There’s something in her eyes now I wasn’t ready for. Trust. The kind that cracks armor and pulls you in when you swore you’d stay cold. I see it in the small things — how she lets me close, how she holds on when everything wants her to let go. Dangerous. Fucking dangerous. But I’m tangled in this with her now — this slow-burning obsession I can’t, won’t walk away from. Tonight’s win tastes bitter as hell. The war’s far from over. And every beat of her heart is a reminder — of what’s at stake, and what I’m ready to lose to keep her breathing.
— Rhaegar Targaryen