Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She should’ve stayed for coffee. Or at least his name. That was the polite thing to do, wasn’t it? But Lyanna had never been one for niceties. Manners were for brunch and book clubs — places she didn’t belong. Out here, it was wolves only. And she was one of them. Her hair was still damp, the zipper on her jacket half-fucked, keys lost somewhere in the folds of a coat she hadn’t washed since the Beltane case. She walked fast, hands in her pockets, boots clicking against the slick pavement of White Harbour’s backstreets. The wind stung. She liked that. It reminded her she was still breathing. He’d been nice… that one. She didn’t usually take people home. Not anymore. Too messy, too risky. She had enough ghosts in her bed. But sometimes, sometimes — when the drinks went down too smooth and the silence got too loud — she let a stranger try to make her feel something.

What was his name? Mikhail? Victor? No — something with an S. He’d offered to call her a taxi. She’d said no. Sharp and cold as her smile. Then left him blinking in the doorway of his little apartment near Manderly Tower, still half-naked, still hoping. White Harbour was good for walking at night. Safer than Winterfell had ever been, which wasn’t saying much. Neon flickers on wet concrete, the scent of sea-salt rot and cheap takeout, and enough noise to drown out the banshee that lived in her bones. She liked the cold here. This cold was clean. Not like the other kind — the kind that crept into your chest and curled up there, the kind that screamed when no one else could hear it. She knew that cold. She carried it like a second spine. She was mid-step, breathing in that night silence like it was a cigarette, when the world decided to be a bitch again.

Of course it happened on the one night she wasn’t carrying her gun. Just her luck. But instinct hit first. Her blood ran hotter than her brain. A noise — sharp, scuffling. She could’ve kept walking. She should’ve kept walking. But Lyanna never had the good sense to mind her own damn business. Not when it smelled like blood. She stopped. Turned. Across the street, past the smear of passing cars and a lurching city bus, two figures locked together like a bad dream. Looked like drunk guys fighting. Normal. Until it wasn’t. Until one of them dropped  —and the other pounced. Not fought. Not shoved. Pounced. Like an animal. Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t see everything — night shadowed the edges — but she saw one body go still. Limp like a puppet with its strings cut. Fuck.

Her fingers found the taser in her pocket like muscle memory, and she was already moving. She darted across the street, nearly taken out by a bus and a honking Corolla, but she didn’t slow. Didn’t think. One of them — the fallen one — was young. Black hair. Pale as a ghost. Nail polish chipped, eyeliner smeared. Goth kid. Dead goth kid. She crouched, pressed two fingers to his throat. No pulse. She didn’t need to check. She already knew he was dead — could feel it, thick and heavy in the air like fog before a storm. But she pressed her fingers to his throat anyway. Procedure , she told herself. Habit. A lie to make the moment feel less like grief and more like protocol. Her chest went hollow. Her heart didn’t freeze, though — not yet. Not while the other one, the thing that did this, was still on the move.

She ran. Rounded the corner. And — Nothing. He was gone. She was left standing in a piss-stained alley with a body cooling behind her and nothing to show for it but the electric buzz in her fingers and the iron tang in her throat. Supernatural. Had to be. Most people ignored that shit. Pretended they didn’t see it. Made their brains turn it into shadows and stories. But not her. Not people like Lyanna who’d already been split open by the truth once and never looked away since. There were rules for the real world. And then there was what lived under it. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Didn’t know why. Didn’t like how her fingers trembled. The kid behind her was dead. That much was clear. What wasn’t, was who — or what — had left him that way. 

The uniforms told her to stay put. Protocol. Homicide would be along soon. She’d already lit a cigarette by the time the headlights turned the corner, gravel crackling under tires like bones grinding. She didn’t pray it wouldn’t be Sigorn. That would’ve meant admitting she cared. But there he was anyway, unfolding out of the cruiser like bad timing in a black tux. Dirty blonde hair, storm-grey eyes, that face still too severe for someone who used to know how to smile. Her stomach did something ugly. Four months since she’d seen him. Maybe less. Who’s counting. His eyes snagged on her and faltered. Good. Let him feel it. The first thing out of her mouth wasn’t Hi, or Are you still stealing my desk, or Is the coffee still weaponized sludge down at the station. It wasn’t anything soft or sweet or deserving of closure.

She said it dry as dust, without looking at him; like the joke was for her own amusement, not his. — “Why’re you dressed like a penguin, Sig?”

He didn’t miss a beat. — “Just came from a wedding, Ly. Give us a fuckin’ break.”

She huffed, one half-laugh, one part contempt. Of course he did. Probably some cousin’s. Or someone else’s. Someone normal. That’s when she noticed the kid next to him — new meat. Couldn’t have been older than twenty, if that. Baby-faced and standing stiff like someone stapled a rulebook to his spine. He stared at her like she was a ghost. Or worse — a legend. Definitely new, then.

Sigorn gestured lazily. — “This’s me new partner. Eddison Tollett. Ed, meet Lyanna Stark.”

Recognition clicked into the rookie’s eyes, slow and dumb. She could almost hear the gears grinding behind his baby blues. Of course they still talked about her at the station. Stark, the detective who traded murder scenes for cheating spouses and cigarette ash. People love a fall from grace. They love it more when it doesn’t look like it broke you.

Sigorn crossed his arms.— “What’re you doin’ here, Ly.”

“Nearly got myself killed stoppin’ a murder,” — She deadpanned.

Eddison, gods bless the idiot, piped up, — “You’re a bloody legend. Down at the station, they say Detective Magnar’s had more partners than birthdays.”

She eyed him sideways. — “How long d’you reckon you’ll last?”

And just like that, the poor bastard’s smile died on his face. Good. She wasn’t here to play mentor. She wasn’t here to play anything. Niceties were for people who slept well and remembered birthdays.

Sigorn sighed like her whole existence was a personal hangover. — “Ed, go check if anyone lifted prints.”

The kid scuttled off, boots splashing in the bloodstained puddles. They always cleared out when she and Sig got going. People knew better than to get between the two of them. They stood there a moment. Same as always. Just more broken.

“So,” — He said. — “What’d you see?”

She started walking the edge of the tape, gravel shifting under her boots, rain still clinging to her like regret. — “Tall bloke. Dark. Threw the victim round like he weighed nowt. Then legged it.”

Sigorn frowned. — “What d’you mean ‘legged it’?”

“I mean vanished,” — She snapped. — “I crossed the street to stop it... Nearly got flattened by some Corolla that either didn’t see me or didn’t give a toss. Got here, and he was just… gone. Like thin air.”

“No weapon, no backup, no bloody plan,” — He muttered. — “And your vision’s shite as ever. You turn PI and forget how to stay alive?”

She turned to him, voice all ice and iron. — “Nah. Just forgot what a sanctimonious prick you can be.”

“What’d you want me to do, Ly?” — He barked. — “Clap and throw roses for your little hero act?”

“Oh, here we go,” — She said. — “Dr. Magnar, the tortured ex with a psychology degree. If you wanna pick me apart, write a fuckin’ report.”

He didn’t rise to it. Just looked at her, quiet, that old crack in his voice sneaking back in. — “Alright, shoot me for givin’ a damn.” — That hit like a bruise.

She turned away before it showed. — “I’m fine. Honest. So quit it with the broody ex routine.”

And right on cue, the rookie made his glorious return, eyes wide like a deer too dumb to realize it’s already been hit. — “You’re not gonna shoot him again, right?”  — Ed asked, half-joking.

They answered in sync without missing a beat, — “That was an accident.” — Ed didn’t seem reassured. 

“Tell me,” — Sigorn ordered, shifting into detective mode. The old rhythm.

Ed hesitated, clearly wondering if Lyanna was allowed to know. She gave him a look that said she’d skin him if he didn’t talk. — “Weren’t a robbery,” — Ed said. — “Wallet an’ phone still on him. But his neck… it’s bad. Like someone went at him with a chainsaw. He’s been bled dry.”

Sigorn tensed.  — “What d’you mean ‘bled dry’?”

He said it quietly, like he wasn’t sure he should be saying it at all — “I mean dry. Just like the other one.” — voice low, eyes flicking between them, waiting for someone to tell him he was wrong.

Lyanna’s head snapped up. —  “What other one?”

Ed flinched. Rookie mistake. Sigorn shot the kid a glare so sharp it could’ve opened an artery, and Lyanna — well, she almost laughed. Almost. Of course there was another one. Of course there was.  She should’ve gone to the Wolf . The shitty little pub just under her apartment building with watered-down whiskey and locals who knew not to talk to her. Instead, she’d decided to play explorer. See the world. Stretch her legs. Maybe prove to herself she wasn’t going blind just yet. And now she was a prime witness to a murder. Of course. The wind still clung to her coat as she stepped inside her own apartment. Third floor. No elevator. Just the click of her boots on the stairs and the sound of her breath, sharp and uneven, like the air had learned to scratch her throat. The hallway smelled like boiled cabbage and mold. Home sweet fucking home. She kicked off her shoes by the door, stepped over a pile of case files and broken umbrellas, and crossed into the office through the connecting door. Technically a ‘workspace,’ legally a ‘residence,’ but it was all the same to her. People said living where you worked was bad for your mental health. She said those people probably had mental health to begin with.

She stripped out of her clothes in silence. Not out of comfort — she didn’t get comfortable, not anymore — but out of necessity. The Henley, the jeans, the socks, all stuffed into a plastic bag. She knew Sigorn. He’d want them for forensics. Wouldn’t ask — would just mutter about chain of evidence and take them anyway. She wasn’t a suspect, he was just methodical in the way that made you want to throw a stapler at his head. She poured two fingers of whiskey and made it to bed before the glass hit her lips. Didn’t dream. Didn’t sleep well either. Just blinked in and out of the dark until the city started making noise again. Next morning. No follow-up from Sigorn. No knock at the door, no polite little you have time for a few questions? Nothing. Maybe he was sulking. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he was letting her stew, which he knew damn well she hated.

She got dressed anyway — sleeveless tank, high-waisted jeans, something easy to move in — and got back to work. The case she was working on now was simple. Kid from Essos, recently aged out of adoption, wanted to find his birth family. Normal PI shit. Sad, but manageable. She’d already called the agency, got the records, traced a couple names. She was dialing the first when she heard the bell over the front door. Client? No. Wrong kind of knock. Too light. Too unsure. She looked up. A kid stood in the entrance. Nineteen? Maybe twenty. Goth in the way you could only be when you didn’t have bills yet. Red hair. Freckles. Too much eyeliner. Phone clutched like a talisman.

“You Lyanna Stark, then?” —  He said it like a dare.

She stood.  — “Aye. Why?”

He held up the phone. A news article. Crime scene photo. The alley. The blood. Her silhouette, blurry but unmistakable. The vultures had already picked the bones clean and hung them on the front page. She could sue. She wouldn’t. Courtrooms were for people who didn’t smell like ash and iron, and didn’t see dead people like the Shining.

“Look,” — She said, voice sharp as a broken bottle, — “if you’re some murder-fancyin’ lad with a death kink…”

“Me name’s Howland,” —  the kid interrupted. His voice cracked, not from nerves, but from something deeper. —  “Howland Reed. Bael were me lad, me boyfriend.”

And just like that, the floor under her ribs gave out. The kid looked like a bad decision in Doc Martens — too pale, too thin, soaked in a cheap clove-cigarette smell and the kind of sadness that hung around foster kids like smoke. Lyanna clocked the eyeliner, the chipped black nails, the dead-boy grief vibrating off him like a tuning fork. Nineteen, maybe twenty if he lied on forms. She’d seen corpses that looked more rested. She let him into her office anyway. Because no matter what people said about her — and they said plenty — Lyanna Stark wasn’t a complete bitch. Not when it counted. The kid stood stiff near the door, clutching his phone like it might bite him.

“I were on the phone wi’ him when it happened,” — He said. His voice trembled on the edges. Not fragile, just frayed.

Lyanna sighed, leaning back in her busted leather chair. —  “Aye. What d’you want from me, then?”

“He saw summat,” —  the kid went on. —  “He were walkin’, and he saw...”

“Hold the fuck up.” — Her tone snapped like a trap. — “He saw the bastard who killed him?” — The kid nodded. There was something raw and wild in his eyes. The kind of grief that hadn’t decided yet whether it was going to curl in on itself or start throwing punches. —  “And you’re tellin’ me ‘cause…?”

“Told the coppers.” — His jaw clenched. — “They didn’t believe me. Need someone who will.”

Lyanna rubbed at her temple, exhaled slow through her nose. The air in the room was stale and heavy — cigarettes, old files, and the ghost of last night’s whiskey she took this morning. Her head was pounding in that way it did when her vision threatened to go sideways. Everything was too bright and too dim all at once. She didn’t need this.

“Right,” — She asked carefully, already bracing for the stupid, —  “and what exactly do you need ‘em to believe?”

The kid looked her dead in the eye. —  “I reckon Bael were killed by a vampire.”

And there it was. The worst part wasn’t even the word — it was the way her stomach didn’t drop, didn’t laugh, didn’t disbelieve. Just went flat and cold like it always did when truth came in through the wrong door. Because it was possible. Too fucking possible. She knew better than most that the monsters weren’t in the stories. They were out there, walking around with nice shoes and borrowed names, hiding their teeth behind charm and tailored coats. Supernatural shadow spawn kept quiet for a reason — because if the public ever caught on, it’d be pitchforks and napalm all around. So she did what she’d been trained to do. She lied with a clean face and a dead voice.

“Right, Howland…” — She started.

“Don’t talk down to me.” — He was shaking, but steady underneath. — “They’re real. Out there in the dark, feedin’ on folk like they’re nothin’. Bael saw it. Black cape... Aye, I know how that sounds... But the pigs covered it up. Didn’t even tell me how much blood he lost. But I know. It drained him. Dry.”

She stared at the wall behind him. A crack in the plaster had been slowly creeping toward the ceiling for months now. It looked like a fracture in a skull. —  “I’m sure they’ll find summat reasonable...” — She said, tone bored enough to hurt.

“They’re not even lookin’.” — Howland said quietly. —  “‘Cause they don’t care. He weren’t posh. No sobbin’ mam cryin’ on telly. He were a foster kid wi’ blue hair and a record. Now he’s dead. And they’ll let it rot.”

That one landed. Lyanna looked at him properly then, really looked. Saw the sharp edges. The hurt. — “I work the uni pub. I can pay a bit. Not much, but…”

He hesitated. His voice cracked a little. — “Please, Miss Stark. He deserves someone to give a damn.”

She should’ve said no. She wanted to say no. But it was a voice like his that kept her up at night. The voices of kids no one missed. The ones she couldn’t save. The ones still screaming in her head when the world went quiet. Lyanna lit a cigarette with hands that weren’t shaking thank the Gods and took a drag that tasted like ash and guilt.

“…Alright,” — She muttered. —  “I’ll look into it. No promises, no miracles. And if I say step back, you bloody well step.” — The kid nodded, relief crashing through him like a tide.

And Lyanna, who’d buried too many like him already, didn’t look at the ghost sitting behind his eyes. She didn’t mean to take the job. That’s how it always started, wasn’t it? Good intentions, bad decisions, and one kid with wet eyes and the kind of desperation she recognized too well to pretend she didn’t. So against her better judgment and her own personal rulebook — which she hadn’t looked at in years, let alone followed — she grabbed her lantern, her Glock, and the good coat that still smelled like blood and woodsmoke and went back to the scene. She waited until dark. Of course she did. Because she was a banshee with a fading retina and a self-destructive streak wider than the Blackwater. Night made the edges blurrier — streets, shadows, her own hands — but she still saw more in the dark than most folks ever would in daylight.

The alley was stripped clean. No body. No tape. Not even a bloodstain left to mutter over. Cops worked fast when no one gave a shit about the dead kid. Bael . That was his name. She tucked it away like a bullet between her ribs. She flicked on the flashlight, let the soft gold light peel back layers of rot and rain. If you knew what to look for, the city always left signs. Ghost trails. Shivers in the stone. Most people didn’t notice. Most people weren’t cursed with the ability to feel the death echoing through brick and bone. She crouched where the body had been. Cold soaked into her knees, familiar and uninvited, like most things in her life. She found a stain — blood, almost wiped clean. Collected a sample anyway. Not that it’d help. Vampires didn’t exactly leave calling cards, and they didn’t stink like werewolves or light shit on fire like demons. They were clean. Quiet. Easy on the eyes and hard to kill. Predators in nice coats who paid taxes and didn’t blink when they lied.

That’s what made them dangerous, the apex predator. That’s what made her nervous. Turning the corner she caught something out the corner of her eye — an odd scarring on the brick. Not paint. Not graffiti. Burned in. A pentagram, sharp and crooked. Not quite the textbook kind. She recognized the pattern anyway — hellblood script, half-faded. Her grandmother had drawn the same shape on their kitchen floor during one of her episodes , back before she died choking on her own scream. Lyanna took a photo with her phone. Fingers shaking, not from fear. From the cold. From the thing curled in her gut since she got her first death-scream at thirteen and realized she'd never be normal. Never be blind enough to not see. 

She stood and turned. One step. Two. Then she froze. Someone else was in the alley. Not the same figure from the crime scene — no, this one was smaller. Leaner. Standing exactly where she'd just been, head bowed. Long white hair, loose like a curtain, shoulder length probably. Male, maybe. She couldn't see the face. But she saw the movement — slow, deliberate. He was licking the wall. The spot where Bael had bled. Her hand went to her gun on reflex. Her banshee instincts flared — violent, loyal, bone-deep. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t here to light a candle and mourn. And murderers? They always came back. Human or not, they wanted to see what they'd done. Wanted to feel it echo.

“Oi,” — Lyanna said, voice low, rough as gravel. —  “You.” —  That’s all she got out before the bastard blinked out of sight. —  “Mother of fu...” —  She bit it off. Too late.

She ran. Flashlight swinging, boots pounding pavement slick with rain and old piss. But when she hit the sidewalk, he was already gone. Of course he was. Fucking vampires. She stood there a second, breathing hard, eyes narrowed against the blur. Streetlight painted the wet asphalt in pale fire. Somewhere far off, a dog barked. The city kept on sleeping. But Lyanna didn’t. Not anymore. This was a vampire problem then. She didn’t want to go. Which was why, obviously, she knew who she had to pay a visit. The morgue was freezing in that special way only government-funded crypts could be — too cold for the living, too warm for the dead. The stink of disinfectant tried  to scrub over the iron tang of old blood, but it just made the air smell like rot in a lab coat. Lyanna shoved open the door with her shoulder, one hand balancing a dented pie box and the other twitching near the grip of her pistol. Just in case. Habit. Her sight was worse in fluorescent lighting — white noise behind her eyes, like snow on a broken TV — but she could still make out the lanky silhouette hunched over a corpse like it owed him money.

“Mance,” — She muttered.— “you creepy git.”

The mortician didn’t look up. — “Knew you’d come crawlin’ back. Can’t stay away from my lovely face.”

“Got a client. Bael’s boy.” — She dropped the pie on his cluttered desk. —  “Thought I’d bribe the dead man whisperer.”

That got his attention. Mance turned with a grin that looked too comfortable in a room full of cadavers.  —  “Apple?”

Lyanna said it dryly, with a crooked half-smile and a flick of sarcasm — “Course. Ye’re not worth cherry.” — like she was tossing the insult over her shoulder just to see if it landed.

Mance and Lyanna had an understanding, the kind built on shared silences and an unspoken fondness for rules being broken gently with a crowbar. He liked to talk to his corpses, she liked to pretend her ghosts didn’t talk back. Together, they made one mostly functional investigative unit and half a friendship.

She perched on the edge of a stool and lit a cigarette, daring him to scold her with his lungs full of formaldehyde. —  “Tell me what ripped him.”

Mance leaned over the open body like it was a crossword puzzle. — “Somethin’ sharp. Jagged.”

Lyanna responded offhand, eyes narrowed, like she was piecing it together aloud but didn’t want to admit she cared. Her tone was flat, but there was a thread of tension beneath it, — “The rookie... Ed, I think... Said there were another one. Same wounds.” — she already knew it meant trouble. 

Mance said it calmly, clinically, like he was reading from an autopsy report. No drama, just facts, — “Aye. Two bodies. Sliced like butcher’s meat. Through sinew, cartilage. Not clean.” — but there was a flicker of curiosity in his voice, the kind that came from seeing something that didn’t quite fit the usual box. 

“Teeth?” — She asked, even though she knew the answer.

“Not human. Not beast either. Somethin’ in-between.” —  He looked at her. —  “And not a drop left. Like a bloody hoover emptied ‘em.”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. She reached into her coat pocket, fished out a plastic sample vial wrapped in tissue. — “Found this at the scene. Tell me it’s what I think.”

He held it up to the light, eyes narrowing. — “Looks like blood. I’ll run tests. Might need to ask the dead lad myself.”

She didn’t laugh, but the corner of her mouth twitched. Mance always skated a little too close to knowing things he shouldn’t. Sometimes his jokes felt like fishing lines dropped into waters he shouldn't see. Still. She told herself it was just morgue humor. Better that than the alternative of him knowing about her hearing the dead.

“Ye’ll let me know?” —  She asked.

Mance gave a mock salute with a scalpel. —  “Aye, aye. Captain, me captain.”

She snorted — couldn’t help it — and stood, tugging the collar of her coat like armor. Time to ghost out before anyone else spotted her loitering like a drunk thought. Gossip moved faster than blood in this town. And luck? She’d stopped believing in that the minute her mother hit the floor. Outside, the cold bit through her coat and nipped at her bones. She didn’t flinch. The day was thick with damp and ash and that faint copper tang she could never quite scrub from her senses. She slid behind the wheel of the only goddamn thing her father ever gave her that didn’t ruin her life — a black 1967 Chevy Impala that rumbled like it still had opinions. Brandon had been pissed she got the car, probably because she didn’t burn it like she should’ve. Maybe because she treated it like a coffin with horsepower. The engine groaned to life. She was halfway down First when her phone buzzed. She hit speaker and let it rot in the passenger seat.

“Aye.” — Her voice was flat as the road.

Sig said it with a teasing grin in his voice — “Heard you dropped by. No pie, for me though?” — casual, needling, like he was trying to get under her skin without sounding like he cared too much.

She rolled her eyes. Of course. News spread fast when you were a walking police scandal with tits. —  “Gods, news flies. Or did you chip me like a lost hound, Sig?”

Sigorn said it low and careful, like he was trying not to spook her — “Ly…What you workin’?” — soft around the edges, but still edged with concern he didn’t bother hiding.

Lyanna was biting and dry, her sarcasm thick enough to slap. She said it like a joke with a knife behind it — “That’s between me an’ my client. Ethics, remember them?” — mocking, but just barely hiding the warning underneath.

Sigorn said it sharp and suspicious, like he already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. —  “What client?”

She cracked a crooked grin, the kind that showed teeth but no warmth. — “Seven bloody hells, your nosy streak’s the only thing made me hate you less.”

“Come on. Tell me the rest.” — Sigorn said it low and coaxing, like he was fishing for secrets but trying to sound casual.

“Can’t, pet. But if you’re sittin’ on anything that’d keep another lad from bleedin’ out...” —  She let it hang there, bait with barbed wire.

Sigorn said it with a dry chuckle, like he couldn’t believe his luck and was teasing but not entirely joking. — “Now this is rich. Lyanna Stark askin’ for help. Didn’t have that on me bingo card.”

Lyanna shot the words out sharp and clipped, a smirk twisting her voice like a warning. The afternoon light caught the edge in her tone, — “Your ears must be rotted worse than your taste in shoes. I said share, not help. Don’t get all misty-eyed.”  —  dry, cold, no room for nonsense.

“We could talk over Lyseni takeout. That place by Wolfsquare?” —  That punched something old and sour in her gut. She didn’t answer for a beat.

Lyanna tossed the line over her shoulder with a lazy bite, voice rough like gravel and just enough heat to make it clear she wasn’t messing around. No sugarcoat, just straight-up terms, — “You invite, you pay.” — and maybe a little challenge hidden underneath.

Sigorn said it with a smirk in his voice, teasing but half serious, like he was already picturing the fancy act they’d put on — “Was plannin’ to write it off. Business expense. Consultin’ the city’s finest.”

Lyanna shot that line out sharp and dry, like a quick jab over the phone — “NThat smug streak’s what got you dumped, love.” — half annoyed, half amused, with just enough bite to remind him she hadn’t forgotten him.

 “See you at eight, then. Same place?” —  Sigorn said it casual, like he was already expecting her to just accept; easy, familiar, no need for fancy words.

She sighed. Not that he could hear it over the growl of the engine. — “What d’you think?”

She hung up before he could get smug. The city blurred past her window — lights too bright, shadows too thick, and everything smelling like wet brick and old sins. If she made it to dinner without putting a bullet in something, it’d be a miracle. The apartment smoke like dust and old coffee grounds, same as always. Lyanna tossed her coat over the cracked arm of the chair and kicked off her boots without ceremony, one skidding under the coffee table. She didn’t bother straightening the place — Sigorn had seen it worse. Had been worse, back when they still played cop together, and sleep was optional. She wasn’t sure why she let him in. Maybe because the city felt meaner than usual tonight. Maybe because the latest body still stank of sulphur in her nose and she’d run out of whiskey. Maybe because she hated herself a little less when someone who gave a damn showed up at her door.

Not that she’d ever admit it.  Sig was still disgustingly punctual. He let himself in with the spare key she pretended to forget she’d hidden, the way he always had, as if nothing had changed — like her eyes weren’t going dark around the edges, like she hadn’t walked away from everything they used to be. He brought Lyseni takeout and a six-pack, bless his predictable soul. She didn’t say thank you. Didn’t have to. They both knew what this was: nostalgia with chopsticks. They sat on the couch like it was four months ago instead of four lifetimes. Star Trek reruns played on low volume. The familiar hum of the Enterprise filled the silences between their chewing and half-hearted quips. 

She could still smell the iron tang of her last outing in her nostrils, but Sig’s presence dulled the edges. A little. Enough. She didn’t lean on him. Literally or metaphorically. But she didn’t shove him out the door either. That was something. Same faded couch. Same dim light from the cracked lampshade that hummed like a wasp. It now smelled like smoke, takeout, and the kind of silence that knew too many goodbyes. Four months since they'd last sat like this — shoulder to shoulder, solving crimes in between mouthfuls of greasy Lyseni noodles and reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series. Four months since she'd let anyone past the door for longer than a delivery drop. 

Sigorn cracked open a fortune cookie. The thing crumbled like her self-preservation. Figures. — “Your unsolicited advice drives folk off… Ouch.”

Lyanna said it with a dry smirk, voice low and amused, like she was halfway between mocking him and actually impressed. Sarcasm curled under the words, but her eyes flicked up just long enough to catch his reaction. — “Oof. Fortune cookie’s got claws.”

He laughed, surprised. Like maybe she was still the same girl he used to know. She wasn’t. — “Didn’t used to be so savage.”

She didn’t either. Then again, everything tasted sharper lately. That’s what happened when you lived with death rattling in your lungs and blood humming in your ears. One of the things she missed about the force wasn’t the badge, or the politics, or even the adrenaline. It was this — quiet shit talk and too-salty noodles with someone who knew how to sit in silence without trying to fix it. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew Sig’s feelings had been more than friendly. He tried to play it casual, but his eyes always lingered a second too long. And after her sight started going — after the Banshee bit came out like a punchline from a horror show again — she'd made the call. Pulled the ripcord. Cut him loose before he could drown in her. Sigorn deserved someone soft. Someone whole. Not a half-blind ex-cop with a scream that could kill and a whiskey habit that punched harder than therapy. Not a woman cursed to see death walking six steps ahead of everyone she loved.

She cracked open her own cookie. Half for the irony, half for the crunch. — “Let’s see mine… ‘Open yourself more to romance. Night’s full o’ terrors, but you can be satisfied.’ Gods. Someone in that bakery’s got unresolved trauma.” — Lyanna said it with a crooked grin, flicking the empty cookie wrapper onto the table. Her tone was deadpan, but the humor in it was sharp, like a knife wrapped in a joke. She didn’t laugh, she let Sigorn do that part.

Sigorn laughed it lightly, with a half-smile, trying to keep the mood easy, like he was joking, but not really. — “Could help with the second bit.”

“Gonna stop flirtin’ or you savin’ that for 2019?” — Lyanna said it with a smirk in her voice, dry and biting, like she was throwing a jab to cover the way her heart skipped. Teasing, but with enough edge to remind him she wasn’t playing.

Sigorn said it low and careful, with that tired mix of guilt and duty in his voice — “Ly… this case is hot. It’s not meant to leave the precinct.” —  like he wanted to let her in but knew he wasn’t supposed to. Pleading, but still trying to sound official.

Lyanna said it with a crooked smirk and a razor-thin edge of mock betrayal, her voice pitched light like a joke but sharp enough to sting if you listened close. Sarcasm was safer than honesty — “SSig, how many cases we cracked over flat ale and cold dumplings? Oh, I see. You doin’ Lyseni with someone else?” — always had been.

Sigorn said it with an easy grin, playing along, his tone dry but warm, — “Aye. It’s Ed. You caught me.” — like he was trying to keep things light, even if the air between them still held too much unsaid.

“Gods. What’s he got I haven’t?” —  She said it like a joke. That was her trick. Make it funny, make it shallow, and nobody sees you bleeding.

Sigorn leaned back, head tilting against the cushion. His voice went low. — “I miss this… Ever think about comin’ back?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just sat there, blinking too slowly. The room spun if she moved her head too fast these days. — “Aye. Right after someone gifts me new eyes.”

“Come on, Ly. There’s treatments...” — Sigorn said it gently, the way someone speaks when they're trying too hard to sound casual but the worry slips through anyway. His voice was low, careful, like he knew she’d snap but couldn’t help trying.

He meant well. They always meant well. But he didn’t get it. None of them did. Once the curse took root, there was no reversing it. Just a slow fade into black, one blurred streetlamp and bloodstain at a time. She was twenty-six. (Almost thirty, but don’t rub it in.) And she'd already seen more death than most coroners. Her future? A rocking chair, a dark veil, and a scream that made children cry.

Lyanna said it with a scoff and a raised brow, biting off the words like they tasted sour. Her tone was dry, sarcastic — “You Googlin’ cures now? And beliving in this horseshit?” — classic deflection. She didn’t want tenderness. She wanted distance.

Sigorn said it sheepishly, like he was half embarrassed but trying to sound casual — “I Googled it. Couple times, aye.” — like admitting a guilty pleasure. A small, self-deprecating smile tugged at his lips.

“Prep work for the Pity Olympics?” — Lyanna said it dripping with sarcasm, voice low and sharp, like she was mocking but didn’t want to sound too soft. There was a bitter edge, like a razor hidden behind a smirk.

She got up, moved away from the couch, but didn’t leave the room. Just needed space to breathe. Needed him to not look at her like that — like she was some tragic novel he couldn’t stop reading.

Sigorn responded quietly, with a mix of frustration and something like genuine care beneath the blunt words — “No. That’s the problem. You don’t know the difference between pity and someone giving a damn about your dumb ass.” — steady, patient, like he was trying to break through her walls without breaking her down.

Lyanna replied it flatly, her voice dipped in dry sarcasm, like she was lighting a match just to watch it burn. Defensive, automatic, very her, —  “Is that what this is?” — a deflection sharp enough to draw blood.

Sigorn said it with a weary edge, half exasperated, half aching — “Aye. And if you weren’t so bloody angry all the time, you’d notice.” — like someone trying to break through a wall he knew was there long before she ever built it. His voice softened at the end, not pleading, just tired of pretending he didn’t care.

She crossed her arms tight over her chest. Defensive posture 101. She hadn’t meant to pick this fight, but it was already swinging. — “So now I’ve got rage issues? You need a license for all this psych babble.”

Sigorn said it low, almost careful, like he knew he was toeing a line he shouldn’t cross but couldn’t help himself. There was no judgment in it — “All I’m sayin’ is, you didn’t have to go. With a few tweaks, you could’ve had a life.”— just regret, thick as smoke in his throat. Like he still believed in something she stopped hoping for a long time ago.

Normal. Gods, that word. It stung worse than any hex. What he really meant was: You didn’t have to leave me. But he didn’t know the half of it. Didn’t know what it meant to carry a scream in your throat every time you loved someone, and new would die, saw them dead. Didn’t know about the dreams. The blood. The girls in her family who went mad before thirty. He thought this was a medical issue. Something vitamins could fix. She wanted to laugh. Or scream.

Lyanna said it flat, like a blade laid on a table — “And those ‘tweaks? They’d put me behind a desk shufflin’ papers in a box till I rot? If you knew me, you’d know I’d rather die.”  —  no edge raised, but the threat unmistakable. Her voice didn’t rise, didn’t crack. Just cold steel wrapped in cigarette ash and don't-push-me calm. Not angry. Not emotional. Just final. She'd made peace with the wreckage and wasn’t asking for his approval.

Sigorn said it with frustration bleeding through the cracks, his voice low but tight, like he was trying not to raise it. Not angry yet, but close. —  “So that’s it? You think I don’t know you?” — Hurt, maybe. Pushed back on his heels and trying to make sense of the wall she just built. He wasn’t yelling. He was asking. Needing. And that made it hit harder.

She uttered it with a shrug in her voice, dry as dust and twice as cutting. No apology, no soft landing — “Guess so. But you’re the one who started this.”  — just that flat, deadpan delivery she used when the truth stung too close. Her tone had the bite of a joke, but none of the warmth. Defensive, deflecting, and already halfway out the door emotionally. Cause she’d rather piss him off than admit she was bleeding. He stood, and for a second she thought he’d leave. She braced for it. Maybe even wanted it.

Sigorn said it with a forced calm, the kind that came after too many years trying to read her like a crime scene and always missing a clue. His voice was steady, but the edge was there —  “Alright. Instead of sulking, how about we make a deal? You tell me why you’re poking into this demon case, and I’ll share… Some… Of what I know.” — tight around the jaw, buried under compromise. He wasn’t pleading. Not yet. But it was clear he was done tiptoeing. Tired, maybe. Tired of her walls, tired of the dance, but still showing up. Like always. He was a good friend. 

Lyanna said it dry as old bone, one eyebrow cocked, voice like gravel soaked in sarcasm. No smile, just that sharp glint in her eye that said she wasn’t joking —  “Fine. Show me yours first.” — even when she was. It was a dare more than a deal, tossed like a lit match, half to test him, half to keep him exactly where he was: close, but not too close.

Sigorn replied it with a half-laugh, the kind that came out more breath than sound — “Always that way wi’ you, Stark.” — exasperated, fond, and just a little bruised. Like he’d stepped on the same rake a dozen times and still hadn’t learned. His tone carried a grin, but there was a weight behind it, something tired and true.

“Please. I weren’t dropped on me head. I know how this plays.”— She said it with a crooked smirk, all razor-edged confidence masking the wear underneath. Her voice was dry, clipped, like she was daring anyone to challenge her.

She didn’t smile — never did when it mattered — but she didn’t look away either. Couldn’t, really. Not because she was feeling soft or sentimental — fuck no — but because her body had gone still in that specific, surgical way it did when something cut too close to the bone. She couldn’t see his face clearly anymore. Not unless he was close, under good light, and even then, some nights the blur bled straight through. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t need eyes to read people — just tone, weight, the way the air shifted when truth slipped in sideways. His voice had it. That low warmth that curled around the edges of her like smoke in an alley. The kind of thing you don’t trust, but you don’t walk away from either. What he said? It hit. Not clean, not sharp, but deep — like a bruise blooming under the ribs. It was the thread she needed. A line that, if she played it right, could drag her all the way to the truth — or close enough to bleed on it. It gave her just enough to move. To act. To lie a little more.

***

If honesty were a currency Rhaegar could spend without consequence — and what a delicious fantasy that was — he’d confess that what truly baffled him about humans wasn’t their skepticism of the supernatural. It was their arrogance about it. Centuries of whispered rites, blood-soaked altars, ink scratched into vellum by candlelight — and now they thought themselves enlightened. As if science had snapped its sterile little fingers and banished the dark. As if molecules and math had unmade monsters. Quaint. Tiresome. So very human. He, after all, still walked the earth. Breathing without breath. Hunger wrapped in skin. The last Targaryen in ways the family genealogists never quite anticipated. A ghost with excellent posture.

So when the story broke — slathered in blood, served up on the front page of a local tabloid no one respectable admitted to reading — Rhaegar didn’t blink. He clicked. Ritual murder. Pentagram carved into brick and bone. Air burned in a way that left iron on the tongue. A residue of something older than the poor bastard who died screaming. Not a vampire. He’d have known. Their kind had a scent — iron and incense, like rusted relics in cathedral dust. This wasn’t that. This was uncivilized. Demon . And that meant trouble. The real kind. The kind that didn’t respect borders or politics or the quiet detentes that kept undead society from collapsing into a bloodbath. Rhaegar had earned White Harbor. Bled for it, buried his past under its snow-choked skyline, sunk his fangs into its rhythm and made himself necessary. He didn’t love the city. But he owned it. And now something was digging its claws through corpses like a drunk toddler through cake. Sloppy. Disrespectful. Loud.

So he hunted. Discreetly. Nights, mostly. Weekends, if the office was quiet. Because even vampires had schedules. He had pages to ink, deadlines to meet. And of course, he had to feed — carefully, consensually. He wasn’t feral, please. He had taste. But the demon problem refused to behave. It crept into his nights, slithered under doors, curled behind his teeth like guilt. He was supposed to be too old for quests. And yet. Then he remembered the scent. Not sulfur. That would’ve been obvious — like brimstone belched through a cathedral, ozone bruised with something wrong. No. This was different. Stranger. Cold iron. Grave dirt. The breath before a scream. The thought of it hit him while he was feeding — in a bar so dim even the shadows looked bored. His donor was still talking, bless her, some muddled monologue about urban decay and vegan leather. He nodded once, polite, and let her voice fade into static. Because that smell — He knew that smell.

Not dead. Not alive. Something in between. A presence that felt like frost down the spine, like a soul slipping out through the skin. He’d known it before. In a chapel soaked with ash. In a crypt filled with half-sung prayers. Most recently? An alley. One hand in his coat, the other on a wall, watching as a woman with a gun walked into his life like the third act of a Greek tragedy. Banshee. She hadn’t known what he was — or if she had, she’d chosen not to flinch. He respected that. Possibly resented it. But he’d known her for what she was, and she had colonized his thoughts. The dead knew their kin. And her scent? It wrapped around the place like a noose made of song. 

So when he felt it again he didn’t look up. Not at first. Rhaegar enjoyed entrances, even when he wasn’t the one making them. Instead: a sip. Negroni. Bitterness, elegance, restraint — his three food groups. Then the slow curl of graphite over paper. A woman, backlit by a burning chapel. He’d drawn her before. Pretended it was for the plot. It wasn’t. And then he looked. There she was. Leather jacket, gunmetal stare, a kind of ruin in the way she carried herself that made him sit up a little straighter. The banshee. The warning. The dare. Rhaegar smiled. Barely. Enough to wound. He closed the sketchbook, set down the pencil, and rose like a man who’d already decided how this story would end.

Chapter Text

Shitty little bar near the university, all neon grime and bad decisions. She’d been to worse. Sigorn had pointed her here, all straight-backed and cop-brained, he still believed in the system. Said the Bael kid had picked a fight here about a week before his insides ended up on the sidewalk. Sigorn figured the killer was on drugs — crystal, maybe PCP. Something human. Something explainable. That was the difference between them. Sigorn hunted men. Lyanna hunted what men called myths. The body hadn’t bled right. Sigorn’s theory was razor wounds with no runoff, skin split like it was peeled by something playing dress-up in human flesh. Magnar muttered about cults, about ritual knives, about kids too deep in Reddit forums. She nodded along. Let him feel clever. But Stark had seen the mark scorched into the wall by Bael’s body. Not a carving. A burn. Sulfur stank beneath the rot. Demonic residue, faint but sticky. Someone had summoned something, and tried damn hard to make it look like they hadn’t.

Now she was here. Following the bloodstain, and the recorded into Bael’s past. The bar had that synthetic-goth vibe, all chrome and fake leather, like the Matrix had thrown up in here. Lyanna stuck out immediately — too sharp, too sober, too faux. Her boots hit the floor like punctuation marks. She made it two steps in before the air shifted. He didn’t appear so much as slide into her path. Too smooth to be accidental. Too silent to be human. Dim lighting meant she only caught pieces of the person in front of her. Burgundy shirt, open at the collar, silver necklace catching the red glow like a blade. A dragon pendant. Valyrian, probably. Of course. The hair was shoulder-length and silver-white, waving like it had its own opinions. Jacket leather. Posture predatory. Gothic cosplay with a nice budget.

He leaned close, and his voice brushed her skin like smoke, — “You’re not a regular, are you?”

Magic hit her ears like a tuning fork. Not raw spellwork — silver tongue. One of those slick little tricks meant to get inside your ribs and stay there. Subtle compulsion. Suggestion wrapped in silk and charm. It slithered along her spine, looking for a door. She didn’t open one.

“Aye, not the first time I’ve heard that shite,” — She said, dry as bone.

She looked up. Couldn’t quite catch his face — thanks, eyeballs. Everything past six feet blurred like someone had smeared Vaseline on the world. But she saw the eyes. Black on black. No whites. No mercy. Vampire . Not what she was after — she was looking for the sort of bastard who summoned monsters, not the ones born to it. Vampires didn’t outsource their kills. They got close. They got personal. But the eyes told her he wasn’t hiding what he was anymore. Full power flickering just beneath the surface.

He spoke again. The words pressed against her skull like a migraine forming. — “What are you doing here?”

The hypnosis scraped across her brain like fingernails on ice. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t give in. Vamp glamour didn’t work well on people like her. Banshees were hardwired against it — her curse burned through illusions. Still, it left a taste in her mouth like ash.

She shook her head, pretending to adjust her vision, and muttered, — “Best get yer hand off my arm, pretty boy, or I’ll show you exactly what the fuck I’m doin’ here.”

He faltered. They always did, the vamps. Didn’t like that banshee energy — too raw, too untouchable, too close to death. She could short-circuit their little party tricks. Made her popular in all the wrong crowds. She didn’t wait for him to recover. Just turned on her heel and made for the bar. The bartender looked like he could lift a car and drink you under the table afterward. Good. She needed someone solid. She leaned in, not bothering with her glasses. The blurry world made people underestimate her. She liked it that way.

“Need owt?” — He asked.

She slid a crumpled photo from her jacket the one Howl gave her; Bael, eyes too young, smile too hopeful.— “You know this lad?”

“Bael,” — He said, nodding.— “One of ours. Worked the floor.”

“You know what happened to him?” — Another nod. He looked away.

The bartender said it casually, with a shrug in his voice — “He had words wi’ some blokes last week. Cut ’em off. Nowt serious.” — like it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. His Northern accent softened the edges, making it sound like just another bit of pub gossip.

“Folk don’t end up gutted after a quiet shift.” — Her voice went flint-sharp. — “Where can I find ’em?” — He hesitated. Wrong move.

She leaned in, voice low and lethal. — “I’m askin’ nice ‘cause I’d rather not drag folk in with a subpoena. So, what’s it gonna be, then?”

The bartender exhaled through his nose, then nodded toward the corner table. Three men. Broad-shouldered, loud, red-nosed from drink and arrogance. Not the worst she’d seen, but definitely the type who thought violence made them interesting. Laughing about something she didn’t care to know. She looked back to the bartender and subtly flashed three fingers. He nodded again. Three suspects. No blood yet. But if they lied, or worse — if they summoned something they couldn’t control? Then the real cleanup would begin. Not that Lyanna had minded the dirty work, being a PI was mostly that actually, so she thanked the bartender with a few bucks and went on her way up to the drunk man. She smelled them from afar. Beer sweat, knockoff cologne, and that sweet, cloying stench of men who think they're dangerous because they’ve never actually been close to death. Lyanna stepped into the dive bar like it owed her money, coat collar up, hand in her pocket, fingers brushing the safety on her taser. Not that she planned to use it. Not yet. Not in here.

“Evenin’, boys.” — Her voice cut through the static of bad music and worse conversation.

One of them, already two whiskeys past dignity, turned with a leer. —  “And what do we have here? Nice woman like you, place like this...”

Lyanna tilted her head, all lashes and malice. —  “Diggin’. You wanna help with the shovelin’?”

Another chuckled, the kind of laugh that scraped against her nerves like a rusted hinge. — “You certainly.”

“Place is a bit crowded,” — She said, the words silk-wrapped steel. — “Mind if we step somewhere quiet?”

They looked at each other. Oh yeah — they got the innuendo. Got it, liked it, swallowed it whole like the good little idiots they were. Lyanna smiled. Thin and sharp. She should’ve felt smug. Instead, the hairs on her neck stood up. That feeling again — eyes, breath behind her. She hoped the vampire from the entrance had fucked off into the night, got some girl to give him her neck but hope was a stupid, breakable thing.

“And how much that gonna cost us?” — Asked the third man, the one who’d stayed quiet too long.

Lyanna's smile didn’t reach her eyes. — “Depends how entertaining you are.”

They took the bait, wide-eyed and grinning like kids about to see their first titty mag. Men were easy — point them toward their own dicks and they’d forget they had brains. One of Lyanna’s best assets as a private investigator wasn’t charm. It was judgment. She could smell guilt like rot under floorboards. She motioned with her chin and the trio shuffled before her, eager as pups, toward the back door of the bar. Her hand stayed in her pocket. The taser was fully charged, high voltage — non-lethal but deeply unpleasant. Just the way she liked it. They opened the alley door. Bad lighting. Grease-stained dumpsters. Smelled like wet iron and piss. Perfect. As soon as the last idiot stepped through, she kicked the door into his head, hard enough to make his skull ring. The second one didn’t get a word out before she jammed the taser between his legs and lit him up like a holiday tree. He shrieked, dropped. The third got a knee to the face and crumpled like overcooked pasta.

One still groaned on the ground. Lyanna kicked him again. Hard. Then planted her boot on his chest, taser still humming. She fished the photo of Bael from inside her jacket, edges bent, like everything else she touched. Pulled it slow; no rush, no ceremony. Just another ghost with a face. — “You know this lad? Waiter. Got hisself carved up the other night?”

“I...I dunno who the fuck yer on about…” —  Wrong answer. She hit him with tha taser again. His scream echoed down the alley like a prayer to all the wrong gods. — “Alright! Alright, I do know 'im!”

She said it low and level, like a knife laid on the table, casual, but sharp enough to bleed. No shouting, no drama. — “Nah, you’re no killer. But you ain’t a fuckin’ choirboy either. You don’t strike me as the type to let what Bael did just… Slide. So, what then? You called somethin’, didn’t you? Let it tear him up for you.” — Her voice had her usual roughness, a bite at the edges, like gravel under frost. Accusing without flinching. A dare, not a question.

He blasted out the words like a shot, ragged and desperate; voice cracking on the last word, raw with panic and fury tangled tight. — “You’re fuckin’ cracked! I dunno what the hell you’re on about, you mad bitch!”— His scream wasn’t just loud; it was a ragged edge of fear trying to break through the tough act.

She was just about to press him again — verbally or electrically, she hadn’t decided — when she caught movement in the corner of her eye. Too late. The one she’d greeted with the door came barreling back at her. And of course, tonight of all nights, she’d left her Glock at home. Her hand went for the taser, but it didn’t matter. Because she blinked and whoosh. A gust of wind sharp enough to slice. A blur. Then — gone. Lyanna stood blinking at the space where the man had been. Only the stink of fear remained. The last one still conscious stared in horror, piss pooling beneath him. She followed his gaze. The body landed in front of her like a sack of wet meat — alive, barely. Above, the building's roof caught the silver flicker of moonlight on leather. There he was. The vampire. Same one from the bar. He looked down at her, eyes like polished obsidian. She blinked. He was gone. Of course he was.

She turned back to the man that was still conscious. He was trying to disappear into the concrete. Good enough. She left him. The cold wrapped around her like a second skin as she walked out into the dark street. No footsteps behind her. No breath at her neck. She kind of missed it. She lit a cigarette with shaky fingers and told herself it was just the adrenaline. What if the vamp was the summoner? The thought hit her somewhere deep. The timing. The way he kept showing up, not interfering — but not not interfering either. Maybe he was covering his tracks. Or maybe... maybe he was helping. But why? She didn’t like not knowing. It scratched under her skin. Sent her back to square one with nothing but questions and burnt nerves. She boarded the metro without looking back. She hated when a lead went sideways. Hated it more when someone made her feel... Protected. Whatever the hell that was.

She was half a block from her flat, boots biting the frost-bitten pavement, coat collar pulled up against the bite of White Harbour wind, when her phone buzzed like a pissed-off wasp in her pocket. Broke her out of the spiral she'd been drowning in — half the vampire’s eyes, half Bael’s corpse, and a whole lotta fucked-up in between. Mance. Finally. Maybe he’d cracked something with the blood sample she’d dropped off earlier that week — back when she still thought the case might be something simple. Stalker. Cult. Maybe a shitty rogue vampire who hadn’t figured out the rules. But deep down, she knew better. The way the air felt wrong around the bodies, the weight of the silence, the sour iron stink that clung to her even hours later.

She thumbed open the message and muttered into the phone, voice low and bone-tired. — “Tell me y’got somethin’ good on that blood.”

Mance's silence came through with that cautious edge she hated. Like he was holding back. Like he knew she wasn't gonna like what came next. She shoved open the foyer door of her shitty building, one of those concrete relics from a time when people thought asbestos was a design feature, and muttered, — “What.”

Silence, then, —  “Third body’s turned up t’night.”

Her stomach dropped, not from shock. Just that sinking confirmation. She leaned against the peeling wall and closed her eyes, vision dancing with static and shadows. — “Lemme guess,” — She said. — “Same wounds. No blood.”

“Bingo.” — Mance said it flatly, with the kind of grim satisfaction that meant he hated being right.

She blew out a breath that tasted like rust and smoke. — “Ta for the heads-up, Mance.”

There was more she could’ve said. Something like: ‘I owe you one’. Or: ‘Watch your back, aye?’. But that wasn’t how she worked. The people she gave a shit about already knew. And the ones who didn’t? Didn’t need to. She hung up, slid the phone back into her coat, and stood there for a moment in the flickering yellow light of the foyer. Listening to the building creak around her like an old man muttering in his sleep. Something was hunting again. And this time, it wasn’t just bodies piling up — it was something worse. Lyanna flexed her fingers. Her vision flickered. She didn’t need eyes to see death coming. She just needed to get there first. 

***

Rhaegar had returned earlier than expected that night, though few would notice. Fewer still would dare question his movements. The banshee had turned up at the bar — reckless, feral, magnetic in that maddening way particular to creatures born half in this world and half in another. She’d almost gotten herself killed. Almost. He’d intervened — not for her sake, of course. For his own. For the secret. For the peace he’d bartered and bled to keep. The men she’d fought had been concussed, bloodied, and thoroughly disoriented by the time Rhaegar had finished with them. Nothing fatal. Unfortunately. He doubted the man would remember much, and if he did, it wouldn't matter. Supernaturals rarely whispered of each other aloud. Self-preservation was a more powerful code than morality. He'd walked the city streets home, as he often did — never the tube, gods forbid. Too much dirt. Too many smells. Too many people packed like meat in a grinder. Besides, the streets were quiet, and silence had always suited him. Which was why he heard it: a police radio squawking from the window of a parked cruiser.

“Body found. Fish Market Docks. Female, forties. Found in her car. Stab wound to the neck. No blood.”

Ah. So the pattern had teeth. Rhaegar sighed, turned on his heel, and detoured toward the docks. By the time he arrived, the scene had already begun to curdle — flashing lights, rubberneckers, and the wet, low hum of city rot thick in the air. But even at a distance, his eyes found the shape. There, burned delicately into the grime-slick cement near the wheel of the dead woman’s car: a pentagram. Neat. Unoriginal. And unmistakably familiar. He didn’t stay. There was no need. He turned away before the sun could catch him and slipped back into the dark. His flat sat high above the filth, perched in a tower that offered both discretion and decadence. Half the top floor, filled with amenities and private spaces — drawing room, library, a bath carved in stone. In another life, he’d never have dreamed of such things. But vampires tend to accumulate comfort the way humans accumulate debt.

He stepped into his office and exhaled slowly. Three kills now. All drained. All marked. All pointed. This was not random. This was not human. This was memory clawing its way into the present. He unrolled a map of the city. Drew a red line from site to site. Three points. The beginning of a pentagram. He filled in the rest — instinct more than deduction. He remembered seeing the last time something like this had stalked a city. Air, spirit, water… now came fire. The next site would be the bottom tip of the pentagram. He circled it. The Old Sept of the Snows. Charred bones of a holy place, now little more than a ruin for addicts and madmen. A fitting altar. He would be there. Before it struck again. Afterward, Rhaegar showered. The water steamed against skin that hadn’t been warm in centuries. He toweled off mechanically and lay down in his bed. He didn’t expect sleep. He hadn’t truly slept since the '80s.

But he was relieved. He’d fed earlier, before the banshee, the girl at the bar whispered his name as he drank from her neck like a prayer. She’d tasted of clove cigarettes and cheap gin, and she’d moaned as he bit her — a sad little noise that had pleased him more than it should’ve. Still, it wasn’t her blood that lingered from that night. It wasn’t the music. Or the smoke. Or the kiss of alcohol on his tongue. It was her. The banshee. The fact that his hypnosis hadn’t worked on her. A five-hundred-year-old vampire — his will had shattered kings and killers alike. But not her. Not even close. She’d looked at him like she saw right through it. Right through him. Like he was trash under her boots. That wasn’t common. That wasn’t… safe. Her mind was strong — frighteningly so. Not just clever. Anchored. Untouchable. And her eyes — Gods, those eyes. Icy blue. Not cold, no. Bright. Alive. Alert. She looked like a woman who hadn’t slept in days and yet saw the world more clearly than anyone else in the room.

Rhaegar did not dream. Not in the human sense. Not anymore. And yet, as he lay in the cavernous hush of his northern flat — where his room’s windows were blacked out and the radiators never hummed — he drifted, involuntarily, into memory’s theater. Not nightmares. No. He was far too disciplined for that. What came were recollections, inconveniently vivid and uninvited, like ghosts that refused to respect the new regime. Her face rose from the haze first — not the banshee’s, not yet, but the other one. The one before. Braided hair the color of starlight, composed in the Valyrian style his mother had once favored before prison turned her regal hands to claws. Eyes like glacial fire. A woman wrapped in white wool and expectation. Everyone else saw elegance. He had known the sound of her laugh. The flutter of her fingers as she brushed his hair and told him — lied to him — that he still looked like himself.

In the end, she had screamed. Not at him, but for him. For his death. And then, her own. He hadn’t moved quickly enough. He always woke just before the knife. He sat up, breath steady but unnecessary. Darkness greeted him like an old, familiar cloak. It was just after four in the afternoon — sunset, in the North. Winter’s one mercy. He dressed like a man preparing for a fight, which in many ways, he was. Not the suit. Never the suit. Not tonight. Instead, he pulled on the armor of a man who understood the need to look lethal before becoming so. A matte black leather coat, long and sharply tailored. A black shirt with fine vertical etchings that caught light like secrets. Trousers, fitted. A silver ring on each hand. A chain at his neck. He considered eyeliner — briefly — and dismissed it. Vanity was the sin of younger immortals.

Tonight wasn’t about seduction. Tonight, he might have to feed, but it was not the priority. He didn’t walk. He moved like smoke across rooftops, careful to avoid being seen. The city below teemed with its usual night decay: drunks stumbling through alleys, addicts curled in corners, the faithful whispering into phones like prayers. Nothing out of place — until the scream. Female. Young. Wrong place. He tracked the sound with predatory ease, caught the scent — burnt ash, blood, and sulfur — and descended. The demon wore a man’s face, though it fooled no one. Least of all Rhaegar. The girl was already down — throat bared, body limp, dress white enough to stain poetically. Typical. He reached them as the beast lunged. Intercepted. Fought not like a creature of instinct but like a general who knew every weakness in his enemy’s anatomy. It was not a clean kill — the thing was faster than expected, not from this plane, not entirely. Still, he broke it. Pinned it.

The demon grinned as he looked up at him. — “Dragon blood… They still remember you down there. It’s been a while.”

Rhaegar, impassive, murmured, — “Not long enough.”

“My master remembers. You have unfinished business. He’s coming for you.” — With that, it dematerialized; back to whatever festering pit it had crawled from.

The air lightened, barely. The girl lay crumpled and gone. Too late. He bent over her as though it mattered — she was human, and he remembered enough of what that meant to pretend. Something clenched in her fist. A stone. Marked. Whispering. He took it. And that’s when he sensed another. The banshee. Of course. She stood behind him, a silhouette made of leather and spite, her Glock already trained on his skull.

“Ey,” — She said. — “Stay right there, or I knock those pretty teeth straight out your skull.”

Witty. Adorable. Unoriginal. He stood slowly, hands raised — just enough to give her the illusion of control. He could smell her nerves. One hand trembled — not the one with the gun. Sensible. Then the sirens howled. They couldn’t stay here. Not with a corpse. Not with her. Not with him. Not with whatever stone that was still pulsing softly in his palm. This wasn’t how he wanted it to begin. But he was a man who could contend with unpleasant beginnings. So he moved. She fired — five shots, all solid hits. One punctured his coat. Another grazed his ribs. The rest, ornamental. He reached her before the sixth. Knocked her out. Gently. Well. Gentle enough. Then he took her. Before the blue-and-white lights could drag them both into daylight and paperwork. When she woke, she'd be somewhere safer. For him, at least. Not her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with her yet. She was in the way. She was dangerous. She was — Gods help him — interesting. Not his type at all. And the last banshee he'd known had died screaming his death. He wondered if this one would, too.

***

He had a good right hook, she’d give the bloodsucker that. Bastard moved like he was born in a boxing ring and raised on noir flicks. She could respect that. Sort of. If her jaw wasn’t still throbbing. It had started like any other day — Howland stumbling into her office smelling like mildew and academic stress, asking about the case he was too damn sweet to walk away from. She’d cracked it that morning. Cracked it hard. A pentagram, five-pointed like a middle finger to logic, with the university sitting dead center. Textbook summoning circle. Amateurs always picked somewhere symbolic. She knew where the next point would fall. So she’d gone to the Sept of the Snows — perfect kill zone. The place was a carcass no one bothered to bury. Needle-pocked addicts, bottom-feeders, the kind of ghosts who hadn’t realized they were dead yet. The cops didn’t patrol there often, not really. They did drive-bys, looked the other way, lit a cigarette and pretended they hadn’t seen what crawled out of the alleys. That kind of place.

She had her gun. Of course she did. Steel comfort in her jacket pocket. She’d just stepped off the subway, breath fogging in the cold, when the screaming started. Real, gut-deep screaming, not the usual downtown wailing. She ran — don’t ask why, some instincts just never die — and came up the cracked stairs to find a demon crouched over a girl like a damn bedtime story gone wrong. She was already pulling her gun, breath shallow, eyes flicking for an opening. And then — Fangs . Fangs came down from the fire escape like some real life Batman and tackled the damn thing before she got a shot off. Ruined her whole theory. She’d had him pegged as the summoner — slick, pale, broody. But apparently he moonlighted as a hellhound exterminator. Great.

He fought the thing like he meant it. Not bad to look at either, though she’d die twice before admitting that out loud. When the demon hissed itself into smoke, she remembered herself. Remembered why she’d come. And remembered she didn’t trust anything with that many cheekbones and that little pulse. He got closer to the girl, she could feel the death clinging to her already. She pointed the gun at him. Reflex. No trust, just bone-deep habit. And then — sirens. Blue light flashing against red brick. He moved, and she didn’t see it coming. Fucker clocked her. She was pretty sure she shot him. Once, maybe twice. So, yeah. The punch was earned. When her brain finally swam back up to the surface, she wasn’t bleeding out on concrete or cuffed in the back of a cruiser. Small mercies. She was on a couch. Leather. Soft. Too nice to be police issue. Not the busted one from the precinct either, the one Sig used to pass out on during overnights. This was expensive. Didn’t smell like sweat and microwave noodles. Smelled like him.

Which was... worse. Her mouth tasted like rust. Her head was full of bees. She blinked. Dim light. Room smelled like coffee, dust, and her own blood drying under her nails. Her coat was gone. Boots too. She was in her jeans, socks, and that black henley she kept pretending didn’t have holes in the sleeves. Her coat hung by the door, boots neatly set beside it like she was a guest instead of a problem. The sound that woke her was paper. Not the scary kind. Just… ruffling. He was at the coffee table. Calm. Casual. Rifling through her stuff like it was a Sunday crossword. He held up a business card between two fingers, eyebrows doing that thing people did when they thought they were clever.

Count Sharp teeth, soft hands; read out loud, like she didn’t already know what was on the carf. — “Lyanna Starkova. Private Investigator. Discreet. Efficient. Not your therapist. If I’m on your case, you probably deserved it. If you’re on mine, run faster… Cute .”

She groaned and pushed herself up on one elbow. Everything ached. Her ribs felt like cracked porcelain. — “Was a joke, that,” — She rasped. — “Sig gave it a partin gift, thought he was bloody hilarious.”

Rhaegar arched a brow. — “He wasn’t wrong.”

She shot him a look sharp enough to bleed. — “Don’t make me regret not aim’n higher.”

The smirk didn’t leave his face. Of course it didn’t. Vampires like him didn’t break under threats. They just filed them away like love letters. Lyanna leaned back into the couch, exhaling through her teeth. Everything hurt, and her coat was across the room like a kicked dog. She was in socks. Socks, for fuck’s sake. Vulnerable in a way that made her want to bite someone. Probably him.

“Alright, so where the fuck’s m’gun?” — She asked, eyes narrowed.

He gestured vaguely toward the table. —  “Safe. For now.”

She grunted. — “Should’a left me to bleed out on the fuckin’ stairs.”

“Trust me,” — He said, folding the card and tucking it back into her coat pocket like he owned the moment, —  “I considered it.”

Lyanna replied it with a shrug in her voice, the kind that made you feel stupid for even asking. Her tone was flat, unimpressed, like she was recounting a trip to the corner store, not clawing her way back from unconsciousness. — “Didn’t ‘xactly have time t’sit down ‘n ponder, far as I recall.” 

She didn’t bother looking up. Eyes stuck to the mess on the coffee table — her life spilled out in notebooks, scraps, and a half-empty pack of smokes. Half-lidded, jaw clenched like she was chewing on a brick, trying to swallow the headache pounding behind her eyes. Didn’t mean to give it away. Words came flat, dry, like she was reading the same damn line over and over. But beneath that deadpan was something harder — grit that said, I’m still breathing, ain’t I? What more you want? He could’ve ripped her throat out back out there. Easy as hell. But nah. Instead, he dragged her somewhere else. His place. And it looked like it — red leather soaking up the low light, a kind of vampire-sex cliché that made her want to roll her eyes so hard she’d lose what little sight she had left. 

She glanced back at him, caught that lazy smirk playing on his lips, that look in his ancient eyes — like she was a puzzle he couldn’t decide if he wanted to crack open or smash to bits. Lyanna pulled herself upright, biting down on the nausea twisting in her gut. Not dead. Not yet. Which meant inconvenience. She needed her gun.  She needed a cigarette. She needed him to stop staring at her like she was some damn mystery he was itching to solve. Like he’d seen something. Like he’d felt something. She didn’t trust that look. She trusted pain. Guns. Instinct. And all of those told her the same thing: This man wasn’t normal. But then again — neither was she. She didn’t flinch when he circled her stuff like a crow picking through trash. Her bag was open, notebooks half out, her shitty burner flipped open like it was giving up on life.

“Y’done riflin’ through my shit, or d’you need a few more minutes to feel important?” —  Her tone was flat. Dry as bones. The kind of tired that didn’t come from sleep deprivation; it came from living too long.

“Nope. You don’t own anything of value,” — He said, all smooth contempt in that velvety dead-boy voice of his.

“Newsflash, not all of us step out drippin’ in five kilos o’ fuckin’ bling every night.” — She didn’t even blink. He probably moisturized his face with the blood of fashion editors.

He smiled. Because of course he did. — “You’d look good if you tried, I’m certain.”

Oh, fuck him. Fuck him to the moon and back and then once more for the return trip. Lyanna liked her men like she liked her bourbon — burned, bitter, and 20 years older than her. This one? Not her type. Too polished. High cheekbones, nice hair, no beard. Dressed like he just stepped out of a cursed issue of Vogue Noir. Bowie Thin White Duke era, if Bowie also moonlighted as a corpse with manners. And worse — he flirted. Shamelessly. Took every jab she threw and tossed it back dipped in charm. If she had a kryptonite, she’d apparently just found it wearing a tailored coat and smelling faintly of cedar and menace. But there was no way in hell a bloodsucker was getting inside her head. Not in this life time. 

He gestured toward his own jaw, knuckles brushing the spot she’d cracked. — “Sorry for the…” — He let it hang there.

“Just a love tap, yeah?” — She muttered, settling back onto the couch like her spine had gone rusty. Truth was, his punch had given her whiplash. His jaw was still intact. Pity.

“I was trying to protect myself,” — He offered, like that made it better.

“S’all right, Fangs. Ain’t m’first time gettin’ clocked by some bloke. I’ve had rougher.” — Her voice was ice-pick casual, but something dark flickered in her eyes. Not pain. Not exactly. Memory.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t want to hurt you,” — He said.

She snorted. — “Funny way o’ showin’ it.”

He sat next to her — next to her — when there was a whole damn sofa across the room. Of course he did. Made her feel like she was shrinking into the cushions. Or maybe the room was just too small for whatever the hell this was.

“Well,” — He said, too close, too calm, — “I wasn’t the one threatening your dental work. People say my smile is my best feature.”

“Vain bloody killer, yeah? Walkin’ cliché if I ever saw one.” — She shot back, not even pretending to be amused.

“I didn’t want her dead,” — He said. Her, not it. He meant the girl in the white dress.

“An’ why in the seven fuckin’ hells’d I believe that, eh?” — Her voice had teeth now. The banshee in her stirred; cold wind through graveyard trees.

He didn’t blink. — “Because you were there. And you know what I am. I know what you are too. The cigarette smoke dulls the scent, but it’s still there... Banshee.”

She stilled. — “Real subtle, that.” — She said after a beat. 

“You should stay away from night stakeouts. With your condition…”— His tone shifted. Not pity. Worse. Concern. — “It’s not just your vision. It’s... deeper. And it’s only going to get worse.”

“Aye, tell me somethin’ I don’t already know.” — She muttered. — “Tunnel vision. Night hits and it’s like I’m lookin’ through a bloody keyhole. That’s why I didn’t clock you at the bar.” — She took sigh. — “But we talkin’ ‘bout my eyes goin’ to shit, or we finally gonna talk about what the fuck I saw in that park?”

He turned toward her, draping his arm over the backrest like he owned the damn couch. It made the whole space feel smaller. Like she was being cornered by velvet. — “Alright,” — He said. — “You saw a demon.”

Lyanna said it flat, like she was stating the weather — “Got that, thanks. The pentagrams at the last two sites were seven hells of hints.” — dry, unimpressed, with just enough edge to cut. Not bragging. Just letting him know she wasn’t an idiot. 

He tilted his head. Studied her. — “And I’m guessing, from how calm you are about all this... you know what I am. Vampire.”

“Aye. Clocked that too.” — Her voice was dry ash. — “Still wonderin’ why you ain’t killed me.”

Rhaegar said it smooth, low — “Was I supposed to?” —  just enough edge to make her wonder if he was teasing or testing her. Lyanna couldn’t tell if he was flirting or trying to bait her. Maybe both.

Lyanna threw it out with a crooked grin and a raised brow, her voice dry as a desert. If this was flirting, fine — “Isn’t that what vampires do?” —  she’d play. Even if the bastard next to her could drain her dry without breaking a sweat, she wasn’t the type to blink first.

He smirked. — “So you believe the garlic and mirror stuff too?”

Lyanna responded it with a shrug and a half-smirk, surprised how easy the words came. For someone she barely knew; and should probably be aiming a gun at — “Nah, I know that’s pure bollocks.” — the conversation was flowing like they'd done this a hundred times.

He leaned back, all smooth civility. — “Good. Now that we’re acquainted…”

Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, trying to push him back, keep some space — “Oh, slow yer roll, crazy. Slow down. We ain’t even there yet. Don’t even know yer name.” — but damn, the guy’s presence was like a damn magnet pulling her in. Her voice was half warning, half reluctant admit that she wasn’t quite ready to let go. 

He extended his hand like this was some kind of cocktail party. — “How rude of me. Rhaegar Lucerys Aelon Targaryen. But Rhaegar’s fine.”

She shook it. His grip was cold and too steady. And gods, this couch was shrinking by the second. She was practically fused to the armrest while he made himself at home — it was his damn place, so yeah, his right to do whatever the hell he wanted. No use fussin’ about it —  like this was a damn date. So she did what she always did when things got too close — pivoted to the job.

She asked it with a sharp edge, voice dripping sarcasm like cheap whiskey —  “Why’d ya stop the other bloodsucker? Don’t sound like no professional courtesy to me.” — trying to cut through the weird pull he had on her, the craving that made her fingers twitch for a cigarette. She was daring him to explain, but also telling herself not to get too tangled in this vampire’s game. 

Something flickered in his expression, offense, maybe. Wounded pride. But he buried it fast. —  “I can’t have creatures like that running loose on my turf. Terrify the masses, and next thing you know, villagers show up with pitchforks and bad intentions.”

“Happens to you a lot?” — Lyanna asked it low and teasing, like she was poking at a bruise; testing how far she could push without getting burned.

Rhaegar’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact, — “Enough that I’m careful with my city.”  — no charm intended, just cold, hard truth. But somehow it slid under her skin like ice water, settling deep where she couldn’t shrug it off. Careful with his city. The words hung heavy, more claim than warning, and yeah, it stirred something fierce inside her, whether she wanted it or not.

She narrowed her eyes. — “Your city?”

He didn’t even hesitate. — “Yes. I fought for this place. I earned it. If something else is hunting here, I have blood rite to snuff it out.”

She looked at him like he was mold on her ceiling — ugly, persistent, and somehow her problem now. Just her godsdamned luck. A vampire with cheekbones and a messiah complex. Exactly what this week was missing. He hadn’t killed her. Yet. That counted for something, even if she couldn’t decide whether it was mercy or ego — or some twisted cocktail of both. Probably leaned arrogant. They always did. She should’ve walked out. Slammed the door behind her, lit a cigarette, and let this whole bloodsucking, cryptic bullshit stew in its own dramatic juices. But no. She stayed. Ankles planted. Hands twitchy. Because, unfortunately, they were both sniffing around the same trail of corpses, and whether she liked it (she didn’t), the bastard had answers. 

Or at least access. Her fingers itched with the kind of restless need that came from too much adrenaline and not enough nicotine. She dug through her things like it might give her a reason to breathe — past receipts, crushed mints, a pen that bled in three colors — until salvation emerged in the form of a bent pack of smokes. Half-full. Praise the dead. She yanked one out, jaw clenched tight like it might hold her whole face together. Reached for her Clipper. Nothing. Shit. She turned back, stomach hollow and spine prickling. Not her place. His lair. His silence. His godsdamn rules.

Her gaze flicked up. —  “D’you mind if I smoke?”

“No,” — He said, smooth as moonlight on a blade. Didn’t even blink. Of course not. Everything came easy when you were pretty and undead and didn’t have to worry about cancer or rent.

She kneeled shoulders tight, boots scuffing against the floor like a dare. She rifled through the clutter he’d dumped across the table — papers, a photo soaked in blood at the edges, a knife she was pretty sure hadn’t been there before. Still no lighter. Either it got jostled loose when he dragged her in, or it’d been claimed by the universe in one of its many petty acts of vengeance. The air changed. Cold. Fast. Like something sharp and invisible passed right through her. She looked up. He wasn’t where she’d left him.Now he was standing on the other side of her like some gothic magazine spread, all polished menace and effortless poise. In his hand: a lighter. Silver. Ornate.

Dragons curled around its body like it had been made for fairy tales and executions. Too nice. Too clean. Definitely not hers. He held it out like this was normal. Like this didn’t feel intimate in a way that made her skin itch. Like this wasn’t a vampire handing a banshee fire. She took it. Her fingers brushed his — warm. That stopped her short. Cold. Reminder of what he was. She shoved the cigarette between her lips like armor and struck the flame. First inhale hit like home and regret all rolled into one. The smoke scratched down her throat, grounding her.

“So, Miss Starkova,” — He said, voice like stained glass, pretty and cold and meant to hold something terrible behind it. —  “Can we talk about our demon problem now?”

She exhaled slow, trying not to choke on the tension — or the fact that his voice was already threading into her bloodstream like something invasive. Lyanna blinked slow, deliberate. Our problem, he said, like they were a team. Like she hadn’t nearly bled out alone in an alley three nights ago with demon claws at her throat and no one but her busted lighter for company. Like he hadn’t stalked into her investigation with his cheekbones and vampire smug, acting like he was doing her a favor.

She tipped her head, just enough to look amused, or bored, or both; hard to tell these days. — “Oh, now it’s our problem, huh?” — She echoed, like the words tasted off. Like she was chewing glass and pretending it was candy.

He didn’t flinch. Of course he didn’t. Pretty boys like him didn’t flinch. Not when they had centuries to practice staying composed. Not when they had eyes like moonlight and voices made to convince you to slit your own throat and thank them for the privilege.

“I assume you have a stake in this situation,” — He said, calm as ice water. — “And if you were intelligent enough to know where the demon would attack tonight, then working together with our expertise…”

She cut him a look sharp enough to kill the rest of that sentence on sight.

“ Our ... expertise, right,” — She said flat, letting the weight of her accent drag it like chain through wet gravel.  She didn’t mean to sound bitter. Or maybe she did. Hard to separate those things lately.

He kept going. — “...we can find the summoner. And put an end to this problem, Miss Starkova.”

There it was again. The name she hadn’t used since her father’s funeral. She hated how he said it — polite, deliberate, like a man calling out a ghost to see if it still had teeth. And yeah, maybe it did. She leaned back, rolled the cigarette between her fingers like a prayer she didn’t believe in. The room smelled like old wood, cold air, and memory. Her eyesight blurred at the edges — too much dark, not enough distance — but she didn’t squint. Never let them see it. Never let them know how close she was to going blind.

“Right,” — She muttered, thumb skimming the filter. — “Teamwork. How bloody quaint.”

What she didn’t say: she’d been alone too long to know how to trust anybody who used words like collaboration and our problem like they weren’t lies dressed in clean shirts. She didn’t like the way he talked, like this was chess and he already knew the ending. She didn’t like the way he looked at her, like he saw something worth saving. But mostly, she didn’t like that he wasn’t wrong.

Rhaegar said it smooth and deliberate, — “Well, Miss Starkova…” — like each word had been polished before it left his mouth. Formal, sure, but with a quiet edge that said he was watching her closely. Maybe too closely.

“Jus’ Lya’s fine.” — She muttered

A beat. — “Lyanna,” — He repeated, like he’d found a secret and planned to keep it. — “Shall we?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just smoked, eyes narrowed, heart doing that quiet panic thing it did when the world shifted sideways and she wasn’t sure if she was about to fall or fight. This wasn’t supposed to feel easy. But somehow it was. And that was the part that scared her.

Chapter Text

Her eyes had the pallor of moonlight — cold, and far too knowing for a woman so young. Not that youth meant softness. Not anymore. Rhaegar had lived long enough to recognize the kind of damage that left fingerprints on the soul. Starkova's gaze didn't shine; it scalded. Unrehearsed, that was the word. Like no one had ever taught her how to perform fear properly. He catalogued what he knew — he always did list it helped him cope. A measure of safety masquerading as curiosity. Name: Lyanna Aleksandra Rickardevna Starkova. Per her ID, anyway. Age: 27. Born in Winterfell. Occupation: Private investigator. Height: 1.70 meters. Lean. But not fragile — he’d carried her, and there’d been tension in her limbs, strength hidden in wiry muscle. Habits: Smoker — chain-level, judging by the pack he’d pulled from her coat. Also, a sweet tooth. Chocolate and peanuts. A woman of contradictions. Cigarette and candy. Fire and ice.

Her bag had told him the rest: receipts from a pharmacy, liquor store, a used bookstore. More interesting — what wasn’t on paper. A Glock, a switchblade, brass knuckles, pepper spray, a taser. Not easy to miss.  She stirred on his sofa and he went still, like a wolf clocking the shift in the wind. Banshees they didn’t look like her. They were usually graying things, gnarled and grave-eyed, whispering secrets from the mouth of the grave. Lyanna was something else entirely. She burned. In five minutes of conversation, he knew she’d fight him on everything. Not from principle. From instinct. She hated sharing space that was clear. Tensed when their knees were too close on the couch. So he stayed where he was. Let her take the lighter. Let her clear her things from his table like she was scraping her out of his life, too. It wasn’t fear — he knew what fear smelled like. No, it was something colder. She didn’t want to owe him. Didn’t want to need anything.

She lit her cigarette, drew in the smoke like it gave her ballast, then turned that sharp voice on him. —  “So why the fuck’d you drag me here, huh? This your bloody dungeon or somethin’?” — Her disdain was casual, effortless. Like she’d already survived worse. 

He didn’t rise to the bait. Not yet. — “If you had a more compliant nature, I could’ve made you forget what you saw. But since you’re…”

“Strong-minded, aye I ken,” — She inserted smoothly.

“Try hard-headed,” — He replied, with just enough dryness to keep it civil. —  “I had two options. Eliminate you from this plane. Or trust you.”

She snorted, a dark little laugh that showed one dimple and a row of sharp teeth. Not a real smile, but something close. — “So I’m guessin’ you’re a young bloodsucker, you’re fresh fangs, yeah. Trust ain’t exactly somethin’ your kind deals in. Gets you killed fast ‘nuff.”

His lips twitched. — “If the tides change, I can always revisit the first option.”

“Don’t get smug ‘cause you landed one lucky blow,” — She said, stepping closer, chin tilted. — “I ain’t that easy to put down.”

He didn’t enjoy posturing. Didn’t need to. But something about her — the recklessness, the lack of awe — made him move. One second he was by the couch, the next he was in front of her, close enough to drink in the scent of tobacco and storm. She didn’t flinch. Not even a blink. Just glared at him like she wanted to drag him to hell with her teeth. 

He lowered his voice. Let the beast peek through. — “Everyone’s easy to kill. Don’t forget that.”

A beat. Her heart didn’t even skip. She just watched him, weight forward, like she was preparing for a different kind of fight. And maybe, deep down, he wanted her to win it. Most mortals — seven hell, most monsters — were afraid of him on instinct. But Lyanna wasn’t naïve. She knew exactly how dark the world got. Her weapons weren’t for show. And yet she didn’t shy away from his monstrosity. It wasn’t bravery. It was something else. Familiarity. It was too interesting even if it shouldn’t be. 

“Why me, huh?” — She scoffed. — “Bet there’s folk out there don’t bruise as easy for your demon-huntin’ bullshit.”

He stepped back. Gave her breath, though he didn’t have any to give. — “You’re a private investigator. You found him. Same as I did. The demon hunts at night. So do I.”

“So someone’s callin’ the bastard,” — She said flatly. —  “And you’re thinkin’ it’s some fuckin’ mortal.”

“I know it is.” — He adjusted his cuff. — “And chances are he’s playing neighbor by day.”

Her eyes narrowed. — “You serious ‘bout that, then? Workin’ together? Thought that was you bein’ funny.”

“Until the demon’s stopped,” — He said. — “I assume your intentions are aligned with mine.” — He even tried a smile, gentle, almost diplomatic. It felt foreign on his face.

“Suppose I’ll sleep on it, if that’s still allowed,” — She said, tossing on her coat like armor.

He walked to the door and opened it, not out of kindness. As a signal. She was free to go. He wouldn’t keep her here, not unless he had to. — “I’d usually say take your time,” — He murmured. — “But we don’t have much of it. Come here tomorrow night with your answer.”

She crossed the threshold. Cool air rushed in. She was nearly out of sight when he added, — “And I’d be… thankful, if you could keep my nature between us. I understand your supernatural origins don’t bind you. But I may be the only one who can stop this.” 

She paused. Looked over her shoulder with a flicker of that wicked grin. —  “Even if I was plannin’ on snitchin’, pretty boy , who d’you think’s gonna buy a word from a half-blind PI?”

Then she disappeared into the night, boots clicking down the stairs, coat flapping like a crow’s wing. He listened to the elevator groan. To her steps on the street. And then, beneath the silence, the soft thud of her heartbeat. Not fearful. Just persistent. Every human heart had a rhythm. A signature. Now, he knew hers. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to forget it.

***

Lyanna needed to crash. After the night she'd had — blood, screaming, a corpse with half its face gone and another meeting looming with Nosferatool — sleep was survival. A full day of it if she could swing it. She dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment like a drunk ghost, already tasting the cigarette she’d promised herself after passing out on the couch. But the second she opened the door, something was wrong. The smell hit her first. Not the usual stale smoke, cheap whiskey, and dust she called ambience. No, this smelled like lemon cleaner and male audacity. The boxes she’d left scattered were stacked. The files? Filed. Even the cursed lamp that always buzzed like it was possessed had been turned off. Her place was haunted — but not by ghosts. She dropped her purse, yanked her Glock out before it even hit the floor. Thank the old gods Fangs hadn’t taken it. She crept in quiet, feet light, breath held, every instinct in her gut screaming cop. Then she saw the crack in her office door — just enough to piss her off. She didn’t hesitate. Boot met door. Glock up. And there he was.

“What in fuck’s name.” — She muttered, lowering the gun, — “You waitin’ for me to ring the bleedin’ watch, or you plannin’ to cuff your own damn self?”

Sigorn, cool as always, like he hadn’t just broken into her apartment and scrubbed it within an inch of its life. — “Don’t strain y’self thankin’ me, I only spent all night huntin’ you down.”

“You sound too much like Ned for my bloody likin’,” — She said, holstering the Glock back. — “How in the seven fuckin’ hells d’you get in?”

“You still keep yer spare key on the fuckin’ mailbox, same code it’s been for five years. You plannin’ to clear out the magazine or what?” — Sigorn said it dry, with that weary mix of exasperation and familiarity; the way only someone who’s known you too long can. Not angry, just tired of pointing out the obvious.

“Haven’t made up m’mind yet.” — She muttered.

She walked into the office. Morning light seeped through the blinds like guilt through a confessional. Sigorn had stayed the whole damn night. Cleaned everything. Even the chewed-up pen she gnawed on when thinking too hard was resting perfectly parallel to the legal pad she never used. Breaking into her place and organizing her mess? Massive turn-off.

“Why were you out lookin’ for me anyhow?” — Lyanna asked it low and guarded, arms crossed, like she already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

Sigorn pulled her glasses out of his coat pocket. —  “Third murder happened last night. Witnesses reckon they saw a lass dragged off from the scene. You were there.”

The glasses made her wince. Meds said they were her best option — no surgeries, no fancy contact lenses. Her eyes were too damaged. The banshee thing didn’t help. But she hated them. Made her look like a nerdy intern on her first day, not a death-soaked PI with a 45 and a body count. She must’ve left them behind. Sigorn always noticed that kind of shit.

“You’re meddlin’ in me investigation.” — He said.

Lyanna said it sharp, like a warning, — “It’s my investigation too.”

“No, Ly. You're stumbling around half-blind, chasing someone who’s already killed four people. You keep this up, you’ll be number five.” — Sigorn said

She crossed her arms. Gods, she hated when he got like this. Concern didn’t look right on him — it clashed with the rest of his armor. She liked him better when he was distant, disinterested, letting her self-destruct without trying to catch the pieces. But that had never been his way.

He pulled on his coat, headed for the door. — “You know what? I’m just glad you’re still breathin’. I’ll catch ye later.”

He left. She didn’t follow. She just collapsed on the couch, boots still on, gun still on her, and passed out for ten hours straight. It was a talent. By the time she woke, she had two hours to shower and get to Rhaegar’s. Because like it or not, Sigorn wasn’t the one she was going to solve this shit with. She got ready fast. Shower, teeth, the usual. Nothing fancy. She threw on a flannel — blue and grey plaid — over a cream henley and light jeans. Brown belt. Not trying to impress. Especially not a vampire. She ate a protein bar in the cab and downed coffee that tasted like regret. Night had fallen by the time she reached his building. Predictably swanky. Eternity gave you time to build wealth, she supposed. The concierge didn’t even glance up from his phone. She took the elevator to the top floor, chewing the inside of her cheek the whole ride. She knocked. The door unlocked. Of course it did. He opened it with a lopsided grin like he was expecting her. Or someone. Black-on-black, shirt half unbuttoned, like he was auditioning for a vampire whore calendar. 

She gave him a look. — “Don’t make me wish I didn’t do this.”

He just nodded her in. Same living room as before, but he didn’t stop there. They walked down a narrow corridor lined with closed doors until he opened one. A study, maybe. Papers everywhere. Artist’s chaos. She didn’t comment. Not yet. But then she saw it. Hanging where a window should’ve been: a banner. Black and red. Three-headed dragon.

“History nerd, then?”— She asked, pointing.

“Family crest,” — He said, like that explained everything.

Lyanna squinted, her voice low and sharp, like she wasn’t quite buying what she’d just heard. — “You shittin' me?”

Rhaegar gave a small, almost amused smile, eyes flicking between her and the banner.  — “I told you my name,” — He said like he didn’t get how she missed the clue.

Lyanna narrowed her eyes, voice low and clipped, like she was calling bullshit but trying not to sound too eager to be proven wrong. — “Aye, but Targaryens’ve been extinct fer like, 300 years.”

“I’m telling you they’re not. I’m one of them.” — Rhaegar said it steady, calm like he was stating a fact no one should doubt, like he’d been carryin’ that truth longer than most folks have been alive, eyes steady and voice low, no room for arguing.

“Wait, how old are you?” — Lyanna asked, sharp and a bit skeptical, like she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer but needed to hear it anyway, eyes narrowing, voice clipped, cutting through the quiet like a knife.

“Five hundred-twenty-seven in January. But I round to Five hundred.” — Rhaegar said it smooth and steady, like he’d said it a thousand times before, calm, measured, almost with a faint hint of dry humor, as if the number was just a convenient round figure he used to keep things simple for people who couldn’t quite grasp his real age.

Gods. She’d thought he was from Lys, or one of those old places with too many vowels and too much pride. Faked the name, dropped the accent. Blended in. Not... royalty. She eyed him, then the banner, then him again. — “So you believe I’m a vampire, but not that I had a family?”

Lyanna asked it sharp and a bit skeptical, her tone clipped like she wasn’t buying the whole story, — “Most long-lived dynasty in the continent’s history?” — not exactly mocking, but definitely throwing shade, like she was daring him to prove it. 

“We don’t choose the families we’re born into,” — Rhaegar said it calm and steady, with a quiet weight behind his words, like he’d lived that truth long enough to mean it without needing to shout. — “Trust me. I know better than anyone.”

She blinked. The raw honesty in his voice scraped something open in her she didn’t like acknowledging. — “Right. So how’s someone like you end up drawin’... Comics?”

“Graphic novels,” — He corrected. — “Art’s always been my passion. Drawing, writing. Found a medium that lets me do both.”

She folded her arms, jaw tight, cold biting through the sleeves of her coat like it had a personal grudge. He was throwing a lot at her. Too much, honestly. Immortal, tragic, beautifully miserable — like a fucking haunted cathedral with good cheekbones. A walking slab of history who apparently squatted in the North drawing blood and noir detectives in thick-lined panels for comics. Graphic novels, he’d corrected her earlier, like that made it less weird. Sure. Made perfect sense. If you were undead and over it.

“A’right then,” — She muttered, voice rough as gravel, — “Demons huntin’. What’s your expertise on that, Fangs?”

Rhaegar leaned back, expression unreadable in that vaguely aristocratic way that pissed her off more than she’d admit. — “I’ve seen it before. Riverrun. Four hundred years ago.”

Of course he had. She should’ve known. Immortal types always had that faraway tone when they name-dropped centuries. Like it was a sad little badge of trauma, not a massive red flag.

“I was young,” — He went on,  — “looking for something to give my life meaning.”

Lyanna snorted softly.  — “Right. As one does when they’re a spry hundred years young.”

“Well I found myself… Like any vulnerable youth might… In a cult.” — Rhaegar said it with a dry, self-deprecating edge, he was making a joke at his own expense but didn’t find it particularly funny.

That got her attention. She blinked, slow. — “You join a band too, or just skipped straight to summonin’ demons?”

Rhaegar said it with a dry, distant edge, — “They called themselves the Hellfire Society. Rich people, mostly. Bored, pampered. Wanted to touch something ancient, dangerous. Wanted to feel alive.” — like he was reciting from a history book he’d lived through and regretted memorizing. His voice didn’t rise, didn’t flinch. Just cold clarity, with a curl of bitterness underneath.

Lyanna wanted to lit a cigarette, her fingers shaking, she hoped he didn’t notice. — “The kind o’ fun rich folk got these days is more like casinos an’ bein’ arseholes. Less summonin’ hellspawn, that’s for sure.”

He gave her a look. Calm. Knowing. —  “That you know of.”

She didn't like that answer. It settled wrong in her gut. He kept talking. Said the Hellfire Society didn’t know what they were doing. That they’d tried a ritual. Symbols painted in blood and ash, same damn pentagram that had been carved into the last three crime scenes. He hadn’t understood the full scope of it back then — just knew it should’ve been left alone. But rich boys don’t hear ‘no’ very well. Especially not when they think eternal life’s on the table.

“They tried to sacrifice me,” — He said simply. And somehow that hit harder than it should’ve. Like it wasn’t a story. Like it was still in his bones.

She didn’t ask what he did in response. Didn’t need to. The man’s expression as he spoke of it screamed ‘vengeance in velvet’ without even trying. She could picture it: the bodies piling up, the screaming, the fire. But the demon had already been summoned. And Rhaegar? He hadn’t finished the ritual. He’d taken the grimoire and made damn sure none of the bastards could either.

“Ye reckon the one callin’ the shots is still human, then?” — She asked, half-knowing.

He shook his head. —  “Not really. Not after touching that kind of power. It warps them. Like a drug. One hit, and it burns through their minds.”

Lyanna blew out smoke and muttered,  — “So summonin’ demons ain’t for the weak in the head, then.”

“No,” — He agreed, moving toward one of the dusty cabinets. — “And whoever summoned the one we saw last night? They’re already hooked. They think they’re in control, but they couldn’t be more wrong.”

He pulled a heavy-ass tome from the shelf — thick enough to break a man’s nose, bound in something that looked like it once had teeth. Definitely the grimoire. She stepped back instinctively, felt her spine tighten.

“So,” — She said, swallowing the unease, — “if the summoner ain’t the one callin’ the shots… who the hell is?”

Rhaegar’s eyes darkened. —  “The thing we saw last night? A minor demon. Its job is to open the door. Get humans to finish the pattern.”

“The pentagram,” — Lyanna muttered. — “They’re buildin’ it one corpse at a time.”

He nodded. —  “Once it’s complete, something bigger comes through.”

“And what exactly happens at the big demon’s comin’ out party?” — Lyanna asked sharp and a bit dry, she didn’t wanna believe what she was about to hear but had to know anyway.

He didn’t smile. — “You ever wonder where the Long Night came from?”

That shut her jokes up. — “…Bad. Real bad then,” — She said finally.  — “So if we find the bugger before the last sacrifice, can we stop it?”

“If we get to him in time,” — He said. — “Before the pentagram’s finished.”

Lyanna’s brain did the math. —  “Four down. Two to go.”

“Exactly.” — Rhaegar said it with a quiet certainty, like the conclusion was obvious and heavy at once.

She exhaled hard. The wind outside howled like it knew something she didn’t. — “Aright then,” — She said. —  “Where d’we start?”

“The demon we saw,” — Rhaegar said, — “they can’t create wealth. Just offer illusions of it. Gold, jewels, things that tempt, but aren’t truly theirs to give. They have to steal it.”

“So,” — She said, dragging out the thought, —  “instead of knockin’ on the door of every Nouveau Riche prick in the city, we start with thefts.”

“ It’s a big city,” — He muttered, biting her lip. 

“Here’s the thing,” — She said, thumb hooked in her belt. — “This summoner? He’s green. Fresh. I remember m’nan sayin’ the desperate ones, the ones wantin’ quick results, the one’s who’ve done it before; they don’t go day by day, they do one big bloodbath. Means he ain’t got a damn clue what he’s doin’.”

She tapped her fingers on the table. — “Amateurs don’t cover their tracks. And if we lay out the crime scenes like a map, make a pentagram outta it…”

Rhaegar was already nodding. —  “The center would be the university.”

Lyanna grimaced almost like was spitting out a bad taste — “Of course it fuckin’ would. Magic, privilege, a complete lack of consequences, and youth... Sounds like the perfect recruitment ground.” — sharp, bitter, and bone-deep certain. 

Her voice cut through the room, low and laced with disgust, not just at the idiot who had brought this out but at the whole system that let it happen. The kind of voice that didn’t need to shout to hit like a punch. Tired. Knowing. Like she’d seen this story too many times, just with different monsters.

“We could check reports of thefts, in the university,” — Rhaegar said it calmly, with the quiet precision of someone used to thinking five steps ahead. His tone was measured, almost clinical, like he was laying out pieces on a chessboard, — “Narrow it down students, faculty…” — focused, but with that faint undercurrent of urgency threaded beneath the surface.

“Still a fat fuckin’ pot, that. ’Less you got a demon with facial recognition tucked in yer coat…” —  Lyanna said it dry, with a crooked smirk and a flick of sarcasm sharp enough to cut glass. Her voice was low, clipped, the kind of humor she used when the stakes were high and she was already two steps ahead of a breakdown.

Rhaegar muttered something under his breath. Just — Well.” — Like the weight of centuries was tucked behind a single syllable.

Lyanna didn’t blink. Or maybe she did, hard to tell these days. Her left eye was already losing the fight with the shadows. — “Wait, ye actually got one o’ those?” — She said, head cocked, tone dry as week-old toast.

She watched him closely. That cold, practiced confidence — the kind all vampires came out the womb with — dipped for a beat. Quiet flicker of discomfort. Not fear, exactly. Something older. Shame maybe. Guilt. Like he was about to let her see something he kept wrapped in velvet and buried under six layers of denial. Well, join the club. They served whiskey at the door.

“If ye can find the bloody demon,” — She tapped the table once, sharp and restless. Fingertips twitching like they knew what she wouldn’t say out loud. She needed another cigarette. Needed the burn in her throat to keep the silence from settling too heavy.— “I’ll stomach a bit o’ melodrama.”

Rhaegar exhaled like it cost him something. — “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this.” — He didn’t look at her when he said it. — “I’ve always avoided the dark arts. What I can do… it passes as a parlour trick. But it’s still repugnant. If you’d rather not see this… Now’s the time to leave.”

Lyanna shrugged.  — “Always liked a good magic trick.”

Didn’t take long. He laid it out like a ritual: a black velvet bow, dried petals that smelled faintly like roses and rot, and a shallow bowl of smoke and mirror. The mirror showed him. Which — according to every pulp novel ever — wasn’t supposed to happen. She didn’t mention it out loud, but the fact that vampires had mirrors now was just one more myth in the bin with religious symbols and garlic.

He caught her looking. — “Mirrors didn’t work for vampires in the Middle Ages,” —  He said. — “They used silver. These days… glass.”

“Good t’know,” — She muttered. — “So this one’s just for show, or we actually doin’ some dark magic shit?”

Rhaegar picked up a rock — ordinary, small. But the air changed when he touched it. Like something old exhaled nearby.

“I took this from the demon’s last site,” — He said quietly. Then something else. Not Common Tongue. Not even Westerosi. Something older, spoken low, — “ Jentys iā bartagon iā. ”

She caught a word or two. Enough to guess. A benefit of growing up next to a Braavosi mechanic who drank like breathing and cursed in Valyrian when the snow froze his engine block. He wasn’t summoning the demon. He was tracking it — using something it’d already touched. Smart. Dangerous. The mirror clouded, then cleared. Showed a park. Could’ve been any park. Brick paths. A rusted swing set. Flickering streetlamp. Generic urban decay, supernatural edition.

“And,” — She said flatly. — “That narrows it down to, what, one o’ the two dozen parks in the damn city.”

Rhaegar smirked. That slow, elegant kind of smile that made her want to slap it off his face. — “Demons aren’t the only ones who hunt at night,” — He said. — “That’s near Wharf Street.” —  Figures. The red-light district.

“Course it is,” — Lyanna muttered. — “Alright then. Let’s go hunt us a demon.”

***

They reached the park faster than any mortal would’ve managed — though not by Lyanna’s initial suggestion. She, ever pragmatic and underfunded, had muttered something about taking the metro. Rhaegar, being the allegedly sane one, would have rather walked into sunlight than step foot into that subterranean disease trap. No, rooftops were cleaner, quieter, and less riddled with drunk teenagers and the stench of piss and despair. And so he leapt. She hadn’t expected him to scoop her up. He hadn’t warned her either, which, in hindsight, might’ve been poor form. But her heart hadn’t stopped — he would have heard that — and after the first rooftop she held on tighter, said nothing. Northern courage, he supposed. Or maybe just stubborn defiance in boots and smoke-stained denim. The park wasn’t much. A fenced square of grass and rusted benches that smelled like copper and urine after midnight. Most of the noise in this district came from the brothels on the main street. Up here, in the shadows, the silence was thicker. Rhaegar could feel it settle in his bones, in the space between words. He was scanning the edges of the clearing, pulse attuned to supernatural shifts, when Lyanna’s voice cut through the quiet.

“You actually like this sorta thing?” — She asked, cocking a brow — “Creepin’ round in the dark, huntin’ monsters… all that spooky shite?”

Rhaegar didn’t look at her right away. His eyes lingered on the park’s hedgerow, where the air was slightly colder than it should be. — “I do not deny my nature,” —  He said simply. —  “It’s what I am. What I’ve been for a very long time.”

She made a humming sound, like she was mulling over how much that disturbed her. Then, after a pause, — “Speakin’ of… if y’don’t mind me bein’ nosy, how d’you even become a vampire, anyway?”

He glanced at her then, one brow raised. —  “Vacation in Asshai. Sulfur and toxic air. Very rejuvenating.”

Lyanna replied it without looking at him, fingers working a snag in the zipper of her plaid jacket— “I’m being serious.” — half a nervous tic, half an excuse not to meet his eyes. Her voice was flat, low, the kind of serious that didn’t ask for trust so much as dared you to dismiss it. A flicker of something sharp edged the words, worn patience, maybe, or just the faintest crack in the armor.

“So am I. You’d be amazed what the air does to the lungs.” — She didn’t laugh. He sighed, dramatically, if he were honest, and folded his arms. — “A woman,” — He said. — “A friend. Her name was Elia. We met at court. My family’s court.”

“She only came out at night, yeah?” — Lyanna asked, sharp as ever.

“She had a flair for the dramatic. Wouldn’t see me during the day. I should’ve known. But she was… persuasive.” — A dry smile played at the corner of his mouth. — “We vampires have our tricks. I was young, and very, very stupid.”

“She fed on ya?” — Lyanna asked it low and sharp, fixing him with a sidelong look as she adjusted her coat, half curious, half calling bullshit.

“It’s one of the reasons we take mortal lovers. Blood tastes sweeter when it’s laced with trust. I did not notice her nature however, until it was too late.” — Rhaegar said it quietly, almost like an afterthought, his gaze fixed on the dark beyond the trees. It wasn’t meant to wound, but there was weight behind it, the kind that came from remembering.

Lyanna asked with a frown, tugging at the cuff of her sleeve like she wasn’t too interested, though her voice betrayed the curiosity she couldn’t quite kill. — “An' ya didn’t think the bites on yer neck were… I dunno, a bit fuckin’ weird?”

He said it smooth, with a quiet edge like a man who’s lived long enough to know pain ain’t just skin deep. — “My neck,” — He said, — “wasn’t the only place she bit me.” —  No need to explain further; the weight hung in the air. 

From his view, she looked like she’d just swallowed a mouthful of more than she bargained for, eyebrows knitting, a half-grimace flickering like — “Aye, that’s a bit much,” —  Then she muttered, — “Aright, sorry I asked.”

“No need.” — His voice was softer then, laced with the melancholy he normally kept locked behind his spine. — “She warned me. Told me what turning would mean. That we’d want to kill each other within the year. I didn’t listen. I wanted forever. What I got was instinct, territorial, violent. We nearly killed each other.”

“Bad breakup, then,” — Lyanna said, flicking ash from her cigarette.

“You could call it that.” — Rhaegar replied with a dry tilt to his voice, the kind that didn’t pretend to hide the weight behind the words. A man used to carrying scars no one else got to see. He caught the flicker in Lyanna’s eyes, the mix of curiosity and something sharper. 

She opened her mouth, paused, then wisely held back. Not the kind to dig where it hurt too much, but still drawn to the edges of the story. It was the kind of silence that said more than words ever could. She didn’t speak again for a moment. But Rhaegar could feel the question forming behind her teeth. There was always another question with her. Curiosity was her sharpest blade he noticed — quiet, constant, never quite cruel, but not kind either. He could see the pieces of her trying to slot something together. She had the look of someone who’d touched the arcane too young, and spent years pretending she hadn’t. There were shadows behind her sarcasm. He knew that kind of denial. He’d worn it for decades. And yet, despite her haunted edges, she didn’t seem afraid. Not of demons, not of him, not of the ticking clock in her own body. He admired it. Even if it would likely get her killed. She parted her lips again — probably to ask something else intrusive and emotionally inconvenient — but then it came. A scream. Sharp, sudden, male. They didn’t speak. They ran.

They cut through the scrub of trees and into the blistered concrete bowl of an abandoned skate park — a graveyard for youth and better days. Graffiti ghosts leered from the walls. One man was already on the ground, eyes wide and unseeing. Another dangled like a marionette from the demon’s claws. Rhaegar moved before thought could catch him. A punch, a kick—his body recalled the rhythm of violence like an old waltz. It wasn’t elegant. It didn’t need to be. He fought until the creature slashed deep into his ribs, an iron kiss that sent him sprawling. Pain bloomed — not dull, not distant, but real, immediate, indulgent. He almost welcomed it. It made him feel… closer to the man he used to be.

The demon smiled, that particular smile they all wore — vile and patient, as though it had waited centuries just to carve him open. And perhaps it had. He readied himself for the next blow. But the gunshots came first. They rang out across the ruin like percussion — sharp, surgical. Lyanna, hell’s own pocket banshee, had arrived with her Glock and a complete disregard for self-preservation. She emptied the magazine with a surgeon’s focus and a butcher’s ferocity, her aim precise, her stance reckless. Then — because of course — she jumped the thing. Bare fists. Brass knuckles. Fury wrapped in black leather and a very bad idea. It was brave. It was stupid. It was exactly like her. The demon hurled her like a ragdoll. She hit the pavement with a sound that would haunt most men. But the distraction was enough. Rhaegar surged forward, fangs bared, and bit down into the creature’s neck.

What followed was not a kill, but a communion — flashes of faces not his own, screams in dialects long dead, a battlefield in some forgotten place. The demon stabbed back with its mind, but it was already unraveling. With a final shudder, it dematerialized into smoke and salt. Rhaegar collapsed to the floor. Time unraveled. He was aware — barely — of the fact that his body was broken. The injuries would not heal quickly. Not without blood. But he was too drained to seek it. The world blurred around him. Someone lifted him — he did not know who. Someone put him in a car that smelled like stale fries and fear — probably a taxi, though he wouldn't swear to it. He was dragged up a staircase. Each step was a battlefield. By the time they crossed the threshold of a door, his legs had given out completely. He hit the floor again. That, at least, was familiar.

Then — mercy or madness — someone knelt beside him. He couldn’t see clearly. Couldn’t think. But he smelled it before he felt it: the tang of blood, the pulse of it, impossibly close. A wrist pressed to his mouth. He didn’t hesitate. He drank. It wasn’t just sustenance — it was salvation. Not the cold utility of bagged blood or the empty indulgence of desperate strangers. This — this was alive. Warm, willing, defiant. There was pain in it. Iron. Anger. Power. It was hers. Lyanna. It tasted like a storm breaking after years of drought. Like a home-cooked meal after centuries of surviving on ash and obligation. It tasted like something dangerously close to hope. And gods help him — he drank deep.

He stopped drinking because he had to. Not because he wanted to — Gods, no. If anything, he wanted more. To drink until thought unraveled and sensation folded in on itself. But indulgence, as he’d learned over the years, was a luxury for men with nothing to lose. He had obligations. Borders. Rules of engagement, even in hunger. The ache set in almost immediately, not just in his jaw or throat, but in that ancient, gnawing emptiness deeper inside him — where the man had once been. Withdrawal. That was the best mortal approximation. A sort of bone-deep agitation vampires were never meant to articulate. He felt it in the burn of his healing wounds, in the way his limbs twitched with remembered pain. He mumbled something — Valyrian. Or nonsense. He couldn't be sure.

What he was sure of, however, was her presence. Warm. Real. Infuriatingly tender. Banshee. She cradled him, touched him like he wasn’t monstrous. Like he hadn’t nearly torn someone apart in that park. Her fingers moved over the nearly-healed slashes on his skin, deliberate and unhurried. Too much. Too much sensation. Too much gentleness. He wanted to ask for more, but even in agony, his pride stayed intact. When he opened his eyes again, he did not recognize the room. Smoke, whiskey, old paper. That scent. Her scent. He was alone, shirtless on the floor of a small, cramped office. The windows had been blacked out with what appeared to be bed sheets. Functional. Improvised. Not his apartment, then. He sat up. The ache had dulled but hadn’t disappeared. He felt battered, raw in a way the body couldn't fully explain. His shirt, he noted, was absent. Shredded, most likely. Casualty of the night. The door creaked. She came out there — damp hair, fresh clothes, same uniform: black henley, jeans, boots. her, as ever, the human embodiment of tactical disinterest.

“Thank fuck yer up,” — She said, not quite meeting his eyes. — “Thought I was gonna have to drag a corpse outta here.”

There was no invitation to discuss it. Not the blood. Not the fight. Not the way she’d pulled him off the pavement like he mattered, not that she brought him to her place. — “Thank you,” — He said anyway.

She tossed a hoodie at him.  — “Don’t. We got work t’do. Chop chop.”

Not his size, but serviceable. He pulled it over his head, hiding the mess beneath. She didn’t watch him dress, and he found that either very polite or deeply disappointing. Outside, the sky had already fallen into night again. The pentagram was almost complete. Just one more death. One more murder. But in the quiet between moments, Rhaegar searched his mind, chasing the jagged memory of demonic blood. A vampire's reward: stolen visions. He saw the summoner. Not clearly before. But now — yes. Now he knew the face.

Lyanna, predictably incredulous, — “An’ ya couldn’t’ve told me that before?”

He didn’t dignify that with a response. Memory required digestion. Sometimes blood needed to settle. They returned to his apartment only briefly. He changed. She waited. Than they moved. At the university, he greeted an old friend with that particular formality reserved for men who trafficked in secrets and tenure.

Lyanna, arms crossed, unimpressed, — “Can’t believe yer pals with some bloody occult teacher.”

Rhaegar raised an eyebrow, lips curling into something too sly to be a smile. —  “I do a lot of consulting work.”

And so they walked deeper into the archive — a banshee and a vampire with nothing resembling trust between them. Only necessity. And a pull neither of them wanted to name.

***

They had a name now. Erik Rasmussen. Courtesy of Rhaegar’s professor friend, cute old lady. Typical. She’d missed a couple calls from Sigorn, but that mess could wait. For now, she and Fangs had to part ways. They’d circle back the next night — there were still questions clawing at her ribs like rats in the dark. She’d get Sig to dig around. Quietly. They stepped out of the professor’s office, the stink of dusty books and dried herbs clinging to her jacket. Rhaegar caught her arm — too quick, too firm. She almost clocked him on instinct.

He didn’t flinch. — “If you find our suspect, don’t engage. Wait for me.”

She raised a brow. — “And what’m I s’posed to tell him, then? ‘Hang on, love, don’t go killin’ anyone just yet, me bloodsuckin’ consultant runnin’ late’?”

He exhaled, tight and tired. She saw the annoyance flicker behind his eyes, but at least he didn’t say anything about the day before. Thank the old gods for small mercies. No mention of how she’d dragged his near-dead body back to her apartment. No mention of feeding him her blood, holding him through the fevered hell of healing. No mention of the fact that she’d stayed. That she hadn’t let go. So instead, she did what she always did. Pivoted. Sarcasm, misdirection, avoidance — her trinity. He caught her chin before she could turn away. One finger under her jaw, and she hated how it made her freeze.

“Bravery’s a powerful trait in a woman,” — He said, voice low enough to pass for tender if you didn’t know better. — “Stupidity is not. I’ll call you.”

It wasn’t the words that made her want to bite — though she’d heard enough lectures in her life to build a cathedral out of them — it was the way he said it. Quiet. Like he knew she’d flinch if he raised his voice. Like he knew exactly where to press to make her feel seventeen again and reckless, like every step forward was just a prettier way to fall. She didn’t answer. Didn’t nod. Didn’t blink. Let him hold her face like he thought he could, like they hadn’t both spent last night bleeding into each other’s skin. Because fuck him if he thought he could boss her around with poetry and cheekbones. She’d been patronized by priests, therapists, and men with prettier mouths than his. He was a vampire, not her keeper. Not her anything. Didn’t blink. Didn’t give him the satisfaction. Vampires always thought they were the first man to try and cage her. He’d learn. Back at her apartment, the place still smelled like blood. His blood. A dried puddle near the couch glistened under the weak daylight seeping through the blinds. She ignored it and called Sig.

“What th’ fuck d’you think you were doin’ last night?” — Sigorn snapped, voice raw with sleep or stress, or both.

“Work, obviously,” — She said. — “Got names. You’re gonna get me where they sleep.”

Sigorn’s voice low and edged with suspicion, she could hear him lifting an eyebrow. — “Suspects?”

“Witnesses.” — She hated lying to him.  — “Please, Sig.”

He went quiet. — “You’re sayin’ please... must be urgent, then. I’ll finish up the paperwork on that floater from last night an’ send you the details.”

She gave him the list, careful not to make it look too juicy. The last thing she needed was him playing knight in shining Kevlar. She’d rest first. Blood loss and insomnia had her seeing halos around lightbulbs. Her head hit the pillow like a brick. No dreams. No nightmares. Just black. She woke sometime past noon to a voicemail. From Howland. Weird. He’d texted before. Short messages. But he rarely called. That meant something. She pressed play.

‘Hey, Miss Stark, it’s Howland. I met this bloke at the university, Erik… He says he knows somethin’ about the vampire that killed Bael. I’m gonna head over to his place now. I’ll give you a call later…’

She didn’t wait for the rest. Shit. Of course the little idiot ran off solo, and she did the same. No shower, no coffee. She was out the door and in the car, redlining through four intersections and a school zone like a bat out of hell. Called Rhaegar — no answer. Fine. She fired off a message. Got the address. 52 Mermaid Street by the docks. Howland called me. See you there. The building was a converted factory — ugly brick, rusted windows, doors that hadn’t seen a fire code since the Cold War. She used a paperclip to jimmy the side entrance. Old trick. Brandon had taught her. Inside, the place smelled like mildew, rat piss, and bad decisions. Her Glock was out before the second breath. She swept each room with muscle memory. Floor creaked. Wind howled through broken windows. She found Howland upstairs — tied to a chair, mouth gagged, eyes wide with terror.

“Howland,” — She whispered, voice tight like a wire. — “It’s alright. I’m gettin’ you outta here…”

Then pain. The blunt crack of something against the back of her skull. Stupid. Rookie mistake. Her world spiraled into black. When she came to, she was on her knees, wrists bound behind her back, head throbbing like a war drum. Something was drawn next to her — sand lines, circles, sigils that hummed wrong. She didn’t have to look to know Erik was behind her. The chanting gave him away.

“Jentys iksā. Āeksia gevives. Demonī ēdruta.” — Old Valyrian. She didn’t need a full translation. Just enough to know she was fucked.

You are blood. Darkness is alive. The demon awakens. — “Oi, dickhead,” — She groaned. — “Mind not feelin’ me up while chantin’ yer bargain-bin demon verse?”

Erik’s voice was chipper, insane. — “Oh, grand, you’re awake! Was ‘bout to gut the poor sod deliverin’ me pizza, but lucky me, you came knockin’ right on cue.”

She craned her neck, saw Howland still tied up. — “Aye, my timing’s bloody impeccable.”

He smiled. — “Vezof jin azantys hen pryjatas. Jentys morghūljagon. Demonī ēdruta.”

Lyanna ran it back in her head, piecing it together like glass under boot. Offer this warrior from the flames. Let the blood die. The demon awakens. Of course he had a sand pentagram. Of course he was summoning something with horns and a death wish. Her wrists burned — branded with sigils that pulsed like infection. A figure began to materialize in the center of the circle. Not a man. A demon. 

“See?” — Erik beamed.— “Brought you a proper bloody sacrifice this time.”

The demon sniffed the air and smiled. Too many teeth. — “A banshee… Lord Naegorax will enjoy you.”

“Erik,” — She hissed through her teeth, voice low and sharp, — “I know you’re ridin’ high on the demon’s cock, but he’s feedin’ you shite. He’s not givin’ you a godsdamn thing.”

“Oh, but he already has,” — Erik said with a grin. — “Gave me everythin’ I ever asked for. Real sweetheart, he is.”

The demon loomed. — “Hurry. Summon my master. Spill her blood, and your rewards will be eternal.”

She was slipping — vision greying at the edges — when the front door exploded off its hinges. Gunfire. Screams. Candles blew out. Weight lifted from her back. Air rushed into her lungs. She blinked up. Silver hair. Tall. Fangs. The vampire. Rhaegar. She saw him grab Erik by the throat. Behind him, in the doorway — Sigorn, face pale with fury and disbelief. Then Rhaegar flung Erik straight into the portal. Hell swallowed him whole.

The demon hissed. — “Eternity is long, dragon-blood. We can wait.”

Rhaegar kicked over the salt, the candles — whatever bullshit anchored the spell. Smoke. Silence. The portal vanished. Lyanna finally let herself breathe. Coughed hard. Tried to sit up, but her body wasn’t quite cooperating. Rhaegar steadied her.  His hands were gentle. Too gentle. She saw the runes etched into her wrists — dark, burned into skin like ritual scars.

“Shite,” — She muttered. — “it won’t bloody come off.”

Rhaegar crouched down in front of her, his eyes steady and calm like nothing could shake him. His voice was low, sure, no fuss, no panic. —“We’ll deal with it later,” — He said. — “You’re safe now, that’s what matters.” — There was something about the way he said it, like he meant every word, like he was holding the chaos at bay just by saying it. Made her want to believe it, even when the world felt like it was falling apart.

Behind him, Sigorn stared at the carnage, jaw slack. — “Lya,” — He said, brows drawn, voice low. — “What in the seven hells did I just see?”

She stood, barely, legs shaking. — “Long-arse tale, that one. And thank the gods I’m not the poor sod writin’ the report.”

***

Title: Poison Needs the Weak

Describing the events of the last evenings in simple terms — ‘defeating another demon summoner’ — would be an injustice to the weight this case carries. After a century of journaling, I have learned that confronting demons always drags something darker to the surface: a familiar, elusive shadow, steeped in ritual and whispered incantations. The raw malevolence in their presence always conjures memories I long to bury. Yet the danger remains tangible, chilling in its coldness.

But it was not the demon summoner who held my attention most fiercely.

It was Lyanna Stark. A private investigator — and a banshee. The pairing of occupation and curse seems almost serendipitous, a cruel twist of fate for a woman with her abilities. Our meeting was unanticipated, yet unavoidable. Sharp-edged, fierce — there is a storm beneath her skin, and her voice, laced with iron and pain, unsettled me more than I expected. She is no ordinary woman. Something in her defies the natural order.

Taking her blood was necessary, though I approached the act with reluctance. Her blood thrummed with a strange, potent energy — more than mortal, marked indelibly by the supernatural. A banshee’s curse, or perhaps a blessing twisted by fate. As our blood mingled within me, I glimpsed something rare — not merely an adversary or a tool, but a kindred spirit. It stirred something in me I have not felt in years; a fleeting pulse of being alive. Like me, she is a soul tethered to shadows, yet burning with fierce defiance. It struck a chord of recognition deep within my core.

I cannot dismiss the idea that our crossing was no accident. There is potential here — an unlikely alliance forged in the city’s shadows. A vampire and a banshee, bound by purpose, stalking darkness together. The notion of working alongside her as a private investigator is absurd, yet unexpectedly compelling. I am a man accustomed to solitude. Perhaps this madness — an uncharted partnership — may tether me to something more human, something less fractured.

We shall see what the morrow brings.

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Normal cases. A normal life. That’s what Lyanna told herself she wanted. Like she could shove the demon summoner, the vampire mess, and all the freak show bullshit behind her and just get back to digging up missing people or catching cheating spouses or whatever small-time garbage paid the bills. But no. Fate had other plans, as usual. Next morning, after almost getting sacrificed in some half-assed ritual to a demon lord, Howland showed up at her office like clockwork. Offering to be her secretary now, whether she asked for one or not. He was already there when she dragged herself sorry ass off the bed, organizing papers like a guy who’s somehow immune to the stench of her brand of chaos. Good. Less noise in her head. No word from Fangs — thank the gods, because the less she heard from him, the less she had to pretend she wasn’t counting the seconds until she could forget a vampire lived in this city. 

Then Howland dropped the bomb: a possible client wanted to meet her at some dive called The Cinnamon Wind. No backup. Howland had offered to come; she had said no. She preferred solo work. It was safer, or at least quieter. She stepped inside, and the place hit her like a punch in the guts: dim, flickering gaslight sconces and candles casting jittery shadows over carved wood and faded velvet drapes. The walls were a patchwork of cryptic Summer Isles symbols, torn jazz posters, and old mirrors that looked like they were holding onto secrets tighter than she ever could. The air had been thick with jasmine, absinthe, and that faint bite of burning bay leaves. Jazz floated in the background — weird notes that bent and warped like they didn’t belong to any living musician. The client, Xhondo Dhoru, was there. Big guy. Black skin, the kind of Summer Isles look that was both regal and rough-edged. He had been searching for Quhuru Mo, his adoptive brother.

Lyanna didn’t do the ‘ sympathy for the lost soul ’ routine. She’d been down that road too many times. — “Look, Mister Dhoru,” — She said, cutting him off before he got all sentimental.

“Call me Xhondo,” — He replied, calm like he was dealing with someone who knew how to cut through bullshit.

“Aright, Xhondo. Listen, I reckon you start with the cops. Wastin’ your savings chasin’ shadows ain’t smart.” — Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, cutting straight to the point. Her voice was steady but low, carrying that rough, no-nonsense tone like she wasn’t here to sugarcoat anything. She sounded tired of wasted effort and didn’t want him to make the same mistakes she’d seen before.

“No. Since we came here from the Summer Isles, Quhuru lost his way. Law enforcement and him? Don’t have the best relationship.” — Xhondo replied calmly, but there was a weight behind his words. His voice was steady, firm, like someone used to carrying bad news without flinching. He wasn’t angry, just honest, maybe a little tired.

Lyanna arched a brow behind her cigarette haze. — “A’right, but fair warnin’, I’m like t’ dig up somethin’ nasty. Folks don’t get lost ‘less they’re hidin’ somethin’. You sure y’wanna know what your brother’s been up to?”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. — “I just want him back.”

She nodded. — “Grand. I’ll need a list o’ folk he knows in town, your details, an’ a recent photo.”

Xhondo pulled out a fat envelope from his flashy plaid suit — yellow, red, and brown like a goddamn Christmas sweater. Inside: everything she needed and enough cash to keep her distracted for a week.

“He’s the only family I have,” —  Xhondo said.

Lyanna’s voice was rough but steady. —  “If he’s here, I’ll sniff ’im out.”

Afterward, Xhondo and his bodyguard — some huge guy from the Isles too — insisted on walking her to the subway. Fine by her. Less chance of a surprise knife in the back. Xhondo talked nonstop about Quhuru — lost to a woman who was probably dealing drugs. Lyanna’s senses sharpened; her gut said keep the mind open, or she’d miss the traps. They rounded a back alley when the bodyguard tensed, shoulder touched. A man approached — limping, limbs twitching like some broken marionette. Lyanna’s eyes flickered, but she saw nothing wrong. Maybe because she was losing sight, or maybe because this man didn’t belong to the living world.

Xhondo’s voice snapped, —  “Run. Now!”

Lyanna hesitated. Fight or flight was a habit; she knew it better than breathing. They split across the street, but before she could fully catch her breath, something hit her — hard — and she crumpled against the pavement. The twitching man was after Xhondo. The bodyguard jumped in but didn’t last long. That weird, jerky guy tore through him like paper. Lyanna’s survival instincts kicked in: brass knuckles from her bag, swinging from the shadows. She told Xhondo to run just before a fist connected with her face. Pain bloomed, sharp and loud. The world blurred. She stayed still until the dark didn’t want her anymore. When cops finally showed, she was met by Sigorn’s concerned face. Lucky for her, Xhondo had vanished like smoke, and the bodyguard was being wheeled away in a black bag. Great. Promising start.

“You catch the color o’ the car that clipped me?” —  She snapped, voice rough.

“Nah,” — Sigorn said, voice low and rough, —  “but d’you know the bloke’s name?”

Lyanna’s throat tightened. — “Marcus, maybe? He was the bodyguard for my client. Neither o’ us could stop that creep came after. Weird as hell, that one.”

Sigorn frowned, his eyes darkening with concern — “That there’s gonna leave a mark. Who’s this client then? Why’d someone wanna see ‘im dead?” — Lyanna could practically feel the bruise forming beneath the skin.

“Xhondo Dhoru. Lookin’ for his brother, got mixed up in bad business. This here’s his contact.” — She handed over the envelope.

Ed, Sigorn’s partner, nodded and headed off. Lyanna fought the headache clawing its way in, wishing Sigorn would let her off easy. No such luck. — “So what else happened then? Unarmed bloke just up and walks away?”

“Aye, reckon so.” — Lyanna said it low, brushing the back of her neck like she wasn’t too sure herself, the words hanging with a touch of hesitation and weariness.

Sigorn didn’t buy it. — “Ye wouldn’t let that slide, even if ya had to get yer hands dirty.”

Lyanna snorted it with a wry smirk, brushing the back of her neck like she was half embarrassed but mostly trying to play it cool. —  “I done beat the bloke with brass knucks, but one punch from him had me head spinnin’ like I’d been hit by Floyd Mayweather. Guy didn’t even take a breath.”

Sigorn’s eyes narrowed. —  “So ye fought someone who what, weren’t alive?”

She shrugged, voice low. —  “Guess I did. He weren’t right.”

“Ly, don’t be goin’ down that road.” — Sigorn said it low and quiet, eyes filled with a kind of worry that didn’t often show on his rough face.

Lyanna snapped it quick, a flicker of impatience in her eyes, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear like she was done with the whole conversation. — “Do what now?”

“Start chasin’ ghosts, ye are. Sometimes I want tae believe there’s still some normal folks left. Thought ye were one o’ them.” — Sigorn’s voice softened, a mix of frustration and hope cutting through his usual gruffness. His eyes locked on hers, pleading almost.

And there it was. The unspoken truth between them. Sigorn could pretend the world was normal, even if he’d seen Fangs pick a man up like a ragdoll and toss him into a hell vortex. He wrote his reports. He kept his faith in “normal.” Lyanna? She was caught between being a banshee — a cursed soul screaming into a silent void — and the messy, unclean chaos of a case with twitching dead men and bad blood. But to her the world wasn’t normal. Never had been. Never would be. Lyanna didn’t flinch. Not when her ribs ached, not when her knees cracked like ice under strain, and not when she was half-blind in one eye and staring down a man who still thought he knew her.

“But I’m tellin’ you what I saw,” — She said, low and flat, like stating a fact too many times for it to stay interesting.

Sigorn, ever the pragmatist with a badge and a bleeding heart, leaned against the alley’s peeling brick like it could hold up his doubt. — “Well, might be there's an explanation. PCP, crystal meth, some new street rot. It were pitch black, Ly. And you’re…” — He hesitated. —  “ ...half blind. ”

Right below the belt. No wind-up. He didn’t even throw it, just dropped it like a dead weight between them. She blinked once. Slow. Her jaw tightened. And he saw it. Saw the line he’d crossed. Regret crept over his face like mold, too slow, too late. — “Aye… I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Aye, y'sure did.” — She muttered, brushing the back of her neck like she could wipe off the sting.

Sigorn exhaled hard through his nose, eyes narrowing as he looked at her, half worry, half frustration, all tangled up in the way only people who used to love you still care. His jaw worked like he was chewing the words before spitting them out, low and quiet, like if he said it soft enough it wouldn’t piss her off. — “Look, I just don’t want ya chasin’ vampires again. Or... whatever the fuck it was last time.”

“Weren’t a vampire,” — She said, sharper now, the words like broken glass underfoot.

Sigorn shifted his weight, jaw working like he was chewing on a splinter. — “Right... Cool.” — A beat. Then, like the words burned his tongue on the way out, — “That fair-haired lad mixed up in this, is he?”

Fair-haired. By the Gods old and new. If she didn’t know Sigorn, she might’ve called it jealousy. But that’d be stupid. She barely knew Rhaegar — worked one case together and now he was a footnote in her file and an itch in the back of her brain. Still, Sigorn’s tone was off. Not jealous. Uneasy. Suspicious.

“He’s got nowt t’do wi’ it,”— She muttered, arms folded tight like a lock. — “Why’d ya even bring him up, eh?”

Sigorn’s jaw worked like he was chewing on words he didn’t wanna spit out, voice tight with something between frustration and worry. He looked at her, then away — “’Cause ever since ya met that weirdo, it’s like summat’s been creepin’ in yer head. Strange shite. Twisted thoughts. Ain’t like you, Ly.” — like he already regretted saying it but couldn’t stop himself.

She barked a short, joyless laugh. — “Excuse ya. When’s the last time someone put somethin’ in me head I didn’t want there?”

“…Point taken,” — He muttered. — “If yer good, then it’s all good.”

She turned on her heel. Wind scraped through the alley, carrying the smell of diesel and rotting leaves. — “You ken,” — She called over her shoulder, voice cold and clipped, — “I hate that. The pity. Yer overprotective bullshit. It’s suffocatin’. I’m a big girl, Sig. Don’t need no babysitter.”

Sigorn’s voice softened, a rare flicker of worry cutting through his usual gruff tone. His eyes didn’t quite meet hers, like he was trying to say more but holding back. — “Jes’ don’ go chasin’ the occult again, will ye? Please.”

He should’ve known better. Telling Lyanna Stark not to do something was like handing her a lit match and whispering don’t burn it down. So instead of going home, taking the hit, and icing what was bound to bloom into a nasty bruise, she veered straight toward Rhaegar’s building like a woman walking into a fight with herself. It was late — late enough for the city to hum instead of scream. Late enough for her to wonder if this was a mistake, but not late enough to stop herself. The concierge didn’t even look up. She was a regular here now, apparently. She hoped he was home. Alone. Gods, she hoped he wasn’t with someone. Not that she cared. She barely knew the guy. 

Interruptin’ someone’s after-dark blood buffet wasn’t exactly polite, but she’d never been big on manners, so she just hoped. Lyanna stood in the hallway outside his flat, the scent of something metallic and old clawing at her nose. Vampires always smelled like the past — like church incense and dried blood under floorboards. She knocked once. Waited. No answer. Odd. With his bloodsucker speed, he should’ve opened the damn door before she raised her knuckles. But seconds passed. Long enough to feel like a mistake. Then came the voice, smooth and amused, filtering through thick wood.  He said it like it was a damn love story. Smooth and smug, voice filtering through the thick wood like it belonged there — velvet-draped arrogance wrapped in a century of charm. Lyanna could hear the curl of a smirk in it, could picture him leaning against the doorframe on the other side, probably half-buttoned and barefoot like this was his castle and she was just another errant soul come to kiss the ring.

“I knew you’d come back,” — He said, not hopeful, not surprised, just certain, like gravity or death. It wasn’t what he said that needled her. It was the way he made it sound like fate. Like he’d been waiting, and she was right on time.

Lyanna folded her arms. —  “Full of yerself, much?”

“I have a fair opinion of myself,” — He said, theatrical as ever, —  “and hundreds of years of reinforcement.”

She rolled her eyes, the right one blurring just enough to piss her off. — “Ain’t here for yer ego trip, Count Fangs. Need an occult consultant, is all.”

He replied it with that silk-and-iron tone of his, smug curling around the edges like smoke off a slow burn. No rush, no doubt, just that maddening calm he always wore like a tailored suit. From the other side of the door, it rolled out warm and sure, like he’d already won a game she didn’t remember agreeing to play. — “So you are here because you need me.”

She pivoted toward the elevator. — “Y’know what? Maybe I’ll go ask a bloody fortune teller instead. Cheers for now.”

The latch clicked. Door creaked. Figures. She hadn’t really planned on leaving, not if she was honest — not that she made a habit of it. Being around him was dangerous. Not just the fangs-and-eternal-darkness bit. It was something quieter. Calmer. Like standing in a warm bath after a winter night, just before you remembered you had open wounds. He opened the door like he was posing for a magazine cover — leaning in the frame, sleeves rolled, top buttons undone like temptation was a dress code. And godsdamn it, he was looking good again. Bastard. But the smirk faltered the second he saw her face. A beat passed before he covered it with sarcasm, too late. Aye. The black eye was already bloomin’. She stepped in without asking. She didn’t sit. Didn’t feel like curling up on his too-expensive sofa and pretending this was casual. She stood just inside the foyer, where the smell of cloves and something darker lingered, and spat it out.

Said it flat, like she was ordering a drink she didn’t want. No drama, no frills, just the facts scraped raw. Her voice had that sandpaper drag it got when she was tired, pissed off, or both. Mostly both. — “Got jumped. By a man… used t’be one, anyhow.”

He shut the door behind her. Came closer. Too close. — “Used to?”

Lyanna laid it out like evidence on a slab, precise, stripped down, but laced with that clipped edge of disgust she wore like armor. No need for theatrics when reality was already a freak show. Her tone was steady, but under it was that slow-burn anger, the kind she didn’t always clock till it curled behind her ribs. She didn’t flinch saying it, — “Aye. Skin like ash, no pupils, not breathin’ like somethin’ that should be six feet under. I was meetin’ a client; Summer Isles lad, lookin’ for his brother. Thing came outta nowhere. Tore through his bodyguard. Still out there, huntin’ the poor sod.”

He made a thoughtful noise, quiet, loaded. — “Uhm.”

Lyanna’s voice dipped into the dry, deadpan groove she pulled out when she wanted to needle someone just right, half challenge, half sarcasm, like she was daring him to catch up or get lost. Her lips twitched, like she fought the urge to smirk, but no mercy here. — “ Uhm , like you know what I’m sayin’, or uhm , like you constipated?”

Rhaegar’s voice was smooth but carried a thread of concern, the kind that didn’t quite fit his usual calm, polished tone. It was measured, deliberate, — “The man who attacked you, his eyes were glazed? Like he wasn’t in control of his body?” — spoke like he was peeling back layers, trying to make sense of something that didn’t quite add up, his words careful but probing. There was a faint edge, as if he was holding back something deeper beneath the surface. 

Lyanna said it with that sharp, dry snap, like tossing a match onto a wet floor, not much fire but enough to burn. — “ Bingo . Reckon you’ve met ’im.” — There was that slight smirk in her voice, a mix of sarcasm and tired knowing, like she was half amused she didn’t have to explain herself but fully ready to shut down any questions.

He looked graver than usual, the glib edge gone. — “He was a zombie.”

She snorted. —  “Zombie, like 28 Days Later , feral plague crap?”

“No. In Loa’na. Summer Isles necromancy. Dead, raised to serve a master. You need to stay away from this, Lyanna.” — Rhaegar’s voice dropped low, calm but serious, like he was laying down a warning he hoped she’d actually take. No fluff, just cold facts wrapped in that quiet authority he always carried.

“You know what? You ain’t the first bloke tonight tellin’ me what I should or shouldn’t do. Didn’t love it then neither.” — Lyanna said it sharp and quick, with a hint of dry sarcasm; she was used to being told what to do and wasn’t about to start listening now. There was a hard edge beneath the humor, a warning not to push her.

His concern twisted something low in her ribs. Should’ve scared her. Should’ve pushed her out the door. Instead, it pulled her in tighter. She turned to leave. Enough damage done for one night. — “Mister Vampire scared o’ a wee zombie. Gimme a bre…”

He was behind her before she could blink. Cold hand curling around her neck — not tight, not violent, just... there. A warning. A tether. It should’ve made her flinch. Instead, her breath caught in her throat, and gods help her, she leaned into the hold for half a second too long.

“You forget what I am,” — He said, voice lower now, close to her ear. — “I share acquaintance with you. As I haven’t with many. But don’t take me lightly.”

“Reckon that’s mighty unlikely,” — She muttered, lips dry.

He turned her toward him. His eyes caught the dim light, black on black, like the night staring back. The power in them made her skin hum. — “I’ll help,” — He said, frustration thick in the words, like he was scolding a stubborn child. — “If only to keep you alive.”

She didn’t thank him. Didn’t smile. Just stood there, soaking in the warmth of being seen and the chill of what it meant. Because she knew the truth. She didn’t come to him just for help. Not really. She came because she was already drowning, and monsters don't judge you for how far you’ve sunk. Not like your average flatfoot. This was supernatural shit. And Rhaegar? Of course he’d suit up — because what’s a vampire if not a walking tuxedo. He grabbed a blazer, and put it over himself, like it was part of the job. They stepped into the night, the cold biting through her coat, the city still smeared with last night’s grime and stale smoke. He insisted on a taxi, like normal people. Lyanna rolled her eyes but kept quiet. She told Howland what to watch for — Loa’na magic. 

“Howland,” — She said, voice clipped, when they came into her office, —  “Wha’cha got?”

He pulled his laptop off the tiny desk cluttered with scraps of evidence and cheap coffee cups. — “Spells, dolls, an’ zombies.”

“Anythin’ what stops ’em?” —  Her fingers twitched near her gun, always ready.

Howland squinted at the screen like it was gonna give up secrets on command. — “Still diggin’, but they’re right much unstoppable. No wiki how on killin’ a Loa’na zombie in less’n ten moves.”

Lyanna smirked, cold and sharp. She tapped her temple like pulling the trigger. —  “Well, reckon we gotta bin the Walkin’ Dead manual, then.”

Rhaegar snorted beside her, voice smooth but with that old world edge. — “Don’t trust the media about our kind. Look at what they did to vampires.”

Howland blinked between them, confused.  — “Our kind, ye say?”

Lyanna jabbed a finger at herself then Rhaegar. — “Banshee and vampire.”

Howland laughed, low and genuine. — “Now it makes sense why ye never catch no sleep.”

“Ain’t here t’ talk ’bout me, Reed,” — She snapped, flickin’ the air. —  “Focus up.”

Howland scrolled through the thread of photos, dead bodyguard, grisly and permanent. —  “Alright, run them tatts you sent through a database. Found some bits.”

“Gang-related, aye?” — Her voice dipped, sharp like a knife’s edge.

“Nah. Protective spells from the Summer Isles, they are. Like a secret handshake, but fer magic barriers.” — Howland said it slow and steady, the kind of careful clarity you get from a guy used to breaking down complicated nonsense for people who’d rather be anywhere else.

Lyanna snorted, bitter and tired. — “Yeah, well, didn’t stop the bastard from killin’ ’im.”

Rhaegar was leafing through Howland’s printouts, face twisting into a grimace that was more ‘ fuck no’ than concern. — “Lyanna, this is not a game. Not something we want dragging you in.”

She shrugged on her coat, cold as the city streets waiting outside. — “If y’don’t wanna play, don’t. But I got a client with dead folk huntin’ ’im, and I don’t fuckin’ bail. Ain’t my style.” — She went for the door handle, the weight of the night settling over her like a shroud. — “Goin’ out. Be back quick. Keep me posted, Howl.”

Howland said it with a quick nod, voice low and steady, the kind of calm that came from too many nights spent with things that shouldn’t exist. He didn’t question her anymore, not when she had that look. Just, — “Will do,” — like locking a door behind her.

She tossed it over her shoulder, already halfway out the door, like she didn’t care either way. But she waited. Just a beat. — “Y’comin’, or what?”

***

They returned to the bar where Lyanna claimed she’d met her client — a man with the improbable name of Xhondo and the even more improbable ability to remain alive. It was a narrow dive lacquered in stale lust and overpriced liquor, the kind of place that tried very hard to be a Summer Isles jazz lounge and failed in all the usual, sticky-floored ways. Rhaegar gave the restroom door a passing glance and made a mental note never to inhale near it again. He followed her to the bar. She was in her usual uniform: black henley (sleeve with a whole, naturally), worn jeans, battered boots, and that leather jacket that had probably seen more blood than most paramedics and young vampires. Somehow, it worked. It always did. It shouldn’t have. Apparently, she’d also acquired a secretary — Howland, of all people. Rhaegar hadn’t expected that plot twist. Then again, he hadn’t expected any of this. He had deadlines, obligations, an editor already sharpening her knives because the next issue of his graphic novel was late again. And yet here he was, babysitting a banshee with a hero complex, suicidal tendencies and a black eye.

The decision, when it came, hadn’t been hard. He liked to pretend he was a creature of control. But the second she’d turned toward him in his doorway, and he’d seen the bruise blooming on her cheekbone like a mark from something unspeakable, he'd known. He wouldn't let it happen again. Not to her. Blood transference between a vampire and another sentient being was usually a simple, sordid affair — half sex, half hunger, rarely anything else. Feelings were side effects, not the point. But with Lyanna… it hadn't been just hunger.  And she wasn’t human, not really. She was death on short two legs, a banshee with a mouth full of curses, and she smelled like cigarettes, rain, and iron. It should’ve warned him off. Instead, it tethered him. He hadn’t meant to memorize her phone number. It had just… happened. Like so many of the dangerous things he didn’t admit to wanting. Inside the bar, she approached the counter like she owned it. Rhaegar leaned back on his elbows, scanning the room. No exits he couldn’t use. No heartbeat fast enough to matter.

“Oi, 'member me from earlier?” — She asked the bartender, tone casual, though her shoulders were coiled tight.

The bartender didn’t flinch. —  “And what’ll you have, miss?”

She motioned vaguely toward him. — “Whiskey. Rocks. He’s gonna… fuck if I know.” — Then, to the point, —  “You seen Xhondo? Need a word.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” — The man said, too quickly. Rhaegar raised an eyebrow. Amateur. He actually believed lying might spare him. Endearing, really, like watching a lamb blink at the butcher’s blade and hope for mercy.

“You acted like you knew ’im,” — Lyanna said, narrowing her eyes.  — “We got a booth in the back, real cosy-like. Felt proper special.”

The bartender said it with a thin smile, the kind that tried too hard to look casual but cracked under pressure. His voice was flat, rehearsed — just a little too smooth, a little too quick. Rhaegar, who’d studied liars for longer than this man had likely been alive, noted the tightening of the jaw, the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way his hand stilled on the glass he wasn’t cleaning anymore.

“We treat all our clients that way,” — the man said, but the words were hollow, like an overused phrase worn thin by too many nights and not enough conviction. Rhaegar didn’t need a heartbeat to know he was lying, though he heard that too, skipping like a warped record beneath the bartender’s collar.

He turned, just enough. — “Then I’m sure you won’t care that he was nearly killed. Might be on the run. Not your concern, I suppose.”

That did it. The bartender dropped the glass he’d been pretending to clean. His hands twitched. His eyes stayed on them now. But someone at the other end called him, and he vanished like a coward with a job to pretend to do. Rhaegar exhaled through his nose. He didn’t have the patience for games tonight. He didn’t have the patience for anything except the fantasy of tearing out the throat of whoever had marked Lyanna’s face.

He leaned in, close enough that her hair brushed his cheek. — “Let me try something.”

Her voice came flat, dry as ash. —  “Aye, knock yerself out.”

The bartender returned, and Rhaegar didn’t waste time. He reached across the bar, caught the man by the collar, and dragged him over like a disobedient dog. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t meant to be.

He used the Voice; his persuasion, honed like a scalpel. — “Where is he?”

It landed. Hard. The man choked on his silence. But then glass shattered. A bottle. A warning. Rhaegar felt the shift of air behind him. Four men, maybe five. He could take them — no question — but not here. Not now. Not in front of her. A hand touched his shoulder — hers. Grounding, not pleading.

Lyanna’s voice rang out, loud and disaffected. — “Right, everybody, sorry 'bout that. He’s got rage issues. Family madness. Runs deep, y’know?”

Rhaegar let the man go, straightened his blazer with one cold hand, and stared at the bartender still rubbing his throat. Lyanna flicked a business card from her pocket and slid it across the bar. — “Ye see Xhondo, you ring me. Aye?”

He considered the room. Every breathing body was a snack he wasn’t allowed to touch. And yet he burned. Not from hunger. From anger. Lyanna tugged his arm — his leash in this moment — and led him out into the street like she hadn’t just saved five lives with her sarcasm.

“You got no bar etiquette,” — She muttered as they walked. — “Nobody ever told you not to bite the damn bartender?”

Rhaegar gave the bouncer one last, withering look. — “I was playing with the food,” — He murmured, all silk and sin.

The night air, sharp with the sting of winter’s breath, did little to bother him. Cold was for the living. Still, he appreciated the clarity it brought, cleansing the stench of stale beer, sweat, and whatever brand of cheap regret that dive bar had marinated in. Lyanna’s car — a black 1967 Chevy Impala, as aggressive and anachronistic as its owner — was parked a block away. It reeked faintly of whiskey and smoke and that elusive, inexplicable scent of her. He found it all surprisingly tolerable. She led the way. Of course she did. She always did.

“He would’ve talked,” — He said, tone neutral, but his mind replayed the man’s pulse skipping beneath his fingers. So close. So willing.

“Aye, and we’d be too busy gettin’ our arses kicked to hear a thing,” — She shot back.

“Our asses,” — He echoed, amused. — “I’ve fought with worse odds.”

She scoffed without turning her head, eyes still locked on the road. — “Aye, your way might scare folk, Bruce Lee. Mine gets us answers.” —  The words came out sharp as frost and twice as biting, her Northern drawl dragging slightly on scare and twisting answers into a challenge. She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t need to. There was a smugness in the way she said it, like she already knew he wouldn’t argue, and a bite beneath the smirk that told him she dared him to try.

He arched a brow. —  “And your way is?”

She shot him a sideways glance, smirk curling at the corner of her mouth like a knife just slightly unsheathed. — “Patience,” — She drawled, the word thick with Northern edge, lazy but deliberate. — “Someone yer age oughta know that by now.” — There was something infuriatingly casual about the way she said it, like she was humoring a sulking child, not speaking to a centuries-old predator with blood on his hands and power in his veins. 

Rhaegar, for all his control, felt the flicker of heat rise behind his eyes. Not anger, not entirely. It was something slower. Older. The familiar pull toward things he ought to walk away from. That stung. Not that he showed it. He got into the passenger seat like a dignified corpse, as if preparing for an opera rather than a tail job. The streets whispered with the soft snarl of her tires. He was already prepared to tell her the plan was flawed, another impulse born of emotion over strategy. But then fate — always a smug little bastard — intervened. Fifteen minutes into their silent glide through the city, the bartender — the one who had feigned ignorance about Lyanna’s client — hopped onto a motorcycle and sped off like guilt incarnate. Lyanna shot him a look, one of those irritating told you so expressions that made him want to bite something. She followed. Naturally.

They reached the docks. Abandoned, industrial, painted with the kind of decay time doesn’t just allow — it encourages. An old factory, now home to rats, rust, and possibly ritualistic murder. He felt the energy before they even stepped inside. Thick. Charged. Wrong. The air hung heavy with old magic — the kind that tasted like ashes and blood. Lyanna didn’t hesitate. Of course she didn’t. Self-preservation was a concept she had long ago deemed optional. He rolled his eyes and followed. Someone had to be the adult in this suicidal partnership. Voices echoed. Chanting. The unmistakable cadence of spellwork. Lyanna moved toward it like a moth to flame. He followed more reluctantly, fingers twitching near the silver knife in his coat, just in case. They reached what could generously be called a shrine: an altar, candles, a man in a suit that looked like it had lost a bet with the 1970s. Yellow, red, and brown plaid — atrocities woven into fabric. As they rounded the corner, the man saw them and flung a knife. Rhaegar caught it mid-air without flinching. Child’s play. 

Another figure moved for a weapon, but then. — “Enough,” —  a voice called.

The room fell still. Rhaegar, without thinking, stepped in front of Lyanna — instinct, old and inconvenient. The man at the altar radiated power, the wrong kind. Not arcane. Not divine. Perverse. Familiar in the way of old sins.

“Xhondo,” — Lyanna said, cool as frostbite.

The man smiled, unbothered. —  “Hello… I thought you’d be scared off by now, Miss Stark.”

She stepped beside Rhaegar, unimpressed. — “Ain’t so easy t’scare me.” — Of course she wasn’t. She’d long since traded fear for fire.

Xhondo’s eyes flicked to Rhaegar. — “Impeccable work ethic, I see. And who is this one?”

Lyanna hesitated, glancing between him and the warlock. — “This here’s me… Assistant.”

He frowned. — “Consultant, more like.” — He corrected, the words clipped and cool, laced with the faintest edge of annoyance, an old prince’s pride bruised by being demoted to errand boy. He didn’t raise his voice; Rhaegar never needed volume to make a point. The disdain was in the pause, the precise diction, the deliberate refusal to look at Lyanna as he said it, the title itself left a bad taste in his mouth.

Xhondo smirked. —  “I suppose I owe you some truth.”

“Tha’d be nice, aye.” — She said it with a touch of sarcasm, chin tilted, voice dry as dust, like she half-expected the truth to be anything but.

So the story unraveled. Old blood magic. Parental sacrifice. A dead brother named Quhuru swallowed by something older and crueler. Bellegere, the betrayer witch who took his brother. Demons, of course. It always came back to demons. Lyanna offered help. Of course she did. Rhaegar’s scoff was involuntary. Babysitting a banshee was one thing. Offering sanctuary to a spell-slinger neck-deep in corrupted magic? No. Absolutely not.

“Lyanna,” — He said, voice low, —  “a word.”

She crossed her arms. Petulant. Predictable. They stepped aside. The warlock turned back to his altar, chanting softly to something that didn’t belong in this world.

“This is suicide,” — Rhaegar hissed. — “There’s something wrong with this place. You feel it, don’t you?”

“He needs help.” —  She said it low, near his ear, the way someone might mutter a secret into a confession booth, except Lyanna had never once sounded repentant before not in his presence. Her breath was warm with defiance, her jaw set like she was ready to square up with Death itself if it told her otherwise. Rhaegar could feel it… The recklessness dressed up as compassion, the way she wielded stubbornness like a blade. 

Rhaegar’s voice was calm but firm, the kind of quiet command that brooked no argument. As he spoke, he slid a finger under her chin… The same way he had before; lifting her face so their eyes met. There was no anger in his gaze, only a measured weight, the cool authority of a man who had seen far too much to indulge reckless impulses. — “He can take care of himself. You almost got killed tonight.”

Lyanna’s voice dropped low, stubborn and sharp, like a flare in the dark. She looked away for a flicker too quick for sympathy, but enough to show the fight still burned beneath her cool exterior. — “It ain’t his fault.”

From Rhaegar’s vantage, the words hung in the air, stubborn as iron. Her tone wasn’t pleading, nor was it denial. It was a quiet insistence, the kind born from too many losses and hard truths. He noted how she fought to carry the weight of blame for others — an impossible burden she wore like armor, fierce and unyielding. Unhealthy if anything.

“How do you know that?” —  He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. —  “And why is it you always need to have the last word? I’m telling you this reeks of dark magic, and your response is to get more involved. You have no idea what you’re walking into.”

Lyanna shot him a sharp look, half teasing, half challenge, — “Then maybe you could try doin’ somethin’ useful an’ tell me.” — eyes flashing with that fierce fire he both admired and feared. Her voice cut through the tension like a blade, rough-edged but laced with that sly wit only she could pull off. 

Rhaegar caught the subtle tilt of her chin, the way her words dared him to meet her head-on. It wasn’t just a demand — it was a gauntlet thrown down with reckless confidence. Beneath the bravado, he sensed the sharp impatience of someone who’d seen too much waiting and wasn’t about to wait any longer. And for a moment, even centuries of composure couldn’t quite hide the grudging respect that stirred inside him. He stared at her. She was stubborn. Reckless. Infuriating.

She turned back to the man in the plaid suit. — “Ya can’t stay here. I’d sooner we go back to me office.”

Xhondo bowed his head slightly —  “Thank you. You are a true friend.”

Rhaegar watched Lyanna pivot on her heel, eyes sharp as a hawk’s, voice low but razor-edged as she addressed the room. There was no softness, no invitation just that fierce, commanding tone, wrapped in the blunt cadence of someone used to taking charge and getting her way. —“Let’s get movin’,” — She said, the words slicing through the thick, stale air like a whip. It wasn’t a request. 

It was a warning, a challenge, and a promise all at once. Everyone felt it, best not to test her defiance tonight. She led him out. The bartender — whatever he truly was — locked eyes with Rhaegar as they passed. Rhaegar returned the look with his most professional death glare. He ended up in the back seat, watching the back of Xhondo’s bald head like a sniper scopes a target. The air around the man was wrong. Cursed. And since Lyanna was going to run headlong into whatever this was without a second thought, someone had to make sure she didn’t die from it.  Apparently, the universe had decided that someone was him. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

***

The office smelled like burnt coffee, old paper, and the kind of incense Howland swore cleared ‘bad vibes’. Lyanna had stopped arguing about it weeks ago. Let the kid have his rituals. She had her own. Like lighting a cigarette she couldn’t taste anymore, just to feel the heat between her fingers. Like pretending her vision wasn’t going to shit. Like pretending Rhaegar wasn’t watching her like he already knew. He sat on the edge of her desk, all long limbs and undead patience, eyes fixed on Xhondo like he was waiting for the man to grow fangs. Lyanna didn’t blame him. There was something off about Xhondo — too smooth, too polite, like he’d practiced being human and hadn’t quite nailed it. But she’d seen worse. Hell, she’d been worse. Howland, bless his eager little heart, was chatting up Xhondo about attracting wealth and family.

“I’ll be frank, boy,” —  Xhondo said, voice like molasses, —  “nothing comes for free. Best not to mess with things you don’t understand.”

“Why’s everyone always sayin’ that, then?” —  Howland asked.

Rhaegar, ever the buzzkill, chimed in,  — “Because they’ve paid that price.”

Lyanna looked up from the files Howland had gathered. She’d sent Sigorn to dig the name Xhondo had dropped. If there was dirt to find, Sigorn would find it.

“Right then. We’ve things t’look over.” — She said, standing. — “Xhondo, stay here with Howland, aye? We’ll be back.”

“No problem,” —  Xhondo replied. —  “You’ve already done above and beyond for me.”

They left, the cold night air biting at her skin. Rhaegar was silent, which was worse than his usual sarcasm. She preferred him snarky. And if that wasn´t enough at the station, Sigorn’s face dropped when he saw her with Rhaegar.

Sigorn didn’t rise from his desk when they walked in, just leaned back in his chair, boots scuffed up on the edge like he owned the damn place. — “Good t’see you, Lyls.” —  His voice came slow and flat, the kind of tone men use when they’re pretending they don’t care.  —  “Brought yer... drawin’ lad with you, have you?” — But he clocked Rhaegar in one glance and clearly didn’t like what he saw. The pause before drawin’ lad was sharp enough to shave with, the words sour with sarcasm, like he was trying to needle her without actually saying what he meant: Who the hell is this pretty dead thing you dragged in, and why isn’t it me?

“Detective Magnar,” — Rhaegar said, voice dripping with disdain, — “what I create are graphic novels.”

“Aye, 'zactly what I’d say if I were a bloody cartoonist,” —  Sigorn shot back.

Rhaegar didn’t raise his voice. He never needed to. The words came out calm, precise — like a scalpel, not a hammer. Measured, deliberate, and cold as a blade pressed to the throat. He didn’t even look directly at Sigorn when he said it. Just turned slightly toward him, one eyebrow lifted, voice smooth and unbothered. But underneath the velvet was iron, and the insult landed with surgical accuracy. Not loud, not theatrical — just the kind of line that made a room go a little quieter, made you remember who had the sharper tongue and the steadier hand.

“Well, distinctions are important,” — He said, like he was giving a lecture, not throwing a punch. — “I wouldn’t call a cop a pig… but exceptions can be made.”

“You two, pack it in,” — Lyanna cut in, tone dry as kindling. —  “Sig, y’find anythin’ on that name I sent ya?”

“Ain’t no Bellegere in our systems, DMV, property rolls, tax filings, none of it,” — Sigorn drawled, still watchin’ Rhaegar like he were sizing up a bad bet. — “Looks like yer friend don’t bother lettin’ folk know when she’s blowin’ into town.”

Rhaegar said it coolly, with that bone-dry elegance he wielded like a scalpel, measured, precise, and just sharp enough to bleed. He didn’t even look at Sigorn when he spoke, just adjusted the cuff of his coat like the insult was beneath him, an afterthought dressed in silk. — “Perhaps it takes some real detective work to find her,” — He murmured, voice smooth as glass over ice, and twice as cutting.

Sigorn leaned back with a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth, the kind he wore when he was ready to pick a fight just for the hell of it. His voice came rough and dry, like gravel under boot, steeped in Northern drawl with a bit of venom curled around the edges. He didn’t bother hiding the jab, he aimed it straight between Rhaegar’s ribs, eyes narrowed, tone low and mocking. —  “Oh aye? That where you come in then, Blondie ?” — He asked, dragging out Blondie like it was both a joke and a challenge.

Rhaegar didn’t flinch. He stood with the kind of composed disdain only a centuries-old vampire could manage, like boredom wrapped in velvet and edged in steel. He turned his head slightly, just enough to level Sigorn with a look that was cool, unbothered, and faintly amused. His voice, when it came, was smooth as glass but sharp enough to cut, a precise counter jab dressed as offhand wit. — “Someone has to, Shorty ,” — He said, letting the nickname hang there like smoke, light, contemptuous, and undeniably deliberate. He didn’t need to raise his voice. The deadliest things never did.

“You know what? I’ve 'ad enough o’ this bloody cock-measurin’,” — Lyanna snapped, voice cuttin’ through the air like broken glass. — “Got a client bein’ chased by a bleedin’ corpse out there, so maybe, just maybe, you two could stop swingin’ yer egos ‘round and focus for a godsdamn minute.” — She didn’t yell, not really. She didn’t need to. Her tone carried weight like a punch you don’t see comin’, sharp, tired, and cold enough to freeze the damn room.

She let the two bastards glare at each other like dogs circling the same bone, then turned away. Let them chest-thump. Posture. Measure metaphorical dicks. She had real problems — one of them reeked of death and was chasing her client through back alleys. If the cops couldn’t do anything, well. No shock there. She went with instinct. Always had. Cinnamon Wind was the last place the trail went hot. Third time’s the charm, or maybe just a curse with good PR. The drive up there was quiet. Rhaegar brooded beside her like a statue carved outta guilt and bad blood. Not that she minded the silence. It was better than talking at this point. Talking made things real. Talking made her care. The bar was shut when they rolled up, neon long gone cold. But the door — aye, the door was wide open. That never meant anything good.

She muttered, mostly out of habit.—  “Door’s open. What d’you think?”

“Bad,” —  Rhaegar said, already moving. —  “Really bad.”

She grabbed the flashlight from her bag, fingers stiff with cold and something meaner. Looked up — and of course he was already inside, because he never waited. Vampires. She followed. The dark swallowed her fast, everything thick with that cloying smell of rot and spilled beer. Her vision blurred around the edges, the light cutting narrow paths through shadow. She couldn’t see much. Didn’t have to. Then she heard it — Rhaegar, sniffing like a bloodhound.

“What?” — She asked, sharp.

“Something dead.” — Rhaegar said it flatly, with that low, measured tone he used when instinct kicked in calm on the surface, but edged with tension. Like he’d already confirmed it and was just waiting for her to catch up.

Well, no shit. She swept the beam across the floor — and there he was. The guy who’d led them to Xhondo, face-down, neck twisted like a rag doll. Not even an hour since he’d played tour guide to a nest of nightmares. Now he was just another body in a city that liked to eat its own. This night… This fucking night was spinning off the rails. She opened her mouth to say something but didn’t get the chance. Rhaegar snapped to attention like he’d heard something she hadn’t — vamp senses twitching — and turned hard.

Rhaegar growled it out — “What killed him’s still here too.” — voice low and rough, thick with barely held-back fury. It wasn’t just a statement; it was a warning wrapped in raw menace, like the beast inside him was already clawing to get loose.

That got her moving. She shifted the light from the corpse just in time to see him bolt across the bar, headed for one of the shadowed booths in the back — the kind built for secrets and deals that go sideways. Then something big hit him mid-air. She barely saw it. Just the blur of movement, then Rhaegar’s body slamming into a wall like a tossed rag. Like nothing. Not good. Not good at all. Didn’t matter that he was a vampire. Super-strength. Speed. Arrogance. Whatever had caught him like that didn’t give a shit. And that meant she had no chance in hell. Still, instinct’s a bitch. She moved. Grabbed the closest thing she could find — a pool bat — and braced herself. Makeshift weapon. No time for finesse. She barely got a swing in before the thing was on her. Cold hands, claws maybe, wrapped around her throat. Her flashlight clattered to the floor, its beam dying in a sad circle of light. Air thinned. Stars danced behind her eyes. Her legs kicked once, then — Rhaegar.

He came from behind like a shadow with fangs, sinking his teeth into the thing’s neck. She heard the crunch before she felt the grip on her throat vanish. She hit the floor coughing, every breath like glass. Lying there, throat bruised and blood roaring in her ears, she thought: Gods. This night’s not done with me yet. She glanced up just in time for the flashlight to catch something on the wall. Of course — this was a Summer Isles bar. A cutlass, hanging there like some sad pirate’s trophy. She shoved herself off the floor, grabbed that rusty blade, and stalked back toward the fight. Rhaegar was still wrestling whatever nightmare had crawled out of hell.

She aimed the cutlass at the thing’s chest. — “Bad idea. Bad idea. God, get it away from me!”  — Rhaegar hissed, voice tight and low.

Lyanna didn’t care. She yanked the blade free and swung it hard — severed the damn thing’s head clean off. The body collapsed, twitching like it wasn’t sure what to do next. Directionless now, it was enough for Rhaegar to grab her arm and haul her out. They spilled into the street, cold air slapping her face, her flashlight clutched in his hands. They ran, hearts pounding, back to the car. She slammed the door, started the engine. Five blocks down, she finally let out a slow breath, the silence between them thick and heavy.

“Gonna rub it in, are ya? ‘Told you so,’ that it?” — She said, voice rough like gravel.

Rhaegar didn’t miss a beat. —  “For.”

Lyanna snorted. — “Told me t’stay out of it, didn’t ya?”

He shot her a look. — “You haven’t seen things like this up close. There’s more here than you know. We’ve got to find its master.”

She gave him a sideways grin, bitter and tired. — “Hope he don’t fold like th’ last one when I swing.”

“Do you have a death wish?” —  His voice dropped to a growl. — “We almost got killed by the puppet, and you wanna tango with the master?”

She shrugged, the weight in her chest settling like a stone. — “Like y’said, I dunno how bad this shite gets. If you’re gonna shine a light on it, I’m all ears.”

He went quiet. Great. Tight-lipped Rhaegar mode. She’d take sarcastic vampire asshole any day over brooding ghost. But then, surprisingly, he spoke. 

Rhaegar said it low — “I saw this before. Back in the 1920s.” — too calm for comfort. Like the words had been waiting in the back of his throat for decades, collecting dust and guilt. His voice was steady, but the kind of steady that only comes when you're gripping something too tightly to let it shake. No theatrics, no flourishes, just memory, raw and resigned. — “Went to the Summer Isles looking for a cure… for what I have. I didn’t see a way forward then.” 

He didn’t look at her when he said it. His gaze stayed out the window, fixed on some place far from the street they were on. — “Got invited to a Loa’na ceremony; I thought maybe they had answers. The spirits whispered to me, to everyone there. I thought, what’s the harm?” 

He seemed to recollect like he was back there again, barefoot on island soil, sweat and smoke in the air, the wrong kind of drums in his chest. Each sentence came like it hurt a little, but not enough to stop him. The kind of pain you get used to. His voice cracked just a bit. — “When I came to, I was by an altar. There was a girl, lying there. Knife that killed her was in my hands…”

Lyanna blinked, already smelling the ghosts in the air.—  “I saw zombies too,” — He said. — “Like the one we just fought. The spirits said they knew what I was. That if I greeted dawn, we’d be together... and he made her come back. The voice brought her back, but as a zombie.”

He stared out the window, eyes glassy, haunted. Trauma didn’t care if you were vampire or banshee — it found you anyway aparently. She could see it clear as day. The dead girl didn’t have a choice, and whatever spirits were messing with Rhaegar’s head? They weren’t fucking around.

“Well, risk o’ soundin’ soft,” — She muttered, — “you didn’t bloody know better, did you?”

“Now I do. And I shouldn’t have let you get dragged into this.” — Rhaegar said it low and quiet, like the weight of it had been sitting on his chest for a hundred years.

“It’s…” — Her phone buzzed, slicing through the thick silence before she could finish. Too late for them to be out in the open, definitely too late for Sigorn to be calling. But she answered anyway. — “Ey, Sig.”

Sigorn said it with that dry, no-nonsense edge he always had when something serious cut through the usual snark, — “Got your lass. Bellegere Otherys. Runs some magic crystal shop, Black Pearl, up by the Weirpool. Sent you the address.” — matter-of-fact, but with just enough grit to show he’d been digging.

“’Ow’d you find her, then?” — Lyanna said it low, like she was already halfway expecting some bullshit answer but too tired to argue. Curiosity laced with that edge of suspicion she never quite put down.

Sigorn said it with a shrug in his voice, dry and unimpressed, — “That weirdo downstairs, turns out ’e knows ’er.” — like this was just another line in a long day of dealing with lunatics. Barely surprised, barely invested.

Lyanna smirked despite herself. — “Tell Mance I love ’im. Talk later.”

***

The Black Pearl stood as a decaying monument to forgotten grandeur — a fitting stage for the kind of confrontation that whispered of old blood and older sins. Rhaegar stepped through the threshold first, his senses attuned to the subtle shifts in the air: the scent of mildew, the faint trace of burnt offerings, the oppressive weight of magic long since woven into the walls. Lyanna followed, her footsteps echoing softly behind him, a reminder of the living world he was increasingly detached from yet couldn't seem to leave behind. Inside, the building's skeletal remains loomed overhead, rusted beams and broken glass casting jagged shadows that danced like specters in the dim light. The altar at the center, adorned with what appeared to be bones, was a grotesque throne — an emblem of power claimed through death. They approached cautiously, the silence around them thickening until it was pierced by a voice, ethereal and mocking.

“Nightcrawler, you came here to kill me. You got to be way more quiet.” — Rhaegar's eyes narrowed, the term 'Nightcrawler' a familiar slur among those who trafficked in the arcane. He exchanged a glance with Lyanna, her expression unreadable but alert.

“Did you hear that?” —  He asked, his voice low.

“Aye,” —  She replied, her tone clipped.

“We're not here to kill you,” — Rhaegar said, his voice steady, betraying none of the tension coiling in his gut.

The voice responded, — “You're too late for dinner, too early for breakfast. What are you here for then?”

Lyanna stepped forward, her stance defiant. — “Me client, Mister Xhondo, ye tried t’ kill him. He wants his brother back.”

A pause, then a scoff. — “You working for the zombie king?”

The air grew heavier, the ambient light dimming as unseen fires ignited in the braziers lining the walls. Rhaegar felt the shift, the building itself reacting to the conversation, the magic woven into its very foundation stirring. He didn't like it.

“Show yourself,” — He demanded, his patience thinning.

In response, a whirlwind of wind and fire erupted, coalescing into a woman whose presence was as commanding as it was unsettling. Her dark skin glistened, her hair a cascade of black curls, and her robe shimmered with white sea shells.

“That man has been hunting me for years,” — She said, her voice now corporeal.

Lyanna's eyes narrowed. — “Took his brother, didn’t ya?”

She said it without shame, almost tenderly. —  “Someone had to,” — She told Lyanna, like it was mercy, not murder. —  “They’d killed for their army of the dead, and so I brought the brother here, cleansed the earth with his blood.” —  Rhaegar watched her, heard the conviction in her voice. It wasn’t guilt he sensed, it was judgment. And maybe, somewhere beneath that calm, the weight of what it cost her.

“So ye killed 'im too, then.”— Lyanna accused.

She didn’t flinch when she said, — “I helped him along the paths.” — there was no shame, only certainty, as if she'd done it a hundred times before. Her gaze flickered with memory when she mentioned the bones, but when she spoke of his soul, — “His bones are hidden in a cemetery, but his soul, it stays with me. Without him, the crone… Xhondo… Is not strong enough."

Lyanna scoffed. — “Crone, the lad’s not even thirty.”

The woman smiled sadly. — “Looks are deceiving, girl. As your friend knows well, not everyone looks their age. Xhondo and his brother used children to keep themselves young, killed them, offered them to the spirits. Some of those were of my flock, so I took revenge.”

Rhaegar's mind raced, the implications of her words unsettling. He had sensed something off about Xhondo, but this painted a far darker picture. —  “How do we know you're not lying?” — He asked, his voice cold.

“You got no choice. Tomorrow, the moon will be just right for him to take the bones from the cemetery and try to revive his brother. If he does, children start dying here too. I don't care what you believe, you're not strong enough to kill me, Nightcrawler, but I'm plenty strong to put you down.”  —  She raised her hand, and two zombies emerged, their forms grotesque and familiar. Rhaegar prepared to fight, his body tensing. 

But as they approached, the zombies seized, their movements stilled. The woman's eyes widened in fear, her confidence shattered. — “Oh, I underestimated him. He brought you here… to kill me, boy oh boy…”

She began to weep tears of blood, collapsing to her knees. As she died, she handed Lyanna a crystal amulet made of blue shells. — “Near Manderly Tower, do not let him have the amulet,” — She whispered.

Lyanna checked for a pulse, but Rhaegar already knew — she was gone. His suspicions confirmed, he turned to Lyanna. — “He played us like fools,” — He said, bitterness lacing his words.

Lyanna's face paled. — “Seven hells… he’s got Howland.” 

It came as no surprise — disappointment rarely did anymore. When they arrived at Lyanna’s office, Howland was gone. No body, no blood. Just absence, and the aftermath of someone’s frantic search or unholy summoning. The room was in shambles — drawers gutted, papers tossed like dead leaves in a storm. Chaos, but not mindless. No, the mess had meaning. Someone had been thorough. Purposeful. And far too confident they wouldn’t be stopped. He moved through the wreckage without comment, his eyes scanning the ruins with the mechanical grace of someone who'd done this before — because he had. He always did. Tragedy had a pattern, and Rhaegar had memorized it long before his blood stopped warming with the sun.

Amid the ruin, the only thing of use: a slip of paper, almost ceremoniously left behind. Coordinates. A time. A place. It reeked of bait. But what choice did they have? The sun was rising very soon and his skin had already begun to hum with warning, the slow ache behind his teeth pushing forward, reminding him of what he was — what he wasn’t. He hated retreating. Hated leaving a scene before the last note had played out. But he had no appetite for combustion today. Not yet. He returned to his apartment before dawn, its shadows familiar, cold, and quiet. A good place to think. A better place to brood. They regrouped the next evening, though regroup implied something cooperative. Lyanna had buzzed like a thundercloud of someone who wanted blood, not a briefing. He didn't blame her. He didn’t feel particularly diplomatic either. But sentiment wouldn't save Howland Reed. Precision might. They needed a plan. They needed each other. Unfortunately.  And that, Rhaegar thought, was the real horror of it all.

***

Lyanna didn’t sleep. Didn’t even try. The coordinates burned in her brain like a bad song stuck on repeat — cemetery. Just what she needed. All she wanted was to drive a stake straight through Xhondo’s ugly neck and be done with it. But Rhaegar had been painfully clear before he left: We have to be smart about this. As if smart and Lyanna were ever going to tango. She sat in the dim light of her cluttered office, the amulet cold against her palm — her only tether to whatever luck she had left. But it didn’t calm the storm inside. If anything, it just made her itch for action. So she rifled through Howland’s things again, the few scraps she could salvage from the mess left behind. No sleep. No distractions. Just the stale smell of old paper and the faint ghost of blood on her fingers. When the hour came, she met Rhaegar at the gates of the cemetery, near the Madnerly Tower. The air was thick with decay — wet earth and death hanging like a shroud around them. It pressed in, heavy and real, and Lyanna felt it deep in her bones, a chill that wasn’t just from the cold wind.

They walked toward the crypt, boots crunching on frostbitten gravel. Waiting for them was an army of the dead — silent, menacing, their eyes glowing faintly like the last sparks of a dying fire. And there, in the shadows of one altar, tied up and blinking like a trapped animal, was Howland. Next to him, a tomb lay open, gaping like a wound. And there — like some nightmare dressed for a costume party — was Xhondo. That twisted smile of his cutting through the gloom, wearing some newfangled weird suit like he was ready for a damn fashion show in hell. Lyanna’s hand twitched toward her Glock, but she held herself back. The fight was coming, and god help whoever survived it.

“Well, well, well,” — Xhondo said, like clockwork, eyes sharp as broken glass. — “Punctual as always, Miss Stark.”

Lyanna didn’t bother with the politest reply. — “Aye fuck.”

He blinked slow, mock offense like a bad actor. — “That’s awfully unkind of you, girl.”

Rhaegar’s voice cut in, cool and sharp as a blade. — “I think it’s more than appropriate.”

Xhondo smirked, that ugly curl of his mouth. — “Then again, Valyrians were never the polite sort.”

Howland coughed, voice weak but steady. — “Ly… smash tha amulet. Smash it ‘fore he…”

Xhondo’s hand slipped to his pocket, pulling a knife with the casual menace of a butcher. He pressed it hard against Howland’s throat. — “Quiet, boy. Exchange is simple. You give me the amulet, the boy lives. You don’t… he dies.”

“Nah, wait.” — Lyanna screamed. 

Lyanna’s eyes flicked to Rhaegar, hoping, begging silently. Maybe he’d catch it, see the panic she couldn’t say out loud. Gods, she wanted him to read her mind, tell him to make a run for it so she could break the damn thing. He gave her a small, almost imperceptible smirk — something in her blood told her he knew. He was telling her to do it. Her fingers shook, clutching the amulet, cold and heavy like a dead weight. Xhondo’s eyes locked on hers, daring, taunting. Howland’s ragged breath filled the silence, a broken song. Then the boy’s voice — weak but clear — cut through.

“Do it, Lya.” — He said it low, steady, like he was holding onto the last bit of breath he had, calm but urgent, like he trusted her to know what needed done without needing to shout.

Her jaw locked tight. The amulet felt like the last thread holding everything together — and tearing her apart. She didn’t want to break it. Didn’t want to give Xhondo the satisfaction. But no choice. She snapped it in two. The shards fell like promises that never meant shit. That was her crack. Rhaegar moved fast —  too fast for any normal human. Like a shadow with teeth, he lunged at Xhondo before the bastard could blink twice. The fight was brutal, silent but sharp — like a deadly dance only they knew. But Xhondo was ugly in his desperation. Didn’t go down clean. The blade flashed quick, brutal — and found Howland’s neck. Blood hot, wet, and terrifying. Lyanna’s heart slammed against her ribs like a caged animal. Panic tore at her throat. And then, something inside her cracked wide open. The banshee curse roared to life. She felt it, cold and creeping like ice water, dragging Howland under. She dropped to her knees, pressed her hands against the wound, blocking out everything except his terrified eyes and the burn of blood. Didn’t know if it was instinct or memory, but she touched the spot her grandma had shown her  — how to slow death down so it didn’t take hold so fast.

It had been years since she’d done it. She felt the power leak from her eyes, burning, but she held on, forced him to stay. Tried to will forgiveness, though she didn’t know who she was asking — the boy, the gods, or herself—for putting him here. The scream rose raw and feral, wild in her chest. But she didn’t let it loose. She twisted it slow, held it back like a leash on a mad dog. The seconds stretched, cruel and fragile — a mercy. Rhaegar’s voice, low and almost tender in the chaos, broke through. He slid his hands under hers, cutting his palm, pressing it to Howland’s skin. Dark, thick vampire blood flowed, and Lyanna watched — half disbelief, half something raw — while Howland’s breathing evened, color creeping back to his face. The danger crackled in the air, but the bleeding slowed. The threat hung there, but at bay. For once, Lyanna didn’t hide behind snark or distance. She just was — raw and bare under the streetlight’s cold glare, heart hammering like hell, knowing she’d never be the same again. She let herself breathe out a fraction of relief when Howland finally sat up. Didn’t mean to, but she hugged the kid. Felt his breath on her neck, fragile and real. That was all she needed. Gods, he wasn’t dead.

She pulled away, and Howland’s eyes widened, face falling. — “Lya… you’re cryin’ blood.”

“Seven hells,” — She muttered, smirkin’ despite the burn in her chest. — “Worth every bloody drop.”

***

Title: The Shape of Mercy

There is blood on my hands again. Old blood, fresh blood — memory and reality blurred together like oil over water. Another sorcerer dead, another life nearly lost. The cemetery reeks of rot and power, and the stench has clung to my coat long after I’ve left the scene. I’ve seen death a thousand ways, dealt it a thousand more. But this felt different. Because this time, Lyanna was in the middle of it. She broke the amulet. Without hesitation — or perhaps in spite of it. She cracked it in her fist like it meant nothing, even though the look in her eyes said otherwise. Xhondo lunged for the boy before the pieces hit the dirt. I moved — fast, brutal, final — but not fast enough. Howland took a blade to the neck.

And then something happened. Lyanna didn’t scream, not in the way I expected. No banshee wail to shake the stones, no keening call to death. What she did was worse. She made time bend. She cradled the boy like he was hers and twisted death back into its cage. She didn’t just stall the Reaper — she looked him in the face and said ‘not this one’. And for a moment, I saw what she really is. Not just cursed. Not just dangerous. Merciful. It was instinct — her hands on the wound, her body curled over his like a shield. And her eyes… Gods. She wept blood. Slow, quiet, unbidden. The kind of grief that doesn’t make a sound because it’s too old, too deep. I’ve slit a thousand throats and buried whole towns, but that sight stopped me cold.

She didn’t see me watching. Didn’t see the way something in me cracked open. I gave the boy my blood — not out of compassion, not entirely — but because I couldn’t let her lose him. Her guilt would’ve buried her deeper than any grave. When Howland breathed again, she held him like she’d nearly drowned. And when he pointed out her tears, she laughed. Smirked through the iron in her throat. 

She hides it so well, the goodness in her. Buried under the cigarettes, the snarl, the sharp tongue that spits defiance like a reflex. But it’s there. She acts like she doesn’t care — about herself, about anyone — but she does. She cares too much. About the boy. About the city. About the people no one else bothers to save. And that’s the most dangerous part of her.

It wasn’t just the blood exchange that shifted something in me. I’d be a fool to pretend it didn’t matter — that strange energy is still humming beneath my skin — but it’s more than that. She’s more than that. She doesn’t flinch at what I am. She doesn’t look at me with fear or revulsion. She looks like she’s seen worse, lived worse — and she probably has. She doesn’t pity me. And she doesn’t ask me to be anything I’m not. I haven’t been this drawn to someone in decades.

And it terrifies me. Because mercy, real mercy, is a rare thing, in this world. And now I’ve seen its shape, raw and furious, standing over a dying boy in a graveyard. It had her voice. Her hands. Her blood. Lyanna Stark is becoming more than a hobbie. More than a puzzle I want to solve. She’s becoming necessary. We shall see what the night brings next.

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Cleaning the apartment took longer than it should have. Not that she gave a damn about feng shui or hygiene, but after two days of horizontal hibernation — face-down, wrapped in yesterday’s sweat and smoke-stained sheets — she’d managed to half-piece the office back together. Thank the gods the asshole had only trashed the place, not burned it down. Howland showed up mid-reconstruction with a sack of scones and gas station coffee, like some low-budget angel of mercy. She’d scoffed at the gesture, called it bribery, then ate a jelly-filled one when he wasn’t looking. She had suspicions — well-founded ones — that the nosy bastard had been rummaging through her cabinets. Her sweet tooth wasn’t public knowledge. She kept it buried, same as everything else. Sugar made her soft. Sugar made her human. But when you grow up watching your little brother tank from low blood sugar every other week, you learn to keep Fruit Gums in your pocket and a Snickers in your boot. And she had a taste for them. 

The week after that? Quiet. Blessedly boring. Just a missing dog and a background check on some creep with too many burner phones. No corpses. No curses. No cries in her throat that weren’t hers. The city seemed to be giving her a break, like even the dead knew she needed to breathe. Sig called once. Didn’t ask about the cemetery bodies — ten of them, half-rotted, arranged like a prayer. He didn’t ask if she was involved, either. Smart man. He didn’t want to lie on that report. She could hear it in his voice, though. That edge. That I -know-what-you-don’t-say tension. She didn’t lie. He didn’t ask. Balance at last. So by Friday, with the week mercifully free of eldritch horrors or emotionally compromised vampires, Lyanna did what she always did when the world let her off the leash. She went hunting.

A few drinks. A couple of slow, slick looks. Maybe a nice piece of ass to keep the bed warm. That was the plan. Clean. Physical. No strings, no pasts, no blood between the teeth. The guy she picked up at the bar was aggressively unmemorable. Standard issue frat reject with a cologne problem and one good shoulder. Fifteen minutes in, she was bored enough to feel her own pulse. She made up an excuse and ghosted before his ego noticed. Should’ve gone to the sapphic bar around the corner — but she followed Howland’s suggestion. The night was still young, though. A baby. Dark air cold on her skin like a whisper. She walked with no destination, hands shoved in her coat, city humming low around her like an old fridge. That’s when she saw it: the little used bookshop tucked between a tax office and a noodle place. She hadn’t been inside in over a month. They were doing their little book club thing — candles, poetry, people too bright for this world — she wasn’t there to mingle.

She just wanted the smell of old paper and quiet. She stuck to her section, mostly. Horror. Sharp, mean little books with jagged edges and no resolution. Tender Is the Flesh, Boy Parts, Bunny, The Lesser Dead. Monsters who didn’t lie about being monsters. Sigorn used to call it her Serial Killer Chick Reading List. He wasn’t wrong. But tonight, her feet dragged her somewhere else. Graphic novels. Not her usual. Too many pictures, not enough teeth. But Ned used to read them. Stacks on his bedroom shelf like shrines: Watchmen, Through the Woods, Blankets, From Hell. She used to sneak into his room, thumb through the pages when he wasn’t home. The memory caught her off guard, soft and sudden like a bruise you didn’t notice until someone touched it. That’s when she saw it. Not the cover, but the name. The Hollow Crown by Rhaegar Targaryen.

No pseudonym. No clever little alias. Just him, naked on the spine of the book. She glanced around — stupid, like anyone cared; it felt like something she shouldn’t be touching, like cracking open a locked drawer in someone else’s house,she glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to get caught with her hand in the wrong goddamn cookie jar — then picked it up. Felt heavier than it looked. She turned it over in her hands, reading the back blurb in the flickering yellow light:  Lucien Vale, a former royal intelligence officer turned immortal exile, investigates supernatural threats across Westeros. Haunted by the ghosts of those he’s failed to save — and the monster he once loved — Lucien is drawn into a century-spanning conspiracy involving a secret bloodline, a woman who sees death, and a cult of dreamless sleepers. Each issue is a memory. A case file. As Lucien unravels the past, he confronts the one thing he’s always avoided: his own humanity. Autobiographical much?

She was about to shelve it again when she felt it. Not eyes exactly. Something subtler. A shift in the air pressure. A weight behind her shoulder. She turned slowly. Of course. Rhaegar fucking Targaryen. The bastard looked like a Calvin Klein ad had a baby with a Renaissance painting. High cheekbones. Perfect symmetry. That silver hair loose around his jaw like a halo designed by someone with a god complex. If he hadn’t been cursed with the whole no photos vampire thing, she was pretty sure he'd be on the side of buses.

“How serendipitous…” — He said, voice like melted violin strings.

Lyanna didn’t miss a beat. —  “Don’t tell me yer stalkin’ me now, Fangs.”

Rhaegar said it with that maddening mix of deadpan and elegance, like a line rehearsed in a mirror long ago and polished to glass. His voice low, velvety, tinged with a theatrical mockery, just enough to make her stomach flip in irritation, or something like it. — “I would never. It’s unbecoming. I was just picking up dinner.”

And there it was: that pause after ‘dinner’, like he wanted her to picture it. A red-lipped girl in some smoky corner of a bar, laughing too loudly, already forgetting his name before he bit into her. It would’ve been hilarious if it didn’t reek of the truth. If he wasn’t actually a bloodsucking son of a bitch. If he hadn’t once drunk from her wrist, and had her blood in his veins. But no, he said it like a joke he knew she wouldn’t laugh at. Like he enjoyed the sound of his own teeth sinking into the silence.

Lyanna narrowed her eyes, tilting her head just enough to show she wasn’t buying it. Her voice came out flat, edged with suspicion and dry wit, like she was daring him to lie to her face. —  “You traipsed ‘cross the whole bloody city just for a bite?” — It wasn’t really a question, it was an accusation wrapped in casual phrasing. Like maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t come all this way for food. Maybe he was here for her.

Rhaegar sniffed the air like some overdramatic bloodhound at a wine tasting, loud and theatrical, with a little tilt of his head for flair. Then he wrinkled his nose, as if offended on a personal level by what he’d just inhaled. —  “I like a good adventure. And by the smell…” —  He paused, eyes narrowing, that slow smirk blooming across his face. — “Whiskey. And… Invictus, Paco Rabanne?” —  The smirk faltered just slightly at the end, like he wasn’t entirely sure he’d nailed it. Like he hadn’t expected the scent to actually mean something, or maybe he had, and now he was wondering what kind of woman wore a cocky cologne made for frat boys. It was half smug, half confused, and all him: drama stitched to precision, with just enough vulnerability to make her want to punch him. 

She went for the figurative puch then. Lyanna narrowed her eyes, dry as ash. — “Noted,” — She said, sharp and flat, eyes sharp. — “I’ll mind to steer clear o’ men who smell like that. That one was dull as dishwater anyway.” — She didn’t blink when she said it; just let it hang there, casual as a threat.

He grinned. All teeth and something old behind the eyes. She hated that she noticed. Then he saw the book in her hands. The smirk that broke across his face was obscene — childish glee wearing grown-man leather.

“Looks like it’s got a bit o’ your own story in it, don’t it?” — She said dryly.

Rhaegar said it with that maddening, velvet smugness of his, like every word was a silk glove hiding a slap. His voice dipped just enough to sound intimate, self-satisfied, a little too pleased with himself. — “As any artist,” — He said, lips twitching in a ghost of a smirk,  — “I draw from personal experience. Curious to know which parts are real?” —Gods, she wanted to punch him. Just once. Right in that perfect, aristocratic face of his.

Lyanna said it flat as slate. Just one word. — “No.” — Dry as bone, stripped of interest, the kind of no that didn’t invite argument or flirtation or clever retort. She didn’t blink, didn’t soften it. And for a flicker of a second, she saw it: the way it shook him. Just a hitch in his breath, the faintest crack in his easy charm. It knocked him off rhythm. Good.

He asked quietly, but Lyanna caught the shift, the slight catch in his voice, the flicker of tension behind his eyes as he tried to recompose himself. It was almost endearing, really. A centuries-old vampire, grasping for calm like a man half his age fumbling through a first date. — “Why not?” — He asked, careful, low. And she had to admit, she liked seeing him squirm a little. Not many people could do that to something as old and tightly wound as him.

Lyanna said it flatly, without hesitation, like she was stating the weather. There was no accusation in her tone, just a quiet, unwavering certainty born from experience. She didn’t trust people. And she’d long stopped pretending otherwise. — “Cause I don’t reckon you’d tell me the truth,” — She said, her eyes steady on his, unreadable. It wasn’t meant to hurt. It was just what was .

He narrowed his eyes, the amused glint in them dimming into something sharper, more alert. His voice dropped, low and even, but there was a flicker of tension behind it, like he was trying to decide whether to be offended or entertained. — “You’re calling me a liar?” — He asked, head tilting just slightly, like he was measuring her next move.

Lyanna turned her eyes on the book, thumbing a page she wasn’t really reading. Not that she’d admit it, but it was easier than meeting his gaze, too direct, too curious, too much. Her voice was level, almost bored, but there was an edge to it. Not sharp, guarded. — “Folk say what they like. I just pick and choose what I believe.” — She held the book up like a shield, not bothering to glance at him. — “This’ll likely give me more filthy truth than your mouth ever will.”

Lyanna felt her spine stiffen as he stepped closer, the heat of him curling too near. His voice was smooth, too smooth, and the words came wrapped in something sly and pointed.— “Detective brain still at work, I see. Always interrogating. Is that what relationships look like with you, suspicion and cross-examination?” — It shouldn’t have stung. But it did. Like a finger pressed to a bruise she didn’t know she had. Her jaw tightened on instinct. 

He was joking, mostly. Teasing, probably. But the part that wasn’t? That part made her chest go taut. Relationships. As if she had those. As if she ever let anyone close enough to get interrogated. She hated how easy it was for him to spot the crack in the wall, even more than she hated that he was right.

She threw the words over her shoulder like a blade, voice sharp and cool as mountain frost. — “Not that you’ll ever ‘ave the pleasure o’ findin’ out. You wouldn’t last a day under the scrutiny.” — She turned on her heel, boots clicking with purpose, and walked toward the register without a glance back. It was a clean exit, cold, final, and just a little too fast, like if she stayed a moment longer, she might’ve said something she couldn’t take back.

He followed her, slick and silent like some hellspawn in dress shoes, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. —  “I’ve lived long enough,” — He said, voice low and smooth, but with a sharp edge underneath, —  “that I don’t have to answer to anyone.” — There was a cool confidence in his tone, like centuries had taught him to own every moment, and that was what made him dangerous.

She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes sharp as ice, voice dripping with dry amusement. —  “An' that’s why yer still playin’ singles.” — There was a sly edge to her words, like she knew exactly what he was missing, and wasn’t about to let him forget it.

Their eyes locked. And for half a second — half a heartbeat — the world quieted. It was dangerous, how easy it was. The banter. The pull. How she let herself miss it. Howland was too quiet. Sig never challenged her like this. But Rhaegar? He saw what she was. And let her see what he was. No masks. Just fangs and fucked-up trauma. She paid for the book. He stood beside her like it meant something.

Rhaegar’s voice dropped low, a teasing edge wrapped around the warning. He said it slow, almost savoring the words, like a challenge tossed with a sly smile. — “Read it,” — He told her, eyes flickering with mischief. — “See what you find. But don’t dig too deep, Lyanna. You might hit a grave.”

Lyanna said it cool and steady, eyes glinting with a mix of challenge and curiosity, she was ready to dig in no matter the danger.  — “That might jus’ be what I’m lookin’ for.”

She didn’t linger. But outside, he was already waiting. Said it’d be rude not to walk her home. Said monsters were everywhere. Gods, how sarcastically clever he was — couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that, even if part of hre wanted to smack that smug grin right off his face. She rolled her eyes, let him walk beside her anyway. He asked about her favorite books. She scoffed. Then told him. Tender Is the Flesh came up. He looked horrified. She laughed for the first time in what felt like weeks. He teased her for her ‘misanthropic horror manifesto’ . She said she’d seen Água Viva by Clarice Lispector by his door once, accused him of hosting Sad Vampire Poetry Hour . He didn’t deny it. Maybe she liked that most of all.

He didn’t stick around after dropping her off. Not that she asked. Not that she thought he’d say yes they weren’t friends just occasionally working together. She didn’t invite him in. Would’ve been weird if he had lingered.  He was at best an acquaintance, maybe, if you stretched the word like bad elastic. Still, she stood in the stairwell for a second too long, keys in hand, listening to the echo of him walking away like it might change its mind. She went to bed without thinking too hard about it, because thinking was a trap and she was already halfway in. And she was right, wasn’t she? Morning punched her in the face like it meant it. Barely managed to roll out of bed, toss herself through a shower, pull on something that didn’t smell like gunpowder or grave dirt — and there was Howland, practically vibrating with urgency at her office table like a polite ghost.

“Ye’ve got a ten o’clock,” — He said, and she didn’t bother pretending to be surprised.

The case looked plain on paper. Which meant it wasn’t. Stedde Farlow. Forty-seven. Mechanic. Specialized in vintage cars — Cadillacs, Mustangs, the kind of metal men thought gave them souls. He’d been missing nine months. Long enough to go cold. Long enough to start smelling like rot if the truth ever surfaced. The client was his ex-mother-in-law.

“Me daughter’s gone,” — The old woman said, voice a tight thread of grief.  — “And he was the only one left for the girl.”

Lyanna sat across from her in the quiet room, one eye already aching like it could see through lies if she stared long enough. She’d lit a cigarette halfway through the story, let it burn more than she smoked it. The air was stale with unsaid things.

“Did Stedde have owt in the way o’ bad habits?” —  Lyanna asked, voice rough as gravel. —  “Cards, drinkin’, owt that might steer him toward trouble?”

The woman folded her hands. Fragile skin, shaking fingers. Parkinson’s, she’d said. Couldn’t care for the girl herself. That guilt was baked into every word.

“I don’t ken what happened between ‘im and me daughter,” — She said quietly. — “He were a good man. But he’s been gone nine months now. Me granddaughter, she needs her da. She’s already lost her mam.”

Lyanna didn’t say she understood. She didn’t. Not really. But she knew what absence felt like, how it could turn the air to ice and silence into a scream. — “If t’school hadn’t taken her in...” — The woman looked down. — “I dunno what would’ve happened.”

Lyanna stubbed out the cigarette, cracked her knuckles, and leaned in just slightly. — “Missus Fitz,” — She said, voice lower now, slower, like coaxing a ghost out of hiding, — “Gotta ask, d’you think Stedde had owt to do wi’ your lass’s death?”

The old woman looked up, startled. Her mouth worked for a moment. — “Nah,” she said. — “He were never th’ violent sort.”

Lyanna nodded once. No judgment. Just data. Shadows and facts. “Aright,” — She muttered, grabbing her coat. — “I’ll start wi’ th’ cars. Go by the shops, maybe have a word wi’ the coppers. You think o’ anythin’ else… Habits, mates, places he might’ve legged it to… You ring me.”

After she went on her way the cold hit her face like a slap as she stepped outside. Vintage cars, missing man, dead mother. And a little girl stuck in the middle, waiting on someone who might already be bones in a junkyard. Gods, she hated cases with kids. But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Not when the world kept spitting people out and expecting them to disappear quietly.

***

The night air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked asphalt and the faint metallic tang of blood. Rhaegar moved through the city's underbelly with the grace of a predator, his footsteps silent against the damp pavement. He had been working tirelessly on his latest piece, channeling his power to ensure its swift delivery to his publisher. So tonight, hunger gnawed at him — a hunger that couldn't be sated by mere words or the sterile taste of blood bags. Feeding had become the only indulgence he allowed himself, a momentary escape from the weight of his existence. While some of his kind viewed it as a necessary evil, Rhaegar found a twisted solace in the act. The exchange of blood was intimate, a fleeting connection that reminded him of the humanity he had long since lost. Blood bags were a poor substitute, devoid of the emotions that gave life its flavor. Animal blood was even worse — a temporary fix that left him feeling hollow.

So he found himself in a dimly lit corner of the city, a place where the desperate and the damned offered themselves for the euphoric high that came with his bite. Tonight's offering was a woman with dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, her style reminiscent of a certain someone who had taken up residence in his thoughts. She was forward, her hands exploring as he fed, but his mind wandered to Lyanna. He imagined her touch, her scent, the way she might react to his embrace, to his bite. The thought was both unsettling and oddly comforting. His phone buzzed, pulling him from his reverie. He withdrew his fangs. The phone vibrated once on the steel table beside him, its screen flashing her name like a curse. Rhaegar stared at it for a beat too long. Then he answered, bringing the device slowly to his ear. 

“Targaryen,” —  He said, his voice smooth and controlled.

Her voice came through the receiver unevenly — grainy, half-muted by static and distance, like it was clawing its way out of some grimy corner of the world. It had that unmistakable edge — low, tired, threaded with something sardonic and vaguely amused, as if she’d already solved the case but wanted to see if he'd catch up.

“Hey… Got meself a case. Bit of a mess, this one. Someone's gone missin'.” — A pause, just long enough for a ghost of a smile to flicker across his mouth.

Of course it was her. Of course it was now. He hadn’t heard from her in three days — long enough to start telling himself she was gone, that whatever passed between them had fizzled out like the end of a bad dream. And yet, like the devil, she always showed up when the blood on his hands wasn’t quite dry. That voice, always the same: matter-of-fact, maddeningly calm, with just enough roughness to make it sound like a dare.

He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. — “If you want, I can sniff him out?” — He offered, trying to keep it light, but she cut him off before the words could even settle.

“Keep yer nose to yerself. It's that brain I need. Had a feelin’ about this, I dunno.” —  And there it was. That little crack in her confidence. That thread of doubt she hated anyone to hear, but let him hear, anyway.

The devil, indeed. But she was his now, whether she knew it or not. —  “Twenty minutes,” — He murmured. —  “I'll be yours.”

“Good. See you.” — The words left Rhaegar's lips with a practiced calm, clipped but velvet-lined, habit, not affection. He snapped the phone shut with a flick of his wrist.

The woman beside him stirred, her breath still ragged from the aftermath. Her fingers grazed his shirt sleeve, searching for something more, contact, maybe. Meaning, possibly. Foolish of her. — “You goin’ already, honey?” — She asked, her voice a slow-lingering drawl, laced with disappointment she hadn’t earned.

Rhaegar didn’t sigh, though he might’ve once. Instead, he offered the sort of half-smile that looked better in dim lighting and meant absolutely nothing. — “Yes,” — He said smoothly, brushing the blood from his lip with a napkin someone had left crumpled on the table. — “Something came up.”

It always did. He rose, silent and graceful, fastening his cuffs with the ease of a man who’d perfected the exit long before he'd learned to enjoy the entrance. She wouldn’t remember his name, but she’d remember how it felt. And perhaps that was the fairest trade he could offer. Rhaegar wasn't one for interruptions, but Lyanna had a way of unsettling his carefully constructed world. He arrived at her apartment, and she filled him in as they drove to the crime scene. A mother dead from what appeared to be an animal attack, a child left behind, and a missing father. Lyanna suspected the father, a common enough scenario, but Rhaegar sensed there was more to it.

“So you think the child's father told the mother where he was?” — He asked as they approached the suburban house.

They stepped into the house, quiet, suburban, the kind of place built for comfort and slowly rotted by disuse. The air still clung to yesterday’s tragedy. Blood leaves a scent, even when scrubbed.

Lyanna broke the silence first, her voice dry as old stone. — “Aye, not quite. Blokes who bail don't usually make the New Year card list, do they?”

Rhaegar arched a brow, the faintest ghost of amusement pulling at his mouth. —  “As a man,” —  He said, stepping past an overturned coat rack, — “I might resent the statement.”

She glanced sideways at him, unbothered. — “I mean, you should only take it to heart if you're the bailin' sort. No cause for offence if the shoe don’t fit. ”

It was disarming — the way she delivered sharp truths with such offhand precision. Like flicking a blade into your ribs and walking on without pause. He should’ve let it slide, should’ve reminded himself that he’d lived too long to care what a young banshee thought about male commitment patterns. And yet. The comment nestled itself somewhere beneath his ribs, irritating in a way he didn’t like admitting. She thought she knew what kind of man he was. Perhaps she did. But not all of him. Inside, the house was in disarray. Lyanna pulled on gloves from her messenger bag and began to examine the scene. Rhaegar watched her, noting the way her mind worked, the methodical approach she took.

Lyanna’s voice was offhand, almost careless, as she moved through the dimly lit kitchen, eyes sweeping over the mess like she was cataloguing a crime scene and a memory at the same time. — “Well, ah dun think y’d be offended. Y dun’t strike me as t’long-term commitment type.”

She tossed the words over her shoulder like they didn’t matter, but Rhaegar caught them all the same. He watched her — watched the way her gloved fingers traced the edge of a cabinet door, the way her mouth twitched when she thought she’d scored a point.

His reply came smooth as silk, but colder. Drier. — “You must be more blind than you let on,” — He said, arching a brow. — “I'm the definition of long-term commitment.”

She didn't respond, which irked him more than he cared to admit. He wasn't used to being ignored, especially not by someone who had managed to pierce his defenses. Rhaegar’s voice cut through the quiet, low and precise, — “If he didn’t tell his wife where he was, what exactly are we doing here?” — His tone held a cool edge of skepticism, but beneath it lingered a flicker of impatience, time was never on his side.

Lyanna, steady and unshaken, met his gaze with that faint, knowing smirk.  — “He might not ’ave told ’er straight,” — She said, voice clipped but confident, — “but maybe ’e left summat that’ll lead us to ’im.” — There was a trace of hope, or maybe defiance, in her words, like she was daring fate to prove them wrong.

The silent understanding between them deepened: this wasn’t just a missing person case. It was a puzzle neither was willing to let go. In the kitchen, the carpet was stained with dark burgundy blood. Lyanna moved toward the cabinets, but Rhaegar's senses picked up something else.

As they stood in the dim light, Lyanna glanced over at him, a hint of concern threading her voice. — “You alright?” — She asked, eyes sharp but cautious.

Rhaegar’s gaze flickered briefly toward the blood stains on the floor, voice low and almost teasing, — “It’s the blood.”

She smirked, nudging him with a playful jab, — “Don’t tell me it’s makin’ ye sick, Fangs.”

He gave a dry chuckle, masking the lingering hunger beneath his composed exterior. — “I’m just hungry… got interrupted in the middle of my dinner.”

Lyanna raised an eyebrow, pressing further, — “Ye sniff somethin’ else then? Some tracks o’ th’ killer?”

Rhaegar’s reply was clipped, laced with that dark wit of his, — “Lyanna, I’m a vampire, not a bloodhound.”

She turned her attention to the scattered items on the floor — a turned chair, papers strewn about. He began to search the other side of the kitchen when Lyanna called him over. She held a child's drawing: a little girl in a pink dress standing next to a figure with similar features, lying on the floor with bite and scratch marks, and a monstrous creature looming nearby.

Rhaegar’s voice carried a faint edge of dry amusement as he regarded the child’s drawing. — “Vivid imagination. It’d be natural for a girl who lost her mother.” — He sounded almost indulgent, as if humoring a child’s fantasy, or perhaps testing her resolve.

Lyanna’s tone cut through his lightness, firm and deliberate. — “It would be. But have a gander at the date.”

She showed him the envelope, dated a week ago — before the murder had taken place. Lyanna took pictures of everything, but Rhaegar had a feeling this missing person case was about to snowball into something much more complex. When she mentioned going to the morgue to talk to a friend, he knew there was no way he was letting her go alone. The city morgue had the charm of a crypt and the scent of a butcher’s after hours — sterile chemicals barely masking the metallic undercurrent of death. For most, it was a place of endings. For Rhaegar, it was an inconvenient aphrodisiac. He held himself taut at the threshold. Hunger itched just beneath the skin, tugging like an old, bad habit. Entering a morgue on half a meal was like strolling into a Dornish kitchen after fasting two days. Temptation pressed its tongue to his teeth. But he knew how to behave.

Lyanna led the way, her steps echoing like punctuation marks across the linoleum. She moved like she didn’t care what she disturbed, which in her case was often the point. The mortuary greeted them in scrubs, sleeves dusted with evidence of his work. Sharp features, serious eyes. The kind of man who looked like he listened to Mahler alone in the dark and lit incense to keep the ghosts company. Rhaegar circled him slowly, cataloguing the scents — formaldehyde, burnt sage, faint traces of necromantic residue. Superstition clung to the man like cologne then. Understandable, if one spent their evenings elbow-deep in corpses.

“You workin' late then, mate?” — Lyanna asked, in that drawl that made everything sound like a challenge.

The mortician smiled, just slightly. — “I work when me clients need me. Looks like I’m not th’ only one on night shift now, eh?”

Rhaegar’s gaze swept across the counters — vials, clamps, empty coffee cups, and the kind of paperwork only the dead could escape. He said nothing, but the glance was its own language. He was already building a profile.

“Rhaegar, this is Mance Rayder. Mortician.” —  Lyanna waved a hand with casual authority, as though introducing her vampire consultant to the local librarian.

Mance gave a reverent bow. It had been years since anyone had done that to him. It felt… wrong. Or perhaps he’d forgotten how to be treated like something once kingly. —  “How d’you do, then?” —  The mortician asked, voice soft but knowing.

Rhaegar offered a nod in return, not bothering with the pretense of warmth. — “We’re askin’ about Anastasia Farlow,” — Lyanna said, stepping toward the draped body like she was about to interrogate it.

Rhaegar followed, eyes already on the corpse. The woman had been torn — violently, efficiently. But not by one of his kind. No, this was something else. Messier. Older. His thoughts drifted to the drawing, the one Lyanna had all but buried in her bag. He hadn't forgotten.

“Bit of a conundrum,” — Mance said. —  “Been waitin’ for you to come ’round. At first, I reckoned it were some sort o’ creature.”

“Like wild dogs?” — Lyanna asked, skeptical.

“Only if they’ve started breeding dogs that don’t shed and don’t leave saliva behind when they bite.” — Mance said it with a dry, academic sort of irony, like a man who'd seen enough corpses to grow tired of polite fiction. His tone was cool but edged with something sharper, as if daring them to contradict him.

Rhaegar tilted his head, tone dry. — “Didn’t the police find that strange?”

Mance gestured toward Lyanna. — “The coppers’re trained t’ignore owt that don’t fit in their reports. She used t’do that an’ all. But once you’ve seen summat weird, you can’t unsee it.”

“I keep a open mind these days,” —  Lyanna said. She meant it. It was one of the reasons he kept her close.

Rhaegar and Mance shared a glance. Not a hostile one. Just two men quietly sizing each other up, measuring secrets against instinct. Mance seemed too perceptive. It made Rhaegar want to put him on a list.

“What’s yer best guess, then?” —  Lyanna asked.

Mance didn’t blink. — “Nothin’ no one could arrest or kill.”

“No leads, then,” — Lyanna said flatly.

Mance said it slow, with a quiet weight behind his words, — “No suspects. But whatever did this, was scared, or angry. It didn’t stop when she died.” — like he’d seen more trouble than he cared to admit.

While Lyanna buried herself in autopsy reports, Rhaegar slipped his hand into her messenger bag with the sleight of a pickpocket and pulled out the drawing. She didn’t look up. That told him everything. Familiarity was its own kind of confession.

Rhaegar brought it over to Mance, holding it open. —  “Could something like this have done it?”

Mance looked. And then looked up at Rhaegar like he was the one who might know. — “If it existed… Aye. Does it?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Rhaegar turned to Lyanna. Her mouth was tight. She didn’t like him showing it. Maybe she thought he was making her look mad. Maybe she was used to it.

She closed the file and handed it back to Mance with a brisk nod. —  “Nah, thanks, Mance.” — He nodded again, silent, watching them as though trying to decide if they were allies or omens. Outside, in the stairwell, Lyanna turned halfway up the steps, one hand on the railing, her voice flinty. — “Why’d ye show ’im that?”

Rhaegar tucked the drawing into his coat. — “Big teeth. Big claws. Shown eating the mother. For my money, it’s not just a drawing.”

She stared at him. —  “Ye talkin’ premonition?”

“Yes.” — Rhaegar’s voice was low and steady, laced with quiet certainty, no room for doubt, but not boastful. Just a calm, measured confirmation, like a man stating a fact long accepted but rarely spoken aloud.

Lyanna said it slow, drawlin’ the words like she was weighin’ each one careful-like, with a bit of a sharp edge under her breath, half joke, half serious. — “Right. Place yer bet on Baba Yaga. I’m goin’ with the father.”

He smirked faintly. — “Had lunch with her last week. Lovely woman.”

Lyanna didn’t miss a beat. — “Really? Last time I saw her was at me nan’s funeral.”

His chuckle was a quiet exhale of something sharp and dark. — “Sounds like her.”

***

Her office still smelled like last night’s cigarettes and stale rain. Light bled in sideways through the blinds — grey, stingy stuff, not doing anyone any favours. Lyanna nursed her second coffee like it might fight back, and maybe it would. It was instant, burnt, and black as a priest’s conscience. Her desk was a mess of photos, scribbled notes, empty takeaway boxes, and two dead lighters she hadn’t thrown out yet. The door creaked open without knocking. Of course.

“Reckon I’m due a hug, me.” — Howland announced, all chipper and freckled, like someone who hadn’t spent half the night reading autopsy reports and trying not to weep.

She didn’t look up. Just took a long sip of coffee that tasted like rust and regret. —  “Mornin’ to ye too, freckles.”

Howland grinned like he hadn’t heard worse from her, and he had. — “Checked every proper repair shop round 'ere. Found the father, works at Vintage Auto, just by the New Castle.”

She raised a brow. Not bad for a lad who looked like he’d bruise if you glared too hard.  — “Bloody impressive, that. Keep goin’ like this an’ I might even manage a holiday.”

Lyanna glanced up from her files just in time to catch the stupid little frog stitched on Howland’s hoodie. Bright green thing, smug as hell. Fit him, honestly. —  “What aboot a raise?” — He said, half-grinnin’, like he knew it were cheeky but said it anyway.

Lyanna didn’t even look up, just kept scribblin’ in her notebook, voice flat as a pint gone warm, — “I’ll bring yer a souvenir. Fridge magnet that says I survived me trip t’Asshai. ” — Deadpan delivery. Like she weren’t joking. but the ghost of a smirk tugged at her lip all the same.

She pushed a piece of paper across the desk. —  “What d’you think about this?”

It was the kid’s drawing — crude, black lines, splattered red, something half-wolf, half-shadow, all wrong. Something that felt like a scream without sound. Howland blinked. Blushed straight to his ears. Poor bastard looked like someone had lit a fire under his freckles. Howland squinted at the drawing Lyanna shoved toward him — all jagged edges and wrong proportions, like it had been clawed out of a nightmare. He scratched the back of his neck, the sleeve of his hoodie riding up to reveal the stupid little cartoon frog on it. She clocked it but said nothing. Yet.

“Bit of a vivid imagination, that,” — He muttered, half-apologetic, eyes still on the paper.

Lyanna leaned back in her chair, chair leg creakin’ like it was protestin’. Her voice came low, serious now, none of her usual piss-take in it, — “Nah. I mean... could it be summat mythical?” — She said it like she already knew the answer, and hated that she had to ask.

He tilted his head, cautious now. — “I could give a look through the bestiaries. Might find somethin’.”

“Ye do that,” — She said, standing up and yanking her coat on. — “Gonna check on the guy.”

The place reeked of oil, rust, and male sweat — the kind of smell that clung to skin and followed you home. Lyanna pulled into the garage like a woman heading into a fight. Traffic’d already crawled through her nerves, and now this — mechanic shops always reminded her of her dad. The grease, the noise, the tools that could become weapons. She walked in with her jaw tight, her fingers already brushing the taser tucked in her coat pocket. Twelve cars out front. Most forgettable. One caught her eye — the little girl’s reflection in the shine of the hood, same colour hair. She moved toward it on instinct.

“Stedde Ruairi Farlow?” — She asked.

The man turned from under the hood, wiping his hands on a rag. Looked like he’d been built to swing hammers or fists, not answer questions. — “Who’re you, lass?”

Lyanna said it flat, no fluff — “Here about yer wife.”  — just straight and sharp like a blade. No softening, no sugarcoating. Like she was tossing a fact at him and waiting to see if it stuck.

His face went grey, all the blood draining down to his boots. He looked over his shoulder, scanning the room. Empty. Good. She still checked where her taser sat. Just in case he got stupid. — “I didnae hurt Anya.”

“Didn’t ask,” — She said flat, no-nonsense. — “But a guilty denial’s nae exactly a golden start.”

He let out a bitter little laugh, the kind that smelled like fear and cheap whisky. — “Well, she’s dead, and I’m the ex. Coppers don’t like exes. Had that one ready.”

She was about to answer when another man, bigger, broader, too cheerful, poked his head round the corner. — “Hey Stedde, can you help me with the Cadillac for a second?”

Stedde glanced back at the other bloke with a quick, shifty look. — “'Course. Hey Nolan... where was I last Friday night?” — His voice had that edge, half casual, half watchin' for any slip-up.

Nolan shrugged. —  “At the pub. With us. Why?”

Stedde gave him a tight nod. —  “Nothin’. I’ll see ye out.” — Nolan wandered off into the smell of petrol and ghosts. Stedde turned back, jaw set. — “What now? Ye gon arrest me?”

Lyanna cocked her head.—  “Who said Ah’m a cop?”

That made him twitch. He rubbed his palms down his grimy coveralls. —“Then why’re ye talkin’?”

“I’m a PI. Yer mother-in-law hired me.” — Her voice sharpened.— “Ye daughter needs ye.”

He snorted. — “Then she can find someone else.”

Lyanna saw red. She grabbed his wrist before he could step away, voice slicing like a blade. — “You’re ’er da, ye useless coward. Least ye could do, as a decent fuckin’ man, is show up. She found ’er. Yer lass found ’er mum gutted like livestock, an’ where the fuck were ye? Hidin’ in a garage? Drinkin’ with yer mates?” — He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him the chance. —  “I’ll let the two of ‘em know ye couldn’t be arsed.”

Then she let go, cold and disgusted, and walked back to her car. Wind slapped her face when she stepped outside, bitter and sharp. The kind that felt like judgment. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands and told herself it was just the cold. But she knew better. The office was quiet when she pushed through the door, that kind of silence you only get in old buildings after morning — thick, still, and a little too patient. Howland was tucked in the corner, headphones on, muttering at whatever podcast was pretending to teach him something useful. Good. She didn’t feel like talking.

She moved straight to the back room, peeled off her sweat-stained shirt, and pulled on the black sports bra — the one that wouldn’t piss her off come laundry day. Cargo pants stayed on. She needed the weight. Needed something to anchor her while the air felt like it wanted to shake her loose from the inside out. The sandbag hung from a steel beam above the floor, swaying just a little as she strapped on her gloves. No ceremony. Just the need to hit something hard enough to forget the way that kid’s voice had cracked. The way blood still smelled like iron under her nails. Her fist met the bag. A dull, satisfying thud. Again. Again. Behind her, a voice — too casual to be innocent.

“Did it spill its guts, aye?” — Sigorn, leaning in the doorway like he hadn’t spent years proving how shit he was at boundaries.

She didn’t look at him. Kept her rhythm. — “No yet.”

Sigorn said it with that half-casual, half-grim tone he used when he already knew the answer but wanted to hear it from her lips. Voice low, a bit raspy, like he’d smoked too much or hadn’t slept right in a few days. He leaned against the doorframe like it owed him something, arms crossed, brow raised. — “You find t’dad, then?”

“Aye. Got ‘imself an alibi.” — Another punch. Shoulder to knuckles, the pain felt honest.

Sigorn stepped inside like it was his fucking office. — “Come, Lya…”

“No. Don’t ‘Lya’ me.” — Her voice sliced like broken glass. — “Somethin’ happened. The da knows. The lass knows. She saw who gutted her mum like livestock, an’ she’s carryin’ it like she’s scared it’ll come back an’ finish her off too.”

He sat down at her desk, hands folded like he thought that made him look wise. —  “D’you still reckon it were the dad, then?”

Lyanna crossed her arms tight across her chest like she was holding herself together by sheer will. Chin tipped up, jaw set. Her voice came out low and flat, like a warning bell that'd long stopped ringing but still echoed somewhere in the bones. —  “Dunno, do I? Fuck if I know.”

Sigorn shifted his weight, arms folded like he was bracing for a blow that might never come but would hurt all the same. His voice wasn’t sharp — “Look, we talked t’t’lass. Therapist did an’ all. Both reckon she’s got nowt in her head ‘bout it. No clue.” — just tired, worn down at the edges, like a man trying to steady something that's already slipping through his fingers. He looked at Lyanna, steady but cautious, like you'd look at a wild dog that might still bite even if it’s bleeding.

Lyanna stopped punching. Turned her head just enough to catch him over her shoulder. Her voice low. — “An’ what d’you believe in, Sig?”

He sighed like he pitied her. She wanted to break his nose for it. — “Phone records show he had a call to the school.”

Lyanna replied gritting her teeth, gloves swinging back for another hit, — “So ’e did talk t’her, then.”

Sigorn shrugged, voice low and wary, — “E talked t’someone, aye. Don’t mean much on its own.”

Lyanna paused, breath heavy but eyes locked on the bag, —  “It’s a start.”

Sigorn stepped in, rubbing the back of his neck, voice rough but honest, — “Usually, I’d say trust yer gut, but this one’s got me worried.”

“That again?” — She sneered. — “Ye worry too much.’ll wrinkle yer ugly mug more.”

She didn’t wait for him to leave, just kept moving until the weight of his cologne finally faded. When she was alone, she picked up the envelope with the kid’s drawing — the one that made her stomach turn. Looked over it. Post-it stuck inside. A phone number. A name: Laura Crowley. Didn’t take much to pull her up on the school website. Arts teacher at some halfway-to-nowhere semi-boarding school for neurodivergent kids. The kind of place no one looks too closely at. Lucky her. The ride there was quiet. Wind in the vents, her hair still damp from the shower she didn’t have time to enjoy. She parked and walked in like she owned the place. The classroom was empty save for a woman hunched over a desk, worn around the edges in the way people get when they’ve seen too much and spoken too little.

Lyanna called out sharp, voice cutting through the quiet room, — “Laura Crowley?”

The woman turned. Middle-aged. Tired eyes. Lyanna knew how to modulate her tone, like flipping a switch from feral to civil. Sound enough like a cop and people stop looking for a badge.

Her voice was steady, clipped, like she was used to cutting through bullshit and getting straight to the point. No softness, no sugar, just cold, hard business, —  “Ah’m workin’ th’ Farlow case. Ye sent this tae her mum a few days back.”

“I’m sorry,” — Laura said. —  “Me office hours are closed.”

Lyanna tilted her head. — “We checked th’ phone records. Ye called her da’ too.”

Laura crumbled, slumping into her chair like she’d been waiting for someone to knock the truth out of her. — “I called him. I was worried. She’d been drawin’ these things… Same shape, same... thing, for months. Talked about moving. Anastasia wanted to start fresh. But he already knew. Like he’d seen it comin’.”

Lyanna nodded once. — “And?”

“He didn’t care.” — Laura’s voice was flat, almost defeated, like she’d given up trying to hope for anything better. She avoided eye contact, her shoulders slumped as if carrying the weight of disappointment.

Lyanna’s tone was dry, clipped, a little biting, — “Aye, got that loud and clear. Anything else gnawin’ at you besides them drawings?” — like she was calling out the obvious but letting it hang in the air like a warning. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, scanning Laura’s face for any sign of lies.

“It’s just a drawing.” — Laura’s tone was defensive, quick to dismiss. She straightened up, voice a little sharper, like she was trying to shut down the conversation before it got uncomfortable

Lyanna replied, dropped, slow and deliberate, like she was planting a seed of doubt. Her eyes locked onto Laura’s, daring her to lie or back away. There was a faint, knowing smirk playing at the corner of her mouth, — “Ye sure about that?” — a challenge disguised as a question.

Laura twitched. Got up. Something in her moved wrong — like she was about to bolt. Lyanna tensed, ready. But instead, the woman locked the door, walked to a desk, and pulled a stack of paper out of a drawer. Drawings. Dozens of them. That same twisted, monstrous shape doing things no child should imagine.

“I showed these to the director. Mister Coriolanus. Thought he’d help. Instead, he made her one of his ‘special students.’”—  Laura said it bitterly, with a sharp edge of disappointment and frustration. Her voice was low and steady, like she was trying to hold back anger and sadness at the same time.

Lyanna asked sharp and suspicious, narrowing her eyes like she smelled bullshit. Her voice cut through the silence, rough and clipped, not bothering to hide the challenge. — “Special students, ye say?”

“He says he lets their talents take them where they need to go.” —  Laura said it with a tired kind of resignation, like she’d heard the line a hundred times before and wasn’t sure whether to believe it or just accept it as polite nonsense. 

Lyanna pointed to a picture, throat tightening. — “When’d this start?”

Laura said it quietly, like she didn’t want to admit how bad it really got. Her voice was low and a bit shaky, like she was holding back something. —  “They got worse a few months ago.”

She responded almost clipped, like she was testing the words out loud more than asking. Her finger jabbed at the drawing, a quick, impatient motion  — “The monster… maybe it’s her dad. Some kind of abuse?” — not gentle, not careful. There was a hard edge to her question, like she was daring anyone to deny the ugly truth she was smelling in the air.

Laura’s voice wavered, like she was clutching at something just out of reach,— “I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. But she needs help.” — unsure but trying to sound steady. There was a nervous edge, like she wanted to believe it was nothing serious, but deep down, she knew better. 

Lyanna was about to press harder when it started. The tremor hit under her boots like something had woken up angry beneath the floor. Lights flickered. The air pulsed, thick with static and heat, like the city itself was trying to warn her.

She spat it out sharp, like a shot cutting through thick smoke, — “What in the seven bloody ‘ells...” — half pissed, half stunned, like the world just tipped sideways and she was ready to punch something hard. Her voice cracked with tension, low and rough, but laced with that trademark biting edge she used when things got way too fucked up.

“I don’t know!” —  Laura shouted.

And then it came. It didn’t walk in. It burned into existence — tall and wrong, a creature shaped like a man but made of dusk and fire. Every line of its body wavered like smoke on a funeral pyre. Claws. Eyes like coals that hadn’t died right. No sound but the scream of heat and the silence before things explode. Lyanna’s gut screamed. Old magic. Older than her.

“Go!” — Lynna shouted to Laura. —  “Run!”

But before she could, the thing flung Lyanna into the wall like she weighed nothing. Pain sang down her spine. She pushed herself up in time to see it raise its claws — straight above the teacher trying to open the door. Lyanna didn’t think. She moved. It hit Laura square in the back — hard enough to knock her flat—but the thing didn’t get far. Before it could breathe or scream or whatever the hell spectral beasts do, Lyanna had already flung a chair at it. Good, solid oak. Shattered on impact. The creature fizzled into smoke and memory like something ashamed to be seen. Whatever energy it left behind tasted like static and blood. She didn’t blink. A call to 999, a lot of muttering about earthquakes, and the teacher was getting wheeled out on a stretcher. Alive, somehow. Shaking like a leaf in February, but alive. Lyanna? She had more questions than sense and the migraine to prove it. And then — just to salt the wound — she saw a face she hadn’t expected to see anywhere near this kind of mess.

“Lya, ye a’right?” — Of course. Sigorn.

Always showing up late and asking the wrong questions in that concerned-cop tone like he hadn’t known her for years. He had that look in his eyes — like she was a bomb he wanted to disarm with soft words. She didn’t bother turning fully toward him. Just shifted her weight and gave him the kind of look that could’ve peeled paint off the walls.

She replied it low and sharp, like the words had teeth. Her voice didn’t raise, — “T’fuck you doin’ ‘ere?” — Lyanna never wasted volume when venom would do, but there was tension in her shoulders, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes.

“Heard on th’ line you were ‘ere. You alright? They said it were some kinda quake or summat…” — Sigorn said it with a tight brow and a worry he didn’t bother to hide. His voice was gruff but quiet, like he was trying not to spook her. Hands twitching like he wanted to reach for her but knew better.

“Wouldn’t say that,” — She cut in, voice rough as gravel under boot. — “But if I told ya the truth, you’d be callin’ a shrink or a bloody priest.”

He said it low and steady, brows drawn, voice rough but not sharp — “Come on, what’s wi’ the attitude? Try me.” — like he was trying to stay calm even if she was pushing all his buttons. There was frustration there, sure, but under it, concern he couldn’t quite hide.

So she did. She watched him brush his face like that’d help him think straight. Her words dropped like cold rain. — “Big orange bastard came crashin’ through the wall. Hit her hard. Barreled through us both. Had teeth like knives, breath like a corpse. Ghost-shite. Mean as fuck.”

He stared. Blinked. Swore under his breath like she’d just said the moon was bleeding. — “A lass nearly died, Lya. This ain’t something to be jokin’ about.”

“Ah am na fuckin’ jokin’.” — Her jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone. 

He shook his head, disbelieving. Just like always. She could drag a demon’s corpse to his front porch and he’d still ask for lab results. — “Aye, but every case lately’s been like summat outta the bloody Twilight Zone. Targaryen in on this one too, is he?”

There it was. That name. That tone.  Lyanna rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to strangle him with his own tie. —  “Gods, what is it wi’ you an’ him? He ain’t even here. If you wanna ask him out, I’ll give ya his bloody number. But this obsession shite’s gettin’ real creepy.”

Sigorn glanced past her, toward the foyer doors, his brows drawing together like he was already bracing for the headache to walk in. His voice dropped — “Aye. He is now.” — half warning, half smug, with that gruff tilt he couldn’t shake even when he tried to play it cool.

She turned. Snapped around like something had bitten her. The school’s foyer was all shadows and echo, the stink of cold stone and leftover fire lingering in the air. And there he was. Rhaegar Fucking Targaryen. She hadn’t even realized the sun had gone down. That was the problem with adrenaline and banshee blood — you missed things. Big things. Like him showing up like the universe had personally scheduled it to piss her off. And, of course, he looked like sin. He strolled in like a man who didn’t know how to knock, velvet and bone and glamour from another decade. That blazer looked like it had cost more than her apartment. Brown velvet, satin lapels. Deep-V shirt daring the world to stare. Some skinny patterned scarf she didn’t have the energy to mock. Accessories like he’d mugged a jewelry box and made it work.  She hated how good he looked. Hated even more the way her breath caught when she realized he’d come looking.

Sigorn, ever the poet, muttered under his breath, — “Looks like Dennis Rodman an’ Mick Jagger went an’ had a bairn.”

Rhaegar slid into the room like a snake slipping through shadows, every movement slick and deliberate. His voice rolled out slow and low, smooth as honey but sharp as razors hidden beneath the sweetness. — “Supposed to be an insult, Detective?” — It was equal parts tease and threat, a velvet drawl that promised trouble wrapped in silk. 

Sigorn replied it with a grin, half-joking but sharp-eyed — “Ye look like a pimp, ye know that?” — like he was sizing him up and calling out him on his bullshit in one breath. His tone was rough, casual, like sharing a dirty secret down at the pub. 

Rhaegar smiled without warmth a slow, cutting elegance — “And lack of style is an insult to the eye, but I wouldn’t be rude enough to say that to your face.” — every word measured like a blade sliding out of velvet. His voice was smooth but icy, laced with that sharp, aristocratic edge that didn’t just insult, but carved through you like a scalpel. — “But since we’re skipping formalities, you could do better than looking like a sack of shit.”  —  There was a teasing cruelty behind it, the kind that mocks while making you feel exactly how outclassed you are. Rhaegar leaned just enough into the disdain to let you know he meant it, but held back enough to keep it deliciously barbed.

Lyanna rubbed at her temple like she could massage away the stupidity in the air. — “Can ye both act like grown-ups fer once in yer lives?” — She sighed, already regretting everything. — “Preferably ‘fore another bloody ghost shows up.”

The room was thick with that cold, sterile stink — half blood, half bleach — lingering like a bad joke no one wanted to laugh at. Dim fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows that stretched and twisted like the ghosts only she could see. Sigorn looked ready to bolt back to whatever hellhole he called work, glancing like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

“Can’t be hangin’ about,” — Sigorn said, voice rough around the edges, like a smoker who’d been at it since his teens. —  “Gotta get back to the grind.”

Rhaegar, smooth as snake oil and twice as slick, flashed that damn Cheshire cat grin like he was playing a game nobody else knew the rules to. — “Sure you do,” — He said, voice low, with that undercurrent of challenge like he was daring Sigorn to call his bluff.

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed, catching the exchange — Sigorn’s sharp, no-nonsense glare locking horns with Rhaegar’s amused, almost predatory smirk. Sig looked tense, like a coiled spring ready to snap, while Rhaegar wore the kind of calm that made her skin crawl and pulse all at once. Why they wouldn’t linger too? They had someone to question. A couple of questions. But there was something else simmering under the surface — a game of shadows they both played, and Lyanna was smack in the middle of it. She sucked in a breath, tasted the metallic tang of blood and iron on the stale air. Felt the weight of the silence that stretched out like the dark hours before dawn. She was losing her sight, losing control, but dammit if she’d let anyone see her flinch. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

***

The stench of gasoline clung to the air like guilt — thick, cloying, industrial. Brake dust, oil, rusted steel, the faintest whiff of blood — so sharp it made the tongue itch. Not the kind of bouquet you woke up craving, but Rhaegar had rolled out of bed for worse. Lyanna hadn’t been at her office when he’d gone looking. Instead, he’d found Howland with sleep in his eyes, pointing him toward a place that looked less like a school and more like Charles Xavier’s halfway house for the unnaturally gifted. She was already there when he arrived, in the company of a man who radiated wet-dog energy and emotional dependency. Detective Magnar, was there too they spat at each other like exes in a pub parking lot, tension charged enough to light up the fog. And still, she left with Rhaegar. He didn’t smile, but the part of him that had once played chess with one of his lawyers in the 1870s made a note of it. 

Magnar didn’t like him. Which meant Rhaegar had already won something, because the man was terribly unremarkable. The garage they arrived at next called itself ‘vintage’, but to someone carrying five centuries on his shoulders, the cars looked like teenagers playing dress-up. Still, he followed Lyanna inside, the cold iron smell clinging to every surface, the fluorescent light above them flickering like it had something to confess. A man stood inside — thirty-something, fit, the kind of musculature that came from either prison or desperation. Cropped blonde hair. Dark blue eyes that locked onto Lyanna the second she entered. Not him. Always her. As it should be.

“Ah've told ya, I’m done wi’ ’em,” — The man snapped, voice already bristling.

Rhaegar stayed back, half-shadow, while Lyanna stepped in like she owned the place. — “She’s your bloody kid, not a poker hand you get to fold on an’ walk away, Stedde.”

Stedde. The walking guilt complex of the case. Rhaegar watched the man’s anger unfold like a badly folded letter. And behind it; yes, there it was. Fear. Almost elegant, in how obvious it was. — “Warned you, didn’t I? Stay outta this,” — Stedde growled.

Lyanna smiled without mirth. — “Aye, not exactly my style, that.”

He said it defensive-like, voice low and tight in the throat — “You dunno her. Weren’t like I could help, Anya’d never let me.” — like someone trying to convince himself as much as her. Eyes darting, jaw clenched. Shame and anger wrestling under his skin, but pride holding the reins.

She replied sharp and bitter, like broken glass in a clenched fist. Not yelling, but every word landed like a punch. Controlled, but just barely. Her voice didn’t shake, but her jaw did. Anger coiled with something else, — “Aye? Join the fuckin’ club. Everyone’s carryin’ somethin’. Don’t give ye the right to walk off an’ leave yer bairn.” — disappointment, maybe. The kind that cuts deeper than rage.

“Keep diggin',” — he hissed. — “Ye'll get what’s comin’ to ye.” 

And that was Rhaegar’s cue. One second, he was leaning against one of the columns. The next, he had Stedde by the collar and slammed against the hood of a dusty 1969 Corvette. The man’s breath caught in his throat. The engine beneath them groaned, metal remembering violence.

Rhaegar spoke it with the precision of a scalpel, slow, deliberate, and calculated to cut. His voice was low, polished, dangerously calm. Smooth as silk, but threaded with iron. A predator’s lullaby. When he bared his fangs, it wasn’t showy, — “Your daughter’s teacher was nearly killed today,” — it was surgical. Controlled. No sudden moves, no wasted energy. Just the quiet certainty of someone who’d torn men apart before and would do it again without blinking. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. Those stayed cold, unreadable, — “And I know you know what did it. Lyanna’s being generous. Bless her bleeding heart. I’m less charitable. I suggest you be nicer. So you can keep your fingers.” — reflecting the dim light off vintage chrome like a mirror to some older, sharper cruelty.

Stedde spat the words out with bitter defiance, his voice rough with frustration and something deeper — “Aye. Yer askin’ for it now, like.” — fear, maybe. He squared his shoulders like he was bracing for a fight he already knew he’d lose, but he was too stubborn to back down.

Rhaegar’s brows lifted. This should be entertaining. The man yanked off his shirt — not bravado this time, but a battered truth laid bare. His torso was mapped with scars. Familiar ones. The kind carved into someone by something that didn’t use teeth or fists, but force. And fear. Some ones from the victim at the morgue. 

Rhaegar’s voice dropped, a little too quiet. —  “What did this?”

Stedde’s eyes flickered, shame, defiance, something old and unresolved. — “Me lass.”

Silence, for a beat. Even Lyanna blinked. — “Ye’re takin’ the piss,” — She said.

“She’s ‘ad an imaginary friend since she was a bairn,” — Stedde said, voice brittle with memory. — “Things started happenin’. Shakin’. Lights goin’ out. Me missus thought it was a poltergeist. Like tha’ film. Not like ye’d believe me.”

Rhaegar crossed his arms, eyes flicking coolly between Stedde and Lyanna. —  “You’d be surprised what we believe,” — He said, every word weighed with that patient, knowing calm only centuries of existence could carve.

“She used t’say her doll did it. Buttercup.” — Stedde said it with a tired, worn-out voice, like a man who’s been through too much but still holds onto the memories.

Lyanna exhaled like she was trying not to laugh or scream. — “She’s got the gift then.”

Rhaegar frowned, mind already working the possibilities. — “Not quite. More like telekinetic. Untrained kids with power don’t just throw tantrums. They rupture. Sometimes, the monsters they make are just reflections of themselves, of their wants and needs.”

“That’s what Coriolanus said, he did.” — Stedde said it like he was repeating something serious, maybe a bit grudgingly, like he didn’t fully trust it but had no choice but to mention it.

Lyanna stiffened. —  “Tha school’s director, is it?”

“Say she was gifted. Say he could help. For a while, he did. But then... Buttercup started doin’ things. Takin’ things. The more she wanted, the more it fed off her. Whatever power she had...‘t twisted.” — Stedde spoke with a weary, cautious tone, like a man trying to explain something that’s been weighing heavy on him for a long time. His voice was rough around the edges, tired but edged with a hint of frustration and fear. He nodded slowly as he recounted it, as if reliving the memory.

“Doesn’t sound like the school’s helping,” — Rhaegar murmured.

Stedde spoke low and bitter, like the words cost him something to say. He paused mid-sentence, jaw tightening as the memory hit him. — “Told ’em that. Coriolanus said it were under control. Anya stood by him. I wanted to take her out, and the night I said it out loud…” — He paused, jaw tight, — “that thing came for me. Barely made it out alive.” — When he spoke again, it was quieter, edged with fear, like he could still feel the thing’s grip on him.

Lyanna was already burning. Rhaegar could feel it radiating off her like smoke off a fuse. — “Anya were gonna pull her out an’ all,” — She said.

“Then you know what killed her.” — He didn’t cry. Rhaegar didn’t expect him to. It wasn’t grief, it was failure calcified into a snarl.

“Y’can still help yer lass,” — Lyanna said.

“She’ll be fine. Her an’ her bloody demons.” — Stedde said it flatly, his voice tight with bitterness, like he'd already convinced himself it was over.

“No,” — Rhaegar said flatly. — “She won’t. If what you’re saying is true, she’s in grave danger.”

Lyanna said, firm as stone, fierce as a storm rolling in off the Wolfswood, that startled even him — “Take ’er back,”— no, not startled. Stirred. Lyanna didn’t ask Stedde to take his daughter back. She commanded it, voice low but burning, like steel fresh from the forge. Rhaegar had seen her furious, had seen her reckless, but this was something else. Something exalted. Personal.

Stedde replied it flatly, with a bitter edge, — “She near enough killed me. I’m not daft.” — like he’d already had this argument a hundred times in his head and lost every one of them.

“Nah. Just a coward,” — She said, cold-like. — “Gonna stand by an’ let ‘em turn her into a monster. What sort o’ da does that?”

Stedde said it quietly, like the words cost him. There was no fight left, — “T’ kind that’s already failed.” — just resignation, heavy and low.

Lyanna pulled one of her business cards and slapped it onto the nearest hood. — “Call us when yer grow a bloody pair.”

She stalked out. Rhaegar followed, her fury hanging in the air like ozone after a lightning strike. He said nothing until they were in the car. Then — “Child services won’t intervene in this. Too much red tape.”

“They shouldn’t have to,” — She muttered, hands gripping the wheel. — “It’s her bloody da who oughta be handlin’ this.”

“He’s got his reasons,” — Rhaegar said, voice low and steady, like he knew the fear gnawin’ at the man, and the hurt lyin’ heavy on Lyanna’s shoulders.

He said it quietly, his voice calm but heavy with understanding. He felt the weight of the man’s fear — a father haunted by demons beyond the usual kind — and he saw the sharp edge of pain in Lyanna’s eyes, how deeply the case had touched her. There was no judgment in his tone, only a soft sympathy for both.

Lyanna’s words cut through the air, each syllable sharp as the engine’s rev under her grip. —  “They all do, dun’t they?” — She snapped, her tone icy and impatient, the tension in the car thickening as she pressed the pedal harder, the noise matching her mounting frustration. He watched her. Really watched. The way her mouth tightened. The tremor in her hand. This was more than a case for her. This was personal. Too personal. He breathed in slowly. Calculated. 

Rhaegar said it with a calm, measured weight behind every word, his voice steady but carrying an undercurrent of quiet pain. There was no anger, — “His wife rejected him. His daughter nearly killed him. He’s not just walking away from responsibility. He’s walking away from trauma. We all have our fathers, and the baggage they give us, Lyanna. Took me the better part of three hundred years to stop trying to appease mine.”— only a cold clarity born from centuries of hard experience. He paused deliberately after the first part, letting the heavy truths hang in the air like a dark shadow. 

“What I’m saying is, don’t let your experience cloud your judgement. You’re a good detective. But if you let the ghosts get too close, they’ll start steering the wheel, away from the truth.” — When he spoke again, there was a subtle softness, almost a warning, as if trying to reach through Lyanna’s walls. His tone was patient but firm, like a teacher guiding a stubborn student, urging her not to let the past blind her judgment.

She snorted, eyes still on the road. — “Yer always this gentle wi’ yer punches, Fangs?”

He almost smiled. — “No,” —  Rhaegar said. — “But I try to be honest with the ones I respect.”

Rhaegar felt the silence stretch thin across the car like a violin string tugged too tight. It wasn’t peace — it was the kind of quiet that came before a shattering. He was used to it. Familiar with it, even. Silence was a lover of his kind. But Lyanna kept checking the rearview mirror. Once. Twice. A third time. 

He didn't sigh. He simply spoke. — “What?” — Flat. Mildly curious, like he already knew.

She didn’t look at him when she answered, but her accent gave the truth a certain iron-clad credibility. — “Someone’s tailin’ us.”

He turned, just slightly. His gaze caught the driver's eyes in the shadowed car behind them. He didn’t need enhanced vision for that, some truths were plain as day. — “It’s your friend, Detective Obvious,” — He said, lips curling in that disinterested, slightly smug way that made people want to punch him.

“Back t’work, me arse.” —  She pressed her foot down. The car surged forward and executed a maneuver that would’ve made a lesser man reach for the panic handle. Rhaegar simply reclined. Let her drive like the world was on fire. He had ridden into worse.

They made it to the school. Still tailed. Predictable. Sigorn Magnar’s car followed like a dog with a bone. As they pulled within a block, Lyanna stopped without ceremony, stepping out before the engine had time to exhale. Sigorn parked. Doors slammed. Tension crackled. The two Northerners began to shout at each other. Loudly. Passionately. Rhaegar sat back in his seat and — Gods help him — laughed. Quiet, like the devil enjoying theatre. He took the keys from the ignition and stepped out, cutting a silhouette in the dark like a misplaced ghost. The kind that didn’t haunt houses. The kind that haunted choices.

“I know it might sound mad,” — He said calmly, addressing the brawl as if it were an overzealous board meeting, — “but we’ve got a child to save. So if you two could pretend to be adults for five whole minutes, that’d be divine.” — Both turned. Death stares. Charming. — “I’m going in. You can join me or continue your therapy session.”

They reached the school gate — locked, naturally. Lyanna made quick work of it. Rhaegar watched her with something like reluctant admiration. Ten seconds. Maybe less. Human beings weren't supposed to be that deft. He slipped inside first, disabling the security system with muscle memory born of centuries navigating other people’s secrets. No alarms. No red lights. Just dark halls and dust. Then came the sound. Upstairs. Steps. A tremor. A sensation like the building itself had a heartbeat — lurching and arrhythmic. Telekinetic. He didn’t have to say it aloud. The air changed. Grew louder. He felt his senses straining against some unseen static. Lyanna moved ahead. Always charging in like she wasn’t built to break. They took the rest stairs, all three of them. Then — A door slammed. Metal. Heavy.

Rhaegar blinked once. Twice. Rhaegar murmured, already irritated because he couldn't hear inside. — “I can’t hear them inside.”

Sigorn said it through gritted teeth, low and urgent, like a man used to forcing open doors no one else dared to touch, — “We need t’get it open, now.” — not for the girl, and sure as hell not in for Rhaegar. His fists were already braced on the frame, ready to break the damn thing down if words failed.

Rhaegar didn’t raise his voice; he never had to. The words came quiet, smooth as silk drawn over a blade. — “Out of the way, Magnar.” — Measured. Icy.

Not a shout, not a bark, but a command dressed in velvet, the kind that didn’t allow for refusal. He didn’t look at Sigorn so much as through him, like the man was just another obstacle in a night full of them. No anger, no bluster — just the slow, dangerous stillness of something very old growing impatient. The last warning.

“Oh, give over. Maybe a bloody linebacker could bust this thing, but you? You’re nowt but a string bean in a trench coat.” — Sigorn turned, probably to fetch something to try and open the door. Something more forceful. Good. 

Rhaegar didn’t need the audience. He never had — not when he was alive, not now with the centuries coiled behind his eyes like smoke in a jar. Sigorn looking away. Rhaegar merely exhaled. A soundless breath, more out of habit than necessity. Then he stepped forward. There was no theatrics, no wasted motion. He braced — spine straight, coat whispering at his heels — and drove his foot into the door with a single, surgical kick. It yielded. Not shattered. Not splintered. Yielded. As if it recognized something older in him than iron and hinges. The metal bowed like cheap aluminum, folding inward under the pressure of centuries honed to a point. 

Rhaegar said it without turning, his voice low and dry, like an afterthought wrapped in velvet, more command than question, and colder than it needed to be. — “You coming?”

Sigorn looked at him like he’d grown fangs. Which was ironic. Inside, the room was white. Too white. A clinical nightmare smeared in restraint and madness. Lyanna was at the far end, kneeling, blood slicking her arm. The scent hit Rhaegar like a chord. Minor key. Sharp. The girl was there. A child no older than ten, crumpled like a ghost story. Standing above her, the man — older, gaunt. Coriolanus , the headmaster, most likely. Rhaegar moved to intercept. Then it came. Not a man. Not even a monster. Something spectrally grotesque — chimeric, ancient. It struck him from the side. Pain bloomed. He hit the wall hard enough to splinter thought.

Sigorn raised his weapon, because of course he did. — “Police. 'Ands where I can see 'em!” — seeing his chance Rhaegar got up and moved with deliberate grace, closing the distance in a heartbeat. His hand found the director’s neck, pressing him sharply against the cold wall, a silent, unyielding claim of control.

Lyanna, bleeding, breathless, — “No, Sig, put it down. We don’t need t’hurt anyone…”— She spoke to the child now, voice trembling with something Rhaegar couldn’t quite label. Grace, perhaps.  —  “I spoke wi’ your da. He loves you, he does. He’s fair scared o’ Buttercup tho.  I know it’s hard, forgivin’, but this, this won’t mend it. Buttercup, won’t mend it. Ye’ve gotta leave the ghosts behind, else ye’ll never find the folks who truly see ye, really see ye.” 

The girl cried. It cracked through the tension like thunder. Rhaegar, aching and still buzzing from the specter’s strike, released Coriolanus. Watched Lyanna scoop the girl into her arms. She held her like something precious. Something breakable.  It made Rhaegar remember being human, being around Lyanna made him remember it a lot. Damn her. Sigorn cuffed the headmaster. Outside, the father — Stedden, if memory served — was waiting. When Lyanna set the girl down, she bolted to him, burying herself in his arms. Rhaegar observed with detached precision as Sigorn retreated to his vehicles, returning moments later without the director. His gaze shifted to Lyanna — ever the unyielding force — steadily ushering the man and child into a waiting taxi. The calculated calm in her movements was almost admirable. He allowed himself a rare, faint curl of amusement beneath the surface of his restraint. 

“What’re ye?” — Sigorn asked.

Rhaegar didn’t turn. — “I draw comic books,” — He said dryly. — “Monsters, mostly. Let’s keep it like that.”

Sigorn lunged. Grabbed him by the amr. — “Ye broke a reinforced door wi’ one kick. Ye’re no human. What kinda freak…”

That word. Freak. Rhaegar moved before thinking. One hand to the man’s face, lifting him like a disobedient child. He wanted to see the freak? Very well.

“Ey!” — Lyanna’s voice. Cutting through rage. —  “Let’im go.” — She pulled them apart. Sigorn coughed. —  “Gan tae the car,” — She said sharply.

Rhaegar didn’t argue. — “As you wish.” — The sarcasm was gentle. Almost tender.

From the distance, he listened to their conversation. Lyanna spoke it sharp but steady, her voice low with a hint of weariness beneath the edge. — “It’s no’ what ye think, alright?” — Her eyes never wavered from Sigorn’s, steady and unyielding, but with just a flicker of vulnerability she rarely showed.

Sigorn’s tone was rough, edged with a mix of anger and disbelief — “What the fuck, Lya? Ye knew?” — like a man cornered who’s just realized the ground’s been pulled out from under him. 

His voice carried that raw northern grit, blunt and unforgiving, but beneath it, a flicker of betrayal that stung sharper than any insult. He didn't seem one to mince words, especially when trust was broken. Rhaegar, standing close by, felt a flicker of regret — letting Sigorn glimpse the shadows he kept so carefully locked away was a mistake. But seeing himself called a freak — after all he’d been through — stirred an unexpected… The word lodged in his gut — a twisted echo, the same cruel name whispered by those who had hunted and broken him, marking him as something less than human before. It was a shadow he couldn’t shake, no matter how many centuries passed.

Lyanna’s voice dropped low, heavy with secrets she wasn’t ready to share, edged with a sharp, bite, —  “Tha’s stuff ah can’t tell ye.” —  She said it quietly, eyes flickering away, like she was weighing how much to give, and how much to keep locked away.

Sigorn’s voice was rough and urgent, a mix of anger and disbelief, each word clipped and sharp,— “By th’ gods, Lya. Who’s he, then? What’s he?” —  He said it low and tense, like he was trying to steady himself but failing, the questions burning on his tongue.

Lyanna said it low and steady, her voice rough around the edges but tinged with a weary kind of urgency. There was no room for argument in her tone — “Ah can’t tell ye that neither. Just, trust me, will ye? It’s been a bloody fucked-up night. Go on home.” — just a blunt, tired command wrapped in a rare flicker of care. 

Her eyes held a quiet plea beneath the harshness, like she was carrying too much weight to explain, and all she wanted was for this to end, for him to just leave it be. Sigorn stood there, stunned, betrayed. Lyanna ran back to the car. Keys already in the ignition. She drove. Rhaegar remained for a moment. Watching. Listening. He was not human. But there were nights — even now — when he remembered what it felt like to try.

***

Title: The Weight Beneath

There was no blood this time — not much, anyway. Just shattered glass, crushed bone, a mother folded wrong against the kitchen floor. And a girl with shaking hands and eyes too wide for her face. Ten, maybe. Twelve if you counted the weight she carried in her silence. Her mother screamed. And then… nothing. It wasn’t murder. Not entirely. But it was power — raw and wild — and someone had tried to steer it. The headmaster, a velvet-voiced little coward who wore robes like armor, had been whispering prophecy into her ears for weeks. Called it potential. Called it fate. He wanted a weapon. He got a ghost.

Lyanna... she knelt. She spoke soft, like she was taming a feral creature. Like she’d been that creature once. No sharp edges. No mask. Just warmth — fractured and fleeting, but real. I watched her. When the armor slipped. There was something different in her then. The way she brushed the girl’s hair from her eyes. No one else saw it. But I did. And I knew what it meant. She saw herself in the child. That much was obvious. The haunted gaze, the clenched fists, the guilt. The need to be punished for something you never meant to do. And something inside her never stopped screaming. I’ve seen how she flinch when affection come into play.

She put herself in danger and gods help me, I didn’t stop her. I didn’t tell her she was being reckless or naïve. I stood there like an idiot. Because it’s happening again. The thing I keep trying to bury. The thing I’m too old and too damned ruined to feel. She makes me want to choose softness over survival. Remind me I was human once.  It’s absurd. Dangerous. Human. But when she looked at that girl, I saw it: the instinct to protect, no matter the cost. And the ache in her eyes said everything I didn’t want to know. Lyanna Stark is not heartless. She’s just been taught to hide it. Taught that love gets you killed. So she pours it out in small ways — a smirk, a cigarette, a child she’ll never see again.

And I… I don’t know what scares me more. That I’m starting to understand her. Or that I’m starting to hope she gives me some of it. 

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Sigorn hadn’t called in three days. Which, fine. She got it. People tended to shut up when they were pissed off, and Sigorn — good old by-the-book Sig — was textbook passive-aggressive when you didn’t play things his way. She didn’t blame him. Not really. If she were the one being kept in the dark about her ex-partner cozying up to a vampire, she might go radio silent too. But that didn’t mean she owed him an explanation. Especially not when she knew exactly how he’d react. Anger first. Disappointment later. That self-righteous Northern cop glare like she’d pissed on his badge. So aye. She let the silence stretch. Let it breathe. Let it suffocate. In the meantime, she had nothing but time to kill. No new clients, no missing husbands or cursed heirlooms. Just her, her fading eyesight, a dwindling pack of cigarettes, and the creeping suspicion that the city didn’t need her anymore.

Then Howland came into her office. Some new widow with a gut feeling and nowhere else to go. Magdalena Cassel. Her husband — Jory — dropped dead in an elevator. Police slapped a ‘cardiac arrest’ sticker on it and called it a day. But the widow? She wasn’t buying it. Thought it was something to do with Jory’s old job. He'd been a defense attorney. The kind that kept monsters out of cages. Lyanna respected that, in the way you respect a blade: sharp, necessary, and usually pointed the wrong way. Turns out, one of Jory’s ex-clients, a real piece of work named Nelsor Piler, left him a voicemail a week before he croaked. The same Piler who'd offed himself nine days ago. Curious timing. The kind that doesn’t sit right in your gut. The police told Magdalena they’d ‘look into it’ . Which was code for fuck off. 

So she did what smart people with nowhere left to turn do — she came to Lyanna. Apparently, Sig gave her Lyanna’s number. No clue if that was him being petty or delegating, she heard the woman out. Could’ve gone either way. But after it she was in the penthouse of the city’s most well-dressed bloodsucker, watching him swing a fucking sword like they were auditioning for a Renaissance fair. He looked like sin dipped in velvet — red leather couch, red velvet shirt, dragon ring, silver pendant, white hair like moonlight cut with shadow. The whole thing was obnoxious. It should have been repulsive. It wasn’t.

“Shite day, eh?” — She asked, arms crossed, voice dry enough to sand wood.

“Better now that you’re here,” — He said, and she hated that her stomach fluttered just a little.

He wasn’t free to talk, not technically, but he offered a deal. She swung the sword, he listened. She’d be reference for some drawing he was working on. She didn’t buy it, not for a second. But she played along. Tank top. Combat boots. Swinging steel in some vampire’s apartment. This was her life now.

“D’you really need me swingin’ this bloody thing still?” — She asked, rotating her wrist with the blade, already annoyed. — “Can’t I just sit still an’ look dead lovely or sommat?”

“Nope,” — He said, pencil scraping paper. — “The movement gives me better perspective.”

She replied it with a tilt of her head and that half-smirk she used like a shield; voice rough with sleep and smoke, as if sarcasm could buy her distance. Not surprised, not impressed, — “Where d’you even get a sword, eh? Nick it off a corpse or just keep one lyin’ round for show?” — just poking at him the way she'd poke a bruise to see if it still hurt.

“Family heirloom,” — Rhaegar said without looking up. — “Dark Sister.”

She blinked. Stopped mid-swing. — “No shite?”

He glanced up briefly. — “If you want to talk, keep swinging.”

She rolled her eyes and obeyed. — “Reet. So. Jory Cassel drops dead in the lift at his office. Police say it’s a bleedin’ heart attack. But his widow finds a voicemail on his phone; angry as owt, threatenin’, from some bastard named Nelsor Piler.”

Rhaegar didn't look up. His hand moved steadily across the page, pencil scratching in slow, deliberate strokes. Whatever she’d just said, he registered it in that vague way men do when they're somewhere else entirely, buried in their own head, in lines and angles and shadows. — “Mmhmm,” — He said, low and distracted, the sound more breath than word. Not dismissive, exactly. Just absorbed. Like she was background noise he’d grown used to needing.

Lyanna spoke it with a sharp flick of her wrist, the sword’s tip slicing through the air as she jabbed it toward him, — “This works better when we both toss ideas around, Prettyboy.” — not close enough to be dangerous, but enough to make him look up. Her voice was flat, dry as old snow, frustration simmering just under the surface. She didn’t raise it; she didn’t need to. Sarcasm did the heavy lifting.

He smirked. — “Okay. Why?”

Lyanna said this with a sharp edge, eyes narrowing just a bit as she flicked her cigarette ash away — “‘Cause we’re meant to keep our minds open, eh? Throw every chance on the table.” — half teasing, half biting. Like she was saying it for both of them but really daring him to keep up.

He shrugged, lazily elegant. — “What if the first possibility’s the right one?”

Lyanna shot him a sideways glance, lips twisting with a bitter little smirk. Her voice dipped into that dry, deadpan tone, — “When in seven ‘ells has that ever been true for us?” — like she was mocking the whole idea but half-wishing it was different. There was a weariness beneath the sarcasm, the kind that comes from knowing all the hard truths but never saying them outright.

Rhaegar’s head lifted slowly from his sketchpad, eyes finally meeting hers with something like genuine interest, — “Fair enough. I’m listening.” — no trace of impatience, just a calm, steady focus. His voice was smooth but held a quiet weight, like he was willing to actually hear her out, only because she’d earned it. The hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, subtle but real.

Lyanna jabbed the sword a little harder into the air, voice clipped and sharp, like she was done wasting breath but still needed to get it out. — “Widow reckons Piler’s the bloke. Only trouble? He offed himsel’ a week afore Jory kicked it.” —  There was a flicker of dry humor beneath the edge, like she knew how ridiculous it sounded but wasn’t about to sugarcoat it. Her eyes narrowed, calculating, daring him to say otherwise. 

“Could’ve hired someone,” — Rhaegar mused, going back to his sketching.

She swung the blade harder this time, feeling the weight of it in her shoulder. — “Why bother hirin’ someone if yer already plannin’ to check oot?”

Rhaegar’s voice dropped to that teasing, near-whisper that made her teeth clench. — “Maybe he wanted revenge… from beyond the grave.”

Lyanna let out a dry, bitter groan, the kind that scraped her throat and carried all the weight of her. Her eyes flicked sideways, sharp and tired, like she’d already danced this dance too many times,  — “Just what I bloody need. A dead nutter wi’ delusions o’ grandeur.” — dead psycho with ambition? Yeah, real original. 

Rhaegar replied it with that maddening, dry sarcasm, voice quiet, precise, cutting just enough to let her know he was enjoying himself. He didn’t even flinch, just glanced over the paper with the faintest smirk, eyes cool and unreadable. Calm as winter glass. Like he knew she wouldn’t actually run him through, and gods, that only made her want to more. — “I thought you wanted every possibility.” — Smooth. Too smooth. Like he’d already won the argument and was just waiting for her to catch up.

Lyanna shot him a killed look, tone laced with sharp sarcasm. Her voice was dry as old snow, eyebrow arched just enough to sting. — “Done, Picasso?” — It wasn’t a real question, it was a jab, aimed to poke at his quiet smugness.

Rhaegar replied it without looking up at first, voice smooth and unhurried, just the faintest edge of dry humor threading through. Then his eyes flicked up to hers, cool and unreadable, with that frustrating calm she could never quite crack. — “Just about. And I promise, I’d never do to you what he did to his paintings.” — It was teasing, almost gentle, but layered, like most things he said. Enough to make her pause. 

Lyanna asked it with a crooked smirk, voice low and dry. Her tone was casual, almost mocking, but her eyes were sharp, watching him close. — “No a fan?” — Like she already knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it.

Rhaegar explained it quietly, his voice even and reflective, eyes still fixed on the sketch in front of him. There was no dramatic flair,   just a controlled honesty, like he’d thought about it long before she ever asked. — “His more grotesque work… Bothers me. I’ve seen enough real horror. I don’t want it bleeding into my art.” — He spoke like someone who’d built walls around his imagination, and was careful about what he let in.

That made her pause. — “I reckon art oughta make you think. Maybe even bother you a bit, eh?” —  She said, voice lower now.

He looked up, sharp but soft. — “It should. But for me, that breed of grotesque stays out of the canvas. I’ve destroyed enough things. Some things need to stay sacred.”

He turned the drawing around. Monochrome. Her face, raw and honest, captured in lines and shadows that looked like grief had clawed through the page. She wasn’t even swinging the sword in it. Of course not. She looked like some kind of saint. Armor carved in graphite. Hair cropped close. Eyes like stormglass. Familiar. Too familiar. It put her in mind of a statue of Brienne of Tarth back in King's Landing — all height and presence, like she didn’t quite fit but dared anyone to say it.

Lyanna replied it with a crooked grin, voice dry and a touch too loud, like she was tossing the words out to distract from the weight creeping into the air. — “You forgot the shitty eyesight, demon tattoos, an’ weird job,” — She spoke trying to break the moment with that familiar bite, but there was a flicker behind the sarcasm, something raw she didn’t let linger.

Her eyes flicked down, just briefly, to the spot on her arm where the demon tattoo still clung to her skin, stubborn. She hadn't scrubbed it off after that first case. Howland had muttered something about it maybe being protective, and she hadn’t been willing to test fate.

Rhaegar asked it without even blinking, his tone so even it was impossible to tell if he was genuinely curious or cutting her down with quiet precision. He didn’t look away from her, didn’t flinch, — “Do you usually get off on self-deprecation?” — just studied her like she was a puzzle he’d half-solved already. His voice was low, cool, almost clinical beneath the softness, like a scalpel slipped beneath skin.

Lyanna tossed words back out with a half-smirk, like she was throwing a cold splash of water in his face. Her voice was rough around the edges, carrying that sharp Northern bite — “It’s a Northerner thing, that is. Didn’t think you’d get it.” — equal parts challenge and deadpan humor. She didn’t bother softening it for him; if he didn’t get it, well, that was on him. 

“I truly don’t,” — He said, still staring at her.

The Pilers house looked like it had been losing a quiet war with time for years — and still refused to die. One of those stubborn Northern things, like moss or guilt. Peeling white clapboard siding clung to the bones of the place like skin after a bad burn. Half the windows looked like they’d given up seeing anything clearly, smudged or fogged like old lungs. The porch sagged. The roof leaned in like it was listening for secrets. A crooked little house on the edge of town, where ghosts probably paid rent. Lyanna stood outside for a second, breathing in cold wind and old rot. Her eyes stung — partly the breeze, partly the vision thing again, the blur at the edges that kept creeping in like mold. She rubbed at her temple like that would change anything. It didn’t. It never did. There was a small, cracked sign near the door: Salon Piler . Someone had tried to scrub it clean once, and then clearly stopped trying. She went in through the commercial entrance, the bell above the door giving a tired jingle like it couldn’t be arsed.

Inside smelled like whiskey, cigarette smoke, and something under that — like bleach that’d given up halfway through the job. She scanned the room. A price list for buzz cuts hung crooked above a yellowing wall. Below it, two framed photos sat like memorials. One of them was Nelsor Piler. The dead man. The maybe-not-so-innocent corpse. A kid — early twenties, maybe — was slouched in a chair in the next room, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Lyanna didn’t blame him. Footsteps scraped behind her. She turned on instinct, hand twitching near her coat where the taser wasn’t quite visible. An older woman stood in the doorway. Hair dyed a soft, artificial auburn. Wrinkles that weren’t from smiling.

“Sorry, lass,” — The woman said, voice tired and raspy. — “Salon’s closed. Not takin’ customers today.”

Lyanna forced a smile. Or something close enough. —  “Not ‘ere for a trim, mam. Just got questions. ’Bout yer lad.”

The woman’s face froze. Then it cracked around the edges. She turned toward the inner hallway. — “Evin, what’ve ye done now?”

“Not ‘im,” — Lyanna cut in, voice low but sharp enough to slice. — “Nelsor. Reckon he were yours, aye?”

The woman’s expression sagged in that awful way grief does, like gravity just hits harder when you're remembering a coffin. — “I’m a Private investigator,” —  Lyanna added. — “Just tryin’ t’get a feel for who he were… If he had any mates still knockin’ about in town.”

The woman’s mouth tightened like she was biting back words, or maybe just pain. —  “Why can’t ye just let ‘im rest?” — She asked, voice cracking like old wood.

Lyanna’s jaw clenched. She didn’t want to say it, but she had to. Another corpse meant another knot in this web. And the dead weren’t done talking, not to her. — “’Cause your lad’s defence solicitor just turned up dead.”

There was a long, mean silence. Then the kid in the next room stood, stepped forward. Not a kid after all — just a man with soft eyes and too much anger shoved into his ribs. Looked like the second guy in the photo. Family resemblance in the jaw. And the resentment.

“Good,” — He muttered. — “Let my brother rot for summat he ne’er did.”

Lyanna felt that burn in her stomach again — the old, familiar one. Not guilt. Fury. The kind that came from knowing too many stories ended this way. Messy. Unfinished. No justice, just grief that curdled into hate.

“Please, just leave,” — The mother said soft-like, shrinking  back into the shadows. — “Nowt t’say to you. Nor the bleedin’ watch.”

Lyanna stood there a moment longer, taking in the worn carpet, the cigarette ash on the counter, the ghosts clinging to the walls like they’d paid for the privilege. She didn’t want to leave empty-handed, but she wasn’t going to bulldoze a mourning mother. She stepped back toward the door. Paused.

“Sorry fer yer loss,” — She said, voice low.

And she meant it. Even if it didn’t matter. Even if no one believed her. Then she was gone, the bell jangling behind her like a bad joke. After that she hit the morgue around 1PM, just early enough to miss Sig’s lunch break but late enough he’d already be gone. She wasn’t in the business of making anyone uncomfortable unless she meant to. Sig didn’t want to see her. Fine. She didn’t want to be seen. She brought pie. Apple, still warm in the box. It was a bribe. Mance didn’t need bribing, but she needed the gesture, the normalcy. Pie said: ‘Hey, I’m still human. I still remember you like these. I didn’t scream anyone’s soul into the next life this morning.’ A bit of a lie, but a polite one. The morgue was cold and humming, the way it always was. The kind of cold that stuck to your joints. It didn’t bother her anymore. Nothing did, not really.

“Could anythin’ else besides cardiac arrest’ve done for Jory?” — She asked, tossing the question out like a cigarette she didn’t want to finish.

Mance didn’t look up from the body. —  “Everyone dies o’ cardiac arrest, Ly. That’s just yer heart stoppin’. What ye meant t’ask is what made it stop.”

“Right,” — She said. — “So what made it stop then?”

“No injections, no strange poisons. Toxicology came back clean.” — He pulled off a glove with the slow finality of someone delivering bad news in bulk.

“So, nothin’ from the outside then.” — She tilted her head, already filing that in her mental vault under suspicious bullshit.

“Thought the same, I did,” — Mance said. —  “But…” — He shifted, like he was takin’ care not to upset the truth. — “There were bruises. On the heart.”

Lyanna squinted, trying not to let her left eye squint harder. That side had been going dim lately, like a flickering hallway light. — “What does that mean then? Someone went an’ reached into his chest an’ squeezed ‘til it stopped?”

Mance gave her a flat look. — “Like Ah said. ‘Eart attack.”

She let the silence drag. Let it get heavy. Maybe too heavy. Rhaegar’s voice echoed in the back of her skull like the aftermath of a gunshot. Damn him for being right so often. Lyanna exhaled through her teeth. — “What d’you know ‘bout Nelson Piler’s suicide?”

Mance frowned. —  “That’s right outta left field.”

Lyanna replied, — “Humor me.” —  with a sharp edge-like a razor tucked inside a smirk. Her voice was low and dry, half dare, half challenge, like she was daring him to waste his breath but secretly hoping you would. It wasn’t friendly; it wasn’t kind. More like a test, loaded with a quiet impatience that meant get on with it or get lost.

“Ritual-like, far as I mind.” — Mance crossed his arms. — “Carved a bloody pentagram right into his own chest. Then slashed his wrists. Creepy as owt. Right up yer street, that.”

She could already feel the smirk Rhaegar would give her when she told him. That annoying little arch of his eyebrow like he was about to quote something ancient and smug. The more Mance talked, the more she knew: yeah. This one had her name on it. She went back there that night, Rhaegar’s place smelled like dust and old books and whatever expensive incense he thought covered up blood. It didn’t. Not to her.

“Guard found him in his cell,” — She said. — “Laid out in a salt circle. Black candle still burnin’. Incense, glass o’ water. Real bloody pageant, that.”

Rhaegar barely looked up. —  “And?”

“He carved the pentagram right into his chest, then slit his wrists. With a spoon he'd sharpened, no less.” — She paused, gave him a look. —  “Any o’ that ringin’ bells in that dark little cathedral you call a brain?”

He stood. Didn’t answer. Just moved, graceful and silent as a graveyard shadow, toward the study. She followed. This was the place where he drew his graphic novels, where he cataloged horrors like they were butterflies pinned in glass. He opened a cabinet — one of many — and pulled a book. Not one of his. No leather grimoire vibes. This one had a strange sickle sigil on the cover, and the second she saw it, something stirred behind her ribs. It hit her sideways, like a draft through a cracked window — sharp and sudden. That ghost-prickle down the spine. The air felt too still, too known. She didn’t believe in fate, didn’t believe in signs or any of that bollocks. But sometimes the world hiccuped and she could swear she'd lived the moment before. Like stepping into a dream she forgot having. Same shadows. Same silence. Same rotten chill in her gut. Cold and crawling.

“This,” — He said, laying it open, —  “this kind of magic, it doesn’t come from me. It comes from your ancestors.”

Lyanna blinked. —  “What th’ fuck’s that s’posed t’ mean?”

Rhaegar said it like a professor catching a student off guard, smooth, assured, just a touch condescending, like he already knew the answer and wanted to see if she'd squirm. — “You’ve heard of the Long Night, of course,” — He said, all calm cadence and faint amusement, like he was testing her memory or maybe her belief. A man who believed in monsters but liked watching others realize they did too.

“Glacial maximum,” — She said, deadpan, like reciting’ a recipe. — “Environmental collapse. Volcanoes, most like. Oceans went funny. Maybe a bloody comet.” — She threw him a look, all smug and needle-sharp. — “North got it worst, aye. Big freeze.”

Rhaegar gave her a look, half amused, half weary, like he’d just watched her kick a cathedral door open with muddy boots. —“Modern people,” — He said, voice smooth as dusk. — “You’re all so desperate to rationalize. Even you.” — His eyes lingered, sharp and knowing. — “Which is surprising, considering what you are.”

“I deal wi’ ghosts an’ gut wounds, not bloody fairy tales.” —  She snorted, crossing her arms. —  “Zombies? That what ye’re pitchin’ me now? Sounds a bit like mass hysteria, if ye ask me.”

“We’re looking into  a man whose heart was crushed from the inside Lyanna,” —  Rhaegar said, voice flat. — “And another who ritualistically sacrificed himself with salt and blood. And you want to call that mass hysteria?”

“Fine,” — She scowled. — “Not zombies, then. So what’s it then?”

He pointed to the page. —  “Skinchanger.”

Lyanna stood close by him, the stale air thick with shadows and that faint tang of burnt candle wax — like a funeral for a forgotten god. She skimmed the pages of the book Rhaegar handed her, the words heavy with old magic and older pain, sliding past like dry bones in her mouth. Skinchangers. Shifting one's mind into an animal’s at the moment of death, the ultimate jump from one cage to another. She pictured it like a cruel trick of nature, like ghosts hitching a ride on beasts, minds bleeding into each other until both were fucked if the bond wasn’t tight enough. She didn’t say it aloud, but the idea of losing yourself like that wasn’t exactly comforting. She was losing her own damn sight, piece by piece, and this? This was a hell she knew all too well. The skinchanger’s mind could get tangled in the animal’s instincts, a slow bleed into madness unless you fought like hell. Lyanna imagined the scrape — clawing at your own brain to stay sane while the beast inside tries to drag you under.

Rhaegar’s voice was there somewhere behind the book’s rustle, but all she could focus on was the way a skinchanger could slip in and out, sometimes without meaning to — sleepwalking into another’s head, losing themselves like drunk sailors at sea. The worst was if the animal died while they were still inside, or if the skinchanger was killed mid-shift. A part of their soul would get stuck, trapped in that fur and teeth, a ghost half-wild. Her jaw tightened. The book spoke of greenseers — the big league skinchangers, those who could wear any beast’s skin like a second death mask. A power that was as much curse as gift. Lyanna’s fingers curled, the scrape of the paper rough and real against her skin. She swallowed a bitter laugh. Life was just a series of skins to slip in and out of — none of them ever fitting right.

“That doesn’t explain why Piler went an’ slit hisself open in a salt circle,” — She said. — “Ye don’t need all that fancy shit to jump inta a damn crow.”

Rhaegar murmured it low, like a secret spoken into the dark — his voice barely more than a breath. — “No,” — He said, eyes flickering with a thought he wasn’t ready to say aloud.—  “But maybe he wasn’t just trying to flee into an animal. Maybe he was using the sacrifice to launch his consciousness…” —  The words hung heavy, like they carried a weight too strange to fully believe.

Her mouth went dry. — “Ye’re sayin’ he done himself in to turn inta some ghost hitman?”

He didn’t say nothing straight. But when she looked up at him, his eyes were shoutin’ it loud enough for both of ’em — like he was dead set on sayin’ that very fuckin’ thing. Lyanna exhaled. —  “Most folks hate their lawyers, sure. But that? That was takin’ it way too far, even for me.”

Rhaegar’s expression didn’t change. But something in it tightened. There was a pause. Not hesitation, exactly. More like dread dressed up as thoughtfulness. — “There’s someone we could speak to,” — He said, softly. — “But I haven’t contacted them in a long time.”

Lyanna rolled her eyes. — “Time to catch up, then, eh?”

Rhaegar responded it low, voice tight, like he was measuring every word before letting it loose. His eyes flicked away, like he didn’t want her catching the weight behind it. — “Initiating contact has... Consequences. I’m compelled to consider…” — The pause hung heavy, like he was trying to hold back somethin’ he knew could shatter things.

“Considerit over in the car,” — She said, already halfway to the door. — “Let’s get goin’.”

Behind her, she heard him sigh. But his footsteps followed. Of course they did.

***

A weather-worn shopfront tucked between a neon bar and a defunct fortune teller’s kiosk — tattoo parlor by day, conduit of ancient rot by night. Rhaegar would’ve liked to think he’d moved beyond places like this. But memory had a scent, and this one reeked of incense, cloves, and regret. He paused before the door, shoulders squared against the wind rolling off the harbor. It carried the salt-slick promise of rot beneath civility. Appropriate, really. Beside him, Lyanna peered at the display of flash tattoos with the amused detachment of someone who had killed for far less ugly artwork. Her fingers skimmed the glass — idly, as though deciding whether to get a dagger inked on her collarbone or burn the place to the ground. The cold had flushed her cheeks with the delicate pink of bruised rose petals. Adorable, if he were a man who entertained such adjectives anymore.

He wasn’t. Or so he liked to claim. — “Inside,” — He murmured.

The bell jingled above them with almost comedic cheer. The scent struck first — sweet smoke, old blood, sandalwood masking something fouler beneath. The witch had always had a taste for the theatrical. Her front room was a relic of urban paganism: curated chaos for the Instagram occultist, all bone charms and rose quartz. But it was the back that mattered. Rhaegar led Lyanna through the beaded curtain like a man leading a wolf to a priestess. He didn’t glance back to see if she followed. He always knew when she did. The chamber was just as he remembered it — somewhere between a womb and a tomb. Dim light clung to the walls, painted the color of dried hearts. 

At the center of the room stood a round table cloaked in burgundy velvet, its surface arranged like an altar or a dinner setting for the damned: dripping candles in shades of rust and ivory, a smoking cauldron the size of a child’s skull, a brass goblet etched with indecipherable runes, and — charmingly out of place — fresh tulips in a cheap glass vase. Pink. Rhaegar arched a brow. Ritual and absurdity made easy bedfellows. Soft-backed chairs encircled the table, worn in a way that suggested long sessions of grief or revelation. The chandelier above trembled with each step, its crystal droplets catching the light like frozen tears. Shelves lined the back wall, each crammed with jars, bones, antique instruments, and books that had never graced a library with heating. A stage for secrets. And one he would’ve gladly never set foot on again.

“Rhaegar Targaryen,” — came the voice, smooth as melted wax and twice as old. — “That’s a face I never thought I’d see again.”

Quaithe emerged from the shadows like a memory you thought you’d buried. Her robes clung like water, dyed in oceanic blue and embroidered with gold stars. Her face was ageless in the way some lies are — perfect only if you don’t look too hard.

“Quaithe,” — He said, evenly. Always evenly. Anything else gave her too much.

Her gaze shifted to Lyanna, and for the briefest moment, Rhaegar saw something unfamiliar in her expression. Surprise. Fascination. Hunger. Not the kind he was used to fending off.

“And you brought a friend,” — She noted.

“Name’s Lyanna Stark,” — Lyanna introduced herself before he could lie on her behalf. — “Got questions.”

Quaithe smiled. —  “Quite polite. Most of your kind aren’t.”

“Me kind?” — Lyanna asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Oh, darling. We’ll get to that.” — She gestured toward the chairs. Lyanna didn’t move.

“Standin’s fine.” — Lyanna shrugged off like it didn't matter. 

Quaithe tilted her head, amused. — “As you like. Though it’s rather hard to read someone who refuses to sit still.”

Lyanna retorted it without blinking, her voice quiet but unyielding. There's a cold edge to it, like a blade held flat against the skin, — “Then don’t read me, aye?” 

“Charming,” — Quaithe murmured. — “She’s fun, Rhaegar. So much more... textured, never thought you'd like the combative kind.”

“We’re not here for flirtation,” — He said coolly. — “We need a reading. Professional only.”

“Anyone can purchase my services. Cash only,” — Quaithe replied, then turned to Rhaegar. —  “But in your case, I can accept a different tribute.”

Rhaegar said it smoothly, with a faint, razor-edged calm. His tone was dry… Almost amused… But the warning beneath it was unmistakable. — “I think you misheard the strictly professional part,” — A slight lift of a brow, voice low and precise, like a scalpel rather than a sword. He didn’t raise his voice; he didn’t need to.  

Quaithe pouted. — “How tragically transactional. And here I thought you missed me.”

“I miss many things,” — He said. — “Decency. Reason. 1970 Bordeaux.” — Lyanna snorted under her breath. He ignored it, mostly.

“I can wait outside if you two need privacy,” — Lyanna offered, her voice laced with sarcasm.

“No,” — Rhaegar said firmly. — “Tell her what we know.”

Lyanna recounted the scene — the symbols carved into the wall, the residue of ash and old language, the dead man in the cell. Quaithe listened, her fingers toying with a bone cluster. Then, without asking, she tossed it to the table. The bone clattered once and spun — once, twice, then stilled.

Her eyes lifted to Lyanna. — “You’ve been marked.”

“Aye” — Lyanna affirmed again no lying instinct. Rhaegar looked to Lyanna, who clutched her wrists.

“Show me your wrists.” — Quaithe extended her hands.

Lyanna hesitated. He could see it — the flicker of uncertainty that preceded all trust. Then she offered them. Slim, pale, calloused in all the right places. Quaithe took them gently, too gently, and he stepped forward on instinct.

Rhaegar said it quietly but with steel in his voice. — “That’s enough.” — His grip was firm, controlled, not rough, but final. The words weren’t loud, yet they carried weight, like a door closing. Cold authority wrapped in velvet.

Quaithe’s smile sharpened. —  “Still possessive. How vampiric of you.”

“Wha’ do th’ marks mean, then?”—  Lyanna pressed, yanking her hands back from his touch.

“Channels. They focus great power,” — Quaithe explained.

Rhaegar leaned in, whispering to Lyanna, —  “I knew this was a bad idea.”

“Your belief that all magic is tainted is misguided, Rhaegar,” — Quaithe chided. — “My interpretation is more nuanced.”

“I prefer foolish,” — He retorted.

“Can we jus’ focus on what happened?” — Lyanna interjected. — “Wha’ does that spell do? The pentagram an’ the salt.”

“It’s a cleansing spell.” —  Quaithe’s eyes gleamed.

“Cleansed for what, then?” —  Lyanna asked.

“Last rites. For focusing the passage between this world and the next. It prepares the spirit for the other side. Simple.” — The silence swelled like a held breath. 

Rhaegar noted, with quiet calculation, how Lyanna’s posture stiffened the moment the subject of last rites surfaced. The subtle shift didn’t escape him — a flicker of something darker tightening around her, a shadow in her eyes that spoke volumes beneath her calm exterior. It was a detail he filed away, one more piece in the puzzle of a woman who guarded her pain as fiercely as he did his own.

“I assumed you knew that,” — Quaithe added lightly. — “Being what you are.”

“An’ what’s that then?” — Lyanna asked.

Quaithe’s smile turned saccharine. — “A Ghoulmaid. One of the Screaming Women. There are so many names for your kind, aren’t there?”

“A what now, then?” — Lyanna's brow furrowed.

“You're one of them, a creature, but not really. Of all things, I didn't expect you Rhaegar to associate with, a Cradlehowler, and a Gravewhore.” — Quaithe said it with a sharp, cold edge, like she was cutting through lies and secrets with a blade. Her voice was steady, almost detached, but every word carried a weight of accusation and bitter surprise.

That was when Rhaegar decided it was time to go. — “We’re done here,” — He said, placing a hand on Lyanna’s shoulder and steering her toward the door.

Quaithe’s voice trailed after them. —  “Careful, darling. You’re playing with a knife that sings.”

Outside, the night was cold and clean by comparison. They walked in silence until the lights of the harbor flickered against the windshield of her car.

She leaned against the hood. — “Why did she call me that? Gravewhore…” — Lyanna's voice was quiet.

“Don’t repeat it,” — He said. It came out sharper than he meant it to.

“Why not?” — Lyanna asked simply, her tone steady but curious, no trace of suspicion, just genuine puzzlement, like she was trying to understand something that didn’t quite add up.

Rhaegar had already pieced together, with the precision born of centuries in shadows, that Lyanna carried more than just secrets — she harbored scars, tangled and raw, forged in a past that kept her distant from others like them. It wasn’t exactly a revelation; a complication, yes. Yet what truly intrigued him was something far darker beneath the surface. Banshees, cursed women tethered by blood and fate, were a legacy no one chose, a lineage drenched in disdain and superstition. And here was Lyanna, branded by a word that dripped with venom — a slur tossed carelessly, wielded like a weapon. Whoever had raised her — mother, guardian, or indifferent shade — had clearly neglected to teach her when to bristle, when to own the insult, or when to wield it as armor. It was the kind of neglect that tasted bitter to Rhaegar, not just for her sake, but for the chessboard of alliances and enmities that governed their lives. In a world where power balanced on perception, ignorance was a luxury none could afford — not even a banshee, not even Lyanna. And yet, beneath his composed exterior, there stirred a quiet, reluctant admiration for her resilience — the stubborn pulse of life refusing to be extinguished, even in the shadow of a curse.

He sighed, the weight of unspoken things pressing down. —  “Because it’s not just an insult, it’s a slur. Suggests that you as a banshee consorts with death for power. The 'Ghoul' one equates you with lesser undead, mindless or parasitic. 'Cradlehowler' ties your screams to omens of infant deaths. Suggests you're a child killer. Or more, which is worse.”

She processed that. — “Charming friends ye’ve got.”

“I wouldn’t call her that.” — Rhaegar said it quietly, with a sharp edge that hinted he didn’t quite agree.

She smiled, cool and sharp. — “Nah, reckon not. Well, if it makes ye feel any better,” —  Lyanna said, — “between her an’ the lady that turned ye, I’m pretty sure ye’ve got shite sense when it comes to women.”

“Lyanna, get in the car. Let’s get out of this place.” — Rhaegar said it low and steady, firm but calm, no room for argument, just quiet command.

“Aright, Fangs. No need tae get all antsy now.” — She said it with a teasing edge, a smirk hidden in her tone, half-joking, half-warning, but keeping things light to mask the tension underneath.

As they settled into the car, Rhaegar muttered, —“Shouldn’t have come here.”

He noted the subtle shift — Lyanna cranked the engine with a deliberate snap, but beneath the noise, a quiet laugh slipped free, unguarded and rare. It was a fleeting crack in her armor, one he filed away with careful interest.

“Just drive,” — He replied, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. Rhaegar glanced out the window, watching the shadows ripple along the night. 

But his mouth twitched. And, unfortunately, she saw it. Her phone’s sudden crackle cut through the tense quiet of the car like a blade drawn too sharply. Lyanna flicked the console’s speakerphone on without hesitation, the familiar ring threading its way between them, marking an uneasy truce with the outside world.

“Mance,” — She said, clipped, keeping her eyes on the road, voice a low northern drawl sharpened by steel and something softer beneath, something Rhaegar caught, like a tremor beneath stone.

“Ey, Lyls. Ye good?” — came the voice from the other end, an anchor.

Lyanna’s answer was brisk, the kind that held command, warning, —  “Aye, yer on speaker, so don’t go sayin’ nowt daft.” — Rhaegar allowed himself a flicker of dry amusement. As if that were a reasonable request.

“Booty call, then” — Mance insisted, his attempt at lightness falling flat under the weight of news to come.

Rhaegar’s tone, carefully neutral but edged with something taut beneath, cut in, — “Hello, Mance.”

There was a pause, heavy as a shroud. — “Still dunno then.”

“Nah. We jus’ saw someone who might ken aboot the Cassel Piler case.” — Lyanna’s voice didn’t waver, but Rhaegar recognized the tremor, the same one he felt inside himself, the one that whispered of unfinished business, of ghosts clawing at the present.

“Well, good, that’s what I called ye aboot,” — Mance said, voice dropping. —  “Body was found earlier tonight. Just opened the file. Guess what I found?”

Lyanna’s sharp reply was almost automatic, — “Heart’s smashed too?”

“Aye... Jeor Mormont.” — Mance said it slow and low, like the name itself was a weight, a kind of grim acknowledgment that didn’t need explaining. There was no surprise in his tone, just that steady, knowing drawl that carried the chill of bad news settled deep.

“Tha judge?” —Lyanna’s voice held no surprise, only the quiet gravity of someone who knows the cost.

Rhaegar’s mind cataloged the name with precision, a judge, a figure wrapped in layers of law and shadow. — “Yep.” — Mance said it with a slow, steady drawl, like he’s confirming something serious but not surprised.

“Aye. Thanks for the heads-up, mate.” — Lyanna said it clipped and practical, with just a hint of weariness, like she’d heard worse but appreciated the warning nonetheless.

“All good. An’ Ly… ye should give Sig a bell...” — Mance said it easy, low and steady, like he was trying to sound casual but the weight of the advice hung beneath his words, concern mixed with a little impatience.

A flicker of resistance in Lyanna’s voice, — “Can’t do it now. When I’m done here, I’ll be sure ta. Bye then.” —  Lyanna said it clipped and firm, trying to sound in control despite the tight knot of pressure under her words. There was that stubborn edge; no time for distractions, but a promise she’d keep once the weight lifted.

She cut the call before the last word hung fully in the air. Silence settled—thick, sharp, suffocating. Rhaegar felt it keenly, that palpable pause between what had been and what was now — the past pressing in with its old wounds, the present bleeding anew.

He broke the quiet, voice low, almost sardonic, —  “He’s still raw about it?”

Lyanna’s answer was simple, edged with something almost wistful, — “He’s a detective. O’ course he is.”

Behind the measured tones, Rhaegar recognized a shared understanding — the bitter taste of loss, of a world that never quite lets you forget, no matter how long you’ve lived or how far you’ve run. And beneath it all, the slow, stubborn flame of connection — one he guarded fiercely, even as it threatened to consume him.

***

Another nice fuckin' house, Big lawn. Clean windows. No blood on the doorknob. Yet. Lyanna had left Rhaegar in his tidy little coffin of a home — quiet, sleek, suffocating — and dragged herself back to hers. Which wasn’t a home so much as a bunker dressed up like a flat. And of course, sleep never came. Her brain had its claws in something now. Three men. Three corpses. More on the list if she didn’t figure this shit out. So she did what she always did: lit a cigarette, poured a finger of whiskey, and started digging. Nelsor Piler. Ring any bells? Just your average ritualistic manslaughter case. Multiple counts. Real classy. Cassel had been his defense attorney. Jeor Mormont the judge. And the prosecutor? Jaremy Rykker. Local. Still breathing — maybe not for long. She got four hours of sleep. Maybe. Enough to function, barely. Howland showed up like he always did — quiet, loyal, probably smarter than everyone in the room — and Lyanna didn’t wait. Rykker’s address was loaded in her phone. She hit the gas and tried not to think too hard, which meant of course she thought too hard.

Most folks who end up behind bars blame the judge and the DA. That’s normal. But the defense? That’s not grudge, that’s vendetta. Something deeper. The house sat in one of those smug little corners of White Harbor where nothing bad ever happened. Aye. Sure. Her boots crunched up the too-clean path. Door was open. Bad sign. Even worse, it felt wrong. Cold, in that way that wasn't about temperature. So, like any idiot with trauma brain and a death wish, she stepped inside. The downstairs was a showroom. No signs of a struggle, but the quiet clung to the walls. She moved upstairs. Bedroom, study, nothing. She was heading back down, already calling the man a ghost in her head, when she heard it. A phone. Distant. Too distant. Then she saw the mirror in the hallway. She didn’t like mirrors. She went for the fingernail test. No gap between nail and reflection. Two-way.

Her voice cracked the silence, — “Sir? Sorry fer droppin’ by unasked. Name’s Lyanna Stark. PI. You comin’ out, then?”

The mirror clicked. Shifted. Opened like a goddamn magician's trick to reveal a panic room. And inside: Jaremy Rykker, pale and twitching, a gun in his hand he wasn’t even trying to aim.

She stepped back. Let him breathe. — “Reckon you know why I’m ‘ere.” — She said, voice like gravel and old smoke.

“Piler,” —  He rasped. Bingo.

They moved to the living room. He locked the door like it’d help. Poor bastard was a wire about to snap. She didn’t tell him to sit. Let him pace like a dog watching every window.

“They’ve already done for Mormont. An’ Cassel. I’m next.”— His voice was tight, rasped like it’d been dragged over gravel, heavy with panic and too many sleepless nights. The words came quick, clipped, like he was trying to outrun them, and losing. 

“Aye,” — She muttered. —  “Aye, safe bet. Y’know why?” — He shook his head. — “In my line o’ work,” — She said, — “folk don’t usually hate their own bloody lawyer. So what in seven hells did the three o’ you bury?”

Rykker swallowed. Looked ten years older than a minute ago. — “We all knew he were guilty. Not just for the one they caught him on. All of it. Every bit. All we needed to lock the bastard up were in the car, tied up with the evidence. But some green lad cocked it up. Opened the door, and it all spilled out. Contaminated. So we buried it. For justice, like.”

“An’ Cassel?” — Lyanna asked, quiet-like, voice low, rough round the edges, like she already knew the answer but wanted to hear it from him. Her jaw was set, but her eyes, sharp, steady, didn’t flinch.

“Didn’t bloody know.” — Rykker muttered it under his breath, like it tasted foul comin’ out. Shoulders hunched, eyes darting like a man already halfway buried.

“Righ.” — She didn't believe that, not fully.

“What're you doin’ here, then?” — Rykker said it warily, voice low and edged like a blade dulled from too much use, suspicion sittin’ heavy behind his eyes.

Lyanna said it flat, like she was spitting out bad luck and bitter truth all at once. Her eyes didn’t flicker, but her voice had that rough edge, half dare, half warning. —  “Workin’ for Cassel’s widow. Dug up the link. Figured you’d be next. I can keep you alive, but you gotta trust me.”

“What fuckin’ choice do I have.” — She told him to pack a bag. 

She left a voice message for Rhaegar while Rykker threw shit into a duffel: get here, dress low-key, bring your teeth. She didn’t expect punctuality, but the bloodsucker showed up before the shadows had fully set. Of course, Rhaegar’s idea of low-key, blending in was a damn Henley, boots, and the kind of coat that screamed 'mysterious bastard.' Still, she felt a smile ghost her lips. Brief. Gone.  She tossed him her keys. 

Lyanna barked it out like she was giving orders in a warzone, no room for questions, no space for second guesses. Her tone was sharp, clipped, the kind that made you listen or get left behind. There was that cold weight behind her words, the kind that said she didn’t fuck around. — “Ye’re takin’ him to a hotel. Pay cash. Make sure ye’re not followed. Take me car. I want it back in one piece, Fangs.”

Rhaegar smirked. — “Yes, ma’am.”

Rykker clutched his bag like a child. — “How d’ I know I can trust ‘im?”

Lyanna’s answer came too fast. Instinct, not thought. —  “’Cause I trust ‘im. With me life.”

Rhaegar’s tone was low, smooth, with a teasing edge that didn’t quite reach his eyes.  — “You do?” —  Like he was testing the waters, half-mocking but curious. His voice held a cool confidence, the kind that unsettled without trying, as if daring you to admit the truth behind the words.

“Oh, feck off. No the time Fangs.” — Lyanna snapped it out quick, sharp as a blade, with that trademark edge, like she was shoving the words at him just to keep the walls up. Her voice was rough, clipped, no patience for his teasing bullshit. You could hear the tired weight behind it, the kind of tired that’s been carried for too long but never gets to be said straight. She didn’t wanna deal with feelings, not now, not ever.

“How do Ah know Ah can trust ye?” — Rykker asked.

Lyanna lit another cigarette, jaw tight. — “Ye wanna stay ‘ere an’ find oot?”

“Let’s fuckin’ go, then.” — Rykker said it sharp, like a man pushed to his edge, no patience left for second-guessing, just raw urgency bleeding through his gruff voice.

They didn’t make it. The lights blinked. Something shifted in the air — wrong, ancient, cold enough to burn. Lyanna turned. Saw something outside the door. Not a man. Not a thing. A ghost, if you had to put a word to it. It passed through the door. Passed through Rhaegar. Fangs hit the floor hard. Then it hit her. No, through her. The cold was inside her bones, inside her blood, in her goddamn soul. She dropped like a rag doll. She tried to reach — instinct, banshee instinct — to tether the thing. Grabbed the spectral anchor with her wrist. Her tattoo burned. It stopped. For a second. Then it kicked her in the face. Black. Ten seconds? A minute? She woke to Rhaegar’s hands on her, voice tight.

Rhaegar’s voice was low, steady, but urgent, like a quiet command that brooked no argument. He shook her gently but firmly, careful not to jolt her too hard, his fingers pressing lightly on her shoulder, grounding her back to the moment.  He said, — “Lyanna. Are you okay? Come on.” — with a calm that cut through the haze, steadying her wobbling senses.

She scrambled to her feet. Rykker was gone. Upstairs. They ran. Found him convulsing, body jerking like a marionette. She dove to his side. Pulse. Barely. Compressions. Her hands moved without thinking. Count. Count. Come back. Come back — Then Rhaegar’s hands were on her shoulders.

His voice softened to a tone she’d never heard before, gentle, almost pleading, with an undercurrent of something raw and fragile. It was quieter than usual, like he was trying to hold back a storm inside himself too. —“Let him go. Lyanna. Let him go,” — each word careful and slow, like a whispered prayer, carrying a weight that made the air between them tremble.

Lyanna’s voice came out rough, low and stubborn, like a winter wind that don’t care for soft words. Her jaw was tight, eyes flashing with that fierce fire she never bothered to hide. — “I can’t.” — short, sharp, with that quiet grit that made it clear she wasn’t budgin’.

Rhaegar’s grip was firm, steady, like iron wrapped in velvet. He pulled her gently but without hesitation, grounding her. His voice was low and calm, a quiet command meant to steady the storm inside her. — “Breathe.”

She hadn’t realized she wasn’t. Her throat burned. She gasped, and it came out wrong, screeching. Her scream came out strangled. Wrong. Empty. Then arms. Around her. Rhaegar held her. Held her. What the hell kind of vampire does that? He brushed her hair back. Whispered something. Soft, stupid, kind. She hated him for it. And hated herself more for not pulling away. She cried. Not much. Just enough to feel small. She hadn’t cried since her mother’s last scream echoed down the hallway. She was supposed to be stronger than this. But Gods... she was so tired of being strong.

She told him to get back to her office before she called 999. Voice flat, no room for argument. Her tone had that edge — the one that meant she wasn’t bluffing. The cops and medics showed up quick, lights flickering across the walls like ghosts trying to claw their way in. Lyanna sat outside on the porch, jacket drawn tight, smoke curling from her lips like a slow exhale of everything she didn’t want to feel. She didn’t want to watch them wheel Rykker out. Didn’t want to see another body zipped up like it was nothing but meat and regrets. She stared at the cracks in the concrete instead, counting them like sins. Might’ve stayed in that headspace — frozen, spiraling cif not for a voice she’d known too long to ignore.

“Lya… what th’ fuck’s goin’ on?”

Sigorn. Of course it’d be him. She looked up, eyes bleary and unreadable. — “Sig.”

“Don’t ‘Sig’ me, aye? Not now. Quid pro quo. Talk.” —  He said it low and clipped, jaw tight like he was chewing on the urge to yell. Not angry so much as hurt, and trying hard not to show it. His eyes were sharp, scanning her like she was a crime scene he couldn’t quite make sense of. Still stood close, though. Closer than he should’ve.

“Mormont. Rykker. They framed him,” — She said, quick an’ bitter, like spittin’ out glass. — “Cassel were just in the way. Wrong place, wrong fuckin’ time.”  — Her voice had that hard edge, the one she used when the truth tasted like blood.

Signor's voice came clipped, sharp as a snapped twig, low and fast, like he already knew the answer but needed her to say it anyway.— “Ye got proof?” — He asked, jaw tight, eyes colder than the wind rolling in off the moors. It wasn’t disbelief. It was dread. The kind that comes when you’re halfway through a fall and just realized there’s no one left to catch you.

Lyanna didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. Just dragged in a breath that tasted like blood and pine needles and stared past him like the ground might open up and swallow the both of them if she let it. — “Rykker owned up. Right ‘fore he died.” — Her voice was flat, Northern and bone-dry, like she was saying the sky was grey or the kettle was on. But something underneath it, the crackle behind the words, said it hadn’t left her head since.

His jaw clenched. —“Suspects?”

Lyanna lit a cigarette with fingers that didn’t shake, though maybe they should’ve. The porch light flickered above her, casting shadows under her eyes like bruises. She spoke without looking at Sigorn, like talking was just another bad habit. — “Piler lot. Nelsor’s mam and his brother. I went round theirs, brother said he had it comin’. My coin’s on him.” — The words came low and grim, clipped like she was carving them from stone. Not angry. Not upset. Just tired, and sure, and already halfway to whatever came next.

Sigorn’s voice cut through the cold like a dull blade, quiet, but hard-edged, like he was holding something back and losing the grip. — “Shoul’ave told me, Lya.” — He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t need to. It came out flat and clipped, thick with his usual grit, like the words tasted wrong in his mouth. Not accusation, not quite, but there was weight in it. Disappointment. A crack just starting to show in the armor.

Lyanna didn’t look at him when she said it. Just flicked ash off the end of her cigarette and let the smoke curl up between them like a wall. — “You didn’t bloody call, did you. An’ I know you, Sig, when you don’t wanna talk, you start runnin’ that mouth like you’re chokin’ on glass.” — Her tone was low, dry, the edge of a smirk ghosting her lips but never quite landing. That sharp, tired lilt in her voice, the one she used when she didn’t want to admit she cared. Sarcasm layered over hurt, her usual trick. But her eyes, even half-blind and shadowed, stayed locked on some middle distance. Not on him. Never on him.

Sigorne’s voice was clipped, the kind of hard edge that didn’t leave much room for argument. He stood there, arms crossed, eyes sharp as broken glass, like he was sizing her up, not angry exactly, but damn serious. —  “Well, maybe you should’ve said somethin’ anyway. His death’s on ye now.” — There was no softness in it. Just cold, plain truth, delivered like a verdict.

He walked off. She didn’t reach for him. Didn’t shout. Just watched his back get smaller and smaller like he’d been leaving for years, until her bad sight didn’t let her see him anymore. She lit another cigarette with hands that didn’t shake, because she didn’t let them. Her apartment was cold when she got back. She forgot Rhaegar would be there. Of course he was. 

Lyanna caught the weight behind his words before he even spoke, the careful calculation in that quiet pause. When Rhaegar finally said, — “You look like shit,” — it wasn’t just an insult. She knew he’d figured out that if he came at her soft, she’d shrink back, pull her walls higher. So instead, he went with something rougher, more bite, but soaked in a weird kind of concern she wasn’t ready to name. Bastard . It was his way of cutting through her bullshit without pretending to sugarcoat the truth.

She snorted. — “Sig was there. Reckon he wasn’t too chuffed to see me.”

It was not a long time before her neck started killing her. Maybe the worst flare yet. Even worse was Rhaegar offering to help — and worse than that, her saying yes. She sat on the edge of the sofa, her back to him, teeth grit so hard her jaw ached. His fingers pressed into her muscles like they had every right to be there. Strong. Methodical. She could feel all the old wounds unraveling beneath his touch. Things she thought were healed. Buried.

“We gotta find a way to stop ’im,” — She said through a breath that stuttered. — “Soon as… Fuck…”

A half-moan escaped her when he hit a knot behind her shoulder. — “Bad?” — He asked, voice close, too close.

She swallowed it down. — “Nope.”

He kept working her over like he was trying to carve the tension out of her bones. — “It won’t be easy,” — He murmured. — “He can pass through us.”

She stared down at the ink spiraling over her thighs. Her tattoos shimmered faintly in the low light, like bruises that didn’t fade. — “Nah, not through me,” — She said. — “I touched ’im. Grabbed his ankle. Felt like fire crawlin’ under my skin. Like me tattoos was tryin’ to scorch ’im out. Quaithe might’ve been right ’bout…”

“No,” — Rhaegar said sharply.

She felt him shift behind her — thought he might back off, give her space like she always needed. But no. His hands reached for her arms, steady and sure, pulling her close enough that her breath caught in her throat, like someone’d just slammed a door in a quiet room. Not a cage, but a hold — firm, careful, like he was trying not to break her, though maybe breaking was the point. His grip tightened on her wrists, not cruel, but too real to ignore. Her head tipped back, brushing against his shoulder, and she could feel the soft scrape of his hair against her cheek, the heat of him so close it pressed into her skin. It was a touch that tangled her nerves and chilled her spine all at once, the kind that didn’t ask permission but somehow demanded it anyway. Lyanna stiffened, eyes closed against the dark world creeping in, every sharp edge of the moment stabbing through the fog she kept wrapped tight around her heart. She didn’t want this. Didn’t want anyone close enough to know the cracks beneath her armor. But here he was, breaking her rules one quiet, stubborn inch at a time.

“It’s not that simple,” — He said, voice low, threaded with something she didn’t dare name. — “Dark magic marks the soul. It draws things to you. You’re already a target. And you’ve got this interesting fucking habit of running straight into the fire.”

She let out a breath that could’ve been a laugh. —  “Well, Fangs, not like I’ve got much of a choice.”

She didn’t have to say it out loud. He already knew where she wanted to go. And he sure as hell wouldn’t like it. But it might be the only shot they had. Lyanna’s voice came out low and rough, like she’d been dragging it through gravel. Her eyes didn’t meet his, never did, just fixed somewhere past him, cold and steady as a blade. — “We gotta go back there,” — She said, clipped and sharp, no room for argument. 

***

They waited for Quaithe to step out of her shop, the clock inching toward 3 a.m., the city’s pulse slowing into something colder, quieter. When she finally appeared, shutting the door with a reluctant click, the street swallowed the heat of the day and spat out shadows. But before she could reach her car, they were on her — the ghost hunters come calling.

Quaithe, slender and aloof on the empty sidewalk, turned with a slow smile, like a cat amused by the futile dance of mice. —  “You came back,” — She said, voice low, a trace of mockery hanging in the chill air.

Lyanna’s eyes flickered, sharp and haunted. — “I touched a ghost… I ken that’s impossible. What the fuck are you hidin’?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” — Quaithe replied, the lie slipping like smoke between her words.

Rhaegar stepped forward, voice dry but edged like a knife. —  “If you lie to us, I’ll take it very personally. And if you want to keep that neck of yours intact, you’re going to tell us the truth.”

Her gaze flicked to him, amusement softening into something else, an appraisal, a warning. —  “Look at you, like a loyal dog. The protective side suits you. Then again what doesn’t?”

Patience was not a luxury Rhaegar possessed tonight. Lyanna wanted to press Quaithe about the tattoos coiling around her wrists like sinister scripts. Fine. If the truth wouldn’t come willingly, he’d pry it out. His hand moved before he thought — fingers brushing her neck with a coldness that made the smile falter but not vanish.

“She’s bound to it,” —  Quaithe said quietly, voice steady despite the subtle curse curled beneath her breath. —  “It’s like the pentagram symbols that bind.”

Bound. Lyanna, bound to a demon. The words hung between them like a noose. —  “How?”—  He asked, voice a careful whisper edged with something darker.

Quaithe’s voice dipped into something slow and sly, that lazy drawl like she was savoring the weight of the words before she let them slip out. There was a flicker of amusement in her eyes, but it was sharp, like the edge of a blade hidden behind silk, sweet, but ready to cut. She leaned back just a little, the kind of confident ease that said she knew exactly how much she was holding back. — “Only time can tell, sugar.”

Lyanna’s impatience spilled out. — “All ah wanna know is how ta stop Piler.”

Quaithe’s lips twitched, almost amused. — “That wasn’t a cleansing spell he performed.”

Rhaegar murmured under his breath, the weight of those words settling cold in his chest. — “What did Piler do?”

Quaithe’s voice dipped low, almost conspiratorial, like she was sharing a secret meant to unsettle. There was a slow, deliberate pause before she said — “He’s a skinchanger, but… what he did blocks the spirit’s passage to the other side. It binds it.” — as if weighing her words carefully, then the rest came out clipped and sharp, with a faint trace of warning in her tone. She sounded like someone who’s seen too much dark magic and knows it’s best not to underestimate it, her words hung heavy, the kind that make you swallow hard and think twice.

“To an animal,” — Lyanna guessed.

Quaithe’s tone grew colder, more precise, the kind of voice that leaves no room for argument. She spoke with quiet authority, every word clipped and measured like a blade cutting through doubt. There was an edge of something fierce in her delivery, as if she was warning you not to misunderstand the gravity of what she meant. When she said, — “No. An animal wouldn’t hold it down,  It has to be a person. A close quarters spell, it's too powerful to be a performer from far.” — her voice hardened, deliberate, before softening just a touch with the explanation about close quarters and power. It felt like she was laying down a hard truth, the kind that settled heavy in the silence afterward.

He arched an eyebrow, voice laced with frustration and dry amusement. —  “And why in seven hells didn’t you tell us that from the start?”

Quaithe shrugged, lips curling with sardonic defiance. — “I’m not dumb enough to cross someone who can do that kind of magic.”

A slow smile crept over Rhaegar’s lips as he bared his fangs, sarcasm dripping. — “So you decided to cross a five-hundred-year-old vampire. Very intelligent.”

She shrugged again. — “When you came into my shop… one word kept coming up when you told me about this. Mavhair . Not Valyrian.”

Lyanna’s jaw tightened. — “Nah, it’s not. Old Northerner, that is. The Children o’ the Forest used it… Son o’ a bitch. Literal, too… Mavhair means mother.”

They left Quaithe behind like a splinter pulled too late — relief edged with something raw. Lyanna drove like a woman possessed, though she didn’t speak it aloud. He could feel it humming off her, the uncoiled tension, the short-circuited thoughts. She gripped the wheel as if it might betray her too. Then, inevitably, the phone rang.

A name blinked on the dash. Mance. Of course. She jabbed the speaker.—  “‘Ey. Did you call Sig?”

“Saw ‘im. Weren’t good.” — She replied,  putting it diplomatically. Rhaegar said nothing, eyes forward, listening. Kept listening.

“Worried ‘bout ‘im, y’know? Folks droppin’ dead left an’ right… an’ Piler’s lot’s in town.” —  He said it low, like he was tryna keep the words from spooking the air itself. Gravel in his throat, too tired to panic, but just sharp enough to cut through the noise. There was that twitch in his jaw he got when shit didn’t line up, Mance wasn’t scared easy, but this? This had his gut twisting

“What?” — The air in the car thickened. Rhaegar’s mind narrowed. The pieces, too many and none of them fitting.

“They done picked up his brother, dragged ’im in fer questions. But he ain’t gone nowhere. Still hangin’ round.”—  Mance said it like he didn’t trust the words coming outta his own mouth… Voice low, clipped, like every syllable tasted wrong. He kept glancin’ over his shoulder, one hand on his belt like he expected trouble to walk in wearing a badge. The way he said still hangin’ round , it was more warning than fact.

“His ma there?” — Lyanna said it sharp, quick, like the words came out before she even meant to speak. Her voice had that edge again, low and clipped at the end like she was biting back something worse. Not fear, exactly. Something meaner. Like dread dressed up as anger. Her jaw was tight, knuckles white on the wheel, but she didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Just stared out at the road like the answer might punch through the windshield.

“Reckon so. She’s bailin’ him out, rang her, yeah. But listen, did ya call Sigorn? He’s comin’ undone, this case’s messin’ wi’ his head somethin’ fierce.” — Mance said it low, voice rough like gravel and road salt, the way Northerners got when worry started to scrape at the back of their throats. He didn’t rush the words, but there was tension in ‘em, a kind of pressure, like if Lyanna didn’t move fast enough, something was gonna break. 

That caught his attention. Rhaegar leaned forward, voice like dry parchment edged in steel. — “Why, exactly, is this case screwing with him?” — Rhaegar said it with a calm, deliberate edge, his voice low and precise, like a scalpel cutting through fog. There was no panic, just cool suspicion sharpening every word.

A pause. Mance scratched the back of his neck, voice trailing off with a sheepish kind of drawl, like he'd just stepped into something awkward he hadn’t meant to. —  “Oh. Didn’ know ye were… y’know, together.” — He said it half-apologetic, half-curious, like he was already regretting opening his mouth but couldn’t help the nosy flicker in his tone.

“Mance.” — Lyanna said it sharp and flat, like a warning shot. Just his name, no frills, no patience, and no room for bullshit.

Mance said it low, a bit uneasy, like he wasn’t sure how much to give away, —  “Sig worked t’ Piler case. Back when he were just a rookie. Few years back, that.”

He saw the color drain from her face. Felt it in the air pressure shift beside him. She wasn’t breathing. And then — “Mance… Mance, listen…go find Sig. Don’ let ‘im leave. I’m comin’ now. Go. Now. Bye”.

She pressed down on the accelerator, the car surging forward with a sharper urgency — every inch gained a silent countdown, a calculated leap against time itself.

“Do you think she’s going to attack him now?” — Rhaegar’s voice was calm, measured, but there was a faint edge beneath the surface, something sharp, like steel quietly drawn. His words carried the weight of cautious calculation, laced with a hint of dark amusement, as if weighing the odds of a storm about to break.

“I dunno. But I’m nae leavin’ that open.” — Lyanna said it sharp and clipped, the tension in her voice barely masked by a controlled edge, like a warning flickering behind her calm. Her Northern accent thickened the words, grounding them in a fierce resolve, no room for doubt. She shot him a look. Calculated. Resigned. —  “I’ll drop ye at our place…”

“Are you shitting me?” — He let the edge into his voice now, silk fraying at the seams. — “You think I’m letting you chase a demon alone? We’re in the North. Sunrise is at eight. Just drive.”

She didn’t argue. Just hit the gas harder. They tore through snow-slick streets until the station came into view. Lyanna parked, abrupt and graceless, like the car itself had gone feral. Then the plan was made — fractured, instinctive. He’d find the mother. She’d go after Sigorn. He didn’t watch her walk inside. He vaulted up the fire escape to the roof, skimming through the night like smoke. Her instructions had been precise: back lot, far end. Find the mother. Stop her. Do not help me. He hadn’t liked that part. He liked it less now. Voices. Too soft to be human. He moved faster. He found the old woman speaking into the air, eyes glassy with devotion. The spirit was near. No hesitation now. He surged forward. His hand cracked against her temple — not hard enough to kill, just to drop her. But she didn’t fall like a mortal. She sat up slow, like a puppet on the wrong strings. Her body began to convulse — fingers twitching, mouth foaming something ancient. Then she dropped. Dead.

He barely had time to register it. — “Rhaegar! We got it….”

Rhaegar was already moving before thought could slow him down, slipping through the chaos of the front lot like a shadow stalking its prey. Sigorn lay sprawled, broken and gasping for breath that wasn’t there. Mance hovered above him, eyes wild, hands trembling — an amateur’s panic. Lyanna knelt beside the fallen man, hands trembling but relentless, painting her palms with powder as if the ashes might rewrite fate itself. He didn’t need to ask what had happened; the telltale curl of smoke drifting from Sigorn’s chest told a story sharper than any confession. The animal — a wretched spirit — had lodged itself inside, a parasite with intent: crush the heart, break the will. They’d arrived in time to stop the final blow, but not the damage already done. A heart nearly shattered, a soul nearly lost. Later, the statements came — words dipped in careful half-truths and practiced detachment. The mother had attacked Sigorn during questioning, a moment of madness, tragedy writ large. No one blinked. No one cared. Another sorrow to be buried beneath bureaucratic indifference.

Rhaegar stood close to Lyanna, his coat brushing hers, a silent tether between two ghosts adrift. She didn’t shed a tear — not that he expected her to. Tears were for the living, for the vulnerable. But beneath her calm surface, he sensed the fracture —a hollow where something vital had caved in. He hated that. Hated it with the cold certainty of centuries burned into his bones. Hated that no matter how many lifetimes he’d endured, how many battles he’d mastered, he couldn’t reach that broken place inside her. Couldn’t mend what was shattering beneath her ribs. And yet, beneath the weight of all he’d lost and all he’d become, something stubborn and reluctant stirred — a slow-burning ember of connection, as inconvenient as it was undeniable. Duty said detachment; desire whispered otherwise. As always, the war within was his cruelest enemy.

Rhaegar noted, with his usual detached precision, that Sigorn was still out cold, sleeping off whatever damage the ghost had dealt him, but, against all odds, intact. Lyanna said, sharp and practical as ever. Fine “We’d best be gettin’ off ‘fore he wakes.”

The urgency was mutual. Rhaegar’s mind ticked forward: almost bedtime for him, and a burning need to return to his sanctuary before the hunger clawed past his carefully maintained restraint. The last thing he wanted was to become another corpse in a world that already had too many. They moved toward the exit, shadows flitting past like ghosts of consequences yet to come. Then, Mance’s voice sliced through the tension, rough and genuine as always.

“Ly,” — He barked, laced with that coarse Northern edge… Equal parts warning and exasperation — “I dunno what’s gone on between you two... but don’t let Sig be a bloody daft sod, an’ you don’t go bein’ all cold ‘n unfeelin’ and screw up yer friendship, aye?

Rhaegar caught Lyanna’s sharp salute, the faintest curl of a smirk hidden beneath her armor of stoicism. — “Aye, sir,” — she replied, voice clipped but with enough bite to tell the world she meant it.

For a moment, Rhaegar allowed himself a flicker of dry amusement. Even in chaos, some things remained uncomfortably human — messy, stubborn, and far from resolved. And so the slow dance continued: duty pulling one way, desire the other, with friendship caught somewhere painfully in between.

***

Title: Revenge from the dead

The Piler case, revenger from the dead. Burned from the inside out. A spell gone wrong, or right, depending on who cast it. But that wasn’t the part that stayed with me. It was her. Lyanna stood over what was left of him — jaw locked, eyes distant, knuckles white like it could strike a flame through guilt. She didn’t speak for a long time. Not to me. Not to herself. Just stared at the ruin like if she looked hard enough, she could reverse it. As if rage or remorse could spin time backward and spare the man who’d trusted her to fix it.

He asked for help. And she was too late. I saw what it did to her. It cracked something open. Not loudly. Not theatrically. Lyanna doesn’t unravel with too much tears or confessions. She breaks inwards — like old stone under frost. One inch at a time, so you don’t notice until you’re stepping on ruins.

Gods, she is difficult. Closed off in ways that make diplomacy feel like necromancy. So much of her is buried under sarcasm and smoke, and yet it bleeds through anyway — in the way she watches, protects. The way she grieves. Quietly. Violently.

There is so much feeling in her, it nearly undoes her. And all of it, boxed in behind those iron eyes. It’s inconvenient. Inconvenient how much I care.

I didn’t want this — not with her. Not with anyone. I’ve lived too long to indulge in maybes and almosts. Attachment has teeth, and I’ve bled before. But there’s something about her… not softness exactly. But steel forged in sorrow. I see it when she moves, when she refuses to let the darkness swallow her, even when it nips at her feet.

And today — after it all — she looked at me and said, she trusted me. Not lightly. Not casually. Like it cost her something to say it.

It was absurd how much it mattered. A single sentence, and it felt like the world paused to listen. She trusts me. Me. A vampire with too many sins in his bones and not enough light in his veins.

And now I can’t stop thinking about her. Not just in the way I watch a partner, or protect an asset. It’s deeper. Hungrier. Older than either of us wants to admit.

I’m afraid. Not of her. Of what she’s doing to me.

Because I feel it — the fall. Slow and inescapable. And I don’t know whether it will end in ruin or redemption.

But for the first time in decades, I want to find out.

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Lyanna hadn’t had so much as a breath between jobs. One day bled into the next, and now Howland had holed her up with another case. At least this one wasn’t supernatural. No rotting corpses with demon mouths, no dead-eyed girls whispering riddles in their sleep. Just good old-fashioned adultery. Mister Adarien Ryser. The name sounded like a discount cologne. He looked the part too — middle-aged, balding, tailored suit that tried too hard. Married to a woman half his age, lived in a gated community where they probably sacrificed personality for property values. Played tennis every weekend like it was a religion. The only thing missing was a yacht called The Mistress .

“Mister Ryser,” — she said, flatly, lighting the edge of her cigarette with a flick of her thumb. — “Maybe think on the coin you’re burnin’ through here and put it toward marriage counselin’. Folk don’t take kindly to bein’ spied on. So tell me true, d’you want the truth, or just to keep pretendin’?”

He blinked at her like she’d spoken another language. Southern twang, shaky hands. She pegged him for the type who cracked under pressure but smiled through it. — “Yes,” — He said, breath hitching. —  “And yes. I’m dying slowly, Miss Stark. If Alina is doing this, I have to know. Maybe I should’ve gone with a hitman instead.”

She didn’t laugh. Just looked at the picture he slid across the desk, young wife, glossy lips, vacant eyes. She looked like she already lived somewhere else. — “I’m joking,” — He added.

“Mm-hmm.” — Lyanna murmured it low in her throat, like the hum of a cigarette dragged slow, skeptical, unimpressed, and half a second from a sharper word. It wasn’t agreement so much as a warning to keep talking carefully.

“But Miss Stark... I need to know if it’s over.” — Ryser said it softly, like the words were dragging something heavy behind them tired, brittle, and just shy of pleading.

She nodded.  — “Aright. Yer funeral.”

He left smelling like desperation. The door creaked, sighed, and closed behind him. Enter: Howland. Only a young gay boy with freckles and too much imagination would show up looking like springtime had sex with a Wes Anderson character. A double-breasted corduroy coat in olive green, floral appliqués crawling up one shoulder like they’d grown there naturally. Sweater to match, green-on-green, checkered pattern like a chessboard where everyone had already lost. Corduroy trousers. A scarf — skinny and smug — hung around his neck like it had its own opinions. He looked like someone you’d see in a dream if you passed out reading a gardening magazine.

“Anything juicy, then? Demon’s got someone by the throat, maybe?” — He chirped.

“Not half as juicy as that getup. Ye look like somethin’ outta a museum,” —  Lyanna muttered. —  “Where’d ye dig that up, then?”

“Got some tips off Rhaegar, I did,” — Howland said, chipper as ever, floppin’ into the chair like a smug cat who knew he was cute. — “Told him I wanted less college dropout, more… y’know, hot vampire or summat.”

“So you were goin’ for hot vampire and landed on ‘ghost o’ Oscar bloody Wilde’.” — Lyanna drawled it with a dry, crooked grin, her tone halfway between amusement and disbelief.

“Said I should be bold, didn’t he? So aye… I’m tryin.”— Howland said it with a sheepish shrug and a flicker of defiance, like he was daring her to laugh but bracing for it all the same.

“Mission done, then.” — Lyanna said it with a dry smirk, voice low and clipped like she was marking the end of something she didn’t care much about but wanted to get right.

“So, what’re we workin’ wi’ then?” — Howland said it with a bright, eager tone, leaning forward like he was genuinely curious and ready to dive into the case, a little nervous but trying to sound confident.

“Adultery.” — Lyanna said it flat and deadpan, like the word itself was a bad joke she didn’t have time for, no drama, just blunt truth. Maybe a hint of dry humor buried beneath the surface.

Howland scrunched his nose. —  “Seven hells? Where d’folk find the time, then?”

“Ye’d be surprised, y’know.” — Lyanna said it with a knowing edge, voice low and dry, she’d seen enough to doubt anyone’s assumptions but wasn’t about to explain herself. 

She thought it’d be an easy case. She had planned for a night to herself. No hauntings, no stalkers, no cold trails laced with salt and blood. Just popcorn and Star Trek reruns. She even got the good kind — real butter, not that fake crap. She hadn’t expected her phone to buzz. When it did, she didn’t look at the name. Just figured it was Sigorn. She’d asked Mance to keep her in the loop. Sig had been forced off duty for the day. Too stubborn to leave on his own. She figured he’d call. Maybe drunk. Maybe soft.  Maybe trying to pretend he wasn’t checking in.

She picked it up without looking.  — “Kirk’s on tonight,” — She said. — “It’s yer favourite episode.” — casual, with a hint of teasing in her voice, like she was throwing a lifeline across the silence.

Silence. Not Sigorn’s kind. Not the angry kind. This one was... warm… Then, came a voice, low, southern, amused. A little silk, a little sin. She knew it too well. —  “I don’t know anyone named Kirk personally. I’m guessing you mean James T. Kirk? Sounds like you’re watching Star Trek. Bit old for you, isn’t it?” — Rhaegar. She swallowed.

“I like old things,” — She said, draggin’ the words like a snowflake. — “They’ve got more personality than most o’ the new ones.”

He laughed, warm, real. The kind of sound that made you forget you’d built your whole life out of barbed wire and fire escapes. — “Glad you think so.” — She could hear the faint, almost shy smile tugging at his lips. There was that brief pause, like he caught what she meant, and maybe, deep down, he did, it was a slip of her telling him of what she felt.

She didn’t like the tone in his voice. Didn’t like that he was calling. She imagined what it meant when vampires played nice. He’d been feeding — probably fucking. She could feel herself slipping, like a hand against glass. Dangerous. He was dangerous. Pretty men always were, especially the ones who saw past your shields.

“Why’re ye callin’ me?” — She asked, biting each word, more blunt. — “Yer mates busy?”

Rhaegar’s voice dropped low, almost a whisper, like he was leaning close just to her, the words sliding against her skin, soft, quiet, and somehow too close to ignore, —  “You’re my friend, Lyanna.”

“Ye didn’t answer me question.” — Lyanna said it sharp, cutting through the quiet like a blade, no patience left to sugarcoat, voice flat but heavy with meaning.

Rhaegar replied it low and easy, like he was right there beside her on the couch, close enough she could almost feel the weight of his presence. — “You’re always so quarrelsome. Can’t I call just to hear your voice?” — There was a quiet warmth in his voice, but that one word… Quarrelsome … Cut through the softness, a sly reminder that despite everything, he was older, more polished, just enough to unsettle her.

“Don’t seem like yer way.” — Lyanna said it sharp and a bit clipped, she wasn’t just making a simple observation but calling him out, no sugar, no fluff, just straight truth with a side of suspicion. Her voice had that hard edge, like winter wind cutting through the cracks.

“It’s not. I don’t have many friends.” — Rhaegar said it quietly, almost like he was confessing something too private to say out loud, his voice low, a bit heavy with loneliness, it had the weight of someone used to running alone. There was no bitterness, just a bare, honest truth that hung in the air.

A beat. —  “Neither do I,” — She said, voice rough-edged, almost like she was admiting something she didn’t wanna own out loud. 

The twist in her stomach hit hard — like a punch she didn’t see coming. Emotions like these weren’t supposed to live inside her, not anymore. She was a ticking bomb with a fuse lit, and she’d left the police for exactly that reason: too many things ready to blow. Living here, far from the mess of her own family, was supposed to mean she didn’t carry anyone else’s weight. Feelings, friendships — she was rotting away she knew that — with debts she wanted on her shoulders. She didn’t want to be someone else’s burden. Not again.

The cold night pressed in around her — dim streetlights flickering, the smell of rusted blood and iron still clinging to her clothes, silence stretching like a trap at 10pm. And yet, despite everything, despite all the walls she’d built, there was Rhaegar — quietly cracking her armor, slipping past the cracks she never meant anyone to find. She didn’t do rules. She did loyalty, sharp and dangerous, the kind that could shatter or save her. But mostly, she cared about the lost  — the ones no one else bothered to see. And if that made her a mess, well, so be it. Better to be honest about the chaos inside than lie and pretend she was something else.

“You working on anything fun?”— Rhaegar’s voice was calm, smooth, like silk sliding over steel, but there was a flicker of genuine curiosity beneath the polished surface.

Lyanna said it dry into the receiver, voice flat as pond ice and twice as cold. A smirk tugged at her mouth, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The word —  “Adultery” —  dropped like a stone, and then, — “Still dunno where folk find the time.” — she echoed Howland with a low, biting drawl. There was a rasp of amusement in it, sure, but it was more armor than mirth. Lyanna Stark didn’t laugh easy. Especially not about the things that hit too close to home.

Rhaegar replied it low, smooth, like velvet over a knife. The kind of voice that slipped through the receiver and curled around her spine. — “They make time. Because the thrill completes them.” — He wasn't flirting. Not exactly. But he spoke like sin dressed in silk, like he already knew what corner of her mind that line would stick in. The bastard had a way of making damnation sound poetic.

Lyanna responded it flat, like a door slamming shut. — “Ah don’t see it that way,” — She muttered, voice low and rough, like gravel under boot. Cold edge tucked behind the words, the kind that didn’t rise to argument, it ended it. No heat, just truth she didn’t care if you liked.

Rhaegar shot back it in that maddeningly calm way of his — slow, smooth, like honey sliding off a knife. Not rushed. Not pushed. Just deliberate, like he knew every word would land where it needed to. His voice came through the phone like smoke — quiet, low, and close. Too close. Like he wasn’t miles away, but right beside her, leaning in like he could see what was behind her eyes.

“We all chase something, Lyanna,” — He said, soft as sin. — “Some of us crave carnal release. Others… spend their nights asking questions in the dark, with a friend. We all make time for it.”

It wasn’t just the words — it was the way he said her name. Like it tasted good. Like he’d been holding it on his tongue. She didn’t answer. His dark didn’t scare her. What scared her was the way his voice sounded when he said her name. Like it meant something to him.

Her voice was a rasp by the time she asked it. Quiet. Blunt. Stripped bare. — “D’you ever get tired of it?”

It slipped out before she could catch it, before she could armor it with sarcasm or spit. She wasn’t even sure what she meant by it. The work. The weight. The emptiness you tried to fill with bourbon or blood or banter. The long hours staring into dead people’s stories, trying to make sense of endings no one asked for. Or maybe she meant herself. She could hear the pause in him — just a beat — but she knew him well enough now to catch the change in air.

“With you... Never.” —  And gods, he said it like a confession. Like a cigarette lit in the dark, slow and steady, smoke curling straight into her ribs. He said it like he meant it. And that was worse.

Lyanna didn’t believe in nevers. Or always. Or any of that shit poets and drunks carved into bar mirrors. She believed in damage. In cause and effect. Blood for blood. Consequences that didn’t care if you were sorry. And yet — some fucked-up part of her leaned into the silence on the line, let it echo. Let his voice linger like cigarette smoke curling in an empty room. Like if she closed her eyes, maybe she wouldn’t feel so goddamn alone. She didn’t answer him. What was she gonna say? That the sound of him made her stomach tighten in ways she didn’t trust? That her pulse kicked every time he used her name like it meant something? No. She sat there on the couch, coat still on, boots up, lights off. Eventually, the silence knocked her out.

When she woke up, it was 8 a.m., her neck a twisted knot and Howland standing over her like a ghost with bad timing. — “Clien’ gave a ring.”

Didn’t take long for him to spill it. Adultery turned murder. Gated community. Client waiting. She drove out to Ryser's place in the kind of neighborhood that thought security cameras could keep out guilt. Had to park four blocks away because the whole crime scene had turned into a goddamn circus. Lights, cameras, suburban panic. The house wasn’t a house. It was a fucking mansion. Symmetrical, baroque, heavy with stone columns and money. No northern bones in it at all. Client was waiting for her in the foyer, voice as  shaky as on the voicemail he’d left. She stepped in. Whole place stank of bleach and something sweet underneath — like death trying to wear perfume. Forensics everywhere. The kind of turnout they never gave a murdered sex worker in Wharf Street.

Adarien Ryser looked like a man who’d swallowed a ghost. — “She’s dead.”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. Just lit a cigarette she wasn’t supposed to have inside and said, — “Start at th' beginnin’. Don’t skip a thing.”

He led her upstairs. The bedroom was bigger than her flat. Smelled like stale cologne and ruin. The bed was unmade, but not in a sleepy way — in a ‘fucked so hard the sheets gave up’ way. A night of sweat and skin, and then murder.

“It was him. The guy she’s been seeing. I want you to find out who did this.” — Adarien said it like a man clutching at the last thread of control, tight-voiced, shaking underneath. His words came fast, brittle with panic, like he was trying to convince her before he convinced himself.

Lyanna raised an eyebrow. — “Mister Ryser, pretty sure the coppers've got that in hand.”

“I didn’t come home last night,” — He said fast. — “Slept at the office. Came here to change shirts. No one saw me. I know how it looks. I need someone on my side. I didn’t kill her.”

The detective in charge pulled him aside. Probably to rattle the cuffs. So Lyanna was left in the middle of silk sheets and bad choices, murder thick in the air like old incense. She walked out past the forensics crew, out through the mob of reporters, back to her car. And there, leaning against her passenger side like nothing ever happened, was Sig. He looked good. Not like himself, exactly — but less like death warmed over than the last time she saw him, screaming and pinned down by a pissed-off spirit with a vendetta and no chill. His face had color again. No blood on his shirt, no twitch in his hands. Just standing there like the past hadn’t clawed its way through both of them. Go figure.

“Y’look alright.” — She said, narrowing her eyes.

“He found out she were cheatin’, then went an’ hired you.” — Sigorn said it low, like he was trying not to spit the words out too hard. There was a tightness behind his voice, the kind that came from sleepless nights and half-buried resentment. 

“Maebe,” — She muttered. — “Ye shouldn’t be here. Should be at home.” — Her voice was rough, thick with her usual grit, dragging the syllables out slow, like pulling smoke through a cigarette.

Sigorn looked past her. Jaw tight. — “I wanted t’ be close t’ th’ investigation.”

Then he was gone, walking past her and back toward the mansion, like this was his case. Like he still had a right to haunt her life. She went back to her apartment, which was less of a home and more of a coffin with plumbing. Despite all the shit they’d just waded through, there was still a backlog — witnesses unspoken to, ghosts unbothered. No open cases on her desk, though, so the minute it was late enough that no one could call her a drunk outright, she made the thirty-step pilgrimage to the Wolf. The Wolf was old — proper old. The kind of pub that felt like it remembered the war better than the people in it. Smelled like varnished wood, spilt whisky, worn-in leather, and something low and permanent, like regret. All dim corners and soft lighting, like it was trying to seduce the damage out of you.

Mahogany everywhere. Thick beams, carved archways, a bar like a church altar if the Gods had liked his drink strong and his silence stronger. The stools were high, the cushions navy and cracked, lined up like old dogs that didn’t bark anymore. She slipped onto one and didn’t bother pretending it was her first for the night. Ordered whiskey, neat. Rocks just got in the way. The napkin under her glass got more ink than condensation. She’d brought a pen because her brain didn’t trust itself to remember who she had to interrogate tomorrow. Names of neighbors, so-called friends, whoever the dead woman hadn’t scared off or driven away. Most of the clientele here were forty-plus and shaped like beer kegs. Men, mostly. She didn’t get hassled — partly because she was a regular, partly because she looked like she’d stab with the pen she was writing with. She didn’t pick people up here, either. Wasn’t that kind of bar. Wasn’t that. 

Then she heard him. — “Dirty Martini.”

She glanced sideways — and nearly choked on her own bad luck. There he was. Rhaegar fucking Targaryen. Sitting like he owned the damn shadows. Like noir cinema got drunk and threw up on him — in a good way. Femme fatale, if the femme in question had a death wish and a better tailor. He could’ve passed for a ghost or a god or both. The sheer black blouse didn’t leave much to imagination — just enough to get someone’s hands shaking. Tied at the throat with some ridiculous, vintage-ass bow like he was about to seduce a widow at her own funeral. High-waisted black trousers, the kind that whispered money and sin in the same breath. Glossy shoes. Leather gloves. Trench coat like he was on his way to bury a body. Or maybe marry one. He was eyelinered to seven hells and back, too. 

Thick, precise, unapologetic. The bastard pulled it off. Of course he did. Lyanna didn’t believe in saints, but if Rhaegar ever decided to throw on a dress and work a drag stage, she’d light a candle and pray for whoever got in his way. Man, woman, banshee, demon — he’d pull them all. Seven hell, she wasn’t exempt. She let her eyes linger a second too long, then snapped them back to her drink like it could explain itself. Gods, he looked good. Dangerous good. 'Get-you-killed-in-bed' good. And wasn’t that just the cherry on this shit sundae of a day. She blinked. Slowly. Like maybe if she gave it a second, the image would vanish. It didn’t. Bastard looked like he’d wandered out of a noir film and into her crime scene.

“’Course ye'd go for a martini.” — She muttered, dragging her gaze back to her glass like it’d done something wrong.

“Speaking of… Whiskey neat? Where’s the creativity?” — Rhaegar said it with that infuriating, velvety ease he wore like a bespoke suit, half amused, half taunting, voice low and musical like he was playing with the words just to hear how they sounded coming out of his mouth. 

There was a flick of a smirk at the edge, the kind that made you want to slap it off or kiss it, depending on the hour. He wasn’t judging, well, maybe a little. But mostly, he was teasing, like a cat batting at something it wasn't sure it wanted to kill or keep. She threw back the last of it. Let the burn settle in her chest before she answered.

“Been drinkin’ that fer years… ain’t changin’ now.” — Lyanna said like it explained everything. Which, in her case, it did.

He smirked, all teeth and suggestion. — “Doesn’t mean you can’t try something new…” — Then, to the bartender, with a flick of his elegant hand, —  “She’ll have a Rob Roy next.”

And just like that, the air shifted. A little warmer. A little more dangerous. She should’ve told him to piss off. Instead, she watched the bartender pour. And didn’t stop him. He slid the drinks across the scarred wood, a silent punctuation in the low buzz of the pub. Lyanna wasn’t one for drinking with company — too many questions, too many eyes. But tonight, she was making an exception. She lifted her glass, a new thing in her hand: not whiskey neat, no, this was a Rob Roy. Different. Dressed up, like a lie in a suit. She sipped it slow. Not the brutal truth she was used to — whiskey was classic, ruthless. No garnish, no sweet lies. Just fire and cold comfort. That’s what she drank when she needed to stop feeling, back when she was a kid with more scars than sense. One could always count on a whiskey drinker to keep their mouth shut, to watch the exits, to sit with ghosts like old friends and not blink.

Her eyes flicked sideways to Rhaegar’s glass — vodka. A softer violence. Like her, only she didn’t have the luxury to drop her guard like that. Let someone influence her. Dangerous. Dangerous and maybe, just maybe, kind of nice. She didn’t let herself think about it too much. Couldn’t afford to. Control was the one thing left to clutch. She was tired — tired of scraping through life on sandpaper and ash — but letting that show? Not yet. 

Rhaegar sipped his dirty martini, then leaned back. — “So. How’s the case going?”

The martini — clean, precise, theatrical — but with that dirty twist, a splash of olive brine swimming like some hidden stuff. It said he knew how to command a room without shouting. Femme fatale in a glass. The dirty part? That’s what people missed unless they were paying attention — the grit beneath the glamour, the shadow lurking in the shine. Rhaegar wasn’t just polished vampire skin; he was salt and blood and something darker, something unspoken. Most saw the flawless face, not the monster hiding under it. He didn’t order that drink to be liked. He ordered it because it was him. Contradiction wrapped in a leather trench and black gloves. And she was seeing too much in the little things already.

Lyanna met his gaze and shrugged, cold and sharp. — “Cheatin’ turned murder. Client wants me find the bastard who did it. No ghosts, no demons, no devil’s shite to lean on.” — She plucked the olive from his glass, a small act of defiance.

Rhaegar smirked, eyes glinting under that sharp liner. — “So you’re bored because it’s got none of the supernatural sphere. No ghosts, no demons, no vampire.”

Lyanna’s laugh was dry, a brittle thing cracked with exhaustion. —  “Everythin’ ‘as to come back to ye an’ yer bloody mind.” — She let the olive roll between her fingers.

He shrugged, playing the part of the charming enigma. —  “Could be fate.”

She stared at the glass like it might spit out a truth she could stomach. — “Fate, eh? I’m fated to go blind, fated to scream at folk’s deaths, carry their last breath like it’s me own. That’s fate for ya.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy as the night air outside, thick with cold wind and the faint, metallic tang of blood and iron. Somewhere in the dark, a clock ticked and the city held its breath. She kept her heart locked tight, but maybe, just maybe, Rhaegar was picking the lock without even trying.

His voice sliced through the low buzz of the bar, all sharp sarcasm and polished charm like a blade wrapped in silk. — “So your client’s feeling the weight of his upcoming waltz with the justice system.”

Lyanna didn’t bother hiding the edge in her voice. — “No shite he’s worried. He’s the prime suspect, ain’t he? Don’t mean I’m not graftin’ the case. Got some folks to grill tomorrow.”

Rhaegar gave her a half-smile like he was already three moves ahead. —  “Well, if it turns interesting, you know where to find me.”

Lyanna’s eyes flicked sideways, caught the faint flicker of something almost like concern — or maybe amusement — in his gaze. She told herself to keep it together when she showed up at the neighbors’ the next day. Three of them — all housewives, all with that continental clipped accent that made her skin crawl, none of them from the North. They were friends of Alina, the dead one, and all of them spoke like some ghost had broken in and murdered her. Like she’d been snatched by some common thief or devil’s work. Funny thing was, nothing was missing. Mr. Ryser’s watches? Still ticking on the dresser. Mrs. Ryser’s jewelry box? Locked tight and untouched.

“So,” — Lyanna said, voice dry as the cold wind scraping down the alley, — “ye lot reckon someone broke in?”

One of the women, red hair blazing like a flare against the grey day, scoffed, — “No one ‘round here. We’re all vetted, thank you very much.”

Lyanna snorted under her breath but pushed on. — “Right, Mister Ryser said Alina might’ve been seein’ someone. Maybe that’s the stranger you’re lookin’ for.”

The platinum blonde lady shook her head like she was offended by the very idea. — “Alina loved Adarien. She was happy. We all are.”

Aye, right. Lyanna didn’t buy it — not really. At least two of them had breath smelling of cheap liquor, not Earl Grey or whatever posh tea they pretended to sip. So she switched tactics.

“Was there anyone here last night, ‘side from the neighborhood folk?” — She didn’t bother softening it, no charm in her tone, just a blunt question cut through the quiet like a knife.

Red-haired one’s eyes flicked sharp like a blade. — “Daario was here. My gardener.”

The other two shot her looks that could’ve sliced steel. One, with brown hair and bangs falling just so, asked, — “Daario’s our gardener. He was just giving us a flower arrangement class.”

No hesitation, no second-guessing. Just a quiet demand wrapped in careful control, like she was daring them to say no. Her eyes didn’t waver as she asked, —  “Can I speak with him?” 

The three exchanged silent judgments, then sighed and led Lyanna out through the back. Red hair pointed to a glass greenhouse tucked behind a ramshackle hedge. Lyanna thanked them and made her way there, the faint sound of women laughing — rich women laughing, which always sounded like knives disguised as silk — fading behind her. She knocked on the greenhouse door. Silence.

Until a voice slid out from the side. —  “ Rytsas .” — Tyroshi accent, smooth and slick. Arms crossed, Lyanna glanced sideways and froze.

The man standing there? Tall, young — early twenties, maybe. Skin the color of warm earth, lips dark maroon, eyebrows thick and lazy over sharp emerald eyes. His raven-black hair fell in thick waves, all volume and movement. He looked like trouble wrapped in charm. And somewhere under that polished surface, Lyanna felt it — that odd tug. Like some ghost calling her name in a voice only she could hear.

Lyanna’s voice cut through the humid stillness like a cracked shard of ice, dry, clipped, no fluff, no room for nonsense, — “Umm. I’m a PI. Got a few questions.” — She said it like she was used to being ignored but wasn’t having it today. Eyes sharp even if the world was starting to blur, voice low and a bit rough around the edges, like gravel rolling under boots.

His voice dipped low, syrupy with a seductive edge that crawled under her skin. She fought it back. — “’Bout last night. I taught Nyla, Grayce, an’ Igny how to arrange the flowers.” —  The man's voice slid out smooth and warm, like velvet with a razor’s edge, each word carefully rolled with that honeyed Tyroshi lilt, a hint of valyrian fire underneath.

Lyanna stood stiff at the threshold of the greenhouse, eyes flicking over the cluttered sanctuary of dirt, blooms, and dusty sunlight cutting through grimy glass. The cold morning air still clung to her skin, but inside, the scent of earth and crushed petals mixed with something darker — faint iron, like the ghost of blood past.

She caught Daario pulling a wild flower free from his back, bringing it close, inhaling like it might carry secrets. — “She no show,” he said, voice low and almost too smooth. — “If only she did… You wanta come inside?”

Lyanna’s jaw twitched. — “Aye.”  — Not an invitation, just a door cracked open.

Inside, the gardener’s world was small and simple — a cot pushed by a grimy window, two mismatched chairs, a chipped sink crowded with flower pots, the whole place smelling of damp soil and faded hope. Daario shed his white shirt, jeans, boots — the pieces falling away like armor. Lyanna pulled her gaze sharp off him and back to the wild chaos of petals.

“So,” — She said, voice clipped, — “ye ken Alina right?”

He shrugged, sliding into another shirt, with less mud crusted on the sleeves, and trousers. — “I took care of her... the garden, yes.”

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed. — “An’ that was it?”

Daario’s smile sharpened, half amusement, half warning. —  “Your questions, they be... particular, Miss…”

“Stark,” — She cut in, feeling the familiar prickle of a fight rising up like bile.

He leaned in with that smirk, voice low and seductive. — “Call me Daario.”

She swallowed, biting back the usual snap. — “Righ.”

His eyes held hers like he could see every crack she tried to hide. — “You’re a tough one, yes? Too closed off.”

Lyanna’s hands clenched at her sides, cold fire in her chest. —  “Sorry, but I’m nae here to talk ’bout me. If that’s all, I’m done. Thanks for the help.”

She turned, stepping back into the gray chill outside, where the  old friends — and the world kept spinning, indifferent and brutal. Lyanna felt it before she saw him — a ripple down her spine like the skin of the world had shivered. Her stomach curled. That guy was off. Not in a cute, mysterious way either. Just wrong. She was already halfway back down the path when her boots crunched on the frostbitten gravel, thinking of cigarettes and whiskey and how to professionally get the hell out of Weird Statue Central. The house reeked of pretension. Cold marble. Dead air. Stuffed to the gills with statues that looked like they’d whisper at you if you stared too long. And then — because the universe was apparently a comedian — another social interaction. Fantastic.

“Hello, who are you,” — Said a man, bald up top and somewhere between ‘retired dentist’ and ‘suburban idiot.’ His voice had that brittle friendliness that meant either he was nervous or hiding something. Or both. She stopped. Turned. Gave him the look that said: Make this quick, old man.

“Lyanna Stark,” — She said, badge flipped half-heartedly, like a shrug. —  “Private eye. Workin’ for Mister Ryser. Just here t’ask a few questions.”

“Oh. I’m Igny’s husband,” — He said, rubbing the back of his neck. — “Heard the police already have some suspects.”

Of course. Suburban gossip traveled faster than blood in water. She didn’t bite. Changed the subject. — “Those’re... interestin’ pieces,” — She said dryly, because it was either that or comment on his slippers.

“They were my mother’s. She was an anthropologist.” — He said it like it meant something. Like the word anthropologist was supposed to explain away the whole mess of bone-white statues with phallic symbols. 

“Right then. That were a chat. I’ll be off now. Good day to you, Sir.” —  She left without looking back.

Later, at the office, she dropped into her chair like the bones in her body didn’t belong to her anymore. Howland had already gone home, and she wasn’t expecting a visit from any blood-suckers tonight. But the garden guy — that one didn’t sit right. Neither did the tight-lipped way the women in the house spoke about him. Too clean. Too careful. Like trying to vacuum around a corpse. Something in her gut kept looping back to him. She poured herself a whiskey, the cheap kind that tasted like old wood and gasoline, and let the day rot out of her muscles in the shower. She couldn’t shake the feeling — the snap of tension she’d felt when she first saw the gardener. Not just the usual gut-check. Something hotter. Baser. A slow crawl of heat under her ribs, like a bruise blooming the wrong color. That ache — she hated it. It wasn’t attraction. It was recognition. She’d smelled that kind of danger before: glossy, sweet, like perfume sprayed over something that had already started to rot. Her instincts didn’t lie. They snapped. Snarled. Protected. That kind of syrupy draw meant one thing: manipulation. And yet it felt… familiar. 

The kind of feeling she got from men who got too close. The ones who left scars shaped like fingerprints. Gods, she was so fucking broken. She crawled into bed. Pulled the blankets over her shoulders like they could shield her from her own head. Sleep came fast, like falling through ice. And then — someone beside her. Not real. Not quite a nightmare either. Nightmares had claws and screaming and blood between her teeth. This was... soft. Seductive. Velvet around the throat. He was there. A man-shaped blur in the dark. She couldn’t see his face — seven hells, she could barely see anymore anyway — but she knew. Deep in her bones, she knew. He watched her like she was a secret he’d carved himself. Everything about him smelled like sin. Honey. Sweat. Wine left too long in the bottle. Not human. Not dream. Something worse. And then the hands. Down her body. Slow. Intimate. It felt like drowning in a hot bath — until she snapped awake, gasping. Sweating. Heart clawing at her ribs. She sat up, mouth full of salt and sugar and rot.

 She’d slept in morgues and woken up fine. But this? This left handprints on her soul. And the smell — that’s what stayed. Smoke. Rain on iron. Stone floors scrubbed raw. Not soap. Not cologne. Something deeper. Older. Like memory. Or a trap. She’d smelled it before. At that dive bar. At work. She knew it. And it made her furious. Not just confused. Angry. The kind of anger that started in her stomach and exploded behind her eyes. By the time she was dressed, she’d already made up her mind. She stomped across the city like a one-woman hurricane and banged on his goddamn door. It opened. He stood there in his usual whore clothes /and a pencil in his mouth like he hadn’t just trespassed in her subconscious.

“Ye think that’s funny?” — She snapped.

He blinked. Took the pencil out of his mouth. — “What should I be thinking is funny?” — Rhaegar said it cool and steady, like he wasn’t really surprised but didn’t want to show it, calm, with a slight raise of an eyebrow, as he pulled the pencil out of his mouth. 

She wanted to deck him. — “So ye weren’t just in me flat, then?”

He raised an eyebrow, calm as ever. That infuriating vampire composure. —  “No. I stayed home. Are you alright?”

“Nah,” — Lyanna said it flat, like she wasn’t buying the whole thing but wasn’t ready to call him a liar either. —  “don’t reckon so.” 

Confused, too — she was sorting through the mess in her head, trying to figure out if she’d just imagined the whole thing. Her voice was quiet, clipped, holding back the edge of suspicion she didn’t want to admit out loud.

“Can you come in,” — he said gently. — “ And explain.”—  Rhaegar’s voice was low, careful, like he was trying not to spook her.

There was concern tucked under the calm — measured, not pushy. He stepped back just enough to give her space so she’d come in, not demanding, just… Inviting. Like he could see something was off and didn’t want to press, but needed to understand. She should’ve run. Should’ve lit a smoke, cracked a joke, buried it six feet under like the rest of the shit that haunted her. That would’ve been smarter. Colder. Safer. But instead, here she was — half past midnight, boots crunching on wet gravel, heart doing that thing it never did unless someone had truly rattled her bones. Going to his place was a bad idea. She knew it. Felt it in the way her fingers itched for a weapon, for whiskey, for distance. But whatever that thing was — whatever had crawled through her flat and curled up inside her skin — it had fucked her up. Proper. Enough that she’d marched straight to his door like she had a plan, when really, she was just trying to keep from cracking in the silence. Maybe this wasn’t about him. Maybe this was about not wanting to face it alone. She didn’t say that, of course. Wouldn’t even let herself think it, not properly. But it was there, low and bitter, coiled in her gut like smoke under glass.

***

She looked — off. Not visibly, not to anyone else. The uniform hadn’t changed: long coat like a dropped curtain, henley with holes that looked deliberate (but weren’t), boots like she’d kicked a few ribs in them, and jeans with the scuffed, begrudging dignity of someone who refused to buy new ones until the old pair dissolved. Messenger bag slung like a weapon. No makeup. No charm. Nothing inviting — which, of course, was part of the trick. But he could feel it. The shift. There was something in the air around her, sharp and off-tempo. Not fear — Lyanna didn’t rattle like that — but something adjacent. Her eyes scanned him like she was waiting for a punchline, or a betrayal, or both. She thought he’d done something. He hadn’t. Not this time. He’d opened the door and asked her in, and she’d hesitated.

That wasn’t like her. And when she did step inside — still wrapped in her coat like armor, eyes not quite meeting his — he didn’t press. Normally, he'd be annoyed. Shoes inside his space? Tacky. But not tonight. Not when she looked like she’d either killed something or dreamed about it. She passed by him, and that’s when he caught it. The scent. Not hers. Not just hers. There was something else curling in her wake — heat and decay, the velvet sweetness of orchids left too long in the sun, ripe and teetering into rot. Seduction spun with sickness. Familiar, if you’d walked through enough hellmouths in your time. And he had. She went to his living room and sank into the sofa like her bones were made of wet iron. He followed, silent, letting the weight of his presence settle just far enough to give her room, just close enough to reach her if she unraveled. And then he spoke.

“What happened?” — He asked, voice smooth but dipped in something warmer. Concern, maybe. Or its more convenient cousin: control .

She didn’t answer directly. Of course not. — “Reckon I were dreamin’,” — She said slowly, eyes flicking past him. —  “Felt familiar, like… Are ye sure ye weren’t there?”

His mouth curved, half bemused, half offended. He pulled the pencil from behind his ear, twirled it once. — “I think I’d remember if I was in your apartment doing…” — He raised a brow.

“Dunna make me say it,” — She said low, jaw tight like the words might cut her on the way out. She wasn’t joking, and she wasn’t begging, just daring him to push, like she did when something scared her.

For a man who had spent lifetimes parsing silence, half a word was more than enough. And Lyanna rarely offered more than that. Still, it wasn’t difficult to infer the shape of her thoughts — not when they mirrored shadows he'd already entertained himself. It would be dishonest, though Rhaegar was rarely that with himself, to pretend the idea hadn’t crossed his mind. Lyanna Stark was — undeniably — beautiful. But beauty was common in his world; it was the currency of the damned. What made her dangerous, what disturbed his peace like a pebble cracking stained glass, was that she was interesting. Sharp as winter air. Scarred in ways he recognized but couldn’t name. And worse — there was goodness in her. Not the sweet, naive sort. The kind that crawled through rubble and clawed its way back up, feral and loyal and half-alive. He found that sort of goodness infuriating. Irresistible, more like.

And now there was blood between them. He’d tasted her blood. Not enough to bind, but enough to bruise the boundary. Enough that he could feel when something was wrong. Banshees weren’t meant to tangle with vampires, not like that, not in ways that felt like resonance instead of recoil. The lore hadn’t warned him about that — how it would sit under his skin like a second pulse, colder than blood, louder than instinct. He hadn’t touched anyone in months. Years, depending on what one considered touch. His nights were consumed with corpses and crises, the dull rituals of secrecy, and the occasional flicker of near-death intimacy mistaken for romance. He’d nearly married someone once, if only to quiet the noise. He’d nearly died, too. These days, desire came and went like a bad signal — intermittent, distorted, barely worth chasing.

But Lyanna? She was a complication he hadn’t accounted for. And now she sat on his sofa, unravelling. Not dramatically — she’d never give him that. But something had shaken her. Something in her head, or her memory, or the thing she refused to call fear. She hadn’t even taken off her coat. He told himself to be rational. To observe. To offer tea or distance or something vaguely resembling comfort. But the truth was, he didn’t like the idea that something had been near her. Not unless it had been him. That wasn’t rational either. And Rhaegar prided himself on being a man of logic. Or at least, of control. Still. The scent on her skin wasn’t quite right. Not just hers. Something other. Something old. And he didn’t like that. Not one bit.

Rhaegar tilted his head, just slightly, an old, aristocratic habit he’d never quite unlearned. His voice, when it came, was silk drawn slow over a blade. Quiet. Teasing. Too composed to be innocent. — “So you had a…”

He let it hang there, like smoke in the air between them. A dream. A fantasy. An inconveniently vivid projection of her subconscious — and him, presumably, tangled somewhere inside it. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. The color in her face did the talking, and the way she looked anywhere but at him sealed it. He shouldn’t have smiled. But he did. Just the corner of his mouth, a flicker of smug satisfaction before it disappeared behind the usual mask of elegant detachment. It wasn’t gloating, not really. Not when the realization settled in his chest like warm ash: he wasn’t the only one haunted by the thought of them. That she — infuriating, ironclad, impossible Lyanna — had dreamed of him, too, or thought she had. It was flattering. It was dangerous. It was, in some quiet, hungry part of him  — a relief. She wasn’t relived however far from it. 

He watched her mouth tighten. Her jaw flexed. Something about her felt unmoored. — “A dream that didna feel like a dream.” — She said at last. — “It felt like someone else was in my head.”

Well. That was worse. He’d seen her walk away from demon attacks, necromantic reanimations, and the slow, steady loss of her vision without blinking. But this — this had scraped something raw. She was shaken, and if something could do that to her, he wanted to find it and kill it. Slowly. He didn’t move closer. Didn’t crowd. Just angled himself to sit diagonal from her, where she could see him clearly if she wanted to — and ignore him just as easily. The smell still clung to her. Faint but specific. And ancient. He had a good idea what had gotten too close. And suddenly, he wasn’t just curious. He was territorial. It crept back into his mind the way rot does — slow, insidious, impossible to ignore once noticed. Not merely a smell. An invasion. It moved through the air like a memory too vivid to be your own. Candle wax and blood. Vanilla, but scorched, tangled with the scent of skin left too long beneath silk sheets. The sweetness of overripe orchids gone slightly sour — delirious, decadent, wrong. He knew that scent. Or worse: he recognized its intent.

It didn’t arrive like danger usually does. No sudden flicker of warning. No shift in temperature. It just settled — under the tongue, behind the eyes, in the bloodstream. By the time your body realized something was off, it was already breathing in too deep. A mortal might call it perfume. He knew better. He’d worn that cologne once, long ago, in another life. In another bed. She stood and walked away from him in silence, brushing the air with her coat still on — an odd thing in itself. Lyanna never kept her coat on. She lived like someone perpetually two seconds from a fight. She peeled armor off the moment she felt safe. And yet tonight, she’d crossed his threshold like a ghost refusing to be unburdened. And he had let her. That should’ve annoyed him. It didn’t. He followed her into the living room, the scent trailing behind her like a half-spoken confession. She sat diagonally from him, not quite close enough to touch. So he moved — elegantly, lazily, like a cat who’d smelled something unpleasant under the floorboards. Sat down closer. Tilted his head. Inhaled. Same scent. Not hers. Not entirely. Something had touched her.

“What’re ye smellin’, then?” — Lyanna asked it low and wary, her voice roughened by sleep and suspicion, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer.

Rhaegar’s smile was slow, small, vaguely predatory. The kind you only notice once it’s too late. — “You smell different tonight.” — A pause. Then, with deliberate, velvet malice, — “Candle wax. Blood. Vanilla burned low.”

“I didn’t change me shampoo.”—  Lyanna said it dryly, with a slight squint, like she wasn’t sure if he was messing with her or genuinely losing it.

“I know you didn’t. It’s not yours. Whatever was in your dream, left a mark.” — He tilted his head again, almost amused. — “I know that scent.”

Her brows knit, suspicion flaring under weariness. — “Ye ken it?”

Of course he did. Unfortunately. He breathed in again, more precisely this time — cataloguing every note, every trace of heat still clinging to her skin. She was rattled, more than she should be. Humans didn’t respond to dreams like this. Not unless something more than dreaming had occurred. And banshees, in his understanding, weren’t usually vulnerable to such things. The gift of prophecy came with certain safeguards. Illusion should’ve broken like mist against her mind. Unless it wasn’t illusion. Unless it was invitation. The pieces clicked into place with irritating certainty.

Rhaegar spoke it with a calm, measured certainty, like a professor delivering a diagnosis he already knew she'd resist. — “An incubus.” — There was a faint note of irony under the word, as if amused by how absurd it might sound to her, and yet knowing full well it was true. 

“Like th' band?” — Lyanna asked it with a quick, dry wit, half-curious, half-sarcastic. Her brow lifted slightly, voice edged with that sharp humor she used whenever things got too weird, too fast.

His lips twitched, and for a brief moment, he felt almost alive. —  “Like a demon.”

“Oh, grand.” — Lyanna said it dryly, with a sarcastic lift of her brow and that familiar bite, half amused, half unimpressed, like she'd just heard someone brag about polishing silver in a burning house.

“A malevolent spirit. One that seduces the soul right out of you.” —  Rhaegar said it with the cool precision of someone reciting an unpleasant fact he'd known for centuries, his tone smooth, almost detached, but with a glint of irony behind the words, he found the whole idea both grimly poetic and tiresomely familiar. His voice lingered just slightly on seduces , a subtle, deliberate weight that hinted he knew far too well what that meant.

“Ye lot've got similar methods then, don’t ye?” — Lyanna said it dryly, her tone edged with sarcasm and a raised brow that dared him to disagree.

It wasn’t just a jab — it was a defense, a way to mask her unease with a smirk and a smart remark. She leaned back slightly, arms likely crossed, the ghost of a grin playing at her lips as if to say don’t take it personally — unless you want to. He arched a brow, folding his arms with deliberate patience. And restraint. So much restraint.

“Excuse you. I don’t seduce women in their sleep. Everything I do.” — he leaned in slightly, voice dropping to something warm and dangerous, — “I do when they’re awake. And willing.” — Rhaegar said it with a dry edge, half-amused, half-warning. His tone dipped lower near the end, smooth, slow, and deliberately provocative, like he wanted her to hear every word twice.

“Sorry I offended th' undead gentleman.” —  Lyanna said it with a smirk, dry and teasing, her tone laced with that sharp northern sarcasm that made it hard to tell if she was apologizing or poking fun.

“You’re forgiven. Eventually.” — He leaned back. —  “The question is, why would an incubus bother with you?”

“Maybe he killed that lass. Alina Ryser. Strangled her, after they'd lain together. Looks like it, don’t it?” — Lyanna said it plainly, her voice steady and grim, like someone stating fact rather than guessing, sharp-eyed, no-nonsense, and just a little too comfortable with the darkness of it.

“That would explain a lot.” — He exhaled through his nose. — “But incubus usually don’t stop at one.”

She sat up straighter at that, iron returning to her spine like it was drawn from some deep, cold place inside her. She always surprised him. No matter how much he studied her — her nature, her scent, her blood — Lyanna remained inconveniently unpredictable.

“Then it tracks. T’ other lasses, the neighbour friend said they were off at a flower arrangin’ class. Bit odd, that.” — Lyanna said it with a squint, suspicious and dry, like she already knew how ridiculous it sounded and was daring him to disagree.

He gave her a look. —  “Perhaps I’ll speak with them. See if our demon left its fingerprints on more than one place.”

They hadn’t circled back to the detail that Lyanna — sleep-flushed and breathing like she’d just outrun death — had mistaken him for the figure in her bed. A curious omission. He might’ve teased her for it if he hadn’t been preoccupied with something far less flattering: the thought of a demon skulking through his city, on his soil, leaving spectral claw marks on the mind of a woman Rhaegar was — though he’d rather not examine the term — attached to. So the night day, like a well-dressed exorcist with a bureaucratic streak, he returned to her apartment. The air was thick with the scent of rosemary, mugwort, sage, and frankincense — the kind of old-world cleansing smoke he’d instructed her to burn. Primitive, but functional. And in some sullen corner of himself, he found it pleasing that she’d listened. Howland was chalking crude Northern runes onto her walls with the care of a man defusing a bomb. Rhaegar doubted their power but appreciated the ritual. People liked to believe in things they could draw.

Lyanna held up her phone like she was reading off a grocery list. — “Righ, these’re the three lasses. We need you t’go to their tennis club an’ work yer bloody mojo on ’em.”

He turned, deadpan. — “I don’t have mojo. I have charm. It’s different. Less sweaty.”

She didn’t even blink. — “I’ll take you to their country-club do. From what I’ve sussed, they throw these wee soirées every week..”

He raised a brow. —  “Even with one of them freshly dead?”

Howland, without looking up, muttered, — “Gotta respect th’ party spirit, eh? They're doin’ it in her memory.”

Lyanna gave him a long look. She didn’t say it, but Rhaegar knew exactly what was coming, right down to the cadence. — “It’s a semi-formal event,” —  She said dryly. — “I assume that means you’ll need to change.” — She shot him a glance that could’ve started a small fire. —  “I’ll take you t’your place first. Self-important types like t’party from there.”

He let her drive. He usually hated being chauffeured — control was a difficult thing to surrender — but tonight, the silence between them wasn’t awkward. It was worse. It was charged. Like static before lightning. Like a door had cracked open somewhere between that question — was it you in my bed? — and the moment she didn’t retract it. It haunted the air now, thick as incense. There was something else, too: a quiet, unsettling stillness in her. Lyanna, silent. Not glaring, not mocking, not even humming along to something off the radio. Just present. Unreadable. And he, damned fool that he was, noticed. He realized, with some dismay, that being alone with her carried weight. Actual weight. Like gravity had changed its mind about them.

When they reached his building, she didn’t stay in the car as he half-expected. No, she followed him into the lobby like it was a foregone conclusion. The concierge, a man Rhaegar had never bothered to learn the name of, looked up from his phone long enough to clock the pair of them heading to the elevator. The vampire and the banshee. Not quite a love story. Not yet an obituary. But definitely something. And something , in his long life, had always meant trouble. They returned to the apartment in silence — Lyanna lingering by the living room, spine straight, arms folded, like a soldier waiting for orders she might disobey. Rhaegar left her there, crossed the threshold into his own flat with the slow, deliberate movements of someone resisting the urge to look back. Inside, he picked up the day’s armor. Tailored trousers slid on with a whisper, dress shoes were nudged aside. His suit jacket form’s sake. The decision, however, came down to black or white. Normally, he wouldn't hesitate. But tonight — perhaps to break the tension, or perhaps to indulge a flicker of something less nameable — he returned to the living room holding both shirts on hangers like offerings.

“Which one?” — He asked.

She turned. And he watched it happen — how her breath caught, how heat bloomed across her face. Lyanna, assassin, banshee, terror of men in corridors, actually blushing over a bare chest. He might’ve smirked if he weren’t so painfully aware of the pull between them — a gravity neither of them wanted to name. Her eyes flicked between the options, then settled, fixed, on the black.

“Black it is,” — He murmured, and vanished again.

They drove out shortly after — her behind the wheel, him beside her, slipping into a silence that wasn’t quite companionable. There was a pressure to it. The kind of quiet that knew too much. The kind that held memory like a blade between the ribs. Ever since she’d stepped foot in his home and asked — so simply, so vulnerably — whether it had been him in her dream, something had shifted. Not broken. Just…unsettled. The party venue was predictably grotesque — too much gold leaf, too little taste. A place full of people who’d never known real hunger but pretended well. The sort of palace he might've bought in another century, back when he still believed appearances were enough to silence legacy. She parked a block away and killed the engine. The silence returned.

“Ye sure yer up for this, then?” — She asked, eyes fixed forward.

He didn’t look at her when he answered. — “Lyanna, I’ve talked to women before. Present company included.”

“Aye,” — She said. —  “Aye, but not as a bleedin’ PI, have ye?”

He allowed himself a slow smile, half heat, half mockery. — “Yet I usually get what I want. That’s not something either of us need worry about.”

“Just… d’nae bite ’em.” — Lyanna said it dryly, with that wry Northern edge, half a joke, half a warning, like she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his, but the corner of her mouth twitched like she already regretted saying it out loud.

He turned, brow arched. — “You’re going to forbid me?”

“Nope. Yer ways are yer ways. I’d just rather y’didn’t take a bite outta the world’s headcount tonight. Ain’t exactly protocol, is it?” — Lyanna replied with a dry, deadpan delivery. Arms crossed, one brow raised, her voice lined with wry disapproval and just enough grit to make it clear she wasn’t entirely joking. There was a flicker of something underneath, though, not fear, exactly, but concern wrapped in sarcasm. It was the kind of line she tossed out like a blade: casual, but sharp if you caught the edge.

“Ah,” — He said dryly. — “The investigation, not the vampire dinner hour. Duly noted.” — But there was something in her voice. Not quite warning. Not quite ease. A hairline fracture he recognized too well.  So he asked, softly, —  “Is this about what I might do… Or something I didn’t?”

Her shoulders lowered, a slow, reluctant sigh escaping her lips. Relief, he thought. And for some reason, that stung more than rejection. —  “Nah. This... this is summat else entirely.”

He could’ve let it go. He should have. But curiosity, in his case, often walked hand in hand with compulsion. —  “Disappointed?”

She blinked. — “More relieved, I reckon.”

“You don’t look relieved. Because discussing the elephant in the room would be unbearable.” — Rhaegar said it coolly, his voice smooth and measured, with a hint of dry wit. He spoke carefully, masking any real feeling, but the sharpness in his tone hinted at the weight of the unspoken tension between them.

“That’s not what ah said.” — Lyanna said it quietly, a little sharp, with a hint of stubbornness, like she wasn’t about to let anyone twist her words.

“But it’s what you meant.” — Rhaegar said it with cool precision, almost gently, like a scalpel sliding in. Controlled, deliberate, and just biting enough to make the truth sting. She made a face. He almost laughed. — “That the idea of me in your bed is horrible.”

“Unless ye were invited... which, at present, ye’re not.” — Lyanna said it flatly, with that dry northern edge, matter-of-fact, no room for argument. A hint of challenge lingered beneath the calm, like she was daring him to press further.

His brow lifted, surprise and intrigue.  — “I’m all ears.” —  Rhaegar said it with a flicker of genuine surprise, his tone cool but edged with curiosity. Beneath the composed drawl, there was a shift, like something dormant had stirred. He hadn’t expected her to crack the door open, even hypothetically, and it intrigued him more than it should have.

Lyanna spoke it flatly, with that dry bluntness that barely masked the weight behind the words. — “Obvious there’s a catch. You’re a vampire, I’m a banshee. That kind o’ mixin’ never ends well.”  — No theatrics, just fact. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but underneath it, there was something else: a quiet resignation, maybe even warning, like she’d already played out the ending in her head and didn’t care much for it.

He tilted his head. —  “I’m confident we can beat the odds.”

“Sorry, mate,” — She said, dry as the Dreadfort wind. —  “Ain’t much of a gambler.”

“No,” — He said, voice like silk with thorns, — “I don’t believe that for a second. Tragic, though, that you wouldn’t even consider it. We could cuddle after.”

She shot him a look that would’ve turned a lesser man to stone. — “Not much of a cuddler, either.”

He stepped out of the car, one hand on the door frame, but turned back before closing it. — “I also don’t believe that for a second.”

And then he was gone — into the party, into the farce, into the role he played better than anyone: a charming, harmless man with nothing to hide and nothing to lose. At least, not officially. Because the worst part was — he hadn’t lied. Not about the odds. And definitely not about the cuddling. Being a vampire, Rhaegar knew, was a lesson in subtraction. Friends, lovers, habits of warmth — all carved away with surgical precision. What remained was restraint: calculated, curated, and cold. Affection, real affection, was not simply dangerous; it was fatal. So the fact that he found himself circling a woman with an expiration date and a wicked mouth was — at best — a tactical error. At worst, it was suicidal sentimentality. He should have cut it. Sliced it clean the moment it twisted into something heavier than interest. But he hadn't. Because it felt — different. And he hated that word. Different meant dangerous. Different meant he was thinking about her in moments he should be thinking about anything else — like, for instance, the three ensorcelled women he was supposed to be interrogating.

The first was a lawyer. Immaculately put together, surgically polite, and dead-eyed from the neck up. The second, some vapid startup mogul whose personality was apparently in beta. The third he didn’t remember, aside from her perfume — which had tried too hard to seduce him, like her. All three were polished, high-ranking, and distinctly not his type. Or not anymore. Once, he might have preferred them. The feminine edge, the curated grace. But now? Apparently, he liked the rough-cut sort. The kind who called him a motherfucker without blinking. Who wore sarcasm like body armor. Who stared down death with a bruised smirk and didn’t flinch when she saw his teeth.

They had one thing in common, though — the women. Each of them carried the scent. A psychic slickness beneath the skin. The incubus had touched them. Claimed them. Not physically, no — though Rhaegar wouldn't be surprised if that was a yes — but metaphysically. Under his spell, all three. That should have made them easy to crack. He'd tried hypnosis. His kind's old trick. Their pupils dilated, yes, but their answers came varnished with lies. A sharper compulsion laced their minds — not his. The incubus’s influence ran deeper than expected. It hadn't even taken an hour to see the pattern. They were being pulled elsewhere. Called, almost. And wherever they were going, it wasn't voluntary. He made his way back to Lyanna's office while night still had breath in it. The lights were low. The air, sharp. And Howland Reed — in an outfit that looked like the ghost of Prince had crawled out of a time capsule and gone rogue — was already pacing.

“So the incubus has ‘em under his spell already,” — Reed said, bouncing with his crannogman nerves. — “What d’you reckon we can do to stop him, then?”

Rhaegar resisted the urge to say We , as if Howland was contributing more than wardrobe violations. — “Imprison him,” — Rhaegar said instead, clinically. —“Sever the influence at the source.”

Lyanna, lounging in the chair like she owned time itself, raised an eyebrow. — “An’ how’re we meant t’do that, eh? Can’t exactly crouch under their beds wi’ garlic an’ a bloody cricket bat, can we?”

Howland chimed in, too eagerly. — “Reckon anyone what’s been touched by it could serve as bait.”

Rhaegar went still. Not in shock — he didn't do shock. In irritation. Dangerous, coiling irritation. He watched Howland tilt his head toward Lyanna, as if she ought to volunteer herself like a sacrificial lamb with good instincts. Of course. Because she’d slept at his house. Because he hadn’t let her go back to her apartment last night. Because incubus marks were more than metaphysical, and Rhaegar had no interest in finding her body cold and folded in some alleyway. So yes. She had stayed. And apparently, she had explained it all to Reed, who now wore the expression of a man who thought he'd uncovered a salacious secret.

“No,” — Rhaegar said, sharply.

Howland tried, voice small and unsure, like he already knew he was about to get shot down, —  “But…”

“No, Howland. That is a monumentally stupid idea.” — Rhaegar said it cold and clipped, like a scalpel, precise, dismissive, and just sharp enough to cut.

Lyanna leaned forward, voice all edge. — “One we might have to consider.”

He turned, incredulous. — “Seriously?”

“Aye, motherfucker ,” — She said, dry as whiskey left out overnight. —  “We might. An’ since it’s not your arse on the line…”

He scoffed. —  “Oh, I highly doubt, Lyanna, that you possess a single functioning self-preservation instinct in your entire banshee body.”

She grinned, sharp as a wolf. — “Fangs, y’ken the answer, t’that one.”

And gods help him, he almost smiled. Almost.

***

They made a bloody salt circle in the middle of her room like it was nothing. Just a casual Tuesday night summoning. Her bed got shoved dead center, like she was some sacrificial virgin on the altar of ‘let’s see what happens’ . Howland was on his knees, humming to himself while painting runes like he was frosting a cake. Rhaegar had fucked off to buy candles and — what? Incense? A fucking Ouija board? And her part in this ritual? ‘Get in the mood’ . She nearly slapped the silt out of Howland for saying it. Get in the mood? Like this was a bloody date night and not a demon honeypot. But he wasn’t wrong, just stupid enough to say it out loud. The thing that was hunting her — charming women, feeding off them like a parasite — was drawn to lust. Desire. Heat. So she had to fake it. Or worse: feel it. Fine. She knew how to work the engine. She threw on the nearest approximation of bait she owned — sports bra, loose Adidas shorts, something breathable in case she had to fight naked. Then hit the bathroom, locked the door, and... tried. Not for long. Just enough to fog the mirror. She didn’t finish. — Didn’t trust where it might take her.

When she came out, damp hair slicked back, breath still a little shaky, Rhaegar was back. Lighting candles like a goth priest, sleeves rolled, jacket off. He looked like he belonged in a painting. The kind people stole from cathedrals and kept in temperature-controlled vaults. Howland had vanished. Coward. Lyanna stayed by the bathroom door, arms folded tight across her chest. The salt crackled faintly beneath her feet, like it knew what was coming even if she didn’t. She was scared. Fine. She could admit that — to herself, at least. Scared of the thing they were baiting. Scared of what it wanted from her. Scared that it wasn’t a demon at all, but something worse: something she might’ve invited, something with eyes like Rhaegar’s. And worst of all? She felt safer with him there. Fangs. Of all people. Rhaegar looked up from his candle like he could read it on her skin. Bastard probably could.

“You don’t look very sure of this,” — He said, voice smooth as rain on stone.

She shrugged. —  “Ah’m not. But what other bloody options’ve we got, eh?”

He straightened, looked at her like a vow. — “If it tries to kill you, it’ll have to get through me first.”

And the words slipped out; unguarded, stupid, raw. — “Reckon that’s the only reason I’m not leggin’ it right now.”

Fuck . She crossed her arms tighter. Looked at the floor like it held the exit. She expected him to leave — to let her play sacrificial whore while he and Howland lurked in the hall with walkie-talkies and backup plans. But instead, she saw his feet step closer. Stupid dress shoes. Who wore dress shoes to a damn exorcism? Then his hand. Long fingers, unnaturally warm for a corpse, tilted her chin up before she could flinch away. Made her look at him. Of course he had cheekbones that could cut glass. Of course his eyes were that shade of impossible lilac. Of course.

“Courage,” — He said it low and deliberate, like a man reciting a truth he'd learned the hard way, measured, unsentimental, and meant only for her. — “isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the moment you keep going despite it. You might be one of the bravest people I’ve ever known, Lyanna. And if I can help you get through this... It would make me happy to try.”

Gods. What was she supposed to do with that? — “Just hope it dun’t take all bloody night,” — She muttered.

He half-smiled. Just a flicker. — “That depends on our demon, doesn’t it?” —  He paused. — “I’ll wait outside. With Howland.”

“Aye, aright.”—  Lyanna said it low, like the words had gravel in it, half reluctant, half resigned, and all spine.

There was a moment — too long, too soft — where he lingered. She wanted him gone. She didn’t want him gone. He brushed a strand of her hair from her face, gentle as moonlight, and she hated how much that cracked her. Then he left, wordless as always, and she was alone. Back in the salt circle. With the candles. And the darkness pressing against the windows like a held breath. Showtime. She tried to sleep, gods knew she did. Curled up in the middle of the salt circle like a lamb left out for slaughter, head on the pillow like she hadn’t just prepped herself to get fucked — by a demon or her own nerves, she wasn’t sure which. The sheets were cold, the room stank of wax and cheap incense, and her skin itched with the ghost of blood that wasn’t there yet. She closed her eyes. Tried to drift. Let the tension seep out of her bones.

Didn’t work. Something clawed its way into her half-sleep — heat, pressure, dread creeping like a hand around her throat. She jolted awake. And there it was. Red eyes. A face that didn’t make sense, like someone tried to sketch a man from memory after drowning. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She screamed. Didn’t even think about it, just threw a punch straight into its gut and rolled off the bed like the circle was on fire. It tried to follow, all teeth and slick hunger, but the runes and salt held. Thank the fucking gods. Thank Howland and his weird crannog magic. The door burst open before she could catch her breath. Rhaegar — of course he was first through. Like something in him knew. Like he’d felt it. But the thing — Daario, the pretty face this time — shifted before her eyes, right there in her room. It became the gardener. And behind Rhaegar, there was more chaos. More footsteps. And then — Sigorn. Of all the bastards in the city, the one person she never wanted to see mid-possessed-demon-summoning-fucking decided to show up like he was stopping by for coffee.

“What th’fuck’re you doin’ here?” — Lyanna snapped the words out like a knife flicked open, sharp, low, and fast. Not loud, but dangerous. Like if he didn’t have a good answer, she’d make him regret showing up.

Sigorn’s eyebrows were halfway to his hairline, eyes dragging across the chaos like he was clearly trying to decide if this was a nightmare or just Tuesday now. His voice had that dry edge, the kind people used when they were trying not to laugh or scream. He glanced from Rhaegar — mid stare-down with a demon in human skin — to Howland clutching a godsdamn mirror like it might save his soul, then finally to Lyanna, barefoot in her sports bra and shorts, hair still tousled.

“Came t’talk,” — He said, giving the room a once-over. —  “But looks like y’lot’ve got yer hands full.”

“Understatement of the bloody century.” — Howland muttered it under his breath, dry as peat smoke, eyes fixed on the demon like he’d rather be anywhere else.

The thing, the incubus, Daario, tilted his head like he was genuinely disappointed. Like this whole scene had ruined his date. — “Eh... this, it’s-a very disappointin’?”

“Aye?” — She snapped, shoulders squared and breath still ragged. — “Try it from me side. Let’s see how ye like it.” — Lyanna said it with a snarl in her throat and a flick of her eyes to the heavens. 

As if the Old Gods themselves owed her for this one small mercy. Because gods help her, if that demon had been naked on top of everything else, she’d have set the whole damn building on fire and called it self-defense. Under it all, one bitter little thought: Thank the gods he had trousers on. Small wins. Fuckin’ microscopic, but still.

He just smiled. The kind of smile that knew things he shouldn’t. — “The others, dey liked it. I can feel it in you too, the longing.”

“Naw. Don’t long for nowt.” — She wasn’t giving him that. He could dig through the rot of her soul and still find nothing she hadn’t already burned.

“Why’d ya kill her? Why Alina Ryser?” — Howland’s voice was low but steady, eyes sharp as he faced the demon. He didn’t waste words, just cut right to it.

The demon blinked, slow and confused, like the question didn’t belong in the script. — “I didn’t kill Alina. No make no sense. She an’ the others, they give me shelter, food, an’ sex. Why-a I hurt the hand who feed me?”

Lyanna’s voice was sharp, edged with a hard edge as she eyed the demon settling on her bed like he owned the place. She didn’t bother hiding the challenge in her tone, clipped and cold, —  “So, ya just pop in whenever someone calls, do ya?”

“I wuz summoned.” — Daario replied it smooth, almost like it was no big deal, calm, with a sly edge that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Like he was owning the fact, but maybe enjoying the game a bit too much.

Rhaegar’s nostrils flared like a stallion’s, voice low but sharp as winter ice. — “By whom?”

The thing didn’t answer Rhaegar. It looked at her instead, like she was the answer, like she was the bait in her own story. — “Them. They used a totem, called me ova. I felt it in you by mistake, but they called me.”

She rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt. Gods, she hated this shit. —  “Well, it’s a no from me. I get that bloody  near all the time.”

When she looked up, all three men were staring at her. Howland looked like she’d punched him with her words. Sigorn like she’d said too much, which — fair enough, she probably had. And Rhaegar… gods, he looked surprised. Not angry, not pitying. Just... caught off guard. Like that was the part that shocked him.  She wasn’t exactly shy about getting her bits wet — meaningless fucks were as regular as a morning cup of coffe — but damn, hearing it laid out like that? Aye, that was a bit much, even for her.

“The longing’s still there.” — Daario said it slow, like tasting something bitter but refusing to spit it out, his voice smooth, edged with that sly knowing, as if he was savoring a secret no one else quite caught. 

Lyanna shrugged, eyes flicking away like she didn’t want to admit what that really meant. — “Aye, was thinkin’ of gettin’ a dog,” — She said, voice flat, like she was talkin’ ‘bout the weather instead of what was gnawing at her inside.

Daario’s smile was slow, almost mocking, eyes glintin’ sharp as he leaned in close to her. —  “Darlin’, you don’t need to explain it to me,” — He said smooth, like he already knew every secret hiding behind those words.

Rhaegar’s voice was calm but firm, the polished tone of a man used to command, each word clipped and precise. Sigorn, rougher around the edges, with that thick northern burr, added a gruffer edge, his words dragging slightly on the vowels. Together, they said it, almost like a slow, inevitable echo, —  “Yes. You do.”

Lyanna blinked at them. Great. Now her trauma had a peanut gallery. They all filed out like it wasn’t her bloody room into her office, like it wasn’t her bed the demon had made himself comfortable on, lounging there like some dark god of chaos and cologne. She was already planning to burn the mattress and salt the floor. Maybe rip out the carpet while she was at it. Hell, set the whole room on fire and start fresh. Again. She grabbed her hoodie from the back of a chair, yanked it over her head without ceremony. The cotton stuck slightly — she hadn’t dried it right — but it was warm and smelled like old cigarettes and sleep. Her armor, such as it was. They shuffled into her office to talk shop. Demon still humming some godless tune in her bedroom like he paid rent.

Rhaegar, sharp and silver-tongued, spoke first. —  “He’s lying. It’s in his nature.” — Of course it was. He’d know.

Sigorn couldn’t help himself. Snide, North as rusted nails. — “Aye, unlike bloody vampires.”

Lyanna rolled her eyes so hard she saw stars. — “Can the pair o’ you maybe put yer cocks away for five bloody minutes? Focus on what we’ve got, eh?” —  Which was nothing. As usual.

Howland, steady as grave dirt, didn’t miss a beat. — “We can keep ’im here, aye, but not for long.”

Lyanna muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose like she could pinch clarity from behind her eyes. — “Said he were summoned. By them. Some kinda totem.”

Rhaegar nodded, jaw tight. — “Could be done. A small statue. Effigy work. Simple summoning magic.”

Lyanna’s mind flickered — unbidden — to Igny’s place. One of Alina’s mates, her husband… he’d had something like that, many of those. Real ugly things. She muttered aloud, voice rough. — “At Igny’s. Alina's mate. Statues. Her fella had loads of ’em.”

And then Sigorn’s phone buzzed. Sharp sound in the silence, like a blade unsheathed. He dug it out of his pocket with the kind of slowness that said it wasn’t good. Lyanna watched his face shift — subtle, but she knew that look. Confused. Tight around the jaw. Private. Work stuff. Confidential. But it had his name on it, she could tell. The ghost of it already haunted the air.

“Eh? What now?” — She asked, bracing without meaning to.

He looked up. His mouth worked around the words before they came out. — “Grayce Slynt. One of the neighbors. Just found dead. At home.”

The silence hit different after that. Heavy. Cold. Howland frowned, voice steady but tight. — “But he’s here, in’t he? If he didn’t…”

No one finished the damn sentence. The demon was still stretched out on her bed like he paid rent — bare-chested, smug, all too at home on her threadbare sheets. Lyanna didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to. She could feel his presence like static under her skin, like the buzz before a nosebleed. Instead, she stared through the cracked plaster wall like it had answers. Blood always found a way. Through the cracks, under doors, soaking into the carpet, into her boots. Every time. No matter how careful she was. It always reached her.

“Place's full o’ statues,” — She muttered, eyes still locked on nothing. —  “Totem might not’ve been the only one. At Igny’s her fella hoarded ‘em like bloody stamps.”

“So yer tellin’ me a doll did it?” — Sigorn said it with a squint and a half-scoff, like he couldn’t quite believe they were seriously entertaining this. His tone was dry, a touch mocking, not cruel, just tired, skeptical, like a man who’s seen too much bullshit to buy into new flavors without a fight. She didn't even blink.

Rhaegar tilted his head just slightly, one brow arched, voice smooth as silk and sharp as a knife. No raised volume, he didn’t need it. The sarcasm laced every word, slow and deliberate, like he was trying to explain fire to someone standing in the middle of a blaze. — “Did you miss the part where a demon showed up?” — He didn’t say Sigorn was an idiot. He didn’t have to. It was all there in the tone.

Sigorn shot back fast, like the words were half a laugh and half a jab. His shoulders were tense, mouth twitching with the effort not to roll his eyes. He didn’t like being made the idiot in the room, even if he half felt like one. The accent clipped his vowels, grounded them, gave the sarcasm a bit more bite. — “Nah, ye missed the part where y’started talkin’ ‘bout bloody dolls.” — Said like he was holding back from adding you daft bastard at the end.

Howland didn’t raise his voice. He never did, he didn’t need to. His correction came low and steady, like a current under ice. One word, razor-clean. No judgment, no scorn, just facts in that quiet, Neckborn way of his. Eyes steady on Sigorn like he was reminding a younger hunter not to step in a trap twice. — “Idols.”

“We’re dealin’ with supernatural shit, Sig. Might be a good time t’keep yer mind cracked open.” — Lyanna said it with that flat, unbothered tone she used when she was this close to cracking someone upside the head. Not angry, just tired. The kind of tired that came from seeing too much and knowing most people still thought ghosts wore sheets and demons came with pitchforks. She didn’t look at Sigorn when she spoke. 

Sigorn replied it with that familiar scoff, half-smirk curling the edge of his mouth like he couldn’t quite believe he was in the room, much less taking any of this seriously. —  “Tiny killers. S'bit of a stretch, innit?”

Lyanna finally looked over at him. He still had that cop look — logical, grounded, slightly smug. She used to find that comforting. Now it mostly made her want to light a cigarette and blow the smoke in his face.

Rhaegar didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t have to. He just turned, slow and deliberate, eyes like ice catching firelight. — “Tell me, boy , do you sleep with your windows open?” — The way he said ‘ boy’ wasn’t loud, but it cut, sharp and precise, like a scalpel finding bone. His tone dripped with aristocratic disdain, calm and cold enough to sting. No emotion, just the warning hum of a predator getting bored.

Sigorn snapped his head toward Rhaegar, eyes narrowing like a wolf catching the scent of insult. His voice came low, incredulous, thick with grit and bruised ego. —  “Boy?”

“Right, pack it in, both o’ you. If he didn’t kill Grayce… who bloody did?” — The question hung heavy, like smoke that wouldn’t clear. The demon hadn’t moved. Still lounging. Still smiling like he knew how the story ended.

“Something tells me they won’t strike again tonight. One kill buys them time. But tomorrow…” —  He trailed off. Didn’t have to finish.

“So yer sayin’ we just break into someone’s house, then?” — Sigorn said it with that tight-jawed, halfway-through-a-sigh tone he got when the conversation was veering into moral grey and he knew he was about to get dragged along anyway.

“Got a better idea, detective?” — Rhaegar asked it low and deliberate, with that clipped, symphonic calm of his, each word like a note struck just hard enough to sting. His eyes didn’t blink. No raised voice, no need. 

Lyanna pulled her hoodie tighter, vision ghosting at the edges again. That creeping gray, like stormclouds around her eyes. She blinked hard. If they were gonna do this, they had to do it fast. 

***

The house came into view just past midnight, crouched at the edge of the street like it had something to hide. Rhaegar didn’t believe in architectural guilt, but the place had the sort of slouch to it that made his hackles rise. Old timber, crooked eaves, black windows like shut eyes. They got in quiet. Lyanna picked the lock without ceremony, crouched in the porchlight’s shadow with a glint of metal between her fingers and a cigarette dead between her teeth. Sigorn kept watch, tense and muttering under his breath like he was casing a murder scene, not committing a felony. Inside, the air was thick with the kind of silence that pressed into the ribs. Stale perfume. Warm dust. The lingering trace of wood polish and breath. Rhaegar stepped in last, letting the door fall shut behind him like the click of a coffin lid. It took less than a second to catch it.

His nostrils flared. — “Two,” — He murmured. Not loud. Just enough for Lyanna to hear. —  “Still here.”

She glanced back, but didn’t ask. She never did. Just nodded once and shifted her stance, the subtle flex of her fingers near her coat pocket. They moved together, wordless. Old dance. The hallway groaned under Sigorn’s boots, but Rhaegar walked like a shadow — senses spread, drawing in the house with each breath. Whoever lived here had a taste for clutter. Shelves thick with trinkets. Photographs. Small, carved idols. Enough to make his skin crawl. Not demonic, necessarily. But not right either. By the time they reached the living room, he could hear the faint rustle of breath behind a closed door — upstairs. Shallow. Human. Asleep, or pretending to be. The other one was deeper. Heavier. Maybe drunk. The totem hadn’t been found yet, but it was here. He could feel it — like pressure at the base of his spine. Like the room was watching.

“We’re not alone,” — He said, quiet as bone.

This place was wrapped in the kind of suburban quiet that always made Rhaegar uneasy. Not because he expected anything human to lunge from the hedges, but because something always did — eventually. Stillness had a scent, and tonight it reeked of prelude. He felt it before he turned. Pressure — wrong and sharp behind his eyes. Something breathing behind them that shouldn’t. He pivoted, slow and precise, like a man flipping over a chess piece. The demon stood at the far end of the hall. Female. Long black hair. Markings carved into her face like devotion or punishment — maybe both. His mind, always orderly even in combat, slotted her into memory with surgical ease. A jealousy demon. Seen one like her in Lys once. A courtesan had loosed it on a rival after losing a royal client. Pathetic creatures, these demons. Petty, poisonous, predictable. But this one was staring at him. Which made no goddamned sense. He moved without hesitation. Fangs bared, form fluid and lethal. He struck fast, aimed to incapacitate, but she caught him mid-lunge and hurled him like a sack of bones across the hallway. Rhaegar hit the wall hard enough to crack it. 

Two gunshots split the air. He rolled his eyes as he stood. — “Oh, yes,” — He muttered, dry as old parchment, — “because bullets always work on hellspawn.”

He didn’t wait for applause. The demon was already on him, hand around his throat, leeching his energy in sharp, greedy pulses. She was trying to drain him. Rhaegar snarled.  — “Sorry, love,” — He growled, headbutting her square in the face,  — “I’m already dead.”

A door slammed upstairs. Someone in the house was awake. Typical. Witnesses, screams, sirens — it was going to be that kind of night.  He barely registered the second person — male, thin, and weak — squabbling with Sigorn. Rhaegar’s focus never left the woman. He grabbed a wooden side table and drove it into her midsection, forcing her back. She retaliated, claws raking across his chest. Pain bloomed, hot and immediate. Another ruined shirt.

“Destroy the idol!” — He barked. — “Gods damn it, shoot the damned thing!”

The demon locked his head in a vise-like grip. Her strength was unnatural, even by their standards. She meant to snap his neck. That would be inconvenient. Weeks of healing, not to mention the loss of dignity. But then — Bang. She froze. Her body twisted and collapsed, black ichor weeping from her eyes. Rhaegar fell free, breathing hard despite not needing air. He looked up. Lyanna. Gun still smoking. Sigorn stood beside her, weapon pointed at a balding, middle-aged man in the corner. Probably the husband. Of course. A jealousy demon for a wife he couldn’t control. Predictable, really. What wasn’t predictable was why the demon had come for him.

He stayed after the police arrived. Let Sigorn cobble together whatever fiction would satisfy the uniforms like him. Rhaegar didn’t care. He’d dealt with worse cover-ups. The husband was hauled off in cuffs. He didn’t look at him. Didn’t want to. He already knew the story — some sordid mix of spite and impotence. But then, he felt it again. Another presence. He turned. Daario, that was what Lyanna called him. Tall, brown-skinned, emerald eyes gleaming in the dark like a cat in heat. The incubus radiated charm like a cologne. Rhaegar had never trusted him. Wanted to rip his throat out on principle, though manners often got in the way.

“Of course Howland would’ve freed you,” — Rhaegar said, voice flat.

“Ah, but the boy, he’s insatiable, eh?” — Daario purred, lounging against the tree like it owed him back taxes. — “He needed... how you say... a lanta zȳhon. ”

Rhaegar almost flinched. Not visibly, of course — he hadn't flinched in centuries. But somewhere behind the architecture of his stillness, a nerve twitched. Lanta zȳhon. A little. Trust an incubus to desecrate High Valyrian with gutter insinuation and a grin sharp enough to cut silk.

Rhaegar arched a brow. — “Honestly, I don’t want to think about what you and the kid were doing in Lyanna’s bed while I was here wrestling seven hells.”

Daario laughed. —  “I starta wonderin’, eh, maybe my gift... did not work on her. She push me away, first time we meet. Like I’m nothin’. You believe this?”

“Banshees are resistant to supernatural influence,” — Rhaegar said. — “Old blood. Feral magic. They don’t yield easy, I know from experience.”

Daario’s grin widened. —  “Is not justa that, no. I feel it, the longing, inside every soul. Most? They don’ fight it. They melt. But the ones who got somethin’ already burnin’ in ‘em? Those, they stay cold… even for me.” — He paused, eyes glinting. —  “The demon. She came for you ‘cause the detective, he’s got the green flame in his gut.? Jealous of you. Clear as day.”

Rhaegar didn’t answer. He glanced toward the police cars where Lyanna stood beside Sigorn, her face unreadable. He didn’t want to hear what they were saying. Couldn’t, even if he tried, to many people around. —  “Tell me,” — Daario said, voice low, — “You and the banshee… How you say… Carnale jēda.”

Rhaegar scoffed. — “No. No.”

It wasn’t even a lie. That was the problem. He wished it was a lie. The thought had been there lately — uninvited and tenacious. Not just lust. Not just a way to dull the ache of five hundred years of loneliness. He’d thought about her. Seriously. About touch, about trust. About the impossible. The blood they’d exchanged had done more than wound him.

As if reading his thoughts, Daario murmured, — “The blood o’ a banshee, it ain’t like a mortal’s, no. Is poison. Perfect poison. Rare. Addictive. I’d slit a throat for it, easy. Most would.” —  He leaned in. — “You’re lucky she’s watchin’ you at all.”

***

Title: The Incubus and the Jealous Husband

The case of the incubus. A whisper from the shadows, a hunger wrapped in flesh and lies. The kind of evil that doesn’t announce itself with fire and fury — it slips in on quiet feet, seductive and cruel. Lyanna put herself on the line. Not because someone had to. She was just the most stubborn enough to wade into the dark when the rest turned away. She trusted me, and that trust… that was the real gamble. The husband — balding, middle-aged, jealous beyond reason. The sort who blames his demons on the women who spurn him. But this time, his jealousy was no mere mortal rage. The man became both victim and weapon, a puppet tangled in his own obsession.

I watched the scene unfold — the demon’s claws sinking into flesh and spirit, Lyanna’s gunshot shattering the silence, the husband frozen between love and madness. The incubus, a thing born from desire and despair, claimed the darkness like a lover, yet feared a banshee's fierceness. And me? I was the unwelcome witness, caught between the cold logic of the hunt and the aching pull she’d ignited in me. There’s a cruel irony in it all. The husband’s jealousy gave birth to the incubus’s affair. The incubus wasn’t just a monster to be slain. It was a mirror — reflecting every dangerous hunger buried deep inside us both.

And I wonder — in this endless night of blood and shadows — who really holds the power to destroy, and who is already lost.

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Winter had stopped flirting and finally moved in like it meant it — thick snow crawling over the sidewalks, ice swallowing up the gutters, the sun dragging itself out of bed around nine and still looking half-dead. Lyanna was halfway through a coffee run she hadn't volunteered for. She wasn’t feeling particularly generous, but something about the cold made her think of people who had no doors to lock behind them. That, and the bakery down the street made decent pirozhki — hot, greasy little pockets of something that could almost pass for comfort. She grabbed extras. Ponchiki and potato pancakes. Enough to feed a room or a memory. Her coat was the same she wore every year: olive-green, fur-lined hood pulled up like a familiar hug, parka unzipped just enough to show the sweater underneath — ribbed grey, secondhand, smelled like mothballs and woodsmoke. Black trousers, slim-cut. Boots she could run in or kick someone with, depending on the day.

The city was still half-asleep, which she preferred. Fewer eyes, fewer questions. She didn’t like being watched these days — didn’t like people seeing her squint to read street signs or feel along the stair rail when she thought no one was looking. The vision thing was getting worse. Still, she could lie to herself in the daylight. Night was when it crept in. Back at the apartment, she pushed the door open with her shoulder, bracing for silence and maybe a sliver of peace. No such luck. Instead, there was Howland — bless his quiet little soul — and someone she hadn’t seen in a while. Tall woman. Gorgeous, sculpted like poetry and war. Black skin glowing even in the grey light, dark red lips curved in a way that could slice or soothe. Taena Merryweather. Of course. Wyrm’s Hollow’s finest.

“Ey… Ty,” —  Lyanna said, setting the coffee on the table without ceremony. —  “How ye keepin’.”

“Detective Stark.” — Taena smiled, dimples flashing. — “Glad I’m in the right place. I heard you went private. You were always kind to us, even back when you wore the badge. I needed to talk to you.”

Lyanna nodded once, kept her face unreadable. Her jaw ached. The Hollow . Of course it was about that place. — “Still workin’ the Hollow, are you Ty?”

“Yeah.” —  Of course she was.

Wyrm’s Hollow was the city’s open wound — a place it didn’t bother to cauterize. Right where the bones of White Harbour’s factories met the treeline of the Godswood, the Hollow stretched like a scar. Derelict warehouses, roofs caved in. Half-burnt housing blocks. Smoke that never quite left. Roots pushed through concrete like they were angry. The forest didn’t wait politely at the edge. It climbed inside. The people who lived there weren’t people to the city. Runaways. Old soldiers. Addicts. People too far gone to scream anymore. They called it cursed — she just remembered it being cold and quiet, and full of stories nobody wanted to hear. That made two of them.

“Did my civic duty, picked up some grub,” — Lyanna muttered, not sure why she said it. She took a seat beside Taena, like the room didn’t feel suddenly smaller. Howland lingered in the back, watchful, quiet, safe. She was glad he was here. She’d never say it.

Taena's voice dipped low. — “Yesterday. A friend of mine… she was killed.” — Lyanna didn’t flinch. Just stared at the table. — “People keep dying out there. You’re the only one who ever listened. Back when you were still with the cops.”

Lyanna looked at her, slow. —  “An’ how’re you so sure she’s dead?”

“I heard her scream.” — That hit different. Lyanna’s stomach clenched. Not fear, something older. Recognition. The scream had a shape. —  “Srekis. I went to check on her… she was gone. But she is not just the only one.”

Lyanna leaned forward, elbows on her knees, voice low and edged like a boxcutter. Her breath fogged faint in the cold room. She didn’t blink much — “’Ow many, Ty?”— it came out rough. 

Ty’s voice was steady but quiet, each name dropped like a stone in a still pond, heavy and real. — “Four I know of. Srekis. Arras. Umor. Garlag. Could be more.”  — She counted them off slowly, as if saying the names out loud made the loss more official, more painful. There was no rush, just the weight of truth hanging between the words.

Lyanna sat back. Fog crawled along her spine. The Hollow wasn’t just hungry, it was waking up. —  “You’d oughta call the polis.”

Taena laughed bitterly. — “Stark. You know them. You know what they think of us. Junkies. Forest trash. They won’t listen.”

“They might listen tae me.” —  Lyanna said it low, like she was testing the idea on herself before letting it out loud. There was a stubborn hope tucked behind the grit, a quiet challenge to the doubt.

“You’re not one of them anymore.” — Taena said it gently, with a mix of reassurance and something like relief, like she was trying to remind Lyanna of the distance she’d traveled, and the walls she’d already climbed. She didn’t argue. Couldn’t. She just pressed her thumb into the seam of her coffee cup until the cardboard gave. — “I can pay you,” — Taena said, eyes wide. — “I can…. ”

“Nah.” — Lyanna  shook her head, said it flat, no fuss. — “I’ll take it. Pro bono. We got lucky with the Ryser case. It’s fine.” — That wasn’t quite the truth. But neither of them said so. — “Can ye take me tae her last known spot?”

Taena nodded.—  “Course.”

Lyanna stood, shrugged her coat back on, and flicked the lock on the desk drawer where she kept the cold iron knife. She didn’t need it yet. But she would. The metro was a rusted artery through the city’s underbelly, and Lyanna had bled an hour into it beside Ty, saying nothing. The Hollow waited at the end of the line — a graveyard with tents instead of tombstones, a sprawl of frayed tarps and donated gear barely holding back the rain. Some made homes in the gutted train cars, their wheels frozen mid-flight. Others lived farther out, like Srekis, who’d apparently never been one for company.

Ty led her to the fringe of the camp, where the wind cut sharper and the shadows stopped pretending to be kind. — “She ain’t much for people,” — Ty said.

No shit.  Lyanna grunted.  — “Clocked anyone new ‘round here? Maybe off their meds, maybe just weird?” —  She didn’t blink as she scanned the scene, half instinct, half desperation. Something was wrong here. Wrong in the way a scream feels before it comes.

“Everyone’s twitchy. Everyone’s dirty. Most are on and off,” — Ty shrugged. — “Depends on the day. You know how it is.”

 “I ken.” — She paused. — “She step on the wrong toes, or just breathe near the wrong bastard?”

Ty didn’t look at her when she said it. Just kept her eyes on the treeline, mouth tight, voice low like she was afraid the Hollow might be listening. — “Not her. Maybe someone who likes huntin’ people.” — It wasn’t fear in her tone, not exactly. More like something older. Familiar.

They reached what was left of Srekis’ spot: a shopping cart, some rotted wood, a makeshift lean-to hollowed out like a corpse. Lyanna crouched, squinting past the blurring shapes. Light was a bastard these days.

She blinked hard, eyes stinging. The ground swam a little, edges gone soft. She looked down, boots, dirt, scattered trash, something like a scarf half-buried in the snow. Shapes that might’ve meant something, if she could see them clearer. — “Where’s her things, then?” — She asked, voice rough, vowels low and flat.

Taena’s voice was steady, matter-of-fact, like she was reading from a report she wished she didn’t have to give. — “She had decent gear. Sleeping bag was near new.” — No surprise, no pity, just the cold facts of someone who’d seen this kind of thing too many times.

Lyanna’s voice came low, steady, like a quiet claim she wasn’t asking permission for. Her eyes didn’t leave the gear, sharp despite the blur creeping in. —  “Ah need that.” 

Ty held up both hands. —  “Nobody killed her for it, if that’s what you’re sayin’.”

“Ah believe ye,” —  Lyanna muttered. — “Just need some sort o’ proof she was dragged here.”

She rose, knees cracking like gunfire, and swept the area. Something caught her eye — scuff marks, drag trails in the dirt like someone had been yanked, unwilling. She followed it with Ty dogging her steps. The trail ended at a busted grate, opening into one of the city’s forgotten mouths. Sewer. Because of course it was sewer. She stepped up to the iron teeth of it, spikes mottled with blood, not old. Her stomach dropped. Cold followed her in like a curse.Not far in, she found the jacket. Torn in the wrong places. Bloody.

“That’s hers,” — Ty whispered.

Lyanna didn’t answer. Just pulled gloves from her coat pocket, snapped them on, bagged the jacket like it was evidence and grief wrapped in nylon. — “That’s the sort o’ shit Ah need.” — She said.

She could feel the place watching her. Not with eyes — worse. With the kind of silence that hummed at the back of your teeth, that made your skin crawl, that whispered don’t turn your back. She didn’t. Not until she was outside again, handing Ty her number. She brought the jacket to her office. Later, she’d pass it to Sig for testing, let him work his forensic magic. But now? Now she needed answers. The kind that crawled beneath your skin and lived in the dark. So she waited till sundown and went to Rhaegar’s. He was sketching when she walked in, lines crisp, his eyes shadowed.

“You know,” — He muttered without looking up, — “drawing with someone over your shoulder is wildly unpleasant.”

“Then pay attention,” —  Lyanna’s tone snapped sharp, cutting through the quiet like a blade. Her eyes locked on whoever she was speaking to, no room for nonsense or distraction. — “Ah need to talk.”

Rhaegar’s lips twitched in a half-smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His tone was light, almost casual, but beneath the humor was the unmistakable weight of a deadline looming like a shadow. —  “This volume is due next week. If I don’t deliver, my editor’s gonna eat my kidney and kill me. Again.” — He shrugged, a small, sardonic laugh escaping him, the kind of joke told to keep the pressure from cracking him open.

“So much fer yer grand, timeless immortal existence, eh?” — Lyanna said it with a crooked smirk, voice thick with sarcasm and grit. There was a bite to her tone, but also a kind of fondness buried beneath it, the way you jab at someone when you're too tired to be tender. She didn’t look at him when she said it, just let the words drop like stones.

Rhaegar replied it with a dry sort of charm, the corners of his mouth curling just slightly; not quite a smile, more like an old habit he hadn’t fully shaken. His voice was smooth, low, laced with irony, like he’d said it a hundred times before but never to someone who actually made him mean it. — “Welcome to the 21st century, love.” — It wasn’t mocking, not entirely. More like resignation wrapped in velvet. A vampire's version of gallows humor.

She didn’t laugh. — “Rhaegar. They need help.”

He paused, shading something in the corner of the page. — “Another day at the office.”

She didn’t raise her voice , didn’t need to. The bitterness was plain in the curl of her lip, in the way her eyes narrowed but didn’t quite meet his. It was the kind of line meant to sting, and she let it hang heavy in the air like smoke. —  “Aye, right. Sorry the bloody princeling don’t fancy workin’ wi’ the unhoused.” — Lyanna replied it with a sharp edge, her voice low and scathing, like a blade drawn slow.

That got him. He looked up, really looked, for the first time since she arrived. His eyes burned cold. — “I’ve wandered this world. I know what having fuck-all feels like.” — He stared at the paper, pencil still. Then exhaled, slow. Something shifted behind his eyes. — “What do you need?”

“A vampire nose. In th’ sewer.” — Lyanna said it flat and bone-dry, with the kind of deadpan that made it hard to tell if she was joking or just utterly done with the situation. 

He pulled a face. — “Sewer?”

“Hypochondriac, are ye?” — Lyanna asked it with a sharp tilt of her head and one brow cocked high, arms crossed like she was holding back a laugh she didn’t quite feel. 

“Little bit.” — Rhaegar replied it with a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, voice low and deliberate, the kind of amused admission that sounded both self-aware and unapologetic. His eyes flicked toward her, half-daring, half-deflecting, like he knew she was right and didn’t mind proving her point.

“Ah’ll go tae the station, but it'd be dead bloody helpful if ye’d just take a look first.” — Lyanna told him with her jaw tight and her breath misting in the cold, eyes narrowed not out of anger but out of effort, like she was trying to see through fog, both outside and in.

Rhaegar rose from his chair with slow, reluctant grace, like a cat uncoiling. His brows drawn in mild disbelief. He looked down at Lyanna, lips parting in a crooked line between annoyance and curiosity, voice pitched just enough to carry but laced with dry humor. —  “Wait… Am I going alone?” — He said it with one brow raised, like he already knew the answer but was clinging to hope anyway.

She tilted her head. Didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. He sighed, flicked her nose. — “You’re lucky you’re cute, you know that?”

Sigorn and Lyanna weren’t exactly on good terms. Not that she gave two shits about his bruised ego over her not telling him Rhaegar was a vampire. She needed his help. So she dragged Ty over, handed him the coat, and watched Sigorn take Ty’s statement with that same tired look — like he’d say the usual, ‘I’ll look into it,’ then file it away with all the others. Stark knew how this game played out. She’d keep digging. Sigorn said he’d pass the coat to Mance, and when they hit the morgue, Mance cracked a small smile seeing them together. Like it meant something.

Lyanna was already planning to head home, dial Rhaegar, check if he’d hit the sewer coordinates she’d given him. But Sigorn pulled her back. — “Ly, I need t’ show ye some things.”

She wanted to say, — “I’ve gotta be off now,”  —  but he didn’t let her off that easy.

Sigorn came in it slow, gruff like he’d been hauling more than just paperwork all his life, voice thick with that old, stubborn drawl, rough as gravel under boots. — “I ken ye do. But I spoke to yer witness, an’ this might no’ turn oot the way we need. Anythin’ happenin’ on the Hollow, it’s almost nobody’s business ’round here. So, please, just lemme show ye somethin’. I’m gonna have tae bust me arse for yer case, an’ I need ye in one o’ mine.”

Her gut twisted. Felt weird — like he was bargaining her case for whatever he was about to throw at her. She almost called him out, but Ty and the Hollows crowd were desperate enough, so she went along. They moved into a conference room. Sigorn pulled a file off his desk, slid it to her. She flipped it open. The picture hit her like a punch — a woman, throat ripped open. Not with a knife, but if she had to guess, teeth.

Lyanna’s voice cut sharp, low and rough like gravel dragged through a blade, her eyes narrowing as she stared down at the file. Her words came out clipped, no patience left to soften the edges, just raw, cold frustration wrapped in that thick drawl. — “Sig, what th’ fuck’s this, then?”

Sigorn jabbed a finger at the photo, his voice rough but trying to sound casual, like he’d said worse a hundred times before in a room full of hard cases. There was a twitch of grim humor beneath it, but mostly just cold, tired truth. — “Found ’er down Wharf Street. Those there’s teeth marks, plain as day. An’ most o’ ’er blood’s been sucked right out.”

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed. — “Ye sayin’ what I’m thinkin’, aye?”

Sigorn said it slow, like he was pointing out somethin’ Lyanna hadn’t reckoned with yet, his voice low, rough with that old-school grit. — “How’s yer friend… Mr. Rhaegar Targaryen, then?”

She snapped, —“Sig, he don’t think like that.”

“Eats,” — He pressed.

“Kills,” — Lyanna’s voice cut sharp and quick, like a knife flicking through air, no hesitation, no softness. It was a word she didn’t mean to say out loud, but it slipped anyway, flat and cold, like calling out a dark truth she didn’t want to face.

“What, that Nosferatu told ye tha?” — Her mind flared back to their first case, Rhaegar nearly dead, feeding on her to survive, taking only what she offered. This wasn’t him. She knew it. — “How d’you ken he wouldn’t?”

Lyanna snapped it out a bit too quick, like she was scared the walls might hear her. She glanced away, fingers twitching like a nervous habit. Thank the gods Rhaegar wasn’t close enough to catch that, she didn’t want him seeing the cracks in her armor just yet. — “I trust ‘im,” — She said, voice low but steady, like trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

Sigorn laughed, dry and sharp. — “Who th’ bloody hell are you, an’ what’ve you done wi’ me friend?”

Lyanna’s chest tightened, that night clawing at the edges of her mind — demon nearly ripping him apart at the skate park, her dragging him back to her apartment, bleeding herself to keep him alive. She shoved it down deep. She wasn’t about to let the weight of that truth bury her again. But if Sigorn needed to know how certain she was, she’d give it to him.

“Cause he fed on me.” — Lyanna said it like ripping off a bandage, flat, fast, no room for doubt. Her mouth felt like ash after, but her eyes didn’t flinch. The truth was a blade; she offered it without blinking.

“What in the bloody fuck, Ly?” — Sigorn quesitonedit low, like he was trying not to shout but couldn’t quite stop the heat behind the words. His voice had that old grit, carved deep with years of cigarette smoke and late-night interrogations

The kind that always made it sound like he was laying down law even when he was just swearing. He wasn’t angry — not exactly. It was worse. It was that sharp-edged disappointment, the kind that came from knowing someone too long and watching them bleed anyway. She swallowed the lump and finally let the words out, voice low, brittle.

Lyanna dragged the words out of her mouth like they were shards of glass.—   “Our first case together. The one that got me these bloody tattoos.”  — Her fingers itched, muscle memory ghosting over ink she never planned to explain. —  “He got torn up bad, demon near gutted him. I dragged him back to mine.”

She didn’t say how heavy he was, how cold. How she thought he was already halfway dead. Her voice dropped, but her jaw didn’t slack. —  “I let ´’im feed on me.” There. Out. Like a confession and a punch. She didn’t flinch, didn’t let her face twitch. Not even when Sigorn’s eyes flickered with something like disbelief, some mix of worry and old, bitter protectiveness. She barreled on.

“Even when he was dyin’, he didn’t take more than I gave.” — Her tone stayed flat, but there was a pulse behind it. Not quite anger. Not quite shame. Just the truth, ugly, inconvenient, and sharp around the edges. The kind of thing you never wanted to say out loud in a room with fluorescent lighting and someone who knew what your voice sounded like when it broke.

She didn’t tell him the rest. Didn't say how her hands wouldn’t stop shaking for hours after, like her bones had caught the aftershock and couldn’t let go. Didn’t say how she held him — Rhaegar — like some fool in a ballad, arms locked tight around a monster bleeding out on her floor, whispering fuck-all into the silence because what else was there? She sure as hell didn’t mention the part where she’d stared at his face, pale, streaking it with her fingers like a daft girl sketching sorrow across marble. Didn’t say how, for one sick, stunning moment, he looked beautiful. Not in the clean, cathedral kind of way. No — he looked like death carved into a sonnet. Like everything she’d ever wanted and everything that would ruin her. Again. And gods help her, but she’d craved it. The ruin. The ache. That terrible, poetic pull toward the edge of the cliff — just to see if she’d jump this time.

Sigorn stood, pissed as hell. — “Aye, yeh know who he were wi’ two nights back, don’t ye?” — Sigorn’s voice was low and rough, like gravel draggin’ through frost.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just met his eyes like she’d been expecting the question all night. — “With me,” — Lyanna said flat, matter-of-fact—like saying the sky was grey or the coffee tasted like shit. Nothing to hide, nothing to prove. The kind of truth you drop on a table like a loaded gun.

Sigorn crossed his arms, broad and bristling, the way he always did when he smelled bullshit brewing in the air. His voice came low, clipped, and lined with that bite like gravel under frost. — “All o’ it, aye?” — He asked, not accusing, just steady, like he was giving’ her one last out before digging in.

Lyanna didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just lifted her chin a notch, voice flat as a dead line on a heart monitor, dry as North wind and just as cold. — “…Most,” — She said, that was all Sigorn was gonna get and he ought to be grateful she gave him that much.

Sigorn leaning back like he was trying’ to make space between them, like her answers were knives he didn’t wanna catch. His tone had that sting to it, rough, sharp at the edges, like salt in a cut, but under it, yeah, there was bruising. The kind that didn’t show up ‘til the next day. — “Aye, gods help us both, Ly. Hope t’ fuck I never need ye fer an alibi.”—  He scoffed, gave a tired shake o’ the head, like he was laughin’ at his own misery. — “Got a body wi’ its neck torn up, blood like a butcher’s floor. Even if I thought vampires were piss-poor fairy tales, I’d still be lookin’ in that direction. So do me a favour, eh… If it weren’t yer pale-ass friend, then who the fuck was it?” — He said it like he didn’t want the answer, but needed it anyway.

Lyanna crossed her arms tight across her chest, like she was locking herself away from the cold that seeped in through every crack. Her shoulders dipped just a bit, not giving a damn, but not totally bluffing either. Her voice was clipped, sharp-edged, a blade she wasn’t afraid to use. — “A cult. Another vampire just passin’ through. No bloody clue.”

Sigorn’s smile was sharp, almost cruel. — “If ’e didn’t do it, ’e wouldn’t mind helpin’ me, would ’e?”

Lyanna shrugged, bitter.  — “I can gi’ ye ’is number.”

Sigorn’s grin stayed fixed, stained with something unspoken. — “Grand.”

***

The things one did for attachment. Rhaegar Targaryen had once forsaken his mortality for love. He’d done far worse for far less. But descending into the filth-ridden arteries of White Harbor’s underworld for a woman with cigarette ash on her knuckles and trauma etched into her eyes? That might be a new low. Wyrm’s Hollow was where industry had once bled into the Godswood, now a no-man’s-land of rusted scaffolding, moss-choked signage, and collapsing tenements. The city treated it like a bastard it didn’t know what to do with — shoved it out of sight, whispered about it behind closed doors, and left it to rot. But the rot remembered. He hadn't been here before. He preferred his darkness atmospheric, not municipal. But Lyanna had asked. So he’d come. The exhaust outlet was exactly where she'd said it would be — buried under ivy and rust, exhaling something metallic into the air like a dying god coughing up blood. A trail slick with it led down into shadow.

And then — movement. Leaves where they shouldn’t have been, shuffled too quietly. Someone trying too hard not to be heard. He turned without effort, doubling back in a blur. His kind didn’t creak branches or step on twigs. But the man did. The human — or whatever he was — hadn’t expected to be yanked clean off the forest floor. His boots flailed midair, limbs dumb with surprise. Rhaegar observed him clinically, like one might a specimen pinned under glass. Late thirties, built like a northern boulder, and sporting a mane of ruddy hair too red to be Crannogman. His eyes were the pale frost-glass blue of northern blood. Far northern. Beyond-the-Wall northern.

“You stalking me… Killer?” — Rhaegar asked, letting his voice coil with subtle persuasion. The old trick, hypnosis. He didn't always need it, but the truth was a fickle thing. Best not to leave it to chance.

The man's pupils dilated. — “Ah’m huntin,”  —  he said, deadpan.

Rhaegar didn’t raise his voice. He never needed to. His words slid in beneath the skin, soft, surgical, inevitable. His eyes fixed on the man’s, silver bright and steady, like moonlight caught in still water. Power hummed beneath the surface of his voice, ancient and patient. Not a question. A command wrapped in velvet. — “Hunting what?” — The air bent around the syllables, and the man’s will folded like wet paper.

He could feel it take. That low, precise thrumming in the space between silence and speech. Hypnosis, subtle, intimate, brutal in its efficiency. The truth would come now, whether the man wanted it to or not. The answer came slow, like something pried loose from the back of the man’s throat. His pupils had gone wide, glassy and unblinking under Rhaegar’s influence, the way a hare freezes before the hawk. But his voice, roughened by wind and cold and old grief, still carried the cadence of the far north.

He swallowed once, then said it. No hesitation. No chance to lie. —“Th’ wendigo.” — The word rasped out of him like a curse, like something half-believed and wholly feared. His jaw clenched after, as if the very name tasted foul.

Rhaegar let out a slow, internal exhale. Of course it was. Lyanna was already back from the station when he dragged the man — Jordar, apparently — into her office. She didn’t look thrilled to see either of them, though he suspected her scowl was habitual, not personal. Still. He’d hoped bringing a lead would buy him a reprieve. A good deed, if that was still a thing he could offer.

“So we’re dealin’ wi’ a flesh-eater, then,” — Lyanna said, arms crossed, tone flat. — “No’ a blood-drinker?”

“Wendigo eats whate’er it gets,” — Jordar said, his voice thick as peat smoke and rough from the northern wind. —  “Flesh. Bone. Blood. All o’ it.”

Rhaegar tilted his head. —  “To each their own.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed. — “But straight up, what're we talkin' about, then?”

Rhaegar glanced at her. — “A malevolent, cannibalistic spirit. Sometimes human. Sometimes… not. In some lore, humans become wendigos through cannibalism. Other times, the hunger makes them.”

Jordar's jaw tightened. — “It killed Srekis. An’ the rest. Been chasin’ the bloody thing since it took m’ da, nine years back. We were huntin’ deer, north o’ the Wall. It ran doon here 'bout a month ago.” — He looked directly at Lyanna. — “D’ye believe in fate, Miss Stark?”

Lyanna shrugged one shoulder, voice dry as cold iron, her northern drawl thick and unconvinced. —  “Ah try not to.”  — She said.

“I’m gaunna catch it. Feel it in me bones, I do. Jus’ sorry for the ones it took afore I could.” — He glanced sideways at Rhaegar. — “Ye an’ yer Fange mate need anythin’ else?”

Lyanna tossed the number over like it was poison, sharp, no fuss, like she was handing over a grenade with the pin barely held in. Her eyes didn’t meet his, never did. — “That’s me number. If anythin’ happens… Or if I dinna call…  Ye call me.” — The words were clipped, but the weight behind them hung heavy, like a storm waiting to break.

Jordar left, the door clicking behind him. Rhaegar watched him fade into the city's broken silhouette through the window, the way you watch a ticking clock walk away. Lyanna’s voice drew his attention back.

“Well?” — She asked.

“He believes what he’s saying,” — Rhaegar replied. — “Whether it's true is another matter. But the hypnosis doesn’t lie. That’s what he thinks.”

Lyanna let out a dry laugh, folding her arms tight like she was bracing for a punch. Her voice was flat, soaked in that bitter kind of humour only folks from the North knew, the kind that kept you sane in the dark. — “Grand. Cannibal spirit, aye. Just what we needed.” — The words rolled out sharp and cold, no room for hope, only the stubborn grit of someone used to shit falling apart around her.

“I think a hunting party is in order,” — Rhaegar said lightly. 

Lyanna shot him a sideways look, one eyebrow raised like she was half mocking the whole damn thing but couldn’t stop herself from feeling a flicker of something almost like hope. Her tone was clipped, rough around the edges, but carrying that quiet, stubborn fire beneath. — “Aye, that’s the spirit.”

Rhaegar’s smile was tight, a razor-thin line barely betraying the sharp edge beneath. His voice held that measured calm, dry wit laced with just enough bite to make the words sting without screaming. — “A hunting party that leaves us out entirely. Let the police earn their pensions for once. I have four pages still to ink in my novel for next week.”

Lyanna muttered it low, eyes flickering like the last dying embers of a fire she wasn’t quite ready to let go. Her voice was rough around the edges, clipped with that sharp Northern bite she wore like armor. There was a pause; a flicker of something softer before she shoved it back down. — “Doubt they will,” — She said, voice thick with that quiet kind of knowing. — “But Ah asked Sigorn tae tak a look.” — She bit her lip, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to say more, then she let it slip. — “He asked for yer number.”

Rhaegar blinked once, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, half amused, half dismissive. His voice was smooth, measured, carrying the weight of centuries yet tinged with the crisp clarity of modern speech. — “I must not very regretfully inform you,” — He said, the formality softened by a subtle sardonic edge, — “he’s not quite my cup of tea.”

Lyanna said it sharp, eyes steady and voice flat, arms loose at her sides but ready to cross if needed. She didn’t give him space to argue, she was done with his sarcasm for now. Her northern accent came through clear, clipped and direct. — “It’s aboot a body,” — She said. — “Throat’s ripped oot. No blood left in the corpse. He wants tae talk tae ye.”

Rhaegar’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smirk, subtle, almost amused but laced with weary resignation. His voice was smooth, measured, the kind of dry wit honed over centuries of boredom and battles both internal and external. There was a deliberate formality in his tone, but it carried the sleek cadence of modern irony, the blend of old-world elegance and contemporary cynicism he’d perfected over time. — “Of course he does,” — He said, voice dry as dust, almost theatrical in its precision. — “I’m the only bloodsucker in his Rolodex.”

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed just a bit, her voice sharp and steady, cutting through the quiet with that unmistakable edge, no patience for nonsense, but calm enough to make the weight of her words hit home. — “That’s th’ point.”

Something about the way she said it — too casual, too precise — made him turn. In less than a breath, he was in front of her, a whisper away. His speed wasn’t for show, but it made a point. Rhaegar’s gaze held a flicker of something almost imperceptible — an invitation wrapped in reserve. His voice was measured, smooth, blending the old-world cadence of a centuries-old noble with the crisp economy of modern speech. It carried that subtle weight of command, softened by genuine curiosity.

“And what’s your verdict?” — He asked quietly, eyes steady but patient.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. — “I told ’im ye didn’t do it. Said I trusted ye. ’E thought I’d hit me head.” — Lyanna crossed her arms, eyes steady and voice flat but sharp as a blade.

His jaw twitched. — “I’d like to justify it as that, too.”

She shrugged. — “He’s gonna call ye. ’Tis a conversation, that is.” —  She gave a wry smile, voice low and steady.

Rhaegar spoke with that velvety detachment only centuries of cynicism could refine. His voice was calm, bone-dry, and laced with a knowing weariness, less a complaint, more a resigned observation, like someone who’d watched far too many torches lit over lifetimes. — “That’s what they always say,” — He murmured, almost amused. — “Then next thing you know, you’re smouldering on a pyre while they drink to your memory, charming custom, really.”

He turned to go, already halfway into shadow. — “I have to go,” —  He said. Voice level. —  “I shall await the detective’s call. With bated breath, of course.”

***

Lyanna didn’t bother lying to Ty. She called her back the second she could confirm no one else had been taken. Gave her the cleaned-up version of events — the Jordar stuff, not the teeth-and-shadow bullshit. The wendigo part stayed under the rug. Most people didn’t need to hear about that kind of thing before bedtime. She was still clicking her phone off when Sigorn messaged her: l et’s go to the Hollow tomorrow night. Me and fangs are having a talk anyway, two birds one stone. Right. A lovely night out with her ex, her very-much-vampire-maybe-problem, and a man-eating monster. Howland had already buried himself in research about how to kill a wendigo, full scholar mode. When he dipped midday, Lyanna figured she might actually get a second to breathe. Maybe light a smoke. Maybe sit still long enough to feel her own ribs. No such luck. The landline rang. It was the one clients used. But the second she picked it up, she knew. The voice didn’t come with a name. It didn’t have to.

“You still breathin’, then? I rang three times last week. Word is you got a secretary now, gettin’ fancy, are we?” — He said it with that dry, needling affection only brothers get away with, voice low, like he’d been rehearsing it but didn’t want her to hear the worry underneath. Sarcastic, sure, but softer at the edges, like he wasn’t sure she’d pick up next time.

“Aye. You want a badge for carin’? How’re ya, ya daft fuck?”— She said it like a punch wrapped in a hug, voice rough with sleep and too many cigarettes, but with that rare curl of warmth only her brothers ever got.

Benjen’s laugh was warm, familiar. Too soft for this world. — “Bored outta me skull. Term’s nearly done, an’ these kids’re gonna be the death o’ me.”

“You were the one daft enough to try bein’ altruistic. I never told you t’become a bloody school teacher.” — She said it flat, into the crackling receiver, her voice low and laced with smoke-bit sarcasm. The kind of tone she used when she cared but refused to sound like it, like she was dragging the words through gravel just to make sure they didn’t come out soft.

“Aye, aye, but I bloody love it. The amount o’ memes I learn every day? It’s downright disturbin’.” — Ben, replied it with a wheezy little chuckle down the line, the kind that curled up at the end like a smirk.

“Can only imagine.” — Lyanna shot back, with a crooked half-smirk pressed into the receiver, like she was already lighting a cigarette or leaning back in her chair. 

His voice got that tone, the one they both used when talking shit about people who wore pearl earrings to brunch. — “I’m the one sortin’ Yule dinner this year. Ned an’ Cat ain’t comin’. They’ve buggered off to her lot’s fancy-arse winter do.”

“So I don’t have to hear her whinge 'bout the stuffin’ not bein’ bloody artisanal enough? Gods, count me lucky.” — She said it slow, with that razor-edged sarcasm she wore like armor, voice rasped just enough to carry the laugh she didn’t bother to let out. You could hear the drag of the smoke between syllables.

“Just me, ye, an’ Brandon. Ye comin’, then?” — He said it soft, like he didn’t want to spook her, like asking her anything too straight might make her hang up. There was a pause after, like he was listening close for the shape of her silence.

Lyanna murmured, —  “ Uhmm. ” — low and hesitant, like she was weighing a bad idea against an even worse one. It was the sound someone makes when they don’t want to lie but can’t quite commit to the truth either; half a yes, half a maybe, all wrapped up in a shrug you couldn’t see. 

Benjen’s voice came through the line with that familiar mix of teasing and genuine hope, rough but warm, like worn leather softened by years of wear. — “Please don’t bail,” — He said, the words hanging between them like a challenge; half a plea, half a dare, like he knew she might but really hoped she wouldn’t. There was that sly grin in his tone you could almost hear, the kind that said I’m counting on you, ya stubborn sod.

Lyanna’s voice came out low and a bit rough, like dragging a boot through mud. She said it slow, drawing out the words just enough to sound like she was weighing it but didn’t really want to give him a straight answer. — “I don’ know, Ben. Might be workin’,” — She muttered into the phone, the edge in her tone barely hiding how tired she was of all this back-and-forth. It wasn’t a promise, more a deflection; the kind of maybe that meant don’t hold your breath .

They never talked about the weird shit. Not since they were kids, back when ghosts were just bedtime stories to scare each other with. Benjen wasn’t cut from the same cloth — he didn’t crawl through blood-slick alleys or drag bodies out of gutters like she did. So she figured, maybe he didn’t need to know. Hell, maybe it was better that way. She was a walking bomb with a damn timer stuck on her back, and every tick made her want to stay the hell away. Didn’t want Benjen or Brandon caught in the blast radius when she finally blew the fuck up. No point in dragging them down into the dark with her. Not when she could still keep some distance, some goddamn control. Because inside, where no one looked, the noise was loud and sharp, like cold wind slicing through bone — and she wasn’t about to share that kind of pain. Not with them. Not ever.

Benjen’s voice came through the crackle of the line, low and teasing but edged with real worry. — “Seriously? Ye shouldn’t be workin’ this much. Ye’re half-blind already, for fuck’s sake.” — There was that familiar rough warmth beneath his words, like he was trying to sound tough but couldn’t hide the worry for his stubborn sister.

Lyanna’s voice came low and rough, like gravel scraped over ice, the kind of tired stubbornness that didn’t bother hiding. — “Ye know me. I can’t stop.” — She said it with that clipped edge; half-defiant, half-resigned, like she was daring him to tell her otherwise, but already bracing herself to keep running even if it broke her.

Benjen’s voice came warm and a bit rough, carrying that easy Northern drawl like a slow fire burning through the cold line. — “Well… Bring Sig an’ the new secretary, then. I’d like to meet the circus ye’re wranglin’. Miss ye, lass.” — He said it like he meant every word, the kind of quiet longing that didn’t need big speeches, just the truth laid bare over the crackle of the landline. She exhaled. Felt the tremor in her fingers.

Lyanna’s voice cut sharp and low, like ice scraping on rusted metal, with that thick Northerner grit wrapping around every word. — “Ben, Ah don’t know. Got shit tae do.” — She said it quick, clipped, too busy to sugarcoat, too stubborn to ask for help. There was a weight behind the line, something unsaid, but she shoved it down, swallowed it whole.

Benjen’s voice came through low and steady, thick with that rough Northern drawl, the kind that didn’t do fancy but carried the weight of something real underneath. — “Just let me know. Please… Ah need tae see ye. Wanna ken me favourite sister’s okay.” — He said it quiet, almost like a prayer whispered across the line, no fancy words, just the raw truth trying to squeeze through.

Lyanna’s voice dropped low, rough like gravel scraped raw, the faint twist of her grit biting through her words. She spoke slow, almost grudging, like she was admitting something she’d rather swallow whole than say out loud. — “Ah’m the only one ye got.”  — The line crackled with the weight behind it, no sweetness, just cold, hard truth wrapped in a stubborn edge.

Benjen’s voice came through steady, warm like a slow-burning fire on a freezing night. Short, no fuss, just pure, solid truth. — “Exactly,” — He said, his words hanging heavy with that quiet certainty only a brother’s voice could carry across the line.

That night, she didn’t think about the wendigo. She thought about Benjen. About how he lived just far enough that she couldn’t drive down on a whim. Just close enough for him to poke at her guilt. Her brothers were relentless like that. Come morning, she shook the sentiment off. Sigorn showed up at the office while Howland was still neck-deep in research. She figured Sig would be busy with the other case — the girl. But no, apparently murder didn’t take a break. He walked in and said they should go after the wendigo tonight. Off the books, of course. The Hollow was liminal territory. You could lose a whole precinct out there and no one would notice unless the monster came knocking on Manderly Tower. They agreed to prep. But before that, they had a stop to make: Rhaegar’s apartment . Sigorn wanted to ask questions. Rhaegar already knew apparently. Which meant they’d talked behind her back. Fine. She didn’t need to be in every secret club. He buzzed them up. Door was already open. He was lounging in his living room like the damn cover of a 1970s album. Keith Richards purple suit, legs crossed, bored expression.

“So,” — He drawled. — “Is this going to take long, or are we hunting the wendigo?”

That answered her question. They were doing this. Tonight. She sat. Sigorn stood. Rhaegar stayed perfectly perched like a cat who didn’t trust either of them not to hiss. The mood in the room was swamp-thick. Family guilt on the back burner, and now this vampire interrogation. 

Sig pulled a photo from his pocket, dropped it on the coffee table. A woman. Throat torn open. — “Ye know ’er?”

Rhaegar’s eyes narrowed. Insulted. — “Not exactly my type.”

“Ye want O-neg?” — Sigorn said it with a gruff edge, like he was sizing up a situation and didn’t have time for nonsense; short, sharp, and no fluff. His voice had that rough Northman grind, a low rumble that could cut through tension like a blade.

Rhaegar said it with a quiet, almost detached precision, like stating a fact, not an opinion. His voice was smooth and measured, with a hint of that faint, aristocratic lilt that never quite lost its cool, even when there was something personal beneath the surface. The word, — “Brunettes” —slipped out softly, calm but with a subtle weight, as if he were savoring the sound, letting it hang between them just long enough to be understood without needing to say more.

Lyanna muttered, — “Gods.”

Sigorn pointed at the bite. — “That’s a vampire mark?” —  Sigorn asked it low and cautious, like he wasn’t sure if saying it out loud would make things worse.

Rhaegar’s reply was ice wrapped in silk, calm, smooth, but with a sharp edge that cut deeper than any blade. His voice held that cool, quiet disdain, like he was smiling behind the words but flicking an invisible middle finger at the whole damn room. There was no need to shout when his tone said, — “Seriously? You’ve got an entire forensics team, and you’re asking me?”

Sigorn spoke it slow and low, a dry grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, like he was calling you out but enjoying every second of it. His voice had that rough, weathered edge from years of biting back, the kind of tone that said, —  “Aye, you’re quick on the dodge, aren’t ya?”

Rhaegar shot back cool and sharp, voice smooth but edged with ice, the kind that slices through the noise and makes it clear he’s the one steering this damn questioning. — “You like asking stupid ones. And ignoring office hours.” — He said it like a warning wrapped in a smirk, reminding Lyanna and Sigorn that he’s always three steps ahead, running the game even when it looks casual.

“Sorry I woke ye from yer coffin.” — Sigorn grumbled it out low, trying to claw back some of the ground he’d just lost; half-joking, half-grim, like he was the last one to admit the night had its own rules and Rhaegar played them better. 

Lyanna stood. Her patience wore off. — “If ye two keep dick-measurin’, I’m gonna go deal wi’ the wendigo meself.” —  Lyanna snapped it sharp, with that no-bullshit edge and a rough bite, like she was ready to drop everything and dive headfirst into trouble just to shut the boys up. 

Silence. Then, — “Are there oth’r vamps ’round these parts?” —  Sigorn’s tone was clipped but trying to sound steady, like he was grabbing at the reins to keep things from slipping further out of his hands. There was that undercurrent of suspicion, but also a hint of careful calculation, as if he needed to know the lay of the land before making a move.

“Not that I know of,” —  Rhaegar said, voice flat. — “We’re not in a damn book club.”

Sig wasn’t done. Pulled out more photos. All women. All dead. Some modern. Some grainy enough to be pre-Instagram.

“You serious, or just havin’ a laugh?” — Lyanna snapped. — “You gonna pin every murder ‘round here on him, then?”

Sigorn’s voice tightened, trying to reel the conversation back on track, but the edge never fully softened, like steel dragged over stone,  —  “Just the ones he micht’ve done.” — He said it low, careful, but with that stubborn Northern grit that brooked no nonsense.

Rhaegar flipped through them, unimpressed. —  “If I were going to kill someone, I wouldn’t be that sloppy.”

Sigorn’s tone dropped, trying to ease the heat without losing his ground, like he was laying down a rough peace offering, all grit wrapped in reluctant care, —   “Maybe it weren’t on purpose. Maybe ye was hungry.” — He said it slow, voice steady but low, like a gruff man trying to patch a crack without admitting he’s worried.

Rhaegar’s eyes didn’t flicker. — “I remember every life I’ve taken. None of them are here.” —  Rhaegar said it quiet, like a knife sliding into velvet, controlled, low, and certain. Not angry. Not pleading. Just cold truth, iron-wrought and unmoving. 

Sig tried again. He narrowed his eyes, voice thick with his Northriver drawl, clipped and a bit rough at the edges, half suspicion, half bait, — “Daenaera Velaryon. That name knock summat loose in yer head?”

The air thinned. Lyanna felt it before she saw it — Rhaegar’s jaw clenching, a shadow across his expression like someone dug up an old scar and pressed.

Lyanna’s voice cut sharp through the stale night air like broken glass over concrete, flat, no-nonsense, and low enough to warn without needing to raise it. —  “Sig,” — She said, jaw tight, — “Leave it. He’s answered. We’re goin’.” — Just that iron warning in her tone, the kind that came right before someone got punched or left behind.

Rhaegar didn’t flinch. He said it slow, — “She was my cousin. You investigating my family tree now?” — Sigorn pulled the final card. One last photo. A girl. Blonde. Valyrian features. Bite marks. Rhaegar stared.

Sigorn questioned it quiet-like, but it still landed heavy, like a boot on rotten floorboards, testing for a break. — “Did yer kill ’er?” —The kind of question that scraped against the back of his throat on the way out, rough with old duty and something damn near like doubt.

Long pause. Rhaegar spoke it with the precision of a scalpel, quiet, cold, and deliberate. No theatrics. No apology. Just the plain, unflinching truth laid bare like a body on a slab. His voice didn’t rise, didn’t falter. It was the kind of calm that unnerved detached but deadly, like he’d already weighed the cost of this confession and found it insignificant. His eyes didn’t blink. His tone didn’t beg. The words came out like a closing statement in a courtroom only he recognized.

“Yes. I was the author of her death. But unless you're planning to charge me for something that happened in 1944, we're done.” — It wasn’t a confession. It was a warning dressed up like closure. A reminder that he wasn’t afraid of ghosts, because he was one.

Sigorn said it with a grunt more than a voice, jaw tight, like the words were dragged out between clenched teeth. Not angry, just tired. Defeated in the way a man gets when the fight ain't over, but he knows he's already lost something. — “Ah’ve got t’ get back t’ work.” — He didn’t look at anyone when he said it. 

Just pulled his coat tighter and stared past them, like if he focused hard enough on the job waiting for him, he could ignore the mess still burning behind his ribs. It wasn’t an exit line, it was a retreat. A need to regain control the only way he knew how: clockin' in, shuttin’ up, movin’ on.

Lyanna glared — “So y’not comin’ wi’ us, then?” — Lyanna shot at him, not quite disappointed, but there was a splinter in her tone, like she already knew the answer and hated that she cared. She didn’t plead. Lyanna didn’t do that. 

His shrug was made of pure arrogance. —  “Safer on me own, ain’t I.” — Didn’t look at her when he said it. Didn’t need to. The words landed like old boots on frozen ground, worn, heavy, and not up for discussion.

She didn’t punch him. Not because she didn’t want to—Gods, no. Her knuckles itched for it. But her hands were still stiff from the last guy who thought mansplaining necromancy was a good idea. They’d been doing violence all week, and her fingers were bone-tired, the ache settling into her joints like winter rot. So no, she didn’t punch him. But when he turned his back and walked off like he hadn’t just pissed gasoline on her last nerve, Lyanna’s whole body thrummed with murder. Might’ve even said his name like a curse. Quiet. Through her teeth. The way her mother used to say her father’s.

And now—because the universe had a sick sense of humor—they were heading into the sewers. Great. Pitch-black tunnels that reeked of mold, rot, and things with too many teeth. All to find some flesh-eating bastard who’d decided a sewer entranced at the Hollow was a good hunting ground. She lit a cigarette she couldn’t taste anymore and sucked it like it owed her money. The wind bit through her coat like it knew she’d forgotten to fix the lining. Her vision blurred at the edges, something soft and shadowed curling inward like smoke. She didn’t mention it. She never did. She’d been through worse. She’d been worse. But right now? She hated Sig so much.

***

It smelled like a trap before anyone spoke. Not the kind laid by monsters — though he’d smelled those too — but the social kind. The kind that reeked of desperation, masculine posturing, and some bloated, late-blooming grudge disguised as justice. Rhaegar should’ve seen it coming. Of course Mister Magnar couldn’t resist swinging old bones around like a cudgel, hoping something still bled. The man was an insecure brute with a persecution complex and the subtlety of a flint axe. What surprised Rhaegar wasn’t the audacity — it was the accuracy. Some of the past should stay buried. And some of it still clawed its way out of the soil, reeking of guilt and 1944. So, no. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about being ambushed in his own home. And when Sigorn excused himself like a man ducking out of a fire he lit himself, Rhaegar didn’t bother masking the contempt. A coward in authority’s coat — how utterly expected.

They drove in silence. Him and Lyanna. Not the crackling kind, not the simmering kind — just silence. The kind that filled the car like fog, thick and dull, pressing in from every direction. He wasn’t angry. Not exactly. But irritation had to land somewhere, and she happened to be within arm’s reach. They arrived at The Hollow just before dusk, a crowd already gathering like flies to rot. Lyanna parked without a word. Her focus shifted — quick nods, short exchanges, likely with the client. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. She moved like someone trying not to feel guilty. That was enough. They walked toward the sewer entrance. The air tasted of metal, like wet coins and forgotten sins.

“So that’s it, then? Y’just not gonna talk to me ever again?” — She said it like she was joking, but she wasn’t. She didn’t look at him when she said it, didn’t let it sound soft. Just threw it out like a half-burnt match, still hot at the end. And if her throat caught on the last word, she pretended it didn’t.

Rhaegar said it without looking at her, eyes tracking the faintest movement in the trees like the forest might bite if he blinked. His tone was smooth, too smooth—the kind of calm that only came from centuries of practice, from locking every sharp feeling behind cathedral-thick walls. — “That would be counterproductive right now,” — He said, each word crisp, clipped, deliberately chosen like surgical instruments laid out in a row.

But underneath that cool delivery, there was a pulse, a hitch in the stillness of his voice, like the echo of something unsaid scraping behind his ribs. He wasn’t dodging the question. He was burying it. With precision. Like he always did. Like it hurt too much to answer honestly.

She hesitated. — “I’m sorry he did that. Thought it was just ’bout the lass he found, not some bloody ambush.”

“The childishness of Mr. Magnar should be under discussion,” — Rhaegar said it with that cool, clipped tone he used when irritation slipped past his usual restraint. Dry as winter air, his voice carried just enough bite to cut, but not enough to show he cared too much. He didn’t look at her when he said it, just kept walking, like the insult was an afterthought. A scalpel, not a hammer. — “But you might’ve warned me how pathetic he could be.”

The wind dragged its nails across the back of his neck as they moved forward. Winter was beginning to creep south, an unwelcome guest slipping through the cracks. Snow crunched underfoot, faint and fragile. Not yet deep, but enough to whisper: I’m coming.

“Who was t’lass?” — she asked quietly.— “Daenaera?”

“That,” — He said with finality, — “was a long time ago.”

Mercifully, she didn’t press. Not here. Not now. The sewer yawned open like a wound. Rot and rust greeted them like old friends. Lyanna flicked her flashlight on, the beam slicing through the dark. He didn’t need it — he could see just fine — but she did. And he stayed beside her. The walls tightened the deeper they went, corridors curling in on themselves like intestines. The second staircase — if it could be called that — was nothing but slick stone and the kind of silence that never left on its own. Then the scent hit him. Not just blood — fresh blood. Hot. Human. He stopped, one hand instinctively reaching toward Lyanna, the other curling into a fist.

“Don’t look,” — He said, but too late.

“What’?” — Lyanna whispered it like the word caught on her breath, low, sharp, half-suspicious, half-braced for something worse. Her voice barely made a sound, but it cut through the dark like a flick of a knife.

She lifted the flashlight. The corridor’s end lit up like a crime scene frozen mid-symphony. Limbs, heads, torsos — all arranged with grotesque precision. A macabre tableau, theatrical in its savagery. Rhaegar felt the weight of a gaze — not just seen, studied. Watched. Lyanna stepped closer, sweeping the light through the carnage until it landed in the farthest corner. And there it was. Tall. Emaciated. Skin clinging to bone in patches, as though rot was too slow for it. Antlers curved from its skull like a crown of death. A horse’s head — skinned, hollowed — covered its face like a mask. It chewed absently, almost serenely, on the mangled body of Jordar. The Wendigo looked up. Its red eyes met Rhaegar’s. Time went cold. It roared — ravenous and wild — and lunged for Lyanna. Of course it did. She was alive. But he moved first. The impact was bone-cracking. Rhaegar’s shoulder collided with the creature’s ribs, teeth flashing in its grotesque snarl. But it was strong. Stronger than it should have been. He shouted, voice tearing through the chamber like a shot:

It tore out of him like a command he hadn’t meant to beg. Sharp, guttural, and laced with panic he almost never let show. It was instinct, not strategy, raw and immediate. — “Lya, run!” — He shouted, and for once, it wasn’t careful or composed. It was the sound of fear cracking through centuries of discipline; because this time, it wasn’t his life he was trying to save.

Fangs tore into him before she could move. He felt them hit just beneath the collarbone — too shallow for death, but deep enough for agony. The Wendigo wanted his blood. It wasn’t going to get much. He slammed his elbow into its jaw, wrenching away, drawing its fury. It threw him against the wall, ribs shrieking. He didn’t stop. He ran. Found her halfway up the tunnel. Grabbed her, didn’t ask. Just moved. They broke into the open air like corpses clawing out of graves. They didn’t stop running until the stench faded and the cold bit cleaner.

“Holy shite,” — Lyanna gasped, bent double over her knees, breath ragged. — “What the fuckin’ hell was that.” —  Her voice was hoarse, half-laugh, half-horror, like she couldn’t decide whether to puke or punch something.

Rhaegar didn’t answer. He felt blood trickle beneath his shirt, warm and thick. His legs shook. Not from fear. From focus. From the sharp, sudden panic that she could’ve died. He hated that feeling. Not because it hurt — but because it didn’t belong. Not anymore. Magnar’s questions had stirred more than just history. They’d reminded him of the truth: he cared. About her. And that was unacceptable.

“You ain't healin’,” — Lyanna muttered, squinting at the wound like it had personally offended her.

Rhaegar huffed the words like they burned on the way out, low, clipped, almost ashamed, —  “I need blood.”

She pulled up her sleeve. No. No, that wasn’t the answer. That was how it started — the blood, the link, the tether. That was how people like her got inside his head, how they became more than useful, more than temporary. How they became dangerous.

Rhaegar said it with the kind of restraint that came from centuries of practice, voice tight, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on anything but her.  —  “I’m not asking,”  — He said stiffly. — “Just drop me downtown.” — Like it cost him more to say it than to bleed.

Before he did something he’d regret — something that would tether him tighter than the centuries of solitude already had — he held back the words that clawed at his tongue. Before he needed her more than he should’ve allowed himself to admit. And she didn’t argue. That silence, that quiet acceptance, twisted the knife deeper. He could feel her — an echo near the city’s pulsing heart, a faint signature that pulled him like a lodestone. He knew exactly where to go to get what he needed. Choosing the brunette with the short  hair wasn't a coincidence anymore. It never had been. There was no lying to himself, no delusions left to clutch. The rules had shifted, the game changed, and suddenly the pawn was a queen — or maybe the other way around. Either way, the danger wasn’t in the night, but in the slow-burning tether he refused to cut.

***

Silver bullets. That was their best shot. Howland had said it like it meant something — like hope could be crammed into a casing and chambered clean. Some Free Folk tribes used them for wendigos, apparently. Romantic bastards. All she could think about was Jordar. His body wasn’t even cold in her mind. The way the thing — whatever the fuck that was — went for his neck, quick and messy. Reminded her of that woman Sigorn found that week. The one who didn’t scream. She didn’t want to think of Sigorn. She wanted to break his jaw. The weird part — what unsettled her more than the blood or the monster — was how little it bugged her that Rhaegar had killed. And admitted it. No hesitation, no priestly regret. Just the fact of it, blood-wet and necessary.

But Sigorn? Sigorn trying to corner Rhaegar while he was bleeding out and still trying to help? Sigorn pretending he still knew who she was? That hit harder. Because it meant he never really had. She sat alone at her kitchen table, arms bare, tattoos showing. They looked worse in this light — blurred from the weeks, ghosted like the memories under them. Her wrists felt cold. She didn’t rub them. Didn’t look away. And then Howland walked in like a Batman villan. The suit was... something. Mint green satin, slick like melted metal, shoulders cut so sharp they could’ve been used for surgery. Velvet burgundy bow at his throat like he’d murdered a Victorian poet on his way here. She blinked at him.

“Good mornin’, Riddler,” — She said flatly.

“Mornin’, Robin,” — Howland said with a crooked grin. — “Where’s your Batman?”

She scratched the back of her neck. — “This time o’ day? Fuck if I ken.” —  Which wasn’t completely true. She could still feel the place where Rhaegar’s eyes had landed on her the night before. Like frostbite. 

“So,” —  Howland said, casual as sin, —  “Got some good news, as it happens.”

He pulled a plastic bag out of his coat pocket. Inside — silver bullets. Enough to load her Glock, one full charge. Maybe enough to slow something down. Maybe not.

She stared at them. Lyanna didn’t stand. Didn’t smile. — “An’ where’d you get these, then?” — Just looked up from the table with those ice-bright eyes, tired, unimpressed, and maybe a little curious if she gave a shit today. She flicked the plastic bag with one finger, like it might bite.

Howland tilted his head, leaned forward a little, just enough for the velvet bow at his collar to sway like he was making some dramatic entrance, except the sparkle in his eye said he was mostly taking the piss. He wasn’t trying to be mysterious. Just smug. — “Ah’ve got… some friends, dunt ah?” — He gave Lyanna a sideways grin, cocked his head like he was letting her in on a secret, then shrugged with the casual menace of someone whose friends probably ran smuggling rings and summoned spirits before breakfast.

Lyanna snorted, looking at him sideways with that half-amused, half-exhausted glare she did so well. Then, with that dry Northern bite in her voice, she muttered, — “Yer a special kind o’ twisted, y’ken that?” 

Howland smirked, that quiet northern lilt curling through as he replied, —  “Teks one t’ ken one, don’t it?”

She didn’t argue. Just took the bullets. The room smelled like coffee gone cold, and blood she hadn’t cleaned off her boots yet. She didn’t say thank you. Didn’t need to. Howland understood silence better than most people understood words. She was halfway through zipping up her boots when Howland muttered something about having called Sigorn. Didn't say more, which was wise. Lyanna didn’t ask. Didn’t want to hear whatever noble-dumb bullshit her ex was cooking up this time. She loaded her Glock, thumbed the silver bullets into place like prayer beads, and grabbed the dented kitchen blowtorch Howland offered with that smug little sparkle in his eye. Said heat might help. Said the wendigo didn’t like fire.

Right. Neither did people, in general. She didn’t thank him. Just took the thing and walked out the door, past the flickering hallway light and down into the cold, wet silence that blanketed the Hollow after sundown. She should’ve gone straight to the sewer. Slipped in alone, got it done, crawled out smelling like hell and trauma. But instead, like an idiot with unfinished business, she headed to Rhaegar’s place. She figured he wouldn’t come. Not after last night. After Sigorn. But maybe — maybe she didn’t feel like dying in a freezing tunnel alone. He answered the door, which meant he’d seen her coming and still opened it. Could’ve pretended not to be home. Could’ve ghosted her entirely. Would’ve been easier for both of them. Of course, he argued. Because he was Rhaegar, and arguing was his foreplay.

“You know, Lyanna, how I’ve survived five hundred years?” —  Rhaegar said it with the kind of cool detachment that sounded rehearsed, like he’d used the line before, maybe more times than he cared to admit. 

He didn’t look at her when he said it, just kept his eyes on the floor or the wall or whatever wasn’t her face. Like if he didn’t meet her gaze, the truth of what five hundred years actually meant wouldn’t swallow the room whole. There was a faint bitterness under the surface, a worn edge; less bravado, more exhaustion. Like he wasn’t proud of surviving that long, just accustomed to it.

She gave him a look. — “Vitamin D deficiency.”

He didn’t laugh. Just narrowed those too-clever eyes. — “By picking my battles.”

“An' yet here y’are,” — She said, pushing past him into the apartment, the taste of metal and something old on the back of her tongue. — “I’m not lettin’ this go. I’m not lettin’ that bastard in the sewer turn the Hollow into its own bleedin’ buffet. Aye, yesterday was seven hells, guess what? So’s today.”

He sighed. That martyr sigh he did when the world didn’t appreciate his ancient, broody wisdom. — “There’s no winning arguments with you, is there?”

“Took y’long enough to catch on,” — She said, already heading for the door again.

It stank in the hallway — mildew, old paint, and blood under the floorboards. Or maybe that was just her. She’d stopped trying to sort real from imagined smells lately. He followed her out without another word, too quiet for her taste. The kind of quiet that crawled under your skin. He hadn’t said a damn thing about what happened with Sigorn, but she felt it. That tension in his jaw. The chill that had nothing to do with weather. She wanted to punch Sigorn in the teeth for it. Really, truly. Just one clean, satisfying pop to the mouth. But instead, she drove. Instead, she handed Rhaegar the blowtorch like some kind of offering. They walked side by side toward the sewer opening, all rusted metal and ghost breath in the air.

“Oh, come off it,”  — He scoffed, flatly. —  “Are we doing this? Here? Now? What’s up your ass tonight?”

“Oh, come off it,” she scoffed. — “We really doin’ this now? Here? What’s crawled up yer arse this time?”

“You share his opinion. I can feel it.” —  Rhaegar replied it low, quiet enough the wind could’ve carried it off if she hadn’t been listening. Not an accusation. Not quite. But it hung there between them like smoke that wouldn’t clear.

His eyes stayed forward, fixed on the path through the trees, but his voice held the kind of weight you didn’t put in words unless they’d been rotting in your chest for a while.

“Opinion o’ what?” —  She stopped, shot back as she stared at him, her eyes narrowed. — “I’m not judging ye.”

“How generous,” — He said, too smooth, too tired. — “What does it matter what I’ve done? Either I drink blood or I die. You, of all people, should know better.”

“Right then. Yewant this?” —  She stepped in closer, the cold sewer wind curling up her neck. —  “You chose to be a bloody vampire. I didn’t choose shit. Didn’t get a say in goin’ blind, or feelin’ death crawl up my spine every time some poor sod drops dead. I didn’t ask to get pulled halfway t’ the other side, hearin’ ghosts beg me t’ drag ’em back. These weren’t choices, Rhaegar. These were the fuckin’ cards I got dealt.”

“And you think I chose to be a killer?” — He said it quiet, almost like it hurt to ask, low voice, no heat, just the weight of it hanging between them. Like he wasn’t arguing anymore. Like he needed to know if she really believed that.

“Nah,” — She said, her voice rougher than she meant. — “Aye, I know it's more tangled than that.” —  She looked away, jaw tight. —  “Told Sig I trusted ye,” — She said, quieter now. — “No matter what ye’ve done. We’ve all made a mess of it, one way or another. I get why he’s scared.”

Rhaegar didn’t even pause, his voice cutting through the damp air like a blade. — “He’s not afraid,” — He said, sharp and certain, the weight of it landing between them like a stone in the dark. — “He’s jealous.” — He didn’t look at her when he said it, just kept walking, boots crunching over dead leaves, jaw tight like he already knew exactly where this road led.

She blinked. The snorted, half a laugh and half disbelief, shoving her hands deeper into her coat as they walked. She didn’t look at him, didn’t need to. Her voice came out low and dry, like gravel underfoot. — “Why’d he be, then?” — She muttered, like the answer didn’t matter, even if it did.

“Oh, please.” —  Rhaegar rolled his eyes, a slow, knowing drag that said really?  

Lyanna shrugged with a half-smile, like she couldn’t be bothered to pretend she had all the answers. — “Reel dunno,” — She said, voice flat but edged with a flicker of something, maybe doubt, maybe defiance.

“He’s in love with you. And he thinks it’s his responsibility to keep you out of trouble.” — Rhaegar said it slow, like he was spelling out a secret no one else should hear. His voice had that low, careful edge, half teasing, half serious, like he was daring her to argue but didn’t really expect her to. There was a faint curl of a smile, just enough to soften the words without letting them lose their weight.

Her laugh was short and bitter. — “Ah’m no his to protect. Never was.” —  She paused, then muttered, —  “Gods, some days Ah wish Ah was goin’ deaf instead o’ blind.”

The silence wrapped around them like old plastic — sticky, suffocating, hard to shake off. Down here in the belly of the Hollow, surrounded by rust, rot, and the faint scent of death left to ferment, it didn’t feel like a fight anymore. It felt like a reckoning. She walked first, Glock steady in her grip, knuckles white and calloused. She didn’t look back. Didn’t need to. Rhaegar had the jerry-rigged flamethrower slung over one shoulder like it was a damn violin, and maybe — if they were lucky — he could fry that sewer-dwelling bastard’s face off long enough for her to shoot something that mattered. Not that luck had ever sent her flowers.

“You want to ask something,” — He said behind her, voice smooth in that vaguely Valyrain, annoyingly unbothered way. —  “You could just do it.”

She didn’t answer at first. Her focus was fraying like cheap thread, ears straining as the tunnel narrowed. Wet stone. Dripping metal. That bone-deep stillness before something very bad decided to introduce itself.

“Boot?” — She muttered, eyes flicking toward the next bend. Her breath fogged in the cold.

He didn’t skip a beat. — “The woman in the photo. The one you asked about.”

Right. That. Her stomach twisted, not from jealousy, don’t be stupid, but something like it, something softer and worse. She kept walking. — “Honest?” — She said, dry as a salt flat. — “Dunno if I wanna know, t’be real.”

“She asked me for the gift,” — He said. — “The one to be a vampire. I gave it to her.”

She stopped. Just for a second. A flicker. Because she’d assumed he’d killed the woman. Not turned her. There was a difference. Thin as a knife edge, but it mattered. — “Oh,”  — She said. — “K.” — There was no guilt in her voice. No real grief either. Just memory. Clean and clinical. The kind that didn’t need an apology. 

“I’ve killed people,” — He said, quieter now. — “And I’ll do it again. It’s in my nature. It wasn’t, back then… Not before the gift, but killing wasn’t taboo where I grew up. It was just something people did. Like breathing. Or eating. I was taught by some of the best warriors of my time.”

Lyanna snorted under her breath as they reached the familiar level in the tunnels where they’d first found the creature. — “And here I was thinkin’ I had a fucked-up childhood.”

The air thickened with every step. The water dripping from rusted grates sounded like bones cracking in the silence. The stench down here had turned ripe — like copper and waste and whatever was left of the people who’d died screaming. She could feel them. The cold wasn’t weather — it was soul-deep. That kind of hollow chill that settled in her spine when death was close. A lot of people had died down here. Maybe not all at once. But enough to make the place feel cursed.

“I became more intimate with death after the gift,” — Rhaegar said behind her, like he could feel it too. — “Blood is the calling. Death is the consequence. I spent a long time learning to control the urge.” —  She didn’t look back. — “Despite how I look,” —  He added, — “I’m not human.”

“Aye,” — She said, voice flat. — “Aye, everyone’s gonna die in the end, aren’t they?”

She didn’t mean it as comfort. Just a fact. That’s all life was down here — facts and corpses and guns that jammed when it counted most. The monster wasn’t where it had been. That made her stomach twist in that ugly, anticipatory way. Lower. They had to go lower. Always deeper. Always darker.

“Just outta curiosity,” — She muttered, tightening her grip on the Glock, — “can you smell 'im?”

Rhaegar’s voice came back from the dark. — “Down here, I can only smell the sewer.”

“Grand,” — She muttered. — “Real reassurin’. You’d think someone raised t’kill’d have a better fuckin’ plan than that.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. Just said, — “First of all, this is your plan. Second, it’s not me he wants. He wants someone who’s alive.”

She didn’t flinch. But her voice curled around a sharp edge. — “Guess no one ever taught ya what a reassurin’ tone’s s’posed t’sound like, huh?”

If he smiled behind her, she didn’t want to see it. She kept moving forward. Because that’s what she did. Always forward. Eyes burning in the dark. Gun steady. Heart locked down and lungs full of sewer air and stubborn hope. The kind that got people killed. But she still hadn’t turned around. And she still hadn’t told him to leave. It was a sewer with delusions of grandeur — arched ceilings crusted in mold, stone slick with runoff, stinking of rot and regret. The water lapped at her boots like it wanted to taste her, like the floor itself was hungry. Rhaegar moved ahead, all smooth predatory grace, and that was her first clue it was a trap.

The second clue was the Wendigo. It came out of the dark like bad memory — fast, mean, and patient. Lured them in like flies toward sugar and shit. She raised her Glock, fired into the shadows. Missed, of course. Eyesight like hers? Half-blind shooting was closer to playing roulette with a pissed-off god. Somewhere in the blur, Rhaegar launched himself at it—fangs, fists, zero self-preservation. So much for the plan. She’d given him the kitchen torch and now he was rolling around in monster sludge like it was amateur fight night.

“Bloody brilliant,” — She muttered, eyes straining. All motion and no definition. The sewer was a blur of wet shapes, none of them friendly.

She dropped low, crawling through filth that smelled like old blood and broken promises. Her stomach threatened to revolt. She choked it down, bit hard on the inside of her cheek. No room for weakness. No time for being soft. Not now. It was behind her before she felt it — something cold against her spine that wasn’t wind. She spun, hissed through her teeth, and lit it up. Flames burst from the torch, catching fur. The thing shrieked and reeled back, the stink of scorched hair joining the bouquet of rot. Good. She hoped it burned. She staggered back toward the corridor, soaked to the skin in sewer juice and adrenaline. And there he was — Rhaegar, stepping in front of her like a goddamn gothic saint, dripping in black goo that didn’t belong in any biology textbook.

His mouth opened like he might say something noble or stupid, and she raised a hand. —  “Don’t. You smell like dead things and bad decisions.”

The Wendigo wasn’t done. Of course it wasn’t. It stood tall at the end of the hall, roaring like it had something to prove. Fine. She had more fuel and less patience. She cranked the torch higher, — “Round two, ya arsehole.”

Then came the gunshots — clean, practiced, a rhythm she hadn’t heard in years. Bullets tore through the Wendigo’s skull, chest, neck. It dropped, dissolved into moss and nightmare. She blinked, wiped grime from her eyes, and looked past the smoke. Sigorn. Of course it was Sigorn.

Lyanna’s voice cracked sharp, half-surprise, half-annoyed, as she stepped closer, eyes narrowing. — “Sig, how the fuck did ye”

Sigorn shrugged, voice low and rough like gravel. —  “Howland called, said ye lot were in trouble. Sent me  silver bullets through the post.”

Lyanna blinked, half-blind and half-pissed. —  “I’m gonna give that lad a raise.”

“Seconded,” — Rhaegar muttered from behind them, still dripping sewer water and attitude, hanging back near the exit like he didn’t trust anything, including his own survival.

She squinted at Sigorn. The light behind him blurred into a halo, too bright, too many edges. — “What’re you doin’ here?” — She asked.

His mouth did that old guilty twist. — “Somethin’ I oughta’ve done ages ago.” —  There wasn’t time to process the weight of that. There never was.

She caught movement, just enough to register the glint of his weapon aimed past her shoulder. Too fast. Two shots fired before she could stop him. She heard the impact — heard Rhaegar grunt — but something worse hit him first. The air shifted. Rhaegar turned. Eyes black-on-black, all void and hunger. And then the staircase spat out something worse. Tall. Pale. Fast. A man blinked into place beside Rhaegar like a shadow stepped free of its body. No warning. No scent. Just there. And before she could scream, he drove something into Rhaegar’s chest. She screamed anyway. Tried to run, to help, but Sigorn yanked her back, arms around her like a trap. She thrashed, spit curses, bit his shoulder. Didn't matter.

The tall man looked down at Rhaegar like he was pinning a butterfly. — “We meet again, Mister Targaryen.”

Rhaegar shuddered, trying to stand even as pain twisted through him like barbed wire. But stubborn to the bone. — “You,”  — He rasped.

The man smiled like a priest at a funeral. — “Thank you, Mister Magnar. You’ve contributed to a cleaner world.”

And then — gone. In a flash of speed too close to Rhaegar’s own. One hand tangled in white hair, dragging him like a corpse caught in a current. No trace left. No scent. No sound. Just gone. Lyanna snarled and drove her knee into Sigorn’s groin. He let go with a grunt, and she bolted. Up the stairs, through the shadows, out into the night. Nothing. Of course. The silence hit her like a car crash. Her breath came too fast, her heart too loud. And for the first time in years, real fear wrapped cold fingers around her throat. A hand touched her shoulder. She spun on instinct and punched. Hard. Sigorn staggered.

“You got any clue what you just did?” —  Her voice cracked like dry ice.

“I couldn’t let ‘im kill ye. He’s nae human, Lyanna, his kind...” — Sigorn stood firm, even as the sharp sting of Lyanna’s punch landed square on his face. His jaw tightened, eyes steady like the frozen fjords, unflinching, stubborn as a northern storm. 

The pain was real, but so was the weight of what he had done. When he spoke, his voice was low, gravelly, carrying that cold steel of someone used to hard truths and harder choices. She laughed. Cold and awful. Lyanna’s words came out sharp and jagged, like a blade scraping against rusted metal. Her chest heaved with quiet fury, eyes burning behind lids she fought to keep steady. 

“Ah'm his kin.” — Her voice was low but cracked, loaded with all the rage she swallowed whole every damn day, the kind that doesn’t scream but cuts deep, raw and unfiltered. She didn’t just say it; she spat it like a warning and a confession tangled up in one.

That shut him up. Not just his mouth, his whole goddamn body. He looked like he’d swallowed a bullet sideways.

“You didn’t ask why I left the force,” — She snapped.  — “Why I started goin’ blind outta nowhere. Why I made nice with that vamp in the tailored coat. Why I already knew the girl from our last case was dead ‘fore we even got there.”

“Ye can’t be no vampire,” —  He said, like that was the line.

She took a step closer. — “I’m a banshee, Sig. Not some bloody costume, not no comic book tale. I was cursed, just like me mother. That man? He ain’t just after Rhaegar’s kind. He’s comin’ for ours. And you brought ’im right to our door.”

Sigorn’s voice cracked, rough and low, like a man who just swallowed a curse he can’t spit out. The words came out clipped, half-shamed, half-defensive, like he was trying to deny the blame but already knew he’d lost that fight. — “I didnae,” — He muttered, voice fading into a grunt, eyes flickering away like he wished he could vanish.

“Don’t say another fuckin’ word” —  Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut deep. He looked like she’d kicked him in the teeth. Good.

She turned, walked into the woods without waiting. The air was cold, wet with night. Somewhere, a child cried. Somewhere, a couple fought behind closed doors. Somewhere, a vampire was being tortured for existing. She shivered. Not from the cold. By the time she reached her car, the panic had hardened into something else — something older, meaner. She sat behind the wheel and finally felt the tears on her cheeks. It had been a long time since she cried out of fear. Anger, sure. Grief, sometimes. But fear? That wasn’t a flavor she tasted often. Gods, it was bitter.

Chapter Text

Rhaegar had forgotten pain. Or rather, he had filed it — into some remote archive of his mind, a room sealed by centuries and discipline. But pain had a way of remembering him. Even now, it whispered in nerves he thought long dead. Cold chains. Wet stone. The slow puncture of something sharp and sacred embedding itself into his chest. He knew the procedure. Had trained for it. As a prince, he'd learned how to withstand interrogation. As a vampire, hunted and hated, he’d lived it. Torture wasn’t an art — it was an equation. The variables were fear, time, and hope. Especially hope. Hope was the torture. Step One: abandon it. Strip it from the bones of your mind. Expect nothing. Envision nothing. Hope was a toxin fed to prisoners to finance their own suffering. It made you beg. It made you break. Step Two: live in increments. Not days. Not hours. Moments. Count your breaths. Feel the shape of your own heartbeat. Never look ahead. Anticipation was the cruelest agony of all.

Step Three: find the small things. Count from one to a hundred. Remember the cool feel of water on a hot day. The taste of plain bread after hunger. Anchor your mind in triviality. Small comforts kept you whole. Step Four: bend. Never break. Not even when you look broken. Let them think you’re theirs. Let your mind become foreign even to you. But never lose the last piece — the base of yourself, buried deep, untouched. He had learned all this long before Daeron Velaryon. And now, the man had returned — dragging him into the darkness of memory made flesh. He felt the weight of the object strapped to his chest. He didn’t need to see it. He knew it. A sun-shaped effigy. Gold and iron. Pointed at the center like a thorn — piercing his flesh just above the sternum, embedding into the source of his power. It was witch-wrought, designed during the inquisitions to slow vampires, not kill. Rhaegar had encountered it before. The pain was white-hot and constant. A crucifixion in miniature.

Worse than the artifact, worse than the chains, was the sound he remembered during his capture. The screaming — a woman’s voice. Her voice. Gods help him, if Daeron had seen Lyanna — if he'd even guessed what she was — Rhaegar had given thanks, through clenched teeth and blood, that the fanatic’s rage had focused only on him. He had been shot. Twice. Dragged through sewer, cuffed in silver, and now chained, spread-eagled, to a cold iron X-frame, his wrists and ankles shackled tight. His skin steamed where the effigy seared through him. The wounds were healing — slowly. Painfully. But not quickly enough to be merciful. His mind drifted. How the fuck was Daeron even alive? The man hadn’t aged a day since 1944. Footsteps. A shadow. And then — A hand seized his jaw, forcing his face upward. The effigy reacted — his chest seized, muscles locking up, ribs constricting like a cage around his lungs.

“Do you hear me, boy?” —  Daeron’s hand gripped Rhaegar’s jaw, forcing his face upward. The pressure from the sun effigy seared through his nerves; every muscle in his body seized.

Rhaegar’s head lolled, his breath shallow, mouth dry, voice rasping, defiant. — “It’s been a long time, Monsignor.”

Daeron smiled, slow and cruel, voice smooth as ash. — “You remember me. I’m flattered.”

Daeron smiled, if one could call that expression a smile. His eyes were bright with mania, his grip vice-like. And then he produced something — held it out in his palm. A rose amulet. Gold chain. Old. Worn. Daenaera’s. Rhaegar’s body jerked forward against the chains, pure instinct. Rage burned fresh and irrational. He knew he couldn't reach the man. But he tried anyway. He thrashed, baring his teeth, snarling like a feral dog. The chains held. His breath came hard and sharp. He tasted iron.

“Do you remember her?” — Daeron whispered. —  “Do you remember how she died screaming?”

Footsteps echoed. His head throbbed. The man began to speak, his voice rising with holy fervor. — “The beast, whose teeth are as swords, and jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men…” —  Rhaegar’s eyes fluttered. The world tilted. As the man continued to speak. —  “For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are not worthy…”

Gods, could the man ever shut up? A migraine cracked like thunder at the back of Rhaegar’s skull. And then — Hands in his hair. Daeron yanked his head back, unnaturally strong. Too strong. That strength… it wasn’t human anymore. There was a flash of something silver. A knife. And then — pain. A sharp blade drew a line across Rhaegar’s forehead, temple to temple. Blood poured briefly, a curtain of crimson. The wound sealed in seconds.Didn’t make it hurt less.

“By the cut of the knife the beast cures itself,” —  Daeron intoned. —  “Sacrificed unto devils, not to the Gods. To gods whom they knew not… They have forsaken the light.” — He leaned in, breath sour with zealotry. — “You can still save your soul. Confess.”

He stared at him through blood-blurred eyes. Rhaegar spat. —  “Do your worst.” — Daeron’s hand reached.

Daeron simply reached for the sun-effigy. Gripped it. Turned it. Like a key. White agony exploded through Rhaegar’s body. His chest felt like it was crushing inwards, organs twisting, bones creaking. Blood surged up his throat and he spat it out. No screams. Not yet. He would not give Daeron that, yet. Hope was long gone.  But in the corner of his mind — half-delirious — he saw a face. Cold and beautiful. Black hair. Blue eyes that screamed for the dead. She was a creature touched by death — but not in the way he was. Her connection to it was not as a harbinger, but a herald. She did not bring death; she announced it, like a storm warning carried on the wind. And the thought came unbidden, sharp and desperate as a cry. Please… don’t let him find her.

***

A crying mess. That’s what she was. She didn’t cry cute. Didn’t sniffle and dab her eyes like some soft-focus tragedy on TV. No, she cried like something half-dead and rotting from the inside out — jaw locked, fists clenched, shaking so hard she couldn’t get her key in the door. She smelled like the fucking sewer. Literally. Wendigo blood and her own fear still clung to her skin like a second skin. Whatever. Shower could wait. First, she hit speed dial. Lyanna didn’t say it so much as growl it, voice rough with leftover adrenaline and too many unshed tears. She held the phone like it had personally offended her, pressing it to her ear with a grip that could crack bone. Her tone was clipped, flat, and flint-edged — no room for argument, no trace of softness. Just a demand dressed as a sentence. She didn’t yell. She didn’t need to. The quiet in her voice did the screaming for her.

“Howland, get yer arse here. Don’t fuckin’ wait, please.” — Like she was calling in an airstrike. Like the world was on fire and he was the only one left with a bucket of water.

She didn’t wait for the beep. Just slammed the phone down and started stripping — jacket, shirt, everything reeking of filth. She dumped it all into a plastic bag and kicked it into the corner like it might bite. Steam filled the bathroom. She didn’t bother looking at her reflection — what was the point? She already knew what she’d see. Hollow eyes. Damp hair. Skin too pale. A woman whose bones remembered every dead thing that ever screamed through her lungs. She stood under the water until her skin was raw. Not from heat. From scrubbing too hard. Like she could wash it off. The Wendigo. Rhaegar’s body being shot. The way he looked at her right before they took him — like she mattered. She hated that.

It was 4:03 AM when she stumbled out of the bathroom, damp and exhausted and somehow more wired than before. No sleep. Couldn’t afford it. Slipped into fresh clothes — black hoodie, jeans, boots. She dragged herself into the office. Sat behind her desk. Stared at nothing. There were no leads. No plan. No clever deduction that could magic her way into the dark hole Rhaegar had been vanished into. She didn’t even have a name. She sure as shit wasn’t asking Sigorn. The room blurred. Her head dropped to the desk. Just a second, she told herself. Just one breath. She didn’t hear the door open. But she heard it close.

“Howland,” —  She muttered, throat dry and voice low.

“Was sure silver’d drop the Wendigo…” — His voice trailed off. — “What in seven hells went sideways?”

She sat up. Blinking. Clock on the wall said 7:01 AM. Shit. They were bleeding time they didn’t have. —  “Rhaegar’s been taken,” — She said, voice clipped, flat. —  “Dunno where. Dunno who. But maybe he’s still breathin’.”

“What?” — Howland looked like she’d just punched him in the gut. — “Taken? No… No. You’re jokin’. What the fuck happened?”

“He didn’t kill ’im right off. That means somethin’.” — Lyanna said it low and tense, like she was clinging to a thread in the dark. Not hope, she didn’t do hope… But a lead. Something to grip before the whole thing slid out of her hands. Hope was a dangerous thing. —  “We gotta find ’im.”

Howland paced . — “Only folks what knew you was headin’ to the sewer was me an’... Oh no. Don’t say it. Don’t bloody say it.” —  Lyanna looked at him. Her silence was louder than any scream. — “…Sigorn?” — Howland whispered. — “Gods, I shouldn’ta said nuthin’. I shouldn’ta, fuck. Rhaegar’s dead.”

She was on her feet before she knew it, gripping his arms like she could shake the guilt out of him. — “Ye didn’ do this,” — She snapped sharp. — “Ye hear me? Ye had nothin’ to do wi’ this. He’s no dead. Not yet.”

Howland nodded, but his eyes were glassy. Scared. — “Even if wasn’t Sigorn’s involved, y’know he ain’t gonna say nothin’. So don’ bother askin’ him.”

She didn’t answer. Her mind had already spiraled back to the sewer — blood on metal, shadows moving too fast to track. Sigorn had shot Rhaegar, aye, but the other man… the blur of motion, the voice, the way Rhaegar had whispered you like it meant something — like it hurt. Not a stranger. Someone from his past. Someone fast. Inhumanly fast. And she remembered — her eyesight going, not her hearing. That didn’t stop her from feeling the shift in the air. The static before the strike. He was a vampire. The words formed before she could stop them.

“Vampire,” — She said aloud, like it explained everything. Because it did.

The speed. The strength. The territorial vibes Rhaegar had mentioned when she first sniffed out what he was. This wasn’t random. This was personal. A turf war, maybe. Or worse — revenge. Howland handed her a cup — coffee with whiskey. Bless him. She took it without comment, burning her throat on the first sip.

“The lass,” — She said after a beat. — “The one with her throat ripped out. The one Sigorn reckoned was Rhaegar…” —  Her stomach twisted. — “Could be the same vamp.”

That was something. A thread to tug. A start. She set the cup down. Grabbed her coat. —  “Ye dig through every case like that in the last two, three months… Same MO, same kinda damage. Triangulate ’em. Map it oot. If this bastard’s feedin’ in the city, he’s got a pattern.”

“And ye?” — Howland asked. 

She was already halfway out the door. — “Goin’ down t’the station,” — She muttered. — “Time t’ask some questions.”

She took the meteor down into the underbelly of the precinct, boots hitting concrete with a rhythm that said she knew this place better than most of the bastards who still worked here. With luck — which she didn't believe in — Sigorn wouldn’t be on duty today. She wasn’t in the mood to explain why she was crawling back through the rot. The code still worked. She’d memorised it two years ago when she'd wiped the New Year’s Eve security tapes — after a certain detective tried karaoke while blackout drunk and someone else got fingered in the evidence locker. Power dynamics. Blackmail material. She kept her own copy, just in case. She passed the morgue without blinking. One door to the next, like flipping through chapters of a book she’d rather burn. The stairwell stank of bleach and damp stone, that scent like old blood and bureaucratic denial. She pushed into the security room without slowing. Lunchtime — perfect. Craster, the cretin they kept on rotation, was nowhere in sight. Probably ogling a coffee machine or some poor intern’s arse.

She punched the digits in. The keypad gave a pathetic beep and the door clicked open. Still the same code. Lazy bastard never changed it. Inside, the monitors blinked at her like a wall of soulless eyes. She scrolled back through the last few days of footage, hunting him. That man. The one who’d shadowed Rhaegar, whispered in Sigorn’s ear like a devil in a collar. White-blond hair, that glacial elegance that screamed old money and older sins. Dressed like a priest, but not the kind who hands out bread. The kind that drinks blood. She’d followed Sigorn for forty-eight hours, coffee-fuelled and bitter, and finally caught the bastard leading someone into that same cursed room, the one where he tried to convince her  Rhaegar had killed. The man had that unsettling stillness, like he’d never had to run from anything in his life. Hair to his shoulders, sharp suit, sharp face. Eyes like a frozen lake. Blue, cold, endless. Lyanna snapped a photo with her burner and backed out of the footage. She was halfway to logging out when she heard the door creak open behind her. Fuck .

She slid behind one of the shelving units in the back — silent, practised. Heart doing a slow drumbeat against her ribs. Her vision was blurring on the left again, shadows melting into each other. She blinked fast. Not now. Craster shuffled in. Reeking of ash and sleaze, muttering to himself, cigarette clinging to his lip like a parasite. He dropped into the seat in front of the monitors, oblivious. She could probably slip past him if she stayed low, but it was a gamble. And she hated gambling when her life was the stake. She reached into her coat, fingers brushing the cool metal of Rhaegar’s lighter. Stupid of her to carry it. Sentimental. Dangerous. She didn’t want to lose it, but she needed a distraction more than she needed memories. She dropped the lighter to the floor. It landed with a perfect clang against the metal grating. Craster’s head jerked. He glanced under the desk. She grabbed the lighter back, and moved.

Out the door, down the corridor, silent as death. She didn't make for the exit — too obvious. Instead, she ran straight for the morgue. Because that’s normal. Running to the morgue like it’s bloody sanctuary. She ducked behind the heavy metal door, pressed her back to the cold wall, and peered through the smeared window. Craster opened the security room door, poked his greasy head out, smoke curling like a question mark. He looked left, then right, and — praise the gods — went back inside. She exhaled for the first time in what felt like a month, shoulders sagging. Her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes.

“Y’alright, lass?” — Her eyes snapped open. Mance.

Lyanna nearly jumped out of her skin. — “Seven fuckin’ ‘ells, Mance, warn a lass next time!”

He held up his hands. — “Weren’t tryna t’startle ya, love. Though, duckin’ hidin’ from the coppers in their own gaff? Aye, not exactly your finest plan, daft but bold, dependin’ how you spin it.”

She scowled. — “Figured they wouldn’t clock what’s right under their own soddin’ noses.”

“Cuppa coffee?” —Mance asked, his voice low and rough like gravel under boots.

The door groaned behind her as they went inside. Cold fingers clung to her coat even after it shut. She didn’t answer right away — just gave him a look, the kind that said if it’s not poisoned or laced with holy water, sure. Coffee meant warmth. Warmth meant staying longer than she should. But Mance was here, and she needed his face, needed his files.

And she had questions. Plenty of those. — “The girl. Throat ripped wide, no blood. Ye know who she is?” — Her voice didn’t rise. Didn’t need to. The words came out low and flat, like a knife dragged across a table.

“’S this a case you an’ Sig’re workin’ together? You talked to ’im yet.” — Mance gruff, casual, with a tired undertone like he’s been watching everyone dance around the truth too long.

She snorted, bitter and sharp. — “Fuck no. I’m cleanin’ up after ’im.”

Mance blinked. — “He do somethin’, then?”

“Fucked up real bad.” — She paused, jaw clenched tight. — “Don’t talk to ’im about this. Don’t even wanna talk to ’im, full stop.”

Mance sighed, the kind of sound that deflated a man from the inside. He leaned on the table like his bones were tired of carrying other people’s shit. She didn’t blame him. He always tried to keep the peace, like friendship was a dying fire he could still fan back to life if he just stayed close enough. But this? This was more than smoke. Sigorn had handed Rhaegar over like a parking ticket. Like he didn’t know — or didn’t care — what he was giving up. Rhaegar had protected her. Not in the way cops did, all flashing lights and paperwork. No, he saw her. Saw the parts she usually strangled in the mirror before going out. And didn’t flinch. First person she hadn’t had to explain the banshee thing to. First person who didn’t look at her like a bomb about to go off.

So aye, maybe he was a five-hundred-year-old bloodsucker with a superiority complex and tragically high cheekbones. Didn’t matter. She felt responsible. For the first time in years. She wrapped her fingers around the chipped mug, steam curling up into the shadows under her eyes. On the side table, Mance was fussing with blood samples, his hands slow and careful. The silence between them wasn’t awkward — just heavy. She could feel him weighing it, trying to figure out if there was any road back between her and Sigorn. Spoiler: there wasn’t, not in sight now.

“Tell me ’bout the lass.” — Lyanna said it low, flat, with that familiar edge, like a cigarette ash dangling too long before it drops. 

No softness, no frills. Just a question that felt more like a demand. Her eyes didn’t blink much anymore, but they were locked on Mance like he was wasting her time by breathing instead of talking. The weight behind her words wasn’t loud — it was coiled, tired, and sharp as a blade in the boot.

“The one form Sigorn’s case?” — Mance’s voice was cautious, low, like he was weighing every word before letting it out, part curiosity, part wariness. 

“Aye.” — Lyanna said it short and clipped, like a sharp breath caught between impatience and weariness. No extra fluff, just a bare-bones agreement. 

His tone turned grave. — “Name’s Alysia Rok. Worked Wharf Street. Stripped at times, mostly streetwalked. Found near the city center… No clothes, no ID. Only reason we got her name’s ‘cause her mam come in.”

Lyanna nodded once, eyes flicking to the bloodied sample bags. Alysia. Another woman chewed up and tossed like a cigarette end. — “Cheers.” — She muttered, finishing the coffee. It scalded, bitter as truth. She didn’t flinch.

She left the morgue before she could think better of it. Hunger gnawed at her ribs like rats in the walls, but food could wait. She lit a smoke instead. Nicotine was faster than grief, easier than guilt. Rhaegar’s face flashed behind her eyelids again—his stillness, the strange patience in his voice when he spoke to her like they were the only two people left in the world. Bastard had gotten under her skin, and now everything felt colder without him in it. She didn’t eat. She walked.  By the time she made it back to the office, the metro had long since rattled off into some other night. She pushed through the door on instinct and caught the familiar scent of dust, ink, and ghost stories. Her feet echoed once on the old tile. That’s when she noticed Howland — at the desk, hunched over the computer, eyes flicking fast. His waistcoat was some ridiculous tapestry: floral patterns in red and pink, layered under a white lace shirt and tailored grey jacket. Looked like a haunted Valentine’s card. Somehow, it worked on him. He looked up when she walked in. 

“Sigorn called… Told ’im you weren’t here. Told ’im you prob wouldn’t want t’ hear it.” — Mance said it low, like a heavy weight settling in the air; tired, a bit resigned but sharp underneath. 

“Grand,” — She muttered, shedding her coat. — “Howl, we’ll be out tonight too. You comin’ wi’ me?”

He didn’t blink.  — “Coorse.”

And that was that. No questions. No speeches. No righteous indignation. Just a nod — quiet, steady. The kind of loyalty that didn’t need to shout to be heard. The kind you could feel in your spine when the world was burning down. That was Howland. Solid. Unshakable. A walking patchwork of velvet waistcoats and unspoken promises. Lyanna didn’t need to ask twice. He was already nodding before the words finished leaving her mouth. She trusted that more than any oath. More than magic, more than blood. Gods knew blood had never saved her. She was loyal to Rhaegar. Stupid, maybe. Self-destructive, definitely. But loyalty didn’t care about logic. It moved like instinct — like violence. She didn’t owe him. Not really. But he’d seen her. All of her. And didn’t flinch. That counted for something. Maybe everything. And Howland? He was loyal to her. Which meant by proxy, by that quiet and ruthless little triangle they’d built in the dark, they were all tangled together. A crooked web of fucked-up loyalty, stitched with trauma and midnight silences. She just hoped that'd be enough. Enough to find Rhaegar safe and sane. Before he stopped being a question mark and turned into a body on a slab. Before it was too late.

***

An irritating voice — rasping, zealous, and painfully familiar. That was what Rhaegar registered before the rest followed in staggered waves of pain and noise. Hunger gnawed at his belly like a dull blade, slow and mean. He’d passed the point of thirst hours ago. Days? Time fractured when your chest bore a sun-sigil that cooked you from the inside like rotisserie meat.

“Rhaegar Lucerys Targaryen,” — Daeron intoned, voice thick with sanctimony, — “Prince of House Targaryen. First of his name. Son of Rhaella and Aerys, born 1819…”

Gods, he hated the sound of Daeron’s voice. Self-righteousness always grated, but there was something particularly odious about a zealot who pronounced one’s genealogy like scripture. They’d need more than a hundred pages to chronicle my sins, he mused, bitterly amused. And that’s assuming they write in very small font. He barely registered the rest. Hunger gnawed at him, slow and hollow. The sigil on his chest — a crude alchemical sun, blessed and burning — had made sure his veins stayed dry, no matter how much he craved blood. He was cold inside. Brittle. The kind of brittle that fractures the moment it tries to stand. Then, as the pain carved open a familiar cavity, the hallucination slipped in. He was no longer here, bound and blistered in whatever sanctified sewer Daeron was playing inquisitor in. He was back — King’s Landing, a century ago, before penicillin. Women had waists like corsets and men wore moral superiority like cravats. 

He remembered the cotton shirt he wore that night. Simple. Clean. Before the blood. He had gone out for oysters and sin — his usual indulgence. A haunt near the Nickelodeon, where cheap film reels played to the tempo of out-of-tune piano. A crude sort of theater, but charming in its way. The kind of place where nobody asked questions, and everyone came with an appetite. He remembered the man first by scent. Clean. Citrusy. Beneath that, the richer musk of desire and poverty. He asked Rhaegar how much. Rhaegar, amused, had asked if he meant money or time. The man laughed. Rhaegar bit him. He’d barely tasted the ecstasy of it when they took him. Black hood. Blessed chains. Enchanted sun stitched into fabric and burned into skin. They dragged him into the catacombs, into the dark, then blinded him with it. The rats had been a nice touch. A flourish. Zealots loved their pageantry. When the hood came off, Daeron had stood there like a damn altar boy turned executioner. Sanctimonious. Gleaming. A parody of piety.

“You are charged with vampirism and heresy,” — He had intoned. —  “With crimes against the good of this city and the will of the Gods, Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Rhaegar had stared at him through the dark veil of pain, eyes dilated to black-on-black. —  “How do you know who I am?”

Daeron stood like a blade unsheathed — tall, spare, silver-haired, with the sharp-cut elegance of a man who had never once doubted his righteousness. Daeron Velaryon wore authority the way other men wore armor: rigid, gleaming, and suffocating to everyone around him. His robes were immaculate, cream and gold, stitched with the twin sigils of House Velaryon and the Order of The Father. A knight inquisitor. A judge in velvet gloves, though the iron beneath was unmistakable. His face bore the kind of beauty passed down like inheritance: high cheekbones, long lashes, mouth fixed in a permanent line of moral disappointment. Not old, exactly — but he’d aged like marble, cold and luminous, every line etched by principle rather than time. His eyes were steel-grey. Not the stormy kind. The surgical kind. No warmth. No weather. Just judgment.

When he said, —  “ I ask the questions in this court, ” —  it wasn’t loud, but it landed like a gavel. His voice was quiet and exacting, the voice of a man accustomed to obedience, and if not obedience, silence. It was the tone he’d used when condemning witches to burning stakes and vampires to branded cages. A voice that didn’t raise itself, because it didn’t have to.

To the zealots in the Order, Daeron was a saint. To Rhaegar, he was just a brother with a God complex and a long memory. And the thing about memory, he thought as blood slid down his ribs, is that it doesn’t forgive either.

“This isn’t a court,” — Rhaegar had said, letting the venom bloom in his voice. — “It’s an echo chamber for the insecure devotion of men too eager to die.”

That hadn’t gone over well. It never did. Religion rarely had a sense of humor about itself. Still, the trial — if one could call it that — had continued. Rhaegar, defiant as ever. Daeron, delighting in each act of supposed righteousness. And then she had entered. He remembered her. The woman with hair like his, pale silver cascading down her back in defiance of the era’s stiff updos. Her suit was all tailored modesty — black skirt with a slight train, fitted jacket embroidered in symmetrical floral motifs, a blush-pink blouse beneath like a hidden kindness. She looked at him not like a monster, but like a riddle she had no right to be solving.

“Be careful with this one,” — Daeron had warned her. — “He is a spawn of darkness.”

She replied without trembling. —  “My love for the gods will protect me.”

Poor thing. Faith like that was armor made of paper. The memory splintered. He was back in the present — burned, bound, and bleeding, or what passed for it in his current state. The silver bullets in his abdomen still sang their terrible lullaby. His thoughts flickered. His limbs refused him.

Daeron’s voice cut through again, older now, but no less unbearable. —  “Confess your sins, Rhaegar, so you might save your soul this time.”

Rhaegar raised his head, eyes catching fire in the dark. Even now, he had flair. — “I confess,” —  He croaked, voice hoarse, lips cracked and bloodless. —  “I find you even more tedious than last time. You smell of religious love. Which is to say… Hatred dressed in narcissism.” — He smiled then, or something like it. —  “And how curious, priest. You’ve become like me.”

Daeron didn’t reply, not immediately. Rhaegar could almost hear the breath he wasn’t taking. —  “You dare to judge me, now that your blood runs cold?” — Rhaegar murmured. — “You always wanted immortality. You just hated that I didn’t have to beg for it.”

He tried to move then, some desperate vestige of rebellion flickering in his body. But it was no good. The chains were too tight. The sun-sigil burned too deeply. And he had lost too much blood. Still. He could keep Daeron occupied. Distracted. Because there was someone else in the city. Something else. And for once, it wasn’t Rhaegar the monster they ought to be afraid of. 

***

The subway down to Wharf Street smelled like piss and wet metal. The kind of scent that clung to the back of your throat like regret. Lyanna hated this part of town — not because it was dangerous, but because it was honest. No pretense here. Just flickering lights, girls with hollow eyes, and alleys that whispered in the dark. You could bleed out three feet from a rhonish halal cart and no one would blink. Her boots stuck to the platform floor as she stepped off, her cane clicking sharp against the concrete. She didn’t need it yet. Not fully. But the shadows came quicker these days, and the edges of things kept blurring. Pretending she wasn’t going blind was exhausting. Pretending she wasn’t afraid of it — that was worse.

The victim worked this block. Or what was left of her. Lyanna had seen the crime scene photo on a leaked report, printed it, folded it, and slipped it in the inside pocket of her coat like a prayer she didn’t believe in. A girl with smushed lipstick, bad contour, and a look in her eye like she was already halfway dead before anyone got to her. They started asking around. Howland played polite. Lyanna didn’t bother. She clocked a girl smoking near the mouth of an alley — long dark coat, fishnets, and the sharp cheekbones of someone who’d learned how to weaponize hunger. Northern accent, same as hers. Maybe that’s why she picked her.

Lyanna stepped in her path like smoke. — “You ken her?”

The woman glanced at the photo and blinked. — “Dunno her.” — She lied like someone who’d never had to make it convincing.

Lyanna snorted. — “Take a proper look. She walked this stretch. She’s dead. I’m her mum’s hire.” — That part was bullshit, but it came easy. Like breathing in fog.

The woman’s face shifted, just enough. — “Load o’ shite. Champagne didn’t say a word to her mam.”

Gotcha. — “She came t’ see her kid in the morgue. Coppers gave her my number, said they’re sittin’ this one out. So…” — Lyanna let it hang. Pressure, not force. You got more from people when you didn’t lunge.

“Aye, I seen her,” — the girl muttered at last, eyes twitching  toward the shadows. — “Once or twice. Lived near me. We’d get the metro back together now an’ then. She were sweet. Not the sharpest tool, but… sweet all the same.”

Lyanna nodded and pulled out the second photo. The real reason she was here. The priest blurred from the station security cameras. She watched the woman’s face drop. — “You ever see her wi’ this bloke?” — Panic. That flicker. Not the fear of cops or tricks or even vampires. This was survival panic. The kind Lyanna knew too well.

“No Champagne’s cup,” — the woman whispered. 

“You ever work’d wi’ him?” —  She said it low, almost casual, like it didn’t matter. But her eyes stayed locked, sharp as broken glass. That tone she used when she was testing the ground for blood. Not quite threatening. Not quite kind.

“‘Bout a week ago. Picked me up in a cab. Looked normal, well, hot even, but wrong, y’know? Proper wrong. Took me out past Manderly Tower to some old, abandoned temple o’ the Seven. Thought he wanted some altar-kink nonsense, which, fine, that’s a hundred extra, but…”  — The woman said it quick, nervy, like she was trying to get the words out before they stuck in her throat. Her eyes kept darting, voice dropping lower when she hit the word wrong. Not scared exactly. Just... remembering too much.

Her voice cracked. Not for show. — “There was a lass already there, down in the basement. Chained up, she was. Tried to bite me, she did. ‘E tried drag me toward her like we were ‘bout to play house in the seven hells.”

Lyanna’s knuckles tightened around the phone. Her voice came out low. Steady. — “Ya remember where that temple is, or am I wastin’ my breath?” — Lyanna asked sharp, eyes narrowing.

The woman said it low, like she was spitting out something bitter she didn’t want to admit, glancing around like the shadows might be listening. — “Behind t’ auld cinema. T’ one nobbut folk daen go tae noo.”

“Grand,” —  Lyanna said. — “Cheers.”

She turned before the girl could start crying or shaking or asking for help. She didn’t do comfort. Not here. Not ever. Across the street, Howland was getting swarmed by two glam-zombies with lipliner like war paint. They looked at him like he was dessert. Poor kid. The gay-boy-at-heart glow didn’t save you when you looked like a Lannister heir in a thrift store coat.

“Found summat,” — Lyanna muttered when she reached him. — “Go back tae t’ office.”

Howland’s voice was cautious, edged with concern but steady, the kind that tries not to sound like worry, but fails anyway. — “You’re gannin’ alone, then?”

“It’s either that or nowt, Howl.” — She tapped his arm, more warning than comfort. — “See if any of yer arcane sites know what kinda religious crap could cage a vamp. Runes, relics, fake holy water, don’t matter if it’s voodoo or Valyrian steel, jus’ find owt.”

Howland looked like he wanted to argue. Didn’t. — “If Ah’m no’ back by nine…” —  Lyanna said it clipped and sharp, like she didn’t wanna give anyone the chance to argue or worry, all business, no softness.

“Ah’ll call the cops,” — He finished, and she nodded.

She grabbed a cab, told the driver to take her to Manderly Tower, and got out two blocks early. The rest she walked, slow and silent, the city buzzing around her like a dying neon sign. She passed the crumbling cinema, turned into the alley, and found the temple of the Seven looming behind it. It looked like a mausoleum wrapped in fog. Lightless. Abandoned. Waiting. Lyanna slipped her hand into her messenger bag, fingers closing around the grip of her gun. Her vision pulsed. The darkness in her skull hummed.

She took the temple steps two at a time, boots echoing like gunshots in the cold. The door was half-rotted oak, flaking paint and rusted hinges, but her hand knew where to land. Left palm on splintered wood. Glock in the right. Then she heard it—something shifting behind her. She turned fast, weapon up. If it had been anyone else, she’d have pulled the trigger. Sigorn. Of course it was him. Nose red from the wind, eyes full of something halfway between guilt and guts. Stupid mix.

“Ye’ve got a fuckin’ nerve showin’ yer face.” — She said, voice flat as a cigarette burn.

Sigorn said, his voice low but steady, like a rock you could lean on, — “I can’t let ye do this alone...”

She spat the words sharp, eyes cold and unamused, like a warning you don’t wanna test, —  “Don’t flatter yerself. I’d rather have me own back than have ye there. You ain’t trustworthy.”

That should’ve ended it. But no. He followed her in like some tragic stray. She didn’t stop him. Could’ve. Should’ve. Didn’t. The temple stank of wet stone and old incense. Dust thick enough to choke a ghost. The kind of holy place people forgot about on purpose. The Seven never meant much up north — her people lit candles for wolves, not gods. She moved quiet, sweeping the place with the Glock. Nothing. Just shadows and broken pews. Sigorn’s boots creaked behind her like they were apologizing for him. Then: blood. Tiny specks. Not fresh. Not old enough to ignore. She didn’t say a word. Just followed it. Instinct. That tether in her gut pulling hard. Maybe Rhaegar had been here. Maybe he still was. Maybe she wasn’t too late.

“Lya…” — Sigorn called after her.

She ignored him. The trail led to the sacristy. She opened the door slow, cautious, breath caught halfway between a prayer and a curse. The hinges groaned like a warning. She didn’t want to see what was inside. Saw it anyway. Candles. Dozens. Some flickering out, some already gone. Wax pooled like little white corpses. Then the smell hit her — burned flesh and iron. Her stomach twisted. Her heart, if it still did that sort of thing, lurched sideways. She lifted her flashlight. And saw a Body. Or what was left of one. Charred down to bone, strung up in an X like a warning. Hands shackled. Skull cracked open like a question she didn’t want answered.

Lyanna let out a breath through her teeth. — “Seven fuckin’ Hells.”

“Oh fuck…” — Sigorn whispered, voice strangled.

Too late. They were always too damn late. Her flashlight slipped from her hand. Clattered to the floor. She saw it then — a dress. Burgundy. Not Rhaegar’s. Wrong size, wrong shape. Relief punched her in the ribs. Still awful, but not him.

“Ain’t Rhaegar,” — She muttered. — “But that bastard’s handprints are all over it.”

Sigorn swallowed. — “Lya… I didn’t bloody ken.”

She took the flashlight before stepping inside. Didn’t look at him. — “Still should’ve known, dumfuck.”

The room was scraped clean. Whoever did this knew how to cover their tracks. No paper trail, no fingerprints. Just a charred message in bone and smoke. They left not long after. The air outside bit at her face. Sky still dark. World still quiet. Dead hours of the night when the city forgets it’s alive. She started toward the subway, the itch behind her eyes flaring sharp.

“Hop in, aye? I’ll drive ye,” — Sigorn offered.

“Don’t need yer help.” — She said it flat, not looking back at him. Voice low, like a warning more than a statement. No warmth, no room for argument.

“You never said a word. Not 'bout ye. I were only tryin’ to keep ye safe…” — Sigorn replied it quiet, he was holding that in too long. There’s guilt in it, maybe shame too, as it should. 

“Aye. Real bang up job, Sigorn.” — She flicked a glance at him, deadpan. — “Truly changed the fuckin’ world.”

“I ken I’ve blown it.” — Sigorn shot back quiet, like he was swallowing his pride. His voice rough, honest, no excuses, just the weight of what he’d done.

“That ye damn well have.” — Lyanna replied it cold, sharp as broken glass, no softness, no mercy. Her eyes didn’t even flicker. Just pure, flat truth.

He didn’t stop. Couldn’t.— “If someone done that…” — He gestured behind them, to the ghost still hanging on her skin, — “...that man, he’s bad news, worse than Rhaegar. Let me try fix this.”

She didn’t answer right away. Just let the silence stretch. Let him squirm. —  “Spill it. Everythin’ ye ken ’bout the bastard that grabbed Rhaegar.”

She wasn’t happy about it. Didn’t pretend to be. But there was nowhere else to go, no one else feeding her anything real. So when they got back to her place, and Sigorn came in like he had a right, she let it slide. Howland was on the couch, face like thunderclouds. The look he gave Sigorn could’ve peeled paint. It almost made her smile. Almost. They sat. Sigorn talked. She lit a cigarette, listened with half an ear and both eyes burning. Name he gave was Daeron Velaryon. Holy man. Officer of the Seven. Some kind of zealot with a badge and a martyr complex. Said he used something called the Sun of Andal. Some relic. Religious order bullshit. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. But something deep inside her — cold, old, bone-deep — shifted. She’d seen what that kind of faith could do. She’d seen the kind of monsters it made. And now one of them had Rhaegar.

Desperate was a word she used for other people. Not herself. Not ever. And yet she was about to do something she would consider in the desperate realm — locking the door of her own room from the inside, telling the boys to keep out unless the flat was burning. Even then, maybe not. The room was cold and still as a grave. Good. It made it easier. She stripped everything off in the bathroom, steam curling around her like ghost fingers. When she stepped out — bare, dripping — she didn’t bother with a towel. What did it matter? No one was watching. Or if they were, let them choke on the sight. She crossed the room with bare feet and a colder heart, heading straight for the crack in the wall that had always looked like nothing — just bad plasterwork to anyone else. But to her, it was one of the first things that proved she wasn’t losing her fucking mind. Behind it, hidden and precious, was the book. Thin, worn, nearly falling apart. Her mother’s grimoire. The only piece of her that hadn’t burned or bled or disappeared after she died. 

Lyanna had recognized the one Rhaegar carried. Different design. Same lineage. Same rot. She placed her mother’s on the floor and flipped it open with care she reserved for corpses and spells. Her fingers moved fast, muscle memory and madness. The chalk Howland had given her skittered across wood as she drew the circle, then lit the black candle she kept in the closet for this exact kind of hell-night. Her hands didn’t shake, but her breath did. Then came the dress. She hadn’t worn it in years — her mother’s dress. Midnight black, full-length, stitched with silence and grief. The collar came up to her throat like a noose. The sleeves floated like smoke. It wasn’t comfort. It was the Banshee’s uniform. From her messenger bag she pulled the silver lighter  — Rhaegar’s. The one he’d handed her like it was nothing. Idiot. She clutched it like a talisman. Then she stepped into the circle, lay down flat on her back like she was already in her coffin, and shut her eyes.

The words came low and guttural, pulled from the bones of her memory, grandmother’s tongue, her mother’s tongue, hers now whether she wanted it or not. Old magic. Older than names. Older than her pain. — “Zhyvi net, glaza shuty, dykhanie tyakhlo, ushi slyshat, ya ne dlya zhivykh…” — Eyes closed, breath steady, ears open, I am not for the living. — “Skruchi temnotu, tashi svet, prolizay cherez shcheli, gde noch’ ne kusayet…” — Twist the dark, drag the light, slip through the cracks where the night don’t bite. — “Ne mertvyy, ne ischezayushchiy, prosto vne dostupa, vne vida…” — Not dead, not gone, just out of reach, out of sight. —“Vremya zaputano, i nichego ne vesit…” — Where time’s all tangled and nothing weighs a damn.  — “Obmatay menya plotno tam, gde zhizn’ tonka…” — Wrap me tight where the life is thin… —“Gde proshloe i budushchee nosyat kozhu…” — Where past and future wear the skin. — “Ved’ menya tikhoy skvoz’ sloy, v mesto, gde poteryannym rasskazhut.” — Lead me quiet through the fold, to the place where the lost get told. The world stuttered. Something cracked.

The Fold didn’t arrive with ceremony. It just was — like slipping into a memory you didn’t know was yours. Suddenly, everything was sideways. She stood now in that place beyond names, where physics played dice and reality owed you nothing. The Fold. Not dead, not alive. A wound in the world. The air was thick and weightless, like breathing wet ash. Beneath her feet, the ground felt like glass, stone, sometimes both. Buildings folded in on themselves like paper, bleeding into darkness. Time buckled. Past and future flickered at the edge of her vision like static ghosts. Here, silence screamed. It pressed on her skin, on her bones, on the parts of her she never let anyone touch. Light moved in bruises. The sky, if there was one, was all shades of purple grief. It was the first time se had come ever since she was a child. 

And the others were here — Banshees older than sorrow, moving like shadow in shadow, their eyes catching threads of fate like it was embroidery. They watched her with no judgment. Just knowing. She stepped forward, barefoot in her mother’s death-dress, lighter clutched in one white-knuckled fist. The throne rose before her, all bone and black feathers, shaped like mourning and madness. The woman on it… she wasn’t a queen. She was older than royalty. Crowned in shadow. Lips like curses.

“Sister's come t'us,” —the banshee said, her voice rippling through the Fold like water through grave dirt. — “Y’come late. Time don’t pass here, but we feel it in the water all th’same.”

Lyanna didn’t bow. Didn’t blink. Just held up the lighter like it was proof of life. — “I’m ‘ere t’ask for sommat.”

The woman’s eyes were deep wells. — “Y’ ask, y’ give.”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. — “I'll pay yer price. But first, I need ya t’ find who this belongs to.” — She held the lighter higher.

The silence stretched. Thicker. Wetter. — “ Upir ,” — The woman said. — “Blood-eater abomination. He’s not ours t’ judge. Dead walkin’, he is. Not for us t’ seek nor follow.”

“Maybe he ain't. But he’s mine. And I need t’ find him.” — Her voice didn’t crack. Not even close. — “I hope there’s summat ye want from me that’s worth more than rules, 'cause I’ve never given ye nowt. And that…” — She stepped closer, her voice a blade now, — “That might be worth more than ye reckon.”

The Fold shifted like a bruise under skin — slow, pulsing, full of things that didn’t belong anywhere. And Lyanna stood in the thick of it, barefoot in her dead mother’s dress, cold to the bone and too tired to care. The chiffon sleeves trailed like smoke, whispering with every breath she took. It smelled like iron here. Like wet stone and rot and the kind of quiet that followed screaming. She knew how to strike a deal. Not the kind you made with coin and ink — but the old kind. Blood-warm, bone-deep. The kind that asked for pieces of you you’d never get back. Was the price too high? Wrong question. Stupid question. She’d already answered it. Because if it meant finding him — Rhaegar, that brilliant bastard with a smirk that didn’t leave her mind alone — then no, the price was never too high. Not if it meant dragging him out of the mess she’d helped put him in. He didn’t belong in this place. She did. This was her rot. Her fault. Her fold. And she was going to walk through hell in a dead woman’s gown if that’s what it took to bring him back.

***

Being bled out was inelegant. Messy, even by his standards. His body had long since stopped responding like a mortal’s — no shaking, no shivering, no mortal collapse. Just… slow failure. Strategic systems shutting down. One by one. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore. Couldn’t quite track the room. His mind had no north, no compass. Just the floating sensation of blood loss and Daeron’s voice, echoing like a sermon in a church that had long since lost its gods. They’d added a new detail this time. A sun effigy. Holy torture by design. Clever. Rhaegar hadn’t gotten that far the last time they played this little game. Good. Variation was good. It meant Daeron was running out of patience. Or creativity. Or both. But pain was a curious archivist. It brought things back. Like the first time he met Daeron. Or the girl.

He’d been thrown into a cell then too — less elaborate, more symbolic. A forgotten chapel in the countryside, walls cracked with mildew and faith. A priest’s idea of penance for a creature like him. They’d left him there with her. The girl. White-haired, back turned, praying in front of a rusted star of the Seven like it would answer her. It wouldn’t. Faith was for people who didn’t know better. He’d been pacing then, too. Blood-starved, weak, and in no shape to play the hypnotist. The rats had learned fast enough — five dead and counting. The rest had moved on. Smarter than humans, rats.

He remembered his voice cracking with thirst, not dignity. — “Ey, child… please. Codman’s soul, just a drop of water?”

She didn’t turn. Didn’t even flinch. — “I only serve the monsignor. And the gods.”

A fine line between devotion and delusion. — “I’m not asking to be served,” — He muttered.—  “I’m asking for compassion.”

She stood then, and Rhaegar finally saw it — the shape of the man watching from the shadows. Same nose. Same dead eyes. Daeron, younger but female. Or older, depending on your sense of time. A priest with a daughter judging him. Quaint. Hypocritical, naturally.

“Don’t abuse my charity,” —  the girl warned.

She fetched water from a barrel, used a wooden spoon like it might burn her to touch the same air he breathed. Gave it to him like he was some animal that might bite. He drank it like one, too. Gods, it was delicious. Even now, the memory of it burned in his stomach. 

“You’re too kind,” — He rasped, with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“Why did you do it?” — She asked quietly. — “Why would you… Do that to yourself? You were human. Precious.”

Ah. That old word. — “I did it for love,” — He said, meaning it the way only the damned could. — “Your father deprived you of that particular sin, but… Your eyes. They're too beautiful to be spared from love.”

She’d hesitated. — “How do you know?”

He smiled. — “If you’d ever tasted it, you wouldn’t ask.”

And then he was back. Dragged from memory by fire boiling on his skin - boling water dropped on him. The holy effigy pressed into his chest, branding agony across a body that couldn’t die but remembered how. His shirt was gone. So were most of his inhibitions. Blood stained his lips, metallic and hot. He spat it at Daeron’s face. The priest didn’t flinch. Pain was nothing new. But desperation — real, feral desperation — was.

“The accused has the opportunity to confess,” — Daeron intoned, like this was theater and not an execution.

Rhaegar laughed, dry and bitter. — “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I confess… I should’ve killed you years ago.”

He lunged. The chains caught. He didn’t care. Daeron reached in with that priestly calm and twisted the effigy again. Rhaegar bit back a scream, but the sound tore from his throat anyway — more animal than man. Blood again. More spitting. More nothing. It wouldn’t stop. And Daeron wasn’t done yet.

“The accused professes innocence,” — Daeron said mildly, as if reading a weather report. —  “We have no choice but to proceed with the questioning.”

And then Rhaegar saw it. A pipe, thin and cruel, dripping blood from his side. Direct light beaming down, catching the liquid as it passed into a vial. Not just torture. Harvest. Daeron was drinking him. His own kind. He wasn’t just a sadist. He was a hypocrite of holy proportions. Rhaegar’s vision swam. His mind slipped sideways. Daeron excused himself — to drink. And Rhaegar fell back into the dream. Into the past. Into the blood. Into the only place they hadn’t yet taken from him. Pain had a voice now. A tenor. It whispered in his bones, moaned in the marrow, and shrieked when Daeron’s fingers pressed into the festering wound just beneath his ribs — a careless incision carved days ago, or weeks, or lifetimes —  bringing him back to the present. Time bled strangely when your body refused to die but wouldn’t heal, either. He had once fancied himself a connoisseur of pain. A romantic illusion. Like thinking you knew the sea because you’d bathed in saltwater. But this — this was not exquisite. This was anatomical. This was a priest turning butcher, digging through him like scripture. Daeron made a pleased hum as he dipped two fingers into the open wound, lifting them crimson-slick to his mouth. Rhaegar watched, dull-eyed, stomach heaving.

“You are tenacious,” — Daeron murmured, reverent. — “I will give you that. Has your devil abandoned you?"

Rhaegar laughed — something low and bloody and cracked at the edges. — “Why don’t you ask him yourself, you sanctimonious son of a bitch?” —  His voice buckled at the end, hoarse from screaming, though he doubted Daeron minded.

Martyrs made such lovely music. Another twist. Rhaegar arched against the restraints. Iron cuffs, sun-burnished, bit deeper into his wrists. A hiss escaped him — not entirely human. He’d liked pain, once. The sharp kind, the kind that reminded you there was still something left to feel. But this... this stripped the soul from the sinew, made you forget you’d ever been more than meat.

“You’ll break,” — Daeron said conversationally, as if reciting from a holy tract. — “You all break. I killed the one who led me to you. Her name was…”

Rhaegar stilled. The silence that fell inside him was different than before. A taut, surgical hush. He closed his eyes — briefly — because he didn’t want to see the name spoken aloud. Please not her. Not his maker…

“Ellyn Reyne.” — The words landed with a precise cruelty. — “She lasted less than you.”

A breath caught in Rhaegar’s throat like broken glass. Ellyn. Ellyn of the silver laugh and rust-colored hands. Ellyn, who had painted the dead and taught young monsters to grieve. He’d found her in the ruins of her lineage, hiding in art and red wine and the remains of her defiance. She had not deserved this. He would have wept, had not the blood already been bled the water from his body. But Daeron, as always, demanded the moment.

“She’s at peace now,” — Daeron said, mock-gentle, gripping Rhaegar’s hand and wrenching the fingers backward until the knuckles cracked. — “As you will be. When you confess.”

Rhaegar looked up. His face was blood-smeared, hollow-cheeked, utterly composed. — “How many others did you butcher before getting to me?” — He whispered, not because he cared about the number, but because the answer was always the same: too many.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” — Daeron sneered. — “You’re all monsters.”

“She was an artist,” — Rhaegar said softly, summoning strength not from his body… Too broken for that… But from some old place where grief hadn’t yet calcified. — “You saw a vampire. I saw a woman who survived annihilation.”

Daeron’s expression sharpened. He needed Rhaegar to be a beast. It justified the ritual. — “She surrendered,” — The priest spat. — “She gave up her innocence. Just like you.” 

“You think yourself clean because you kneel before a star while drinking from my veins?” — Rhaegar’s voice was colder now, stripped of ornament. — “You think sanctifying your appetite makes it divine? You are not a god. You are shame in vestments. And I refuse to know you.”

He saw the blow coming — Daeron always gave a tell, a tightening of the jaw, a little twitch in the temple — but he didn’t dodge. Couldn’t. The punch landed hard across his face, cracking something beneath his cheekbone. His head snapped back, and the world blurred. Blood in his mouth again. Copper, memory. And then the descent — swift and merciful — into the black theatre of the past, where ghosts had names, and pain hadn’t yet taught him to lie still. Time lost its edges in the dark. There were no hours here, only intervals between agony and the brief mercy of unconsciousness. Back then Rhaegar no longer remembered how long he’d been in the cell — days, weeks, eternities compressed into a single suffocating loop. He had been broken and rebuilt so many times he suspected Daeron was sculpting something from the wreckage. Or perhaps just testing how many times a man could be shattered before he stopped looking human. Still, even as the body frayed, the mind lingered. Detached. Observing. He remembered her name and how Daeron spoke it. Daenaera . The girl who guarded him. She was young, devout, quiet — one of the lambs who fancied herself the shepherd. A curious creature. Most of the others prayed over him like he was already dead. She only whispered.

“Daenaera,” — He rasped one day, tongue thick with dried blood. —  “It’s a beautiful name. Do you know what it means?”

She didn’t look at him. That was part of the dance. Eyes forward, lips moving silently in prayer, pretending not to hear the devil in the cage. — “I was never taught Valyrian,” —  She said at last, her voice hesitant. —  “It’s heresy.”

He laughed. Or tried to. The sound was more breath than mirth, a ghost of something once musical. — “And yet someone gave it to you,” — He mused. — “The name, I mean. Did they know what it meant, I wonder?” — She didn’t answer. — “Divine maiden,” —  Rhaegar said softly. — “That’s the meaning.”

A pause. — “You’re a student of languages?” —  She asked, cautiously, like someone creeping toward a wolf.

“Valyrian is my mother tongue. But yes.” —  His voice steadied. — “I enjoy learning. It gives eternity some variety.”

“That’s not right.” — Daenaera said it quietly, without turning around, like a thought she hadn't meant to speak aloud, slipping through cracked devotion.

“Of course you’d think so. You live in a prison and call it faith.” — Rhaegar said it calmly, almost amused, his voice low and dry, he was stating a fact she'd eventually come to understand, whether she wanted to or not.

“I’m not a prisoner,” — She said, too quickly.

“Then tell me one thing you’ve done for yourself. Not for your father. Not for your gods. Just... for you.” — Rhaegar said it quietly, his tone cool but piercing, like a blade slipping between ribs. There was no anger, just challenge, and a trace of something heavier beneath it.

Silence, heavy and unfamiliar, fell between them. The kind that made people aware of their breath. And then — unexpectedly — she moved. He hadn’t thought she would. He was so used to the repetition of pain, of ritual, now that he’d nearly forgotten how sharp the world could become when it deviated from its script.

“I want to see it,” — She said, standing now, facing the cage. — “The world. I’ve never left this house.”

His eyes flicked up, curious. This wasn’t just doubt. It was a fracture. — “I can show you,” — He said, slowly rising from the bloodstained floor. — “Everything.”

He meant it. That was the worst part — he meant it. When she reached into her pocket and pulled out the key, he thought he was hallucinating. Perhaps he was. Hunger did that. Hunger and hope. But the cell door opened. And centuries of restraint, eroded by starvation and pain, slipped. The scent hit him like scripture — fresh blood, untouched, unspoiled, divine. His body moved before his mind could reclaim it. Teeth sank into her throat, instinct overriding intention, ecstasy and guilt interwoven like lovers in bed. Her blood was sweet — young, warm, thick with faith and confusion. Ambrosia for a fallen thing. He felt her pulse begin to slow, and with it, clarity returned. Too late. He had made a promise. So he did the only thing left to salvage it. He fed her his blood. A curse and a gift. Redemption dressed as damnation. When consciousness came again, it was not kindly. It came with the lash. The sting of leather on open wounds pulled him from the dark. Daeron stood before him, whip in hand, mouth curled into that sanctimonious smirk he wore like a second skin.

“Confess your sins,” — Daeron said, like a priest at a pulpit.

Rhaegar didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Pain was already the conversation. The next lash landed across his ribs. His body shuddered, the wounds slow to heal now. The hunger had stripped him bare — of strength, of dignity, of distance. He was fraying at the edges, losing the man to the monster in increments. And yet — there was still a voice inside him. Smaller, but persistent. He was alone. She was safe. That mattered. It was his only solace, really. That the banshee wasn’t in the room. Not yet. Not while he still had anything left to bleed.

***

She came to with a breath like gravel in her throat. Cold air. Real air. That was the first thing she noticed — bracing, unfiltered, none of the burnt ozone or otherworld stench that clung to her clothes after slipping through veils she didn’t have names for. Her body ached like a borrowed thing. Time never moved right on the other side. She blinked against the blur in her left eye. The clock on the bedside table — cheap plastic, cracked face — read 17:02. 5 p.m. Fantastic. A full day gone and not much to show for it but the bruises crawling under her skin. But she knew where Rhaegar was now. So she showered — scrubbed herself raw like ritual — and pulled on her usual armor: jeans, leather jacket, boots heavy enough to break a kneecap. Glock cleaned, loaded, holstered. Hair put back. Eyes still stung from whatever she’d seen over there, but she'd dealt with worse. Much worse. She opened the door to her flat. The office lights were off except for the glow of her desk lamp. Howland was passed out with his face mashed into a folder, drooling on something that probably had a sigil stamped on it.

“Ey. Howl.” — Her voice was hoarse, half a rasp.

He jolted upright like she’d set off a bomb. —  “Wha…wha’s it? I weren’t sleepin’!”

“Aye, sure,” —  She muttered, brushing past. — “Desk’s lookin’ real productive, that.”

He rubbed his face like it offended him. — “I were... Lookin’ over…”

“Wait, where’s Sig gone?” — Lyanna said it flat, eyes scanning the room, she already knew something was off. Not panicked, she didn’t do panic, but sharp, clipped, like a blade testing a weak point in armor.

“Gone, said he had work t'do. I were out cold, what time is it, even?” — Howland sounded groggy, like his brain was still catching up to his mouth, but trying to play it off like he hadn’t just drooled on paperwork.

Lyanna said it sharp, like it was just another damn fact to get through, — “Seventeen.” — No fuss, no softness; just straight, like calling out the time on a clock she’d been watching too damn long.

“Shite,” — Howland muttered. — “I had me a test today. You jokin’?”

“Yeah, I’m jokin’. I’m a fuckin’ Bozo.” — She flicked the edge of a report on his desk, hand already tight on her car keys. —  “Found Rhaegar.”

His eyes snapped up. — “How?”

“Called in a favor. Burned one I was saving.” — She didn’t look at him when she said it. — “Call Sig. Tell ‘im to meet me at the Temple of the Seven. Near the Weirpool. Half an hour.” 

Howland’s voice came out low and a bit rough, like he was trying to mask his worry with a shrug,  —  “Ye’re real calm ‘bout this, ain’t ye?”

“No calm,” — She said, voice sharp as a blade. —  “Just focused. Y’ken, mission mode.”

Howland’s voice was low, a touch hesitant but steady, like a man used to waiting on orders but ready to move when needed. — “Want me t’ come with ye?”

Lyanna’s tone was clipped, no-nonsense, like cutting off a conversation before it even started. Her eyes were already sliding toward the door, fingers twitching with impatience. — “Nah. Call Sig.”

And then she was gone. The car smelled like metal and tired ghosts. She gripped the wheel too tight. It was muscle memory by now: drive, breathe, don’t fall apart. The road to the Weirpool was long and familiar. Twisting lanes through pine and ash, darkening skies like an omen she was trying not to read too closely. The Weirpool wasn’t really a pool — it was a still black mirror tucked deep in the godswood, where the old gods slept with open eyes. Lyanna went there when the screaming in her head got too loud. The trees didn’t judge. The dead were quieter there. She parked under a dying oak. The sun was bleeding out along the horizon, soft light catching on rust and bark. She thumbed the safety on her Glock, slid it into place. She hadn’t even knocked on the temple door before she knew it’d be locked. Of course it was locked.

So she climbed the fence — ripped her coat, swore about it — and landed on the other side in a yard that looked like it hadn’t seen worship in years. Broken windows. Ivy-choked walls. The kind of place that hummed when you got too close, like something was remembering how to be alive. She found a basement door behind a crumbling stone wall. It was ajar. Of course it was. Lyanna took five long breaths. In. Out. Blood in her mouth from biting her cheek. She drew the Glock, held it low, and descended into the dark. The hall felt like a horror movie shot on real film. Dripping pipes, buzzing lights, the slow creak of wood settling like bones. She cleared each corner like someone was waiting to jump her — and they were. Then the air shifted. Something cold. Sharp. Wrong.

Her body knew it before her brain caught up. — “Shite…”

Darkness hit her like a wave, swallowing the world whole. So much for mission mode. All that work, and she still walked straight into the fucking trap. She was out cold. Not for long, but long enough to feel it — like slipping beneath black water and waking up underwater. Her head throbbed. Vision blurred to hell, blue and red bleeding together like someone’d smudged the edge of reality with a dirty thumb. Still down.

“Rhaegar,” — She muttered, raw, hoarse. It came out like breath through broken glass.

Something lunged. Not him. Not exaclty. Her body jolted but refused to move right. Limbs heavy, nerves on delay. Someone's hands pressed into her shoulders. Cold. Rough. She blinked and blinked again until the room snapped into awful focus. He was there. Chained. Cruciform, wrists hooked high, black-eyed and blood-soaked. The scent hit next — iron, sweat, and old magic. Her gut went cold. Real cold. Not fear. Instinct.

“Oh, shite,” — She whispered. — “What’d he bloody do to ye…”

Rhaegar voice came like a ghost under gravel. — “Lya…”

Recognition flickered in him like a dying pilot light. One blink, and the madness cracked. He recoiled fast, scraping away from her like a spooked child — feral one moment, terrified the next. She could feel the panic in him like static. Her chair screeched as it was dragged closer.

A voice at her ear. —  “See? I revealed his true form.”

Her jaw clenched. — “Stay calm,” — She said under her breath. — “S’all gonna be real peachy, sure.”

She didn’t look at the knife. She felt it. A cold press at her neck. — “You know what I want,” — The man said. — “I want the vampire to confess. Confess your sins,” —  He snarled, louder now.

Rhaegar stirred. Voice cracked and strange, but there. — “What sins?”

“You killed my daughter,” — The voice growled.

Rhaegar straightened, barely. Still feral-eyed. But words came steadier now. — “I turned her to save her. You staked her. You killed her. Not the devil. Not me. Your zealotry.”

The man’s voice turned cruel. — “I saved her soul.”

“You damned her,” — Rhaegar snapped. — “For your own fanatic fantasy.”

Then the blade bit. It didn’t go deep — just enough to make her bleed. Lyanna didn’t scream. She didn’t flinch. She watched Rhaegar instead, saw the way it hit him like a crucifix to the chest. He writhed to the floor, like he could feel her pain in his bones.

“I confess,” —  He gasped. — “Please... just leave her be.”

She spat. — “Don’t. Please. Sig’s coming.”

“A foul beast,” — The man hissed in her ear. — “You should seek release.”

“Lemme guess, ye’re the only bleedin’ saint gets to judge, aye?” —  She snarled it through her teeth, voice low and venomous, like a dog ready to bite. 

“I’m a vessel.” — He said it with a glassy-eyed calm, Lyanan was quite sure always came before cruelty, like he really believed it, like the voice in his head had handed him a crown and he mistook it for a halo. Quiet, reverent, smug. Like he was quoting scripture only he could hear.

Lyanna snarled it like a blade dragged slow over bone, her voice low and sharp, the kind of tone that meant she was done playing nice. — “Ye’re a fuckin’ creep in a costume. Only one bastard in this room I’d trust with my life, an’ it sure as shite ain’t ye temple boy.”

The man laughed, low and ugly. — “Let’s test that.” — He wheeled her chair forward, closer to Rhaegar, whose eyes flickered and failed again. She felt her spine go cold. — “Dinner time, vampire.”

He left. The door clanged shut. Rhaegar twitched on the floor, and everything in her screamed this was going to end badly. But the gods — old and new — weren’t all bastards. Her da had taught her a few things, back when he was a half father. How to get out of a bind. Literally. She got up in one lurch, still tied to the chair, and rammed herself into the table. Wood cracked. Her back screamed. But she was loose. Rhaegar? Not so much. He’d just broken free, fully feral. She caught a glimpse of Sigorn through the window, seconds before he kicked in the door — and got floored by the vampire.

Lyanna snapped it out like a whipcrack, raw, urgent, her voice all gravel and panic as she lunged forward without thinking. — “Fuck…oi! Pack it in!”

Lyanna lunged, grabbed Rhaegar by the chest — felt something under her fingers. The sun effigy. She ripped it free. He dropped. Hard. Knees to the floor, breath shuddering like he’d just been pulled out of the seven hells.

Lyanna rasped it out, breath hitching, crouched low and braced like something might still lunge. Her voice was rough, tight with fear she’d never admit. —  “Ye aright, aye?” —  She asked, still gripping him like a lifeline.

“I will be,” —  He rasped. — “Check Sigorn. I... I bit him.”

“Ye did ye fuckin' bastard,” —  Sigorn groaned.

She helped Sig apply pressure to the bite. He’d live. Probably. Rhaegar, meanwhile, had already slunk back toward the hallway. Door open, man gone. Blood still fresh on his lips. The priest was also gone. Good riddance. Lyanna eyed him — barefoot, shirtless, stained to hell from that sewer wendigo fight. She dropped her bag, shrugged off her coat, and wrapped it around his shoulders.

Lyanna said it quiet, almost like it hurt her throat to say anything soft. Her hand was already on Rhaegar’s back, steadying him without making a show of it. No fuss, no frills, just the kind of promise that sounded like a threat to the rest of the world. — “C’mon. I’ll take ya home.”

Sigorn, flat, groaned, — “Grand. I’ll drag meself t’the bleedin’ ER, then.” —  He pushed himself up, one hand pressed to the bite on his neck, the other flipping them both off without looking.

Fair enough.

***

Title: Ghost of My Blood

You never really outrun the past. Not when you’ve lived long enough to watch every mistake wear a familiar face. He came back — Daeron. Same voice. Same cold hands. Once, he molded monsters out of the innocent and called it mercy. Now he calls torture penance. I know better. 

What he wanted was revenge. Not for what I did. But for surviving him. For living free when he was still shackled by his own righteous madness. He didn’t just use blades. That would’ve been easier. He used memory. Words. Twisted intimacy — the kind that comes from someone who once knew you too well. 

For a second — just a flicker — I faltered. 

Not because of fear. Not because of ghosts. But because he threatened her. Because he put a knife to Lyanna’s neck. And that… that undid me in a way I didn’t expect.

When it ended it should’ve felt like relief. But the echo stayed. Not just the pain, or the old wounds he reopened. It was the realization: he tried to break me by hurting her. And it nearly worked. She drove me home. Treated most of the wounds herself. I didn’t protest — couldn’t, really. She ran out for supplies, came back with gauze and antiseptic and, of all things, a Hello Kitty band-aid. Stuck it on my forehead like it meant something. Maybe it did.

I healed fast now — after what happened with Sigorn. Poor bastard ended up dragging himself to the ER alone. Good riddance. But it’s becoming clearer, all of it. This thing I feel for Lyanna — it’s not buried anymore. It’s right on the skin. Alive and pulsing. 

I should’ve cut it off before it grew roots. 

But I didn’t. And now I can’t. 

The truth is… whatever this is between us — it feeds me. In ways blood doesn’t.

—  Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Lyanna was gonna need a vacation after the Wendigo case. And the priest one. The one who tied Rhaegar up like a fucked-up martyr and made her think — actually think — he might die. Or worse. She didn’t do worse. She ran from worse. She ran a lot, actually. Made it almost an option to say yes to Benjen’s offer of the annual Stark Yule gathering in Winterfell, she almost clung to the notion of it like it was a damn lifeboat. Hot cider, cold air, family drama that wasn’t actively homicidal. It was starting to sound like heaven. She started running again — she used to run more, used to do a lot of things before the blindness crept in like fog under a door.  But after Rhaegar’s almost death, every morning, rain or frost, like she could burn the memory out of her — Rhaegar chained, his body broken, his voice hoarse with apologies he never spoke. Like she could outrun the way it felt when he almost attacked her. 

She’d bargained for his life. And she hated that it mattered. She hated him for making her care. Hated herself more. After he tore out Daeron’s throat — because aye, the priest had a name — she took him home. Cleaned him up. He’d barely spoken, said the name quiet, like it hurt to remember. She came back from the pharmacy with a bag of antiseptic and cartoon band-aids: Hello Kitty. A joke she didn’t laugh at. His wounds were mostly gone — after he’d fed on Sigorn — but she patched him up anyway. Just to do something. Just to stay. Then she left. Near dawn. Went home. Scrubbed the floors, hid the grimoire, took a shower hot enough to flay skin, and slept for thirteen hours straight. Woke up to three new cases: two cheating spouses and one identity fraud. Salt-of-the-earth stuff.

She didn’t see Rhaegar for a week. Didn’t drop by. They texted. He replied to hers in vague monosyllables. Said he was working. Said he was healed. Physically, anyway. She’d looked at flights. Winterfell. Lys. Decision between family or solitude. Couldn’t tell which was more dangerous. One of the cheaters turned out to be a typical runaway with her lover. The other faked her death for a life insurance payout. It was shaping up to be a normal week. Until the missing boy. Shawn Moore. Early twenties, Westerlander, blond, green-eyed, jaw you could chip flint on. His agent came in smelling like rose perfume and desperation. She was older than she wanted to admit and trying to sell a sob story through teeth too white and lips too stretched.

“Misses Alora Barner,” — Lyanna said, dry as salt, — “why d’ye really want the lad found, then?”

“I loaned him six grand before he disappeared,” — The woman admitted, fast as a popped blister.

She hadn’t looked up right away when she spoke, — “Ah. So nothin’ t’ do wi’ motherly worry, then. Drugs, is it?” — she had just leaned back in her chair, thumb hooked in her belt loop, eyes narrowed like she already had the answer and was only giving the woman the rope to hang herself with.

Miss Alora Barner had the look of someone who used to be a beauty and still played the part out of habit. Bleached-blonde bob, stiff with spray. Suit jacket too tight at the shoulders, like she dressed for a younger body she didn’t quite have anymore. She smiled too much, but none of it made it to her eyes, thin, watchful things behind rimless glasses. — “No… Girls. Clubs. Expensive things. But no drugs. Not that I know of. That detective said you could help.” — her tone turned defensive, like she was used to covering for men like him and hated that it still made her feel cheap.

Howland wandered in with a tray of coffee like this was brunch. — “Was Sigorn sent her.” — He said, deadpan.

Of course. Sigorn. She hadn’t called him. Not since the incident with the priest. He still wasn’t forgiven. It wasn’t hers to forgive. Rhaegar was the one who got chained up like something out of a House Bolton wet dream. Sigorn had helped in the end. Got bitten for it. Still didn’t make it okay. After the woman left Howland spoke up. 

“Howl,” — She muttered, eyeing the tray. — “Y’do realize Sig sendin’ this case is the spooky PI version o’ bringin’ flowers, yeah?”

“Always figured you hated flowers.” — She said it dry, almost offhand, with one brow tilted and her mouth tugged in that half-smirk she used when she wasn’t sure if she was teasing or accusing. 

Silence settled, heavy and thick. — “I ken he messed it all up, aye...” — Howland said eventually, hands half-raised like he meant peace. His voice had that Riverlands drawl, a little rough around the edges but careful, like he was picking his words not to wound. You could tell he was trying to be fair. Trying to be kind.

“Ain’t me he fucked over.” —  She said it low, like it didn’t cost her anything, but her jaw was tight, eyes cold and steady.

“Ah know. But jus’… gettin’ bit like that. Helpin’ us. Thought maybe it’d earn ‘im a bit o’ goodwill, is all.” — He said it soft, like he didn’t want to press too hard. Shoulders a little hunched, hands worrying the hem of his sleeve. Trying to sound hopeful, like someone still believing people could make things right if they just tried hard enough.

“Guess it’s measured mistrust then, for now.” — She said it with a half-shrug, voice dry as ash. Not sharp, not warm either, just that cool edge of someone who’d seen enough to know trust didn’t come cheap. 

“Aye. 'Zactly.” — He said it with a crooked little smile and one brow raised, voice stretched out just enough to coat the word in dry mud-thick sarcasm. You could almost hear the really? that came after it, even if he didn’t say it out loud.

She drained the coffee. — “I got a nightclub to check. Can’t be wastin’ me day tryin’ to figure out Sigorn’s sorry-ass flower mess.”

Silk & Salt. That was the name. Last place Shawn Moore had been seen. She didn’t own club clothes. Never had. Even in her twenties, that scene hadn’t been hers. But the outfit — tight leather, high heels, clearly a joke gift from one of Brandon’s long suffering exes — was buried in her closet. She threw a coat over it. No way she was walking through the city like that. Not sober. She wasn’t planning to fish alone anyway. First, she wanted to check on Rhaegar. The concierge downstairs didn’t look up from his phone as she came in. She took the elevator. His door was open. Bad sign. She stepped inside, ready to lock it behind her — except he was home. Standing in front of an easel, painting like some brooding Renaissance ghost in a red silk shirt and black slacks. Dress shoes. Who dressed like that to stay in?

“Heard you downstairs,” — He said without turning. —  “Was Kyle on his phone again?”

She replied it like she didn’t mean it, voice low and rough, eyes rolling just a bit. — “As always. Ye look… less like roadkill.” —  Like it was some kinda compliment, but really just a sideways jab.

He turned. Smirked. — “And you’re wearing leather. Are those ankle-strap heels?” — His voice was too warm. Teasing. Gentle. She hated that it made her throat catch.

She asked quick, like she was sizing up the place already, voice clipped and sharp, with that edge of don’t waste my time. —  “A club, Silk & Salt. Ye ken it?”

Rhaegar laughed. A full-body, head-thrown-back laugh. Like it cracked him open. — “Forgive me, I didn’t think you were the type.” — Rhaegar said it with a half-laugh, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it, the amusement clear in his voice but with a teasing warmth underneath.

Lyanna crossed her arms tight over her chest, eyes narrowing like a wildcat sizing up trouble. —  “Wha type?”

“Kink club. Swingers. Heavy voyeur vibes.” — Rhaegar threw his head back, laughter spilling out loud and raw, like someone who hadn’t cracked a smile in years but just found a secret punchline worth losing himself in. His eyes sparkled with reckless joy, full-blown and unapologetic, like he was drinking in the absurdity of it all and loving every damn second.

She blinked. — “Whit the fuck ye mean?”

He kept laughin’, but she crossed her arms even tighter, eyes sharp as a blade. — “It’s for a job,” — She snapped, voice low and steady.  — “Kid went missin’.”

He sobered. Mostly. But his eyes twinkled with mischief, that smirk never quite leaving his lips as he watched her. His voice was smooth, teasing, like he was playing a game only he knew the rules to. —  “You need backup?” — He asked, voice low but sharp, the kind of question that carried more promise than concern.

Lyanna’s brows knitting sharp as she shot a sideways glance at his easel. —  “Aren’t ye busy?” — She asked, her voice thick with that northern edge, rough, a bit sharp, like she wasn’t about to take any nonsense.

Rhaegar said it with that sly, easy confidence, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. — “For you, I can make time.” — He didn’t wait for her to say more, just smoothly reached for his coat, like he already knew he was going.

And gods help her, she was glad he would. They were out the door in no time. Lyanna didn't say anything about it, but aye — she was fucking relieved. That whatever nightmare had gone down in the sewer, and the priest, whatever the hell Rhaegar had seen or felt or heard — none of it had sent him bolting in the other direction. He still wanted to come with her. Still wanted to be around her, in whatever shape she came in. Guess five hundred years of bad shit makes a person harder to rattle. He’d asked if they could take his car. She’d laughed like it was cute — like he didn’t get how much a license plate or a camera flash could bury you. Then he’d asked about a taxi. She’d just yanked him underground instead, into the stink and sweat of the subway. No paper trail down here. Just piss, mildew, and five rats scuttling too close for comfort. He'd muttered something dry about hearing them breathe, like that was worse than whatever other monsters he'd danced with in his long unlife. Still. They made better time than they ever would’ve with wheels.

By the time they got to the club, Rhaegar was halfway through rattling off some cliff-notes briefing — name, vibe, whispered rumors — and Lyanna had mostly stopped listening. She clocked the crowd first: leather, latex, half-naked and high-heeled. Skin glistening under streetlight like they were waiting for a rave or a blood ritual. Probably both. If this didn’t look like  a vampire nest, she’d eat her own boot. She already hated it. Forty minutes in line. She counted. Thought about cutting it after ten. Thought about decking someone after twenty. By thirty-five she was ready to set something on fire, just for fun. But eventually, they hit the front. The bouncer was the kind of man carved out of brick and bad decisions — black hair, tattoos like warnings, beard thick enough to lose a knife in. He looked at her, then Rhaegar. Looked again. Then came the complication.

“Ye can go in,” — The man said, nodding at her with a tone that scraped like gravel. Then he jabbed a thumb toward Rhaegar. — “Pretty laddie stays out. Too many blokes in there already.”

She stared at him a beat. Crossed her arms, slow. Her mouth went flat. Oh. Oh, fuck off. Lyanna's eyes flicked between the bouncer and Rhaegar, then down to his hand she grabbed it on hers. Cold night, colder tone. She didn’t flinch.

“We’re t’gether,” — She said, voice flat as the blade she kept tucked in her boot. Not asking. Not offering. Just fact.

The bouncer gave her a grin that felt like a slap. — “Find yerself another one inside, love. Plenty prettier than him.”

She could feel Rhaegar tense beside her, already wearing that 'I’m-too-old-for-this-shit' look. She didn’t blame him. The bouncer wasn’t just being a prick, he was being possessive. Like Lyanna was a toy left in the wrong hands. A less impulsive woman might’ve stepped aside. Let them sneak in around back, avoid the drama. But Lyanna Stark had never been accused of being the prudent woman. Besides, they were 'together,' weren’t they? She’d said it. Might as well commit to the bit. She caught Rhaegar about to speak, maybe to smooth it over, maybe to offer to wait. Didn’t matter. She already had a better idea. Not better. Just louder. They didn’t look like the other couples in line. No pawing, no neck-sucking, no performative lust. Just two people who didn’t belong. So she made them belong. She grabbed the collar of his coat, yanked him close, and kissed him.

It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t gentle. It was a warning shot. Her mouth crashed into his, and she clutched fabric, not flesh. He got the message, but not the whole of it. His fingers threaded into her short black hair — messy bixie cut, sharp at the edges, made for practicality, not seduction — and his nails scraped the back of her neck just enough to short-circuit something in her spine. She pulled back. He looked dazed. Good. She turned to the bouncer like nothing had happened. She had one eyebrow cocked, mouth twisted into that familiar half-smirk that said try me , her  arm still looped possessively through Rhaegar’s like she might just drag him through the bouncer if she had to. Her tone wasn’t flirtation. It was threat wrapped in black lace and icewater: sardonic, daring, and deadly tired of this bullshit.
“As ye can see, I’ve already claimed this bloke. So either we’re goin' in, or I swallow his face at the next club down the block.”  —  Lyanna shot it with the kind of dry confidence that comes from having nothing left to lose and not giving a single fuck who knew it.

The man rolled his eyes, muttered something about drama queens, and stepped aside. Gods be damned, it worked. Inside was a haze of strobe lights and basslines built to bruise. Techno pulsed like a second heartbeat. Lyanna had seen places like this before, but always from the outside. Crime scene tape and body bags. Not bodies writhing on the dance floor in mesh and latex. At least here she didn’t feel underdressed. More like under armor. She glanced at Rhaegar. He was already watching her. Not leering. Just... looking. Direct. His eyes were darker now, too dark. Like a storm on the verge.

“What?” — She snapped over the music, touching her cheek. —  “I got summat on me face?”

He said something — probably no , knowing him — but she couldn’t hear shit. The music was a bloody war drum going off in her ears, all synth and bass and light stabs like razors in her skull. Her banshee senses didn’t like this kind of place — too loud, too hot, too many half-dead bodies grinding against each other like they were trying to forget they had souls. So aye, she just watched his mouth move, lips shaping words she couldn't catch, and pretended that didn’t bother her. Didn’t let on that the static in her head was getting louder, or that she felt more like a ghost than usual. She just gave him a flat look and muttered under her breath, Brilliant. Fuckin’ brilliant.

She jerked her thumb upward.  — “Reyt. Ye head up, I’ll stick t’ground floor.”

He nodded, still with that look. That look she didn’t want to talk about. The kind that said, I felt that too . She didn’t do feelings. Not the kind you couldn’t drink away or bury in sarcasm. So she left. Slipped through the crowd like smoke, waited until he was out of sight. Only then did she peel off her coat. Underneath: a black leather halter corset with silver lace down the front, paired with low-rise trousers laced at the hip. A costume, really. Distraction tactics. Her back was bare and the scars were out for anyone with eyes. She hated that. Hated them. But she didn’t cover up. Not tonight. She made her way to the bar. Work first. Feelings... never . If he got the hint, good. If not? Even better. Because whatever had just happened wasn’t about attraction. It was work. Just another mask. The club reeked of desperation and citrus vodka, all lit up in synthetic pinks like someone tried to drown seven hells in Pepto. Lyanna slipped through the writhing crowd like a knife through raw meat, the bass pounding so hard it felt like it might kick her heartbeat out of rhythm. She didn’t flinch when someone bumped her shoulder. Didn’t even blink.

She moved up to one of the server girls early twenties, sparkly eyeshadow like she'd lost a bet. — “Ye ken ‘im?” — Lyanna asked, holding up her phone with the picture of Shawn.

The girl squinted, then leaned closer. — “Aye... Shane? Shawn?”

“Hung around the boss. Private booth upstairs,” — the server added, gesturing with a chin. — “Chain curtain.”

“Thanks.” — Lyanna pocketed the phone like a weapon and turned without ceremony, weaving back through bodies and hands and perfume clouds thick enough to choke a ghost. 

She didn’t go straight up to the private booth. Too obvious. Instead, she made it upstairs and scanned the crowd for a familiar flash of black coat and vampire cheekbones. Rhaegar was near the bar that floor, half-interrogating a blonde with enough leg to qualify as a weapon. Lyanna caught the words Smash Log and immediately wished she hadn’t. He asked something. The girl smirked, asking for a ‘favour’ with the practiced innocence of someone who’d sold lies for fun.

Lyanna cut through the haze and stopped beside him. — “Ye still busy?”

Rhaegar looked at her, his mouth crooked in that almost-smile that said he was barely holding onto patience. — “Not anymore.”

The blonde's gaze dragged down Lyanna's figure like she was scanning for weak spots. — “Butch vibe. It's certainly a choice.”

Lyanna smiled, sharp as barbed wire. — “Ye should rinse yer roots. Fewer chems, fewer brain cells floatin’ dead in the soup.”

The blonde's face did that priceless twitch  — the one that said did she really just — but Lyanna was already turning. She didn’t wait for Rhaegar to follow. He just did. They found the booth easy. Center stage, of course. All velvet shadows and voyeurism. The curtain swayed just enough to suggest privacy without promising it. No bouncer. No ritual. They slipped inside like smoke. A woman sat in the booth, red dress like fresh blood. Long black hair, parted sharp. Dornish, probably. Her neckline plunged like a knife wound and a tattoo curled above her heart: a snake eating its own tail. Ouroboros . Classic. Trite.

Lyanna flashed her PI badge. — “Hello. Lyanna Stark. Private investigator. Mind if we ask ye a few things?” 

The woman nodded. — “Sure.”

“Name?” — Lyanna’s voice came low and flat, like a knife laid on the table between them, casual, but you’d be stupid not to notice the edge. 

The woman said it like it meant something. Like it should already be written down somewhere in gold leaf and cigarette smoke. —  “Ellaria Sand.” —  Smooth, slow, with that Dornish lilt curling at the end like smoke from a hookah pipe. Her chin tilted as she spoke, like she was offering her name the way someone else might offer a blade, beautiful, deliberate, and already halfway to drawing blood.

Rhaegar pulled out the printout of Shawn. Lyanna had given him the picture in the metro. It felt like a lifetime ago. He handed it over. — “Have you seen him?”

Ellaria smiled. —  “Beautiful.”

Lyanna deadpanned, —  “No shortage of that ‘ere.”

Ellaria spoke it like a confession wrapped in velvet and poison. — “We cater to the beautiful,” —  She purred, the words slipping from her lips like silk sliding off bare skin. She didn’t smile, she didn’t need to. The glint in her eyes did it for her, all slow amusement and unapologetic vanity. 

Lyanna replied it flat and cool, like she was flicking ash off a cigarette. No frills, no softness, just the facts, delivered with that clipped bite that turned every word into a challenge. Her eyes didn’t waver. They never did when it mattered. — “Name’s Shawn Moore. Tuesday night, he were here. Didn’t show for his next bookin’.” — It came out low, iron-edged, like she’d already done the math and didn’t like the sum.

“Maybe he met someone.” — Ellaria said it with a lazy shrug, voice like warm silk over a knife. Smooth, practiced, just vague enough to sound innocent, but there was a glint in her eyes, something coy and unreadable. 

“He don’t miss bookings.” — Lyanna shot flat, like a knife laid on the table, not a threat, just a fact, and somehow worse for it. Her voice cut through the velvet air of the booth, all steel and gravel, no room for argument.

Ellaria shrugged. — “Things change.”

“So you haven’t seen him?” — Rhaegar questioned it with careful, almost too-polite calm of his, the kind that made people nervous, like he was giving them just enough rope to hang themselves. 

“I know a lot of people. Faces blur.” — Ellaria responded like it bored her, like she’d repeated this line a thousand times and it always worked, lazy, indifferent, with a shrug in her voice and a slow blink that said she wasn’t trying to help. 

“Ye got gear 'round here?” — She didn’t blink when she asked it. Didn’t smile either. Just let it hang there, rough-edged and casual, like she was asking for a light instead of poking at something illegal.

Sarella's lips tightened, her tone cooling like she'd just caught a bad smell. She leaned back, offended but composed, voice clipped with practiced detachment, — “What my clients do isn’t my business.” — She said it like a line she’d rehearsed a hundred times, icy, professional, and meant to end the conversation.

“Could be. Maybe he got in some shite. A fight. If it kicked off here, it’ll be yer business soon enough…'specially when the coppers come knockin’.” — Lyanna replied it with that half-bored, half-pissed edge she saved for people who thought they were too rich or too pretty to bleed.

Ellaria responded it slowly, deliberately, with the kind of poise that dripped power, coiled and velvet-lined, like a serpent resting under silk. She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. Her gaze fixed on Lyanna’s face like she was reading a language only she spoke, lips parting just enough to let the words drip out smooth and cool. — “Then let them come,” — She said, voice soft as wine, but with an iron hinge beneath it. — “I’ll answer to them.”

There was no fear in it. Just certainty. Like she’d stared down worse than cops and walked out with her heels intact. Like maybe she enjoyed the game more when the stakes got bloody. Rhaegar stepped back, polite and cold. — “I think we're done, then.”

Lyanna didn’t move at first. She looked at him. Something in his face — a twitch of the jaw, maybe — told her there was more he wasn’t saying. But not here. Not now. She followed. They slipped back into the crowd, neon ghosts headed for the exit. Just as they reached the ground floor, over crowded, she felt it: pressure. Eyes. She didn’t turn. Then — without warning, without looking at her — Rhaegar reached down and laced their fingers together. It startled her. Not romantic. Not tender. Just... practical. But it lit a fuse anyway. Outside, she yanked her hand back the second cold air hit her skin. Didn’t apologize. Just adjusted her coat, lit a cigarette she didn’t need, and kept her eyes on the pavement.

Rhaegar broke the silence. — “She’s hiding something.”

“Sure as hell ain’t that tattoo,” — Lyanna muttered.

He glanced at her. — “Don’t tell me you’re a prude. Not in that outfit.”

Lyanna glanced sideways, catching him eyeing that open coat like it was a secret map or something. She shrugged, voice low and a bit clipped, like she didn’t wanna explain but did anyway — “Was a gift. Dunno get any ideas.” —  There was that half-roll of her eyes, the kind that said yeah, whatever you’re thinking, forget it.

Rhaegar’s voice was smooth, calm like silk sliding over steel, just enough warmth to tease, but sharpened by that quiet confidence he always carried. He said it with a slow, deliberate drawl, like savoring the words, —  “Certainly was.”

Lyanna smirked, inhaled. Smoke curled past her lips like a secret. Her tone was quick, clipped, like she was tossing a grenade and stepping back fast, no way she was letting him sniff around that bit, —  “From a girlfriend.” —  No names, no details, no openings. She didn’t want him digging any deeper.

They stepped out into the biting cold like it was some damn ritual, the winter wind slicing through the quiet like a scalpel. The city felt hollow — empty streets, empty looks. They ducked into the metro station again, stale underground breath mixing with the chill, the smell of rust and old grease lingering thick. Rhaegar didn’t touch a damn thing, like some ghost too careful not to leave a trace. Lyanna slid onto the bench, rubbing the cold out of her fingers.

“So... what did ye wanna tell me?” —  Her voice cut through the silence, sharp but low, like a knife scraping on concrete.

“Smash Log. Don’t know what it is, but the girl I talked to, she didn’t like being mentioned in it,” —  Rhaegar said, eyes flicking somewhere distant.

Lyanna snorted, eyes narrowing.  — “Wha kinda name’s that? Sounds like some piss-poor frat joke.”

Rhaegar said it with that polished calm of his, like every word had been filed down to precision. No sharp edges, no wasted breath. Just quiet disdain layered over something colder, an old, clinical disgust for the kind of boys who thought humiliation made them powerful. His eyes didn’t move when he said it, didn’t flick to hers, didn’t soften. — “Crude. Young men, probably, thinking more with their dicks than their brains. She said Shawn one.” — Like it was a diagnosis. Like he’d seen it too many times before.

Lyanna’s jaw tightened.  — “Maybe that’s why Sand clammed up. Maybe we’re dealin’ wi’ some... mess. I’ll get Howland t’dig into it.”

Rhaegar’s voice dropped, almost a whisper. — “I don’t think this case’s that simple. When I showed her Shawn’s picture… I heard her heart. It wasn’t good.”

She knew exactly what that meant. Whatever this Smash Log was, it wasn’t just some dumb list — it had teeth. And it was biting deep. Great. Missing person turns into some creep getting what’s coming to him. Just fucking peachy. Lyanna went home, the night folding over her like a wet blanket — no rest, but enough to get through the morning. First thing, she pulled Howland aside, asking about this Smash Log. He rolled his eyes, pulled up an article from some feminist collective at White Harbor University. A Discord server. A breeding ground for jocks and idiots. The publication called them out. They’d published pictures from the server — mostly censored crap, but one caught Lyanna’s eye. A breast. With a tattoo. The same snake eating its tail she’d seen the night before. Her gut twisted cold. This wasn’t just a club scene or a missing kid. It was something ugly, buried under layers of bullshit and silence. And she was about to rip it open.

***

Every few years, he returned to it — like a ritual, or an old wound he couldn't help but press. Painting. Of all the arts eternity afforded him time to perfect, it was the only one that ever offered solace instead of sin. He could play instruments, compose in silence, even recite dead languages in his sleep. But painting… Painting was the only thing that made the ache quieter. Not better — never that — but quieter. It had become a private rite: once every two or three years, he painted her. Elia. His maker. She’d always looked like a story half-finished — one he wasn’t allowed to finish reading. Long, dark waves of hair that curled like smoke. Eyes like dusk — almond-shaped, deep, unreadable. Full lips, never in a smile, always on the cusp of a secret. She was older when they met. Wiser. Infinitely more dangerous. She pulled him in like a riptide, fed on him like a lover, and warned him like a mother. He hadn’t listened.

Of course he hadn’t. That was the problem with being born a prince — no one ever teaches you to say no to yourself. He begged her to turn him. She refused. He insisted. She relented. And then, predictably, ruin followed. Vampires were territorial, tribal, feral in ways most humans couldn't fathom. It had taken less than a century for them to nearly kill each other. Four hundred years of separation followed. The kind of silence that devours. Still, he painted her. Always. To remember. To remember the way her olive-toned skin drank in the moonlight like porcelain. The way she moved through his father’s court like a ghost with purpose. The way he loved her — fiercely, foolishly, forever. That was what he’d been doing when Lyanna Stark knocked on the cracked door of his carefully curated existence.

And that was what he did when he returned home — alone, as usual — stepping off the metro one station before Lyanna. His place was closer than hers, but as he walked, he let it linger. It bought him silence, and silence bought him thought. And Rhaegar — ever the strategist, ever the penitent — was always thinking. Because she kept inside his mind. He had already drawn Lyanna; he thought, of course. Many times. With and without her knowing. He’d blame it on the artist’s eye, if anyone asked. That wasn’t the reason. The Elia painting was coming together in a Romantic style this time — Pre-Raphaelite, with all the delicacy and devotion of a man trying to rebuild myth. Stylized foliage, sorrow-creased beauty, an aesthetic of tragic grace. It should have been perfect. But it wasn’t. It didn’t feel like There was something off in her eyes. A vacancy. An absence he couldn't paint around. No matter how he mixed the pigments or adjusted the shadow, she remained still, and lifeless, and gone.

He went to bed before sunrise. Not because he was tired. Vampires didn't sleep the way humans did. But even the dead needed darkness to think. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling like it owed him an answer. And the answer, of course, had been staring at him for some time now. Leaning against walls with blood under her nails and a cigarette between her lips. Showing up in his place, half-blind and still smarter than anyone else in the room. Speaking in that razorblade accent of hers, all frost and fire. Stark. Lyanna. He’d told himself it was fascination. A tactical interest in the way her banshee curse broke the rules of his abilities. Or maybe it was the thrill of a near-equal, someone who could look him in the eye without flinching. Maybe it was the smell of iron and ice she always brought with her, or the fact that she never asked him for anything but truth. 

But it wasn’t just that. He had loved before. Elia had been the love of his life — or so he thought. But love, it turned out, was more flexible than he'd believed. It didn't always come in on soft feet. Sometimes it kicked in the door. Sometimes it came with a snarl instead of a song. And now, in his quiet moment — alone with the ghosts he painted and the woman he couldn't stop thinking about — Rhaegar realized something uncomfortably mortal: He wanted her. Not just her mouth, or her power, or her pulse. He wanted the way she fought for the broken. The way she looked at death like it owed her something. The way she saw him  — not the vampire, not the lie — but the man. And that scared him more than the hunger ever had. Because he'd spent centuries looking for meaning in art, and blood, and death. And now, inconveniently, he’d found it in her.

By the time the alarm sang its sharp, synthetic hymn, the sun had long vanished beneath the city’s bones. Rhaegar opened his eyes with a stillness that came not from sleep, but from centuries of practiced detachment. He rose, showered — ritualistically, pointlessly — scrubbing flesh that no longer aged, no longer sweated, no longer bled unless forced. Cleanliness was just another performance, and like all performances, it comforted the audience more than the actor. Damp hair clinging to his temple, he reached for his phone. One message: From Lyanna. A link. Of course. The headline was predictably dramatic, the kind of clickbait outrage that passed for investigative journalism these days. But the content — well, that was something else. An exposé on an anonymous server, one of those charming corners of the internet where young men gathered to air their id with the glee of feral dogs. The article had redacted the worst of it — blurry screenshots, pixelated genitalia, the usual self-righteous censorship — but one image had survived intact: a tattoo, small but unmistakable. Familiar.

He felt it like a pin pressed to the gums. Stark, typically, had offered no preamble. Just a curt follow-up: she was going to the university to speak to the girl who’d written the piece. Rhaegar, for his part, had no delusions about the outcome. Universities were adept at producing three things: debt, bureaucracy, and moral ambiguity. But she was going, and that meant he would go too. They met on campus — him in a coat too elegant for academia, her moving like a lit match through a world soaked in kindling. The student publication's office was cluttered, all flickering monitors and the faint stink of energy drinks and ideology. The girl who greeted them had curly blue hair and the defensive posture of someone who'd argued online one too many times. Natalia, she said. Howland had sent them. Naturally.

“Ye put this out five weeks ago, and no one’s done a damn thing about it?” — Lyanna said, leaning against the doorframe like she owned it. — “Howland said nowt came of it?”

Natalia, shrugged with the sort of weariness that belonged to people far too young to be that jaded. — “Aye. Open source, it were. Code came from inside the uni, but they pushed it through some offshore shell. And the bloke behind it? Rector’s own lad.” — She shrugged. — “So, aye, nowt came of it.”

Of course it hadn’t. Rhaegar could practically hear the boardroom silence that followed the initial scandal: men in suits sipping bitter coffee and deciding that boys would be boys, provided those boys had the right bloodlines and enough plausible deniability. 

“Do ye ken Shawn Moore?”— Lyanna again, clinical but sharp.

Natalia nodded, half-wincing. — “Weren’t faculty, but folk sort of ken him. Prolific sort, he were.” —  A pause. An unspoken weight.

“Reckon none o’ you had nowt good t’say ’bout him, then?” — She asked it low and flat, like she already knew the answer, like she could smell rot under fresh paint. Her gaze didn’t waver, just fixed steady on the girl, sharp as broken glass but calm as snowfall.

Natalia exhaled through her nose. — “Weren’t much for lasses our age. Favoured older women, he did.”

Of course he did. Rhaegar could almost picture the young man — smug, predatory, pretending to be enlightened while picking flesh from between his teeth. A modern vampire, but the kind that still cast a shadow. And that was it. They left. Rhaegar said nothing as they walked, he wasn’t entirely certain when this had gone sideways — only that it had, and with the same quiet inevitability as sunset. One moment, they were climbing into Lyanna's battered car — black, fast, and loud in the wrong places — the next, they were taking a detour through moral ambiguity uni rather than heading straight to the address she'd dug up for Ellaria Sand. Not that detours were unusual with Lyanna. She liked to wander the edges before striking the center. Still, it made him curious. And curiosity, in his experience, usually meant blood.

“Why didn’t we go directly to her house?” — He asked, his voice a blade wrapped in velvet.

She glanced at him from the driver’s seat. Her face unreadable. Closed off in the way only someone with too many secrets and too little sleep could be. — “What?”

He repeated it. Less question, more indictment. Then she replied it low, almost like she was biting back the sharp edges of her frustration. Her voice had that cool, steady grit, — “Ah wanted tae know what sort o’ person we’re helpin’,” — Lyanna said, her tone steady but with that underlying edge of caution.

There it was that blunt little knife she kept tucked under her words. Not even anger. Just disapproval. Cold and matter-of-fact. — “And?” — He asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Ah’m no too happy aboot it,” — Lyanna murmured with a sharp edge, her voice clipped and terse, like a warning veiled in calm. There was no softness, no pretense. 

Of course she wasn’t. Ellaria and Natalia had offered them information, yes — but the price of that intel came with bloodstains baked into the floorboards. The kind of man they were looking for… Rhaegar understood her discomfort. He shared it. Predators left a stink on everything they touched, and even he, a predator of an older, more literal kind, had his limits. He didn't care for helping men like Shawn Moore. But he said nothing. It wasn’t his case. He was only shadowing it — following the banshee into the dark because some part of him couldn’t stop, couldn’t let her do that alone.

But then she turned to him, eyes like frost on glass, and asked the question he hadn’t expected. — “Am I bad for that?” — Lyanna asked it quietly, almost like she was testing the air, vulnerable but guarded, as if daring the answer not to judge her.

He studied her, the curve of her jaw rigid with something she’d never admit was guilt. — “A bad person?”  —  He asked.

“Aye… Am Ah bad that Ah dinnae feel bad he’s prob gone?” — Her fingers dug into the wheel. — “Ah’ve worked on so many cases where women were done wrong, and nae one ever got justice…”

He considered lying. He often did. But not with her. Not entirely. — “No. I don’t think you’re bad,” —  He said quietly. —  “I think the situation has nuance. But I understand why you feel less empathy for the man.”

She didn’t thank him. Just nodded. —  “Grand.”

They reached the address — quaint on the outside, like most rot was — and parked far enough not to be obvious but close enough for a fast retreat. The front of the house stared back at them, all stillness and shuttered windows. He didn’t trust stillness. Stillness could mean waiting. Before Lyanna reached for the handle, he tilted his head, tuned his senses, and listened. There — faint, but present. A heartbeat. Too slow. Wrong. She opened the door, and they moved. The house was empty by mortal standards — no footsteps, no voices — but something about the silence was strained. Like a held breath. They crept down the narrow hallway, past framed photographs and the faint scent of incense — cheap, synthetic, masking something worse. In the kitchen, the heartbeat pulled him forward. He followed it to a corner where a life-sized statue stood, grotesque in its realism.

Lyanna’s voice broke the hush. — “What?”

“It’s alive,” — He said, eyes narrowing. —  “The statue. There’s a heartbeat.”

They exchanged a look. And then, as if the world had been waiting for their comprehension to click into place, the thing collapsed toward them — Shawn Moore, turned to stone, still breathing under the curse. They would’ve had more time — seconds, maybe — but the front door creaked open with the groan of too-late salvation. Now or never. Lyanna bolted for the back door, yanking it open. Rhaegar slung the statue’s grotesque weight into his arms with more grace than panic allowed and followed her out into the night. They sprinted toward her car — parked nearly a block away — haunted by the knowledge that, for once, they were the monsters running from a house, not into one. And yet, he couldn’t help but glance at her as they fled. They brought the statue back to Lyanna’s apartment. Rhaegar set the statue down with a touch gentler than he’d intended. The thing was grotesque: all stone limbs and frozen terror, like a half-finished scream. Shawn — or what used to be him. The boy didn’t seem particularly eloquent, but even Rhaegar found this version less conversational than usual.

Howland stared at it like he’d stumbled into the wrong genre. His eyebrows had vanished somewhere into his hairline. — “This has gotta be a spell,” — He mumbled. — “Mean... Lad was a walking red flag. Very ‘cursed by a vengeful goddess’ energy.”

She was went closer beside the statue, examining its face. Her tone was dry as ash. — “Aye, but there weren’t no snake-haired Medusa, was there? No hissin’, no writhin’ scalp.” — Lyanna said it with a scoff under her breath, crouched by the statue, her blue eyes narrowing as if the thing had insulted her personally

“She could be hiding,” — Rhaegar said quietly, too quietly perhaps. Vampires didn’t need to raise their voices. He’d found it rarely helped.

Lyanna glanced up at him. —  “Hidin’ where? In her bloody handbag?” —  She muttered it with a half-laugh, half-snarl, arms crossed and one brow raised, like she couldn’t decide whether the idea was stupid or insulting. 

He didn’t bother to sigh, pointless thing, breath, but he gestured toward the statue’s vacant eyes. —  “I don’t know. But other than this,” —  He said, his voice cool, — “We don’t have much else. No trail, no arcane residue. Just… regret in stone.”

Howland muttered, — “I could poke through some wikis, but doubt WikiHow’s got a step-by-step on turnin’ a stone fuckboy back to flesh.”

Rhaegar let the boy ramble. He wasn’t listening anymore. His gaze had drifted back to Lyanna. She’d straightened up, arms crossed, her mouth set in that thoughtful, reckless line he knew too well. A ticking clock with a gun in its mouth. He could feel the heat behind her silence. She was thinking, which meant she was preparing to do something spectacularly idiotic. He admired that about her. From a safe distance usually. But more and more he was getting into it.

“Reckon I could just face her head-on, see what she does,” — Lyanna said.

There it was. — “You’re joking,” — He replied, without inflection. One had to admire her consistency, every idea somehow worse than the last.

She shook her head. — “Do it where folk can see. If she stones me, she’s shown her hand.” — Rhaegar stared at her. Exposes herself? What was this, justice or amateur theater? — “She’s gotta know we nicked the statue,” —  Lyanna went on. —  “So I call her out, ask how, ask why. Either she slips, or she snaps.”

He didn’t raise his voice, he never needed to. The chill in his delivery was colder than any shout. It was the kind of line that might’ve sounded like concern, if not for the glint in his eye that said he knew better than to expect Lyanna to care for her own ass. — “I’m sorry, I forgot, for a second, that you’ve got a very acute death wish.” — Rhaegar delivered the line like a man gently placing a dagger on velvet, measured, almost tender in tone, but razor-edged underneath. 

She didn’t blink. —  “D'we 'ave any other option, then?”

Of course they didn’t. He was reminded once more Lyanna didn't believe in exits — only jumping into it. She threw herself into chaos the way others threw on jackets: like it was the only way to stay warm. He ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, tasted the copper there.  He already knew this would happen. Of course he did. Lyanna never entertained caution when recklessness burned brighter. And Rhaegar — ever the strategist, ever the fool — had already seen the moment unfurling in the theater of his mind: her walking straight into the lion’s mouth with that maddening defiance in her eyes, and him, stone-faced beside her, the dutiful shadow, waiting for the strike. He would stand there. Silent. Still. And if the gorgon so much as twitched toward her — if even one serpentine hiss curled in Lyanna’s direction — he would rip out her heart without hesitation. No poetry. No mercy. Just one swift, precise violence, cold as the centuries coiled inside him.

***

They had plans that night. Real ones. They were supposed to go to the nightclub so Lyanna could rattle the bones of the owner until something useful shook loose. Maybe a confession, maybe just that twitch in the eye people get when they’re about to lie. She’d already picked her jacket — the leather one with the ripped lining and the bloodstain that wouldn’t wash out. Things were moving. Wheels greased. Rage bottled and ready. Then Sigorn called. He said he needed her at the station. No details, just that cop-voice he used when he wanted to sound official and not like the guy who used to know her coffee order. She asked if it was a date. He said it was more of a consultation. Same difference — just meant neither of them would get off. She drove herself.  She didn’t go straight to the station. She took her own car, circled the block twice, parked crooked under a dead camera, then met him outside like it was coincidence.

Lunch, he said. They ended up at the ramen place. He always said lunch like it was neutral territory. Braavos in a broth bowl. They ended up at the ramen place they used to haunt back when she wore a badge too. Back when they were stupid and good and thought rules meant something. It still smelled like grease and ghosts — soy steam and scorched oil clinging to the counters. Same cracked vinyl booths. Same radio on too low to make out the song. They slid into the back booth without a word. She didn’t bother with the menu.

“Miso,” — She said to the server, flipping the thing shut without looking. —  “Extra scallions. Soft egg. Chili oil on th’ side.” — A pause. — “Actually, lotta chili oil.”

Spice burned. Spice grounded. It couldn’t kill the rot under her ribs, but it helped scrub the metallic taste of death from the back of her throat. One soul too many screaming through her lately. One too many stone-cold girls with eyes that never got to shut. The egg was comfort she’d pretend was texture. Familiar. Round. Soft on the tongue like something once innocent. Like who she used to be. Sigorn made a show of reading the menu like it mattered. He always played the role — deliberate, decent, trying to look like a guy with boundaries. She’d known him too long to buy the act.

“Tonkotsu,” — He said finally. — “Chashu. Extra noodles. Corn. An’ a beer, ’less ye’re plannin’ t’ snitch on me.”

She gave him a deadpan look. — “Rat you out? Please. If I wanted ye off the force, I’d just nick yer clients, make ye go freelance. I don’t need the bloody competition.”

He smirked. Same old. But she didn’t laugh. Not even a little. He said something about how this place used to be their detective bar. She didn’t respond. Just watched the steam curl from the open kitchen. Her right eye itched — blurry again, but she didn’t blink. She didn’t give it the power. The world was dim enough as it was. Her mind drifted — to the case, to marble skin and missing boys, to the way the world went silent just before a soul crossed through her. 

She didn’t realize they were eating already until Sigorn spoke. — “The missin’ lad, the model one. Sent ya his case, didn’t I?”

She stabbed a piece of egg and didn’t look up. — “That were a piss-poor apology, that.”

Sigorn leaned back in the booth, chopsticks idle between his fingers, eyes flicking up beneath brows still too smug for her liking. The steam from the ramen curled around his face, catching on the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave. His voice came low, not unkind, but with that old, knowing edge that used to get under her skin when they were something other than strangers. —  “Aye… and yet here y’are.”  —  Said like he already knew the answer. Like he always did.

“Ye said it was a consultation. And ye’re payin’ for the grub. I’m no sentimental sod, Sig. I’m a pro. An’ even if forgiveness ain’t mine to hand out…” — She shrugged, slurpin’ noodles like it didn’t mean a damn thing. —  “Here I am, ain’t I?”

He set his chopsticks down. — “Ye found ’im yet?”

She slurped broth, leaned back, sighed like a smoke break. — “Not quite. Why, need somethin’ from ’im?”

Sigorn’s jaw tightened like he was chewing on grit. His eyes, usually a bit too sharp and calculating, softened for a split second, just enough to let the weight of the news settle between them. He leaned back, running a rough hand through his hair, like the whole damn mess was digging into his bones. — “’E’s got a court date comin’ up. Five cases on ’im. Sexual assault, no less.”

She went still. — “I talked to some o’ the girls at the college,” — She said, voice colder now, sharper. — “They said nothin’ got done. You runnin’ outta options, or you finally got yerself a conscience?”

Sigorn’s face hardened, like he’d swallowed a mouthful of gravel and couldn’t spit it out. His eyes narrowed, flickering with a mix of frustration and something close to bitterness, a man who’s seen the system choke on its own lies one too many times. He ran a knuckle down his jaw, voice low and rough like gravel sliding downhill. — “If ’e gets found guilty, an’ ’e will, between us, Lyanna, ’e’ll get less time than some fat hedge fund prick cookin’ the books.”

And that — that — was the part she hated most. Not the blood. Not the death. Not even the screams. She could live with those. But this? The math of it? This was one of the many fucking reasons why she left. Why she didn’t salute anymore. Why she stopped carrying a badge and started carrying brass knuckles in her coat. A kid could get raped and their life hollowed out — and the bastard who did it would serve eighteen months. Maybe. With good behavior. While a man who cooked the books would rot for a decade. Justice wasn’t blind. It was gagged. And men held the leash. She didn’t answer Sigorn. Didn’t need to. She knew what he was trying to do. Pretend like she didn’t already want that boy dead. Like she hadn’t already looked in the mirror that morning and thought about how easy it’d be to make it look like an accident.  Say the wind blew and broke the statue. 

Sigorn said it like a joke, but his jaw was too tight and his eyes didn’t crinkle the way they used to when he was actually being funny. — “Dunno if there’s any supernatural shit in this case,” — He muttered, picking at the label on his beer like it owed him something. — “But if blondie’s got dinner on his neck, I wouldn’t be raw bout it.”

She snorted, dry as ash.  — “Aye, I’ll let Rhaegar ken yer fantasizin’ about him. Bet he’ll be chuffed. Good for his already massive bloody ego.”

Then it got quiet. Not awkward, exactly — awkward was too polite a word for this kind of silence. This was the kind that sat between them like a ghost that never stopped bleeding. They both knew what they weren’t talking about. There was nothing left to say, and too much that couldn’t be said. Because the person who needed to forgive Sigorn wasn’t her. And Sig, stubborn bastard that he was, wasn’t about to crawl back to Rhaegar with a tail between his legs and a half-assed apology. No, he’d rather chew glass. And maybe — just maybe — he was jealous. Not of Rhaegar, exactly. Of the time she gave him. Of the way she looked at the vampire. That she trusted him. Like something in her, rusted and barbed as it was, might actually want to trust him. Which wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t planned it. Seven hell, she hadn’t even wanted it. But that didn’t stop Sig from stewing in it.

What did stop her was what he said next. — “How’s he doin’?” — Sig asked. Quiet. Real.

She blinked, the question catching her off guard like a punch she didn’t see coming. Her fingers tightened on her chopsticks. — “Less rattled than I reckoned he’d be,” — She muttered, after a pause long enough to taste like doubt. — “Knackered, maybe. Still bleedin’ under the armour, but he’s keepin’ it polished.”

Sigorn nodded. Didn’t look at her. —  “’M real sorry ’bout it.”

Lyanna stared at the steam rising from her bowl, thick with oil and heat and memory. — “Sig,” — She said, low. — “I’m not th’ one ye need t’say that to.” — She didn’t mean it to be cruel, but truth had teeth.

He didn’t argue. Just changed the subject, like they both knew he would. — “If ye find the lad…”

“Aye, I’ll let ye ken.” — She said, already lighting a cigarette in her head. It was easier that way, blow smoke through the cracks instead of letting anything real slip out.

After they finished up, Lyanna headed home. Not that home meant comfort. Just meant four walls and a roof where the coffee machine still worked. Howland had a substitute exam — one he’d begged his professor for after flunking the first round because of Rhaegar being kidnapped — so she wasn’t expecting anyone waiting. Just the silence. The kind that clings like smoke and doesn’t let go. She climbed the stairs slow, not out of tiredness — she didn’t get tired, not in that way — but with that bone-deep awareness that something wasn’t right. That sixth sense that came with being what she was. Half woman, half echo. The air had that copper tang she’d learned not to ignore. And the hallway light — too still. Like it was holding its breath. She rounded the corner and froze. Her stomach dropped like a cigarette in the rain. Door ajar. Blood cold.

She didn’t panic. Just reached for the brass knuckles tucked in her bag, metal familiar and comforting against her palm. A last-line lullaby. She stepped in. Quiet. Slow. Too late. Nothing moved inside. No breathing. No presence. Just a silence that wasn’t hers — and the shattered statue on the floor, wrecked clean through like someone had hurled it with purpose. Not wind. Not gravity. Something with hands and hate. So. They’d come. Of course they had. They went and asked for a place to look for it. Prodded. Pressed. She should’ve known. Maybe she did know. But knowing doesn’t always mean stopping it. She stood there for a moment, staring at the wreckage, then bent down, scooped the biggest chunk into a box, and started sweeping the rest into a trash bag. Her movements were clipped, methodical. She didn’t flinch when the sharp edges bit her hand. Just kept going. Four hours later, Howland burst in like a sitcom character on the wrong set — except instead of laughs, he brought his usual chaos in heels and historical cosplay. She glanced up at him, didn’t say a word. The kid looked like Versailles had thrown up on Bowie. Cream brocade coat. Giant green florals. White blouse with a bow the size of the moon. Velvet trousers, of course. Sunglasses indoors, naturally.

Lyanna blinked once. — “D’ye ever wear normal pants?” — She muttered, mostly to herself.

He stopped dead, staring at the mess, and frowned like it offended his sense of aesthetic more than anything. — “Reckon his agent’s not gon’ take kindly to this…”

Lyanna didn’t look up from the floor.  — “She can go cry to the coppers, claim it fraud if she wants. Call ’er. Tell ’er we didn’t find him.”

“Ye don’t seem very…” —  he hesitated, like he didn’t want to say bothered but didn’t have a better word.

“Angry?” — She snorted. — “Bloke had five assault charges hangin’ over ’im. An’ that’s just what they caught ’im for.”

Howland’s face twisted. — “Good riddance, tha’.”

She nodded once. No smugness. No satisfaction. Just cold, clean math. — “She sent someone to clean ’im up,” — She said. — “Means she’s scared stiff.”

Howland sat down on the edge of the couch, what was left of it not covered in ceramic shards, and pushed his sunglasses into his hair. — “So, what d’yer want t’ do?”

Lyanna didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the broken pieces on the floor. The thing that haunted her wasn’t the violence — it was the message. Someone had been here. In her space. While she was out. Someone had reminded her that she wasn’t untouchable. She lit a cigarette with one hand, kept sweeping with the other. She already knew what she was going to do. By the time Rhaegar showed up — late as ever, coat flapping like some overdramatic novel hero, eyes too sharp not to know better — she had the whole thing mapped out in her head like a crime scene. Didn’t matter if he was dragging his feet or muttering about heartbeats being long gone. That wasn’t the point. She still had one last conversation to have. They didn’t dress up for it. No costumes, no nightclub shine. Just two predators walking in through the back door like the ghosts they were. The music inside throbbed, low and warm like blood under skin. But Lyanna didn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel much of anything tonight.

She spotted Ellaria standing in the crowd downstairs. Beautiful, dangerous, still as carved marble. Lyanna marched toward her, shoulder set. One of the bouncers stepped forward like he meant to play hero, but Rhaegar ghosted toward him, and the man vanished like steam in cold air. Lyanna didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know what he did. She had enough monsters in her head already. She reached Ellaria and grabbed her arm. Not hard. Just enough to say: you and I are having this out, right now . Ellaria turned, those golden eyes flashing. For a second, Lyanna swore she felt stone curl around her bones — tight, ancient, cold. But it passed. Maybe Ellaria was tired. Maybe Lyanna just wasn’t scared anymore.

“I was sure I’d told you everythin’ you needed, Miss Stark… Or are you just enjoyin’ my company?” — Ellaria said, voice smooth as silk over razors.

Lyanna didn’t blink. — “Don’t play daft. Ye came t’ me place, and ye ended him. I ken it.”

Ellaria’s lips parted, feigned innocence like a mask that didn’t quite fit. — “I did nothing of the kind, and I would thank you not to accuse me without cause.”

“I told his agent he’d skipped town,” — Lyanna said, like she was talking about the weather. — “She’ll file for fraud. His name’ll end up on some missin’ persons list no one’ll read, buried in a drawer somewhere. Tomorrow night, we’re puttin’ what’s left of him in the ground. Deep.”

Her voice caught like silk snagged on a thorn, smooth and trembling. Ellaria’s dark eyes flicked to Lyanna’s mouth, then back up, sharp, unreadable. She tilted her head, curls spilling over one bare shoulder, breath shallow like she’d meant to deny it but lost the will halfway through. The words tasted like heat and hesitation, heavy with everything she wasn’t saying. — “I don’t…” — She said again, softer now, lips parted, as if the lie burned going down.

“I were a copper ‘fore I went solo,” — She interrupted her, voice flat. — “He had five assault cases on record, that’s just the shite he got caught for. Yw an’ I both ken there were more. And I’d wager he tried summat on ye too.”

Ellaria went quiet. Real quiet. Something behind her eyes dropped its guard, just for a heartbeat. She pulled her arm from Lyanna’s grip like she didn’t need to fight anymore. —  “Yu’re not takin’ me in, are yu?”

Lyanna scoffed. —  “Ain’t a copper. Couldn’t even if I wanted.”

“An’ what is it you’re plannin’ to do with…?” — Ellaria didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t have to.

Lyanna shrugged. —  “Get rid of it. Woods still out there, last I looked.”

“You ain’t tellin’ the cops, are you?” — Ellaria’s question cuts through the smoky haze with a mix of suspicion and a flicker of relief, her voice low, deliberate, and just a touch wary, like a snake curling back but ready to strike if crossed. 

“Tell ’em what?” — She said, eyes narrowed. —  “Lad with a rap sheet gone walkin’ after snatchin’ money from his agent? Sounds like justice to me. Or maybe karma’s got a twisted sense o’ humor. Take yer pick.”

Ellaria hesitated. —  “What about the…”

“Ye’re a gorgon,” — Lyanna said, voice flat like she was naming the weather. —  “An’ I dealt with worse things before. Vampires. Demons. Don’t reckon I’m shocked by what ye are or what ye’ve done.”

Ellaria looked away. Her voice cracked for the first time. — “He tried…”

“Ye don’t gotta say it,” — Lyanna said. — “I ken. I ken damn well.” — She inhaled like it was the only thing anchoring her to the floor. — “One less monster suckin’ up air,” — She muttered, low and bitter. — “Good fuckin’ riddance.”

Ellaria looked at her differently after that. Like she saw the cracks in Lyanna’s armor and knew better than to call them weakness. — “I underestimated yu, Miss Stark.”

Lyanna blew smoke out through her nose, eyes fixed on the shadows behind the stage. — “Most folks do.”

Lyanna stepped back, the air thick with that bitter taste she knew too well — like burnt rubber mixed with old cigarette ash and the coppery sting of dried blood. She found Rhaegar leaning near the door, silent like a ghost waiting to slip out unnoticed. They moved through the shadows and into her car without a word. The engine growled, the night pressing in on all sides, cold wind rattling loose things inside her chest. She was holding herself together, but the cracks were spreading — because no matter what, this wasn’t justice. Not really. Shawn was dead, sure, but no grave could dig up what was stolen from those girls. No statute, no court, no sacred words could stitch their broken selves back. The people they were before the world cracked open and spilled something ugly all over their lives — gone.

Rhaegar’s voice cut through the silence, calm, but not soft. — “I think it was for the best.”

She didn’t argue. — “Me too.”

There was a weight to his next words, like he was handing her something fragile, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to catch it or let it shatter on the floor. — “Regardless of what you think about yourself… I think you’re a good person, Lyanna Stark.”

She snorted, a dry, rough sound. —  “Don’t go pumpin’ up my head.”

He chuckled, low and a little amused. — “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She glanced sideways, biting the edge of a smile that tasted like rust and regret. Bitter sweet — like everything else was these days. Next morning, Howland and her piled into the car, boots crunching through the frostbitten underbrush circling the city. They drove deep, the forest swallowing them whole, and buried the shattered pieces of that cursed statue — seven hands deep, like burying a secret no one wanted spoken aloud. Howland’s yellow galoshes squelched against the damp earth. After the quiet, the dirt, the cold, they headed back. Lyanna dropped Howland at his place, then drove to her own. The night stretched long, empty, and she sat in front of the flickering TV, Star Trek humming low like a lullaby for the restless.

Then the phone cut through the silence, sharp and expected. Benjen. — “Ey... how’re ye doin’?”

“Tired.” — Her voice was rough around the edges, worn down from too many fights fought in the dark. — “Got a hell of lot o’ shit on my plate.”

He sighed like he knew it already. — “I figured as much.”

“Ben…” — Her voice cracked with something she didn’t want to own. — “If you callin’ me ’bout Yule…”

Benjen’s voice came low, rough-edged with that slow, like winter settling heavy over the hills. He sounded tired, like he’d been carrying the weight of this conversation a long time before the phone even rang. — “Nah. I knows what yer up to… don’t wanna…” — On the other end, the line crackled faintly, the cold silence between words stretching out. Benjen’s tone wasn’t pushing more like a quiet plea, trying to reach through whatever wall she’d built, hoping she’d hear the warning in his quiet, worn-out voice.

“Nah.” —She cut him off, words like gravel. — “Save me a plate.”

“Ree-ally?!” — His surprise was plain, even through the crackling line.

“Don’ make me regret it.” — She hung up, swallowed the ache, and lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around the silence like the ghosts she chased every damn night.

Lyanna let Benjen talk — talk like the worry was a damn fire they could both drown. She’d told him maybe she’d drag some friends over for Yule. He said he was cooking for ten anyway, so there was that. Small mercy in the chaos. Didn’t fix the sour taste this case left rotting in her guts, but it did something. It was a damn lifeline to the brother she’d held together after their mother went dark and gone. A brutal reminder of every damn fight she’d fought — not just with the crooked system that never gave a damn, but with the people who should’ve had her back. She didn’t say it out loud, but she valued Benjen. Valued family, even if she was a ticking bomb strapped to a fuse, ready to blow the whole damn place to hell. Bitter and sweet. Like everything in this mess. Like every goddamn moment.

***

Title: The Painting

I finished the painting today. I’d planned to paint Elia alone — quiet, untouched, her light unshadowed. But it didn’t come out that way. She wasn’t alone. Not like usually. She wore a dress yellow as sunrise, bright and fragile — the kind of color that should promise warmth and new beginnings. But over her shoulder, there was another pair of eyes. Cold. Blue as the moonlight slicing through the longest winter night. Blue as winter roses — beautiful but thorned, sharp. Dressed all in black.

That was Lyanna’s shadow, silent and sharp. Her presence was there, lingering like smoke in a dark room. Because the truth is cleaner than I ever dared admit: she’s lodged in my heart, whether I want her there or not. When she asked if she was a good person, it stopped me. Made me rethink everything I thought I knew. Lyanna—tough, bitter, haunted—probably is the best person I’ve met in a long, long time. Maybe the only one.

The gorgon in our case. A creature born of myth and fear. A monster. A killer. But the one she killed was worse — a boy, a man who used his fists and fists of others to break lives, to steal innocence. A predator wrapped in excuses, running scared from what he’d done. The same boy who vanished into shadows, leaving a trail of pain too deep to ever heal. She turned him to stone. Made him permanent, trapped in his own terror. No trial, no law, no court could give the justice that was needed—not really. Justice in this world is always a compromise. Bittersweet, like smoke slipping through fingers. There’s no clean answers in this. Only moments like this — caught between shadows and light, between what’s right and what’s real. And somehow, that’s enough.

—  Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Stakeouts, Rhaegar had learned, were a curious kind of purgatory. He knew them intimately — not just from the endless reel of trench coats and saxophones peddled by noir cinema, but because Lyanna, banshee by birth and private investigator by trade, had drilled him when she brought him along. They weren’t glamorous. They weren’t even especially clever. But they were deliciously revealing. Stakeouts were where the masks slipped — where the truth, sticky and shameful, usually oozed out under the fluorescent lights of gas stations and back-alley bars. Tonight's subject was one such ooze. A man whose libido outpaced his legal bindings. They were watching from Lyanna’s car, parked with studied indifference behind his bar — the kind of cheap establishment that passed for character in this city. His wife had hired Lyanna, and she had dragged Rhaegar along after Howland muttered something about this case being juicy .

Juicy , indeed. The man was married to money, and money — how poetic — had preemptively protected itself. The wife owned everything: the bar, the real estate, the rights to his name in five kingdoms. Their prenup had a clause so sharp it may as well have been blessed — adultery nullified his rights to everything. One picture of him playing Romeo, and she’d keep the bar and the bastards balls. That’s why they were here. For proof. The two of them were voyeuristic accessories. A vampire and a banshee, listening to the microphone they’d placed — courtesy of the wife — inside the bastard’s air vent. It was almost insulting how easy it all was. And then the man appeared. Him, and the girl. She looked young. Barely legal in the way wet IDs and fake eyelashes often were. Rhaegar didn’t need enhanced senses to smell the sticky desperation rolling off her. Lyanna had the camera ready before the door even shut behind them. She moved like a striking wolf — silent, precise, inevitable.

Flash. Record. Moan. Rhaegar, to his eternal regret, bore witness to a scene that could charitably be described as tragic. The man’s pale, glistening backside wagging like a raw turkey in the moonlight. A tableau that might haunt the weaker-willed. Rhaegar merely blinked. Not for the first time, he mourned the slow, torturous death of romance. Even affairs lacked poetry now. They had what they needed. Pictures. Audio. Enough moaning and thrusting to send the bar and its profits to the wife in perpetuity. And then — The man’s car started. It turned, headlights sweeping dangerously close. Rhaegar’s mind moved faster than breath, and beside him, Lyanna reacted. One fluid motion: her body slipped over his, tense and electric. She half-laid on top of him like it was the most natural thing in the world. And Rhaegar, poor thing, had the gall to feel something close to gratitude.

She smelled like rain and engine grease and lavender body soap, but also the wisp of funerary myrrh that followed banshee’s. Not blood. Not rot. Just her. And gods help him, he didn’t breathe — but he felt the phantom of a breath hitch in his dead lungs. Her proximity had become a study in endurance. More and more, Rhaegar admitted to himself that he craved her closeness — not just physically, but in that hollow, unnameable way only something ancient and cursed can crave. Lyanna and the painting he made of her — of her and his maker — now occupied the same chamber of his mind. The sacred. The damned. And he was damned. Of that, there was no doubt. The car rolled off. Lyanna pulled back to her seat, as brusque and businesslike as she always was after moments that threatened to mean something. He was left to rearrange himself — physically and emotionally.

She hadn’t brought up the kiss. The one from the previous case. She’d taken him by the collar like a lover in a paperback novel and kissed him like she was ending the world. He thought about it often, these days. Too often. Vampires didn’t dream. But fantasize? Certainly. He fantasized about it, yes. Not just the kiss — though that lingered like a stain — but everything after. Walking the gardens of Dragonstone with her in sunlight. Laughing over coffee during the day. Things he could never have. Things she might. He smiled at the thought, because it was ridiculous. But he smiled nonetheless. Lyanna glanced at him with that awkward expression she wore when she wasn’t sure if she’d crossed a line or if she wanted to.

“Hope he enjoyed that,” — She muttered, voice flat as a frozen lake, eyes still tracking the taillights fading into the alley smoke. Her lips quirked, not quite a smile, more the ghost of one, sharp at the edges. Then she slid back to her seat, boots thudding against the dash, like nothing had happened.

Rhaegar arched a brow. —  “I certainly have,” — Rhaegar said, low and smooth, his voice velvet over blade.

He didn’t look at her right away — he let the silence stretch, watching the condensation bead on the windshield, his smirk curving slow, deliberate, like a man savoring the last sip of wine before biting the throat that poured it. Then he turned, just enough to catch her reaction, eyes gleaming faintly amber in the dark, unnatural, hungry. His fingers tapped once on the leather of the glovebox. The smile stayed — not wide, never that — but sly, knowing. The kind that said: I didn’t mind being under you. I wouldn’t mind again.

“Oh, shut it, will ya.” —She rolled her eyes like the gods had tested her patience one too many times today, first the cheating bastard, now this undead flirt acting like he’d won something. Her voice was rough as gravel and just as warm.

She didn’t look at him when she said it — just stared out the windscreen, boots tapping the dash, jaw set. But the corner of her mouth twitched, like maybe — just maybe — his smugness had landed a hit. And he knew she hated that. He adjusted his posture, regaining some semblance of elegance. The car was already far enough down the alley it would be invisible to mortal eyes.

“Men have no idea how to treat a woman anymore,” — Rhaegar murmured, almost to himself.

His voice was quiet, but there was a tired elegance to it — like someone reciting an old poem no one bothered to memorize anymore. He leaned back in the seat, fingers drumming once on the leather armrest, eyes still fixed on the peeling door of Room 6. The curtains had been drawn shut, but he didn’t need to see more. He could smell the lust, the perfume that wasn’t the wife's, the sweat of betrayal. It bored him.

“He could have at least put a roof over her head,” — He added, the faintest curl of disdain at the corner of his mouth. — “Romance is dead.” — He said it like he’d been at the funeral. And maybe he had.

She didn’t even look at him when she responder, still fiddling with the dial on the recorder like it owed her something. — “Motel leaves a paper trail,” — Lyanna said, her voice clipped, bone-dry, dragging through that familiar Northern drawl that always made everything sound like a condemnation or a dare. — “That’s why th’wife wanted us tailin’ him, weren’t it.”

She punctuated it with a click of her thumbnail against the plastic casing, like slamming a verdict shut. Rhaegar glanced sideways. The shadows knifed across her cheekbones, car lights playing over her face like stage lighting on a reluctant star. She always said these things like they were obvious. But even her throwaway lines had weight, dropped carelessly like knives on a table. No wonder people underestimated her. They mistook the accent, the sarcasm, the mess of her hair — when underneath all that, she was pure blade. And Rhaegar? He was already bleeding. Quietly. Repeatedly. Willingly. She picked up the recorder and hit play. The sound that escaped the speaker was... unholy. Groaning, squeaking leather, something that might’ve been a slap or a spiritual experience. Their eyes met. And then they both broke — laughing uncontrollably. The kind of laughter that threatened to dismantle centuries of composure. Lyanna shoved the recorder into the glove box and started the engine.

Rhaegar leaned back as the engine purred to life, one arm lazily draped over the headrest, the other thumbing an old scar just above his wrist, a nervous habit he disguised as idle grace. — “This reminds me,” — He said, his voice smooth as aged brandy, amusement coiling at the edges like smoke. His smirk unfurled slowly, a thing earned rather than given. — “I was caught once, too. With the wife. Of  a Lyseni mobster.”

He let the sentence hang there, like a painting in a crooked frame, and waited for Lyanna’s inevitable disgust. Truth was, he told the story not for the facts — but for the look on her face. A mix of horror and reluctant interest, like watching a car crash you couldn’t tear your eyes from. That, and maybe, deep down, he liked the way his past sounded out loud when she was around. Like he could laugh at it instead of mourn it.

Lyanna threw her head back with a groan that sounded half-exasperated, half-amused, like a thundercloud about to snap, but not quite willing to let loose the rain just yet. — “Seven hells,” — She said, her voice thick with that rough grit h voice has, each word clipped and sharp like stones thrown through glass. — “Yer taste in lasses is pure unfathomably foul.”

She threw him a sideways glance, lips twitching with a smirk that said don’t bother arguing; you know I’m right . The faintest curl at the corners of her mouth betrayed a flicker of amusement beneath the sarcasm — half appalled, half entertained by the sorry state of his romantic history. Rhaegar caught the look, allowed himself a quiet, almost imperceptible smile beneath the practiced mask of reserve. If only she knew. His taste — so often the subject of her merciless judgment — had more to do with her than any other. But the way she saw herself — so brutally unforgiving, so stubbornly cruel — gave him pause. He suspected that if he voiced this truth aloud, she’d promptly dismiss it as nonsense. The kind of nonsense that put her not merely in the category of desire, but something far more dangerous: affection . Of all the souls Rhaegar had encountered across centuries and shadows, few carried such a crippling and misguided disdain for themselves as Lyanna Stark did.

Rhaegar’s voice dipped into that rare, unguarded place where sarcasm met bitter memory. He delivered the confession with the dry precision of a man recounting a particularly grim chess move, no flourish, no regret, just the cold facts. — “I concede the point,” — He said, the ghost of a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. — “Her husband shot me. Twice. Dumped me behind a fish market.” — The words hung in the air, each syllable weighted with the unspoken ache beneath the dark humor, the kind of story only a vampire could tell without flinching, but that still stung.

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, her voice low and dry, more a pointed observation than outright judgment, like she was amused and appalled in equal measure, but wasn’t about to offer sympathy. — “Ah don’t even wanna know what ye did tae survive that.” — She said, the edge in her tone making it clear she wasn’t endorsing his luck, just cataloguing the disaster with blunt efficiency.

Rhaegar smiled slowly. His gaze flickered with a faint, almost rueful amusement as he leaned back, the faintest shadow of a smirk playing at his lips. His voice was smooth, measured, each word carefully weighed, dipped in irony yet edged with a stubborn truth. —“The only thing I’ll say to you, Lyanna Stark,” — He murmured, the weight of centuries folding into the brief pause before the punchline, — “is this: beggars can’t be choosers .”

He let the phrase linger between them like smoke curling through a dimly lit room — equal parts resignation and defiance, the weary acceptance of a man who had long ago learned to navigate desire on his own terms. Lyanna’s eyes flicked toward Rhaegar, sharp and unapologetic, a sly glint dancing in their depths. Her mouth twisted into a half-smirk, half-grimace — equal parts teasing and challenge, as if daring him to defend his lost cause.

The corners of her lips curled just so, the faintest lift that hinted she wasn’t entirely convinced by her own words. — “Wel, ah hope she wur worth it,” — She said, voice low and edged with that usual bite, carrying the weight of hard-earned skepticism and a trace of reluctant curiosity. Rhaegar watched her closely, noting how her posture shifted, relaxed yet guarded, as if every word was both armor and invitation. In that moment, she was a puzzle he wanted to solve, even if the answer might unsettle him.

He looked out the window, his smile softening into something older, sadder. —  “Love is always worth it. Even the fleeting kind. I’d rather get wrecked than live forever regretting what I didn’t do.” 

Lyanna shot him a sidelong glance, eyes narrowed slightly, a playful glint sparking beneath her guarded exterior. Her tone was dry, edged with teasing impatience, the kind that only comes from knowing someone well enough to call them out without causing a fight. She shook her head just a bit, lips pulling into a half-smile that was more challenge than warmth. — “Ye can keep yer poetry about FOMO tae yerself, Fangs.” — Her voice was sharp but never cruel, like a jab with a soft glove.

He didn’t answer. Words, after all, were poor armor against what stirred in him lately — feral, inconvenient things best left unnamed. Instead, he watched her drive. Reckless. Brilliant. Infuriatingly alive. Her fingers gripped the wheel like she meant to bend the night to her will, hair caught in the wind, mouth set in that defiant line he’d come to memorize. She was all momentum and fire, a sharp blade masquerading as a girl in leather and boots, and he — damn him — was letting her get close. Too close. He told himself it was strategy, proximity, necessity. That letting her into his orbit was part of the job, part of the game. But even he couldn’t fully believe that anymore. Not when the scent of her stirred the hunger in his blood, not when the sound of her voice lingered in his ears longer than it should’ve. And the worst part? He didn’t know what would happen when she saw it. The truth. The ache. The thing growing in him like ivy through stone, old and patient and dangerous. Would she laugh? Flinch? Would it burn the strange, brittle tether between them to ash? He didn’t know. He only knew he’d let her that close again. And again. And again. And one day, it would ruin them both.

***

A dead man walking. That was the case. And apparently, Lyanna had become the kind of person you called when the dead stopped staying politely dead. The morgue reeked of formaldehyde, cheap disinfectant, and something older — like iron and regret. Blane Sentel. Washed-up boxer. Liver failure. Bad bets. Worse decisions. The kind of man who’d spend his last days broke, bitter, and blaming the world. Lyanna had seen enough of them to clock the pattern on sight. But corpses didn’t usually get up and walk out the door.

“You understand now,” — the morgue owner said, voice thin and twitchy, like a man expecting God to smite him personally. — “Why I need your discretion.”

The footage was grainy. CCTV never captured the smell, the weight, the wrongness. Just static and silhouettes. A man in a mask bent over Sentel’s corpse, stuffed something into his mouth — too smooth, too practiced to be spur-of-the-moment — and then the boxer sat up, jerky like a marionette, and walked out on his own two feet. Like resurrection was just another Tuesday.

“Gonna need a copy o’ that,” — Lyanna muttered, already halfway to the exit.

Back at her office, the heater wheezed like it was on life support, and the walls smelled faintly of burnt coffee and rain-damp stone. Howland was curled over his books like a particularly fashionable mushroom — green cardigan with embroidered flowers, paisley neckerchief, and those tweed trousers that made him look like he’d stepped out of a library-themed music video. His desk was a warzone of Yule cards and college textbooks.

“Who’re th’ cards for, then? Yer cousins?” — Lyanna asked, mostly to break the silence.

“I ain't got cousins, Lya,” — He replied without looking up. — “Grew up in the system. These're for some o' my foster lot. We don’t usually get to spend Yule together.”

That cracked something in her, hairline, but there.  — “So yer spendin’ it here, then?”

“Usually jus’ watch a Muppets film,” — He mumbled, eyes still on the page as his pen scratched carefully across his college-ruled notebook, like saying it out loud made it sound more pitiful than it felt.

“Uhm… grand,” — She said. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, — “Me brother’s throwin’ a party up in Winterfell. If ye want... ye could come wi’ me.”

Howland looked up. Eyes wide. The kind of look people give miracles or lottery tickets. Lyanna immediately regretted everything. —  “Ye serious?”

Lyanna scratched the back of her neck, eyes flicking anywhere but the boy’s face. Her voice came low, rough around the edges, like it physically hurt to offer softness. —  “I mean... ye don’t ‘ave to. But, aye. I guess.” —  She said it like the words were gravel in her throat, like admitting she gave a damn might cost her blood. The silence after clung to her skin like cold fog, and she hated how vulnerable it made her feel.

Howland blinked up at her, pencil slipping from his fingers. His voice cracked just a little, like he wasn’t used to being offered kindness without a catch. — “N-no… yer serious ’bout this?” — He asked it like he half-expected her to laugh it off, like someone offering him warmth was some kind of trick. There was disbelief in his voice, but more than that, hope, raw and clumsy, written all over his freckled face.

Lyanna scoffed, already regretting’ letting’ the words out in the first place. Her jaw tensed as she looked away, like making’ eye contact might set off a landmine in her own chest. Her voice came out sharp, snappier than she meant, but that was safer than soft. — “No, I’m jokin’, ain’t I?” — She snapped.  —“’Course I’m bloody serious, lad.” — There was a flicker of something behind it, awkwardness she’d never admit, a kind of protective gruffness only someone who didn’t know how to be warm would mistake for cold.

Then the boy started crying. He got up and hugged her like he’d been waiting his whole life for the offer. If it were anyone else, she would’ve decked them. But Howland? She let him. Didn’t hug back, exactly, but didn’t shove him off either. Progress. Then the door creaked open. And of course it had to be Sigorn. He stepped in like he owned the place, eyes flicking from the hug to Lyanna’s expression with way too much interest.

“We could tak’ yer car,” — He offered, voice low but steady. — “I’ll drive half, ye drive t’other half.”

“I don’t trust either of ye with me car,” — Lyanna said it flat, like the words were already done before she opened her mouth. No room for argument, no softness, just that familiar wall of cold, dry humor she put up when feelings got too close. Her eyes flicked sharp and hard, the kind that dared anyone to challenge her. — “We’ll tak’ the train. Four tickets. We should buy ’em now.”

Howland took a small step back, eyes wide like he’d just been hit with a surprise. His voice was soft, tinged with a mix of confusion and something almost hopeful, like maybe this was a chance he didn’t expect. — “Four?” —  Howland blinked, voice quiet, almost hesitant, like he was still wrapping his head around it.

“I’m invitin’ Rhaegar.” — Lyanna spoke it slow, like swallowing something bitter before letting it out. She didn’t want to put it out there, didn’t want to crack open the door on whatever this was, but hell, sometimes you gotta lay your cards flat and stop pretending. Her voice was low, steady, the kind that didn’t ask for approval, just stated fact. 

No room for argument, no second guessing. Silence. Thick enough to chew. Lyanna looked between them. Sigorn’s jaw tensed. Howland looked like he’d swallowed a bug. Lyanna’s eyes flicked sharply between the two of them, eyebrows knitting just the slightest bit, not quite a scowl, but close. Her mouth tightened, like she was holding back a smirk or maybe some kind of warning. 

The silence stretched heavy around her, her stare daring them to say something stupid. — “What?” — Her voice cut through the tension, flat, clipped, carrying that unmistakable edge of don’t test me .

“Ye takin’ Edward Cullen tae yer folks’ place?” — Sigorn said it with a sly grin, voice dripping with teasing disbelief, half mocking, half challenging. 

Like he was daring Lyanna to defend the madness of inviting a vampire to a family gathering. His tone was rough but playful, the kind that came from years of knowing how to needle people just enough to get a rise without crossing the line.

Lyanna wanted to light a cigarette just to survive this mess, because dealing with this lot was exhausting in a way that burned slow and steady, like a bad habit she couldn’t kick. — “Gods help ye, Sig, if Rhaegar hears ye say that, he’ll reckon it’s good enough reason tae kill ye on sight.”

And honestly? She might help him bury the body. Lyanna sat back in her chair, the cold bite of the office settling around her like a shroud. Sig and Howland were in for the trip — only one left to convince. Rhaegar. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him there. Didn’t want to admit it, anyway. When he showed up after sundown, instead of blurting out whatever nonsense she was thinking, she swallowed it down and waited for the right moment. She flicked on the CCTV footage from the morgue, eyes glued to the grainy screen. Then she felt it — him, leaning in close. His scent hit her like a dog marking territory, not in the stale office air but her personal space. Normally, she’d recoil, pull away sharp as a blade. But tonight? Something about the closeness — dare she admit it? — wasn't entirely unwelcome.

“Whatcha doin’?” — She asked, voice rough, eyes still locked on the flickering images.

Rhaegar’s gaze cut through the shadows, calm but teasing. — “You smell like death.”

She snorted, dry.  — “Figured I always did.”

He pretended to sniff like some ridiculous predator sizing up his prey. — “More pungent today.”

Lyanna shot him a sideways glance. —  “Next case’s at the morgue. But I dun see why ye’re actin’ like a cat in heat.”

“Decay’s a fine note in any perfume,” — He said, voice silky, words wrapping around her like smoke. —  “Ever wonder why food tastes better two or three days old?”

Without warning, his fingers tangled through her hair, gentle but deliberate. He settled beside her, angled to look down at the screen — and at her. It was the kind of move that could be electric, if she didn’t want to want to recoil. Sex was for strangers now, not people whose names she knew.

“’D be real nice if ye paid attention to what we’re workin’ on,” — She muttered, voice clipped.

He rose, but stayed close behind her, head leaning on her shoulder as the footage played on. She told him about the man in the mask — a boxer named Blane Sentel, king of his ring until they caught him betting on himself. But even as she spoke, she felt Rhaegar’s scent deepen into her skin, and she jabbed a finger at the screen, forcing his face around to watch.

“So, we are investigating Mister Sentel?” — He said, tone flat but sharp.

“Not exactly. We’re investigatin’ how he walked outta the morgue.” — Lyanna replied it with that sharp edge, half amused, half annoyed, like she was explaining something obvious to someone who should already know better. 

Rhaegar’s voice dropped to a quiet, almost conspiratorial tone, — “Necromancy. Dark magic, playing with the dead. Foul things.” — measured and precise, like a scholar reciting forbidden knowledge with a hint of disdain wrapped in dark fascination. 

“Just yer kinda then,” — She shot back.

Rhaegar’s voice slid out low, smooth as velvet but sharp as a blade’s edge, carrying the weight of a man who’s seen centuries fold like pages in a book. His eyes, dark and unreadable, flicked toward the flickering screen like a tactician spotting a hidden move on a chessboard. —  “Not quite,” — He murmured, the words deliberate, slow, each one settling into the room like smoke. —  “But I recognize somethin’... He’s wearin’ a jackal mask, like them funeral rites down in Asshai. Strange and old magic, shadowed in death’s own garb.” — His gaze sharpened, piercing through the dim light, searching for more. —  “What else you got?” — The question hung in the air, less a request, more a challenge, a call to piece together the dark puzzle only he seemed to see fully.

Lyanna’s jaw tightened. — “Apparently, the bloke that broke in knew the layout, door closest to the prep room. No prints. Bet it’s someone what works there.”

“So no leads, no suspects, no motive...”  — His voice was patient, like explaining something obvious to a child.

Lyanna said it like she was talking’ about some dodgy bookie, not a bloke who handled the dead for a livin’. Flat voice, eyes half-lidded, like none of it surprised her, and it didn’t. — “He’s in the funeral racket. I know someone else in that game.” —  People were always weirder around corpses than they were around the livin’.

Rhaegar didn’t reply, but she caught the flicker of interest in his eyes. They grabbed their shit and headed for the station. Grey wind on her face, the kind that bit through leather, and Lyanna already regretted not smoking on the walk. But whatever. She had other vices to lean on, and one of them was already walking next to her, too close, too warm, too observant. Mance was probably in. Night shift was his haunt, and if anyone could sniff out the weird rot clinging to the case, it’d be him. No shock when they found him there, half-eaten pastry in one hand, old jazz fuzzing from his office speaker like the ghost of a saxophone player had died screaming into it.

“Funeral ‘omes,” — She said without preamble. No pleasantries. — “Body went missin’.”

Mance blinked at her like she’d just asked about his shoe size, then grinned. Of course he knew the owner. Mance had a real Harold and Maude thing going — collected funerals the way other people collected stamps. Said it kept him grounded. When she suggested the owner might’ve helped his own client go missing, Mance snorted into his coffee.

“Lya,”  — He said, using that soft tone like she was still fifteen and hadn’t bled out in three separate alleys since. — “Aye, I take the supernatural as fact, love. Trick o’ the light don’t explain half the shite I’ve seen.”

Rhaegar, polite like a man who wasn’t planning five exits from the room at once, said, —  “Disgruntled employee, maybe?”

She didn’t even look up from her notepad.  — “Grunts take staplers. No corpses.”

Mance scratched his beard. — “It’s family-owned, family-run. Doesn’t feel like the angle you’re lookin’ for. Not unless one of the cousins started dabblin’ in necromancy between shifts.”

She shrugged and turned to leave, Rhaegar ghosting at her heels. — “Righ’,” — she said. — “Maybe Blane did it to ‘imself. Thanks, Mance.”

She was halfway through the door when Mance called after her. — “Tell yer bro thanks for the Yule card. Me and Val’re spending it with her folks.”

“I’ll tell ’im when I see ’im,” — She said without turning.

Then he added the kicker, —  “Ye’re goin’ home this year?”

Lyanna hesitated. Just enough to feel it. — “Tha’s the plan.”

“Well now. I believe in the supernatural, sure enough. And in Yule miracles. You headin’ home and not workin’? Sounds like one to me.” — Mance Rayder leaned back. His voice came slow and dry, with that trademark half-smile, like everything he said might be a joke, or maybe he was just waiting for you to get the punchline.

She didn’t answer. Just nodded, barely, and walked out like she hadn’t felt something twist sharp and stupid under her ribs. She didn’t look at Rhaegar as they stepped into the night. She didn’t ask what kind of ghosts he was dragging behind him — she could guess. Holidays probably hit like a blade for him. Five centuries of not being invited to dinner did things to a man, even the undead kind. She shouldn’t’ve said anything. They got into her car, windows fogged already, the silence taut.

“You’ve got a question,” — He said eventually, voice soft, deliberate.

She glanced at him. — “What?”

“I can feel your thoughts.” — Not smug. Just... knowing. Vampiric. —  “If you want to ask, ask.”

Of course he could. She could barely keep her soul locked in some days; no wonder he saw through the cracks. So she said it. Kinda. — “Me, Howl, and Sig... we’re goin’ to my folk’s Yule thing. It ain’t big. But... if ye’re not doin’ anything...”

He gave her a long look. — “It’s not my religion. I don’t commemorate other people’s holidays.”

“Wait, hold up. Ye’re tellin’ me ye’re religious?” — She didn’t mean to ask, it just slipped, like most things with her. Offhand, sharp-edged, flung out before she could catch it. Her voice carried that usual bite, half-sarcasm, half-serious, like she was bracing for the answer to punch. She didn’t do reverence. But something about the idea of Rhaegar; bloodsucking, black-coat, death-scented Rhaegar; lighting candles for gods made her blink.

“I was raised in the Seven,” — Rhaegar said it quiet, like he wasn’t proud and wasn’t ashamed either, just telling the truth the way you'd name a scar. His voice had that smooth, measured calm he used when things cut deeper than he let on. No drama. Just dark honesty, dressed in silk. — “Now I fluctuate between agnostic and atheist. Depends on the day and how recently I’ve killed someone.”

“Righ’,” — She muttered.  — “Makes bloody sense.”

He tilted his head. — “Was that your way of inviting me?” — He said it low, like he was testing the air, half a question, half a challenge, eyes sharp but soft enough to catch her off guard.

“If ye feel like it,” — She said, voice low, deflecting again.

“You disappoint in the invitation department, Lyanna.” — Rhaegar’s voice dipped in that dry sarcasm, like he was half-teasing, half-accusing. But Lyanna caught the weight beneath it, the truth she didn’t want to admit: she hated asking for company ‘cause it meant she actually cared .

Lyanna muttered it under her breath, eyes fixed on the slick, snow-covered road ahead. The city was already buried in white, quiet and cold, just like her mood. Her voice was low, rough-edged, the kind of sharp dismissal that barely masked the stubborn ache beneath. — “Oh, piss off.”

“I’m not asking for flowers...”— He said it with a half-smirk, voice low and a little rough, like he was mocking the whole idea but secretly daring her to call his bluff. There was that flicker in his eyes, part challenge, part something almost like hope, before he hid it behind a mask of casual cool.

She rolled her eyes, shifted in her seat, gave him the closest thing to a real answer she could muster without spontaneously combusting.

“Righ’ then. Will ye come tae me brother’s Yule party? ’ll be a bit less daft wi’ ye there…” — Lyanna cut him off mid-sentence, the words tumbling out like a dam finally giving way, fast, messy, and raw. 

Her voice cracked just a little, sharper than she meant, like she was trying to shove down a weight sitting heavy in her chest. Her eyes flicked away, fixing on some distant shadow, but the confession was out there, loud and awkward, all bundled up in that half-joke, half-hope. And he smiled — one of those rare ones that didn’t feel like it belonged on a predator’s face.

“Very happy… It will be my utmost pleasure.” — Rhaegar said it with a cool, measured calm that barely masked the small, genuine warmth beneath, like he was offering a rare, quiet gift wrapped in old restraint. His voice was steady, polite, but there was an edge of sincerity that caught the silence between them, softening the hard edges of the night.

Lyanna’s jaw tightened, her eyes flicking to the dull glow of the screen, the cold weight of the room settling like a shroud around her. She wasn’t done,no way she was letting this slip into some soft pity party. —  “Right, not done yet. Can we… Please… Get back to work before I start wishin’ I was anywhere else?”

Rhaegar’s voice came smooth, low, with a hint of something like amused approval. — “Your professionalism, that’s one of the few things I actually like about you.”

She snorted, the sound dry and quick like a cigarette drag. — “A’right, say we go with anoth’r theory… Maybe Blane Sentel did it hisself. Liver failur’ got ‘im spooked, so he hired a necromancer to bring ‘im back.”

Rhaegar’s tone shifted, a shadow of disdain flickering in his words. —  “For the record, he’s probably a reanimation. I’m resurrected.”

Lyanna raised an eyebrow, the edge in her voice cutting through the silence like a blade. — “Difference is?”

He didn’t hide his distaste for magic, especially the dark stuff. — “I’m not only walking because some necromancer pulled strings.  He probably has no freedom, no real life. If he had the slightest chance of it, he’d be with the people he’d care about. I keep my personality. My wit.”

She smirked, sarcastic but not cruel. —  “Don’ forget the humility, aye.”

Rhaegar’s glance was quick, almost a challenge. — “We could talk to his wife, too.”

Lyanna shot back, voice sharp as broken glass, —  “Ye mean I talk to her.” —  The words were a shield and a dare, the kind you throw out when you don’t want to mean it but have no choice.

Lyanna went to the woman’s house the next day, while Rhaegar was probably dead to the world when she went — curled up like some powdered widow in velvet pyjamas, dreaming in that coffin of his. She pictured him with curlers under a satin sleep bonnet like Doña Florinda, and the mental image nearly made her smile. Nearly. Meanwhile, she had real shit to do. The wife — Anna — lived in the kind of suburb where the houses all looked like they were holding their breath. Too neat, too nervous. Anna was already packing. Moving out, she said. Couldn’t afford to stay. Nurse’s salary didn’t stretch far, not after the bills, not after death.

“He didn’t have life insurance.” —  Lyanna asked.

Anna snorted. — “Yer jokin’, right? Blane couldn’t even handle a bloody shopping list without goin’ overdrawn. Thirty-six, actin’ like his life were already packed up in a box. Last few years he just… played pretend, like he still had summat goin’ on.”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. She’d seen grief come out meaner. After the league spat him out, Blane had apparently been working as a bar host at The Dome down by the Bay. Free booze and neon shame. Anna packed up a box with more bitterness than bubble wrap.

“It were pathetic,” — She muttered, shoving a stack of bills in a half-broke suitcase. — “I told him, open a gym, train some kids. But no. Gave up. Just… let it rot. And now yer here talkin’ like someone’d want to nick his corpse? Give o’er.”

“I’m just lookin’ for anyone who might’ve taken it too hard,” — Lyanna said, watching Anna’s hands shake as she closed a drawer. — “Family. Mates. Folk with some unfinished business.”

Anna’s laugh was dry. — “He were an orphan, love. Didn’t have no one but me. And by the end?” —  Her voice cracked, just once. —  “Even that felt like charity work. Look, if ye ain’t gonna find him, just say it. Don’t string me along. I’m knackered. Broke. I’ve got nowt left, and it all hurts.”

“I’ll do me best,” — Lyanna muttered. She didn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ . That sort of thing stuck in her throat like glass.

The drive back was hell. Snowfall turned every moron into a menace. White flurries, red brake lights, and black moods. She sat stuck behind six different shades of incompetence, fingers twitching on the steering wheel, thoughts racing the way they always did when she wasn’t actively holding them down. So she called Sig. She needed something grounded. Something to focus on besides the tight ache in her chest she wouldn’t name.

He picked up on the second ring. — “‘Ey… Changed yer though about goin’?”

“Goin’ where?” — She asked, not because she didn’t know, she did, but because naming it made it real. And real things had weight. Real things got under your skin. Eyes on the road, she didn’t look at the phone, didn’t need to. 

“Yer brother’s Yule. Had yer excuses lined up already, didn’t ye?” — Sigorn said it with the kind of long-suffering tone that only came from knowing Lyanna too well and knowing exactly how this conversation was going to go before it even started. 

His voice crackled through the speaker like the static off an old vinyl, casual but edged with dry humour and defeat, like he was bracing for a snowstorm with a paper umbrella. Meanwhile, Lyanna popped the glovebox open without looking, fingers sliding over old receipts and half-used bullets until she found the familiar pack of Grzeski bars she kept there like emergency rations. She bit into one with the focus of someone chewing through both chocolate and regret, traffic frozen like purgatory all around her. Sig's voice kept drifting in, soft but biting — like wind that slipped under your coat collar no matter how tight you pulled it shut.

Lyanna rolled her eyes. —  “Nah, Sig. I’m ringin’ ‘bout a case.”

Sig said it with a sigh, dragging the words like he already knew he’d regret asking, voice rough, half-bored, half-bracing for whatever weirdness was coming. — “Which case, then?”

Lyanna responded it low, like she was tossing the name out to see if it still meant anything. Her voice was steady, but there was a grit to it, half-daring him to laugh, half-hoping he wouldn’t. One hand on the wheel, the other fishing for the cigarette she wasn’t supposed to light. — “You remember Blane Sentel?” — She asked, like the name had teeth.

Sig scratched at his jaw like the memory was stuck somewhere behind his ear. His voice stretched out, squinting through foggy recall, casual, teasing, like he was flipping through a mental yearbook he hadn’t opened in years. — “Theee... Boxer, right? Big lad, chip on his shoulder, bit of a looker if I’m honest?”

Lyanna didn’t bother dressing it up, no sugar, no fluff. Her tone was dry, clipped, the kind of voice you used when reality had already gone sideways and you were just trying to keep the wheel steady. She leaned back in her seat, eyes on the road, snow pelting the windshield like it was trying to start a fight. — “That one. So… his corpse got stolen. Actually, walked outta the morgue. On its own two bloody feet.”

Pause. Then, —  “You jokin’ me?” — Sig's voice dropped into that classic disbelief mixed with a bit of you’ve gotta be joking vibe, like the kind of reaction you'd get when something so ridiculous it’s almost funny lands right in your lap. He shook his head, chuckling low.

Lyanna popped a sweet into her mouth, the sugar sharp against the cold bite of her words. Her eyes didn’t leave the flickering screen in front of her, but her voice was casual, like she was telling some grim joke only she found funny. A slight smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, half disbelief, half dark amusement. — “Nope. CCTV caught it clear. He just got up and left with a necromancer. Like he’d clocked out for the day.”

Sigorn’s tone was half-laugh, half-exasperated, like he couldn’t decide if Lyanna was messing with him or genuinely lost her mind. His voice dipped into that easy, dry drawl he used when something was just too ridiculous to take seriously, but he wasn’t about to let it slide completely. — “So ye’re actually askin’ me about zombies?”

“They’re nae zombies, Sig. Ah’m tryin’ tae see if ye ken o’ any ither bodies gone missin’. Same build, same kinda work. Anythin’ odd.” — Lyanna spoke it with a sharp edge, eyes flickering to the road but her voice steady and clipped, like she was used to dealing with nonsense but didn’t have time for it. There was that low, dry bite in her tone, the kind that said she wasn’t joking but also didn’t expect much help. 

“Ye reckon I’ve got a corpse radar? Give ower, Lya.” — Sigorn said it with a half-laugh, voice rough around the edges like he was used to her wild ideas but wasn’t about to play along just yet. There was a tired shake in his tone, like the day had already chewed him up and spit him out, and this nonsense about tracking dead bodies was just the cherry on top. 

“I mean, yer a cop, so yeh should. But could be grave robbers, then. Body snatchers. Yer tellin’ me no one’s flagged nowt odd?” — Lyanna said it flat, like she was stating facts no one wanted to admit. There was a slight sharpness in how she hit ‘grave robbers’ and ‘body snatchers’ , like naming monsters in a dark alley. She didn’t ask, more like dared Sigorn to say no.

“I sort why folks end up in the ground,” — He grumbled. — “Not how they go walkin’ out of it.”

Lyanna grabbed her messenger bag off the seat, the half-eaten sweet still stuck to the console like some forgotten offering. She fished out a pack of cigarettes and Rhaegar’s lighter — the one she kept hidden from herself more than anyone else. She wasn’t meant to be smoking in the car, but screw it. She cracked the window just enough for the cold to sneak in, a sharp slap against her cheek that cut through the stale cabin air. Her puffer jacket lay folded under the bag, useless for now, shoved onto the passenger seat. Her phone sat under the glass, the frost creeping like a slow poison across the windshield. She was wrapped in winter’s weight, but it didn’t warm much. The chunky, oversized black V-neck sweater — Gran’s last gift — swallowed her thin frame, its knit rough against her skin. Beneath that, a navy button-up with pinstripes, stiff and neat like the lie she told the world. Her high-waisted, dark khaki trousers hung loose, pleated and relaxed, trying to pretend they weren’t just another layer of armor. Boots on, scuffed and worn, like everything else she carried.

“I’ll say it again, Sig,” — She snapped. Lyanna —  “ A man’s body got nicked. An’ no one’s made a fuss. That’s a proper problem.”

“That makes it a major crimes job,” — He said, gruff as ever. — “Got five open cases already. Wanna get ’em sorted before Yule, ta very much. But alright, if owt comes up, I’ll hit ye up”

“Cheers, Britney Spears,” — She muttered, and hung up.

The snow kept falling. The silence stretched. Lyanna sat there with the ghost of her own reflection in the windshield, smoke curling up like fingers she didn’t want to think about. Somewhere out there, a dead man was walking. And she had a feeling this one wouldn’t be the last. The door stuck on the frame again, like it always did when the weather turned — swollen wood or bad karma, she wasn’t sure which. Lyanna shoulder-checked it open with the kind of irritation that had nothing to do with doors and everything to do with living. Her apartment was dim, the hallway light flickering like it owed her money. Howland was already there, legs tucked under himself on the couch like some overgrown housecat who’d crawled in from a library instead of a gutter. Finals were done, and judging by the faint grin on his face, he hadn’t completely botched them. Small mercies. He looked up, eager. Too eager.

“Found somethin’,” — He said, holding out a heavy old book like a toddler offering up a dead bird. Of course he had. She took it, squinting. The blur of text danced at the edges of her vision, annoying and familiar. She didn’t let it show. Not here. Not with him. — “It's 'bout the mask,” — He said, like that were meant t’ clear it all up. — “Y’ken, the one from the morgue.”

Right. The Asshai funeral mask. The one Rhaegar had mentioned. Apparently, it wasn’t just decorative horror — it was holy. A relic from some grim corner of neo-Valyrian mythology. The god behind the mask had a jackal’s face — or maybe a wild dog’s, depending on the translation — and a résumé straight outta nightmares: embalmer, death-walker, soul-wrangler, tomb-watcher, and judge in the black court of Balerion. A real cheery bloke, then. Lyanna lowered the book, the weight of it sinking into her lap like a fresh corpse. Of course it was connected to death. Of course it was from a forgotten cult that played funeral dirges while the rest of the world marched on. That was how this job worked. You turned over a stone and didn’t get bugs — you got myth. You got rot that spoke in tongues and wore your dead lover’s smile.

She reached for the cigarette she hadn’t lit yet and muttered, — “Brilliant. So now I’m chasin’ after folk who worship some bloody dog-faced god all o’er the city. Grand.”

Howland blinked at her. She gave him a half-smirk, too tired to explain the joke. Too haunted to admit it wasn’t one. — “An Asshaian necromancer,” — Howland had said, deadpan, like he was naming a new band and not digging up ancient horrors over coffee.

Lyanna stared at the book like it had personally insulted her. — “Seven fuckin’ hells. I love me job,” — She muttered, dry as ash.

Howland had finals behind him and friends waiting to get black-out on bad vodka and regret. She waved him off with a grunt and lingered. She didn’t do parties. She did late-night hauntings and caffeine abuse. She brewed a double-buried coffee — ran it once, then poured the sludge back into the machine’s water tank and brewed it again. Pure dirt and adrenaline. She slumped on the sofa in her usual goblin-lair glory: oversized black V-neck jumper, pinstripe shirt underneath, khaki trousers wrinkled from the day, boots still on. Her puffer jacket was somewhere, probably being crushed under the weight of her shit decisions in the passenger seat. Unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth, she flicked Rhaegar’s stolen lighter open and closed, open and closed. She’d meant to give it back. She hadn’t.

The book was thick and older than her but younger than him — leather-bound, heavy, serious in that ‘academia plus unholy dread’ kind of way. Funerary Rituals and Resurrection Myths of Asshai, compiled by Kinvara, the Red. Nothing subtle about that title. University-issue. Footnotes everywhere. But bless her bloody soul, Kinvara had included pictures. Lyanna squinted at the resurrection chapter, light dim, her vision a little fuzzier than usual — not that she’d admit that. And then she felt it: the air in the flat shifted. Got heavier, like it always did right before something dead walked in. Or, in this case, undead.

She didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. Cold silence, a familiar gravity. The scent, earthy, iron-rich, old leather and old blood. Rhaegar. — “Could knock, y'know. Bit o’ politeness wouldn’t kill ye for good,” — She said, lighter still in hand.

“You could call,” — He replied, voice smug and smooth and infuriatingly close behind her.

“You’re five bloody centuries old, love. Little late t’be actin’ clingy, don’t you think? I’m busy.” — Lyanna said it without looking up, voice flat as a slate and twice as cold. No heat, no effort, just that sharp, bone-dry tone she kept for people who got too close. The cigarette hanging off her lip didn’t so much as twitch.

He circled her like smoke. — “You’re usually busy with me . Was my complete disregard for Mister Sentel’s postmortem wandering too much?”

She finally pulled her eyes off the page. — “Aye, it’s not that simple, is it.”

“It never is,” — He said, gaze flicking to the open book. — “You’re chasing a corpse. While his soul’s at peace.”

“Not so sure o’ that, pal.” — She muttered.

She slid the book toward him, let him see it for himself. The cover cracked when it moved, like a whisper from something that should stay buried. — “Asshaian death rites ‘n resurrection,” — She muttered. — “Put together by Kinvara the Red, that one.”

Rhaegar scoffed sarcastically, dry and theatrical. — “Sounds thrilling.”

“It’s uni-text, all jargon and bollocks. But whoever scribbled it had the decency to chuck in some diagrams. Gods bless her pedantic ‘eart.” — Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, voice low and a bit rough from too many late nights and too much smoke. Her eyes half-lidded, flickering between the book and Rhaegar like she was weighing whether to roll her eyes or smirk.

He settled beside her with the quiet ease of someone used to slipping into rooms unnoticed. His voice was calm but carried a hint of impatience, like a cat waiting for the mouse to show itself. He glanced over her shoulder, eyes sharp beneath heavy lids, tone low and measured, curious but not overly hopeful. It was the kind of question that sounded casual but cut straight to the point, the weight of unspoken urgency threading through the simple words, — “Anything useful?”

“Well.” — She leaned back, ran her fingers through her hair, and squinted down at the section again. — “Looks like the Asshai don’t reckon the soul’s one big lump like the Valyrians. Nah, they say it splits, into nine bits...”

He spoke before she finished. Of course he did. — “Khat is the body. Ba, the soul. Ren is the true name. Ka, the vital spark. Shuyet is the shadow. Jeb, the heart. Akh is the immortal self. Sahu is the spiritual judge. Sechem, the force of will. Eight of ‘em go on to the afterlife. The Khat… Is just… meat left behind.” — Rhaegar said it slow and steady, like he was reciting a lesson he’d learned long ago but still found worth repeating, each word deliberate, weighty, like naming ghosts in a dark room.

Lyanna blinked. Then closed the book with a loud thunk. — “Are ye shittin’ me? Ye ken all this? Sat on it, while I was here, readin’ footnotes like some daft student crammin’ for demon finals?” — She said it with a sharp edge, half disbelief, half pissed off. Her eyes flicked up from the book, voice low but biting, like she’d been carrying a load of weight no one else bothered to share. 

“If you’d called, you’d know,” — He said, not smug, just Rhaegar.

She growled. —  “Gods, ye’re worse than me clingiest exes put together.”

He grinned. And she hated — hated — that she didn’t hate the way that felt. If any other lad dared smirk at her like that, she’d’ve clocked him square in the jaw, no hesitation. But apparently, if you were five centuries deep in undeath and looked like you stepped out of a cursed perfume ad, you got a pass. The corpse prince grinned, all smug and pretty, and she just—let it slide. That pissed her off more than anything. She didn’t look at him. Just dropped her gaze back to the book like it hadn’t felt like he’d peeled her open with a glance.

“The bit that matters for us,” — She muttered, dragging a finger down the brittle paper, — “is Ba…The soul. And Khat…The body. These resurrection rites say they’d drag the soul back inta the flesh. That’s why they wrapped ’em up all nice, so the daft sods could clock their own carcasses when they came back.”

Rhaegar didn’t move. Didn’t need to. His voice landed beside her like a ghost with opinions. — “And what’s that got to do with our little funeral escapee?”

“Dunno yet,” — She said, jaw tight. — “Maybe resurrection’s how they pulled it off. Maybe someone knew the rites. But we’re still missin’ a who. And a bloody why.”—  Which was the part that gnawed at her like rot under a dressing.

“Still betting on the bitter employee angle,” — Rhaegar said lightly, like he hadn’t just described the entire workforce of the damn city.

She snorted, but it didn’t reach her eyes. — “I could get me hands on a list. Dig through folk who might’ve held a grudge, aye.”

***

There came a moment — usually after the third century of life — when one had to admit to oneself, with some grace, that one was getting clingy. Rhaegar arrived at Lyanna’s office the moment the sun dipped below the rooftops, surrendering the city to winter shadows. She was supposed to be at the funeral home by then, charming a list out of the employee books. In theory, he had no reason to check on her. In practice, she was half-blind, chronically reckless, and driving after dark on roads that looked more like glass than asphalt. So yes — he’d shown up, without being called for again. Not because he was worried, of course. Just… verifying logistics. The office still reeked of old coffee, incense, and rust — Lyanna’s trifecta. Howland sat hunched at his desk, scratching out some fever-dream sketch of a jackal-headed god on printer paper. The boy was wearing another one of his increasingly theatrical scarves, this one a shimmering green-gold monstrosity Rhaegar chose not to comment on. He appreciated flair, in moderation. The lad had heart. Possibly too much of it.

Still, Lyanna hadn’t come back yet. And he, against his better judgment, imagined her eyes squinting through the snow-glare, a flickering dashboard light she wouldn’t admit she couldn’t see, some half-busted radio murmuring a static hymn as she veered too sharp on an icy curve. The thought irritated him — mostly because it was so human. He was halfway through regretting suggesting to her chasing the employee angle when the front door creaked open. For a fraction of a second — long enough to make him despise himself — he stepped out of her office and into the entryway like a dog catching its master’s scent. But of course, it wasn’t her. It never was, when he wanted it to be. No, fate — petty bitch that she was — had sent someone else entirely. Sigorn Magnar. Detective. Hammer of moral superiority. Slayer of joy. And, regrettably, someone who still got invited in.

Rhaegar had never expected not to see him again. That would’ve been naïve. The man came stapled to Lyanna’s history like smoke to a house fire. Still, seeing him again — coat collar high, expression carved from the usual mix of frostbite and righteous indigestion — made Rhaegar’s lip twitch in something dangerously close to a snarl. That scowl. That stormcloud jaw. That quiet, gnawing reminder that Rhaegar still hadn’t forgiven him. He knew why Sigorn did it. The giving him over to Daeron. Whatever version of ‘I had to protect her from you’ the man had whispered to himself while holding the figurative stake to Rhaegar’s throat. And yes, he’d helped defeat Daeron in the and. And yes, Rhaegar had fed on him to recover, to survive. But grudge was a flavor Rhaegar had grown to savor. He aged into it. Wore it like a tailored coat. And he hadn’t quite taken this one off.

“Didn’t reckon you’d be here.” — The words came low, rough as gravel and twice as cold, wrapped in that clipped drawl Sigorn never bothered to smooth out, not for civility, not for vampires, and certainly not for Rhaegar.

It wasn’t surprise in his tone. Not really. More like the verbal shrug of a man who’d hoped to avoid this exact encounter but refused to flinch when it landed in his lap. Rhaegar could taste the unspoken tension behind it. Not guilt — Sigorn wasn’t the apologizing sort. But calculation, maybe. And something stubborn underneath, coiled tight and ready to spark. That tone men used when they came prepared for a fight but still prayed they wouldn’t have to swing. Typical. Speak like a man who didn’t care. Stare like one who cared too much.

Rhaegar didn’t bother not starring. He let the silence stretch, savoring the unease it wrapped around the room like smoke. — “And yet, here I am. And so are you, Detective .” — When he finally spoke, his voice was cool, velvet-laced steel, the kind of tone that didn’t raise itself but still cut deep. He turned just enough to meet Sigorn’s gaze, eyes steady, unreadable.

No heat. No smile. Just the smallest tilt of his head, like a chess player watching a familiar piece slide back onto the board. Polite on the surface. Precision underneath. A reminder dressed as a greeting — that he hadn’t forgotten, hadn’t forgiven, and hadn’t, despite the centuries, lost his taste for a well-timed grudge. He let the word “ Detective ” linger a beat too long. A title, yes. But also a verdict.

The words came out rough-edged, clipped, — “Is Ly 'ere?’ — like Sigorn hadn’t meant to ask but couldn’t help himself. He didn’t say her full name, of course. Just Ly. Like he had some long-standing claim to familiarity Rhaegar hadn’t signed off on.

His voice carried that low Northern drawl, softened by the city but not erased, Lyanna and him shared that. It always made everything he said sound either sincere or like a warning. Possibly both. Rhaegar noted — with a shade too much interest — how the man’s eyes flicked toward the office door, not him. Like Rhaegar was a piece of furniture he had to address out of manners, not importance. Typical. The Detective had the posture of someone trying to stay neutral, but his shoulders betrayed it — too stiff. Guarded. Is Ly 'ere? Not Miss Stark. Not Lyanna. Just Ly. Rhaegar didn’t roll his eyes. But he wanted to. Centuries alive, and men were still such predictable animals.

“Not yet. She’s gathering intel.” —  He said it too smug. Too defensively. Like it wasn’t eating at him. Like he hadn’t checked the time three times since stepping through the door.

Like he hadn’t counted the steps from the hallway to her desk, scanned the snow-wet streets through the blinds, or quietly catalogued every passing car that wasn’t hers. He wore patience like a tailored coat — clean lines, smooth buttons, hiding the mess underneath. The words slid off his tongue with practiced detachment, all crisp consonants and unbothered air, the kind of tone people mistook for confidence. It wasn’t confidence. It was armor. A flick of irony ghosted his mouth after he said it — just enough to suggest he found Sigorn’s presence laughable, or perhaps beneath engagement. But the truth was colder. Quieter. She wasn’t back yet. And that meant something could’ve happened. And Rhaegar hated how that made him feel. So instead, he defaulted to posture. Smug. Smooth. As if he hadn’t walked into her office already playing out three possible routes to the morgue if she didn’t return in an hour. He hated waiting. He hated caring even more. But here he was. And so was the Detective. And she wasn’t.

“Reet…” — Sigorn muttered, clipped and cautious, like he’d rather be chewing glass than standing here talking to him. The word sat heavy between them, not agreement, not understanding, just a placeholder. 

Something to fill the silence while he pretended he wasn’t sizing Rhaegar up like a wolf staring down something it didn’t trust but couldn’t quite leave alone. They stood in that grotesque silence men carved when neither wanted to apologize and both wanted to punch something. Rhaegar didn’t expect remorse. Sigorn wasn’t wired for it. He acted, then justified. Especially when Lyanna was involved. Especially when Rhaegar was involved with Lyanna. The detective looked exactly how Rhaegar remembered, haunted in the heroic way, weathered by choices he wouldn’t take back even if he should.

Rhaegar let the words drip slow and cold, like blood from a silver blade. Elegant, pointed, deliberate. — “So what did you come here for? Planning to confess something? Share a revelation? Another noble knife to the back?” 

It wasn’t a question. It was theatre — the kind he’d perfected over five hundred years. A little too casual, a little too smooth. His voice was velvet over iron, calm in pitch but coiled with implication. He didn’t raise it. He didn’t need to. Men like him rarely did. The gravity came from the weight behind the words — history, betrayal, centuries of knowing exactly how to make someone squirm without lifting a fang. His eyes didn’t flinch, but they did glint — just a little — when he said another noble knife to the back . That part wasn’t just for Sigorn. That part was personal. Old wounds, still aching. And still unhealed.Because Rhaegar never forgot a betrayal. He just waited until the silence bit back.

“M’here to talk to her.”—  Sigorn said it low, jaw tight, the way Northerners did when they wanted to sound casual but couldn't quite smother the tension behind it. The vowels flattened, clipped like a man used to swallowing what he didn’t want to feel.

Of course he would. Cowardice masquerading as courtesy. Rhaegar clocked it instantly — the way the detective wouldn’t meet his eyes, the way he shifted his weight like he was resisting the urge to pace. He delivered the line with all the stiffness of someone who knew he was walking into enemy territory and doing it anyway. Brave? Perhaps. Stupid? Certainly. To Rhaegar, it wasn’t the words that mattered — it was the unsaid ones. The ones the man had clearly rehearsed and still hadn’t gotten around to spitting out. He arched a brow, not out of surprise, but out of tired familiarity. Of course Sigorn was here for her. Everyone came for Lyanna, eventually. They just rarely stayed. And most of them left teeth marks. And then — like a poorly scripted miracle — the door opened again. She stepped in like a slow storm: cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth, coat dripping sleet, hair windblown and damp. There was paper in her hand, likely crumpled, possibly bloodstained. She hadn’t bothered with a hello, just glanced at them both like she was debating which of them she’d rather shove off a bridge.

“Ey, Sig. What’re ye doin’ ‘ere?” — Her voice was flat, scratchy, vaguely amused, like she’d walked in on two dogs fighting over a bone she didn’t remember burying.

“Got summat I need t’tell ye. But go on what’ve you got?” — He said it while glancing back and forth between them; between Lyanna with the cigarette smouldering at her lip and the paper in her hand, and Rhaegar, whose presence was clearly not part of the plan. 

To Rhaegar’s ears, it sounded like a man trying too hard to sound casual. Like the question was just filler for the real thing simmering beneath it. — “List. Funeral home lot. Owner weren’t in, but his freaky wee lad handed this over. Might be summat. Might be bollocks.”

She handed it off like it was nothing, but Rhaegar could see the tension in her shoulders — the ache she carried when she thought no one was looking. He wondered, not for the first time, how long she’d keep pretending she could see clearly. How long he’d keep pretending he didn’t care. He turned the page in his hand, already scanning for the name that would break something open. He handed the list to Howland without ceremony — because Howland had steadier hands, keener eyes, and a way of seeing things Rhaegar could only approximate through centuries of experience and an increasingly cynical gut instinct. Because anything was better than admitting the ridiculous truth: that the sight of Lyanna safe, smoke curling from her mouth like punctuation, had unclenched something in his chest.

Something warm. Something alive. Something terribly inconvenient. They moved into her office, the three of them forming a makeshift tribunal around her desk. Howland was already scanning the paper, pen twitching like a divining rod. Sigorn took the seat beside Rhaegar — too close for comfort, too far for a fight. And Lyanna sat opposite, leaning back like the queen of her own crime scene. Sigorn began. Curt, Northern, straight into it. Another body had turned up — a fighter, same as Blane Sentel. Officially, the man had died four months prior of an aneurysm. Unofficially, he’d been exhumed from a grave last week looking like someone had gone at him with a crowbar. Only the bruises bloomed post-mortem. Lovely.

But that wasn’t all. Sigorn had been investigating the death with Mance — initially nothing to suggest foul play. Then Mance, diligent bastard that he was, had pulled the tox screen from Sentel’s corpse. Laced with enough paracetamol to turn a liver into mulch. Any competent pathologist should’ve caught it. None had. Either oversight or design. Rhaegar’s eyes narrowed. His brain filed it under both. Sigorn had spoken to Sentel’s wife. Bitter, but not a murderer — at least not the poetic kind. But Mance had found something else, something worse, lodged in the throat of the second corpse: a shard of stone carved with Ashaiian runes. Old magic. The kind you don’t stumble on unless you’re looking. Resurrection. Binding. Soul-theft. Sigorn slid a photo of the stone across the table. Rhaegar looked at it, then looked at her. Lyanna was already reaching for the book — the one from yesterday, the one with brittle pages and worse implications. Her fingers moved through it like she'd memorized the weight of its secrets. When she found the page, she laid it flat between them.

“That’s the askin’ rite. For a soul.” — She said. —  Her voice was steady. Not bored, not afraid. Just… cold. Clinical. Like she was describing a map of someone else’s trauma.

Rhaegar stared at the photo of the stone again, lips parting before he realized he was already reading out loud, — “River Cordoza.”

Sigorn looked up, startled. — “Name o’ the other bloke. The fighter.”

Rhaegar nodded once. — “It’s carved on the stone. His true name. That’s what summoned his soul.”

Howland blinked.  — “You ken read Highglyphs, then?”

Rhaegar didn’t bother hiding his smirk. —  “It’s a hobby.”

He could feel Lyanna watching him. Not just with her eyes — one of which was going, he was sure of it — but with that banshee sense of hers. That pressure behind the ribs. That knowing. She pointed to the image in the book, tapping the fragmented diagram.

“Why’d they snap the bloody tablet in half?” — She muttered. — “We’ve just got this bit, don’t we?”

Rhaegar traced the break with his gaze. — “Hard to say. Could be ritual. Could be insurance. But the magic being used... it's documented,” — He said, eyes on the page but mind miles deeper. — “Whoever had this book last may have known exactly what they were doing. There aren't any Asshaian necromancers in this city that I know of. Someone might’ve used this to learn the magic… And then put it in practice.” — He turned to Howland. — “Where did you find this again?”

“Campus library,” — He muttered, scratching the back of his neck, because of course that’s where he’d found a book on necromantic soul magic. Just another Tuesday for Howland Reed.

Of course. — “Then we go after the borrower before you,” — Rhaegar said. — “Track them down. If they’ve used this kind of spell before, they may be trying again.”

Lyanna gave a low whistle and leaned back, boots thunking softly under the desk. — “That’s actually a good idea.”

Rhaegar didn’t say thank you. Didn’t smile. But her approval tasted better than blood. The campus library was closing, of course. Civilization had clocks. Curiosity didn’t. But a smile from Howland — bright-eyed, unimposing, academically endearing — and a badge flash from Detective Magnar were enough to part bureaucratic seas. Rhaegar, standing just behind them, said nothing. He didn’t need to. His presence alone carried the chill of inevitability, the unspoken suggestion that time would bend for them. Or else. They combed through the list of prior borrowers — names scribbled into databases by the dead-eyed. He watched Howland trace his finger across the screen like a child reading a fairy tale, hopeful for monsters. And, as always, the world obliged.

“This lad,” — Sigorn muttered, tapping the name: William Carmicall. His Northern burr softened the consonants, made them sound almost human. — “Barman I talked to. Down at th’ Dome, pub where Sentel worked.”

“Could pay ’im a visit,” — Howland said, voice calm as dusk. —  “Still got his address on file, looks like.”

Naturally it was. Humans left traces. Blood and digital footprints. It was only the old things — souls, secrets, sins — that knew how to disappear. They split up. Howland and Sigorn would trail the bartender’s waking hours. Rhaegar and Lyanna would see what lived in his shadow. They drove to his apartment. Lyanna picked the lock. Not for the first time, Rhaegar found something uncomfortably beautiful about the way she moved — a banshee in black denim, flashlight in one hand, brass knuckles on the other. Not a trace of ceremony. She didn’t perform fear. Didn’t bother with grace. She just did what needed doing. It was vulgar. It was magnetic. The apartment was a shrine to adolescent decay. The scent hit him first: Doritos. Processed cheese. Sweat. Shame. He wrinkled his nose with a disdain too practiced to be real and lit a cigarette, as if his lungs could still rebel.

They moved through the wreckage in silence. Her with her torch, him with his fangs — subtle, of course. He didn’t need them. But the tension sang in his jaw, electric and wrong. Something was here. No, someone. They had just stepped into the excuse for a living room when he caught the scent. Old blood, sick with death and something else. Something... borrowed. He grabbed Lyanna by the shoulder and pulled her aside just as the wall burst open. Not collapsed. Burst. A figure — no, a puppet wrapped in skin—launched itself from the shadows, snarling. Its flesh was bloated, pale. Eyes black-rimmed and burning red. It smelled of grave soil and something alchemical. Something twisted.

“What th’... Oh gods, that’s Sentel!” — Lyanna gasped.

And gods help him, she sounded almost impressed. The corpse moved. Twitched. Croaked. — “Let me go…”—  it begged, voice like water in a rusted pipe.

“Shite. ‘E can talk.” — Lyanna muttered.

“Oh, I’d wager he can do far more than that,” — Rhaegar said. Too calm. Too amused. His fingers were already curled into fists, ready for the worst.

But Sentel didn’t attack again. He turned — erratic, desperate — and leapt straight through a second-story window like a bat out of biblical hell. Shards exploded outward; the night swallowed him. Rhaegar ran to the fire escape, scenting the air. Gone. Too fast. Too far. Whoever had puppeteered that man knew how to hide their tracks. He returned to the wreck of an apartment. Lyanna had already overturned the trash, of course. She was elbow-deep in paper, fast food wrappers, and worse. And yet somehow — disgustingly — she made it look like police work. She held up something half-crumpled. A flyer. Glossy. Bold red text across the front.

“It’s dated for today…” — She said. He took it from her, scanning the ink. The words practically screamed. 

NECRODRONE.

Underground Arena Fights – Reanimated Division.

Tonight, 11:00 pm. Sentel vs. Miraz. 

The Old Fishwharf. 

Of course. Theater again. — “A resurrection match,” — He said. His mouth curled, not quite a smile. Not quite disdain. 

She just stared at it. Then him. Then back again. And in the silence between them, he felt it — something old and dangerous stirring in his chest. Not hunger. Something worse. Something like... hope.

***

They’d fed Sigorn the tip-off — where the fight was going down tonight. Just in time to catch the bastards red-handed if they moved quick. Lyanna and Rhaegar hit the stairs, her fingers itching for the keys when a hand clamped on her wrist. 

Rhaegar, cool as ever but something tight in his eyes, — “I think I better drive.”

She blinked, like she’d heard wrong. —  “Are ya havin’ a laugh?”

Rhaegar’s voice was low, steady,calm enough to be almost gentle, but there was steel beneath it. His grip on her wrist didn’t hurt, but it was firm, like a silent order. — “No.”

Lyanna snorted, half-ready to deck him right there. — “If yer too scared to ride with me…”

Rhaegar responded it low, too controlled for the tremor under his calm, like he was holding back a storm, not from fear of himself, but something worse. His eyes, dark and rimmed with red, locked on hers, all quiet insistence and that stubborn edge she knew too well. — “I’m not scared. Not for me. Please. Let me do it. I swear I won’t wreck it.” —  But beneath the words, she caught the weight of something unsaid, something fierce and tangled, dragging him under even as he fought to stay afloat. 

Gods, she should’ve punched him. Right in that aristocratic mouth of his, the one that always looked like it was two seconds from saying something clever or cruel—usually both. But instead? She tossed him the bloody keys. Like a twat. Passenger in her own damn car. If her brothers could see her now, they'd be howling. Benjen would never shut up about it. She didn’t even let them drive this car—the only decent thing her father left her in his will besides trauma and a name that made cops twitch. She’d die before she admitted it, but the car mattered. It was the last thing that hadn’t been taken, tainted, or burned.

They peeled out, the tires coughing against asphalt as the city blurred past in streaks of orange sodium light and piss-yellow neon. Buildings leaned in like drunks on a street corner, all shadow and stink. She lit a cigarette to keep her hands from doing something stupid. Rhaegar drove like he was born in silence — controlled, steady, too damn composed. Not a flinch, not a flex. Always with the calm of a man on the edge of losing something he refused to name. Howland muttered coordinates from the back seat, tracking the bartender’s scent like a bloodhound with a PhD. Their little convoy crawled toward the ass-end of nowhere — an abandoned warehouse by the docks, where every third breath tasted like rust and sea rot. The kind of place bad things didn’t just happen — they festered.

The warehouse squatted behind a fence that had long since given up. People were already slipping through the gaps, just enough of them to be a problem. Not a crowd. A pack. As soon as the street went quiet — one of those sharp, surgical silences that always meant something worse was coming — they moved. Lyanna and Rhaegar slipped out of the car without a word. No plan. Just instinct. They crossed the street, the wind catching her coat like a threat. Her boots scuffed pavement, her knuckles itched for something solid, and her eyes — gods, her traitor eyes — blurred at the edges. She blinked it off. No time to be fragile. Not here. Sigorn and Howland were waiting, engine running, shoulders squared like a man about to start a fight and pretend it was justice.

She leaned down, voice low and dry. —  “So what’s th’ plan, then?”

Sigorn cracked his knuckles like punctuation. — “Lya ye mind th' Campbell case, do ya?”

Oh, fuck. She remembered how she could forget? All sirens and smashed metal and Sigorn kicking down doors like he was still wearing a badge. She didn’t even get a chance to tell him what a shit idea that was — because next thing she knew, he was flooring it, and the fence screamed under the weight of his car. Of course. They were doing that again. She muttered a curse, and told Howland to stay put, keep the car running. Then it was just the three of them — Lyanna, Rhaegar, Sigorn — storming into the belly of whatever fresh hell this was. And something inside her — the part that never healed right — felt good again. Siren screaming, people scattering like scared animals. In the distance, she caught sight of a younger man, probably the bartender — but his eyes were locked on a man wearing a chal mask, perched on a platform like some twisted king.

She left the chaos to Sigorn and Rhaegar — those two were good with violence. Her focus sharpened on the masked man who tried to run, pulling a weapon on instinct. Too slow. She grabbed his arm mid-move, twisting it with a snap, a motion honed in years of fights and scars. Like a trained beast, she locked him in a chokehold with her legs, spun him down to the filthy floor, arm pinned tight. The bastard looked up — right in time to see Rhaegar knock Sentel’s body cold, fingers slipping something from his mouth—some stone, probably the one they’d seen before. Sigorn had William by the neck, his grip cutting off air and lies both. Lyanna headed down into the dank basement, heart pounding. There, among the rubble, lay the mask — sinister and real. Only one person it could belong to: the weird kid, the funeral home owner’s son — the same one who’d handed her the list of employees.

She leaned close, voice dripping with all the venom she could summon, — “Ye’re not exactly playin’ wi’ a full deck, are ya?”

The kid swallowed, voice cracking, — “My da’s gonna kill me.”

Lyanna smirked, the bitter truth curling on her tongue, — “Aye, reckon he is.”

The kid got dragged home, and promptly got the arse-kicking of his life — deserved, frankly, what with body-snatching and necro-puppeteering right before the bloody holidays. Made for a neat little bow on the case. Didn’t bring poor Sentel back, of course. Nothing ever did. But they smashed the stone, gave what was left of him some kind of peace. The right thing, if you believed in those. And then Yule crept up like rot under a bandage. She asked Rhaegar, offhand, half-hoping for a no, already braced for the rejection tucked inside his too-polite smile. He said he’d come. Said he couldn’t travel with them ‘cause of the sun — like that excuse wasn’t wearing holes already. She took it in stride. That was the deal with him, wasn’t it? A door half-shut. A window with frost on the inside. She didn’t ask again. Didn’t know why she wanted him there in the first place.

Howland, meanwhile, was buzzing like a ferret on sugar. Sigorn tried to play it cool, badly. They all crammed onto the train, Winterfell-bound. Benjen met them at the station, arms open, snow on his boots, and an expression like he was expecting her to pick a fight right out the gate. Howland immediately latched on to him — grateful, honestly. Let the boy yap all the way home. Lyanna just lit a smoke and watched the hills blur past the window. The Stark estate sat an hour out from the city, nestled in snow-thick woods like some old ghost refusing to rot. Gothic Revival. Cold stone, pointed arches, a real architectural pissing contest from a bygone era. She stared at it as they rolled up the gravel drive, snowflakes sticking to the glass, blurring the shape of it all. Looked more like a memory than a house. Brandon was already there, of course. Grinning like a bastard. Family reunion — felt like it, anyway. Sort of. The dinner wasn’t a party, not really. Just the five of them dressed up like respectable people, pretending they weren’t all cracked down the middle.

The sun had sunk by five, dragging the warmth with it. Still, she waited. Showered. Dressed. Pinstripe blazer, chocolate brown. Crisp white shirt under it. Leather shoes polished like she gave a shit. She never did things halfway—not even this. Downstairs, everyone looked like a catalog spread. Howland, naturally, went full theatre: emerald skirt, shiny pendant, and enough confidence to pull it off. Dinner was set. Candles. Dull clink of cutlery. It was 8:30. She was still waiting. Stupid. But she was. Then came the knock. She was up before she could stop herself, slipping out of the dining room like it was muscle memory. She didn’t check if Benjen was following — didn’t care. She already knew who it was. She could feel it, somehow. She opened the door, and there he was. Of course he was. Rhaegar stood on the front step like a painting someone had stolen from a forgotten gallery. Velvet everything — jacket, waistcoat, trousers black as sin and tailored within an inch of their life. Hair up. Neck exposed like an invitation she wanted to pretend she hadn’t noticed.

Lyanna blinked once. Just once. She could still see, just barely. — “Oughta say you look like some right smug arsehole…” — She muttered.

“Is that a compliment, Miss Stark?” —  He asked, mouth twitching, eyes steady on hers with that quiet kind of amusement that didn’t need a smile to land. 

“Tha’s ’ow she does compliments, that one.” — Benjen chimed in from behind, deadpan.

She stepped aside, letting him in without thinking. Didn’t ask if he needed an invitation. Of course he didn’t. Another myth. Another lie she grew up believing. She watched him as he moved — graceful, contained, lethal in that slow, quiet way that only the really old or really dangerous pulled off. And gods help her, he looked edible. Which didn’t mean a damn thing. Didn’t mean she should be staring at the angle of his throat like a starved dog.

“Nice to meet you, Benjen,”  — Rhaegar said smoothly.  — “Lyanna’s spoken of you.”

“Reckon she said I’m a right pain in ’er arse, didn’t she?” — Benjen replied.

“What else d’ye think I’d say?” —  Lyanna grinned, teeth and edge.

“She’s kind,” — Rhaegar said. — “Doesn’t like people to know that, though.”

“Alright, we skipping the sappy bollocks or what?” — She cut in, pretending her heart wasn’t doing something stupid in her ribs.

They followed Benjen back toward the dining room. It felt different this time. Not like the usual grim parade Yule tended to be. No ghosts whispering in the corners. Just her brother, her friends, and a dead man in velvet. She didn’t feel like a weapon, for once. Didn’t feel like a ticking thing waiting to detonate. Not yet.

“Rhaegar, how’d ye get ‘ere then?” — Howland asked as they sat down.

Rhaegar just smiled, faint and unreadable.  — “I walked.”

Of course he did. Bloody vampire drama queen.

***

Title: The Invitation

I watched the wind pull frost along the windows. Winter creeping in, quiet and steady. I’ve never liked holidays — too many ghosts. He shouldn’t have moved. Sentel. 

A man like that he deserved stillness. Peace. But someone raised him. Bent him into something hollow. Something wrong. When we found him, the air reeked of iron and incense, like someone tried to pray over a crime scene. 

We gave him back to his wife. Just bones and memory now, wrapped in something that looked like dignity. She cried with a kind of quiet that reminded me of Lyanna too. Not loud, not wild — just a silence that hurt to hear.

I’ve seen death. Caused it, even. But that day, watching Lyanna put her hand on the woman’s back — gently, like she was afraid she’d break something — I felt the cruelty of it in my ribs. The cost. Not of death.

 Of resurrection. She had asked me if I was coming to Winterfell. Said it off-handedly, like it was just something in the air she didn’t care about. But I heard it. The almost in her voice. The hesitation. And I said yes.

She didn’t believe me. I imagined she wouldn't I could see it in her face. That flicker of doubt, that shrug she gave like she’d already braced herself for disappointment. 

So I went. 

I walked there after sundown. Every step crackled frost. My coat was too thin for the wind, but I didn’t feel it. The night was quiet. 

No breath. Just snow. 

Just purpose. 

She opened the door like she hadn’t dared to hope. Like part of her had — and hated that she had.

Benjen, her brother, who had the same eyes and nose as her, made a comment about her sarcasm being affection. She didn’t deny it. That alone felt like something sacred.

She looked at me differently that night. I don’t mean softer — softness isn’t Lyanna. 

But longer. 

Like she was trying to memorize what she still could see before it slipped away. Like she was seeing me for the first time and the last time at once.

I wanted to ask her. About the shadows in her vision. About whether it scared her. About whether she’d let me help. But I didn’t. I just sat beside her at the table, watching the firelight catch in her hair.

She didn’t say much. She never does when it matters. But she asked me to be there. That has to count for something.

And maybe she’ll never say she wants me around.

But she opened the door.

And I walked through it.

—  Rhaegar Targaryen 

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

Chapter Text

Seeing again was… a mindfuck. Not in a poetic, stars-aligning, oh-my-Gods-the-universe-is-beautiful way. No. That wasn’t her. It was raw, overwhelming. Like waking up in someone else’s skin. Like being given back a part of yourself you’d already buried, only to find it doesn’t quite fit anymore. Post-demon — and Lyanna could see again. Just like that. No doctors. No spells. No explanations. Her sight had started creeping back like it was sneaking in after curfew. At first, just outlines. Light. Movement. Then more. Texture. Detail. The sharp glint of glass under moonlight. The grimace on someone’s face when they thought she wasn’t watching. She hadn’t told anyone. Not even Sigorn, Howland or Rhaegar. Especially not Rhaegar. Instead, she did what she always did when life threw her a flaming dagger like this: she made a list.

Things That Could Have UnFucked My Eyes:

1. Demon attack side-effects.
2. Near-death hallucination.
3. Some kind of cosmic ‘oops’.
4. A prank.

And yet… the sky was still there. Blue like bruised knuckles. Stars like puncture wounds. She hated how much she liked looking at it. Of all the places in the world to enjoy getting her sight back, she would never agree had to be his place. Top floor. Skyscraper. Enough glass to make an apocalypse prepper weep. Rhaegar’s flat was easily three times bigger than hers and had zero personality outside of vampire money meets quiet grief. But the view was something else. Snow fell over Whiteharbor like ash from some forgotten fire, and godsdamn if the bastard hadn’t chosen a perfect spot to stare at the end of the world. She stood by the window. Pretending not to enjoy it. Failing miserably.

“S’bloody much, this place,” — She muttered. — “But the sky’s dead nice.”

Rhaegar didn’t look at her. Just leaned back against the frame, arms folded like a statue that couldn’t be bothered to care. — “I love watching the sky,” — He said softly. — “It reminds me where I stand… That no matter how old I become, I’m still stardust, in the face of the universe.”

“Aye?” — She lit a cigarette. — “So what’s it look like t’ye then, batboy?”

“It’s… hard to explain,” —  He said, a strange kind of restraint in his voice. —  “I see the light. Not just the stars, everything. The whole sky lit up like it’s noon. Every color. Every shift. It’s all more vivid. Intense. I see parts of the spectrum humans can’t even imagine.”

“Reckon must be dead nice, eh,” — She muttered.

He went still. Just for a second. But she caught it. The tension. Like her words had landed too close to something he was trying not to go to. Her blindness. She didn’t look at him, but she felt the weight of his gaze shift. Could tell he wasn’t looking at her either. They were pros at this — dodging eye contact, skirting the truth like it might catch fire.

She dragged on the cigarette. — “So all it’d take’s becomin’ a vampire, aye? ta-da, I guess… New bloody eyes. Can’t lie, sounds like a damn sight less shite than bein’ a Banshee.”

“There are things you’d lose,” — Rhaegar didn’t say it like a warning. Not quite.

His voice had been quiet — low and even, like a cello string pulled just short of breaking. Not pleading, not dramatic. Just... true. Heavy with the weight of someone who’d already lost too much to speak lightly. He’d paused before the words, as if weighing whether he should say them at all, and when he finally did, they had landed soft — but final. No sharp edges, but no comfort either. It hadn’t just been about the sun or friends or family. It had been about him, and he’d known it — but he hadn’t said it. He’d just let that truth hang in the space between them, unspoken, wrapped in six quiet syllables. It was the kind of thing that haunted a room long after it had been said.

“The sun?” — She smirked. — “Ain’t like I see much of it these days, is it?”

“Your family. Your friends.” — Rhaegar replied, his voice had dropped into that low, steady place he went when the truth hurt too much to dress up.

There had been no judgement in it. No pity either. Just a quiet kind of mourning — for things already gone, or for what would be, if she chose to follow him into the dark. The words had come spaced, slow, as if naming each loss was its own little funeral. Your family. Your friends. Not hypothetical. Not abstract. He’d meant her people. The ones she still carried. He hadn’t needed to explain what it meant. He’d lived it. Every night. And for a moment, it hadn’t been a warning — it had been a confession.

That hit harder than she let on. She kept her voice casual, flicking ash off the end. — “Folk die, Fangs. Sooner or later. Some quicker than others. We don’t get t’keep no one.”

“You’d lose me,” — He said quietly.

And just like that, the air changed. She remembered that conversation. Months ago. When he’d told her what becoming a vampire really meant. The loneliness of it. The hunger. The territorial instinct. The rules that weren’t rules, just blood-coded absolutes. Vampires didn’t share cities. Or partners. Or beds for long. If she turned, she wouldn’t be herself anymore — and they sure as seven hell wouldn’t be them. Not that they were anything. Not officially. Not really. Not something she could name without flinching. But she’d let him at her back. More than once. And that? That was something. She didn’t trust anyone enough to do that. Not since everything that made her who she was now: sharp edges in soft skin. Smoke and blood and steel beneath the collarbones. Still, she couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say what he meant to her. Couldn’t admit that when he was near, her pulse didn’t race out of fear. So she looked out at the night again. Let the silence grow thick between them. Let the snow fall. Her hand tightened, onto a fist.  She was already losing herself, one piece at a time. Territorial instinct. That’s what he’d called it.

Lyanna flicked ash from her cigarette and didn’t bother hiding the sneer curling her mouth. — “This territorial shite’s a right bitch, innit?” — Her voice was dry as bone. —“But in my case? I imagine I’d feel like a bloody relief. Who’d’ve thought gettin’ rid o’ ye’d be that easy.” — She didn’t mean it. Not fully. That was the trick with her, everything came with teeth, even the things that sounded like jokes. Especially those.

Rhaegar didn’t flinch. Just gave her one of those unreadable looks, half-ghost, half-poet. — “Truly an oversight on your part,” — He said mildly. — “I suppose it’s nature’s way of keeping us from turning too many friends.”

She snorted. — “No winnin’ that one. Nature’s just doin’ what it does.” — But she could feel it, like a storm low in the gut, something darker beneath his words. Not performance. Not caution. Memory. Something that had clawed through him before.

“It can,” — He said after a beat. His voice thinner now, worn at the edges. — “But it leaves you exhausted. Hollow. Eventually, walking away seems... Easier.” — Easier than what, he didn’t say. Which meant it was bad.

Lyanna leaned against the rust-cold railing, cigarette smoke coiling around her like a half-dead thought. — “An’ here I was thinkin’ I was the pessimist between us,” — She muttered. — “Howland’s dead sure on that one.”

Rhaegar gave her a glance, faintly amused. —  “I think he means that despite me being five centuries old, we’re still emotionally equivalent, in our pessimism.”

She barked a quiet laugh. It was joyless, but not unkind. —  “So we’re both proper banged up, then? Jus’ difference is, ye took yer time gettin’ bitter.”

“To be honest,” — He said, voice low and steady, — “I think it’s the curse of the century. I was born in shadow, but then came this... flicker. Light. Hope. For a while. But that only makes the fall sharper, when it came. People realise the light was never a place to rest. Just a trick that casts longer shadows.”

Lyanna’s lips twitched around a smirk that didn’t reach her eyes. —  “So yer was born in the dark, didn’t know there was anythin’ better.” —  Her voice went flat. Not angry. Not even sad. Just... resigned. — “I come from the dark knowin’ better’s out there. But it’s always just outta reach. Like a sunrise ye’ll never catch, no matter how hard you bleed for it.”

She didn’t believe in fate. Said that often enough to sound convincing. But deep down, she knew better. Fate was a bastard. And it always got the last laugh. — “Free will against nature and destiny,” — Rhaegar said, quiet again.

“How fuckin’ poetic,” — She muttered.

That was the end of that. Destiny was a word people threw around like it meant something. Lyanna didn’t buy it. Never had. But, as with most things in her life, she figured she’d eventually be proven wrong. Property retrieval cases weren’t her usual racket. That was more a courier’s game — dull, dusty, full of paperwork and posh twats arguing over heirlooms. But this one came from Mister Keller. Weird little man with a knack for sniffing out stolen art and walking into trouble with both feet. Most folks wouldn’t think vintage art trafficking was a problem in Whiteharbor. They’d be wrong. Between the docks and the forgotten back-channels, more than one Essosi smuggler had passed through with high-value contraband wrapped in newspaper. During her years on the force, the bodies that washed up and had taken to know Jaosn Keller’s hadn’t been cartel hits. They were tied to paintings — abstract, modernist, mostly shite, but worth enough to kill over. Now Keller had come back into her life. Apparently still had her number. Wanted her to track down a piece he’d sent to an evaluator who’d ghosted him. And grab it back. 

Rhaegar didn’t like the place. She could tell before he even opened his mouth. —  “Hope we’re in and out,” — He muttered as they stepped into the piss-yellow lobby of the flat hotel. — “Would hate to leave smelling like this place.”

Lyanna smirked but said nothing. The stink had hit her first — cigarette ash, old bleach, wet carpet, and the kind of sour sweat that clung to desperation. The Silver Dock was all glass towers and boutique bullshit above street level, but buildings like this one festered just beneath the polish — residential-slash-hotels where city suits paid to live like rats in suits. The kind of place that caught fire from a single match and never got reported. The hallway lights flickered as they passed the unmanned reception. The concierge was whistling off-key somewhere behind the wall, and no one tried to stop them. Of course they didn’t. No one ever did. Keller scurried beside her like a damn rodent in tweed.

“Should grab your nicknack and go.” —  Rhaegar said it with that low, velvet drawl of his, quiet, deliberate, and just sharp enough to cut if you weren't paying attention. It wasn’t a threat, but it carried the weight of one. His tone was instinctive, almost offhand, like the words surfaced straight from his gut without consulting his restrain

He turned to Rhaegar, lips pursed like he’d bitten into something sour. —  “It is an ancient Valyrian artefact, hardly a nicknack,” — He sniffed, like just saying the word nicknack left a bad taste in his mouth.

“So why’d ya ship it off like some bloody takeaway?” — She asked, cigarette tucked between her teeth, voice sharp enough to peel paint.

“I’ve dealt with the bloke ten times. Never a hitch. He usually flips ‘em quick and sends payment.” — Keller said it quick, defensive, like he’d rehearsed it. Voice twitchy, words tumbling over each other, trying to sound confident, but sweating guilt just beneath the surface.

Lyanna rolled her eyes. — “Ye could reconsiderin’ that dodgy setup o’ yers.”

She walked the corridor with Keller on her left, Rhaegar flanking her right like some vampire-shaped shadow. She could feel him twitchy. Hunger or bad mood, maybe both. She didn't look his way.

“What’s this man look like?” — Rhaegar asked, voice clipped, controlled.

“Like Danny DeVito in his late forties,” —  Keller said without missing a beat.

Rhaegar gave a noise of disgust. — “Let’s just get the cursed bowl and leave before I reek of this shithole.”

“Bit snappy tonight, eh?” — She drawled. — “What’s crawled up yer arse this time?”

His hand clamped around her arm. Firm. Not hard. Not yet. — “I came when you called me, Lyanna,” — Rhaegar said it low, steady, like he was keeping something sharper locked behind his teeth, — “If I’d known this was just a retrieval, I’d have fed first.” — The kind of tone that said he was running on fumes but still showed up the second she needed him. Just truth, worn thin.

“So you’re running on low blood sugar, is that it? Your hangry.” — Lyanna replied it with that trademark smirk half-joke, half-jab, all defense. Her tone was dry as gravel, light on the surface but barbed just beneath, like she was poking at a bruise to see if it still hurt. 

The way she uttered “hangry” was pure Norchiv sarcasm, biting off the word like it offended her. She didn’t actually care if he was hungry. Not really. But she needed the jab — needed the banter — to paper over the spike of unease she felt watching him twitch like that. When Rhaegar got quiet, it meant something worse was coming. So she poked. That’s what she did. Poke before someone got too close. Before fear could show. But then he stopped walking. Went still like a dropped coin. His nostrils flared. She knew that look. Not just hunger. Something worse. His eyes went glassy — too still, too ancient — and she felt her spine go tight.

“What’s goin’ on?” — She asked, voice low now too.

“There’s something here,” — He said. — “A smell. Rancid. Old. Full of hate. Suffering’s baked into it.”

“Prettyboy, we’re in a flat hotel,” — She muttered. — “Suffering’s probably the fuckin’ Wi-Fi name.”

But he was already moving. Fast. Not human-fast, but not quite monster-speed either. Just enough to make her jog to keep up. He turned down a corridor like he knew where the devil lived. She followed. She always did. They passed a woman dropping off a towel full of what looked like curry and regret. She gave them a wide berth. The room at the end of the hall — 555 — had its door slamming open and shut like something inside was trying to get out… or wasn’t strong enough to keep it closed. Rhaegar stopped halfway down the corridor. The air turned wrong. Thick. Still. She felt it through her bones first, then in the burn that flared hot around the tattoos on her wrist. Never a good sign. She barely had time to brace before the door cracked open and something came pouring out — black and shrieking and wrong. Like a cross between a dementor and a Nazgûl. Faded. But real. It passed through Rhaegar like smoke. And then it hit her like a freight train of cold. She didn’t even scream.

— 

5:55 PM.

Lyanna shot upright like she'd surfaced from drowning. Gasped. She was on the couch in her office. Rhaegar — real, still, alive? — was sleeping on the too-small sofa, coat bunched under his head like a makeshift pillow. She blinked hard. Tried to steady her breathing. Dream? She’d had worse. But something itched at her skin. The feel of her soul getting yanked from her body didn’t fade easy. She stood, shaky, and turned in a half-circle to ground herself. Her chair, her desk, her goddamn nicotine gum — The door opened. Howland. In full Howland-mode, too: patchwork coat like a fairytale stitched itself drunk, boots shin-high and green like poison, and two clashing ties because of course he had two.

“Half hour’s gone. Ye good, or still off in dreamland?” — He asked, like he hadn’t just walked into her private purgatory.

“No,” — She said flatly. — “Had a proper weird fuckin’ dream. Rhaegar was there. Some right nasty dementor-nazgûl-lookin’ bastard tried t’do us in.”

“And?” — Howland asked it with that calm, measured patience he carried like armor, his voice soft but expectant, like a professor waiting for the clever answer that would make everything click. Not pushy, just steady, like he already knew the weight behind the word but wanted her to say it anyway.

“I died.” — Lyanna responded it like it was the most matter-of-fact thing in the world, no drama, no big reveal. Just a cold, hard fact dropped like a stone in a puddle. Her voice was flat, almost bored, but you could feel the weight behind it if you knew where to listen. 

“Ye dreamin’ ‘bout that Erik business again, then? Ye’ve been havin’ nightmares all week, haven’t ya?” — Howland said it with that easy, almost teasing tone, like he was trying to lighten the mood but knew exactly what kind of seven hells she was swimming through. He wasn’t pushing, just stating the obvious, like a doctor checking symptoms, and Lyanna wasn’t thrilled he could read her like a damn book.

“No all week, don’t be daft.” — Lyanna crossed her arms with a slow, deliberate snap, like locking herself behind a door no one was supposed to open. Her shoulders squared, a silent ‘don’t ask’ wrapped in muscle and stubbornness. The kind of stance that said, I’m done explaining. Take it or leave it.

“Well, whatever ye say, boss. Pass me that Covacs file, will ya?” — Howland said it with a dry, knowing patience, the kind that felt like a gentle nudge rather than a push. 

His tone was calm, a little amused, like he was humoring her stubbornness but thought she’d come around eventually. She nodded, still buzzing with something she didn’t want to name. Walked to the desk. Reached for the folder — and smacked her elbow against the weird gnome statue Howland had given her for Yule. It hit the ground and shattered.

“If it weren’t to yer likin’,” — Howland said, all innocent-like, like he were coaxin’ a confession out of a stubborn scholar. — “ye could’ve just said the word,”

Lyanna shrugged like she was trying to shake off a bad smell... Half embarrassed, half annoyed, —  “It weren’t nothin’ like that,” — She mumbled, quick to cut it off.

Then the door opened. Jason Keller walked in. Lyanna blinked once. What the fuck. That was her first thought. And usually, that one was bang on. She let the man in. Sat him across from her desk, boots on the floor, eyes fixed but glassy. He started talking like he was the one doing her a favour — like this was the first time he was telling the story. It wasn’t. She’d heard all of it before. Every word. Every sigh. Every twitch of his grubby little fingers. Déjà vu didn’t cover it — this was some banshee-level death-loop shit, like her soul had gone nosediving through someone else’s corpse and brought back the replay. The Valyrian bowl, the missing evaluator, the blurry timeline, all of it. Too exact. Too quiet. Too damned familiar.

And she really didn’t want this night to end the way it had in the dream. But Lyanna Stark had read a tragedy or ten. Tried to outrun fate once or twice. Lesson learned: you dodge the blade, it just cuts you somewhere worse. And deeper. He didn’t have the hotel address — of course he didn’t. What kind of art-obsessed piss-ant ever came prepared? But he did mention the courier. A middleman between him and the evaluator. That was a thread she could pull. Five calls later — burner landline, different accents, layers of bullshit so thick even she started losing track — she got what she needed. She went Dornish for this one. Breathier vowels, lazy charm, soft ‘s’ like honey. Claimed to have received Monsieur Fournier’s package by mistake, full good-samaritan routine. People always liked to think strangers cared.

“Thank you for the address, sugar,” — She purred into the receiver, rolling it like smoke off her tongue. — “Truly, I’d hate for anyone to lose somethin’ so... precious. Seven bless.”

She hung up and lit a cigarette with the same hand. Her voice slid back into its usual grit, accent snapping back like a blade she kept under the tongue. — “Ain’t pretty work, sure, but it does the trick, sugar.”

“You’re ridiculous,” — Came a voice behind her. She turned. Rhaegar. Leaning against her doorframe like he belonged there. Smirking like he’d just caught her stealing from a temple donation box.

Of course he’d heard. Of course he’d shown up uninvited… Howland probably called him, — “Dunno even open yer gob.” — She warned, dragging on the smoke.

But he was already grinning. That dry, too-knowing, too-handsome-for-his-own-good grin. — “Too late. Can you say it for me? ‘ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.’” — Rhaegar said it with a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth, half-joking, half-daring, like he already knew he was pushing his luck and didn’t care. His voice dipped into something theatrical, warm and drawling, imitating a Dornish belle but laced with dry irony. 

It wasn’t mocking, exactly — it was a challenge disguised as charm, a test to see how far he could push her before she snapped or smiled. The line came soft, smooth, like he was quoting something sacred and stupid at the same time. And underneath the teasing? A flicker of something else — fondness, maybe. Or curiosity. The kind of thing he’d never admit. Lyanna narrowed her eyes like she was sighting down the barrel of a loaded truth. The corner of her mouth twitched—not quite a smirk, more like the ghost of one. She leaned back in her chair, all lazy menace, and dropped the Dornish purr like a bad habit. This time, she slipped into a rough-edged drawl — gravel low and mean. Her Clint Eastwood voice. Dry as gunpowder. No sweetness, no shine. Just that steady, slow-burn menace of someone who’s already decided they’re the last thing you’ll see.

“Only one yer gettin’ outta me is… ‘The dead can be very useful sometimes.’” — She let it hang there like smoke after a shot. A line delivered not to amuse, but to warn.

He blinked. — “Did you just quote A Fistful of Dollars to offend me?”

She shrugged. — “I can rattle off the rest o’ Eastwood’s flicks in the car, if yer keen on sufferin’ more. I ain’t much of a Blanche, anyway.”

Rhaegar let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh, but he caught it before it showed. —  “Honestly… never thought you were.”

She didn’t answer. Just flicked the cigarette into the trash and shrugged into her coat like she was putting the armor back on. No sharp retorts, no parting shots — just movement. Quicker that way. Cleaner. Admitting it felt good, having him there? That wasn’t gonna happen. Not out loud. Not even in her own skull if she could help it. Still, if the nightmare meant anything — and she wasn’t saying it did — then maybe sticking together gave them a better chance of not dying horribly. They made for the courier’s address — nothing glamorous, just another box in the legal quarter of White Harbor’s half-gutted high-rises. She was hoping for a quiet check-in, maybe a receptionist dumb enough to flirt with Rhaegar while she snooped around for an elevator pass.

Instead? Blue lights. Coppers already on the scene. Her gut twitched. Keller hadn’t come with them, and that usually meant her client’s were off doing something monumentally stupid. And sure enough, the moment they crossed under the yellow tape, her suspicion put on a badge and flashed it in her face. There was a body. Of course there was a body. Benoît Fournier, the evaluator himself, flatlined and cooling on the carpet. She didn’t need to look twice to see it’d been ugly — throat slit, room trashed, blood painting the rug in sickled spirals. So that was one more piece of the puzzle burned to ash. Great. Just fucking great. And then came the cherry on top of this steaming pile: Sigorn. No wonder Rhaegar stayed outside.

“Gotta stop meetin’ like this, Ly.” — Sig drawled, arms crossed like he hadn’t aged a day since the last mess they’d cleaned up together. — “What’s it this time? Ghost? Basilisk?”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. — “Nah. Jus’ here to grab a Valyrian antique me client’s never seen a penny for. Proper boring, that.”

“You got a name for it, then?” — Sigorn’s voice cut through the low hum of the room like a blade, calm, no-nonsense, but carrying that sharp edge that made you listen. His eyes locked onto her, waiting for the facts, no time for games.

“Keller. Ye member Jacob Keller, aye?” — Lyanna’s voice was rough, low, like she’d been smoking too many cigarettes and fighting off a cold that never quite left. Her eyes flicked over the grim scene, narrowing with a mix of frustration and something close to dread.

“That twitchy fellow what ID’d half the Essosi art traffickin’ we worked on?” —  Sigorn’s tone was deadpan, dry as dust, with that slow, deliberate cadence that made every word land heavier than it should. His eyes were sharp, scanning Lyanna like he was double-checking if she was even paying attention.

“That’s the one.” — Lyanna rubbed her temple, the kind of tired gesture that said she’d had enough bullshit for one day. — “Weird bastard.”

Sigorn nodded, but his eyes were scanning her face the way cops do when they think you’re leaving something out. And she was, but that was her business.

“Can’t fuckin’ believe this,” — She muttered, mostly to herself, voice rough like gravel. — “First proper case I get in weeks, an’ the bloke holdin’ the goods ends up with his throat sliced open. What the fuck happened?”

“Messy break-in. Got stabbed right in the neck. Looked like he put up a fight… but not enough, no.” —  Sigorn’s voice was rough and clipped, the kind of tone you didn’t argue with, practical and worn from years dealing with the worst of White Harbor’s gutters. He looked her dead in the eye, no sugarcoating, just straight facts like a punch to the gut.

“Alright, I’m off then.” — She was already turning. — “Need somethin’, ye know where to find me.”

“I always do.” — Sigorn’s eyes twinkled with that mix of dry humor and quiet confidence, like he was the guy who knew damn well he was the one you’d call when shit hit the fan, and he wasn’t going anywhere. His tone was easy, almost lazy, but with an edge that meant business.

She stepped outside before the room could start crawling under her skin. The air hit her like cold smoke, and her vision — fuck — her vision was starting to fog again. The kind of fog that didn’t clear when you blinked. The kind that reminded her she was still running out of time. She spotted Rhaegar leaning against her car, sitting on the hood like it owed him rent. Blurred at first, then sharpening slightly as she got closer. She hated how relieved she felt seeing him. Hated that she couldn’t see him clearly anymore, whatever had happened was wearing off. Hated needing help. But here they were.

“ Evaluator’s dead.”  — She said, not bothering to dress it up.

Rhaegar nodded, unreadable. — “Thought this was supposed to be the go-between’s place.”

“Me too.” — She looked back once, then shoved her hands in her coat pockets. —  “But it weren’t his body in there.”

He glanced down the street, eyes distant. — “So where next?”

Lyanna wanted another cigarette, but inhaled instead, and exhaled slow. —  “Got… a marginal idea.”

She didn’t say it out loud, but she’d seen this go sideways before. Not just in a bad-feeling, something’s off kind of way — no, she’d been here. Walked these same corridors. Smelled the rot in the air before it showed its face. Died, actually. Which didn’t feel like a metaphor anymore. And in her experience, déjà vu usually meant somebody was about to die for real. She didn’t want it to be them. Lyanna drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting like dead weight against her thigh. Her fingers twitched like they wanted a cigarette but knew better. She took them through the city's glittering financial district, where all the money lived on credit and lies. Sleek buildings with glass facades that gleamed like teeth, if teeth were made of corruption and overpriced sushi. The place they were after had a familiar little emblem — a lotus flower painted over cracked stone like it was trying too hard to pretend it wasn’t falling apart underneath. She parked the car hard enough to rattle the glove box. Then she got out. Inside, Rhaegar gave her that look as they walked the hallway — half suspicion, half concern wrapped in that vampire calm she hated more than she'd admit.

“I think it’s time you told me what’s going on,” —  He said. — “How do you know the bowl wasn’t in the office?”

She didn’t look at him when she replied. Just kept walking, fast. Like maybe if she moved quick enough, she wouldn’t have to explain the whole dying-in-a-hotel bit. — “Y’ever get the feelin’ ye’ve lived somethin’ already? Not a dream, like, bone-deep. Like you’re watchin’ yer own bloody murder on loop.”

Rhaegar gave her a side glance, all arched brow and cool detachment. — “I’ve lived long enough to see the same kind of day repeat a thousand times. But no, no two are ever quite the same.”

“I’ve fuckin’ been here before,” — She said, voice low. Tense.

He scoffed. — “Not the kind of place I’d frequent twice, even with a sense of déjà vu.” — Then… Because fate loved a punchline… Jacob Keller turned the corner like a cursed joke delivered on cue.

Lyanna stopped dead. — “What the fuck ye doin’ ‘ere, then?”

Rhaegar didn’t miss a beat. — “Lyanna, call me old-fashioned, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the standard greeting still.”

“Jacob Keller,” — She snapped. — “Bloke who hired me for this bloody mess.”

Keller blinked like a deer in headlights. — “I saw the bowl listed online. Thought maybe it was real, figured I’d come check. This is where the buyer said to meet.”

“Ain’t that sweet,” — She said, bone-dry. — “Seein’ as yer evaluator turned up dead. Throat slit. Found him right in his courier’s office, same place ye sent him.” — Keller paled. Shock? Guilt? Didn’t matter. She pushed past it. — “Y’know what, forget it. Think I sussed where it is. But we best keep movin’.”

As they stepped deeper into the hotel, Rhaegar muttered the same words she’d heard in her dream, like the universe was reading from a script. — “Hope we’re in and out. Would hate to leave smelling like this place. Should grab your nicknack and...” 

She cut in without missing a beat, voice flat. — “Ain’t exactly a bloody nicknack, is it…” — Then she turned, looking him up and down. —  “Ye’re hungry, ain’t ye?”

Rhaegar narrowed his eyes. — “I could eat.” — Rhaegar said it quiet and measured, with just enough edge to make it sound like a warning more than a joke. His eyes didn’t blink, and his voice sat low, too casual to be casual.

“Ye ain’t eaten today, have ya?” — Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, eyes narrowing just a fraction like she was calling out something obvious but wrapped it in a tease.

“How do you know that?” — Rhaegar’s question came soft but sharp, like a knife wrapped in silk. His brow lifted just a touch, curiosity flickering behind calm, controlled eyes. They passed a woman dropping off what looked like leftover curry on a room service tray. And Lyanna’s stomach dropped. She knew what came next.

Lyanna let out a dry, tired sigh, the kind that tastes like smoke and old grudges. She rolled her eyes hard enough it looked like a reflex, half disbelief, half exhaustion, then flicked her finger like she was swatting away a fly. Her voice cut through the stale air, low and sharp, — “Not this again.” — It was the kind of phrase that carried years of ‘same shit, different day’ and it hung between them like the cold wind sneaking through the cracked window.

Rhaegar’s voice sliced through the thick, stale air, calm but taut like a bowstring pulled tight. His eyes flicked to her with a flash of something unreadable, concern wrapped in steel. The tension curled around them, his words dropped low, deliberate, like he was trying to anchor her back from wherever her mind had drifted. — “Again? Lyanna…What are you talking about?” — His presence stiffened the space beside her, a silent warning and a steadying weight all at once.

She spun toward him, chest tight.  Lyanna’s eyes narrowed, the stubborn set of her jaw telling you she wasn’t about to explain herself twice.  She gave a short, sharp nod, voice clipped and rough like gravel underfoot. — “Like I said, I’ve been here before.”

Rhaegar’s voice cut through the thick, cold air, calm, controlled, like a blade sliding out slow and smooth. His eyes, steady and sharp, didn’t flicker, but the faint tightening around his jaw said he was gearing up for whatever was next. No panic, no noise, just the quiet click of a man used to walking into trouble and expecting to come out clean. — “That should make things simple then,” — He said, his tone low but clear, almost casual, like he was tossing a line to steady a sinking boat. — “Where are we supposed to go?” — His question hung in the air, measured and deliberate, waiting for the next move in a game that had already cost too much.

Lyanna said it low, her voice rough around the edges, like gravel kicked under a boot. She didn’t look at him when she said it, eyes scanning the hallway instead, flicking from room number to room number like they might bite. Her tone wasn’t scared, exactly, but there was a weight to it, tight and coiled, like she was bracing for a hit she couldn’t dodge. — “I dunno,” — She muttered, jaw clenched. — “Last time, we’d just got here when it kicked off.” — There was a pause, the kind that came with memory bleeding into the moment, her muscles remembering the cold before it arrived. And this time, she wasn’t sure if she could outrun it.

Rhaegar’s voice was quiet but clipped, his steps precise on the threadbare carpet as they moved deeper into the dim corridor. He didn’t look at her, but she felt the weight of his gaze like a blade grazing her spine, calculating, careful. The fluorescents above buzzed like dying hornets, flickering in intervals that made everything feel a bit less real. — “And the ‘it’ is…?” — He asked, low and level, like he already knew the answer but wanted to hear her say it anyway. His tone wasn’t mocking, just… wary. Like he was bracing for blood.

She didn’t hesitate this time. —  “We fuckin’ died.” —  Lyanna said it flat, like a fact she was too tired to dress up. No drama, no flinch, just the weight of something she'd already accepted. Like she was telling him the weather. Like dying was just part of the job.

Keller… Oblivious, trailing behind them like a bad penny… Chirped up, — “Sorry, could someone please explain what’s going on?”

Rhaegar froze. His shoulders locked. His nostrils flared. He felt it too. Pain. Rage. Suffering. The stink of hell bleeding through the walls. —  “Ye feel it, don’t ya?” —  She whispered.

Rhaegar turned his head sharply, eyes narrowing like a predator catching a scent he didn’t expect. The air around him tightened, gone was the relaxed veneer he wore like a well-fitted coat. He looked at Lyanna, not startled exactly, but like someone watching a mirror crack.  His voice came low and cautious, more breath than sound, like the question had weight he wasn’t ready to name. — “…How do you know what I’m…”

He didn’t answer. Just moved, slow and deliberate, like a beast on the hunt. Like he already knew what waited ahead. “Fear, hate, agony,” — She muttered, more to herself than him now, voice rough like gravel under boot. — “That’s what y’said last time. Said ye hadn’t fed. Said y’couldn’t stand the stink of this place.”

Then she bolted, counting the door numbers. 555. Of course it was. The door was open. A man stepped out, nothing special at first glance. Medium height. But her gut clenched. It was him. She didn’t know how she knew — only that she did.

“Tha’s him,” — She hissed through her teeth. —  “He’s got it.”

Rhaegar lunged like a bolt loosed from a crossbow — fast, sharp, aimed with that cold precision he wore in his vampire skin. The suitcase hit the floor with a dull thud. The latch popped. That was the moment. The one her bones already knew was coming. The burn hit her wrists like someone’d shoved a brand against her skin — those damned demon tattoos lighting up like war drums under her sleeves. She flinched, half a second from calling out, from warning him, from doing anything that might’ve mattered — but it was already too late. Keller — fucking Keller — scrambled past her like a rat who smelled something shiny. All twitchy fingers and zero sense. He went straight for the case, eyes gleaming like he thought he’d found salvation tucked in velvet and brass. Idiot cracked it open like a child unwrapping his first bloody gift on Yule morning. And hell answered. It uncoiled slow and hungry — shadows made of teeth and spite. Wraiths. Just like the dream. The ones that didn’t stop at scaring you — they wanted something deeper. Soul-level kind of theft. They came at her, not like they were chasing, but like they’d already won. Like she was just meat on the table. She felt herself ripped open — spirit first, body second. No scream. No clever line. Just the quiet, suffocating pull of the void swallowing her whole.Then everything went black…

— 

5:55 PM.

She woke up. Again. Same shitty office. Same dim light slicing through the blinds. Same cracked silence, stale cigarette smoke clinging to the air like regret. Her wall clock blinked back at her like it was in on the joke: 5:55 PM.

“No,” — She said aloud to no one. —“No fuckin’ way.”

She shot up, chest tight, breath coming sharp. Her chair slammed back against the wall, but she barely noticed. She was already scanning the room, heart hammering a rhythm she didn’t like. The same case files. The same crumpled paper. The same déjà-vu nightmare wearing the face of reality. Then — just like before — Howland walked in. Same outfit. Same expression. Same damn line.

“Half hour’s gone. Ye good, or still off in dreamland?” — He said it easy, like he hadn’t just stepped into her private circle of hell. Lyanna’s eyes snapped to his face. Whatever he saw there wiped the grin right off his face. — “Ye a’right?” — He asked, more cautious now.

Her head snapped around like a hunted thing, eyes darting from the boy to the clock, then back to Howland like he might start melting. Her voice came out tight, raw, like it’d scraped its way up her throat. — “Where’s Keller?” — She barked, jaw clenched, breathing too fast, like she expected him to crawl out of the goddamn walls.

His brow furrowed. —  “Who?”

Lyanna’s voice came low and clipped, like she was trying to keep the panic out but couldn’t quite hide the edges. Her eyes didn’t stop moving, scanning the room, the door, the papers on her desk, like she half-expected Keller to pop out of the shadows or fall from the ceiling. — “Keller,” — She said through her teeth. — “Twitchy lad, glasses. Came in lookin’ for Benoit Fournier.” — Each word hit like a bullet, flat, sharp, no room for doubt. She wasn’t asking. She was anchoring herself to memory before it slipped again.

She didn’t wait for him to catch up. She turned back toward her desk — records, files, loose ends all over. But her eyes locked on the paper. The date. Today. Exactly the same as yesterday. Or whatever the fuck counted as ‘yesterday’ when time decided to take the piss. Her gut turned. She reached to show Howland, but her elbow knocked the stupid Yule gnome off her desk. It shattered on the floor.

Howland just said it again, like some broken marionette, — “If it weren’t to yer likin’...”

She snapped like a frayed wire finally sparking. Her hands were shaking, just a little, but enough to make Howland’s face drop. Her voice cracked, raw and worn like gravel under boot, and when it broke, it wasn’t rage that spilled out first, it was disbelief dressed as fury. —  “Howl, fuck the gnome, alright? It’s the same bloody day.” — She didn’t even look at the shattered thing on the floor. Her breath hitched, and the next words scraped their way out, low and ragged, — “Can’t be happenin’ again, not fuckin’ again.”

Not pleading. Not yet. But damn close. And then, like the universe couldn’t wait to prove her right, the office door creaked open. Keller walked in. She didn’t think — just moved. Grabbed him by the collar, slammed him back into the wall hard enough to rattle the frame.

“You bloody lied t’me,” — She growled.

Keller stammered, voice cracking under pressure like damp wood under a boot. — “I…I haven’t said anything…” — He managed, eyes wide behind his smudged glasses, hands half-raised like he couldn’t decide whether to defend himself or beg. 

Lyanna slammed him back against the wall hard enough to make the plaster crack, one forearm pressed across his throat, the other curled in a fist at her side. Her voice tore out of her low, ragged, and furious, like gravel dragged over glass. — “Exactly,” — She snapped, her breath hot against his cheek.  — “What’s in the box, eh? Why’m I stuck here like it’s some godsdamned ghost tale loopin’ on repeat?”

Her eyes burned like she could see through him — or wanted to. And maybe she didn’t know what was real anymore, but she knew one thing: if he didn’t start talking, she’d make him choke on every lie he hadn’t said yet. Keller blinked. Keller stammered, his voice thin and cracking as he shrank back against the wall. His eyes darted, wide and rattled, flicking between her face and the pressure of her arm on his throat.

“How could you know?” — He asked, barely more than a breath, like the question had been knocked out of him before he could finish it.

Lyanna’s jaw clenched tight, her eyes sharp as broken glass. She shoved him harder against the wall, the force knocking a framed photo askew beside his head. — “Don’t matter,” — She growled, low and cold, each word clipped like a knife. — “Tell me the truth. This time, aye?”

There was no room for lies in her voice, just the exhaustion of someone who'd already bled through the answers once. —  “This… this time?”

Lyanna’s snarl came from deep in her throat, raw and unfiltered. Her eyes were wide, wild with recognition and something uglier, fear she’d never name. She shoved him harder against the wall, her breath hot and ragged between clenched teeth. — “I know what it does,” — She barked, like the words were acid on her tongue. — “I know if that box opens, we’re all dead. So tell me, what the fuck is it?”

He stammered. — “It’s a piece…” — Her hand flew to his throat.

Lyanna’s hand clamped around his throat, not tight enough to choke… Yet… But with the kind of pressure that promised worse. Her voice dropped low, cold as grave dirt and twice as final. No yelling, no theatrics. Just that quiet, murderous calm that meant she’d already decided how this ended if he didn’t play nice. —  “Try that again,” — She muttered, eyes locked on his like a wolf sizing up dinner. — “And make it fuckin’ clearer this time.”

Keller stammered, his voice thin and fraying like cheap twine. Panic clung to him, eyes darting, breath catching. — “It’s…It’s something I uncovered,” — He said, swallowing hard. — “I…I sent it to my evaluator,” — His words spilled like he was trying to outrun them, but they caught up anyway, cracking in his throat.

Lyanna's voice was a low rasp, the kind that dragged gravel behind every word. She didn’t raise it, didn’t need to. Her tone hit harder than a punch, flat as a cleaver and just as final. — “Benoit Fournier,” — She said, deadpan. — “Aye, I know. You sent it, didn’t hear back, started twitchin’. Hired me t’fetch it like it were just some dusty Valyrian knick-knack. ’Cept it ain’t.” — She stepped in closer, eyes locked on his like iron sights. — “So quit pissin’ on m’shoes and tellin’ me it’s rainin’.”

She didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Just stood there, cold and sharp as a butcher’s hook, daring him to lie again. Keller stared at her, stunned. — “How… How could you possibly know all this?”

She leaned in close, voice like steel wrapped in smoke. — “Been here. Done that. Bled on the fuckin’ floor for it. So unless ye fancy me crackin’ yer balls open wi’ a letter opener, I suggest ye get honest. Fast.”

He hesitated. Then, Keller’s voice wavered, like he was trying to steady himself but failing. His eyes flickered with unease as he mumbled, — “It’s… it’s said to grant health. Maybe eternal life…” — like sayin’ it out loud was already a mistake he couldn’t take back.

She scoffed. — “Whatever it is, it stinks like seven hells to me.”

Lyanna spun her back on him, yanked her coat off the chair like it owed her money. Her mind felt like a box fulla rusty nails, rattled hard and raw. Hands trembling, but hell no she’d let him see that. Snatched a scrap of paper off the cluttered desk — one of those sticky notes nobody ever bothers to throw away — and scrawled the address she could still pull from the fog. Tossed it to Howland without a word, sharp as broken glass. Words were too much right now, but the silence between them screamed enough.

Lyanna’s voice was low, sharp, no room for fuckin’ argument. She didn’t bother looking up, just spat it out quick, like throwing a live grenade into the quiet room, —  “Call Rhaegar. Tell ’im it’s urgent. Tell ’im to meet us ’ere.” —  Each word clipped, heavy with that kind of cold urgency only someone used to shit going sideways could pull off.

Keller blinked. —  “You know where he is?”

Lyanna gave him a look sharp enough to cut. —  “Aye,” —  She said, flat. —  “An’ if we don’t move, in ’bout fifteen minutes, he’s gonna be dead.”

Lyanna drove ‘em there, cold as the night air pressing against the car windows. The city’s shadows stretched long and lean, smelling like old blood and rusted iron. Inside the building, Rhaegar settled in the lobby, flipping through some ragged magazine from nearly a decade ago, legs crossed, looking like he’d just stepped outta some gangster flick from the forties. Sharp double-breasted pinstripe suit, black shirt tucked neat, dark tie whispering secrets, and those polished black shoes that made the whole outfit sing dangerous. His white hair curled loose, like it didn’t give a damn about the weight of the world pressing down on them both. Same clothes, same ghost of a man, stuck in the same endless day.

He stood, voice low and calm. — “Howland said it’s urgent.”

Lyanna followed his footsteps, boots thudding softly on the cold floor, her mind a jagged puzzle she tried not to piece together too fast. — “Man’s ‘bout to get killed. Can’t see the why jus’ yet.”

She moved through the office like a shadow, memories flickering at the edges — the kind that’d make any sane person run, but she had no choice. This wasn’t about what was happening to her now. It was about stopping another body from hitting the floor.

Keller’s voice cut through the silence. — “I don’t understand who’d kill Benoit…”

Lyanna didn’t look at him, voice sharp like broken glass. — “If you wasn’t here, I’d say it was you. Thinkin’ on it, you and yer courier’s likely doublin’ back on each other.”

Keller blinked slow. —  “You reckon he still has the box?”

Lyanna shrugged, the movement sharp but tight, — “Don’t reckon so. It’s goin’ up for auction tonight, Empire Hotel, down in the financial district.” — like she was trying to keep something in. Her gut twisted cold, a slow sinking weight that wasn’t just about the case.

Rhaegar’s eyes narrowed. —  “Wait minute? How do you know that?” — He asked, steady but sharp, eyebrows knitting together as he glanced at her. 

She spun around quick, lips twitching with a half-lie that tasted like ash. Lyanna shrugged, flashing a quick, half-sharp smile like she was tossing off a line she didn’t believe herself. — “Gut feelin’,” — He said, voice casual but eyes flickering just enough to show she was fudging it.

He snorted, unconvinced. — “That’s well beyond a mere hunch, Lyanna. A hunch is guessing if it’ll snow tomorrow. You’re in a play-by-play territory now.” —  Rhaegar’s tone was dry, with a hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He shook his head slightly, voice steady but amused. 

Lyanna’s voice dropped just a notch, softer but still edged with that raw honesty she rarely let slip. Her eyes flickered just enough to meet his before darting away, she was sharing something too close to the bone. — “Trust me. Sounds daft, I ken, but just… trust me this once.” — Rhaegar’s gaze sharpened, caught off guard by the vulnerability tucked behind her usual grit. 

For a moment, the weight of her words hung heavy between them, pulling him closer to the cracks she tried to hide. She caught the flicker of doubt in his eyes — like cigarettes burning slow in a storm — and she let him have this one. Turning on her heel, she headed for the office, heels echoing in the hallway. The door was already open. Inside, Benoit was crumpled on the floor, blood seeping slow, the stench of death heavy and thick. No guessing — he was gone. The cops got there pronto, and Sigorn stepped in, looking like he’d swallowed a live rat.

Lyanna’s voice cut through the tension, dry and tired, — “We gotta stop meetin’ like this, Sig.”

His face fell. She knew why. She laid it out for him, quick and sharp: The killer was someone close, someone double-crossing and desperate. Benoit didn’t have the box. It was listed to be sold. Someone killed him and was now hunting the courier. Sigorn looked like he’d just had his brain spun inside out by the flood of info. But that was life — raw and brutal.

Lyanna asked, voice clipped, — “Got any questions?”

Sigorn paused, his voice rough like gravel dragged over stone, the question hanging heavy in the cold air, —  “Aye… Who’s this Benoit Fournier then?”

She frowned, like talking to a kid who just didn’t get it. She pointed at the dead man without a word, then turned and walked away — because some things weren’t meant to be said out loud. She stepped outside, the cold wind cutting through the night like a blade. The city smelled like old blood and rusted iron — same as always, like it never stopped bleeding. They made a beeline for the hotel. Same tired whistle from the concierge. Same woman lingering in the corridor, eyes like she’d seen too much and wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. Rhaegar broke the silence with that clipped, grim tone.

His voice cut through the night, calm, controlled, like he was rehearsing a line he didn’t want to say but had to. Just as he started, — “Hope we’re in and out. Would hate to…” —  she clipped him off mid-sentence.

“Rhaegar,” — She snapped, cutting him off sharp as broken glass. — “I ken ye’re actin’ like ye got that proverbial stick shoved up yer arse ’cause ye ain’t fed yet. I get it. Ye don’t wanna smell like this dump. But for fuck’s sake, I’m probably havin’ the most frustratin’ day of me whole bloody life. So do me a solid… Keep that pie hole shut. I’ll take ye to McDonald’s after this. Or whatever happy meal it is vampires swallow after a long-ass day.”

Rhaegar raised an eyebrow, lips tight, muttering something like, — “I get the feeling I shouldn’t be here for this conversation, yet something tells me you won’t be easing my doubts anytime soon.” — But his eyes didn’t lie, he was hangin’ on every word, waiting for something. Because, like always, he knew she wasn’t about to make it easy.

Lyanna’s eyes flicked sideways, voice low and dry, sharp as broken glass. — “ Yer gut’s still sharp, pretty boy.” — She kept her back straight, but the cold crawl of tiredness was settling under her ribs. The kind only silence at 3AM knows, thick and unforgiving, like iron in the blood.

She wasn’t here for answers exactly. She was just trying not to lose what little she had left. Dangerous, maybe. But maybe necessary. When they hit room 555, Rhaegar dashed at the twitchy bloke holding the suitcase. Of course, it slipped from the idiot grip’s, Keller ran for it after it thudded onto the cold street like it carried the weight of every bad decision. Lyanna sprinted after him, voice sharp as a knife, asking what the hell was going on. But no surprises here — leaving Keller alone was a mistake. The bastard lunged for the box, popped it open, and just like that, the world tilted sideways. Keller went down like a bad actor taking his final bow, game over. 

— 

5:55 PM.

And just like that — snap — she was back. Same ratty couch. Same bastard ticking clock. Same taste of iron behind her teeth. Again. The word barely formed in her mind before she was lurching upright, heart already punching her ribs like it was trying to make a break for it. Her head felt like someone had dumped a box of nails in a blender and hit purée. She didn’t wait for Howland. Didn't need his worried eyes or gentle questions. She lunged for the landline — aye, she still had one, and no, she didn’t wanna talk about it — and jabbed in Rhaegar’s number with shaking fingers. The line clicked. No hello, no explanation. Just her voice, low and clipped, she told him the address, and then…

“I know ye ain’t fed yet, but it’s life or death. I’ll meet ye there.” —  She hung up before he could reply.

The door creaked open behind her, Howland, like clockwork. Same jumper, same concerned look, like déjà vu in real-time. —  “Half an hour’s gon… Ye alright?”

She didn’t answer. Just shoved on her coat, snatched the nearest sticky note off the desk, scribbled a name on it, and handed it over. — “Covacs file’s on the desk. And do us a favour, yeah? Chuck yer gnome up on the cupboard. Thing’s a cursed wee bastard. Tell Rhaegar to meet me here.” —  She wrote the address and gave it to him.

Then she was gone, boots already thudding down the stairs, Keller’s entrance be damned. She knew where he’d be — where he always ended up. Same twisted cycle. Same outcome. Not this time. She pulled up outside the courier’s place just as Rhaegar arrived. Always on time, that one. Grim as a gravestone, sharp suit still immaculate like none of this was real. Maybe it wasn’t.

“Client of yours,” — He said as they made their way inside, — “looking for Benoit. Who’s got a box. That their courier nicked.”

“Aye.” — Her voice was flat. — “Box full o’ somethin’ rotten. If it opens, we’re dead. Simple as.”

“You don’t look dead to me.” — Rhaegar said it dryly, with that cool edge in his voice, half challenge, half curiosity. His eyes flicked over her, measuring, like he was trying to see through the bravado.

She shot him a glare sharp enough to flay. — “Can ye not? Just… Can ye not right now?” —  Her temples pounded like war drums.  —  “The demonspawn tats lit up like a bloody bonfire when it opened. That box? It ain’t some wee trinket. It’s a fuckin’ trap, is what it is.”

Rhaegar scowled, jaw tightening like a vice. His voice came low and taut, strung up with cold fury, like piano wire pulled to snapping. — “You think because some demon brushed against your soul, you can flirt with the rest of it?” —  It wasn’t just anger. It was fear, twisted sharp beneath the surface, like he’d seen what happened to people who tried. He probably had. 

Lyanna didn’t look at him when she said it. Her voice came quiet, rough, like gravel under boot. — “I dunno ken.” — And that, gods help her, was the truth. No snarl, no sarcasm. Just raw, frayed honesty dragged up from the pit of her stomach. — “Maybe it’s waitin’ t’use me. Maybe it already is.”  — She exhaled sharp through her nose, shook her head like she could clear the smoke from her thoughts.  — “But right now? I need every bloody edge I can get.” — It wasn’t defiance. It was desperation dressed in grit. A confession muttered between battlefield steps. He stopped walking. Not far from the office door now, silence thick between them.

“Don’t.” —  His voice was low, colder than usual.  — “Thinking you can control evil means you most likely don’t comprehend it,” —  Rhaegar said coldly. — “More often than not, it’s merely seeking a new puppet to wear.”

She turned to him, eyes dead serious. —  “I’ve watched us die three bloody times, Rhaegar,” — She said, low and fierce. — “I’ll do whatever it takes so we don’t end up corpses again.”

Rhaegar’s voice came out sharp but held back, like he was trying to pull her back from a ledge she wasn’t ready to step away from. — “Lyanna…” — He said, low and steady, with that careful weight that meant he wasn’t giving up, even if she was.

“I’m not gonna be fate’s bitch.” — Lyanna spat the words out like bitter smoke, low and fierce, eyes narrowed with a flash of stubborn fire. Her jaw set hard, voice rough but steady, no room for doubt, no apologies. She wasn’t about to let fate push her around, not this time.

She shoved open the door before he could stop her. And for once — thank the fucking gods — Benoit Fournier was still breathing. She stalked into the office like she owned the place, boots clacking across polished wood, eyes sweeping the clutter of papers and old books.

Lyanna’s voice cut through the cluttered air like a blade, sharp and unflinching. — “Benoit Fournier,” — She called, low but commanding, like she already knew he was guilty of something. No frills, no softness. Just the sound of a name dragged into the light, daring him to lie.

The man flinched. Medium height. Wire-rimmed glasses. Pasty as milk. Benoit turned slowly, shoulders stiff with the kind of dread that sinks in before your brain catches up. His eyes landed on her, wide and blinking behind wire-frame glasses, as if hoping she might vanish if he looked hard enough.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” — He asked, voice taut and papery, too rehearsed to sound innocent, too shaky to be convincing.

She didn’t move closer, didn’t need to. She said it like a warning more than an introduction, like she was tired of repeating herself and ten seconds from dragging him by the collar. —“Lyanna Stark,” — She said, voice clipped and grim as winter steel. — “Private investigator. Ye’ve been contacted by a Mister Jacob Keller, ring any bells, or should I draw ye a fuckin’ diagram?” — Her tone had that gravel-slick edge to it, the kind that didn’t bluff, didn’t beg. Just laid the facts out flat, like corpses on a slab.

He lied with the elegance of a drunk on stilts. — “I know no one by that name.”

Her voice cut through the office like a blade, hard and cold. She didn’t shout, didn’t have to. There was a weight behind her words, a coiled violence under the calm, like a thunderstorm holding its breath. She took a step forward, eyes narrowed, her tone low and biting.

“It’s ’bout the box,” — She snapped, words tight with fury and urgency. — “I ken ye nicked it, and I ken it ain’t with ye no more. But you’re in danger, mate, so if ye wanna keep breathin’, best get off yer arse and come with me. Now.” — There was no question in her tone. Just the cold, dead certainty of someone who’d seen the ending already, and was trying, just this once, to stop it.

Still lying. Badly. —  “As I said…”

She waved a hand, already done with him. — “Rhaegar, mind doin’ the honours?”

Like a shadow, he was beside Benoit. A flicker of something ancient in his eyes. One blink and Benoit’s face had gone slack, entranced under that vampire glamour. Lyanna watched as he murmured the command and the man obeyed, rising to follow them like a sleepwalker. They were halfway to the door when something twitched in the back of her skull. A whisper through her bones. A shift in the shadows. She didn’t wait. Just turned. Fast. Teeth clenched. The bastard came at them with a knife — nothing fancy, just a kitchen blade slick with intention. Old, twitchy, cornered. The kind of man who already knew he wasn’t walking back out of this room. Lyanna moved first. Instinct. Wrist to blade, twist the grip, lean into the pain before it sliced. She might’ve had him too — would’ve, if Rhaegar hadn’t let go of Benoit and snapped forward like a leash had broken. He had the attacker by the throat in seconds, face cold enough to frost mirrors.

Lyanna’s voice came low, steady, she’d done this dance too many times. — “Who’re ye, then?”

The man gasped, still fighting. —  “You don’t understand…”

“Go on, try me,” — She said. — “’Fore some other daft bastard opens that godsdamned box.”

His eyes locked on hers, wide, bloodshot, mad with something deeper than fear. — “You’re already in it,” — He choked. — “It’s a circle. A loop. It feeds on itself. Every living soul’d be tempted to open it, humans are stupid that way. I can’t let it happen again.”

Her jaw locked, fingers flexing at her sides. — “Then ’ow d’I stop it, eh?”

The man’s voice came out raw, like gravel dragged through his throat, desperate, fraying at the edges. His eyes flicked between Lyanna and Rhaegar, wide with a haunted kind of clarity, as if he’d already seen the end of the story and was choking on it. — “Don’t let it open,” — he rasped, like it was both a warning and a prayer.

Simple. Too simple. Always was, until you bled for it. Then came the footsteps. Heavy, purposeful, coming from the corridor they’d just come down. Sigorn. Of course it was.

“What’re ye doin’ ’ere?” — Lyanna asked, already half-dreading the answer.

Sigorn stood in the doorway like he didn’t quite want to cross the threshold, arms folded, jaw set tight. His brows drew together, concern smudged under the usual gruff. When he spoke, his voice was low and edged with something that might’ve been worry, or just the usual irritation he wore like a badge. — “Howland rang,” — He said, scratching the back of his neck. — “Said ye were here. Said ye were actin’... off.” — His tone wasn’t accusatory, yet. Just tired. Like he was bracing for Lyanna to prove Howland right.

Rhaegar glanced up from the half-conscious attacker, voice like gravel under ice. — “We just stopped a potential homicide. You’re welcome.”

“What?” — Sigorn blinked, confused, one hand still on the holster.

“He tried t’ kill him,” — Lyanna said, voice flat as a rusted blade. —  “Take ’im in. Just hold ’im, yeah?” — She paused, eyes sharp and lit like a fuse. —  “Ye’ll get yer explanation when this shite’s over.”

“So will I,” — Rhaegar muttered beside her.

She didn’t argue. No time. They left Sigorn with the knife-wielder and dragged Benoit out, the man still glazed in Rhaegar’s compulsion. Worked for now. Until Keller showed up. Big fucking mistake. He punched Benoit square in the jaw, like that’d solve anything.

Benoit sneered, his voice bitter and low as he glared at Keller. —  “So this how it is, then? You have  goons now?”

Before she could blink, Rhaegar had Benoit’s arm twisted behind his back, his tone silk-wrapped steel. —  “Be careful who you call goon.”

“Aright!” — Lyanna snapped. —  “I ken where th’ box is. Ye two, plant yer arses down, an’ if I hear one more bloody peep, I swear on every ghost in this godsdamned city I’ll let ’im drain the pair o’ ye like Capri Suns.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. Just stormed off, Rhaegar at her heels. Empire Hotel, same as before. Room number burned into her memory. She didn’t knock. Kicked the door clean in like the rules never applied. And just like that, she paid for it. The shot rang out and pain bloomed hot and fast along the side of her neck. Her knees hit the floor first. She didn’t scream. Banshees never screamed for themselves. Everything spun. She caught a flash — Rhaegar lunging, the attacker going down hard, gun clattering against cheap hotel carpet. And then, silence. Thick and suffocating. Rhaegar was over her in a second. His mouth was moving, but all she heard was ocean roar. Her ears were shot. Literally. Her neck burned. She knew the blood was pulsing out in thick waves. Ten, fifteen seconds, maybe. That’s all she’d have.

She felt his hand on her neck. Felt his blood — his actual blood — as he bit into his palm and pressed it to her lips. Her eyes were fogging, but she drank. Not out of trust. Out of survival. Didn’t help much. She saw his face, hovering over her — tight, pale, eyes too bright. Not fear exactly. Something worse. Something personal. Then he was gone. She wanted to scream at him, curse him for running — but she didn’t. He wasn’t running. She felt it — through her bones, through the banshee scream buried in her spine. He’d gone for the box. And she felt the burn. The tattoos on her wrists lit like fire. The box opened. And just like that, again…

— 

5:55 PM.

She woke up. Again. The curse didn’t whisper, it cackled — godsdamned smug. Same musty couch. Same stale air thick with cold sweat and yesterday’s bourbon. Her body was already moving before her brain caught up, like muscle memory forged in fire. She didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. Just breathed through her teeth, eyes hard, jaw clenched so tight it ached. If this was fate’s idea of a joke, it was gettin’ old. This time, she told herself, she'd end it. Or bleed out trying. Again. Her boots hit the floor. Office still dark, dust hanging like ghosts in the lamplight. She grabbed the phone — landline, older than half the corpses she’d put in the ground — and dialed before the front door even creaked. She didn’t need to see Howland’s face to know he’d be standing there in the same rumpled shirt, same look that said, you good, boss? No time. No explaining. It rang once.

“Figured you'd call,” — Rhaegar’s voice drawled down the line. — “Bit early this time.” 

That voice, steady, smooth, maddeningly composed… Hit her square in the chest. Bastard was alive. Relief came out as a long breath through her nose. She didn’t say she was glad. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

“You alright?” — Rhaegar asked it quietly, but there was weight behind the words, like he already knew the answer and hated asking anyway. His voice was low, even, laced with that careful precision he used when something actually mattered. Not pushy. Not soft either. Just… there , like a hand held out in the dark, waiting to see if she’d take it.

She swallowed.  — “Aye. I… Look, I need yer help. Now. Please .” — She said it sharp but quiet, like she was holding back more than just words, urgent, raw, almost begging without really wanting to.

The ‘please’ scraped her throat on the way out. Not her style, sounding that raw. But she'd died in his arms a few seconds ago, even if he didn’t remember it. That kind of shit leaves an imprint. They met near Benoit’s office, picked him up like they were running a bloody carpool, and made for the Empire Hotel. The box was still in play — same cursed thing that kept dragging her back through hell on repeat. Rhaegar stood beside her, quiet but sharp-eyed, clocking everything. Room 555. She felt it before she saw it. Keller and Fournier were bickering like pensioners in the lobby, useless as ever. She and Rhaegar moved like clockwork — door cracked open, suitcase in view. He lunged. She covered. The box never left their sight. No accidents this time.

They stepped out, heads down, tension in her limbs winding tighter with each second. Keller and Fournier were already being shoved into cruisers — for public brawling, maybe just the gods doing her a solid. But it was the other man — the one with the knife, the look in his eyes like he knew too much — who watched them walk out. Watched them hand over the box like it was no big thing. And yet — for the first time since this whole fucked cycle began — Lyanna felt it. Not safety, not victory. But distance, and a bit of relief. Like maybe, just maybe, she was a step ahead. In the backseat, wind clawed at the window, and the lights of the Empire faded behind them. She didn’t speak. Didn’t look at Rhaegar. Just stared out at the road, letting silence settle where the ache lived. For now, she was still breathing. And that’d have to be enough.

***

Lyanna was behaving oddly. Which, in itself, wasn’t so strange — she was a woman wrapped in barbed wire and stubbornness, stitched together with trauma and caffeine, and carried herself like she’d been born allergic to vulnerability. But this… this wasn’t her usual brand of emotionally constipated bravado. She wasn’t talking. And that — Rhaegar noticed — wasn’t silence so much as suppression. Like she was holding her breath across dimensions. She drove like she was racing a ghost only she could see, and he let her, watching from the passenger seat with his hands folded neatly in his lap, hunger curling in his gut like a slow-burning fuse. He hadn’t fed. The city smelled louder when he was empty — metal, sweat, perfume, decay. Every heartbeat was a small betrayal in his ears. But he focused on her instead.

Her voice had cracked on the phone. Just for a second. But it was enough to rattle him in a way he didn’t have language for. When they reached the hotel, it unfolded with the surreal momentum of déjà vu, she looked like she had been there before. Keller was useless, Benoit looked like he’d aged backwards into panic, and Lyanna — Lyanna handed over the box. Just like that. No snarling. No threats. No dramatics. Rhaegar didn’t like being three steps behind. He didn’t like when people touched things they didn’t understand — cursed boxes, or women with eyes like winter storms. She was shaken. He could see it. Not visibly — not to the untrained eye — but he’d spent long enough cataloging her tells to catch the shift. Her shoulders were stiff, not coiled. Her sarcasm came half a second too late. And she wasn’t making eye contact.

Which was how he knew something was wrong. When they got back to his apartment, he didn’t tell her to leave. He didn’t retreat to his private corner of the night to hunt, or open a bag of disappointment from the freezer. The last time he’d let her out of his sight, when she was acting weird, she’d almost died. And he still tasted ash over that memory. The elevator groaned its way up to his floor. He glanced at her in the reflective chrome. Her face looked carved from stone. Beautiful, cold, unreadable. Except for the faint tremor in her hand, like her body still remembered something she hadn’t said yet.

Then she spoke. — “Yer hungry, ain’t ya? Haven’t fed yet.” —  Lyanna sounded as if she already knew the answer. Like it wasn’t a question but a diagnosis.

The words cut through the elevator's hush like a scalpel, sharp, precise, impossible to ignore.  He arched an eyebrow. Oddly perceptive, he almost said. But instead, he let it come out the way it always did with her — dry, unbothered, slightly amused.

“Oddly perceptive on your part.” — The words rolled off his tongue like silk over a hidden blade, laced with wry amusement but not without weight.

She gave a half-smile, something wan and tired, the shape of a woman who had too much to say and no energy left to disguise it. — “Ta for everythin',” — She said, voice low. — “Don’t reckon ye’ll ever get how much it means, to me.” 

And there it was — the strangest part of the night. Not the box. Not the man with the knife. Not the uncanny precision with which she navigated a case he hadn’t even fully grasped yet. No, it was this: Lyanna saying thank you like it mattered. Like he mattered. He stared at her for a beat too long, studying the line of her jaw, the bruise-colored shadows beneath her eyes, the way her voice caught halfway through sincerity. She never said things like that. She didn’t do gratitude — not out loud. Which made him wonder, again, what the hell had happened before that phone call. What she'd seen. What she'd felt. She was still holding something back. And he was still pretending not to care. But he did. Gods help him, he did. 

She said it too casually. —  “Ye gonna head out an’ pick somethin’ t’eat?”

The question drifted through the elevator like cigarette smoke — casual, curling, dangerous if inhaled too deeply. Rhaegar’s eyes went forward, locked on the ascending numbers above the door. He counted them like they mattered.

Rhaegar said it like an afterthought, voice low and clipped, the way a man might mention a raincoat in a storm. — “No. I… I’ve blood bags at home. They taste like hospital cotton, but they’ll do.” — He didn’t look at her when he said it. He was already withdrawing into that polished armor of his, clinical, composed, pretending hunger was just another equation to manage. But there was tension in the line of his jaw, the kind that hinted he was lying more to himself than to her.

It wasn’t the worst lie he’d told. But it wasn’t good. She didn’t answer, not right away. And silence with Lyanna was never just silence. It was weight. Weather. Pressure change before a storm. The elevator felt smaller than usual. Not a problem — unless one was a vampire trying very hard not to acknowledge the intoxicating proximity of a banshee who was bleeding fatigue and ghostlight from her pores. He wasn’t easily unnerved. He’d told her once, with a hint of smugness, that centuries of high-stakes diplomacy, courtly backstabbing, and half-hearted academic conferences had built him a cast-iron composure. But Lyanna cracked things in him. Not with sentiment — gods no — but with her maddening ability to exist just beyond understanding. She made him curious. And that, in his experience, was always a prelude to disaster. Still, there it was — that strange flicker again. Her being here. The way her voice had sounded earlier, brittle and breathless. The way she hadn’t explained anything, but somehow he hadn’t demanded answers. Hunger gnawed at him, but he resisted it with the same religious fervor addicts call recovery. Bloodlust wasn’t a craving. It was a shame. 

And Rhaegar had spent lifetimes mastering restraint, he wore it like armor, tailored sharp. Then she said it. — “I mean, I’m right ’ere, ain’t I?”

It landed soft. And detonated hard. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Inside, alarms went off like sirens under church bells. She couldn’t know what that meant. She couldn’t know what it meant to offer blood to someone like him. Not a stranger, not a victim — him. Rhaegar didn’t feed on people he knew. It was too… complicated. Too intimate. Too much. He’d gone centuries avoiding that particular thread, because feeding wasn’t just biology — it was memory, heat, tethering. It was letting someone inside in the oldest, rawest way a creature like him could. Not even his maker had fed from him before they were lovers.

He swallowed that thought. — “What do you mean?” he asked carefully. Like stepping over cracked ice.

She shrugged, barely.  — “I’m ’ere. An’ I did drag you outta yer usual plans, so…”

He would’ve made a joke. Would’ve turned his back. Pivoted, distracted, danced away like he always did when the fire burned too close. But there was nowhere to go. The elevator kept climbing. Too slowly. — “I don’t…” — His voice faltered.

She cut him off. — “I ken ye haven’t fed.”

Flat. But not hollow. There was something under it, concern, maybe. Challenge. He couldn’t tell. He hated that he couldn’t tell. — “You’re slower than usual. Paler.”

Lyanna said it clipped and sharp, like she didn’t have time for fussing, a quick, no-nonsense — “Fine, then,” — That left no room for argument.

It came out brittle. Defensive. She’d see through it in an instant. The numbers above them refused to hurry. Lyanna stepped off the wall and closed the space between them. Not touching — but near enough. Close enough for him to smell her: ash and storm and something underneath that made the beast in his chest stir like a half-remembered name. She tilted her chin. Exposed her throat.

“I’m just sayin’… ye could take some,” —  Lyanna said it quiet, matter-of-fact, like she wasn’t begging or fussing, just plain truth laid out flat. Her voice held that stubborn edge, like she didn’t need to explain but wanted him to get it all the same. — “If ya need it.”

Rhaegar didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Two heartbeats passed, hers. Not his. — “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” — He kept his voice measured. Almost cold. Like distance could be a substitute for discipline.

She rolled her eyes. Snorted like he’d recited scripture instead of admitting temptation. — “I’m nae scared o’ ye,” — She said. —  “Yer hungry. I’ve got blood. Do the math.”

He did the math. He also did the calculus. And the theology. None of it made this safe. She held his gaze. Chin high. Unflinching. A soldier in cigarette smoke and eyeliner. A girl who could see death and still offer her neck. And then, in a voice softer than he expected — too soft — it came, 

“But I s’pose I’ll take the rejection.” — Lyanna’s voice dropped lower than he’d thought it would, quiet, almost tender, with a softness that caught him off guard. It wasn’t defiance this time, but something closer to reluctant surrender.

That bruised something in him. He didn’t know what. But it hurt like the echo of a life he used to want. It shouldn’t have mattered. A line spoken too casually, a shrug of indifference. But it did. Gods, it did. Not because she’d offered. Not because he was starving — though he was. It mattered because she thought he didn’t want to. That was the lie he couldn’t let live. Rhaegar moved before thought could strangle the impulse. No lecture. No clever diversion. No sermon on restraint this time. His body betrayed him, acting with the violence of want. He reached for her. His hands were rougher than he intended, pulling her forward, her back hitting the mirrored wall with a soft metallic thud. Her eyes met his — sharp, startled. But not afraid. And that sealed it.

“Don’t mistake it for rejection,” — He said, voice low and taut with something between shame and possession. — “I didn’t refuse because I lack desire. It’s a matter of conflicting interests.”

He didn’t touch her like glass, didn’t kiss her skin like prayer. That was a younger man’s mistake. He leaned in, mouth grazing her throat with the kind of hunger that burned reverence away. Her blood called to him — sang to him — and he answered. His fangs slid in. Clean. Firm.And Lyanna didn’t flinch. She didn’t gasp or cry out. She breathed. A low exhale, steady and defiant. Like this was a pact she’d made with herself long ago. Her hands curled into his shirt, his hair — sharp fingers, sharp choices. Her heartbeat spiked, then settled. She didn’t surrender. She chose him. He tried to keep it clinical, detached. He’d perfected the art of feeding without intimacy — turning sacred hunger into dull necessity. But this wasn’t dull. And it was far from necessity. Her taste hit him like an old melody buried in bone. Bitter and bright. Ancient. Wild. Alive in a way that was dangerous. Not prey. Not sustenance. She tasted like a storm trying to be still. Banshee blood was different. Rhaegar knew that in theory.

He’d tasted it once from her during their first case, when meaning didn’t matter and survival was louder than memory. He hadn’t understood it then. Now he did. And still, he drank. It wasn’t feeding anymore. It was craving. It was answering a need he didn’t admit to. Not to himself. Not to anyone. Her blood didn’t just fill him — it rewrote him. Every nerve lit up, every buried ache dragged into light. It grounded him and undid him all at once. The elevator dinged. They’d reached his floor. He pulled back, slow and breathless, though he didn’t need breath. Her blood still sang in his mouth, electric and haunting. His hands dropped to his sides like he’d only just remembered they had to. She looked up at him — cheeks flushed, eyes heavy-lidded, a smear of red at her throat.

“Ye done?” —  She asked, voice husky and daring.

Rhaegar stepped away as if the walls had grown fangs. — “No,” — He said softly.

Not nearly.

***

Title: Offers One Does Not Refuse

Tonight didn’t feel like a case. It felt like standing on the edge of something that had already swallowed me whole, watching her drop through the cracks before I could follow.

Lyanna was quiet. Not her usual blade-tipped silence, but something heavier — damp, coiled, held tight in the lungs like a scream never let out. She moved like someone walking through echoes, like she'd already lived this day twice and hated every second of it. No retorts, no sharp-edged wit. Just distance. I’ve seen her bloodied, furious, defiant. But this? This unsettled me.

Earlier, on the phone, her voice faltered. It cracked. Only for a second — but I heard it. And it stuck. Crawled under my skin and stayed there. She was fraying at the edges, and trying to pretend otherwise.

At the hotel, she handed over the box without ceremony, without venom. No theatrics. No protest. Just… gave it away. That silence again — louder than any alarm bell.

I should’ve fed afterward. I was starving. The hunger curled in my stomach like a second spine, growing vertebra by vertebra. But the memory of her nearly dying — her blood hot against my hands, Erik’s stench still in the air — kept me grounded. If you can call it that. I took her back to mine. Call it loyalty, guilt, fear — whatever. It wasn’t logic.

In the elevator, she looked at me like she knew. As if she could smell it on me — the hunger, the restraint. Most people don’t notice. Most people see the polished surface and never question what’s beneath. But Lyanna sees the cracks. Worse — she understands them.

I tried to play it off. Gave her some offhand remark about blood bags and the joys of synthetic nutrition. She didn’t buy it.

Then she said thank you . A real one. Sincere. Unarmored. It hit harder than I expected. Not because she owed me anything, but because she meant it. It came from that buried part of her — the one she guards with barbed wire and bad habits. And somehow, she let it slip.

Then came the offer. Not emotional. Not seductive. Just… honest. A gesture. A kindness. One that terrified me more than if she’d pointed a gun to my head. Because she doesn’t understand what that means. What feeding is. Not for me.

It’s not consumption. It’s connection. It's binding. Sacred, in a way nothing else is anymore. Most vampires don’t feed from people they care about. We know better. We know how it changes things. And she just offered — without fear, without strings.

I said no. Not for lack of want. But because I wanted too much. And then, the look she gave me — it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t cold. It was… disappointment. Like she thought I didn’t want her. That, more than anything, cracked something in me.

I moved before I could think better of it. I pulled her in. Close. Closer than I should have. Her back hit the elevator wall with a soft thud, but she didn’t flinch. Just watched me with those storm-blue eyes, steady and sure.

Her blood hit me like revelation. Old and wild, singing with death and defiance. Banshee blood isn’t like anything else. It doesn’t just feed — it remembers. I felt every note of her. Every fracture. Every fight. She tasted like the first thunderclap before the sky splits open.

She didn’t pull away. She gripped tighter. Shirt, collar, hair — holding me there like she meant it. She wasn’t offering herself up. She was meeting me. On equal footing. Not prey. Not victim. Just… her.

When I stopped, the air between us was different. Charged. Her breath was uneven. Her throat glistened red. But her eyes — gods, her eyes — they were clear. Brighter than I’d seen them since I met her.

Something had changed. Maybe everything.

And I knew, even as I stepped back, that I hadn’t had enough.

Not nearly.

Chapter Text

It tasted like death. Not the soft, romantic kind. Not the swoon-on-the-threshold kind. This wasn’t pale skin and poetry. Lyanna’s blood tasted like a scream swallowed halfway through. Like iron chains in a burning throat. Salted grief. Metallic longing. The aftertaste of crushed winter roses, bone dust, incense, and something sweet — but only in the way rot gets sweet when it’s gone too long untouched. It didn’t satisfy like human blood. It marked him. He hadn’t meant to take so much. He told himself that. But she’d offered. And he’d been starving — for her, for meaning, for the quiet ache behind her voice. He fed longer than he should’ve. Enough to feel the edge of it in his gut. Enough to feel shame crawl up the back of his throat. So he gave back. Two full servings of his own blood, laced with healing and apology. Set her down in one of the guest rooms — his, really, the one he never used except when he couldn’t sleep, which was a lot — and left food like an offering. Like penance.

If he was honest with himself (he rarely was), he did it not out of guilt. But because she mattered. Because after he drank her, he knew — he was hers now. Somehow. In some way that had nothing to do with time or logic or bloodlines. Just felt true. And then came the reaction. It started in his bones. Cold, at first — like snowmelt over a grave, slow and creeping. He thought a shower would help. Hot water, routine, silence. But as it pelted down his skin, the cold ignited. Not into heat. Into memory. Silver fire, sharp and bright and searing through his veins. At first, it was just a shiver. Then a twitch in his fingers. Then — vision. Not metaphorical. His sight split, doubled, fractured with light and grief and sound. Something cracked. He went out. Laid down naked on his bed in the dark, thinking it would pass. It didn’t.

It swallowed him. Seconds blurred. Time folded. His pulse slowed to a crawl and still thudded too loud in his ears. Then — the voices. Not hers. The others. All the ones who had screamed because of him. Every throat he’d torn. Every breath he’d stolen. Echoing, layered, accusatory and soft like lullabies sung at the edge of a cliff. He wasn’t in his body anymore. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t memory. It was a place. The air there tasted like her blood. He stood on a ground that breathed — like lungs just past death. The sky wasn’t a sky. It was a veil, thin and whispering. A woven hush. Screams echoing in the seams. He walked. He didn’t know how, but the place responded. Knew him. Judged him.And then — he saw them. They wore black. Not clothes — shadows. Mourning made physical. Women, or what had once been women, standing like sentinels in the dark. They didn’t speak. They sang. And in that song, he understood. They weren’t individuals. They were fragments. Echoes. A psychic constellation of banshee scream and sorrow and flame. The origin of the curse that lived in Lyanna’s marrow.

They looked at him. And they knew. — “Thou dost not belong here, vampiro.” —  The voices said a voice like old stone cracking.

“Still an’ all,” — Murmured the other, cruel with quiet, —  “we ken ye’d make yer way.”

Rhaegar turned slowly, barefoot on earth that wasn’t earth — soft and breathing like a body just after death. The sky above him wasn’t sky, just a trembling veil stitched from smoke and ash, whispering things in no language he knew. Shadows moved like they were watching, but didn’t blink. His breath fogged despite the cold not touching him. Everything felt wrong. Ancient. Curated. Like he’d stepped into a memory someone else had died in. He pivoted in place — eyes darting to the edges of what passed for a horizon. There was no direction. No scent. No time. Only grief, hanging in the air like incense. Like her. 

His voice cracked when he spoke, not from fear. From recognition. — “Where am I?” — He asked, low and hoarse.

Not shouted. Not demanded. Just asked, like someone who already knew the answer and hated it. His eyes flicked to the figures watching him, robed in mourning and shadow, unmoving. — “Where am I?” — He repeated, softer now. Like a prayer. Or a curse.

And the world around him breathed like it was waiting for him to understand. They didn’t answer. — “Are you… Banshees?”

No words. Just song. Just meaning passed through his blood like a virus. — “Ev’ry thread in the weave were meant for this.” —  one voice sang. — “We knew she’d seek thee. We knew ye’d come. We are the endin’. We see as the story is born.”

It wasn’t prophecy. Like he was inside a story already finished. He was a trigger. A test. Maybe a weapon. — “Thou art the hunger she must withstand,” — Said the chorus, overlapping like waves. It felt older than him.  — “Or yield unto. We shan’t say which.”

The world around him started to unravel — like ink bleeding through parchment, like a scream folding back into silence. The sky-veiled air pulled at his limbs, at his spine, at something deeper than bone. The ground — if it was even ground — shuddered beneath him like it was exhaling for the last time. He felt it: the end of it. The snapping thread. He wasn't ready. His body lurched forward, arms outstretched toward the women — those shadows in mourning, those silent judges humming in grief and fate. The veil was closing. The echo dimming.

“Wait!” — He shouted, rough, torn, not regal at all.

Not a command. Not a question. A plea. Like someone begging not to wake from a dream that had just told him the truth. His voice cracked against the windless void, swallowed up before it could reach them. He wasn’t even sure he still had a body — just pressure, just weight, just loss. And then he was gone. Thrown back into his own skin like punishment.

“Thou memory shall fade when thou dost wake,” — They murmured as the veil came back. — “Not fully. But you’ll feel it. In your marrow.”

And then — Nothing. He woke up on the floor. Cold. Drenched in sweat gods know how. Breathing like something had tried to drag him out through his ribs. His heart racing, twisted. His hands were shaking. His eyes burned. His teeth ached like he’d chewed glass. He didn’t remember. But something had marked him. He knew that much. It was in his blood now. In his spine. In the ache under his tongue where her name lived. The sky outside was dark. Hours had passed. He stood, slow and quiet, blinking into the half-light of his room. His body was back, but not quite his. He had touched something no vampire should’ve. And gods help him, he didn’t regret it. He'd been dead a long time. Long enough to forget how to mourn. But her blood didn’t let him forget. It forced him to feel. Cracked him open and poured every repressed memory into his bones like molten iron. He wanted more. Not just because it felt good in a way. Because it felt real. Like kissing the person who destroyed you and realizing you’d let them do it again. He licked the last trace from his teeth. It tasted like her. It tasted like truth. He hated himself for it. But he’d drink her again. Even if it ruined him. 

***

It was the blood. She should’ve figured it out sooner — would’ve, if her head hadn’t been a war zone and her heart a locked vault. Of course it was his fucking blood. A cure for her curse didn't just come crawling out of nowhere like a drunk ex. It always had a price. And sometimes, if you were lucky — or cursed enough — it came in the shape of a man who looked like hunger incarnate and smelled like iron and regret. Rhaegar. She hadn’t exactly planned on offering herself up to him. Not logically, anyway. But logic hadn’t been much of a friend lately. Not after the universe kept rewinding itself like a scratched DVD, and every version of him — of that man — kept ending the world just because she might still be breathing in it. He'd torn through the world and opened the box for her . And she… She’d offered her neck without blinking.

That’s not nothing. It wasn’t the first time. But it was the first time he wasn’t dying on top of her with half a dozen knives in his ribs, or her dying because of a demon attack. There were fewer stakes this time. Less blood in the air, more silence. More weight. It landed different. Maybe because she’d meant it this time. Maybe because, Gods help her, she wanted to know what it felt like. Not hypothetically. Not professionally. Actually. She didn’t feel the pain. She was aware of it, sure — it scratched at the edge of her senses like static, background noise — but it didn’t cut through. Her body, twisted by curse and trauma, didn’t flinch the way it used to. Banshees don’t bleed like people. They echo. And what she felt in that moment wasn’t pain. It was euphoria. Raw, shameful, ugly-good euphoria. The kind that makes your toes curl and your stomach drop and your spine forget how to stay upright.

It was trust. Non-verbal, irreversible. And nothing like a kiss or a fuck or a hug. It was worse. It meant more. One blink, she was in the lift. Another, and she was laid out on some sofa in his apartment, the lights too dim and her skin too bright. She could feel the blood being pulled from her body like thread from a wound, but it didn’t feel like dying. No panic. No survival instinct kicking in. Just — quiet. Like a switch had been flipped. Like some pheromonal override had hijacked her nervous system and told every cell in her to stand the fuck down. Her banshee senses flooded — white noise, radio static, death-slick vibrations in the air — but all she could feel was him. His hands. His mouth. His breath where it didn’t belong. Rough, demanding. Not kind.

She flinched. She didn’t pull away. That should’ve scared her. But all she could think was: I want this. Not the bite. Not the act. Him. The closeness. The goddamn presence of someone she couldn’t shut out, who didn’t try to shut her down. When his fangs broke her skin, it wasn’t a prick. It was a cut. Sharp as a blade dipped in snow. Her whole body jolted. Not from fear — from heat. A flashfire bloomed under her skin, blooming like blood in water. Her hands fisted in his shirt, in his hair. Her breath hitched — caught like a lie halfway to her lips. The second his teeth sank in, her back arched — reflex, not choice. Not agony either. Something worse. Surrender.

She could feel it — the alchemy of it — his saliva mixing with her blood, the spell waking up between their bodies like a third heart. A supernatural reaction on a biological fuse. Her pupils blew wide. Her limbs turned to water. Her banshee instincts fried and sparked. She felt her core react, the dead energy in her spine climbing up instead of out. The taste in her mouth was metal and roses and nothing rational. Too much light. Too much sound. Too much everything. And still not enough. Her body keened toward him like a candle leaning into its own flame. All her silence, all her death-trained calm — obliterated. She hated it. Hated how safe it felt. How good. Like falling asleep with a knife to your throat and still whispering, stay . It didn’t last.

Nothing good ever did. When he pulled away, it was like being ripped open. A cold wind where his mouth had been. Her breath caught in pieces. Her skin buzzed. Her throat stung from the scream she hadn’t made. She looked up — barely — and saw him leaning over her, his eyes dark and too full. She didn’t register much else. She was high. But not clean. The kind of high that came with bruises already forming under the skin. Bliss curdling into shame. Emotionally? She was wrecked. Strung out. Turned on. Furious. Cracked open. And disarmed. That was the worst bit. The part she didn’t want to name. Didn’t want to feel. She wanted more. Gods, she wanted more. Then his wrist was over her mouth — his blood this time. She tasted it. Swallowed it. Not much. Just enough. And sleep crept in fast, like a needle behind her ear. He said something, or maybe she did. She told herself she’d only close her eyes for a second. Just a blink. Like she had any control left.

The sleep hit different. Not like the half-dead naps she usually managed — head on a desk, boots still on, every muscle waiting for the next scream. This wasn’t that. This was deep, dreamless, bone-heavy. Stage-three shit. The kind of sleep that doesn't just knock you out, it folds you into the dark and whispers, stay down, love, I'll watch your back . And for once, she did. No sirens. No blood-curdled dreams. No bodies with their faces twisted in that too-human way that followed her home. Just black. Quiet. Fucking quiet. When she blinked awake, slow and hazy, it took her a second to clock that she didn’t know where she was. Normally, that’d set off alarms. Shake her spine into a panic — where, who, what did I do, did I kill again — but not this time. She just… sat up.

No cuffs. No dried blood. No stranger next to her. That was already a win. Not a living room. Not a crime scene. A bed. A fucking bed. The duvet was obscenely soft — like falling into a marshmallow laced with opiates. His scent lingered in the corners of the room, low and persistent. Expensive soap and old books and iron and something him. She didn’t need to squint — her eyes caught everything: blackout curtains, pale morning light trying to crawl in and failing, her boots and socks neatly placed on a chair at the foot of the bed. She was still in her Henley and pants. So he hadn’t stripped her. Good. Or disappointing. Maybe both. The clock on the nightstand glared 10:00 AM in clinical blue digits.

She’d really blacked out. Slept like a bairn full on milk and nightmares scrubbed clean. No hangover from the bite, either — no nausea, no cold sweat, no psychic backwash. Just a bit of a high that had cooled down into a slow, sated hum. Like she'd been wrung out and left in the sun. Next to the clock, on a silver tray polished to ritualistic perfection: a calling card, of course. Two cards, handwritten, because of course the prick does calligraphy. All flourishes and sharp lines like he signed treaties in his spare time. Eat me. Drink me . Right. Alice in Fucking Wonderland. Subtle. But she knew better than to laugh. They weren’t jokes. They were instructions. And gifts. She looked at the offerings with narrowed eyes — like they might bite back. Under the Eat Me card: strawberries, halved and sugared, like something out of a memory she didn’t know she’d had. Sweet, soft, a little wild. The taste stabbed her tongue with something sharp — nostalgia, maybe. Or grief.

A venison tartlet, still warm under glass. Rare. Bloody. Rich. Not human — she checked. Ninety-five percent sure. She could live with that. Tyroshi delight, rose-flavored, dusted in powdered sugar and blood salt — of course he’d give her dessert that tasted like old mourning and fairy tales. It melted like something she used to believe in. Something she'd buried. Folded in a napkin was a note. Still warm. I had it made for you. Try not to throw it at the wall this time. She didn’t smile. Not really. Just a flicker of something on her mouth — too bitter to be warmth, too soft to be scorn. She ate it anyway. The Drink Me offering was a decanter of thick red liquid. Not wine. Not just blood either. Something mixed — his blood, she guessed, with herbs or magic or both. There was also a small glass vial, etched in silver script: For clarity. And for your neck. Temporary .

She drank it. No hesitation. It tasted faintly citrusy, floral at the edges. Like that one summer she and Benjen spent half-blind on the beaches of Sunspear, chasing gulls and stealing tarts from market stalls. She hadn't thought about that in years. Had he felt that in her blood? She didn’t want to think about that. Her hand went to her neck. No wound. Not even a scar. Just smooth skin and the ghost of his mouth. His blood, then. She’d heard vampires had healing properties. Of course he’d given her that without asking. Of course he’d done it gently, silently, like it didn’t cost him anything. She hated that about him. How kind he could be in the quiet. It made her want to break things. She finished eating, downed the rest, and swung her legs off the bed. No reason to linger. She grabbed her boots, shoved them on. Socks were inside them — folded. Fucking neat. He did that like she was someone worth taking care of.

She moved through the apartment quietly, past the rooms she’d seen before. Then past one she hadn’t. His office, and then a hallway that felt unfamiliar. At the end of it, a door — big, closed, quiet as a coffin. She paused. Part of her wanted to knock. Wake him. Ask questions. Touch him. But that part didn’t get a vote today. She left instead. In the living room, her coat and messenger bag waited like loyal dogs. Right where he’d left them. Nothing moved. No creaks. No messages. Just the faint pulse of wards in the corners, the hum of old protection magic. She pulled on her coat, slung her bag over her shoulder, and didn’t look back. She stepped out of the flat like she hadn’t just slept through a fucking apocalypse. Didn’t look back. Didn’t pause. Just moved — on autopilot, the way she always did when she didn’t want to think too hard. The hallway smelled like citrus cleaner and rich-people silence. The elevator dinged softly, obliging, like it didn’t know it was ferrying a banshee down from her first real sleep in years.

She didn’t feel different. Not yet. Pressed the button. Watched the numbers blink down. 12. 11. 10. Her eyes snagged on the screen. Clear. Sharp as glass. The red glow didn’t blur, didn’t ghost at the edges. Her pupils didn’t struggle. No weird shadows swimming in from the sides. No static. Just numbers. Simple. Brutal. Legible. She stared at them like they’d slapped her. And still  — she didn’t stop moving. Walked out of the lift. Through the fancy-arse lounge with the fake fireplace and the concierge pretending not to notice her boots. Out the front door, coat collar up against the cold. But when her boots hit pavement — when she stepped into the light and the wind slapped her awake — That’s when it hit her. Her breath caught, ragged and shallow. Not like fear. Like realisation. She could see. Like — see-see. No blur. No dimmed edges. No weird glimmers that made her blink like a half-drunk streetlamp. The world looked like it used to, back when she could walk a crime scene without squinting, back before her eyes started treating shadows like enemies. She looked up. Read the name of the café across the street. Could read the fucking menu in the window. Clarity. Colour. Depth. No flickers. No static. And just like that — like a switch flipping in the back of her skull — she knew. 

His blood. Of course it was. Rhaegar’s blood. That smug, haunted bastard. The one who moved like poetry and bled like scripture. He’d given her his blood — slipped past her lips after she’d gone under. After she’d offered hers, after the world spun on its axis and she let herself want something for once. She hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t questioned the taste. Hadn’t even felt it, not really. But now? Now her vision was back. Clean. Whole. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t earned. It was him. Vampire blood had a reputation after all. Her mouth felt dry. Her chest buzzed like an open wound. She didn’t stop walking, didn’t stumble, didn’t cry. But gods, did it sit heavy in her chest. She should’ve felt grateful. She didn’t. And she just hated how much that scared her.

She drove home like she was still dreaming. Not in the soft, pastel sense. No. More like the kind of dream that leaves ash in your mouth and blood under your nails. Everything outside the car window pulsed — too vivid, too loud. The rust on a pickup's side didn’t just look brown anymore. It was blood-orange. Copper. Grief. The colour of a playground bruise or a dead girl’s dress in an evidence bag. Even the pink on a billboard wasn’t pink — it glowed, radioactive and warm like a memory she hadn’t agreed to remember. She saw what Rhaegar meant now. Technicolour . The word used to sound like pretentious vampire bullshit when he described how he saw. Now it felt like a confession. She parked near the building just shy of the lunch rush. Her body still felt like it was catching up to itself, like her bones were lagging behind her heartbeat. She didn’t say hi to anyone — just slipped through the hallway like a shadow with somewhere to be and no interest in being perceived.

Her office door clicked shut behind her. Of course, that was when Howland was there. — “Y’alright?”

She turned, already frowning. Howland. Fucking always Howland. Leaning in her doorway like a stray cat with too much empathy. His outfit looked like it had been pulled out of a painting and run through a philosophy seminar. That forest green velvet — corduroy, maybe — big-shouldered, long-draped, wide-legged nonsense. The kind of look that said art gallery intern who reads too much poetry. His tie was some abstract shit in moss and gold, probably expensive. Belt with a metal square like he was trying to anchor himself to Earth. And those black leather shoes? Please. She didn’t have the energy to mock him properly.

“Always with the fuckin’ green,” —  She said flatly, eyeing him. —  “We know yer eyes are pretty. No need to scream it with velvet.”

Howland glanced down at himself like he was seeing the outfit through someone else’s eyes for the first time. His fingers brushed down the front of the corduroy jacket, smoothing out nothing, fiddling with the lapel like it might give him a reason to keep talking. He didn’t meet her gaze right away. — “Brings out the tone,” — He muttered, then added with a half-shrug, — “reckon it suits me complexion.”

The words landed soft, like he wasn’t sure if he was joking or just defending himself out of reflex. He tried to sound casual, but the blush creeping up his neck betrayed him. And when he looked up…  Just for a second… There was something in his eyes that asked, Is it too much? He masked it with a smile, but she could see the nerves tucked in the corners of his mouth. Then, narrowing his eyes,   — “Why’d ye change the subject?”

She sighed. — “I’m fine.”

“Weren’t in yer own bed last night, were ye.” —  He said it like he already knew.

Not accusing. Not exactly. But there was a weight to it — soft, careful, the way Howland always handled her, like she was a puzzle with blood on the pieces. He tilted his head, arms folded, brows drawn in just enough to show he’d noticed. Of course he had. The man noticed everything. It wasn’t a question. It was deduction, not that it took much. Statement. Like he’d traced the ghost of perfume that wasn’t hers, or the change in how her shirt clung like it had been air-dried in a stranger’s flat. Like he’d watched her walk in and clocked the softness in her steps, the kind of softness that only came after actual sleep — deep, real, and not alone. And then he just looked at her. Waiting. Not pressing. Just there. Because that’s what Howland did — stood there, quietly, until she cracked her own damn armour.

She didn’t look at him when she said it. Didn’t need to. Her voice was already doing the damage. — “Why d’ye wanna ken, then?”

Low. Guarded. Laced with that quiet venom she kept in reserve for people who asked things they weren’t supposed to. Not a real question — more like a verbal pushback, her tongue turned to a blade. She said it like she was daring him to keep pressing, knowing damn well he would. Her arms were crossed before she even realized it, shoulders tense, jaw tight. The kind of posture that said don’t touch me, don’t look too close. She was on edge, and Howland had touched the wire. She didn’t mean for it to come out so sharp. But she couldn’t help it. Curiosity wasn’t safe. Not when it came from people who gave a damn. And Howland? He gave a damn. That made him dangerous. He didn’t lean in. He didn’t raise his voice. He just stood there — shoulders loose, arms crossed over that forest-green corduroy like he had all the time in the world and none of it needed to be loud. His eyes scanned her, thoughtful, not unkind. Like a scientist who’d found a creature bleeding and wasn’t sure whether to call it beautiful or tragic.

His tone was low, Northern, and maddeningly calm. — “Ye're actin’ off. Not just your usual prickly, but yer more like… rattled. Ye only get like that when it counts. So. Ye were with someone.” — He let the words hang, weightless but heavy, a quiet trap she could walk into or step around. No judgment in his face, just that steady Howland gaze, like he was more worried about her lying to herself than lying to him. And he didn’t smirk. Didn’t grin. He just watched her flinch and said nothing.

Lyanna rolled her eyes so hard her skull nearly cracked. Fine. He’d just badger her until she admitted it. — “Yer bloody deduction skills are gettin’ better,” — She muttered, half-smirk, half-deflect. — “Suppose I should be glad ye’re learnin’ somethin’ off me .” — She said it like it was nothin’. Like she hadn’t bled for the man. Slept in his house. Woke up with colour burnin’ behind her eyelids. — “I was at Rhaegar’s.”

That shut him up. His mouth opened, then closed. His face went red, and he hugged the papers in his arms like a Victorian ghost bride. And then — of course — he had to open his mouth again.

He said it like he didn’t mean to. — “So… y’were wi’ Rhaegar, then… uhhhm.” — Like the words stumbled out before he had time to put a leash on them. His voice pitched up at the end… Half curiosity, half secondhand embarrassment… And the uhhh trailed after him like a kid who knew he was about to get smacked for saying something dumb.

His eyes darted sideways, lips twitching like he wasn’t sure whether to grin or duck. Paper clutched tighter in his hand, like it could shield him from her look — that look that could flay skin if she wanted to. He meant well. He always did. But he sounded like someone trying very hard not to imagine things he definitely already imagined. And she definitely noticed. She glared knives.

“No uhh. Shut the fuck up with yer uhh. What even’s uhh? I slept on the sofa. Guest room. Alone. No uhh, no situation, no nothin’.” —  Lyanna said it like she was already sick of the game. 

Her words came fast, clipped, laced with impatience and the kind of anger that wasn’t about anyone but herself. Her eyes flicked up just enough to catch Howland’s, daring him to push back, but her jaw was tight, voice low and rough like she’d swallowed gravel. She was snapping the conversation shut before it could get under her skin, before the questions could crack her carefully patched-up armor.

“So nothin’ happen?” — He asked, tilting his head like a cat trying to look innocent.

She stepped forward like she might slap him. — “Boy, if yeh dinnae get the fuck oot my face...”

He held up his hands in surrender, backing out the door with a grin he thought she didn’t see. She watched him leave, exhaled through her teeth, and shoved the door closed behind him with her hip. The lock clicked. And finally — finally — she let her shoulders sag. Her hand drifted to the side of her neck. No scar. No pain. Just warmth. Faint and echoing, like a song still humming in the walls after the music stops. She needed it out of her head. Scrub it off. Bury it in clean sheets, cold water, and something brain-dead enough to distract her. Shower. New clothes. Paperwork. Adult things — quarterly taxes, missing receipts, expenses she’d definitely lie about later. Something boring enough to keep her hands busy and her mind blank. Something that didn’t taste like his mouth.

She told herself it was working. Told herself she wasn’t glancing at her phone. That she hadn’t checked the time four times in an hour. That she didn’t notice Howland leaving early or the silence that crept in after the door shut. She didn’t call Rhaegar. Didn’t message. Didn’t light a cigarette and stare at the door like she was expecting a knock. She just... stayed. Home. Safe. Unbothered. Watching Star Trek reruns like her life depended on it. The Original Series, then The Next Generation, like some kind of ritual. She was halfway through Encounter at Farpoint when she passed out sideways on the couch, blanket twisted around her legs, remote lost in the cushions. Sleep wasn’t usually her friend. When it came, it came mean. Nightmares more common than peace. Grief leaking through the seams. And if the dreams weren’t nightmares, they were worse    — half-memories of childhood before it all went sideways.

But this time? This time was different. Warm. Too warm. It started soft. Strange. Familiar hands in unfamiliar places. Heat where she hadn't let herself feel anything in years. Her breath hitching, body arching—like something inside her remembered even if she refused to admit it. And the worst part? It wasn’t some faceless fantasy. No. Of course not. Of course it was him. Fangs and all. She jolted awake, drenched in sweat, like she'd been caught doing something illegal in a church. Bolted upright like someone had opened the door on her mid-sin. Heart racing. Skin flushed. Shame curling at the edges of her stomach. She turned the telly off, walked straight into the kitchen like being surrounded by mundane domesticity would scrub the dream out of her skull. Like the smell of burned coffee and last night's dishes could drown out the feeling of his mouth at her throat. The memory of hands — his — pressing into her hips like he owned her.

It wasn’t fair. Of all the goddamn people her mind could throw into a dream like that… it had to be him. Not just a vampire. That vampire. Because apparently getting your blood drunk was a one-way ticket to connection now. Apparently her banshee-cursed nervous system hadn’t gotten the memo that this wasn’t real. Except it had felt real. Too real. The night before hadn’t just been blood. It had been... something. Too much. Too intimate. Like letting someone hold the pieces of you you never even showed to yourself. She shook her head. Nope. No. Absolutely the fuck not. Shower. That would fix it. Except it didn’t. The water was hot, and all it did was remind her of the dream. Of the way her body still hummed, still reacted like she hadn’t spent the past decade building walls. Like it wanted to burn itself open. The worst part? The ache wasn’t just physical. She hated that. She dried off, threw on whatever clothes were closest, didn’t look in the mirror. Mirrors asked questions she didn’t want to answer. Like why the fuck she’d woken up wanting him. When she got to the office, her head was a mess. And of course, Howland was already there. Standing outside her office door like a nervous dog with a file folder.

He looked rattled. — “Ey,” — He said, voice weirdly tentative. — “Erm… ye’ve already got someone waitin’, like. A client.”

She blinked at him. — “It’s eight. Thought we said… No clients ‘fore nine. Only bloody rule we ever stick to.”

“Aye, but... it’s one o’ me mates, y’know? She’s got that bar down Bramble Street way? They found a body out back this mornin’.” — Howland said it a bit sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck, voice low like he already knew she wouldn’t be thrilled. His words tumbled out in a hurry, all nerves and guilt, eyes flicking anywhere but her face. He was asking for a favour and bracing for the storm. — “Could ye, uh... have a look, like?”

She stared at him for a beat. Then exhaled like a cigarette drag. — “Aye,” — She muttered. —  “Get her in, then.” —  Better a corpse than feelings. At least the dead didn’t make her dream.

Apparently, some poor bastard dropped dead behind a club full of glitter-drenched teens and black eyeliner. The Pastel Goth variety — the kind who wore death like an accessory and called their trauma “aesthetic.” Kid’s name was Gene Hanson. Stage name: Dante . Of course it was. He died pretty. Or tried to. Didn’t stick. Ethan Glover, owner of the Underground Club and self-appointed patriarch of the night-breed drama clique, had come knocking with more desperation than usual. Said it with a capital Night Breeds, like they were a species or a cult or maybe just really pretentious. Called Howland his favorite , which Lyanna tried very hard not to unpack. Or think about. And not judge. She did  judge. 

She didn’t plan to take the case. Not really. But Howland looked at her like a kicked puppy and she hated disappointing the kicked ones, so now here she was — walking into the morgue like it was a bad date she hadn’t meant to agree to. No call to Rhaegar. No messages. No anything. Just cold tile, fluorescent buzz, and her banshee gut already bracing for something foul. Mance met them halfway down the corridor, lab coat streaked with coffee and autopsy dust. Always looked like he hadn’t slept since the Cold War. She liked him. He pulled open the drawer like he was presenting fine china, not a corpse rotting at an aggressively disrespectful speed.

“Found ‘im three hours after he was meant t’ drop,” — Mance said, far too casual for the occasion. — “But lookin’ at this mess, the body begs t’ differ.”

Didn’t just not agree — it looked like something had feasted on the guy. Like rot on speed. Gene ‘Dante’ Hanson had the complexion of boiled meat left too long in sun. The kind of body that made even morgue air seem merciful. Lyanna didn’t flinch. She’d seen worse. Smelled worse too, but the sub-zero temp helped with that. She glanced at Howland, who looked... rattled. Soft eyes. Rigid shoulders. Cute, in a way that didn’t belong here. She didn’t dwell on it. Back to the mess.

“Looks like he got fuckin’ swarmed,” — She muttered, squinting at the mess of bite marks. — “Bee-cluster sorta damage. Summer shit. Not winter.”

Howland replied, eyes still locked on the body. — “Don’t look like stings, that. Somethin’ proper ate at ’im.”

“Aye, ’zactly,” — Mance said, like he was explaining’ a bloody bake-off. — “Blisterin’, swelling’, and damage where no bug usually snacks. Bit strange, this one.”

“Could’a been anaphylactic shock,” — She muttered, not buying’ it for a second. — “Still don’t explain the bloody chew marks, does it.”

Mance gave her that look he always gave her when they were about to cross the line between forensic and fucked. — “Might be somethin’ not exactly… natural, y’ken?”

“What, like some cicada-lookin’ demon wi’ a taste fer human protein?” — Lyanna said it with a dry edge, like she was half-mocking the whole idea but trying to keep things light. Her voice was flat, clipped, like she was bored with the nonsense but couldn’t resist a jab anyway. — “Dun’t think that one’s in the bloody field guide.”

“Cicadas don’ eat human flesh, mate,” — Mance replied, a bit too helpfully.

She sighed. — “I fuckin’ hate insects.” — Lyanna let out a sharp, bitter like she was carrying all the bugs in the world crawling under her skin. It wasn’t just disgust; it was pure, wired-in hatred.

“Then this case’s gonna be a right pain in the arse for ye.” — Mance said it with a dry grin, like he was delivering bad news wrapped in a joke, half mocking, half pitying, his voice low and clipped.

“Yeah. Cheers for that, then.” — Lyanna said it flat, the kind of dry ‘thanks’ that didn’t mean a thing, more like a jab wrapped in polite words.

She stared at the corpse, trying not to see too much. Not to let the banshee in her pick up the echo of his final scream. But it was there. Right under the skin. Thin as silk. Sharp as a knife. Another dead boy, ripped open for no reason she could name yet. Another case that wasn’t going to leave her alone once the sun went up or down. And still — still — she was thinking about Rhaegar. They headed back to her cramped apartment, the one place where cluttered bestiaries and half-burnt candles made sense, where real monsters lived on paper and not just in her head. The list was a fucking mess — Abaasy, Nachzehrer, Beelzebub’s Larvae, Leper Demons. All the usual suspects with names that sounded like bad poetry or something a drunk preacher spat out on a slow Tuesday. None of it helped, but it was a start.

She pinged Rhaegar, fingers trembling more than she liked. The message sat there, unread. Fair enough. She was a mess — too raw, too tangled up in whatever the hell this was, and god, she didn’t even want to guess what Rhaegar was carrying. Around him, people were — how to put it — older, quieter, with a kind of emotional smarts she barely understood, let alone owned. So, she planned to meet Howland by the club, get some street-level intel, talk to people who actually knew how to handle their demons — literal and otherwise. Howland tried to tell her not to go. Typical. No way she was gonna pull the same leather-rave-gone-wrong stunt again, so she dialed down the drama but kept her edge. Black sleeveless dress with a sheer mesh overlay — winter be damned, this was for blending in and standing out all at once. Tousled her hair like she gave a damn, tossed on a beaten leather coat, tight pants, boots that could kick skulls if needed. Phone and silver knuckledusters only. Guns were a last resort.

She caught the subway, the stale breath of the tunnels crawling under her skin, and showed up just on time, waiting outside the Night Breed Helm, the club where the weird ran rampant and secrets were currency. She tilted her head back to the cold sky — Rhaegar’s blood still pulsing through her veins, like a muted scream turned neon. Two servings, he’d said. Enough to sharpen her eyes, to see through the bullshit. Or so she thought. But then, just like that, something smacked her hard enough to paint stars behind her eyelids, and the world slipped out from under her. Lights out, no warning. Just cold darkness.

***

It was unbecoming of him. That was the word he landed on after two days of radio silence. Unbecoming. As if he were still some cloistered princeling with a court to impress, instead of a blood-sucking antique hiding behind designer suits and carefully worded press statements. He hadn’t checked on Lyanna. Hadn’t called, hadn’t sent word. Two days. Which, by mortal standards, wasn’t long. But for someone like him — who’d lived centuries measured by silences and absences — it was a gaping wound. He hadn’t fed. That in itself was telling. Instead, he stayed in the apartment, curtains drawn tight, more haunted than hungry. The taste of her still clung to the roof of his mouth — salt and ruin and something older. Not just blood. Not just magic. Something sacred. Something wrong. The banshee’s touch wasn’t like anything he’d experienced — not even in the wars, not in the nights when he drowned in flame and came back ash and teeth.

Whatever trance her blood had triggered — it wasn’t a hallucination. He knew that now. It had felt like a door cracking open in the marrow of the world. He saw something. He just couldn’t name it. Not god, not memory. Something older. A place beyond places. And he, the trespasser. He hadn’t slept. Not because he couldn’t, but because he refused to. Every time he closed his eyes, it pulled at him. That silver-veined realm, stitched together by screams and shadow. A child’s face. Dark hair. Eyes like glacial fire. Not a stranger. Her. Not Lyanna as she was, but Lyanna as she had been — before all the steel, before the silence. He knew what he’d seen. He just didn’t know why.

So he drew. Over and over, like it might make the memories solid. Paper scattered across his office in layers — fragmented sketches of the girl, of his own turning, of the banshees who spoke in riddles and threads. His hands moved on instinct, but his thoughts curled inward. He’d never done drugs when he was alive — not even laudanum in the days it was fashionable. This was his first real trip. Leave it to him to go straight to spiritual terror. He never did know how to half-feel anything. And still, no message from her. A knock pulled him from the spiral. He didn’t rise right away. Listened first. His hearing was precise — better than most of his kind. It wasn’t Lyanna. No heartbeat. He stood, moved toward the door, and before his hand touched the knob, the scent hit him. Blood. Rich, cold, wrong.

His fangs unsheathed on instinct — muscle memory older than muscle — and he opened the door. The boy fell in. Collapsed like a dropped marionette — limbs loose, neck torn. Not a vampire bite. This was messier. Ripped, not punctured. Clumsy. Rage, not hunger. Rhaegar stepped into the corridor. Nothing. Empty air and silence, too still for comfort. Whoever delivered the body had vanished, and swiftly. Sloppy or theatrical. Possibly both. He dragged the corpse inside, resisting the reflex to catalogue. The scent had flared something in his blood, but it wasn’t thirst — it was fear. She wasn’t answering. Neither her phone nor her landline. He tried both. Nothing. Silence can be innocent. This one wasn’t. And what did he expect? He’d disappeared. He’d fed from her — crossed a line even he rarely crossed—and then ghosted her like a coward with a conscience. But it wasn’t shame that drove him to the police station.

Not just shame. It was want. The kind that scared even him. Her blood was still inside him. Not just swimming in his veins, but pulsing through his memory, reshaping everything. He wanted more. And that, above all, was why he couldn't call her. Not yet. Not until he understood what he was becoming. So he did what he rarely did. He went to someone he barely trusted. The precinct’s night shift was mostly quiet — quiet enough that Sigorn Magnar, that iron-jawed, permafrost bastard, was still at his desk long after his shift should’ve ended. Rhaegar stepped in. Moved like shadow. Wore silence like a second skin.

Sigorn looked up, blinking slow. Didn’t smile. — “Well now,” — The detective said, voice rough and amused, —  “This’s a bloody surprise, innit.”

Rhaegar said nothing at first. Just looked at him. Calculating. Tired. Still cold from whatever place he’d been pulled from. But he was here. Which meant something had gone very, very wrong. And she wasn’t answering. Of all the wretched ironies, it had to be Sigorn Magnar. There were few people Rhaegar trusted less, and most of them were already dead. Sigorn, unfortunately, wasn’t. He was alive, breathing, and stationed behind a chipped metal desk in a precinct that smelled like burnt coffee and bureaucratic rot. A man who had once slid a metaphorical blade between Rhaegar’s ribs with a handshake and a smirk. And yet — here he was. Rhaegar Targaryen, undead and uncharacteristically rattled, forced to extend an olive branch he’d rather have set alight.

“I need help,”— he said, with all the warmth of a confession whispered to a priest one doesn’t believe in.

Sigorn didn’t even look up. — “I don’t do bloody parkin’ tickets, mate.”

Rhaegar said it with that glacial calm of his, measured, clipped, and just shy of condescending. His voice didn’t rise, didn’t waver. Just cool detachment wrapped in expensive diction, like he was correcting a student too slow to keep up. — “I don’t own a car, Mister Magnar.” — Smooth. Precise. The kind of line sharpened by centuries of boredom and practiced disinterest. A warning disguised as civility.

“Then lemme guess… Ye need birthday advice for Lyanna,” — Sigorn drawled, finally glanced up, leaning back with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. — “Relax, mate. Ain’t ‘til November. She’s a Scorpio, if that means anythin’ to yer blood-suckin’ brand o’ sentiment. Supposed to go for the meaningful shite… Personal touches, all that deep-feelin’ nonsense.”

Rhaegar blinked slowly. He didn’t smile, but his brow arched just slightly, the closest he got to amusement these days. His voice, when it came, was dry as old parchment and twice as brittle. — “I didn’t think you believed in horoscopes,” — He said, like he was filing it away for future mockery, or perhaps just to avoid admitting the jab had landed.

“I didn’t believe in your kind either. And yet.” Sigorn gestured vaguely at Rhaegar’s existence like it offended him. “Back to the gift…”

“I didn’t believe in your lot either, mate. And yet…” — Sigorn waved a hand at Rhaegar like he was some damp stain on the carpet. — “Right, now back to the bleedin’ gift…” 

Rhaegar turned, already regretting the impulse that had led him here. This was a mistake. He could have waited at her apartment instead. Paced the hardwood. Counted the hours like teeth clicking in his skull. Anything would’ve been less irritating than this banter.

But then… — “Wait, Targaryen.” —  Sigorn’s voice had dropped, cutting through the noise like a blade against glass. —  “Go on then… Spill it.”

Reluctantly, Rhaegar returned. The precinct was quiet this late into the shift — night bleeding into morning with fluorescent cruelty. No one was paying attention, but he still stepped closer, shadows clinging to him like memory. His voice lowered, tight as piano wire.

“Someone left a corpse at my front door,”  — Rhaegar said it quietly, but the weight behind the words could’ve cracked marble. — “Not a message. A warning. Torn open at the throat, and not by any fangs I recognize. Which means…there’s another one. Roaming the city. Hunting. Possibly taunting.”  — His voice was measured, cold in the way old grief is, frozen over, sharpened at the edges. He didn’t raise it; he didn’t need to. The silence around the words did more damage than volume ever could. 

He didn’t add what else he feared: that it knew about Lyanna. That this wasn’t random. That it had her scent. Sigorn’s expression changed. Not softened, just… recalibrated.

“This ain’t the place for that sorta talk, mate,” — He muttered, his voice losing its usual bite.

Rhaegar didn’t move. His hands were still, elegant, folded like a scholar waiting for it. But his eyes — those unreadable, ancient eyes — burned with the quiet certainty of a man who knew when a game had changed. Sigorn — the one who’d once sunk a knife in his back — was, for reasons neither entirely clear nor comfortable, the best option he had. So, Rhaegar followed him out of the stale police station air and into the cold, unforgiving night. They climbed into an ancient blue Volvo V70. Rhaegar hesitated, a flicker of instinct warning him that entering a vehicle with a man like Sigorn was a gamble. The engine rumbled to life, and they rolled through the streets of Whiteharbour.

Sigorn broke the silence with a rough, incredulous grunt. — “Ye moved the bloody body? Ye daft?”

Rhaegar’s reply was clipped, measured. —  “I made the most of the situation.”

Sigorn’s voice cut through the hum of the engine, clipped and sharp, like a blade scraping over stone. He didn’t even glance over, eyes fixed on the road as he jabbed the words out with that dry, no-nonsense edge, — “Ye gone an’ compromised the evidence, you have.” — the kind that made it clear he wasn’t impressed, and he expected better.

“I preserved the body to the best of my abilities.” — Rhaegar said it with quiet precision, his voice calm but edged with a faint, sardonic undertone, as if he knew the claim sounded absurd, yet it was the closest thing to truth he could offer.

Sigorn’s laugh was a dry bark, laced with disbelief. — “Ye should’ve called the coppers. That’s what ye should’ve done.”

“And that, precisely, is why I came to you.” —  Rhaegar’s voice dropped just enough to carve the tension between them. — “You are among the exceedingly rare few in this city who are cognizant of my existence. You should understand that were my life to ever come under scrutiny, it would not be a matter of mere inconvenience but rather a cataclysm. A maelstrom of chaos hurled recklessly against an unforgiving blade. Should I be unmasked, those who seek me will inevitably trace the path to those closest to me, most notably Lyanna. She shall not merely be collateral damage, she will become the principal target. Believe me, from a well of bitter experience, humanity harbors a unique and merciless cruelty for those like us.”

“Don’t be draggin’ Lyanna into this,” — Sigorn grunted, but the edge in his tone was reluctant, like he already knew the gravity.

“There’s another vampire out there,” — Rhaegar said, eyes narrowing in the darkened interior of the car.  —  “One who’s killing indiscriminately. How long before whoever it is tracks Lyanna and her banshee blood down?”

Silence stretched out. Sigorn knew this was no exaggeration. Every arcane disturbance this city had seen in the last year — every monster, demon, and unholy event — had found its way to her doorstep. It was only a matter of time before whatever darkness haunted these streets found her.

“So,” —  Rhaegar pressed, — “you want me to handle this alone? Or are you in?”

Sigorn sighed, defeat begrudgingly accepted. — “Right then. What’s done’s done. Go on… Tell me what happened.”

“The body appeared on my doorstep around nine,” — Rhaegar began, the memory etched sharp and clear despite the passing hours. — “She was already dead… Neck savaged, she was drained.”

Sigorn smirked, voice dripping with grim humor. — “What… This some kinda vampire housewarmin’ gift, is it?”

Rhaegar’s lips twitched in a faint, sardonic smile. — “Vampires are solitary hunters. It’s in our nature. Keeps the population in check. But whoever this was… It was a deliberate provocation. A challenge to my territory, plain and brutal.”

Sigorn asked without taking his eyes off the road, voice tight like he already knew the answer but didn’t want to hear it. His hands gripped the wheel just a bit harder, jaw working through whatever it was he wasn’t saying out loud. — “Does Lyanna ken?” — It wasn’t casual, it was careful, like the words might bruise if they came out wrong.

Rhaegar's voice came cold and carved in iron, measured, unflinching, like a blade laid gently on the table. — “No. She mustn’t.” — A pause, deliberate. — “If she knew, she’d try to get involved, which would make her a target. I won’t risk her like that.” — There was no tremor, no hesitation. Just that quiet, lethal conviction of a man who had already lost too much.

Sigorn snorted, — “Cheers for the heads-up, Nosferatu,” — He muttered, dry as old whisky and twice as bitter.

Rhaegar recognized where Sigorn’s sarcasm was heading, but he chose not to correct it. The thought of bringing this conversation back to his apartment was less than appealing, but better than being trapped in the sterile confines of a precinct.

“If only one o’ ye lot can handle this town,” —  Sigorn said, eyes glinting sharp with that usual bite, —  “how’m I meant to know ye’re the better bloody option?”

Rhaegar’s reply was slow, deliberate, venomous beneath the civility. —  “Apart from the vampire who isn’t me leaving a body on my doorstep? Let’s just say I’m less inclined to kill you.” — He delivered the line with a slow, measured calm that barely masked the sharp edge beneath, his expression the very definition of bitch, please . There was a flicker of dry amusement in his eyes, a subtle curl of one lip that said, Really? You think I’d waste my time on you? The kind of look that dared Sigorn to test him, while effortlessly asserting he was already ten moves ahead in the game.

Sigorn said it with a cocky grin, voice dripping with teasing disbelief. His eyes narrowed just a bit, eyebrows raised like he was both amused and a little flattered… Half-mocking, half-genuine. The kind of tone that says, — “Well, look at ye, surprisin’ me for once. Didnae ken ye had a care of me.”

“I couldn’t care less, but Lyanna does,” — He said, the words softer, quieter, laden with a weight no threat could match. — “And her good opinion of me… That matters to me.”

A silence fell between them, thick and unavoidable. Of course it would. Sigorn had long been enamored with Lyanna. Not that Rhaegar would ever say it aloud, but the banshee had a hold on both men. It was a complicated, messy truth that neither wanted to fully face.

“A‘right,” — Sigorn finally said, — “I’ll do it… But I got two conditions.” — The car slowed to a stop at a red light. Sigorn turned sharply. “First thing,” — He said, — “Whatever this beast is… Wherever it’s from… We put it down proper.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” — Rhaegar said it with quiet conviction, the kind that brooked no argument… A restrained promise wrapped in steel and unspoken resolve.

“Right. Second, I want full disclosure. I ask ye somethin’... Ye give me the truth. No half-truths, no word games, no bollocks. If I ask what colour yer underpants are, ye tell me.” — Sigorn said it blunt and steady, that no-nonsense tone carrying the weight of years spent sorting liars from truth-tellers. His eyes locked on Rhaegar like a hawk zeroing in… There was no room for games, no patience for evasions. — “Silk. Red. Anything else pique your curiosity?” — Rhaegar said it with a calm, almost teasing precision, like he was both amused and daring Sigorn to ask more.

Sigorn closed his eyes briefly, a flicker of regret crossing his face, then turned his gaze back to the steering wheel, muttering, — “I didn’t need tae ken that.”

“When do we start?” — Rhaegar’s voice was calm, measured, tinged with a dry impatience that belied the weight of everything he carried. The question came quietly, but with the steel of a man already prepared to face whatever darkness waited.

Sigorn parked in front of Rhaegar’s building. — “When someone rings t’coppers about a body.”

Rhaegar knew the drill. He knew what he meant. They stepped out, cold night air biting at his skin, and he dialed the number Sigorn had given him. Clean, official, precise — the sort of work Lyanna would be proud of. But she couldn’t know. Not yet. The blood they’d exchanged still pulsed between them, and it painted a target as red as her delicious blood. 

***

Whoever grabbed her wasn’t new to the game. Amateurs didn’t usually come armed with blackout hoods and well-tied restraints. That was the first clue. The second was that she’d woken up in a car trunk — because of course she had. Always knew she’d end up here one day. Just figured it’d be after a bar fight, not whatever this was. She couldn’t see — bag over her head, wrists bound to her ankles with something thick and unforgiving — but she could feel. The car hugged the ground too tight for an SUV. Sedan, maybe mid-2000s. Cheap shocks. Unpaved road. Trees, maybe. Roots hitting the tires like fists. Cold air leaked in through the wheel well. She didn’t know how long she’d been out. Long enough for her mouth to taste like old pennies and regret. So, aye — probably drugged.

She flexed her fingers, carefully, like someone testing old wounds. No give in the rope. But maybe… maybe there was a roadside triangle in here. One of those cheap plastic ones with the metal stand — sharp enough if you were desperate and pissed off enough. She started to move, slow and deliberate. Wriggling toward the corner of the trunk, heart hammering like it hadn’t quite gotten the memo she wasn’t dead yet — Then the car stopped. Footsteps. Two pairs. Crunching through snow. Measured. Confident. She froze. Breath shallow. One chance. That’s all she’d get. Maybe half. The trunk clicked. Opened. She didn’t wait for a hello. Lyanna kicked out fast and hard, aiming high, and was rewarded with the satisfying crunch of cartilage under boot. Somebody screamed — more like a wounded growl than a human sound — and she felt the blow to her temple a half second later. Fist. Male. Not heavy enough to knock her out, but it rattled the inside of her skull like dice in a gambler’s palm. Great. She tasted blood.

Another voice. Lower. Calm. Different accent — Northern. She blinked as the bag was yanked off her head, light stabbing into her eyes like needles. Still dark. Still night. But she could see them now. Two men. One cradling his broken nose and looking like he wanted to kill her for the trouble. Younger — olive-skinned, wild green eyes like moss over stone, thick lashes, black curls soaked from the cold. Pretty, in a murderous sort of way. The other was older. Towering. Deep-set hazel eyes. Russet beard. Looked like a bear that walked upright and had opinions about bloodlines. The sort of man you didn’t want to see above you in a place like this.

“Well,”—  the old man said, lips curling like he almost admired her.  — “We ken ye've got some grit.”

Lyanna didn’t answer. Mostly because her mouth tasted like copper and bile, but also because she didn’t like wasting words on men with knives. They hauled her out of the trunk. Her legs nearly gave out — still half-dead from whatever sedative they’d used — but she caught herself. They cut the rope between her wrists and ankles, but left her bound. Cowards. Smart cowards. Cold hit her like a god’s slap. The snow was thick — thicker than it should be, even for Winterfell. This wasn’t local. She clocked the terrain, the hills, the treeline. And then it hit her. Shit. The Fist of the First Men. Of all the bloody places to take her. Sacred ground for the Old Gods crowd. Remote. Windswept. Full of bones and stories no one wanted to hear at night. A hill shaped like a hand punching through the earth — fitting. She didn’t know if they’d brought her here to pray or bury her, but neither option made her feel particularly festive.

The older man slung a threadbare coat over her shoulders without comment. She hated that it helped. The wind up here could flay you down to memory. She muttered something under her breath, maybe a thanks, maybe a curse. They walked. Not far — maybe five minutes up the trail — but enough to know she wasn’t outrunning them. Not with her arms still bound, not with concussion-fog slowing her reflexes. And not with the green-eyed boy glaring at her like he was waiting for an excuse to cave her head in. 

They got to a small door, by the stone… That´s when she recognized what maybe happening. She however braced ehrself for another demon fucking with her using pupper banshees but this felt a bit different, more liek the usual MO, of Bnashees than just being approhced on the street was letss the old banshee than them aptureing you taking you to the high of winter to one fo their many places.  They walked up to the first first of men, and there Nestled at the base of a stark mountain, a dark wooden door stood alone — no vegetation clings to the frozen earth, only the raw frost of winter clutches the rocks. The hill is crusted with a dusting of snow, its once-green thatch now brittle with ice.

The door, hewn from blackened timber, is weathered yet strong — reinforced with thick iron bands. At its center, a large carving of a howling wolf stands out in high relief, teeth bared and fur etched in fierce, curling lines. Its eyes seem to glint with a ghostly intelligence. Surrounding the wolf are intricate old gods carvings — twisting Jörmungandr serpents, runes of protection, and depictions of Yggdrasil's roots weaving into the wooden frame. Along the lintel, the Valknut and symbols of the children of the forest were carved deep into the beam, almost scorched into the grain as if by fire. The gable above is adorned with a sharpened sword shape, reminiscent of the stark sword Ice silhouette, but elongated, forming horns that reach to the sky like a warning. The air is cold, silent. There are no signs of life, only wind whispering down from the cliffs above. This door doesn’t lead to a home — it leads to something ancient, forgotten, and waiting.

Lyanna didn’t walk into the ruined shrine. She was shoved. Politely, of course — if you considered getting manhandled by a teenager with a broken nose “polite.” The older bastard followed behind, not needing to say much. Men like that rarely did. The kind of silence that smelled like blood and long-buried secrets. Inside was worse. The air clung to her skin like old breath. Cold, but not the good kind — not Northern air, crisp and biting and clean. This was ruin-cold. Stagnant. Like whatever lived here had been holding its breath for centuries. The space was dim, lit by something that wasn't light, exactly — just enough glow to cast long shadows and catch the outline of the shrine: scorched stone, warped wood, ash collecting in the corners like it had nowhere else to go. At the center stood a woman. Of course there was. She looked like she belonged to the place. Like maybe it had shaped itself around her. 

Her voice when she spoke wasn’t just hers, it was a chorus. Banshee voices layered beneath, old and sharp and not quite human. — “Hail, bairn... Lyanna Stark, born of Lyarra, blood of Arya. I trust yon lads…Halleck and Ygon… Treated thee wi' what passes for kindness these days.”

Lyanna blinked at her. — “Aye. If bein’ drugged, dragged off, an’ smacked in the face counts as ‘kindness’ these days… Then sure. Proper gents, the pair of ’em. Now, what the fuck d’ye want?”

No point pretending she didn’t know something was off. The kind of off that didn’t walk upright. The kind that slithered in through bloodlines and old bargains and the parts of you you hoped were too broken to be useful.

“A boon ye begged, child,” — The woman said… More voices now, rippling under her words like the tide. — “An’ now, the reckonin’ comes. The price must be paid.”

Right. That. She had done that stupid thing. Gone and poked her dead grandmother’s blood-wrapped warning with a stick. Sought out the banshees, whispered Rhaegar’s name into the dark. Desperate times, meet your equally desperate bitch. The banshee’s voice did not simply speak — it unfolded. It came in waves, layered and low, as if a thousand long-dead throats had joined in unison behind the woman’s lips. Each word echoed with the weight of generations, voices stacked like stone cairns in a storm. Some were shrill as wind over moors, others cracked and hushed like dying embers. They didn’t speak in chorus—they bled through one another, ancient and aching, as if time itself was repeating her decree in every forgotten dialect of the North.

“Thy path were cast long ‘fore thy breath was drawn. Now comes the hour. Thou must fulfill thy reckonin’,” — She said… And it was not one voice but multitudes, carrying the chill of tombs and the press of all those who had waited, watched, and wept in silence. The sound sank into Lyanna’s bones like a verdict carved in ice.

Lyanna let out a breath that sounded like a laugh but wasn’t. —  “Aye, see, I don’t do destiny, love. Not unless it comes wi’ a pension an’ dental.”

She spoke like the storm that gathers just before the world remembers silence — her voice both old and endless, braided with the weight of generations long rotted in the earth. It wasn’t one voice, not really. It was dozens. Hundreds. The tones layered atop one another like falling ash — cracked and melodic, young and withered, some whispering in the gaps of the others’ words. 

When she said, — “Whether thou believest or nay,” — it felt less like speech and more like a sentence passed down through bone and blood. Each syllable dragged the cold deeper into the room. The air grew heavier with every word, as if even the shadows were listening. As if time itself flinched. — “Ye sought us once, and now we seek thee. The paths 'twixt realms are choked wi’ rot. Our magic bleeds like a stuck beast. We need blood strong as thine. Thy mother failed. Thy grandmother turned her face. But thee…” 

Her voice echoed in Lyanna’s chest — not her ears — and left that familiar, iron taste of banshee truth. The kind of sound that doesn’t need volume to make you kneel. It was a lullaby and a curse. A door swinging open. And Lyanna knew, deep in the marrow her mother once warned her never to listen with, that the woman wasn't asking.

She was telling. She stepped closer, eyes like old storms. — “Thou shalt open the Spiral,” — The woman intoned, voice thick wi’ age and echo. —  “Open the bridge 'twixt our realm an’ the heavens, as was foreseen.”

Lyanna’s jaw tightened. — “Ye cannae make me.” —  She spat the words out sharp and defiant, the edges rough like cracked stone. There was no room for bargains or softness, just the raw, stubborn fire of a woman who’d been pushed too far to bow now. 

“Thou gav’st thy word.” — The words sank like teeth. Banshee law. Ancient, binding. She’d whispered her plea in a half-empty bottle and thought the gods weren’t listening. Rookie mistake. —   “Godspeed thee on thy journey, bairn.”

The woman flicked her wrist. The room peeled itself open. The floor cracked, glowing with old runes and a jagged pentagram that didn’t belong to any book Lyanna had ever read — and she’d read a few. Before she could move, the woman threw a blade into the center. It glinted once — black blood on the hilt — and then the world dropped out from under her. She didn’t fall. She was taken. Like something reached up and pulled her through the skin of reality. One minute ash and stone, next minute — Hell. Or something wearing its face. She landed hard. On her side. The wind knocked out of her, ribs screaming. She rolled, gasped, stared upward as the portal slammed shut above her like a trapdoor to sanity. 

She lay there a beat too long, eyes blinking in the dark, waiting for her stomach to stop trying to climb out through her mouth. Then she saw it—the knife. Still there. Short, double-edged, forged from two metals. One side steel. The other... she didn’t want to guess. She grabbed it. Cut her bindings with it. Then slipped it into her coat pocket. Walked three steps. It sliced clean through the fabric and hit the ground like it didn’t want to be carried. Lyanna sighed. Picked it up again. Held it this time. Then she looked up and saw where she was. The world stretched out in front of her like a nightmare someone else had half-finished and then abandoned. The sky—if it was a sky—was low and bruised, lightning crawling through it in veins of red. No thunder. Just silence that vibrated in your teeth. The air tasted like metal and grief.

Snow fell, sometimes. Grey, like ash. Melted into black soil that drank it up like memory. Structures loomed in the distance — jagged, melted things that may have once been buildings. Now they leaned like they were sick of standing. Iron gates twisted into faces that screamed without sound. There were no paths. Just... inward. Like the realm didn’t want you to go somewhere. It wanted you to stay. Whispers echoed in the wind. Familiar voices, warped into regrets. Words never said in life, now repeated like mantras. Some muttered. Some pleaded. Some just looped the same three words over and over: “Not my fault.” She felt it. Already. The place working on her. Memory sliding forward like rot. A castle loomed far off. Massive. Sunken. Sinking. No fire. No crown. Just the presence of judgment. That was where Hel would be — the goddess with half a face and all the authority.

Lyanna squared her shoulders. Took one more breath. Spat blood. Gripped the knife tighter. — “Righ,” she muttered. — “Let just get this over wi’ then.’”

***

The fifth day bled into night like a slow wound, and Rhaegar felt the edges fraying. Five days chasing shadows, and the vampire playing a game so precise it mocked him — young enough to mistake cunning for innocence, old enough not to be stupid. This wasn’t a fight he could win by brute force; no, this adversary was smarter, slinking through the city’s veins with the intent to poison everything Rhaegar held dear. The cuts he’d made — Howland, Lyanna — were calculated, surgical. Keep them distant, keep them safe. The fewer footprints he left near them, the fewer paths the enemy could follow. Sigorn, stoic and steady, was drilling his body for a war yet to come; Rhaegar, on the other hand, sharpened himself in silence, tuning muscle and mind, an orchestra preparing for a symphony of violence. But the tension was a taut wire, stretched thinner with every heartbeat. Every street felt like a trap. Every glance over his shoulder a reminder that the hunter was hunted. The city’s breath was thick with something unseen — fear, anticipation, a cold wind rattling bones and nerves alike. Then, like a cracked bell in the dark, Sigorn’s call came: a summons, urgent and heavy with the weight of unspoken truths. At the station, Sigorn’s eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, a mirror to Rhaegar’s own sleepless resolve. Somewhere between their shared worries, Lyanna flickered like a candle in the storm — vulnerable, fierce, and utterly indispensable.

“So, what have you got?” — Rhaegar asked, voice clipped but with the quiet pull of expectation.

“Not much,” — Sigorn admitted, voice rough but steady, —  “but I’ve got somethin’ to ask. Reckon ye won’t like it… Think we should bring Lyanna in on this.”

Rhaegar’s laugh was dry, sharp-edged. — “Are you mad, Magnar? I thought I made it clear. If she knows, she becomes a target bigger than she is now. We cannot… Will not… Risk her finding out.”

Sigorn’s gaze was steady, unflinching. — “She’s already in the thick o’ it, just for knowin’ ye. And reckless as she be… A death-chasin’, stone-headed lass with a chip on her shoulder… I ken with her on deck, we’d have more eyes, more reach. It’s been nigh on a week, and we’re after nothin’ but shadows.”

Rhaegar’s jaw tightened. The unspoken truth twisted in the air between them. The exchange of blood — three times now — an intimacy that bound Lyanna to him in ways more dangerous than any bond he’d forged before. Vampiric law wasn’t forgiving; to others, she wasn’t just under his protection. She was his lover in the truest, most perilous sense. And that made her the first to be hunted, the bullseye on a mark he’d sworn to shield at any cost. He hated that Sigorn had to know. Hated the way Magnar’s old jealousy clung to every word unspoken, every silence between truths. But secrets had grown too heavy to carry alone. The moment to confess his truth — the part that hurt — was fast approaching. And it wasn’t just about strategy anymore. It was about survival. For all of them.

Rhaegar didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. — “You don’t understand the repercussions this could have.”

Of course Sigorn didn’t. The man approached everything like it was still a bar brawl — straightforward, loud, and one wrong look from ending in blood on tile. He called it a turf war. As if this were about fangs and pride. As if it hadn’t already spiraled into something colder and much, much older.

“It’s more than that,” —  Rhaegar said, low.

And he knew, as Sigorn’s posture stiffened and his hand dropped from the desk, that the question was coming. The one he’d been artfully dodging for days. The room was mercifully empt y— no civilian ears, no buzzing lights, just the faint hum of something inevitable crawling toward them like a shadow with teeth.

“I’ve been through this before,” — Rhaegar said, the words tasting like old iron. — “It  happened in a mountain village east of the Bone Marches. Two vampires, same age, same weight class. Neither willing to back down. So they went for each other’s weak spots. Not a duel. A purge. One by one, the villagers died. If you so much as gave shelter to one side, your name was written in blood.”

Sigorn’s eyes narrowed.  — “An’ which one were ye, then?”

Rhaegar didn’t blink.  — “The one who survived.”

Sigorn spoke with that low, gravelled edge that always came out when he was barely holding his temper in check — dry as old stone and twice as heavy. His eyes narrowed, the corner of his mouth twitching in that way that meant he wasn’t impressed, not even a little. He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, like a man watching a collapsing roof and deciding whether it was worth catching anyone underneath.

“Yer not exactly makin’ a convincin’ case ‘ere, Targaryen,” — He muttered, like the words tasted bitter in his mouth.

“Good,” — He murmured.  — “I’m not here to sell it. I’m telling you why Lyanna can’t know.”

The silence between them knotted like a noose. Sigorn raised an eyebrow. — “Cause…”

And here it was. The price of proximity. Rhaegar breathed in — slower than he needed to, sharper than he wanted to. He weighed the truth like it was a live grenade. Not out of guilt. He had stopped apologizing for who he was a century ago. But this wasn’t about shame. It was about the mess.

“It’s complicated,” — He said.

Sigorn let out a sharp, humorless snort... Half disbelief, half warning. The sound cut through the tension like a jagged edge, his jaw tightening as he stared Rhaegar down. — “Then spit it out plain, will ye? I am not doing this on me account... I give no shite ‘bout what silken excuse ye wrap it in. This is for Lyanna.” — It wasn’t amusement. It was the kind of sound a man makes when he’s had enough of riddles and veiled truths, when the weight of worry starts boiling into fury. His tone came rough, clipped, like he was reining in the urge to punch something preferably someone pale, fanged, and far too composed. 

Rhaegar said, tilting his head, voice smooth as winter glass. — “If we’re dispensing with decorum,” — Rhaegar said coolly, voice like silk drawn over a blade, — “then allow me to be equally candid… Your particular strain of tragic, chest-thumping bravado is hardly a blueprint for stability. I’ve seen its kind before, and it always ends in ruin. Still, Lyanna places her trust in you, for reasons I won’t pretend to understand. And for that alone, I’ll offer you the courtesy you haven’t earned.” 

His tone didn’t rise. It lowered. — “And yes,”  —Rhaegar murmured, tone restrained but edged with dry amusement, — “you have, on at least one occasion, attempted to kill me… Though I’ll charitably attribute that more to jealousy than sound judgment. But I digress. Lyanna and I…” — He paused, the weight of the admission poised like a blade at his own throat. — “Lyanna and I have been intimate,” — Rhaegar said, each word measured like a note in a requiem… Precise, inevitable, and quietly damning.

“Bullshit.” — Sigorn let out a scoff sharp enough to cut steel… Half disbelief, half something darker. It scraped up from his throat like gravel, low and bitter, the kind of sound a man makes when the truth tastes too much like jealousy to swallow.

Rhaegar gave a wan smile. — “Not the carnal act you seem eager to imagine. That was mere survival, nothing more. I refer to the night before I sought you out… When she willingly bared her vein, and I, in turn after taking her blood, offered mine. An exchange far more binding than flesh alone.”

He let that hang in the air like a guillotine. — “Vampires seldom partake in the exchange of blood more than once within the span of a year, except when intent declares possession. This was our third communion. By ancient law and unspoken decree, Lyanna is now marked… Claimed.”

He said it plainly. Cleanly. Like it wasn’t breaking him to say it aloud. — “By vampire law, she is mine… Bound to me in duty as much as in sentiment. Consequently, she stands as the foremost target in any conflict I did not ignite, yet am compelled to see through to its bitter end.”

He watched the other man process it — watched the flicker of pain under the northern stoicism. It was always the same. That mix of disbelief, bitterness, and pure male ego curdling into something almost tragic. Rhaegar didn’t pity him. Not exactly. But he understood the expression. He’d worn it himself once. Before Sigorn could reply, the door burst open.

Howland stumbled in, breathless, panic scrawled across his face like a confession. —  “Gods-fuckin’-damn, thank the gods ye’re both here.”

Sigorn straightened.  — “Howland? What’s happened then, lad?”

The boy fumbled, rambling. — “It’s… Well, dunno where to start, really. Me an’ Lyanna, we was workin’ a case. Some cicada demon, yeah? Girl usin’ drugs to call somethin’ up, killin’ folks to keep her racket goin’...”

Rhaegar cut in, voice knife-sharp. — “Howland, get to the point.”

Howland swallowed. — “I was meant to meet her, but she never showed up. Went by her office… She was gone. I tried callin’. Nothin’.”

Rhaegar didn’t move. Not visibly. Inside, his mind fractured into cold calculations, every possibility screaming at once. — “How long?” — He asked, though he already knew the answer.

Howland’s voice was small.  — “Five days.”

No. No. No. The denial surged through him like a cold pulse — sharp, unbidden, instinctual. Not her. Not now. He’d been meticulous, painstakingly distant, threading the fine line between proximity and protection. Every precaution, every measured step, calculated to keep her out of reach from the rot that circled like vultures. And yet — she was gone. Vanished into the void carved by some foolhardy rival or worse — a creeping decay that didn’t care for bloodlines or bonds. Whoever had taken her was about to learn the true meaning of crossing a line written in centuries of pain and blood. He’d kill it. Vampire or no, he’d end whatever dark thing dared touch what he’d bled for. What he would bleed for again, without hesitation. It was no longer a question of desire or restraint. This was war. And Lyanna was the debt he was bound to collect.

Chapter Text

Running against the clock — an inelegant metaphor, but accurate. At least for mortals. Rhaegar had long since learned that time did not run. It bled. The news came belatedly, and Howland, dear Howland, delivered it with that well-meaning, time-lagged earnestness that suggested he still believed things like information could be on time. Rhaegar didn’t correct him. He had already started calculating: distance, duration, blood volume, corpse temperature, public visibility. Variables in a theorem that always ended in death. Sigorn took the corpse. Naturally. Territorial even with the dead. He was combing through the evidence — dental records, DNA, fingerprints. Mance had already intercepted it all with clinical efficiency. A surprise to no one, surveillance footage around Rhaegar’s flat had been conveniently blank, as if someone had taken a blade to the city’s memory. But they had a name. A body. Taria Pyre.

Model. Twenty-three. Recently featured in a Lannisport ad campaign for perfume and premature regret. Sigorn had called her family. Rhaegar didn't ask how that went. While Sigorn paced crime scenes and bureaucracy, Rhaegar and Howland followed the trail Lyanna had left behind — or rather, what little of it remained. Her apartment still smelled of her, sharp and ghosted: cigarette ash, faint lavender, bloodied iron, leather, silver. Her coat, her documents, her bag — all there. All untouched. What was missing said more than what remained. Her phone. Her silver knuckles. Weapons. Instinct. Not surrender.  They drove through the city until dawn. A pitiful strategy, but ritual was sometimes all a man had left. She had blackout curtains — a miracle, or perhaps just her taste. He stayed in her apartment the next day, surrounded by the echo of her curated chaos, the scent of her lingering in the air like a challenge. That afternoon, the test results confirmed what they already knew. The girl. The last person to see her alive had been a photographer. So they declared Lyanna officially missing. As if that changed anything. The second night, they met in his apartment.

Sigorn spoke, voice low and coarse like gravel under boot. He hadn’t slept, or if he had, it hadn’t stuck. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw tight, and the muscles in his forearms twitched like a man restraining the urge to punch something. Or someone. — “Right. If this bastard’s a bleedin’ vampire… how the fuck d’we kill ’im?”

Rhaegar adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. — “Leave that to me. Unless you’ve suddenly developed a moral objection to vampire-on-vampire violence.” —  He said it like a toast. Dry, faintly amused, with the kind of poise that made it hard to tell whether he was joking or warning them.

Howland spoke after a pause, his voice hesitant but clear, the way someone asks a question they’ve already rehearsed in their head five times before daring to say it aloud. He was standing near the kitchen island, holding a mug he hadn’t drunk from, hands curled around it like it might keep him steady. — “An’ what if this vampire’s stronger’n ye, then?” — He didn’t mean it to sound accusing. Or naive. But it did anyway.

And Rhaegar, to his credit, didn’t laugh. There was no challenge in Howland’s tone — just quiet logic, the kind that made things worse by being correct. He wasn’t doubting Rhaegar. He was preparing for the possibility Rhaegar didn’t want to admit existed. Which, of course, made it infinitely more irritating.

His mouth curved, not quite a smile. More like a subtle arrangement of expression, calculated to suggest indifference while masking the flicker of memory behind his eyes. —  “Then we’re in deep trouble. Not many of my kind get to my age. Five hundred is… not for everyone.” —  He said it like he was discussing wine, or music, or a particularly exclusive club with an unforgiving entrance policy.

Sigorn growled through clenched teeth, the words scraped out like they’d been chewed on first. His hands were fisted, jaw ticking, the veins in his neck taut with barely suppressed rage. —  “At this rate, owt’s possible. If it’s got Lyanna… I want it fuckin’ dead.”

He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The room tightened around the words. Rhaegar said nothing. But he looked at Sigorn then — properly — and for the first time, he saw in the man something he recognized. Not trust. Not camaraderie. But alignment. An instinct. A promise. Yes. On that, they were in complete agreement. It wasn’t about justice. Or the mission. Or even revenge. It was about the thing that dared touch her. And the fact that it was still breathing. For now.  They hadn’t spoke about it. Not aloud. Not even once. The not-knowing was the worst of it — that maddening, suspended state where Lyanna existed in two unbearable possibilities: alive, or already rotting. A Schrödingerian purgatory, and they were forced to orbit it, neither permitted to hope nor allowed to mourn. Not when. Just missing.

But the silence was thick with it — the expectation of discovery, not rescue. Only when he was alone did Rhaegar allow the possibility to haunt him. And haunt him it did, more than anything ever had. Which was impressive, considering his résumé. If they found Lyanna with another vampire, he would kill it. That was never in question. Alive or dead — it didn’t matter. The moment Rhaegar’s instincts recognized another predator had tried their luck with her, the calculus ended. No hesitation. No debate. Just ash. Of course, he hadn’t told Sigorn. One didn’t reveal strategies to opponents — or potential liabilities. And Rhaegar still wasn’t sure which one the detective was. He certainly didn’t like him. He certainly didn’t trust him. Particularly after he’d tried to kill him.

Sigorn pressed a heavy hand over his chest, a slow, wry grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, the kind of smile that said I’m only half serious, but I mean it. His eyes sparkled with dark humor beneath the weight of too many near-death experiences. — “Awreet. I swear I won’t try ter kill yer again. If ah do, Howland can just shoot me.”

Howland blinked, the mug paused halfway to his lips. His voice came quieter, edged with a sudden, sharp alarm, like a man who hadn’t expected to be volunteered for a firing squad. — “Why me?” — There was an almost involuntary tremor beneath the calm, betraying the brief, unwelcome spike of doubt.

Rhaegar regarded Howland with a slow, faint smile, the kind that suggested both mild amusement and grim acceptance. His tone was calm, almost conversational, as if discussing the weather rather than the means of ending a creature’s unlife. — “That’s acceptable. Aim for the heart. It’s a classic. Works for vampires, but for us... Well, it has to be a stake.”

Sigorn slapped a hand over his chest with a mock solemnity that was more humor than earnestness, the kind of gesture you make when you’re about to ask something ridiculous but can’t help yourself. — “So… what else works, then? Stakes? Holy water an’ all that?” — His tone was half-joking, half-curious, like a bloke testing the legends while knowing full well the truth was probably a bit more complicated.

Rhaegar’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smirk, an expression reserved for those moments when patience wore thin but amusement lingered. His voice was smooth and measured, edged with subtle sarcasm and the weariness of centuries spent debunking myths. — “That’s the usual cinematic clichés. They work… But if you’re hoping for a magic word that makes our heads explode, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.” — There was a quiet finality in his tone, as if he’d seen every trick in the book, and none of them came with fireworks. The hint of dry humor softened the blunt truth, reminding them that reality was rarely as dramatic as fiction.

Sigorn let out a short, gravelly grunt… Half a sigh, half a scoff… His tone thick with world-weariness and a trace of begrudging disappointment. The single word carried all the frustration of hoping for miracles and finding none. — “Pity.”

Rhaegar left the room and returned in the blink of an eye — literal. Speed was a luxury he never wasted. He handed Howland a short sword, dark steel and old magic. Not Dark Sister. That stayed with him. He delivered a response, the instruction with calm precision, his voice smooth and unruffled, laced with a faint, almost imperceptible edge of dark humor. There was no room for error in his tone, only quiet authority seasoned by centuries of experience. 

“Decapitation works best. Do try not to stab yourself, Howland. And don’t be afraid. It’ll come for me first.” — His eyes flicked to Howland briefly, a subtle challenge hidden beneath the composed surface, as if daring the younger man to keep his nerve. The statement was both reassurance and warning… Cold, clinical, but unmistakably real.

Sigorn pressed a heavy, rough hand over his chest, eyes narrowing with a mix of skepticism and grudging respect. His voice rumbled out low and steady, carrying the weight of a man who’d seen too many things not add up but wanted to believe this one would. —  “How can yer be so sure, then?”

Rhaegar’s voice was low, measured, carrying the quiet confidence born from centuries of survival and calculated cruelty. There was no bravado — only the cold precision of a predator who knew exactly how the hunt unfolded. His eyes locked briefly on Sigorn and Howland, steady and unreadable.

“Because it won’t find either of you threatening. That’s how we win. I’ll fight it. Your job is to kill it.”  —  Each word was deliberate, clipped, carrying the weight of command and an unspoken warning: failure was not an option. Beneath the calm surface, a simmering intensity hinted at the price they’d pay if they didn’t succeed.

And for once, no one argued. They left and took Lyanna’s car — black, fast, and slightly scuffed from her parking habits. Rhaegar had brought it to his place. She didn’t have a garage, and he didn’t trust leaving her scent out on the street. He imagined she’d hate it — you stole my fucking car, Targaryen? He could almost hear her voice. The thought almost made him smile. It was better than using Sigorn’s, which still reeked of righteous authority and stale coffee. At least this — this smelled like her. They didn’t talk much as they drove to the photographer's place.  They were all ready to kill him, each in their own way. Sigorn salivated at the prospect, his hunger for violence barely contained beneath the surface.

Howland hesitated — ever the pragmatist — though Rhaegar was quietly certain that if it came to defending Lyanna, even the crannogman would grow a spine from nothing but stubbornness. No sign of vampire. No sign of Lyanna. The three of them arrived at the destination—a studio, or something masquerading as an apartment. The place was empty. Sigorn rifled through the trash with his usual blunt efficiency, uncovering photos of Pyre pinned to walls, scattered on floors, but nothing else. No signs of struggle. Not that there ever was when vampires attacked humans. No blood stained the stale air. Yet something lingered — something faint and incongruous beneath the decay. Cinnamon. Cinnamon.

“D’yer smell somethin’?” —  Sigorn asked, brows furrowed.

“Cinnamon,” — Rhaegar replied, voice low.

“Well, tha doesn’t give us nowt,” —  Sigorn muttered, with all the enthusiasm of a man being handed a riddle wrapped in disappointment.

They spent an hour collecting what little evidence there was before leaving without new leads. But Rhaegar had a lead — a thread he hated pulling because every time he did, the knot only tightened. The situation had just complicated itself by three hundred percent. After that they separated, the sun rising in less than an hour, the city bleeding light over the horizon. He insisted they keep their weapons; they would need them. Rhaegar took Lyanna’s car back to his flat. The vehicle smelled faintly of her — a cruel comfort. As he reached his floor and turned the key, the door stood ajar. Not like him to be careless. He drew Dark Sister from its sheath, its familiar weight a cold promise. He slipped inside, closing the door softly behind him. The scent hit him immediately — another presence. He ran, not toward safety, but into his bedroom. And there, waiting with impossible patience, was the last thing he wanted to see. A face he knew too well. The scent of cinnamon thickened in the air. On his bed, like a cat caught doing something deliciously wrong, sat his maker.

Elia. Smiling. She lounged on the edge of the bed, a slow, predatory smile playing on her lips — like a cat that had knocked over a priceless vase and was savoring the moment before the blame could be assigned. Her voice was smooth silk dipped in honey and poison, warm yet deliberately taunting, the kind of tone that could unsettle even the most composed predator.

“Oh, darling. How much did I miss you.” — Her words floated in the air, heavy with meaning, affection, mockery, and a dark promise all tangled in one. Softening the vowels, dropping the r’s , and adding a lilting cadence to evoke the sultry, slow drawl of Dorne. It’s less clipped, more musical, with a teasing undertone that draws you in.

***

She didn’t walk into this place so much as fall into it — feet crunching against frost-shattered stone, the air so cold it carved the inside of her throat raw with every breath. She’d imagined hell would be fire. Screams. Flames licking bone. This wasn’t that. This was silence and ice and the kind of darkness that felt personal. The sky above was a sick, seeping dark green, veiled by clouds the color of coal dust and rot. Everything was cast in twilight — not the kind that whispered of stars or rest, but the kind you get before a storm kills the power and the last candle gutters out. The world around her was made of black stone and worse things. Bridges hung like ribs over frozen rivers, choked in snow and strangled with something cruel and growing. Thorned vines like veins, slick and black and pulsing faintly, crawling over gates and half-collapsed towers like they were feeding on the architecture. And maybe they were.

The cold wasn’t just weather. It was law. It made everything slower. Deader. The kind of cold that gets inside you, beneath your fingernails, behind your teeth — like it's trying to replace your blood with silence. The ground was jagged with black ice, broken bones of mountains rising in the distance like the gods tried to claw their way out and froze halfway through. She walked. Because what else was she supposed to do? Lie down and let the cold eat her? Not her style. Not even now. She didn’t feel pain exactly, but she felt weight — in her limbs, her chest, her memories. Like something was pressing down from inside, dragging all her sins to the surface just to remind her: you don’t get out until you pay for every goddamn thing.

And the worst part? It was quiet. Not peace. Not rest. Just a thick, suffocating quiet, like the whole realm was holding its breath — waiting to see if she’d make it through. Or if it could break her first. She had the knife in her hand — the one the banshee gave her, the one that still hummed like it knew something she didn’t. Her boots crunched over frostbitten stone as she walked, no palace in sight, no path to speak of. Just her and the cold, and whatever the fuck passed for direction in a place like this. Her senses were still lit up from Rhaegar’s blood like drinking smoke and waking up inside a thunderstorm. Gave her an edge, sure. But it was an edge that cut both ways. Everything looked sharper and wrong, like someone had turned up the contrast on death. The air tasted like rust and burnt feathers. Her fingers were stiff on the knife’s hilt.

She didn’t know how long she’d been walking. Time bent weird down here — like it owed the place something. At some point, the slope started to drop beneath her feet, slow and steady, the kind of descent you don’t notice until it’s too late. That’s when she heard it. To her side. Movement. Wet and deliberate. She tightened her grip on the blade and didn’t slow down. She never slowed down. By the time she hit the base of the slope, they were already waiting — things that might’ve been human once, if you squinted and didn’t mind nightmares. Undead. Or something close enough. Walkers, reeking of ice and rot and the kind of malice that didn’t need words. They grinned at her. Real slow. Real wide. She didn’t wait for the welcome party to finish smiling. The knife went into the first one’s neck. Deep. Fast. But it didn’t drop. Of course it didn’t. Fucking hells. Why did she even try?

She drove the blade into a second, a third, twisting like it might matter. One of them shoved her down. She hit the ground hard — ribs jarred, lungs knocked — but she kept hold of the knife. Always the knife. They didn’t speak. Didn’t howl. Just loomed. She was about to drive it through another throat, maybe go out in a proper frenzy, when the thing lunging at her froze mid-air. And then — A hand. Pale. Clean-cut. It burst through the creature’s chest from behind — straight through bone and sinew like wet paper — and closed around something pulsing. The heart. The body dropped beside her with a wet thud, and she stayed where she was, ready for worse. She always was. But the worse didn’t come. Not yet.

Instead, standing over her was a man. Blood dripping from his fingers, cool as marble and quiet as snowfall. He looked like the kind of statue artists carved to mourn something they couldn’t name. Chestnut hair in loose waves, a little too long to be clean-cut, a little too perfect to be careless. A black leather eyepatch over one eye — because apparently fate had a thing for the dramatic — and the other eye was a cool, unreadable green-grey, set deep like it saw too much and said too little. There was blood on his mouth. Fresh. Human. He squinted at her, the corners of his lips twitching in something that might’ve been embarrassment — or amusement. Hard to tell. She blinked. Not from shock — she didn’t have the time or the vanity to be surprised anymore — but because her vision was fuzzing again, fraying at the edges like an old film reel melting under a bulb. Her eyes struggled to lock onto the man standing over her. Tall, blood-slick, one hand still holding the literal heart of whatever the hell had been about to maul her. Romantic.

But it wasn’t the gore that got her attention. It was him . He looked like he’d walked out of someone else’s story. A black-leather fever dream with just enough swagger to be trouble, and just enough scars to mean he’d survived it. His jacket was deep navy — real leather, tailored sharp but worn at the edges. Not fashion-worn either. Functional. Lived in. Bled in. Buckles crisscrossed his chest like makeshift armor, some silver, most tarnished, like he’d never bothered polishing anything unless it killed something first. There was a shoulder guard — half metal, half leather, slapped together like it had seen a dozen different wars and didn’t care which side it was on. The shirt underneath hung open at the collar, just enough to flash skin and something that looked like a pendant. Old. Personal. The kind of thing you buried people with, not wore around your neck — unless you had something to prove or someone to remember.

His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. Practical. Rope burns and scars like tree rings around his wrists. He’d worked with his hands. Killed with them, too. Belts around his waist carried all the usual pirate cosplay bullshit — dagger sheaths, rope, maybe a compass — but nothing about him felt like theater. No. This wasn’t a man playing dress-up. This was someone who’d lived it. Long boots, worn from sea decks or worse. He looked like a disgraced navy officer who’d sold his oath for rum and revenge, then made a kingdom out of wreckage. She didn’t know who he was. But she knew what he was. Not just a killer. Not just a vampire. Her fingers curled tighter around the knife, more from reflex than plan.  He’d saved her. Fine. But she didn’t trust men in good boots. Never had. He met her stare like it didn’t matter that she was half-crouched, bloodied, barely breathing.

“Ah, sorry now,” — He said, voice low and even, thick with some ironborn lilt she couldn’t place. — “Thought ye were one o’ mine, so I did.”

“One o’ yers?” — She spat, knife still firm in her hand.

He didn’t flinch. —  “A vampire,” —  He said plain as day. —  “Not many o’ us down here, so there’s not. Most don’t make it past the bridge.”

“Bridge…?” — She echoed. — “What bloody bridge?”

He tilted his head. Curious. Almost kind. Not kind in any real way — Lyanna wouldn’t go that far. More like an older boy in Lord of the Flies clocking fresh meat on the beach. A little too polite for the setting, which made it worse. Like he could’ve torn her throat out and decided not to, just to be interesting. 

“Ah,” — He said. — “So ye are. Fresh off the boat, by the look o’ ye.”

She squinted at him. — “That bleedin’ obvious, aye?” — Lyanna said it with a sharp, almost bored tone, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, her eyes narrowing slightly she was already sizing him up, not impressed by the obviousness.

“Aye, fuckin’ right, it is,” — He said, grinning. Like it was funny. Like she was funny.

Her fingers twitched on the knife again, but she didn’t move. He didn’t either. Just stood there in his black pirate nonsense like he’d washed ashore from someone else’s dream and was making himself comfortable in her damn nightmare.

“Ye said ye thought I were one o’ yours.” — Lyanna asked it low and guarded, her voice taut like a wire, half challenge, half calculation. She didn’t trust him, not even a little, but she wanted the answer. — “Why’s that?”

“Ye, reekin’ of it.” — He said it low and matter-of-fact, like he was telling her the sky was grey or the tide was turning. No drama. Just truth, blunt and undeniable. His eyes didn’t flinch. He knew what he was smelling… And it wasn’t going away.

That made her blink. Just once. She didn’t like surprises. Especially the kind you could smell. — “Reekin’,” —  She echoed flatly.

He nodded, slowly. His eyes went a little wide. There was something under that reaction, something tight and assessing. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like that he was putting things together before she was. She should’ve kept walking. Should’ve ignored him. But — She needed answers. This place was a deathtrap stitched together with ice and sorrow and whatever passed for gravity down here. If he knew something, she’d hear him out. Then she’d tell him to fuck off.

Lyanna asked it flat, with a flick of her eyes like she was checking for bullshit. Her voice was sharp but quiet, — “What reek?”  — cutting through the air more like a blade than a question. She didn’t ask because she wanted to know. She asked because if he was lying, she’d gut him for it. 

He tilted his head again. Like he was trying to decide whether she was lying or just thick. — “Hard t’believe ye’ve no clue,” — He said.

Lyanna snapped it out with a sharp edge, voice biting like a slap. She wasn’t just annoyed, — “Well, put me down as ignorant, then. Missed the whole bleedin’ guided tour.” — she was daring him to underestimate her. Her eyes flashed with tired fire, like she’d heard too many explanations and wasn’t in the mood to pretend she cared.

He let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been pity. — “Those things back there… Hel-Walkers. Excess souls, rot from the inside out, they are, after too long in this place. Human souls take the worst of it. Get desperate. Starvin’. But they held back a bit from ye. Cause ye smell like him. Yer partner.”

She narrowed her eyes. — “I’ve no partner, if that’s what ye mean.”

The man looked at her like she’d just declared the sky was red and pissed acid. Squinted like disbelief was itching behind his eye patch. — “Ye reek o’ him,” — He said. — “I’d wager ye’ve swapped blood more than once. Bet ye never had the talk, did ye? But it’s there, plain as day. Ye’ve been marked.”

Marked. What the fuck marked. Her jaw clenched. Hard. There was no fucking way. No. She wasn’t going to dignify that. Rhaegar sharing blood with her wasn’t some twisted dog pissing on his territory. He wasn’t like that. And even if he was — she wasn’t someone who got owned.

Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, voice low and clipped like a warning shot. There was no gratitude in her tone, — “Right, cheers for the heads-up, then.” — just a cold acknowledgment wrapped in enough sarcasm to keep anyone from getting too close. 

Her eyes flicked away quickly, like she was done dealing with pointless explanations and ready to move on. She turned on her heel. Walked. Didn’t check  if he followed. Didn’t want to know. Of course, she heard the footsteps anyway. Soft. Measured. Too close. She spun, knife still in hand, eyes harder than steel. 

He asked it sharp and urgent, voice rough like gravel dragged over stone — “What the feck d’you think you’re doin’?” — part confusion, part warning. The words hit quick, almost clipped, like he was trying to snap her out of whatever dangerous mindset she was in. There was an edge of frustration underneath, like he didn’t have time to waste on nonsense. He stopped. Hands loose at his sides.

He said it slow and low, like the words were tasting something strange on his tongue, — “Ye’re not one o’ humans, are ye?” — part question, part realization. His tone wasn’t accusatory but more curious, edged with a hint of awe or caution. There was a weight behind it, like he was trying to place her in a world he barely understood himself.

Lyanna asked it with her throat tight, voice rough around the edges like she was swallowing down something fierce just to keep talking. Her words came out clipped, sharp, — “It’s no’ yer business, that.” — half warning, half stubborn defiance. She didn’t want to admit how much it gnawed at her, so she masked it with steel and a quiet dare for him to push back.

He replied it slow and steady, like weighing each word before letting it go — “Ye smell o’ vampire, aye… But there’s somethin’ else,” — his voice low, gravelly, edged with a rough kindness that felt almost reluctant. — “Death an’ iron. Ye’re no here ‘cause ye died, are ye?” — There was an old sorrow beneath the surface, as if he’d seen too many lost souls and didn’t want to add another to the pile. His eyes held a flicker of curiosity, but also caution, like he was trying to read the story written on her skin before deciding what to do next.

Lyanna said it flat, with that deadpan cool she wore like armor. Her voice didn’t rise, didn’t crack, — “Still don’t see how that’s got a thing t’do wi’ you.” — just smooth steel wrapped in cigarette smoke and exhaustion. She didn’t flinch, didn’t look at him long. Just let the words fall like a brick through glass: sharp, final, and not up for discussion. If he pushed, he’d find the wall she’d built for everyone else…thick, spiked, and not worth climbing.

He didn’t push again. But he didn’t quite back off either. — “Ye’ll not survive long down here by yerself.”

She smiled. Cold and crooked. — “Then I’ll make it a short an' sweet.”

And just like that, she kept walking — because what the fuck else was she supposed to do? No map. No plan. No breadcrumbs. Just her boots crunching over black frost and her throat raw from breathing in air that smelled like burnt iron and regret. She didn’t check if he was still behind her. Didn’t ask. Didn’t care. Trust was a luxury item, and she’d pawned that off a long time ago for something sharp and heavy. Hell didn’t come with signposts, but she figured if there was a way out, it wouldn’t be marked with anything helpful. Just more rot, more ash, more of that sickly green fog curling like cigarette smoke around her ankles. Somewhere ahead, maybe, was a path out. Somewhere past this icy purgatory and the banshee realm that scraped at the edge of her senses like a broken radio signal. Heaven? She doubted it. Sounded too clean, too kind. But whatever came next had to be better than this — this place that felt like her insides turned inside out. She wanted to end it fast. Cut through it like a job that needed doing, no fuss, no slow bleed. But fate had a sense of humor, didn’t it? And she had a sneaking suspicion this one was going to laugh its arse off before it let her go.

***

It had been just over four centuries since Rhaegar had last seen his maker. Give or take a decade — not that time meant much to immortals, unless you counted it by scars. Elia. The name alone should’ve brought with it the weight of reverence, or something close to it. Love, perhaps, in its oldest, dustiest form. But standing in the doorway of his own room, sword still in hand, Rhaegar felt nothing of the sort. No warmth. No ache. Just the slow, deliberate burn of suspicion. Once, he would have fallen into her arms the way fire folds into smoke — needy, automatic, utterly consumed. He’d been a fledgling then, barely weaned from mortality, clinging to her like a curse he didn’t want cured. But now? Now, he only saw the past in her shape: the lies lacquered in perfume, the cruelty dressed up in velvet. And worse — the very real possibility that she’d taken Lyanna.

He’d told Sigorn that if he ever laid eyes on the thing that took her, it wouldn’t survive the encounter. And Rhaegar, unlike most men, kept his promises. He lowered the blade slowly. Not out of sentiment, but calculation. She was dressed like nostalgia dressed for war — some 1970s lounge-lizard fantasy colliding with modern minimalism. Velvet in deep amber rust, cut like she was still used to being adored. Wrap-top bodice. Wide palazzo pants. Effortlessly theatrical. The color looked good on her. It always had. But tonight, it didn’t make her radiant. It made her look like a warning.

“What, love?” — Elia cooed, eyes bright. — “You don’t look all that thrilled to see.”

“Can’t say I am,” — Rhaegar replied coolly. — “Has something to do with the last time I saw you, you tried to kill me.”

Her face cracked, faux-offended.  — “Ah, that was a lifetime ago, no?”

“Or two,” — He said, voice like a scalpel. — “But on hot days I still feel the ghost pains. From when you ran me over with a coach, Elia.”

She offered a smile like frostbite. — “Was only a warnin’, cariño. You know how we are. And you… Always the most stubborn man I ever did meet.”

“And yet you’re here,” — He said, voice sharpening. — “In my territory.”

She tilted her head, predatory and coy. — “You sound cold, mi love. What happened to the boy I knew…. So full of life, fire in his eyes?”

“You killed him,” — He said flatly. Then, after a beat, — “But he wasn’t the only one. You left someone at my door. A girl. She didn’t have the same luck I had, did she?”

He wasn’t going to throw accusations like tantrums. He would carve truth from her. Elia liked to dance around danger — always had — but he knew her tells. And he knew her obsessions. One in particular: jealousy. The moment his attention turned elsewhere — especially to someone like Lyanna — Elia could snap. That part had never changed. Back then, he’d followed her doctrine like gospel: vampires above, humans below. Now, he remembered what it meant to be both. He hadn’t become merciful, just... less willing to pretend.

“I need your help, darlin’,” — Elia said finally, voice softening. — “I didn’t know who else I could turn to.”

“This’ll be interesting,” — He murmured, mostly to himself.

“There’s a vampire, sweetlin,” — She went on, eyes flicking toward him. —  “Gregor Clegane. He’s been huntin’ me near ten months now.”

Rhaegar arched a brow. — “So he’s strong, then. Strong enough to frighten you. And now he’s at my doorstep? How generous of you.”

She stood, uninvited but comfortable, as if they were still lovers instead of cold-blooded strangers wearing each other’s ghosts. — “I came to you for help,” — She said, stepping closer like it still meant something. — “You’re the only one I ever trusted. I know it’s been years, but… I thought we’d parted on softer terms than this.”

He slid Dark Sister back into its sheath. It made a satisfying click. Final, almost. — “You thought wrong.”

And then she said it. The line that cut through centuries of patience like silver through skin,  — “So this is about how we ended… or is it ‘bout your new little plaything?”

That was enough. He moved fast — not for a kiss, not for an embrace. His hand found her throat like it had muscle memory, the pressure deliberate but restrained. Not rage. Not yet. But close.

“What did you do to her?” — He asked, voice like ice cracking over deep water.

“I didn’t…” — She choked, eyes gone wide. — “Gods, I didn’t touch her. I only watched, that’s all. Didn’t lay a single hand on the girl.”

He shook her once, just enough to remind her he was no longer the fledgling he had been once. — “If you touched even a hair from her head, Elia, I swear… I’ll show you exactly what kind of monster I can be.”

He wasn’t bluffing. And she knew it. She always did have an excellent survival instinct. Her hands rose — gently, imploring — to his shoulder, but there was nothing tender in it. Not anymore. Rhaegar could’ve snapped her neck and been done with it. Would’ve relished the sound, once. But the possibility — however slim — that she knew where Lyanna was… that kept his hand from closing the deal. Instead, he let her go. Not out of mercy, but strategy. And maybe the faintest flicker of something uglier. Habit. Elia looked back at him, her lips parted with half a lie or maybe a whole regret. He didn’t care which. His hand hovered near the hilt of Dark Sister, and in another life — one where he was allowed to be petty, reckless, or honest — he’d have drawn it and carved answers out of her the old-fashioned way. But in this one? He played diplomat. She'd brought her troubles to his door like a dying cat dragging in a half-chewed bird. The nerve. The audacity. And the worst part? She knew exactly what she was doing. Lyanna was in danger — had been in danger — because Elia had the gall to tangle her mess with that. He could taste his fury in the back of his throat like old copper.

“I do not know where your little friend is,” — She said, voice smooth like aged wine. — “But I’d wager Gregor has her. He’s… how do you say… Thorough.” — Another possible death at her hands, and still she wore that silk-soft voice like perfume. Rhaegar tilted his head, clinical. Disgust was a luxury. He didn’t have time for it. — “Another one you can’t wash off,” — He murmured.

“Alright,” — She replied, softening in that way she knew made him want to drive stakes through furniture. — “I get it, ma love. You don’t want to believe me. Or help me. Fine. But I’ve no idea where she is. And if her vanishin’ has anythin’ to do with…”

“ If ,” — He repeated, cool and surgical. Gods, she was insufferable.

“I won’t stand here and claim I’m blameless,” — Elia said it the way only she could… Smooth, measured, and lined with velvet poison. There was no apology in her voice, just the practiced lilt of someone who’d worn guilt like jewelry for centuries and learned to weaponize her charm.  — “But maybe there’s room for a trade. You want your girl back, I want Gregor in the ground. If he’s got her, we both win. If not… Well, love, you still get to sink your sword into somethin’.” — And when she said ‘you still get to kill something ’ there was a glint in her eye… A dark, glimmering mirth that made it clear: this was a gift, and a dare, and a warning, all wrapped in silk.

Rhaegar exhaled through his nose… Sharp, dry, the kind of breath that cut rather than warmed. It wasn’t a sigh; it was a verdict. The sound held no softness, only the brittle snap of restraint barely maintained. His eyes didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink, just fixed on her with that glacial calm that made men confess and monsters recoil. — “You truly are a piece of work,” — He said, and the words landed like a scalpel… Precise, clean, and deeply personal. Not a compliment. Not entirely an insult either. More like a eulogy for the part of him that once admired her.

Elia said it with a shrug, casual as sin. The kind of gesture that looked light, even charming, if you didn’t know the weight behind it. Her voice carried that sun-warmed silk she’d never lost, but the undertone was pure steel — seasoned, amused, just a little smug. Like she wasn’t just playing the board; she’d carved the pieces herself and taught the game to men who thought they’d invented it.

“When you’re as old as I am, cariño,” — She said, with that maddening tilt of her chin, — “you learn how t’play the board… and win.” — It wasn’t boasting. It was fact. The kind that made you wonder how many kings she’d watched fall and how many monsters she’d kissed just to watch them burn.

“If it were up to me,” — Rhaegar said it like a vow wrapped in velvet… Low, deliberate, and laced with that eerie stillness he wore like second skin. His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. It was the kind of calm that made wolves pause mid-step. — “I’d kill you both.”

His eyes, cold and steady, stayed locked on Elia’s, but there was no warmth in them now. No flicker of nostalgia, no ache of old affection — only the precision of a man who’d learned the cost of sentiment. The line wasn’t a threat. It was a mercy he’d withheld. And she knew it.

“But it ain't, is it?” — Elia said it with a sly smile curling at the corner of her lips, voice smooth like warm wine but laced with a sharp edge that could slice through steel. She moved with a casual grace, every word measured, as if she were playing a game only she knew the rules to... And she held all the cards. —  “An' you need answers, same as I do. Talk to the two boys. Meet me by Manderly Tower, tomorrow night.”

He gave a faint nod. Nothing warm. Nothing promising. —  “Stay south of the river. I hunt in the north.”

“Still territorial, that’s one o’ the things I like about ya,” — She purred.  — “See ye tomorrow, darlin’.”

And then, of course — she ran. Elia always knew when to exit the stage. Rhaegar stood there for a long moment in the silence of the flat. Everything smelled like her. Old perfume and iron and memory. He drew out his phone. Time to call Sigorn. And pray he hadn’t already done something idiotic. Magna’s voice buzzed faintly in the receiver when he told him the news — two vampires, a mess wrapped in shadows. Of course. Nothing ever was simple. Trust was a currency Rhaegar counted in scarce denominations, and Elia was a debtor whose balance unsettled him. He’d meet her tomorrow, Manderly Tower — the name already sour on his tongue. Gregor Clegane. Westerlands in origin if he knew well. He ended the call. The silence settled like a weight in his chest. Sleep was reluctant, dragging him back four centuries, to a younger man who still believed in beginnings. He was twenty-six then — fresh from the cage of his mother’s parties, where golden halls echoed with false promises and sharper smiles. He’d escaped to the moonlit garden, resting by a fountain, his thoughts chasing the silver light. A voice came then — soft, almost haunting, like a psalm whispered in a foreign tongue.

“The moon shines bright. In such a night as this. When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise, in such a night.”

He turned, startled not by the sound but by the memory it summoned. A lady, alone and unbecoming by the standards of their time back then — unaccompanied by chaperones, her presence a quiet defiance. Elia. Dressed like a portrait of fire and shadow — rust-colored satin that caught the moonlight, velvet sleeves flaring like bloodied wings, a brocade panel embroidered with golden leaves curling like tendrils of fate. The square neckline, jeweled just enough to whisper nobility, and a hood embroidered with gold that trailed behind her like a lingering threat.

He spoke, voice low, sharpened by the past, — “Thou knowest the words of the bard. Few nobles hold his verses in favor.”

Her smile was the kind that could start wars… Or end them. — “They like him not, for he is of common birth.” — An oversight, he had said, the kind only fools made. — “The man’s birth doth little speak of his true nature.”

That night, he had fallen — blind to the monster beneath the silk and gold. Now, the memory turned sour, crawling under his skin like a slow poison. Because whatever darkness bound Lyanna’s disappearance, it tasted of Elia’s shadow, heavier than blood or fate.  The dread was new, unwelcome. More than regret, more than loss — a scar freshly torn open.

***

Lyanna didn’t plan to spend her Thursday wandering through Helheim — if it was still Thursday, that is. No one ever got the luxury of knowing time when they were dead, or whatever this was. She walked — shuffling, really — hoping there’d be some kind of center to this blasted place. Not like the sun pulling planets, but a spot she could actually aim for, something to make the endless black-green fog less of a maze. Hell or to people of the old gods faith Helheim, was a pocket, sure, but more claustrophobic than she imagined — like a bruised bruise, dark and swollen, not some grand cosmic void. The fog clung to her like a bad habit, thick and sour, mixing with the cold that seeped into her bones. The sky was a bruised mess of heavy, green-black clouds, low and hanging, as if they were waiting to drown out what little light might sneak in.

The ground was slick and treacherous, jagged rocks jutting out like the broken teeth of some forgotten beast. Some of it looked like ice — black ice, all cold and sharp — but it didn’t shine. It swallowed what little there was of the world. Smaller shards littered the frozen earth, and the cold bit into her lungs like a fist. A cold day in hell was a hell of a thing to feel official. She didn’t feel tired, not really. More like hollow. She caught glimpses of other things — shadows that skittered just beyond the edge of sight — but they didn’t bother her. Maybe the blood from those creatures that man, Mister Eyepatch, killed was enough to keep them at bay. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, she didn’t stop. There was no water here, no life beyond the twisted black vines curling like thorned fingers from the ground. Not a single leaf, not a breath of green beyond those creeping tendrils. Hell wasn’t a garden. It was a graveyard. And Lyanna? She was just another ghost trying not to disappear completely.

It was somewhere near the corner, just past another set of ancient stone stairs, that the place started shifting — less barren underworld, more Benjen’s Dark Souls bullshit. The kind of cursed architecture that looked like it existed just to kill you slowly. She’d watched him play it until his eyes bled pixels when they were kids. He always said the trick was in the patterns. Didn’t help you much when the thing behind the corner didn’t follow rules. Lyanna moved up the staircase, boots scraping against stone slick with centuries of cold. She didn’t know where it went — didn’t really care, either. Up was better than still. She’d stopped hoping to find anything good at the top. But movement blinked at the edge of her dying vision. Just a flicker, gone too quick. Maybe a trick of the fog. Maybe not.

Then came the sound. Not a footstep. Not breathing. Not even water dripping like a normal spooky cave echo. This was worse — half-there, wrong. A vibration, like the air remembering a noise it wasn’t supposed to repeat. Then it spoke. Called her name. Lyanna stopped cold. Her grandmother’s voice slipped in uninvited, the way it always did when she was about to do something stupid: If you're getting close to something important, it’ll try to scare you before it tries to kill you. Comforting. She made it to the top, lungs fine, legs fine—no human fatigue anymore, just the heavy ache of knowing this place wasn’t meant for her. Not really. She wasn’t dead. Not in the way the others here were. Not yet.

So she sat for a second. Not to rest, just to think. The ruin stretched out before her — colossal, crumbling, the bones of a city clawed into the cliffside. Bridges and staircases twisted like a bad dream. Vines had cracked through the stone like time itself had tried to strangle the place. She glanced back down the steps she’d climbed — and there he was. Ten paces off, just standing there like he'd never left. Same eyepatch. Same smirk. Same wrongness in the air, like the rules bent around him. Her spine lit up like a struck match. She didn’t stay. Didn’t ask. Just ran. The wind clawed at her as she sprinted, the silence splintered by her own boots and the pounding pulse in her neck. She didn’t know what she was running toward, just that she couldn’t stay. Stupid. She should’ve known better. Because as she rounded another corner, he was already there. Waiting. Like the whole place was just a stage for him to keep showing up. Lyanna didn’t hesitate — she swung the knife in her hand, at him. A blur of silver and iron. He moved, but not far. Not enough.

“The fuck d’ye think you’re doin’? Back the seven hell off, eyepatch,” — She spat, the blade still in her grip.

He didn’t flinch. — “Ye’re not human, are ye?” — He said, voice like smoke and teeth. — “An’ ye’re no vampire neither. So what in the name o’ the drowned deep are ye, then?”

Lyanna sneered. — “Thought I made it fuckin’ clear it’s none of your business.”  — Her voice razor-edged and smoke-wrapped, low enough to be a threat, loud enough to leave no room for questions. her mouth, chin tilted, eyes gleaming with that cold, merciless spark she reserved for the sort of bastard who didn’t know when to back off.

He smiled like a man who thought everything was his business. — “Yer a right shady one, so y’are,” — He said, half a grin curling under his words. — “An’ I’ve respect for that, I do. Name’s Euron Greyjoy. Vampire. Been stompin’ ‘round this pisshole longer than I care t’ count. Humans don’t last on this end o’ Helheim… Go cracked in the head near straight away.”

“An’ that’s meant t’make me spill me whole bloody life story?” — Lyanna snapped. — “Sorry, pal… Not here t’braid yer hair an’ have a weep about it.”

He didn’t laugh. Just tilted his head like she was some riddle he half-remembered. — “Yer tryin’ t’get outta here, like every poor bastard is. I can see that, clear as day.” — He paused, voice low and rough. — “But ye’re doin’ it different from th’rest. There’s a smell on ye… Death an’ iron. An’ ye’ve a blade on ye too.”

His gaze sharpened. Hungry. He said it like a man who’d already decided she was interesting — too interesting for her own good. Voice low, curling like smoke through a half-grin that didn’t reach his eye — just the one — he leaned on the edge of mockery and something darker, something ancient.

“Somethin’ tells me,” — He said, voice low and half-grinning, — “ye just might bloody well make it outta here.”— The words weren’t a compliment. They were a bet.  A dare. Like he wanted to see if she'd prove him right... or die trying. There was no real warmth in it. Just the kind of admiration one predator shows another.

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed, shadows flickering like cigarette smoke in the dank air. — “So wha’ yer sayin’ is ye’re tailin’ me just fer the bet?” — Her voice dripped with all the suspicion and sharp edge she’d sharpened over years spent dodging worse than ghosts.

Euron grinned… Silver fangs glinting like broken promises in the low light.  — “I’m a bettor,” — He said easy, like he’d been counting cards or lives for longer than she’d been breathing. — “Haven’t seen a fair chance to slip outta this cursed hole in a good while. So, consider yer shadow tied to mine now. A favour I’ll owe ye if we findin’ our a way out.”

Lyanna’s first instinct was to tell this pirate vampire to shove it where the sun don’t shine. But no illusions left — not in Helheim. He’d been here long enough to know the score.  So she sighed, cracked open that locked box of trust just a little, and asked her questions — half-expecting the usual cryptic bullshit.

Like a rusted music box wound tight, Euron spoke, voice low and gravelly, —  “To reach purgatory,” — He said, — “ya gotta cross the Bridge o’ the Damned. But it don’t open for just anyone. Only when a soul’s forced tae live their lies out loud… Witnessin’ death aft’r death that shaped ’em.”

“How’d ye figure that out, eyepatch??” — She shot back, sharp and skeptical.

“Most souls don’t make it, he said. They try, then jumpin’ the bridge an’ end up in the Gjöll .” — Euron said it low and steady, like he was telling a bedtime story for ghosts… Half warning, half grim fact. There was no pity in it, just cold truth, and his eyes flickered sharp beneath that patch like he was daring you to test the river yourself. — “That river drags souls in, not out. An’ if ye fall in, well… Ye come back as one o’ them beasts that haunt this place.”

Lyanna snorted, voice dry as dust. — “Och, grand. Just what I needed… More bleedin’ nightmares.”

His voice dropped low, rough like gravel sliding underfoot, the faintest edge of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. — “Start hearin’ voices yet, have ye?” — He asked, eyes glinting like a trap snapping shut. His one good eye glinted with a knowing, tired sort of amusement, like he’d seen too many lost souls lose their minds and figured she was next in line.

She sounded half amused, half tired… — “Aye. But I’m good at lockin’ things away. Compartmentalizin’, if ya wanna sound fancy. Guess we’re close.”  — Lyanna said it like she was checking the shadows again, voice low and clipped, eyes flicking sharp even if the fog blurred the edges.

“Close enough, sure,” — Euron nodded, his grin tight and knowing.

Lyanna squared her shoulders like she was bracing for a storm, her eyes narrowing with that sharp, don’t test me  kind of look. She jabbed a finger ahead, voice clipped and steady, — “Lead the way then.”

Euron cocked his head, one brow quirking like he smelled bullshit. His tone was low and teasing, edged with that rough, knowing grit, —  “Ye ain’t gonna tell me yer name, then?”

Lyanna’s eyes narrowed, a half-smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth as she said it with that sharp edge, — “Nah, not there, Jack Sparrow. An’ I reckon I ne’er will.” — the kind that said she wasn’t about to let anyone close, not now, maybe not ever.

He blinked slow, confusion flickering’ like a weak flame in his eyes… Like he was trying’ to place a name that didn’t quite fit no matter how hard he tried. His voice came quiet, almost like admitting defeat, — “Don’t ken who that is.”

Lyanna smirked despite herself. So he’d been here since before 2003. Great. No fairy tales, no miracle rescues. Just a long game with a stranger who might be her only shot. So it was what it was — follow the pirate into the river of lost souls and face whatever the seven hells that bridge wanted from her. Perfect. Just another damn day in her version of hell. As  they rounded the last bend, boots crunching over black stone slick with ancient frost, she saw it. And gods, it was a bastard of a view. The place looked like some god got bored and started carving out fjords with a meat cleaver. Jagged spires clawed up from the dark like they wanted to punch holes in the sky. It wasn’t built. Wasn’t even ruined. It was eroded into something that looked halfway between a cathedral and a glacier’s vengeance. The green light that poured from its cracks didn’t feel like light at all — more like something radioactive and watching.

She would've lit a cigarette if she had it, purely out of spite. Even if it didn’t burn here, the motion helped. Euron walked ahead like he owned the place — or like he’d given up trying to outrun it. Hard to tell with his kind. Vampires had a way of turning stillness into theater. But this wasn’t his mission. This was hers. She just didn’t know if it ended with her crossing that glowing bridge… or becoming part of the rocks that framed it. The bridge wasn’t a bridge, not really. It was a vein of green flame curling through the gorge, like someone slit open the world and left its blood humming beneath the ice. It pulsed with something sick and ancient. If rivers had memories, this one remembered every soul that had screamed into it.

A cloaked figure stood at the edge of the trail, torch flickering like it knew it shouldn’t be here either. Lyanna stared at it too long, half-wondering if it was real or just another trick of this place — like the voice she'd heard whispering her name earlier. Or maybe it was her grandmother again. Or herself. She adjusted the knife in her hand, throat tight with something she refused to call fear. Fear was a luxury. She’d traded it in years ago for brass knuckles and fuck-you eyes. No one survived the kind of life she had by flinching. Especially not here. The air reeked of iron and ozone. Her boots sank into a layer of frost that never thawed, like even the idea of warmth had been outlawed. Her fingers ached from gripping too tight, and her eyesight — getting back thank the gods — picked up shapes that flickered at the edges, ghosts of the damned or maybe just memories getting louder.

***

The city was dying under winter’s breath — its stone bones brittle with frost, the sky cracked open above the Manderly Tower like a wound that wouldn’t scab. Fitting place for Elia to choose, really. She always had a flair for staging her betrayals somewhere scenic. Manderly stood beside the old theatre, its ornate face still defiant against time and neglect. The square below was almost empty. Almost. But Rhaegar never moved without reading shadows like lines in a holy book. And tonight, the shadows read her. She stood with her back to the wind, copper hair loose, heavy cloak gathered at her throat like some tragic heroine five minutes before the act goes wrong. She looked… theatrical. She always did.

“You can’t be sneakin’ up on me like that, cariño,” — She called, voice dipped in smoke and memory.

Rhaegar slid one gloved hand into the pocket of his long coat, brushing the hilt of the blade he’d strapped inside like a well-kept secret. —  “Wouldn’t try,” —  He said, dry as frostbite. — “Last time I did, you tried to split me with an axe.”

Elia laughed. Soft. Pitying. — “Always were one to clutch a grudge close, eh? Like a lover holdin’ a dagger ‘neath the pillow.”

Rhaegar said it without flinching, voice low and clipped, each word measured like a scalpel. — “I learned from the best.” — Not flattery…. Far from it. 

His eyes didn’t soften when they met hers. If anything, they sharpened, reflecting back the years they'd both left bleeding in their wake. It was a quiet indictment dressed as a compliment, spoken the way only Rhaegar could; with the precision of someone who’d spent too long turning affection into armor. He meant her.  And she knew it. She probably saw them — Sigorn and Howland, ghosting at the edge of the square with those blessed blades he’d handed over earlier. Dark Sister was hidden beneath his coat, not strapped at the hip. No sense parading a myth around in public. People already looked at him like he belonged in a tomb. She changed the subject the moment she noticed them, and of course she did. Elia had always known how to maneuver. Tact, manipulation — two sides of the same tarnished coin.

“I miss the theatre,” — She said, gazing at the boarded entrance, — “There was somethin’ in it, eh? Goin’ in, feelin’ all tha’ heart hummin’ in the air… that hush before the curtain. Mmm. Like tastin’ hope on the tongue.” — Her accent curled around the words like incense smoke.

Rhaegar muttered his response it under his breath, dry as dust and twice as cutting— “You make it sound like a buffet.”

The words barely left his mouth, more exhale than speech, laced with that glacial sarcasm he wore like a second skin. His gaze didn’t shift from her, but his mouth tilted just enough to betray the ghost of a sneer. It wasn’t a joke, not really — just an old wound dressed in wit. Classic him: too restrained to shout, too bitter to let it slide.

“Ya used to like it, when I spoke in clever metaphors, no?” — Elia said it with that knowing lilt, the kind that curled at the edges of her mouth like smoke. Her voice was velvet over something sharper, like silk hiding a stiletto. She tilted her head just so, eyes catching his in that practiced, lazy drag that said she remembered exactly how to get under his skin.

“Foreplay’s always been your preferred language… You wielded it like a weapon fairly enough.” — Rhaegar replied it low, almost bored, like he was commenting on the weather; or the fine cut of a blade he knew all too well. His tone held that old, elegant disinterest he’d perfected over decades, but beneath it, a flicker of something darker coiled in his mouth like smoke: memory, resentment, reluctant amusement. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. 

A silence settled between them. Not awkward. Just old. Heavy with ghosts. He didn’t hear anything else. No third heart. No scent but hers. No Clegane vampire lurking nearby. Which made her story — that tired little tale about missing girls and mad dogs — seem flimsier by the second. He wanted results, not riddles. And Lyanna’s absence gnawed at something beneath his ribs that he refused to name.

“This century’s a strange one, sí,” — Elia said, eyes on the snow drifting’. — “Everyone’s in such a rush, no time to breathe.”

Rhaegar’s voice was low, edged with a bitter sort of amusement, the kind that comes from watching centuries of restless souls chase shadows. — “They never seem to get where they’re going,” — He said, the weight of inevitability hanging in the quiet between words.

“I didn’ think you’d come,” — She said slow after a moment of silence, like the wind carrying secrets. —  “Didn’ think you’d wanna help, either.”

Rhaegar said it quiet, each word clipped and measured… Like a blade folded tight in velvet. —  “I have reasons,” — He said. — “Plenty of them.” — There was no need to explain; the weight behind ‘reasons’ hung heavy between them, sharp and unyielding. 

“Still so resentful,” — She sighed, voice soft like warm wind through the olives. —  “No one does vengeance like you, Rhaegar.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. There were things Elia couldn’t see — things she didn’t want to see. Like the way she’d made him and broke him in the same breath. Turned him immortal, sure. Gifted him time, art, a view of the world that stretched past the grave. And in the process, she’d shackled him to a hunger that made intimacy impossible. Love wasn’t built to survive bloodlust, and territorial instinct. Not even theirs. He used to think what they had was eternal. Now it felt more like… ash. Not gone. Just dead and clinging. And somewhere out there, Lyanna was missing. Taken or worse. He could feel the weight of her absence like a splinter in his spine, constant and irritating, impossible to ignore. Elia was a distraction. A beautifully dressed, dangerously poised, masterfully manipulative distraction. And yet, the theatre square was colder with her in it.

He didn’t raise his voice. That was never his way. The anger ran colder than blood. — “Why did you turn me.” — A question carved from old stone; not new, not fresh. Just unearthed again. He already knew the answer. But monsters ask anyway. It's a ritual, like laying flowers on a grave no one visits but you.

Elia sighed, a soft rustle against the frost. — “Mm... Difficult question.”

Rhaegar replied with the kind of cool, surgical calm that could freeze boiling blood. After adjusting the collar of his coat with the absent grace of someone used to armor, tailored now instead of steel, but just as heavy. The gesture wasn’t fussy. It was deliberate, like balancing the weight of a blade before a strike.

His voice, when it came, was low and leveled, every syllable measured like a verdict, — “I assumed,” — He said, without looking at her, — “you’d have an answer prepared. You always did… For everything else.” — There was no anger in it. Just an edge; polished, quiet, and merciless. The kind that cut deeper because it didn't need to raise its voice.

She smiled faintly, and it stung more than it should have. — “You ne’er asked me before, love… Why that was?”

He ignored the dig. Rhaegar said it quietly, the way a blade might slip between ribs, deliberate, precise, and meant to remind. He didn’t rise to the bait Elia threw; he never did. He just adjusted the cuff of his coat, eyes scanning the snow-laced horizon as if it might offer reprieve. His voice was even, unflinching, velvet over iron.

“When I was a fledgling,” — He said, as if reciting a passage from a history book only they had read, — “everything was matter-of-fact with you. A syllabus of blood and discipline.” — He let the silence stretch, just long enough to press weight onto the next words. — “You told me I’d leave you. Told me before I even wanted to.”

No raised voice. No accusation. Just that soft, clinical edge that made it worse — because it wasn’t said in rage, but in recollection. The way survivors talk about the day they stopped being children. The way ghosts remember their deaths. His voice, as always, was smooth. Polished. But the edges underneath were visible if you listened.

“I kept wondering,” — He continued, each word deliberate, scalpel-sharp, — “when the loneliness would take over. When I’d stop resisting and just…walk into sunlight.” — He tilted his head, gaze steady. — “Why did you do it, Elia? Why did you condemn me to this exquisite goddamn purgatory?”

She looked affronted in that practiced, effortless way. — “I didn’t damn you, cariño. I gave you a gift. Ain’t ma fault you’ve always wrestled with what you are.”

“I embrace it,” — He said, the way a man embraces the gallows… — “fully, even. But not everyone does. Or maybe some do… too much.”

Her brow twitched. — “An’ who is it you’re speakin’ of, then?”

And now they were here. The part he didn’t want to say. The part he’d already dissected in silence. — “I kept thinking… Why would a vampire follow you? Risk exposure? Risk a turf war? Then it hit me.” — He leaned closer, voice like velvet lined with steel. — “You turned him, didn’t you?” — She opened her mouth… Of course she did… But he didn’t give her the chance.

He didn’t shout, because Rhaegar never shouted. But there was weight in every word, the kind that cracked glass from the inside. He delivered the accusation like a man reciting a diagnosis — clinical, inevitable, and lethal. His gaze didn’t flinch. His expression didn’t soften. Because this wasn’t vengeance. It was truth, dragged into the light like a corpse out of deep water.

The words landed sharp and slow, — “You turned him for the same reason you turned me. Because you're alone, and you can’t bear it. You never could. That was why you made me. Not because I was brilliant, not because I was worthy. Just because you couldn’t stand the echo.” —  And the pause that followed wasn’t for effect. It was the sound of something breaking. Quiet.

“Rhaegar, this isn’t…” — Elia’s voice cut through the tense air like a brittle shard, urgent and sharp, but Rhaegar didn’t even flick his eyes her way. He stayed locked on the words hanging between them, unmoved and unreadable. 

His voice was low, steady; like the calm before a storm; each word measured but edged with something colder, sharper. His gaze didn’t waver; it pinned her like a dagger’s point. — “You turned that man, because you needed someone. And maybe he didn’t flinch at the blood, gore and death like I did. Maybe he liked it. Maybe he was too monstrous. But then he got bored, didn’t he? Found out being a vampire without an audience isn’t as fun as the brochure makes it sound. So you ran, and you brought him here.” — There was no anger, just a quiet, cutting certainty, like he was laying bare a wound she tried too hard to hide. The weight of his accusation hung heavy, deliberate, impossible to dodge.

A breath, cool and slow. —  “To me.” —  She froze. He’d struck something… He could see it in the slight tremor in her lip, the way her fingers curled into her coat. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

“You thought I’d clean it up, didn’t you?” — He went on, quieter now. —  “That I still had a soft spot for you. That I’d protect you from your mistakes.”

His eyes darkened. —  “That I’d kill the man you couldn’t control.” — Rhaegar said it flat, the bare truth slipping out like a blade, no flourish, no threat, just the cold promise in his tone. His eyes held a steady, hard edge, the kind that didn’t ask for forgiveness or mercy, only made you reckon with the weight of what he meant.

Silence hung between them like the sword at his side. He didn’t need to be told it was true. Elia’s face told him more than any confession ever could. — “I’ll find him,” — He said, stepping back like a general, not a lover.  —“And I’ll kill him. But not for you.”

His voice dropped lower, final. —“For the people around me. For the ones you put in danger. You took his soul, and now he wants yours. And we’re all just stepping stones in your path, aren’t we?” — Rhaegar’s voice dipped, folding into a quiet menace that barely needed words to carry their weight. His eyes locked, unblinking, every syllable laced with the gravity of lives tangled in the fallout. The kind of voice that said this wasn’t a warning, but a reckoning. He let that hang. — “Collateral.”

Elia’s voice flickered with sharp defensiveness, quick to rise but tinged with a fragile edge, — “You put words in ma mouth? — like a curtain twitching against a storm. Her eyes darted away for a heartbeat before snapping back, trying to reclaim control, but the doubt lingered beneath her words, betraying the cracks in her facade.

Rhaegar’s voice was calm but edged with steel, each word measured like a dagger’s strike. His eyes held a quiet fire, the weight of years and bitter truths beneath that cool surface. — “No,” —  He said, voice low and deliberate, — “I’m putting words to your actions. You always had that sweet tongue, Elia. But your hands… Those hands never knew mercy.”

He’d waited years to say that. Years. The wound had never healed — only scabbed into something beautiful and dangerous. But now he felt nothing except resolve. Because of Lyanna. Her name rang somewhere behind his ribs like a warning bell. Rhaegar’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper, sharp and cold as steel scraping stone. His breath was steady but seethed with a quiet, deadly fury that barely needed words to carry its weight. 

Every syllable was a promise carved in shadow. — “So let me be very fucking clear with you,” — He said, voice tight and low, — “If that man kills Lyanna… If she dies ‘cause you brought this here… I will kill him. And then I’ll kill you.”

Elia flinched. He rarely swore. He never swore like that. Rhaegar kept his sharper edges sheathed when Elia was near — politeness wasn’t extinct, even after four centuries of grudges and damnation. His tongue had learned to curse with more flair these days, especially when the stakes were this bloody high. She had dragged a monster into his city,  his turf, and by all the gods, that monster was no fantasy beast but the kind of person who haunted nightmares — and probably Lyanna’s own waking seven circles of hell. The thought of what that creature might do to her was a blade twisting in his gut.

Only the gods knew what torment Lyanna was drowning in right now, what in seven hells she child be fighting claw free from, or if she’d even survive to be herself again. And Rhaegar — well, he wasn’t about to let Elia slip away from the reckoning her recklessness had invited. The woman had gambled not just his neck but a whole goddamn city’s safety on a bet she barely understood. The ripples of her careless choices stretched wide, dragging innocents into a deadly dance they never signed up for. And Rhaegar? He was already counting the bodies that might fall before this was over.

“I swear it,” — Rhaegar continued it slow and steady, each word a deliberate strike, voice low but iron-hard beneath the calm. His eyes didn’t flicker, didn’t waver, — “By my name. My blood. My family. If she dies, you die.”

Her voice cracked the silence. —  “She worths that much to you, sí?”

He met her gaze, eyes cold and ancient. Rhaegar’s voice softened, stripped of its usual veil of sarcasm and distance, a rare crack in his carefully forged armor. There was no jest this time, no deflection hiding behind his words. It was matter-of-fact, cold almost, but with an unmistakable weight beneath it: a quiet confession. — “More than you’ll ever understand.” — His eyes didn’t waver; the burden of his truth sat heavy between them, raw and unyielding, as if saying it aloud might somehow make it real, or maybe just make it easier to bear.

Elia’s lips tightened, the faintest curl twisting into something bitter, jealousy, sharp and familiar, flickering in her eyes like a shadow she couldn’t quite chase away. He’d seen that look before: the way her pride clenched tight, how her breath hitched just enough to betray the calm she tried to wear. — “She must be some woman,” — She murmured, voice edged with something close to grudging respect, but tangled deep in envy.

Rhaegar said it with the cold grace of a guillotine falling… Quiet, precise, final. His voice didn’t rise; it didn’t need to. It was the kind of calm that came after the storm, after the decision was already made. No heat, no flourish… Just the truth, carved bare and sharp between them. — “For your own good,” — He said, eyes like tempered steel, — “you’ll never know.” — And he meant it. Not as a threat, but as a mercy he no longer owed her.

Elia looked at him with that maddening duality only she could summon—equal parts wrath and remorse, as if guilt and pride were old lovers sharing her ribs. She knew he’d caught her. There was no point in pretending anymore; he saw it, smelled it, heard it in the silence between her words. She had done it again. Turned another one. Made another monster. Another lonely goddamn soul dragged into their ageless purgatory. Unlike him, Elia didn’t create for survival. She didn’t need allies. She created because she couldn’t tolerate the echo. Rhaegar had never met any of her other fledglings, which told him more than enough. If she discarded them like secrets or corpses, it made sense. But this one? This one had teeth. This one had come back.

What burned wasn’t jealousy. It was logistics. It was carelessness. She hadn’t just made someone — she’d unleashed something. Someone too loud, too reckless, with a method that reeked of bloodlust and exhibitionism. Someone who could get them all exposed. Rhaegar knew humans — better than most of their kind remembered. Knew how little it took for the mob to stir. It never mattered that they were once human. Humanity was never in the face, only in the mirror, and people smashed mirrors when they didn’t like what stared back. He watched her fumble for dignity, then saw the moment the shame slipped through. She reached into her coat — slowly, like it hurt — and pulled out a bandana. Yellow, black, worn soft from use. A dog print, cheerful and harmless. The kind of thing you gave to something you thought you could train.

“This was his,” — She said, her voice soft, shaded with that thin thread of hope she hated lettin’ show. — “Maybe you can track him, hm? You were always the better tracker, between the two of us.”

Of course she’d say that now. Of course she’d toss him that old compliment like it wasn’t stitched to betrayal. — “I remember you told me that,” — Rhaegar murmured, taking the bandana from her hand, — “right before trying to kill me. Fourth or fifth time, I believe.”

He raised it to his face, let the scent curl into him. Beneath the fabric’s wear and warmth, there it was — something wrong. Feral. Sharp. A predator’s signature etched in the fibers. He didn’t speak, but he felt it coil through him. Something had been here. And it wanted blood.

He took the bandana from Elia’s hand without ceremony. The scent clung to it — unmistakably stale, masculine, tinged with blood, asphalt, and something fouler underneath. Rhaegar didn’t speak. Didn’t thank her. Just turned on his heel like the conversation had never begun. Later, he’d remember that moment in the way he remembered most things now: not as emotion, but as a sequence of cause and consequence. She gave him the scent. He took it. He left. He didn’t look back. He told Sigorn and Howland everything as they walked back to the car, each word delivered with the clinical detachment of a pathologist identifying a body. Sigorn, ever the protector, insisted Howland stay with him for the night. Rhaegar didn’t argue. He’d already moved three steps ahead. Let the mortal sleep under someone else’s guard.

He took Lyanna’s car—her stubborn, battered, ash-scented thing—and drove it through the cold vein of the city like it was a ghost ship and he the shade at its wheel. The night welcomed him, as it always did. Quiet. Empty. Honest. And then he hunted. The scent was easy enough to follow now, even layered under a week’s worth of detritus and city rot. The fledgling—Elia’s mistake—hadn’t bothered to cover his tracks. Too arrogant, or too reckless. Or maybe just too new to this life to realize how loud he still smelled to something old. When Rhaegar found him, it wasn’t theatrical. No grand confrontation. No speech. Just an alley, the reek of sewer steam, and a vampire who looked surprised to meet the end. Rhaegar didn’t start the fight. But he finished it. 

***

Title: Time Is Limitless But The Past Comes Around

Lyanna is missing. It tastes wrong just to write it. Like speaking it aloud would give it shape, permanence. Like putting it to paper seals a truth I’m not ready to hold. But here it is. She’s gone. One moment she was biting sarcasm and smudged eyeliner, all sharp teeth and stubborn courage—and the next, nothing. Silence. A dropped thread in the dark. I should have noticed. I should have known. I'm supposed to sense these things. I don’t know how long it’s been. A few hours? A day? Time folds in on itself when your blood starts to sing with dread. Every second feels like an accusation.

And gods, I am guilty. I was distracted. Too entangled in old patterns with Elia, trying to untangle her lies from the truth. I was so determined to show her I wasn’t hers to command anymore that I didn’t notice what I was losing. What I might have already lost. Lyanna is not just another case. She’s not some “asset.” She’s not even someone I can keep at a safe distance anymore. She got under my skin without permission, without trying. I saw too much of myself in her, and it terrified me. I thought if I kept it clinical, kept it clean, I wouldn’t bleed. I was wrong.

And now I’m afraid. Not of her being dead. No, death I could manage. I’ve spent centuries dancing with it. It’s the in-between that guts me—the idea of her somewhere in the dark, hurting, scared, fighting for breath. Fighting alone. Because she would fight. That’s who she is. That’s what’s killing me. I don’t know who took her yet, but I have a short list of monsters, and Elia’s fledgling is at the top. She knew what he was capable of. She knew what he’d do without a leash. And she brought him here anyway.

If anything happens to Lyanna — if she’s hurt, broken, changed into something she never asked to become — I swear I will make Elia feel every ounce of it. I will burn down every fortress, sever every alliance, rip out every throat if I have to. Because I can’t lose her. Not her. Not this time. And if that makes me the villain in someone else’s story, so be it. I’ve worn worse masks. Let them come for me. I’ll be waiting. And this time, I won’t look away. (Lyanna would mock me for the sentimentality. I almost hope she does.)

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

The smell of desperation wasn’t a metaphor down here. It wasn’t office politics or influencer panic or some knobhead royal staging a trauma-flavoured redemption arc. It was real. It had weight. Texture. It pressed in close and stuck to your skin, the way grief does when it’s been steeping for centuries. Down here, desperation smelled like perfume turned sour on a corpse. Sweat baked into stone. Blood, mostly iron, a little old salt. Piss in the corners and tears no one admitted to crying. Burnt sugar where someone tried to mask the rot. Cheap incense fouled by time and ghosts with bad manners. The air hung heavy with a thousand broken promises, fermented just right to taste like bile. It stuck in the back of her throat like regret. Coated her lungs in lies. It smelled like hope stretched so thin it snapped. It smelled like Helheim.

Which, of course, were she was trying to get iut of. She didn’t trust the pirate bastard leading her there. Why would she? One eye, two egos, and the kind of grin that made her fingers twitch for a blade. He looked like someone had cosplayed Long John Silver on ketamine and never broke character. But monsters kept their distance when he walked, and that was enough — for now. She followed, boots scuffing through a world that didn’t obey laws like gravity or reason. It wasn’t a place. It was a memory trying to eat itself. The landscape shifted when she wasn’t looking. Hills became stairs. Stairs became bones. Light flickered in and out like a faulty overhead, just bright enough to make her squint — not that squinting helped anymore. Her vision was going soft at the edges, like old film catching fire. She could still walk crime scenes in the dark, but the dark was starting to follow her home.

They climbed a slope that lied about being a hill — really a mountain, all teeth and silence — and crested it just in time for reality to blink sideways. Below, a fjord split the world like a scar that forgot how to heal. Cliffs like jaws, river like a vein, green glow like radiation had a bastard child with memory. And across it: a bridge. Not built. Birthed. Arches like ribs. Stone soaked in age and bad intentions. And halfway across, a tower that didn’t rise—it stabbed. No fairy tale. No romance. Just cold ambition aimed at the sky, and not a sky she trusted. There were... people. Maybe. Walking the bridge. Shapes wrapped in fog, slow-moving, like death clocked out early and took a stroll. Mist ate the far end. It didn’t look like a destination. It looked like forgetting.

Euron — if that was even his name — led them down toward what might’ve once been a road. It had the feel of something worn into the ground by grief and repetition. The kind of path that remembered every footstep. For a while, it was just them. Then it wasn’t. A hooded figure came into view. Slow. Wrong. Lyanna’s gut twisted before her brain caught up. The shape didn’t walk so much as disturb. Like the air flinched. Like the world bristled when it passed. When it reached the bridge, the stone shivered — green light sparking off it like blood on iron. Then the figure jumped. No hesitation. No drama. Just gone. Lyanna didn’t scream. She’d done that enough for three lifetimes. But her stomach clenched like it wanted out. Her body locked up. The cold in her spine settled deeper.

“Gods,”  — She muttered. Not belief. Just punctuation.

The silence that followed felt alive. Like if she moved too fast, it would shatter and bleed all over her boots. She watched the bridge. Couldn’t help it. Death didn’t scare her anymore. It fascinated her. Mirror-recognition, maybe. Or just habit. She’d been its echo for years now. The banshee curse made sure of that.

Euron finally spoke, voice like rusted laughter dragged across a blade. —  “So…” —  He drawled, stretching the word until it begged for mercy.

Lyanna didn’t look at him. Just blinked slow. Like someone trying not to punch something fragile. — “Supposed t’do what, exactly?”

Euron answered like he was giving directions to a pub instead of the underworld. Cheerful. Smirking. Mad as a bleeding brush. — “Aye... ’tis a bridge, innit? Ye cross it.”

Simple. Like suicide’s just a stroll and crossing the bridge of Hellheim was a casual hobby. She turned to him, sharp and sudden. Her voice was a knife she’d kept hidden behind her teeth, and now it snapped out with surgical precision.

“Ya blind, or d’you miss the poor sod what flung himself off the side?” —  It wasn’t a question. It was a warning.

Euron’s grin widened. Wolfish. Familiar. The kind of smile that usually came just before fire and screaming. — “Ah, child, there’s no other way. So hey-ho, away we go.”

“Child,” — She muttered. Like the word didn’t sit right in her mouth. Like it tasted like blood. She didn’t say the rest: Call me that again, and I’ll gut you with your own teeth.

Euron Greyjoy was insane, but what pissed her off most was that he made it work. She gave him a look sharp enough to shave steel. — “And how d’you reckon you’re gonna cross, then?” — She asked, voice low, calm, edged with challenge.

Something shifted. Not out there. In her. A weight. A pull. A wrongness. Then she saw it — a chain, thin as wire and silver-bright, coiled sudden around her wrist. The other end locked to his. Her wrist. His. Fucking brilliant. Lyanna stared at it like it had personally insulted her ancestors. Of course he did this. Of course he bloody chained them together like a pair of convicts on some cursed prison barge. No warning. No ask. Just poof — shiny magical bondage, courtesy of the mad bastard with one eye and no impulse control. She let out a breath through her teeth. A long, low exhale that said I hate everything about this without needing the words. Gods. Of course it’d be her lot in life to get magically shackled to a pirate sociopath on a death bridge, in hell. Couldn’t be normal. Couldn’t be easy. Couldn’t be something that made sense. No. It had to be this. She flexed her wrist once, testing the metal. Unbreakable. Of course it was.

“Clever clogs,” — She muttered, voice flat. —  “Still don’t see how if you jump, I’m s’posed to…”

He cut her off. With a smirk. — “As I said, darlin’,” — He said, gleam in his eye, — “I just need ye to get across.”

And then he did it. Slid her blade into his own temple. Like it was a party trick. Like death was an inside joke. The wet crack of bone made her flinch. She’d heard it before — once, up close. Too close. Euron dropped like a puppet with the strings cut. Blood spread. Slow. Unbothered. Lyanna blinked. Retrieved the knife. Wiped it on his coat. Kicked him once, just to be sure. He didn’t flinch. Of course not. He’d be back. Vampire most likely always were. Regeneration wasn’t a blessing. It was a nuisance.

“Seven ‘ells,” — She muttered, half to herself, half to the dead man at her feet.

She slung his body over her shoulder with all the enthusiasm of a bouncer dragging out a drunk. Adjusted the grip on her knife. Turned back to the bridge. One step. Another. The arches rose like ribs. The fog pulsed. Something waited. Something ancient. Not death. Worse. She didn’t stop. She didn’t pray. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t fear dying. She feared breaking. She didn’t expect it to start with warmth. That was the first cruel joke. The bridge hadn’t cracked open into flames or teeth or some eldritch beast trying to eat her soul. No. It gave her sunlight. The bastard. Cold stone underfoot, fog curling around her boots like it wanted to hold her back — but she stepped forward anyway. Euron’s chain dissolved, vanished into smoke like it had never existed. For half a second, she thought maybe that was it. The test. Walk alone.

Then the world bent sideways. Light fractured. Her spine thrummed like something plucked a string that shouldn't be there. And when she blinked again, she wasn’t on the bridge. She was… home. No. Not home. That word didn’t mean anything anymore. She was in the kitchen. The same chipped tiles. The same cracked window with the curtain half-torn down. No blood. No body. Euron was gone. This wasn’t real. Not real real. A simulation, she thought. Like one of those fancy mental traps demons love — tailored suffering. Personal hell. And gods, she understood now. Why people jumped from this bridge. Why they’d throw themselves into the nothing rather than see what came next. Because if this was what it showed her? Of course they'd run.

She stepped toward the light bleeding in through the kitchen door. Warm, soft, summer-gold — the kind of light that hadn’t touched her skin in years. She followed it like a thread, each footstep heavier than the last. The smell hit her halfway through the threshold to the outside: salt, sun-warmed trees, crushed grass. And memory. Then she saw the garden. Small grove of trees out back, where she and Benjen used to swing from the low branches and pretend they were knights or pirates or whatever else got them through. The garden looked too perfect. Preserved. Like grief taxidermied it. And there — beneath the trees — stood her mother. Lyarra . Dressed in black. Hair pinned back. Hands steady, lips moving in a whisper Lyanna hadn’t heard in years. Old Tongue. Prayer. No, not a prayer.

A ward. Her mother stood inside a circle of salt and runes, ancient and half-faded, like they’d been drawn in haste, or desperation. The kind of circle you made when something was already inside the house. Lyanna felt the scream building in her throat but swallowed it down. Screaming didn’t change the past. It just made the ghosts louder. This was the place they’d found her. The one no one talked about. The one Lyanna had scrubbed from memory because it never made sense. Just a dead body, mouth open, lungs full of smoke but no fire anywhere in the house. And now, here it was. Truth, raw and ugly. From the dark, it slithered in. A demon — black, long-limbed, a thing made of sinew and screaming. Its face was a swirl of mouths, gasping, howling, whispering things she didn’t want to understand.

Her mother didn’t run. Of course she didn’t. She opened her mouth, and the wail that came out tore the world sideways. A banshee’s cry. Lyanna had heard it — from her own throat, long ago, when she thought it was grief. Turns out it was legacy. Lyarra screamed, and the thing recoiled — but not enough. It came anyway. She screamed again, louder, breaking the air like glass. And still, it came. Lyanna reached for her, some useless instinct firing through years of distance and ash. But it was already happening. The demon lunged. Hand — if you could call it that — smashed through the circle. Into her chest. Bones broke. Flesh tore. And Lyarra crumpled like paper in a storm. It wasn’t the gore that broke Lyanna. It was the silence afterward. Her knees hit the dirt. She hadn’t even noticed she was crying until the tears hit her hands. One hand reached out — too late, always too late — toward her mother’s face. The eyes were still open. Still warm. Somehow, that made it worse. She pressed her forehead to the ground. Her breath caught. Something inside her cracked, but she didn’t let it bleed out.

Just one sentence. A whisper meant for a dead woman and no one else, — “Ah’ll do it, Mama. Ah’ll do it fer ye.”

The demon gone. Salt scattered like dust in the wind. The garden fell silent, the kind of silence that presses down on your chest at three in the morning when the world forgets to breathe. Lyanna drew a ragged breath. In. Out. Her lungs felt full of ash and old regrets, but she kept moving. She wanted to stay — wanted to sink into that broken moment with her mother, even if it was just smoke and mirrors. But illusions don’t give you a choice. So she walked. Walked past the garden, past the weight of memories she wasn’t ready to carry anymore. She found herself inside the trees that used to cradle her house. Except she wasn’t there. Not really. Not anymore. The world had shifted under her boots; this wasn’t the past. It was something else — something cold and sharp like broken glass against her skin.

Her tears were still there, slick and burning, a quiet rebellion against the armor she wore like second skin. She cried for her mother, for the years she’d lost, for the bitterness that had settled in her bones like winter frost. She knew Lyarra wouldn’t be proud — not of the girl who swallowed pain and spat out silence, who wore scars like a second face. But maybe — maybe — this was a chance to make things right. A chance to show up in the only way she still could. To be someone worth being proud of. Lyanna’s shoulders squared against the cold. She wiped her cheek on her sleeve, tasted smoke and salt, and kept walking. Because this bridge — this damn bridge — wasn’t about salvation. It was about surviving. And surviving meant moving forward, even when everything inside her wanted to fall apart.

***

It had been years since Rhaegar hunted one of his own kind. Not because he couldn’t. Because he didn’t feel like it. But vampires were predators by design, and the thing prowling his city wasn’t simply feeding — it was indulging. Sloppy. Loud. Brutal. The kind of fledgling who left bruises on the fabric of reality, and corpses in doorways with the blood still warm. He’d told Sigorn to stand by their plan. That alone was a risk. Sigorn didn’t like playing support — he liked squads, sirens, blunt solutions. But Rhaegar didn’t want noise. He wanted quiet. So he watched. Perched high above the city, Rhaegar moved between buildings like shadow  between breaths. Fast. Measured. Silent. Below him, King’s Landing flickered in and out of darkness — streetlamps flickering, the occasional breath of a subway rumble, sirens in the distance. He filtered it all out.

He was looking for a scent. And when it hit him — sweet and sour, fabric-thin and familiar — he froze. The same of the piece of cloth, torn in flight, clinging to the air like perfume on a lover’s neck. He ran. Leapt from roof to roof with the kind of elegance that came from years of denying himself the thrill of it. He let the hunger simmer just beneath his ribs, not indulging, not yet. The scent led him down — between tenement towers and rusted fences — into one of the alleys the city pretended not to see. Then the smell changed. It thickened. Coated the back of his throat. Copper, sweat, fear. And something else — ecstasy. Rhaegar landed soundlessly above the scene. Below: two bodies tangled in blood and shadow. He expected the fledgling to be quick. Clever. But the idiot was feasting — gorging like a teenager at an open bar. Rhaegar heard the girl's sigh, the way breath gave out mid-pleasure and turned into terror.

The man was massive. A mountain draped in flesh and muscle, every limb carved to crush. Seven feet tall, maybe more — shoulders like siege towers, arms like battering rams. A blunt weapon in a world that required scalpels. Pathetic. Rhaegar dropped on him like judgment. His fangs sank into the fledgling’s neck before the beast even registered the weight. Arterial spray bloomed. The bigger vampire howled, reeled back, and threw Rhaegar off like he weighed nothing at all. He hit the wall. Hard. Didn’t matter. The fledgling dropped the girl — still breathing, barely — and turned with the kind of arrogance that made Rhaegar’s skin itch. There was always one. Every decade or so. Thought size meant power. Thought hunger meant dominance. Thought being undead made them immortal.

They never lasted long. Rhaegar rose, calm as a priest preparing last rites. The brute moved first. Picked up the girl like she was a rock and threw her. Rhaegar caught her. She was light. Cold. Her pulse fluttered against his wrist like a moth. And more importantly: she matched the profile. Same type as the girl left on the doorste. Pale. Delicate. Pretty in a forgettable way. So that was it. He had a type. How charming. The brute ran. Coward, after all. Typical. Rhaegar set the girl down gently. She blinked at him — dazed, drugged, alive. That was enough. He called in the emergency room on his way to the nearest clinic and left her at the threshold with a glamour and a whisper. She wouldn’t remember him. That was mercy. Then he sent the message to Sigorn.  Then went back to his hunt. The trail led south. Of course it did. 

To a warehouse — because every fledgling, for reasons known only to whatever part of their brain still watched bad TV, thought a warehouse was a good place to nest. He didn’t knock. Didn’t pause. Rhaegar walked straight through the loading dock, through rusted metal doors, and — Stopped. A flashbulb popped. A studio. A photo studio. Of course. Half a dozen models scattered across white canvas backdrops, bored and pouty and blood-warm. Velvet curtains. Overhead lights. Empty champagne flutes. And in the center of it all, sipping something crimson from a wineglass shaped like a heart: Elia. It confirmed his suspicions. She turned, smiling like this was a dinner party and not a bloodbath waiting to happen.

“Well,” — She said, voice lilting like it always did when she knew she was being watched.  —  “You did say I ought to keep to the south..”

Rhaegar didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. — “He’s here.”

Her face twitched. Barely. But he caught it. — “What?”

Rhaegar’s gaze swept the room like a blade.  —  “He’s here.”

It had only just begun. The lights died first. Not all at once. Not with a bang, but a dimming — soft, almost apologetic. One row, then the next. Flickers swallowed whole by the dark until only the distant red EXIT signs remained like the eyes of something watching. Humans screamed. Of course they did. People always scream when the lights go out, as if that could somehow protect them from what the dark is already hiding. The staff scattered. Sensible. Fear makes people smart — for a moment. Rhaegar didn’t move. Neither did Elia. They stood at the center of the studio warehouse, perfectly still amid the chaos, as though the dark had been waiting just for them. He could see her clearly, even now. The fine line of her jaw. The calm set to her mouth. A pearl of crimson still clinging to her bottom lip.

Elegant as ever. Drenched in rot. Then it hit him again — that scent. Rotting ecstasy. Copper. Heat. A signature that curled at the edge of his senses like old perfume soaked into hotel sheets. He opened his mouth to speak, to warn her maybe, or just say it’s him — But the bastard moved first. Fast. Too fast for someone that size. The man, Gregor, was less a man than a monolith — muscle and murder, wrapped in seven feet of arrogance and the reek of half-digested blood. He charged like a bull that had learned how to enjoy it. Rhaegar didn’t hesitate. He met the charge head-on, claws sinking into the brute’s chest like blades. He meant to rip the heart out clean. But the Mountain didn’t stop. Didn’t even stagger.

Instead, Gregor flung him. Not punched. Not shoved. Flung. Like a rag doll. Like he weighed nothing at all. He hit a table hard enough to snap metal. The world spun for a breath. He tasted his own blood. Then the wall. Then the floor. Lovely. Rhaegar pushed himself up in one fluid motion, hair falling into his eyes, his ribs singing protest. His vision adjusted instantly. She hadn’t moved. Still standing like a statue as the monster loomed toward her. Gregor grinned. It was a terrible thing. Not an expression. A fracture in flesh. Rhaegar moved. He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. He grabbed what was left of the table — one rusted steel leg with a broken end — and ran. A flash of movement. A blur of grey and intent. The sound it made going in, from ribcage to heart, was not poetic. It was wet. Crunch. Pop. Crack.

And it didn’t kill him. Gregor roared. Frothed. Still standing. Elia was on him in an instant. She moved like silk and shadow, but her claws were steel. They drove into his neck, his face, his side — anywhere soft enough to tear. The big man buckled. Rhaegar wrenched the bar deeper, straight into the dark well of his heart, twisting. Gregor gurgled something that might’ve been a curse or just death trying to crawl out of his mouth. Then — finally — he dropped. Dead. For now. But Rhaegar didn’t relax. He exhaled. Just once. Half a breath of something that wasn’t quite relief. And that was when she turned. He felt it before he saw it — Elia’s presence shift, tilt. The air changed. Pressure behind his eyes, the hum of power like a violin string drawn too tight. He looked up. She was staring at him. Expression unreadable. Beautiful, of course. Always. But that wasn't affection behind her gaze. Or gratitude. It was calculation. Her voice came low and calm, the way someone might comment on the weather right before they set your house on fire.

“You were always the elegant one,” — She said, voice low and almost tender, like a lover recalling a sin.  —“But gods, you’ve gone soft, Rhaegar.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t flinch. But he saw her hands — fingers twitching, blood still dripping, claws still extended. And he felt it, the way only one vampire can feel another when they’re no longer pretending to be human. She was going to strike. Because this wasn’t about Gregor. Not really. It never was. He of course had suspected. She lunged. Rhaegar sidestepped — barely. Her claws grazed his chest, tore through silk, carved red. Not deep. Not lethal. But deliberate.

“You’ve always been a piece of work, Elia,” — He murmured, tone light as ash, as if she hadn't tried to gut him, — “Just not the kind people want hanging around.”

She smiled. — “You killed my pet.”

He moved faster this time — not out of panic, but precision. Movement honed by centuries, violence learned in silence. He pivoted behind her, not quite graceful, but exact. One hand caught her wrist — delicate, lethal. The other slipped inside his coat and found the blade. Not silver. That would have been too obvious. Iron. Old. Blessed. The kind of weapon that remembered what it was made for. It was his last dagger. The only one he still carried without reason — or rather, without a good one. It bore the sigil of his family, faded now, the three-headed dragon worn down by time and disuse. Not ceremonial. Not symbolic. Personal. It was the same blade that had nearly gutted Lyanna, once — on the floor of the crypt. 

A reminder. Of failure. Of proximity. Of how close he'd come to losing something he refused to name. Now it sat in his palm like judgment. He didn’t want to use it on Elia. Not because she didn’t deserve it — she’d earned a blade to the throat many times over — but because of what it would mean. Another line crossed. Another grave in his memory. But she didn’t flinch. She pressed forward, teeth bared like a memory trying to bite back. Her strength was feral, honed not by time but by pain. She shoved him, not with rage but with intent, and his boots skidded across the blood-slick floor. He hissed — not from pain. From restraint snapping, just a little. From the scent of her, the taste of history soaked into her skin. From the knowledge that he could kill her. That maybe he should. And that he wouldn’t — not yet.

She bared her teeth, voice like sun-warmed silk with a bite beneath. — “You think a wee knife’s gonna stop me?” — She purred, amusement curling at the edges. — “Seven hells, I thought you knew me better, boy.” — She clicked her tongue, slow and dangerous. — “Gods, you’re adorable. I near forgot how bloody naïve you could be.”

Rhaegar didn’t move. The dagger stayed where it was — angled low, but deliberate, like a final word waiting to be spoken in steel. His grip was loose. Too loose. The kind of ease that meant he didn’t need to try hard. That if he wanted her dead, she already would be. His voice came low and even, each word measured like a chess move he’d already played ten steps ago.

“I imagined you’d try something,” — He said, not quite accusing… Just tired. Cold. — “You tried killing me once. For territory.” — A breath. Not a laugh, but close. — “Was the plan? What promise did you make to the fledgling? Tell him if he helped you kill me, he could keep the city?” — His eyes flicked down, almost bored. — “Then what, kill him too?” — He looked up, then… Eyes like moonlight on oil, unreadable and burning at the edges.

Elia tilted her head, a slow, elegant motion — too slow to be natural, like a predator mimicking grace. Blood glistened at her temple where one of his earlier blows had grazed her, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or care. She stepped toward him — not like an attacker, but like a woman walking into a spotlight.

“Maybe you do know me better,” — She said, voice low, velvet-laced and mocking. But the words came out hollow, like someone reciting the lines of a play she no longer believed in.

He watched her shift. The way her stance changed — just slightly. Weight adjusted, fingers flexed. That faint, familiar tension in her shoulders she used to call focus. But he saw it for what it was: vanity. Hunger dressed up in elegance. And she thought he hadn’t noticed. Perfect. His blade didn’t lift. No need to rush. He let the words drop like polished stone, quiet and precise, smooth as glass hiding a crack.

“I do know you better,” — He said, eyes never leaving her. — “That’s how I knew you’d get distracted.”

No gloat in it. No malice. Just the cold satisfaction of a plan unfolding exactly as it should. She’d danced the same steps too many times. And this time, he’d choreographed the fall. His tone was almost gentle. Almost. But underneath it ran the sharp edge of strategy, and something older — resentment fossilized into resolve.  She lunged for him exactly as he knew she would. Claws. Teeth. History. It was less a fight than a memory being reenacted — violent, familiar, stripped of affection. They moved like former lovers who had choreographed each other’s destruction long before the first wound was ever drawn. There was no grace in it now. Just rhythm. Just inevitability. And that was the point. He didn’t need to win. He needed her distracted.

The bullets struck her before she registered the sound. A clean shot — silver, blessed, burning through bone and arrogance. Elia staggered mid-motion, not from pain, but from disbelief. Her eyes flashed wide, and for a breathless second, she looked more betrayed than injured. Then she crumpled, the weight of centuries collapsing like a dying star. The lights flickered back on. Fluorescent and cold, the warehouse returned to its ugliness. But inside, there were only three left who mattered. Sigorn stood steady, gun still raised. It had been Howland’s bullet — procured quietly, delivered without flourish — and Sigorn had taken the shot without hesitation. Efficient. Brutal. Rhaegar approved.

He slipped his dagger back into its sheath with a click as soft as a closing door. — “You thought I was naïve,” — He said, voice calm as winter. —  “But I’ve learned to cover my bases.”

Elia, on her knees, her breathing uneven, still managed a smile. That same old smile; the one she used before driving the knife in. — “You do surprise me, cariño,” — She murmured, eyes dark with something between admiration and contempt.  — “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Rhaegar tilted his head, as if considering the compliment. —  “I promised we’d kill whatever came for Lyanna,” — He said, voice smooth and tightly wound. — “And unlike you, I don’t make promises I intend to break.”

“Only trouble is,” — She said, soft as warm sand, — “I’ve no bloody clue what happened to yar little darling.”

He didn’t blink. Didn’t snarl. Didn’t let her see how close the words came to striking bone. —  “And I don’t believe you,” — He replied. —  “But don’t fret. We don’t need your stories to find her. Your lies end here.”

The next part happened fast — deliberately so. He knew himself too well to pause. If he hesitated, she’d see the fault line in him and wedge herself inside it. Elia always knew how to weaponize hesitation. So he didn’t. He grabbed one of the broken table legs from the floor. Old wood, jagged and soaked in blood. He didn’t look at it. Just moved. Clean. Unthinking. Unrelenting. And drove it through her heart. She gasped — not in pain, but in shock. As if even now, after everything, she couldn’t believe he’d done it. He could. He met her eyes as she froze, as the strength drained out of her limbs and her body went slack in his hands. No gloating. No triumph. Just a cold sort of mercy. Her body dissolved — slowly, smoke curling like old perfume, lingering grief. Like Gregor’s had. Ashes to air. He stood there, breath steady, blood cooling, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

Somewhere between the breath, the blood, and the strike… he thought of her. Lyanna. Her name felt like a secret carved into his bones. She was out there, somewhere — alive, he knew it. He didn’t need proof. He only needed the hunger — the kind that had nothing to do with blood — and the certainty that he would burn the world twice over before he let anything end her. He would’ve killed his maker ten times over to protect her. And now he had. The air hung heavy in the aftermath. No one spoke. Nothing moved. He didn’t look back. There was nothing behind him but smoke, and too many years of regret. But ahead? Ahead was Lyanna. They had to get to her. Find out what happened to her.

***

She knew it was the lie before the memory even sharpened — her gut twisted, tight and sour, like it was trying to crawl up her throat. That familiar burn started behind her ribs, the one she got before a banshee scream. But it wasn’t death calling her this time. It was memory. And it wasn’t done yet. The bridge dissolved. Fog pulled back like a curtain. She stood at the roadside near her old house — only, it was winter now. Not the crisp, clean kind. Not the postcard snow people romanticized. No. This was the kind of winter that knew your name. That whispered behind your ear when you were stupid enough to walk alone. Everything felt too quiet. Like the air was holding its breath just to see what she'd do. She moved forward, boots crunching over snow that shouldn’t have been there. It was summer before. The forest had been green, humming with cicadas. But that was gone now. Rewritten.

And she knew this road. Knew it like muscle memory. Every step toward it brought a kind of nausea she couldn’t reason her way out of. Because this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a metaphor. This was what the bridge wanted — to make her feel it. All of it. The trees stood too still. The road was too narrow. Tire tracks carved through the snow, fresh enough to be recent. That made her stomach twist worse. The light wasn’t sunlight — it was that watery grey-blue sky the North specialized in, where the sun tried and failed to matter. And then she saw it. The lake. Still. Dark. Waiting. It hadn’t frozen, even in the dead of winter. The volcanic veins under the ground kept it breathing just enough to stay alive. Her father loved it for that. Called it the lake that refused to sleep. He’d run the loop every morning — half out of habit, half out of penance for the diabetes. Type 2 for him, Type 1 for Benjen. The family blood liked to pick favorites.

She stepped onto the dock before she meant to. It creaked under her weight. She remembered how he looked that day — Rickard, shirtless, grey in his beard, proud in that quiet, stubborn way of his. He’d gone under once, then up. Then again. The third time, he didn’t come back. She hadn’t seen the moment his heart gave out. Hadn’t seen if it was the heart attack that took him or the cold pulling him down. The official word was complications . What the fuck did that even mean? But here, now, she saw it all. Every second of it. Her father seizing in the water. His arms flailing, then going still. His mouth open but not gasping. Just gone. Her body reacted before her brain caught up. She ran to the edge of the dock — heart in her throat, panic punching her ribs from the inside. She wanted to scream. Wanted to reach for him. Wanted to do something.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Because she remembered this part too. She didn’t save him, because she wasn’t there. Her hands balled into fists. The tears came before she noticed. Her vision already blurred from the banshee curse, and now this — salt, grief, salt again. Her knees buckled. She knelt at the edge, not breathing, not thinking, just watching the ripples fade. And that’s when the illusion cracked. Not all at once. Just a detail. The water, too still now. Too black. And then the smell — Gjöll. Blood. Iron. Something ancient watching her from below the surface, using her father’s death like bait. And gods, it almost worked. She stood — slowly, shaking, hands slick with snowmelt and regret — and backed away. Not fast enough. Something grabbed her wrist. No, someone. Euron’s corpse-body held the chain between them taut. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The bridge was trying to get her to jump.

And if it had been any other day, any other year — hell, any other minute — maybe she would’ve. But not now. Lyanna pulled hard. Broke his grip. Spat on the snow like it was sacred ground she'd just desecrated. Then she turned her back on the lake. On her father. On what she couldn’t fix. She didn’t say goodbye. She never had. She walked back to the bridge, legs numb, spine hollow. Her body moved like it had borrowed the momentum from someone else’s will. When she reached the stone again, her knees gave out. She dropped hard, hands to the frozen floor, trying not to shake.  In. Out. No relief. Just motion. Her voice didn’t come. Not yet. But her eyes lifted — barely. Ahead, the fog waited. So did the next death. She got up anyway. Because this was the cost of surviving this literal hell hole.

She should’ve known the bridge wasn’t finished with her. The bastard thing. She walked on stone slick with fog, breath tight in her ribs, and when the air changed — thickened, curdled — she knew it was coming. The smell hit first. Smoke. Charred meat. Burning varnish. The stench of something holy and wrong all at once. Lyanna clenched her jaw. Her boots scuffed over cobblestones, and her spine itched like it was bracing for a punch. She looked up and blinked hard. The smoke was real. The street around her — half-timbered buildings in terracotta and olive and ash-black wood — should’ve been quaint. Beautiful, even. A preserved fairy-tale town. But nothing ever stays pretty in a banshee’s hell. She’d seen architecture like this once. Museum trip. School-sponsored. She'd skipped the tour and smoked behind a restoration shed with a boy she never kissed. The memory flickered and died.

This place wasn’t a museum. It was a fucking execution site. The crowd didn’t speak. That was the worst part. Just silence and smoke, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder in wool and ash, their faces indistinct, like someone had smeared the features off with a thumb. She didn’t know where the hell she was, only that this wasn’t her memory. It didn’t matter. Her body was already moving. The crowd opened for her like a wound. She followed the scent — the smoke, the heat, the stench of burning flesh — and told herself she wouldn’t run. She wouldn’t. But her legs didn’t listen. The world narrowed to flame and iron, and somewhere in her chest, something ancient twisted. She turned the corner, saw the raised platform, and then — Her breath caught. Ash filled her mouth.

A pyre. A priest of the Seven — robes stiff with ritual, torch in hand — muttering something sacred that sounded more like rot. The fire licked higher, spitting cinders into the night. And on the stake, tied with iron cord, shirt half-torn and skin blackening by the second — Rhaegar . Not the version she knew. Not the cold charming bastard in a pressed shirt and a cleaned-up accent. Not the vampire with his secrets stacked behind his eyes. This was him stripped bare. Wrists bound. Hair matted with blood and soot. Silver gone to coal. Mouth moving without sound — was he Cursing? Begging? Praying? 

She couldn’t tell. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the fire like it had promised him something better than this. And Lyanna — fuck — Lyanna ran. She ran , logic be damned. She knew this couldn’t be real. She knew this wasn’t how he died. She knew, because she’d fought him. Slept near him. Felt the pulse that shouldn’t be there in the crook of his neck. But her body didn’t care. Her soul didn’t care. She moved like grief had taken the wheel and told everything else to shut the hell up. She leapt from the wagon like she could do something, anything , like maybe this time she could save someone. But all she got was flamelight in her eyes and ash in her lungs. She screamed. Not a banshee scream. Not the death-cry that tore worlds. 

Just a name. — “Rhaegar!” — It came out hoarse. Small. Stupid.

The priest didn’t flinch. The flames crackled louder. The crowd didn’t turn. And Rhaegar — He never looked back. Lyanna stood there, trembling, fists clenched so hard her nails dug blood from her palms. This wasn't her memory. But hell didn't care. It knew how to hurt her anyway. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to punch something. She wanted to drag him down off that fucking stake and beat the world back with her bare hands. But none of that was possible. Because this was the lie. She could feel it, bitter and oily in her throat. The bridge was trying to break her. Trying to convince her he was dead. That she’d lost him. That she was alone. Again. That she always would be. Lyanna swallowed. Her jaw ached. Her vision swam. And then— The flames flickered. Gone. Just like that. The crowd dissolved into shadow. The buildings folded in on themselves like paper soaked in gasoline. The stake crumbled. Ash drifted like snow. Only the street remained, stretching forward. And her. Still breathing. Barely. Lyanna wiped her face with the heel of her hand. Didn’t look to see if it was tears or soot.

She continued. And kept walking. Because fuck hell.  She didn’t remember the moment she left hell. Not really. One second, she was staggering back from the bridge, lungs full of smoke and grief, knees shaking under the weight of memories she’d locked in the basement of her brain and bricked over with whiskey and spite. And the next — she wasn’t. There was no gate. No voice booming from the clouds. No light at the end of the tunnel. Just a shift. A feeling. Like falling upward. Like gravity forgot her name. It was less like walking out of something and more like being yanked inside out. One blink and she wasn’t standing on stone anymore — she was floating through something that wasn’t quite air and wasn’t quite space. Wet and weightless and weirdly quiet, like being trapped inside her own head underwater. And then she fell. Straight through the dark. Not down, not up. Just through.

And when she landed — if you could call it that — she wasn’t in hell. Not anymore. But it sure as shit wasn’t heaven, either. It was a dark place. Purgatory.  At least, that’s what it felt like. A realm scraped raw by memory, twisted into a shape that mirrored her mind too closely for comfort. It stretched wide in every direction, but never far enough. Cloud-choked skies hung low and slow, dark as bruises, blotting out any hint of stars. No wind. No sound. Just the heavy, humid stillness of a world made from unspoken things. And beneath it — buildings. Sort of. White Harbor, maybe. Or Winterfell. Or something in between, if you dropped it into a vat of ink and let the city rot into shadow. Stone towers bled into narrow alleys, too tall and too twisted, with crooked arches and windows that pulsed faintly like they were breathing. The skyline looked like it was holding its breath, ready to collapse inward. Gotham on a bad acid trip.  But the worst part was… It felt like home.

Not in the warm, cocoa-and-blankets way. No, this was familiar the way nightmares were. The way trauma was. The kind of home that shaped your bones wrong and left bruises you had to laugh about later just to survive. She stepped forward, boots echoing in a place with no real ground. Nothing was solid. Not really. The streets shimmered when she stared too hard, as if the city hadn’t quite decided what it wanted to be yet. One moment she thought she saw the house from her childhood, the next it was a morgue hallway, and then the front stoop of a case that went bad five years ago. Reality here was soft clay — malleable, unstable, and vaguely pissed off. It responded to her like it knew her. Like it was her. Made from all the shit she didn’t say. The grief she laughed through. The guilt she drank through. The love she never let land. It was a reflection of the inside of her skull — and god, no one needed to be living in that neighborhood. She exhaled. The fog swallowed the sound. Great. So this was purgatory. 

Lyanna didn’t realize where she was until Euron’s body stopped bleeding. Not that it mattered. He was still dead. Still sprawled like a broken doll across the bricks. Still wearing that same stupid grin he’d died with, as if Hell had told him a joke on the way down. But here, wherever here was, the blood had no weight. No smell. No temperature. It shimmered like static, then faded. The corpse flickered. She could see the bones knitting back together like a time-lapse on loop, but it meant fuck all. There was no weight to any of it. No noise, no gravity. Just her heart knocking at her ribs like it wanted out. She didn’t scream. She hadn’t in years. Instead, she muttered a curse — Old Tongue, half-prayer, half-threat—and kicked his skull as she walked past it.

Lyanna clenched her jaw, boot heels scraping against cracked stone. — “Motherfuckin’ maze,” — She muttered, low and bitter, like she was swearing at the city itself. Or herself. Or whatever was puppeteering this haunted rat trap of a place.

The street narrowed. Slick cobblestones, flickering lamps, shadows that blinked at her like they knew her name. She took a turn on instinct and — There it was. She stopped dead. Her boots sunk into the exact same cracks. The alley behind the apartment block on Witchwood. Four years ago. She could still smell the rain and engine oil. Could still hear her own voice, yelling at the captain through clenched teeth. Could still remember Sigorn’s face, pale as chalk as he crouched near the body.

“Gods,” — He'd said. —  “Seven hells… what a bleedin’ mess.”

And he wasn’t wrong. Bredgit Piler. Twenty-nine. Schoolteacher. Sweet voice. Stubborn as hell. Ruled a suicide. Twenty knife wounds. Eleven bruises. Broken fingers. Split lip. Suicide. Yeah. Right. Lyanna stared at the scene like it owed her something. The blood hadn’t dried yet. The air still stank of iron and cheap perfume. Even now, after all this time, after the case was buried and the file was shredded and the coroner “resigned,” it still looked realer than half the world. Bredgit lay in the same position she’d last seen her. Rosy cheeks, turquoise eyes staring at nothing. Black camisole dress torn at the shoulder. Legs twisted at an angle that didn’t look accidental. She looked like she was waiting for someone to apologize. Lyanna’s throat burned. Her banshee senses buzzed — like static down her spine — but there was no scream. Not this time. Not here.

She crouched beside the body. The corpse blinked. The scene twisted. The door to the apartment complex opened like it remembered her. Lyanna stepped through without thinking — and the door slammed behind her like a judge's gavel. Gone. Different room. Different dead. And just like that, something inside her fractured. Something she hadn’t named yet.  She couldn’t afford to break. Not here. Not in this gods-cursed, bone-deep wrong place where time cracked and the air tasted like rot and rust and something too old to name. Don’t break. Bend. That was the deal, yeah? Bend till your spine sings, but don’t snap. Get out, however you can. Crawl, if you have to. So she ran. Another door — crooked, flickering like a faulty bulb. She threw herself through it. And landed in hell. Again.

Different road this time. Coldwell. Grey light leaking through chain-link fences and shattered streetlamps. The air had that damp concrete stink. It was quieter than it should’ve been. Always was, in these loops. Like the world knew better than to breathe too loud. Shennen Florent. She remembered this one. Could still smell the copper and bleach, hear the flies hum like a broken violin. Shennen had been dumped in an abandoned lot like rubbish, pieces of her boxed and bagged, like someone was halfway through moving house and got bored. They never found who did it. No motive. No closure. Just... carnage. Lyanna stared at the blood-black soil and felt that old, useless itch behind her eyes. Not tears — those had dried up years ago. Just the sting of knowing you’re gonna carry this one forever. Another ghost with no name to scream.

This place — whatever it was, whatever sick game it played — it wasn’t about answers. It was about shame. About reminding her that not every locked door has a key. Some things rot unsolved, no matter how long you bleed over them. She moved again. Another door. Didn’t matter where. Just out. This one spat her into the Coral Hotel. Oh, fuck. Even the carpet smelled expensive. White Harbour’s elite playground. The scene still haunted police reports like mildew. A tourist family from Tyrosh. Two kids. Both parents. Arranged around the suite like puppets whose strings had been cut. Their mouths stuffed with Tyroshi coins. Chilling , some asshole journalist had called it. Chilling. Like it was a campfire story. She walked through the bedroom. There they were — still and sprawled, eyes open, accusing. The parents on the bed. Pale limbs tangled like dead seaweed.

She hesitated at the bathroom. She knew better. But some twisted reflex pushed her to open it anyway. The door creaked like it remembered her. Blood. It came from the sink first. Slow at first, then gushing, like the faucet was jammed full of veins. The smell hit her all at once — iron and death and something chemical, like burning hair. The floor started to shift. She backed up, but it was too late. It rose fast, pooling across the tiles, swallowing the bed, the walls, her boots. She turned to run. Elevator? Flooded. Blood pouring from the seams. Stairs? Bricked off, like they’d never existed. She started choking. Not from the blood. From the air. Too thick. Too loud in her lungs. She couldn’t scream — not even with banshee lungs. Couldn’t breathe. Then — A voice. Soft. Wrong. Hers. Her mother’s. She couldn’t make out the words, not really. Just syllables curling like smoke, warm and venomous. A lullaby she never got. A lie that sounded like love. She didn’t trust it — but gods, it soothed. Just enough. Enough to make the floor stop tipping. Gravity shifted.

She dropped. And landed on Main Street. Again. Cold wind bit through her coat like it had teeth. Neon signs blinked in the distance. She started walking. Didn’t know where. She turned, already cursing, already bracing for him to lunge — but Euron was still shackled to her ankle like some grotesque handbag. His body looked a little less mangled now. Less pulp, more corpse. No twitch, no breath, no smart-arse grin. Just dead weight. For now. She didn’t trust it. Not with that knife. Banshee steel burned hot and final — maybe it had stuck. Maybe not. Add that to the pile of unsolved shit she’d have to sort later. She kept walking. Wind like razors down the side streets, shadows skittering just out of reach. Not ghosts — wraiths maybe. Memory-shaped things that didn’t look at her directly, like even they couldn’t be arsed to acknowledge her anymore.

She passed a wedding shop, the kind that tried too hard. Ivory tulle in the window, champagne satin mannequins posed like corpses in love. She glanced at the glass without thinking. And froze. It was her. But not. The reflection smiled — wide, plastic, wrong. A rictus grin that didn’t touch the eyes. Eyes that were hers but shouldn’t be. That thing in the window was wearing something she’d never let within a hundred meters of her body: pale yellow, clingy, and too damn shiny. Some sick satin two-piece made for preening, not breathing. Peplum top, plunging neckline, fitted skirt hugging every inch of flesh like a vice. The smile widened. Then it jumped. Straight out of the glass and into her. She barely had time to swear before the world turned inside out.

She dropped hard, shoulder first, into a crumbling theater stitched from mirrors and smoke. The kind of place nightmares come to dress up. The floors creaked with her footsteps — except there weren’t floors, just reflections pretending to be solid. Every pane held a different version of her. Younger. Older. Dead. She didn’t look away. One version of her wore army gear, scar on her cheek and ash on her boots. Another wore a tracksuit and purple hair, eyes black as ink. No trace of blue left. She looked like she'd been made to forget everything and liked it that way. But the one that stopped her—made her jaw lock, made her knuckles go white—stood in blood-red. A dress like sin: strapless, ribbed fabric clinging to curves Lyanna didn’t admit she had. It flared out at the bottom like it was swallowing fire. Her reflection adjusted the bandeau top with slow, lazy fingers, dragging it up while blood ran from her mouth like wine. A long scarf hung off her shoulders like a noose made elegant. Vampire.

She didn’t know how she knew. She just knew. The thing in red smiled with all her teeth. A fierce, feral version of herself. The one she might’ve been if she’d stopped giving a shit entirely. If she let the banshee scream instead of burying it under nicotine and snide remarks. The glass cracked — but didn’t break. Lyanna took a breath that tasted like copper and dust and went in anyway. The theater melted behind her, folding into neon and bass. She was in a nightclub now. Lights strobing like seizures. Sweat in the air. Shadows grinding on shadows. A pulse she could feel in her jaw. She kept walking, shoes sticky on the floor. Every step forward felt like trespassing inside herself. 

She smelled him before she saw him. Not the cologne he wore for press events or that slick-sweet aftershave she used to mock. No — this was sweat and burnt ozone and something old. Something blood-deep. It curled up her spine like a warning, familiar and fucked. Then the bass dropped, lights strobed violet, and she spotted him. Rhaegar. Sat at the bar like a painting someone dared the gods to frame. But it wasn’t him, not like she remembered. His silver hair was pulled into two messy space buns, spiked and chaotic, strands hanging like shattered halos. His face was painted — flames and tribal shapes sweeping over his forehead and temples in blacks and oranges, like war paint, like someone dared to stylize grief. He looked like a pop star that crawled out of the grave and liked it.

The rest of him matched — black sheer blouse clinging to him like smoke, collar tight at the throat like a noose made expensive. Pleated skirt. Leather boots to the knee. Bold. Beautiful. Untouchable. Of course he didn’t look at her. Because this was the part of the nightmare where things got personal. She crossed the floor anyway, cutting through thumping basslines and bodies that didn’t breathe. Got close enough to smell iron under his perfume. 

Her voice cracked, soft and stupid, — “‘Ey.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. Just said, too calm, — “Ah, my fledgling. Still here. You really do have a taste for danger.”

“The fuck you on about now?” — Her voice snapped now, more herself.

His face was flat. A closed curtain. —  “I turned you. You made that choice. Which means you should’ve left by now. We can’t share the same air. That’s the deal.”

And that was when she grabbed him. Fingers digging into the sheer fabric, knuckles white. —  “‘Ey,” —  She said again, quieter, but like it meant something this time.

He stood. Fast. Bared his fangs. And without thinking, she did the same. It didn’t feel like her — not entirely. It felt like her bones waking up wrong. Like some feral thing clawing up her throat, snarling for blood. Not his face. His blood. She wanted to kill him. Or something inside her did. And gods, that scared her more than anything ever had. Not the instinct. Not the fangs. Not the fact that she could admit — just here, just now, in this cracked-glass hallucination of what-if—that she liked him. Really fucking liked him. That it didn’t matter. Not here. Not when one soft word from him could make her want to bury her teeth in his throat. She lunged. He lunged back. She felt the pain — sharp, fast, like being gutted with light — and then — Glass. Again. She sat up, breath ragged in her chest, back in the shattered theatre of smoke and reflection. Her head ringing like church bells after a funeral. Her throat dry, the scream still stuck halfway out. This place wasn’t killing her. It was educating her. Lesson of the day was still not clear. 

***

Title:

I buried Elia two nights ago.

Not formally—no priest would sanctify her ashes, not after what she became. But I still knelt. Still wept. Still felt the old grief twist itself into something new. I think some part of me always hoped she might find her way back. That the woman who made me, who once pressed her palm to my chest and said I was good, might surface again beneath the centuries of rot and ambition.

She didn’t. She was already gone by the time I raised the blade. What I killed was what wore her face. The thing that whispered about conquest and legacy, not love. The thing that wanted to own this city, to twist it into something that bent only to her will.

She would’ve burned everything.

She would’ve burned me.

And still, I miss her.

She must have been good once. Must have loved once. Maybe even me. But greed devours the noble. And time poisons everything it doesn’t kill outright.

I don’t know what that makes me. I don’t know what’s left of who I was, after her. But I know who I’m still looking for. Lyanna.

I don’t know if she’s alive. I tell myself she is, because I have to. Because if I let myself imagine her dead—if I admit that she might have died because of me—I’ll fall apart in a way I won’t come back from.

She was never mine. Not truly. But she was the only real thing I had left. Sharp-tongued, reckless, kind in ways she didn’t know how to show. She called me on my bullshit. She made me laugh. She made me feel like the parts of me that weren’t vampire still mattered.

And gods help me, I love her. Utterly. Completely. Without condition or sense. I won’t turn her. She’s not meant for this half-life. She’s finite, and fragile, and alive in ways I’ve forgotten how to be.

But I would’ve spent every day of that finite life by her side, if she’d have let me.

I still would. So I’ll keep looking.

If there's any justice in this city—any kindness left under the blood and ash—she’s still out there. Still breathing. Still walking through shadows with that knife tucked in her boot and her heart barricaded behind a smart remark.

And if she is — I’ll find her. And I’ll tell her what I should’ve said before everything went to hell: That she is my future. And I am hers. If she’ll have me.

— Rhaegar Targaryen 

Chapter Text

Being buried alive wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her. That should probably say more about her life than it did about her death. At first, it was just pressure — then panic. Wet soil in her mouth, down her throat, packing her ears and clawing into her lungs like it wanted to keep her. She kicked before thinking, body thrashing in a coffin that wasn’t supposed to be metaphorical this time. Nails split, fingers bled, wood cracked. Every breath was a war. Every heartbeat, a slow explosion inside her skull. She didn’t scream. Screaming was for the living. She clawed upward like some bastard child of myth and bad decisions. Dirt crumbled. Air slit open above. Her hand broke the surface first — scratched and trembling, reaching into the cold night like it had something to prove. Like she had something left to come back for.

The air hit her skin like broken glass. She sucked it in anyway, gasping, half-sobbing, like she'd just been born wrong all over again. Lyanna dragged herself out inch by inch — filthy, shaking, not entirely human anymore, but not dead either. Which was its own curse. Soil clung to her lashes. Blood and rot and sweat soaked through her clothes. Her ribs ached. Her knees barely held her up. But she stood. Of course she did. What the fuck else was she supposed to do? The cemetery was barely more than a forgotten plot — one chapel, no lights, headstones tilting like drunk teeth. Grass green, sky full of stars, and nothing nearby but wind and silence. No snow on the ground, which meant she wasn’t in Winter anymore. Karhold maybe. Far north enough to bite. Far enough from White Harbor she wondered how long she'd really been gone.

She rubbed at her hands. Useless. Dirt had crawled into her skin like it wanted to stay. She could feel it in her teeth, her scalp, beneath her goddamn nails. She was thirsty. Parched, actually. Her tongue felt like sandpaper and her throat like razors. So she walked. The road was mostly empty. Asphalt slick beneath her bare feet. A highway stretched ahead — lights buzzing in the distance like the only sign of life. There, tucked against the dark, sat a squat two-story motel, green roof, bright doors, brick walls stained by time. A little oasis for the lost and the running. Perfect. She crossed the road. Air burned in her lungs, but it felt good. Real. Like punishment with purpose. The motel office smelled like old coffee and older desperation. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead like they couldn’t decide if she was real. Clock on the wall read 23:33. Cute. The back door creaked open. A man — late sixties, maybe older — stepped in and stopped cold when he saw her. She looked like hell. Probably smelled worse.

“Oh fuckin’ hell,” — He muttered, blinking at the mess she was.

“Aye.” — Lyanna rasped, voice wrecked and bone-dry. —  “Sorry t’ drop in on ya, sir. Got meself buried alive. Any chance o’ some water?”

He stared. Northerners usually did. Then — bless him — he didn’t ask if it was drugs or some breakdown. Just waved her behind the counter and into the back. Offered a chair. Handed her a glass of water like it was holy. He didn’t ask questions, and she didn’t offer answers. She asked for a shower. He said yes. He offered clothes. Dinner. The kind of kindness she didn’t trust but couldn’t afford to refuse. She downed the water, throat working like a rusted hinge. He returned with a trash bag, some clothes — men’s, worn but clean. Said the room was free. She didn’t argue. 

But before she turned away, her voice caught her. — “Sorry… Sir… Where am I? I was inWhite Harbour, see…”

“White Harbour, was it?” he asked, brow knitting like bad weather. — She gave a slow nod.—  “Aye, well… gods save ye, lass. Ye’ve come a bloody long way. This here’s Karhold.”

Right. No snow on the ground. That told her enough. If this was still the North — and the frozen shit hadn't swallowed the grass — then either she’d been dead longer than she thought… or winter had finally fucked off for a bit. Unlikely. Winter never let go for long. The grass was green. Not newborn green — this wasn’t yesterday. A month? Two? Longer. Hard to tell. The stars still looked like the same ones that watched her crawl out of that grave the first time. But the air had changed. Cleaner. Lighter. Like the world had been scrubbed while she was rotting somewhere in between. No billboards screaming neon nightmares. No hovercrafts or drones. Which meant she hadn’t been out that long — less than a century, then. Always nice to rule that one out. Still, it’d been long enough for something in her bones to shift. Long enough that her hair hit her shoulders and her skin didn't feel like hers. The town looked half-asleep, stuck between decades, like nothing much had happened since she dropped off the map. She could relate. So no, it wasn’t winter anymore. 

She thanked him. Took the bag. Went to the room — tiny, maybe staff quarters, probably used for strays and sinners. She locked the door out of habit and dropped the bag on the bed. The mattress sagged like it had seen too many nights of regret. She stripped down. Left her grave-clothes in the bag and stepped into the bathroom. The water. Gods, the water. Hot, harsh, cleansing. It tore through her hair — grown out thick and long, nearly to her shoulders now. Time didn’t pass the same over there. The muscles in her back shivered with each drop like they were remembering what it meant to be alive. She scrubbed until the dirt stopped bleeding. Until her skin felt like hers again. When she stepped out, the mirror nearly made her flinch.

Long hair. Paler skin. And the scar — new and old all at once. It curved from the midpoint of her right cheek, ghost-white against the warmth of her skin. Raised. Smooth. Not disfiguring, but distracting. Anyone who looked at her would go straight to it. The old man had. She stared at herself. Not long. Just enough to register it. Then she looked herself in the eye, breathed deep, and turned away. She didn’t need to make a ritual of it. She already had a shrine to dead versions of herself inside her head. She slept without dreaming. When she woke, it was easier to breathe. Not easy — never that — but easier. She stepped outside, sunlight creeping through the cold air. The old man was waiting, smiling like he hadn’t met a corpse yesterday.

“Mornin’, lass,” —  He said. —  “Got ye a ride, I did.”

She squinted against the morning light, still half-blind with sleep and grit in her lashes. The man stood just outside the office door, leaning on the frame like it owed him money. Seventies, maybe older — one of those Northerners carved out of wood and stubbornness, with a face like cracked leather and eyes that had seen too many winters and not enough warmth. His beard was patchy and grey, and his parka looked older than she was. But his smile was the kind that didn’t ask questions. The kind that said he’d seen worse than her, and maybe pitied it. Lyanna dragged her fingers through her hair, still reeling from the ache in her muscles and the raw tightness in her chest. She cocked her head at him, half-wary, half-exhausted.

“A ride?” — She echoed, voice low, scratchy from smoke and grave-dust. Like she didn’t quite believe him. Like the word still belonged to a world that made sense.

The old man didn’t move fast, but everything about him said he didn’t need to. He stood there in his worn boots and flannel, arms crossed over a belly softened by age and too many quiet nights behind a counter. His face was a map of years — creased, weathered, but not unkind. Eyes pale and sharp, like he saw more than he let on. Like he knew what it meant to claw your way back from something most folk didn’t survive.

He spoke casual, like he was talking about the weather. — “Coupla folk I ken… Headin’ t’ White Harbour. Got a truck, says they’ll tek ye.” —  Then he nodded toward the clothes folded neatly on the plastic chair beside the door. — “Ye best keep th’ clothes, lass.”

His tone didn’t invite protest. Not pitying. Not soft. Just matter-of-fact. Like offering a ride and a pair of trousers to someone freshly risen from the dead was Tuesday business. Lyanna looked at him for a beat. The scar on her cheek itched under his gaze. He didn’t stare at it long—just once, then moved on. Like he understood that some stories didn’t need telling.

She stared at him for a second. Just a beat too long. Then she nodded. “Righ’. Ta.”

The couple he sent her off with were quiet folk — North of North. Built like stone and big hearts. Maybe wildling blood, maybe just decent in a world that rarely was. They didn’t ask who she was. Didn’t ask why she looked like she’d been dragged through a funeral backwards. Just let her sit in the back of their truck, boots kicked up, head leaned against the glass, six and a half hours of Johnny Cash and road dust. She liked that. The silence. The not-needing-to-explain. White Harbour rose up around 14:00, all salt-wet stone and tired bustle, the kind of town that never bothered pretending to be anything it wasn’t. 

They gave her a slip of paper with a number — “Call if ye need summat, aye?”

She didn’t say she wouldn’t. Just took it, shoved it in her pocket with fingers still crusted in grave-soil under the nails, and meant it when she said, —  “Cheers.”

She slung the trash bag of clothes over her shoulder and walked. Gods, it felt good to walk. Real pavement under her feet, real air in her lungs — cleaner, sharper. Like she’d been rebooted. Not fixed. Just… less broken. Her vision was back. Better, even. Crisper. Colours had teeth. The smells came in like a wave: street oil, roasted nuts, metal, salt, rain in the cracks. Even the faintest wind tugged at her senses like a song just out of tune. It was almost too much. But she'd take it. She walked for thirty minutes, through side streets and alleyways she knew too well, until she stood at the front of her building. Same chipped paint. Same creaking buzz from the old neon sign. Her chest was tight. Nerves, maybe. Or something older. She didn’t like to name her feelings. They didn’t deserve names.

She stood there. Took a breath. Then another. Then stepped inside. Upstairs, the reserve key was still where she’d stashed it — taped behind the corridor light fixture. No one had touched it. But someone had been here. She could smell it. Not rot. Not intruder. Just clean. Wiped surfaces. No dust. Howland. Had to be. She shut the door behind her, leaned her forehead to the wood for a breath that rattled more than she wanted it to. Then she moved. Through the flat, quiet. Shoes off. Clothes stripped and dumped—her grave clothes and the borrowed ones both, shoved into the laundry sack like a body bag. She didn’t even glance at the mirror in the hall. Just went straight to her own bathroom. The water ran hot. Sharp. Familiar. Hers. She stood under it for a long time, longer than necessary. Let it burn her skin clean, let it remind her she was back. Here. Real. Or close enough.

When she stepped out, steam clinging to her ribs, she opened her wardrobe. Froze. The smell hit first — new fabric, faint soap, fresh leather. Everything had been replaced. Same jacket cuts. Same henleys. Same style of t-shirts, but crisp, clean, untouched. Some still had bloody tags. Her boots — new soles, polished, lined up like little soldiers. Her jeans, exact fit, but none with holes or wear. Someone had gone through her entire fucking wardrobe, binned the lot, and rebuilt it. Seam for seam. Colour for colour. Whoever did it had known her. Known what she wore, what she reached for, what she stitched up instead of tossing. But this wasn’t thrift shop patchwork. This had cost money. Lyanna stared for a moment, heart thudding in her throat like it was about to say something.

She didn’t rage. Of course not. She just exhaled and ran her fingers across the seams like she was checking a crime scene for fingerprints. Then she closed the wardrobe and turned out the light. Back from hell. Into someone else's kindness. It unsettled her more than the going to hell thing did. She got dressed like someone clocking back into the land of the living and not quite buying the ticket. The top was dark grey, long-sleeved, ribbed — soft in a way that made her suspicious. Smooth as smoke, snug like skin, and clearly too nice to have ever come from her usual charity-shop hauls. Probably cost more than all the pens in her desk drawer combined. She’d sleep in it. She’d die in it again if it meant not giving it back.

The jeans were dark wash denim, high-waisted, easy on her hips. Stupidly comfortable. Also expensive. She could tell by the way they didn’t dig in or threaten to unravel if she sneezed too hard. She looked in the mirror, gave herself a once-over. Yeah. It worked. She looked... well, functional. Like a person with somewhere to be and half a clue. Which was a lie, but she could live with it. She stepped out of the flat and into the attached office—small, cluttered, all hers. The scent of dust, paper, and stale coffee grounds hit her like home. She didn’t bother turning the lights on. Natural light filtered in through the grimy window, soft and grey, perfect for hiding from the truth. She rifled through the papers left on her desk, trying to remember what day it was and what the hell she used to care about. Then the door creaked open.

And in came the human migraine that was Howland Reed. She didn’t expect to grin. Didn’t expect the warmth that cracked through her ribs when she saw him. But there he was — alive, well, and tragically dressed. A familiar, ridiculous silhouette in worn Converse and light-wash jeans, topped with the crown jewel of his seasonal wardrobe: some acid-trip fever-dream of a blouse that looked like it had been dragged out of a faerie rave and ironed with static. Spring must’ve arrived. Gods forbid he change with the times. The top was lime green — blindingly so. Semi-sheer, like it might disintegrate if exposed to common sense. Crinkled to hell, pleated like a cursed accordion, sleeves big enough to smuggle secrets in. The neckline sagged like it had given up on dignity, drifting somewhere between V-neck and off-the-shoulder chaos. The whole thing was cinched at the waist with an elastic band that only made the rest of it puff out more, like a magical cabbage. It was heinous. It was deeply him.

“Well, well, well,” — Lyanna said, arms crossed tight, the tone was sarcastic, but playful, sharp around the edges, sure, but more teasing than cruel. — “Howland bloody Malcolm Reed. Took yer sweet time wi’ that long lunch, did ye?”

He froze in the doorway, dropping everything in his arms — files, bag, something that might’ve been a sandwich or a ritual offering. He just stared, like she was a ghost. Which, technically, wasn’t entirely wrong. His face looked haunted. Hollowed out. She knew why. However long she’d been down there — days, weeks, a blink or a century — he must’ve thought she wasn’t coming back. Most people didn’t. But she’d come through worse. Hell, Purgatory, maybe Heaven too — if that wasteland counted. Whatever it was, she’d survived it by staring down her own reflection and spitting blood at it. She didn’t come back with peace or closure. Just new scars and slightly better boundaries. Still, she wasn’t ready for all the feelings. That would be a tomorrow problem.

So instead, she smirked at him. — “It’s 15:30,” — She said coolly, brushing invisible lint from her sleeve. —  “I could dock your pay, y’ken. But I’ll settle for a briefing. What case are we on?”

She barely got the words out before Howland moved. He rushed her like a damn wave, arms wrapping around her like he was trying to stitch her back together. And the weird thing — the fucked-up, horrifying thing — was that she didn’t stop him. Didn’t chop him in the throat. Didn’t pull a blade or snarl or flinch. She let him. Growth, apparently. He was crying. Full-on hiccupping tears, face buried in her shoulder like he needed proof she was solid. Like she wasn’t going to vanish again if he blinked too hard.

“We... we thought… Th… Thought…. ye were dead,” — He choked.

Lyanna rolled her eyes and tapped his head gently, like she was checking for leaks. — “Aye, aye. Got th’ bloody memo.”

Her voice stayed dry, but her hand didn’t pull away.  She got it — why he looked like that. Why his voice broke like bad glass and his hands shook like he’d touched something sacred and didn’t know how to hold it. It was the same goddamn feeling that’d hit her the second she’d stepped back into her flat. Not joy — don’t be daft. Not peace, either. Just... relief. The kind that doesn’t make noise, the kind that settles in your chest like a cigarette after too many hours underground. She was glad to be back. As much as she let herself be glad about anything. But it came laced with unease, sharp round the edges, like boots that didn’t quite fit. There was still too much undone — questions, holes, shadows that followed her home. But here, at least, the walls weren’t shifting. The ground wasn’t full of bones. It wasn’t fixed. Not even close. But it felt less. Less weight. Less screaming in the silence. And that, for her, was the closest thing to comfort she’d ever trust.

***

It had been a week since they’d found what was left of Elia. A week since the thing wearing Gregor’s skin tore through her like she was nothing more than parchment. A week since Rhaegar had screamed like a god was dying inside him. A week since silence became a living thing. Howland hadn’t slept properly since. Each day that passed without Lyanna bagged him up a little tighter — like a spell wound too tight around the bones. They were supposed to protect people, supposed to stop things like this from crossing over. But Lyanna had vanished. And when she vanished, so did the ground beneath his feet. The search for her was a haze now—mornings blurred into nights, caffeine and stormwater and too many cigarettes smoked on rooftops. Every shadow became a maybe. Every whisper of wind, a false hope. She was gone. Not gone like on a bender or off-grid . Gone like the air stopped moving where she used to stand. Gone like blood cooling too fast. The city had a hole in it where she used to be, and Howland kept walking straight into it.

His therapist — Gavin — had started asking softer questions lately. Tiptoeing toward the edge of you need help territory, and Howland kept dodging with half-truths and folklore. Couldn’t exactly tell him, ‘ Oh, she’s probably stuck between realms, or eaten by a demon, or fused with the void, but fingers crossed.’ That’d land him in a padded room with salt circles drawn in crayon. Instead, he lied with academic flair. Skimmed reality. She’s my boss, he’d say. We were close. But she wasn’t just his boss. She was the first person who’d ever looked at him like he wasn’t broken. Who let him be weird and anxious and full of too much lore without flinching. She’d invited him to Yule. Made him tea when his hands shook. Took his panic like it was part of the job description. Maybe it was too much to place that kind of weight on her — he knew he’d done this before, tried to turn people into homes when they were just passing through. But she hadn’t run.

And now she was missing. Declared gone by the police. Presumed dead, even though Sigorn argued against it. But he refused. Flat-out refused. Not her. Not like that. She wasn’t allowed to vanish like a normal person. He’d tried everything. Rituals. Contacts. Bending the threads of magic until they snapped back and cut him open. He and Siorna went out every night like idiots, combing alleys and rooftops and churchyards. Nothing. The city was too big. And Lyanna had never been easy to find unless she wanted to be. After the first month, the world moved on. Howland didn’t. Couldn’t. He took odd jobs. Freelanced for coin. Slept in her apartment-office couch more often than his own rented box. It still smelled like her — gun oil, black tea, cigarette ash, and faint iron. He couldn’t bring himself to clean anything. The mugs were still on the drying rack. Her coat still hung behind the door. It was pathetic. He knew that. But it was all he had left of her.

Sometimes he sat in her chair and pretended she’d be back in five minutes. Sometimes he whispered to the empty room, just in case her ghost was listening. And Gavin — gods, Gavin — he was kind. Good, even. University-appointed, but he had the sort of voice that made you feel safe and seen. He didn’t say she’s dead. He said you’re grieving. That was different. Sort of. Sort of not. The worst part wasn’t not knowing. The worst part was remembering — the way Lyanna had shown up for him when no one else did, for the first time in his life he got someone. And now she was somewhere, maybe suffering, maybe worse — and he couldn’t do a fucking thing about it except keep checking rooftops and drawing sigils on bathroom tiles like a lunatic. The worst part was how much he missed her. And how little that changed anything. Howland watched them  —all the ones who’d orbited Lyanna like moons before she went missing, before she was taken, before the world shifted just slightly to the left and never righted itself again.

It was sometime around the second month — the cold, unspoken anniversary of her absence — that he started really noticing the fractures. Not in the magic. Not in the city. In them. Sigorn had gone full procedural, of course. Classic cop-mode: clean, crisp, authoritative. Orders barked like prayer. Search teams arranged. Records pulled. Everything on the books and by the book. At first. But when it became clear that three broken men weren’t enough to comb through an entire city’s worth of shadows, even Sigorn began to fray at the edges. They spent more time together — Sigorn and Howland. Maybe because they were both still human in that quiet, breakable way. Rhaegar ran on his own time now, hours stretching strange and long, like he’d slipped sideways out of their shared rhythm. And maybe he had.

Sigorn tried. He really did. He held space for Howland’s panic, showed up with coffee, didn’t mock the folk charms Howland kept tucked into his sleeves. He tried not to fight with Rhaegar, though it was like asking fire not to burn. He even tried optimism — tried believing they could find her with boots on pavement and warrants on desks. But Howland could see it: Sigorn knew. Felt it in his gut, the way animals do before a storm. This wasn’t a case the department could solve. There was magic in the air, and it made his skin itch. His logic kept smashing into things it couldn’t parse. And when the leads dried up? When Lyanna was still gone after two weeks? Sigorn cracked, quietly. No drama. Just more drinks. Less sleep. He didn’t talk about it. He just kept checking morgue drawers with Mance, cataloguing the unclaimed. Had every maybe-body tested. Took care of the apartment bills. Called Lyanna’s landlord. Made sure that, if — when — she came back, her life would be waiting, untouched.

Howland could feel it: if she walked through that door, Sigorn wouldn’t ask questions. He’d just make her coffee and breathe again. Rhaegar, though — Rhaegar didn’t crack. He imploded. Quietly. Surgically. Like he’d planned it. After Elia, he was already a ruin stitched in black silk and iron self-control. She’d been his Maker, and sure, she was monstrous in the end — had tried to kill him more than once — but love isn’t logical. And the grief was real. Howland understood. Maybe not the vampire part. But the loss? The devotion beneath betrayal? That he got. And then Lyanna disappeared. Howland could see the way Rhaegar folded inward. Didn’t eat. Didn’t feed, even. Instead, he started following whispers. Talking to people with candlelit altars and blood under their fingernails. By month two, he told them he had a lead. A supernatural one.

So they went with him. Just the three of them. To a psychic named Quaithe. Lyanna had mentioned her once. During the case with the ghost-boy — the one who’d been puppeted into violence by his necromancer mother. Witch with too much hair and not enough ethics, she’d said. Hot, though. Watch your wallet. Quaithe hadn’t changed. She flirted with Rhaegar before they even sat down. Asked where his ‘little girlfriend’ had gone — if he’d discarded her already. Howland thought Rhaegar might kill her then and there. The way his fangs peeked past his lips, the flicker of gold in his eyes… aye. Quaithe almost got what she was asking for. They sat anyway. And what she told them wasn’t good. Not even close. Quaithe looked confused. That, in itself, was strange — she didn’t do confused. She was usually all riddles and incense and smug little half-smiles, like she knew the world would rot exactly how she’d foreseen. But now? Now she frowned like something was misfiled in the ether. Something wrong in the bones. Howland leaned forward. His hands were clenched under the table, knuckles white, half-waiting for the air to collapse.

“It’s... weird,”—  Quaithe murmured, her voice like steam curling off an open wound.

Weird. Gods. That wasn’t a word he wanted. — “Weird how?” —  Rhaegar asked, cold and quiet. Too quiet.

“It’s nebulous,” — Quaithe said it slow, like the words tasted strange in her mouth. Quiet. Cautious. Like she wasn’t sure if she was reading it right, or if the truth even wanted to be known. — “She’s not dead. But...” — But. Of course there was a but.

“But what, then, lass??” — Sigorn’s voice snapped. Not angry, just brittle, like it might shatter if you touched it wrong.

“She’s not here,” — Quaithe said, eyes narrowed now, like she was peering through a fog only she could see. — “Not in this plane. She passed, but she didn’t die. That’s... that’s all I can get.”

Howland’s throat was dry. His mouth tasted like copper and clove. He swallowed anyway. “Can we speak wi’ her?” — Howland asked, voice low, careful. — “D’ye ken why she did it?”

Quaithe didn’t answer right away. She just closed her eyes like someone was whispering directly into her skull. Her head tilted. Her lips moved. — “It wasn’t her choice,” she said finally. — “She was paying a debt. That’s the only thing that’s clear.”

“A debt to what?” — Rhaegar said it sharp and clipped, like the words cut his tongue on the way out. Controlled, but coiled tight, like he already knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

There was a rustle as Quaithe shifted, and then — somehow — something appeared in her hand. Howland didn’t see where it came from. Just that it was suddenly there. A lighter. Not just any lighter. Silver, polished. Embossed with a dragon that gleamed in the candlelight. Sharp, elegant lines. Howland had seen it before. Lyanna’s. She’d flicked it open one-handed when she thought no one was looking. Always smelled faintly of rosemary smoke and burnt paper. But the look on Rhaegar’s face — It wasn’t recognition. It was realisation.  The kind that hits you like a brick to the ribs. He stood up slow, like someone bracing for a blow, and took the lighter from Quaithe’s fingers with something reverent and awful in the motion. He walked out of the room without a word. Howland and Sigorn followed.

“What in the fuck was that, then?” — Sigorn asked once they were outside.

“It’s mine,” — Rhaegar said it low, voice rough around the edges like gravel caught in his throat. His fingers clenched the lighter like it was a lifeline, tight, hesitant. Each word came out slow, heavy with memory and something raw beneath the surface, like he was trying to hold back a storm he knew was coming. — “I gave it to her. After we met.”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Howland remembered that night. The one Rhaegar came back bloodied and quiet, eyes like obsidian. That was when Sigorn started drinking more. Started blaming himself. Because like it or not, the thread began with him. After that night, they each broke their own way. Howland kept watch. Sigorn spiraled slowly — his grief was sloppy, loud in its silence. He drank more, spoke less. But he still checked the morgue files. Paid Lyanna’s bills. Held her world together like she might walk back in at any second. Howland respected that. Rhaegar didn’t spiral. He refused. No tears. No pacing. He just... vanished into himself. Howland watched it happen day by day — how he stopped sleeping, stopped feeding, started pulling apart every file, every whisper, every blood-slick clue in the supernatural underground. He wasn’t living. He was sifting through wreckage, chasing the echo of a voice that no longer answered.

Outwardly, he was surgical. Icy. Precise. But inwardly? He was terrified he was cursed. Terrified it was him. He burned through leads like cigarettes —s hort, bitter, gone too fast. Every time the sun rose, he returned to the last place she’d been. Not because he expected to find her. But because he had to. Her scent still lingered in some places. Her heartbeat haunted his sleep. The grief didn’t scream. It carved. Howland imagined what he never said out loud: If she’s alive, he’ll find her. Time isn’t a variant to him. If she’s dead — he’ll burn the world until he finds what took her. And that makes him dangerous. Spring came. The third month ticked by. Still no Lyanna. Howland fell into a rhythm. Wake. Class. Apartment. Wait. Repeat.

He kept going to her place — her too-small apartment that doubled as their office. Waited like an idiot in the quiet, flipping through books, scrawling summoning rituals in notebooks already soaked in candle wax and sweat. Quaithe had said she was alive. That meant there was a way. He tried ouija boards. Scent-traps. Mirror work. He left offerings on her pillow like she was a god he hadn’t earned the right to worship. And then — One afternoon, returning from class with a bag of day-old scones and new chalk for sigil work, he unlocked the apartment door.

Howland caught the sharp edge in her voice, like a blade wrapped in smoke. She folded her arms, eyes flickering with that wicked mix of mockery and something almost like relief. — “Well, well, well,” — She said, voice rough and biting, — “Howland bloody Malcolm Reed. Took yer sweet time wi’ that long lunch, did ye?” — The words landed like stones, but beneath them, Howland felt a flicker, like she was glad he was there, even if she’d never admit it aloud.

He had imagined her return a thousand ways. Quietly. Violently. As a ghost or a lie or a dream. He’d trained himself to expect nothing — because hope, left unchecked, became rot. But there she was. At the door. Alive. Real. He blinked once. Twice. She didn’t vanish. Howland broke. Not loudly. Not elegantly. Just entirely. His knees gave in and the tears came hot and immediate, streaking down his cheeks and dragging his eyeliner with them. His breath snagged in his throat like thread caught on thorns. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move at first, just stared at her — his boss, his orbit, the one person who had ever looked at him and seen something other than delicate inconvenience. Lyanna fucking Stark.

He clung to her like she might disappear again if he let go. She didn’t shove him off. She didn’t mock him. She smelled like citrus and mint and tea tree oil—her usual shampoo, the one he’d noticed missing from her bathroom in week one and restocked in week two, just in case. Rhaegar had gone through her wardrobe around the same time, replacing what was too torn, too bloody, too memory-stained. They hadn’t said it aloud, but they’d both done it: prepared for her return like idiots with altar offerings. And now here she was, wearing one of those new tops he’d hung up with trembling hands. Breathing. Whole. Or — close enough. When his tears slowed, he finally let himself really look at her.

Her hair was long. Longer than it had any right to be, thick and dark and curling slightly at the ends, falling past her shoulders. She hadn’t had it like that since — Gods, before the banshee curse had set in. But it was the scar that got him. Pale pink, running along her cheek. Old enough to be healed, but new enough to still pull the eye. It didn’t make her less beautiful, just… changed. Like something had rewritten the lines of her face while she was gone. He’d expected her to shove him away, bark something sharp, wipe the sentiment off the room like she did smoke from her windows. But she didn’t. She let him sit beside her. Let him cry against her shoulder. Let him stay. That broke him all over again. They sat together on the old office sofa — his perch for the last few months, the place he fell asleep in waiting for the sound of her keys. 

Eventually, he cleared his throat. He sounded wrecked. — “Gods… we’ve gotta get down t’the station,” — He breathed, voice barely holding together. It cracked right in the middle, the way glass does when it’s already been stepped on once too many times.

She snorted softly, voice dry as dust. — “I mean, we could jus’ ring Sig now, get him t’swing by, like,” — Lyanna muttered, dry as ash and twice as done.

Howland said it gently, but with a tremble in his voice, like he was trying to stay calm while his heart was still catching up. — “No, no…This is… Lyanna, ye’ve been gone over three months. We filed the report. You’re in the system.” — The words came out careful, like he didn’t want to spook her… Or himself.

She leaned back, jaw tensing like she’d just remembered something heavy she’d meant to forget. —“Grand,” — She muttered. — “Of course you did,” — Not angry, just tired. Like everything about it was inevitable. Howland reached for his phone. His fingers were still shaking.

“You  ken what… You call him?” — She said, scrubbing a hand down her face. — “Tell ’im… An’ Rhaegar… To meet us at the Wolf, aye? Tha’ bar right across. Don’t tell ’em I’m back. Just… say ye’ve got summat t’share.” — He nodded.

Howland looked at her—really looked this time. At the curve of her jaw where the scar now lived, pale and quiet like something whispered instead of shouted. It didn’t mar her. Not to him. It was just proof she’d been somewhere—somewhere far, somewhere deep — and made it back. Mostly. She was in her chair, leafing through the scattered case files he’d left behind like breadcrumbs. Like a prayer. Like he thought maybe she'd find her way back if he just kept the space exactly how she’d left it. She looked different. Not softer, not exactly. Just… quieter. Like something inside her had been sanded down. Her eyes weren’t as sharp, not as knife-edged. Less storm, more sky after. And it hurt, oddly—that shift. Like he was watching an old hymn being rewritten in a minor key.

He typed out the message to Sigorn and Rhaegar, fingers trembling the whole time. He didn’t say she was back. He did what she asked. But the letters swam and blurred, because the truth was still trying to catch up to his body. She wasn’t just his boss. She’d been a pattern he memorised. A fixed star. The first person who didn’t flinch when he talked about ley lines and dead languages. She’d become—gods help him — his home. When she went missing, he’d lit candles every night. Whispered old Northern spells under his breath. Left coffee on the windowsill like an offering. Slept on her sofa and forgot how to chew properly. Sometimes he’d reach for her coat on the hook by the door and just hold it. Like warmth could be stored in fabric, like memory could seep into cloth.

Now she was back. Not a ghost. Not a dream. Just Lyanna, scarred and unsinkable. He swallowed hard and stepped into the doorway. — “Lya…” — He started, voice catching halfway between a breath and a prayer.

She looked up from the mess of paperwork. Her expression unreadable. Familiar. — “I’m… r-really glad yer back, Lya. Really glad yer okay,” — He said, soft as moth wings. Like if he said it too loud, she might vanish all over again.

Lyanna said it with a crooked smirk, but her voice was low, almost tired, like the joke was doing the heavy lifting her heart wouldn’t. —  “Don’t go gettin’ soft on me, Howl.” — A tease on the surface, sharp-edged and familiar. But there was a crack under it, like something brittle beneath the bravado.

Howland replied with a small, wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, half-joke, half-quiet vow. — “Wouldn’t dream of it,” — He said, voice soft but steady, like trying to hold himself together one word at a time.

***

Howland had sent a message before sundown. An ungodly hour. Not that Rhaegar was sleeping—he hadn’t properly slept in months—but the sun still held dominion over the world, and he wasn’t in the habit of spontaneously combusting for social calls, no matter how cryptic the invitation. He’d been existing on blood bags lately. Tasteless, sterile. Like chewing old regrets. Ever since Quaithe, in her charmingly vague way, had implied that Lyanna’s disappearance was somehow his fault — because of course it was — he hadn’t trusted himself to feed the usual way. He wasn’t well. He knew it. Even if it hadn’t been his hand that took her, the cause traced back to him with neat, inevitable lines. Elia dead. His maker ash. Lyanna gone. It was almost funny, if you liked your humor bitter and soaked in gasoline.

And now Howland, that trembling ball of witchcraft and sleeplessness, had sent a voice note asking him and Sigorn to meet at The Wolf. That godsdamned bar across from Lyanna’s apartment. Rhaegar had avoided it like a wound. Too many nights in that booth. Too many glimpses of her across a table, half-drunk and too clever. Still. He got up. Not because he wanted to. Because the hope — thin and traitorous — of a scrap of her was enough. He peeled himself off the floor where he’d been cataloguing failure in silence, then moved like habit. Showered. Didn’t think too much about the clothes, which was unlike him. Style was control. Precision. But this time he went for instinct. A dark leather jacket. Black shirt, half-unbuttoned. Denim and boots. Something sharp, something simple. Something he could bleed in if needed.

He took the subway. He hated the subway. Too many smells, too many eyes. But it reminded him of her. She liked it. Said it kept her close to the dead. Rhaegar didn’t say no to that sort of logic anymore. He’d started doing things that reminded him of Lyanna — without admitting that’s what they were. Smoking again, after forty years without. Listening to that awful noise she called music. Staring at case files he wasn’t assigned to, just because she once mentioned a name in passing. He walked into The Wolf like a man bracing for a knife. It was small, dim, and smelled like whiskey and wood rot — very Lyanna. Sigorn was already there, naturally.

Rhaegar asked, — “Howl’s here already?” — He scanned the room as he spoke, not expecting Howland to answer, only to appear like smoke from the corner of the bar, hands shaking and heart already halfway broken.

Sigorn said it without looking up at first, voice low and clipped, cop mode, even in denim. —  “No. Told us to get a table.” — He glanced around the bar then, eyes sweeping over the dim corners and dust-glazed booths like they were clearing a scene. Habit. 

They exchanged a look. Cold peace. Truce by trauma. They’d learned how to work together after the mess with his maker — nothing like a shared murder to build trust. They slid into a booth tucked in the back, not the one with the best view of the door, but one hidden from it. Rhaegar liked angles. Sigorn liked exits. And then the door creaked. Spring-soft footsteps. Howland. He rounded the corner looking like a ghost in his own skin. No makeup. No polish. Just bare face and a smile too big for the weight in his eyes. Which could only mean one thing. She was here. Or close. Or alive. Rhaegar’s heart didn’t race — he didn’t have the physiology for it anymore — but something deeper, colder, older cracked in his chest. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. Just waited for the storm to break. And gods, he hoped it did.

Of course Howland led with — “A’ve got summat good t’tell ye.”

Of course he did. The boy was a chronically twitching candle of optimism even when half-melted down to the wick. Rhaegar didn’t respond. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t indulge in the luxury of anticipation. Hope, after all, was the most corrosive of poisons — a thing he’d been carefully weaning himself off since Lyanna Stark vanished into whatever cracked dimension now held her soul. He didn’t even look at Howland properly. Just a glance, cool and clinical, cataloguing the signs of sleeplessness and silent panic the boy wore like cheap cologne. 

Sigorn, ever the hammer looking for a nail, snorted. — “What, ye gone an’ found a new way t’chatter wi’ demons, have ye?”

And then — “Nah,” — Came a voice that wasn’t suppose to be on this plane anymore. — “He found a rabid dog outside.”

The air in the bar changed. Not a metaphor. The pressure dropped like a bad omen, like the gods themselves held their breath. Rhaegar blinked. Once. Twice. The voice was right, but the scar across her cheek wasn’t. The stance was hers — cocky and disinterested and utterly done — but the hair was longer, the eyes heavier. Like she'd wrestled time and it bit her back. His mind, for all its calculation and speed, refused to process what his senses confirmed. The scent — burnt sage, rain-damp leather, and that metallic thread of banshee static — hers. The heartbeat, slow but furious — hers. Even the slight shift in weight as she leaned on one leg, the scar tugging at her expression in a way no shapeshifter could mimic — hers.

Rhaegar’s body stayed seated, poised, still as the dead thing it was. But inside, something ancient and long-denied clawed its way up through the marrow. If his heart beat, it would have stuttered. Sigorn moved first, of course. The man was all impulse and broken edges. He stood, crossed the space, and wrapped her in his arms like he didn’t care if she broke or bit him for it. She let him. Smiled, even. A real one. It split her face wide open like sun on frost. Rhaegar couldn’t move. He just watched. Watched her. Watched the scar. Watched her chest rise and fall. Watched Sigorn — lucky bastard — bury his face in her shoulder. Watched Howland hover, vibrating at frequencies human ears couldn’t register. He didn’t speak. Not yet. Because this was her, and she was alive, and he had no idea what the fuck to do with that. And beneath all the stillness, beneath centuries of discipline, something inside him whispered like a prayer sharpened into a threat: Whoever touched you… I will burn them out of time itself.

She said his name — Rhaegar—and that, somehow, was what pulled him back. Not magic. Not blood. Not even the ancient, gnawing hunger coiled low in his ribs. Just her voice. He blinked once. Then again. The lighting in The Wolf hadn’t shifted — still amber-dim, soaked in the stink of fryer grease and old wood—but she was standing there. Whole. Changed, yes, but unmistakably her. Scar across her cheek like some cruel punctuation mark life had decided to carve. Hair longer. Aura heavier. But it was Lyanna Stark. His Lyanna. Though he’d never said those words aloud, not even to himself. Not until she’d vanished.

“Uhhh…” — He managed, the sound unbecoming of a man who once negotiated with assassins in marble corridors and talked demons out of massacres. She made him stupid. Or worse, honest.

She gave him that half-lidded stare that usually came before something cutting. —  “I guess you always knew I’d come back, right?” — Lyanna said it with a crooked smile and a glint in her eye, like it was a joke, but also a test. A challenge tossed across the table, daring him to admit he’d hoped.

He studied her face, cataloguing every difference and every aching familiarity. and gave her the truth, as clean and quiet as a silver dagger between ribs. —  “I’ve learned not to doubt you, Stark.”

And gods help him, she smiled. — “Well,” — She said, with the kind of flippant defiance only the half-dead carried, — “yer lookin’ more bleedin’ monochrome than before. Less peacock. Guess goin’ t’ hell an’ crawlin’ back makes ye notice shite like that.”

Hell and back. He echoed it in his mind. Of course. Of course she had. Nothing less could’ve pulled her from the world for three months. Nothing short of purgatory would’ve dared try.

“Hell and back?” —  He asked, tone mild, but his senses already sharpening. He could smell the ash. The spectral residue. The fact she wasn’t fully here yet, not in the way a human is. Not in the way she was before.

But Lyanna just smirked like she hadn’t made them grieve her. Like she hadn’t haunted his sleep every night for ninety-three days straight. — “I’ll tell ye lads over a wee dram an’ some grub,” — She said.

And just like that, the tension snapped. Not gone — no, it never left with her. But it shifted. The banshee was back. And Rhaegar, for the first time in months, wasn’t planning how to burn the world down.  Rhaegar Targaryen had always been excellent at lying to himself. Centuries of practice, really. Enough time to master the art of quiet denial, to wrap yearning in silk and bury it beneath layers of decorum and strategy. But now, with Lyanna returned — scarred, sharpened, alive — he found himself standing at the crumbling edge of whatever fortress he'd built around his desire. He was no longer merely fond of her. That word had outlived its usefulness the moment he caught her scent again—like frost and smoke and something wild that hadn’t been tamed, even by death. No, what he felt now was inconveniently real. Inconveniently deep.

Love, then. Not the kind his mother had warned him about — the sentimental poison of poets—but something older, thornier. It didn’t sparkle. It ached. It pressed up against his ribs and made him want to do foolish, mortal things. Like tell her. As if she didn’t already know. As if he hadn’t already carved his devotion into every reckless act since the moment she vanished. He wanted her. In every sense the word could carry. Her presence, her voice, her bruised knuckles and kitchen sarcasm. He wanted her name in his mouth, her pulse beneath his hands. And yes — Gods forgive him — he wanted her biblically. Even the memory of feeding on her made something in him twitch, coil, crave. But more than blood, more than heat — he wanted to know her. Not the ghost. Not the banshee. The woman. The full, maddening, defiant architecture of Lyanna Stark.

He hadn’t yet decided how to say it. He doubted he ever would. Words were dangerous things — slippery, binding. And Rhaegar didn’t believe in declarations. He believed in actions. In waiting. In watching. In walking beside someone until they noticed you’d never left. Still. He’d have to do something. Eventually. Because this — whatever this was — was no longer something he could outthink. It was already too late for that.

***

Purgatory, as it turned out, wasn’t fire and brimstone. It was worse. It was introspection. For someone like Lyanna Stark, that was hell in its purest form. No screaming pits, no demons gnashing their teeth — just memories. Twisted. Fragile. Mutating. A carnival of what-ifs and almosts, stitched together with smoke and ash. A theatre of reflections, where the main act was her own fucking face, wearing versions of herself she never wanted to see. The worst of them was the Dark. A mirror copy with a smirk like poison and eyes like knives. Cold, cruel, seductive — the part of her that didn’t flinch when pulling a trigger, the part that liked it. The version that didn't care who bled. Then there was the voice of her mother, warped and watery, laced with the kind of regret that stains. It wasn’t real — nothing here was — but it still cut cleaner than any blade. That voice anchored her. Kept her from dissolving in the carousel of borrowed lives.

And then there was the third thing. She never saw it. Just felt it—like absence made solid. A presence with no face and no edges, something that devoured meaning like moths devour silk. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was just a void in a nice coat. Didn’t matter. Because after dying one too many times in one too many lives — knife in her back, bullet in her skull, poison in her tea — something finally yanked her out of the theatre. Spat her into a place that looked like Belle’s fever dream of paradise: a library. Grand, quiet, gleaming. Books as far as the eye could see, and not a soul in sight. Except, of course, for the voice.

 It came from nowhere. It came from everywhere. — “You, banshee, hath come here. If you wish to find yourself in heaven, you must cut something out.”

The blade wasn’t there, then it was. Silver, plain, waiting. Just like everything else in this place. Waiting. She sat at a table stacked high with books. Each one was labeled with a number — her age. One for every year she’d breathed in this miserable world. She opened the one marked five and found a record. Precise, painful, relentless. What she’d eaten. Who she’d lied to. The bruise on her shoulder she never told anyone about. All of it. She stared at it until the words started swimming.

The voice came again, deeper this time, threaded with something almost tender. — “You’ve lived a life of much. Now cut something from it. Your regrets are many, but they make you. Do not make a mistake.”

And that was the trick of it, wasn’t it? Not pain. Not punishment. Choice.

The knife hadn’t drawn her blood. Not yet. The price wasn’t flesh — it was memory. One clean cut. A slice of her past left on the altar like some fucked-up offering. And for what? A ticket back to the land of the living. Back to the mess. Back to the people who might not even want her there. She didn’t know what she was supposed to cut. Not yet. But her chest ached like her ribs were being peeled open one by one, so aye  — she figured it’d hurt. Not that pain was new. She'd bled before. Physically, emotionally, cosmically. She could take it. What she wasn’t sure she could take was the meaning of it. Her mind flickered, bitter and sharp: What exactly happens after I cut it? The voice — that disembodied, all-knowing parasite swimming through her skull — answered like it had been waiting for the question.

“Once you cut it, it will be set.” — Set how, she thought. Set like stone? Like fate? Like cement poured into her goddamn lungs?

The voice, that smug bastard, replied again, because apparently private thoughts were no longer private. — “You may cut one regret. One thing you’ve done, from the colossal to the forgettable, and it will be removed. From your life. From you.”

And there it was. The weight of it. Heavier than any grave she’d ever dug. It sounded good at first. Tempting. A get-out-of-guilt-free card. But anyone who’s seen a single time-travel flick or read a tragedy knows: you change one pebble and the avalanche follows. One wrong regret, and she could end up with butterfly wings for hands or never meeting Rhaegar or — worse — never becoming what she was now. And yeah, being a banshee sucked, being blind was slowly killing her pride, and most days she woke up furious at the world for things no one could fix.

But she didn’t want to undo it. That was the twisted bit. Even the worst parts were hers. She’d thrown stones that shattered people. Pulled triggers. Broken things that didn’t belong to her. She’d made her choices, for better or worse, and they’d stitched her into the woman sitting here now—scarred, spitfire, supernatural. She didn’t want to lose that. She hated the banshee curse, yeah. Hated the way death seeped into her bones when someone nearby was slipping away. Hated the way her eyes failed her more every week, and how no one ever really understood what that felt like. Hated the way people flinched when they saw the white in her eyes or heard the tone in her voice. But she didn’t want to be normal. She just wanted to survive it. And maybe — just maybe — get out of this goddamn dream library without carving herself open.

Lyanna asked it sharp, like a blade edge pressed against skin, half dare, half weary surrender. — “What if Ah don’t wanna do it?” — Her voice was low, rough around the edges, the kind of question that wasn’t really a question but a challenge wrapped in exhaustion. Like she’d already made up her mind, but wanted to see if the universe dared argue.

The voice… There, like a bad habit… Responded, dry and patient, — “Do what?”

Lyanna said it like she was dragging the words out through grit and smoke, half defiant, half resigned. Her voice had that rough edge from years of carrying weight she didn’t ask for, but damn well kept. —   “Cut it. You know, that whole slice o’ me soul bollocks. ‘Cause thinkin’ on it... I’m the person I am ‘cause o’ the shit I lug ‘round. Lose that, I’m not me no more.”—  Like she was daring whatever this damn voice was to try and take away the parts of her that made her her , scars, pain, and all. It wasn’t begging or pleading. It was a slow, bitter truth she didn’t soften for anyone.

The voice snorted, if voices could snort. — “Yet you do have regrets.”

Lyanna said it steady, like a slow burn that’s been simmering under her skin for years.  — “Aye, I do. Plenty. But I live with ’em. An’ I don’t hate me life. Not yet, anyway.” — There was a hard-won toughness in her tone, a quiet defiance wrapped in a worn-out sigh. 

It wasn’t a boast or a complaint, it was the raw truth, the kind you say when you’ve stared down your demons enough times to stop pretending they’ll ever go away. She wasn’t broken yet, but damn, she knew the weight was there, and she carried it without flinching. She pictured the life she had now—the cold apartment, the endless cases where no one really wins, the friends who stayed despite the mess. Sigorn with his goddamn stubborn loyalty, Howland with his trembling hands and soft truths, and Rhaegar — well mister Fangs who was something else entirely. There was no way she was giving up any of that. Not her job, not her weird little family, and certainly not him. Because yeah. That scared her more than anything. Loving someone. That bastard feeling creeping in like a shadow she couldn’t shake. She’d walked through hell and crawled through purgatory, and after all that — after everything — she knew one thing for sure: she wanted him in whatever uncertain hellscape came next. Emotionally inept or not, she wasn’t about to just let that go.

Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, the kind of flat defiance that’s part stubbornness, part tired weariness. — “Guess I won’t be goin’ anywhere then. ‘Cause I don’t wanna cut anythin’, whatever the hell ye are.”  — Like she’d been backed into a corner before and learned the hard way that some sacrifices just ain’t worth the price. 

Her voice carried that gritty, no-bullshit tone — more challenge than plea — with just a flicker of dark humor hiding beneath the surface, daring whatever damn voice that was to try and make her fold. 

The voice… Mocking, but not cruel… Said, Jaded but not dumb. — “Took you a bit, though.”

The library vanished like smoke in wind. One blink, and it was gone — books, table, everything — leaving only her and the chair she’d been chained to, which now sat like a leftover thought in the dark. And then the light came. Just a pinprick at first, hovering in the black like it had better places to be. Didn’t move. Didn’t call. Just was. A warning more than a promise — do not go toward the light, yeah, she’d heard that one before. Usually from dead people. The shackles on her wrists hadn’t disappeared. Of course not. Nothing ever went that easy. Cold metal. No end in sight. Still, Lyanna Stark had done worse walks in worse places. She stood. Flexed her fingers around the hilt of the knife she still held, the one that had been offered to her like a damn prize for slicing up her soul. A token from whatever cryptic freakshow ran this place.

The dark was thick. Real thick. Like moving through molasses and memory. She walked anyway. One step, then another, then another, through the quiet that buzzed like it was waiting to swallow her whole. And then — light. Real light. Not divine. Not warm. Just bright. Like crawling out of a cave and into something so violently alive it hurt. She squinted, blinked, and there it was. A field. Green. Ridiculously green. The kind of lush that didn’t feel real. Wildflowers scattered like freckles. A tree off to the left, its shadow long and easy across the grass. In the distance, a lake glinting like it had secrets. Hills behind it, lazy and content, under a sky so clear it looked painted. It was… nice. Too nice. If this was heaven, it had better taste than she expected. Lyanna narrowed her eyes. Took a breath that didn’t hurt. No blood in the air. No cold in her bones. Just sun, grass, and the quiet. It unsettled her more than the dark ever had. She had to get out of here. 

***

He'd read enough ancient grimoires and whispered enough dead languages to know that purgatory came in a thousand flavors. He’d imagined it a hundred ways: fire, ice, mirrors, memory. But Lyanna made it real. Not with tears. Not with poetry. Just the plain, hard-edged way she spoke about it — clipped, sharp, unembellished. That was worse, somehow. She didn’t say what she lost in that place. She didn’t need to. Rhaegar knew. Of course he knew. She’d bargained with her own kind. For him. And he had no idea how to carry that knowledge without it splitting something open in him. They didn’t talk about it. Not directly. Instead, they passed a bottle of whiskey between them and let the night stretch long at the Wolf. It was surreal, watching her laugh. She didn’t laugh much, not before. But tonight there was an ease to her, a softening. Like whatever hell had sanded her down had left something lighter in its wake. Not clean. Never that. But… clear.

Howland filled in the blanks she hadn’t asked for, his voice low and gentle as he told her about Elia, about the fire, about what they’d lost. She didn’t ask — her face did that for her. And Rhaegar watched it all from the edges, drinking it in like blood: her movements, her silences, the shape of her new scar. He wanted to ask. About the mark on her cheek, the light in her eyes, the sound in her voice that hadn’t been there before. But he didn’t. He hadn’t earned that. Eventually, the night faded and the tab came. He paid it, of course. Over Sigorn’s protests, naturally. They stepped out into the chill air, the kind that bit at your collarbones and made everything feel a little too sharp. Rhaegar felt the shift in his bones. A relief he hadn’t let himself hope for. She was here. Whole. Breathing. Giving him shit.

“Ah well,” — She said it with that crooked, irreverent smile that made it impossible to tell if she was joking or hiding something sharp beneath the grin, —  “Can’t tell ya how bloody thrilled I am t’get behind the wheel again.” 

Her car. Still sitting in the garage of his apartment like a shrine. He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t even let the dust gather. He didn’t say why. — “Your car’s at my apartment,” — He told her, quiet.

She blinked, slow, deliberate, like the words had to settle on her skin before they reached her bones.  — “Oh. Okay.” — Flat as still water, but not empty. No snark, no smirk, just that rare flicker of silence where her guard didn’t snap up fast enough. The sound of something turning over in her head, cold, quiet, and too fast to catch.

Rhaegar said it with the calm precision of a man offering logistics to mask emotion, — “I’ll bring it around tomorrow.” — measured, polished, almost offhand. But underneath the smooth delivery was something quieter, heavier. A promise wrapped in routine. Something he could do for her, even if he couldn’t say what he really meant.

“Nah,” — Lyanna said it without missing a beat, sharp, automatic, like muscle memory. No hesitation, no room for argument. — “I’ll go there now. Let’s go.”

Practical as she usually was. No time wasted. No dramatics. She hugged Sigorn and Howland — an actual hug. That alone told him something had shifted. Lyanna Stark hugging people? Hell really did change a girl. They took the metro. He still hated it — too many people, too much noise — but it reminded him of her. And right now, that was enough to endure the stench of humanity. He watched her from the corner of his eye. She fit into the world like she'd never left it. Like death had bent around her, not taken her. And he hated himself a little for how much that made him want her. By the time they got back to his apartment, his nerves had wrapped themselves tight and quiet again. He handed her the keys without ceremony.

“Your car is parked on -1,” — He said it simply, calmly, like stating a fact, safe and steady. No fuss, no weight, just the information laid out plainly.

She paused. Looked at him. — “Cheers. For everythin’. For keepin’ it all together.”

He didn’t reply. Not at first. Just looked back at her, at the curve of her mouth, at the scar he wanted to trace with the backs of his fingers. She was studying him, too. Not suspiciously — intimately. Like she saw something in him she hadn’t before.

“I’m right glad to be back,” — She sighed it like a long, quiet exhale; half relief, half weariness, like coming up for air after holding it too long. No fanfare, just the raw truth laid bare.

“I’m happy you’re here,” — He replied, and meant it more than he liked.

Then she said it.  — “Sorry about your maker.” — Ah. So that was where we were going.

He exhaled, though he didn’t need breath. — “It was a difficult relationship. In the end… she wanted the city. And she wasn’t above killing me to claim it.” — A pause. —  “Ending her was necessary. I don’t regret that.”

Lyanna frowned, crease cutting across her brow like a crack in worn leather, part regret, part frustration, — “I’m sorry it had to happen. Maebe if I’d been here…” — before her eyes quickly darted away, hiding what she wouldn’t say aloud.

He stopped her with a look. Firm, and unflinching. — “You would’ve been in danger. I didn’t want that.”

And he didn’t. Not then. Not now. Not ever. He didn’t tell her he’d thought about her every day. That the sound of her voice echoed through every hollow space in him like a haunting. That he was terrified of what he felt and too ancient to lie about it anymore. He had kept her car keys, along with the small tokens she’d left behind — quiet souvenirs of a life tangled with his own. If she never came back, at least those fragments would remain. Because right now, she was the closest person to him, closer than anyone had ever been. Closer than anyone ever would be.  Now that she was back he just stood there, watching her, and pretended it was enough. Of all the indignities he’d endured over the centuries — wars, betrayals, lectures from younger vampires in polyester suits — none compared to this: being accused of interior design sabotage.

Lyanna’s voice cut through the apartment like a flicked switchblade. — “Was it ye what changed my whole bloody wardrobe? Yer the only bastard wi’ the coin for it. So where the fuck’re me things?”

He didn’t flinch. Not visibly. — “Donated them,” — He said, too evenly.  — “Well, what could be donated. The rest was recycled.”

A pause. Just long enough for her expression to shift — fall, really. Not into rage. She wasn’t screaming, wasn’t threatening to stake him with the nearest chair leg. Just a slow-burn look of disbelief. Acceptance, somehow. Which was worse. That cool, clear-eyed surrender of someone who had already survived worse things than ruined clothes. He filled the silence with what might generously be called banter, or more accurately: a tactical retreat disguised as sarcasm.

“Most of your clothes had holes in them,” — He added, lifting an eyebrow. —  “And I can’t be seen with someone in that state unless it’s a deliberate aesthetic. You weren’t exactly projecting intent.”

She laughed. Low and real and full of teeth. — “Gods. O’ all the bloody things I missed in hell, didn’t reckon I’d miss this so damn much.”

He tilted his head. — “Missed?”

She said it with a smirk half-formed and her arms crossing over her chest like armor, like the moment had gotten too soft and she needed to wrest it back under control. Her voice was dry, clipped, laced with that familiar northern bite, — “You being a fucking idiot.” — Like it was a joke, like it didn’t mean everything.

There it was again, that sliver of warmth in her voice, raw-edged and startling. He should’ve said something then. Something dry or deflecting. But the words caught behind his teeth. —“Well. I’m glad…”

And then she was in his arms. Just like that. No warning. No permission. No fanfare. Just the press of her body against his, arms around his neck, a heartbeat thudding close to where his used to be. For a moment, Rhaegar forgot to be careful. She smelled like old earth and motel soap and whatever strange wind had carried her back from the abyss. He closed his arms around her and held tight — too tight, maybe, but she didn’t pull away. Not immediately. When she did, she looked up at him, and for a second he forgot how to wear his usual mask. Her face — framed now by longer hair, marked by the scar that hadn’t been there before — was changed. Beautiful still, but in the way wild things are beautiful. Like something reborn through fire and grief. Then — barely a breath later — she kissed him. It wasn’t dramatic. Wasn’t earth-shattering. Just a soft, quick press of her mouth to his. A blink of contact. But it unraveled something in him anyway. He stood still. She didn’t.

“I reckon I figured a lotta things out down there,” — She said, gaze flicking sideways, suddenly shy in a way he’d never seen before. — “Doubt ye’d ever feel the same…”

Of course it had to happen like this. Because fate, ever the theatrical bitch, loved nothing more than to lace tragedy with tenderness and call it timing. She stood there — guard down, gaze flicked, voice quieter than he’d ever heard it—and said the kind of thing people only said when they didn’t think they’d survive saying it. And Rhaegar, noble idiot that he was, had half a mind to let her finish. To give her space. To pretend he didn’t already know. But he didn’t. Not this time. Not when every cell in his cold, calcified body was screaming now. So before she could spiral into whatever half-apology she thought he needed, he reached for her — one hand at her jaw, the other at the nape of her neck — and kissed her like the world had stopped spinning and he intended to keep it that way.

It wasn’t polished. Wasn’t suave. He kissed like a man who hadn’t let himself want in centuries, like restraint was a shirt he’d finally ripped off. He tasted whiskey and ash and her, and something more dangerous than desire: hope. She didn’t melt — Lyanna didn’t melt — but she leaned in, met him halfway, let him pull her closer until she was flush against him and all pretense burned away. His hands slipped lower, settling around her hips like a prayer he never dared speak. She was here. Alive. And kissing him like she hadn’t spent three months in hell, like maybe — just maybe — he was the reason she clawed her way out of it. He only remembered to stop because she needed air. That cruel little human flaw he’d nearly forgotten she had.

She pulled back, breathless but grinning, and said with infuriating calm, — “That were nicer than I reckoned it'd be.”

He blinked, caught between offense and arousal. — “You thought about it?”

She shrugged, too casual to be casual. — “I mean, one thing 'bout hell… Y'get a whole lotta time for bloody emotional reflectin', don’t ya?”

That earned the faintest smirk from him. — “You thought about me. In hell.” — Rhaegar said it low, a sharp edge beneath the calm, like a quiet challenge wrapped in disbelief.

Her gaze flicked up, direct and steady this time. —  “I thought about comin’ back to ye.”

And there it was. The sucker punch wrapped in silk. Rhaegar swallowed the ache in his throat, coughed it up as dry wit instead. —  “For someone so emotionally constipated, you’re alarmingly good at dirty talk.” — He regretted it immediately. Not because it was untrue, but because, gods help him, he meant every goddamn word of it.

“So it’s workin’, then,” — Lyanna asked it like she already knew the answer, dry, offhand, with that razor-edged curiosity she wore like armor. Her voice was low, half a challenge, half a joke, like she was daring him to lie to her. 

He didn’t ask what it was — Lyanna rarely offered a thesis before the punchline. He just arched a brow, half amused, half resigned, the corner of his mouth curving like a man watching his own eulogy.

“Call me bewitched,” — Rhaegar replied, voice smooth as aged scotch and twice as dangerous.

She rolled her eyes, but there was warmth in it. Not the kind that softened, no — Lyanna Stark didn’t soften. But she didn’t freeze him out either, and for someone like him, that felt close to being kissed on the wrist by God.

“Grand,” — She said, then ruined the moment in her usual fashion, which he might’ve called charming if he were in a more masochistic mood. — “But I’d rather talk ’bout a few other things first… like ye drivin’ my car. And some other bits.”

A lesser man might’ve flinched. — “Can it wait?” —  He murmured, knowing damn well it couldn’t. But hope, like hunger, dies slow.

She shot him a look that could’ve curdled holy water. —  “Forgot how much of a charm-soaked arsehole you are.”

He didn’t apologize. Didn’t need to. Instead, he let the sarcasm bloom like blood in water. — “Well,” — He said, dry and deliberate, —  “is it working?”

She didn’t answer. Not verbally. Not with her usual snarl or that sly flick of her tongue against her teeth. No, she stepped forward instead, close enough to almost lean in—but didn’t. She just existed in his space, and for a creature like him — centuries-deep in solitude and silence — it was seismic. So he pulled her into his arms. Not a performance, not seduction—just... need. A quiet, desperate sort of need he’d buried beneath suits and strategy and the long, cold business of staying undead. Gods, he’d missed her. Not just her voice or her laugh or the way she held a blade like it was an extension of her rage — but her. The unkillable her-ness of Lyanna Stark. She didn’t say anything, not right away. Just let the moment stretch out like dusk across the field of his hollow chest. And when she finally did speak, it wasn’t what he expected.

“Can we talk first?” — She asked, voice quieter now. Something raw beneath it. — “Got some things I wanna ask. ’Bout ye.”

He nodded, tension hidden beneath the stillness of his bones. — “You can ask me anything.”

A beat. He withdrew just enough to see her face. One hand lingered at her jaw, cradling it as if it might vanish should he let go too soon. She looked real. That was the first miracle. The second was that she was here, breathing, asking, not running. He’d held countless faces over the centuries—some forgotten, others intentionally buried—but none had ever looked back at him like this. With that scar carved like punctuation across her cheek, with exhaustion behind her eyes that mirrored his own, with the kind of ache no resurrection could scrub clean. She was the light of his damn life—though he’d never say it aloud. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But if she asked, he'd give her anything. Memory, marrow, the truth in its ugliest form. What use was armor now? Of all the ghosts he’d carried, Lyanna was the only one who had ever haunted him while still alive. And then—of course — came the question. Soft. Simple. A scalpel.

“It’s ’bout yer blood.” — She said it quiet, but not soft, like a match struck in a dark room

Ah. Of course it was. He exhaled, slow and shallow. So much for easing into it. He didn’t flinch. But something in him went terribly still. Because of course it was. Not about the months she'd lost. Not about who he'd killed to get her back. No, Lyanna never asked easy questions. And if she had, he might've worried she wasn't really back at all. Of course she asked about the blood. It was only a matter of time. He’d known it would come—sooner or later, in the hush after a kiss or the echo of some unguarded moment. She’d crossed a threshold most mortals never even knew existed, and she'd done it with her eyes open. He doubted she'd grasped the full weight of it then, but someone—something—on the other side must’ve whispered the truth in her ear. Banshees were hard to fool, even in the dark. Still, he didn’t regret it. Not for a moment. Their exchange hadn’t been a slip or indulgence. It was instinct, protection, desire braided with necessity. He’d done it to keep her safe, to anchor her when she was slipping through the cracks of life and death. Maybe that was selfish. Maybe it was something worse. But he couldn’t bring himself to be sorry. Because she was here. Whole. Breathing. And whatever else his blood had done—it had brought her back.

***

Title: Lyanna Came Back

Relief is a strange thing. I never thought I’d feel it so deeply again—until she returned. Lyanna. Against all logic, all pain and shadows, she’s here. Alive. Real. And somehow, still mine.

I loved her before, with a quiet ache buried deep beneath the centuries. But now — now it’s sharper, more urgent. The cold restraint I keep so carefully is cracking, ever so slightly, whenever she’s near.

She kissed me today. Just a brief, reckless brush of lips that stole the breath I thought I’d lost long ago. It was the kind of moment that defies all my practiced control, a jolt that reminded me I’m not just an immortal shadow but a man who still remembers what it means to want.

I don’t know what the future holds. Seven hell, I don’t even know if she feels the same fire I do. But for now, that kiss is a promise—a fragile, beautiful defiance of the darkness. And I will hold onto it, no matter the cost.

— Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter Text

Of all the conversations Rhaegar had anticipated having with Lyanna Stark — many of them violent, some of them seductive — this was not one of them. Blood. Not the drinking of it — no, that was mundane by now — but the exchange. The bond. The side effects. The metaphorical string that now yanked gently at his ribs whenever she entered a room. She had kissed him. That, too, was unexpected. The kind of thing that ought to undo centuries of discipline. And it almost had. They were seated now on his leather sofa, like two war generals pretending at civility, feet tucked in, casualties between them. She’d curled her legs across his lap, a gesture so casual it made him want to bare his fangs at the ceiling and thank whatever sadistic god hadn’t taken her from him. She was alive. She was here. She smelled like rain and iron and something faintly scorched.

She smelled like him. — “When I were down there.” — She said, as though commenting on the weather. — “Someone said I smelled like a vampire. Reckon it’s got summat to do with ye blood.”

So there it was. The conversation had arrived. He kept his tone level. — “I neglected to tell you,” — He said. —  “But I do not regret it.”

That, at least, was true. She was turned toward him, one leg folded, her scar catching in the dim light like a jagged seam. He wanted to touch it, trace the story it told. A foolish instinct — protective, irrational, deeply vampiric, deeply human. That was the thing about proximity for his kind. It distorted good sense. And Lyanna, of all people, was a distortion made flesh.She replied it without raising her voice — low, even, like the crack of ice underfoot. No dramatics. No accusation. Just the cold certainty of someone stating a fact already known, letting him feel the weight of it all on his own. 

Her eyes didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. She didn’t need to shout to make it cut. — “Weren’t ever gonna tell me.” —  It wasn’t a question.  It was a reckoning.

Rhaegar answered with the calm precision of someone choosing his words like blades from a case, measured, sharp, and just detached enough to imply control rather than guilt. — “I was going to,” — He said, the pause deliberate, his voice smooth but carrying that quiet, unmistakable friction of a man defending himself against something he couldn’t name. “But you did go missing.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. But the way he said it—softly, almost conversational — betrayed the ache beneath the polish. Like he was reminding her… and himself… that she had vanished, and he had nearly lost more than blood. Lyanna didn’t argue. That wasn’t her way.

“Aye, true,” — She said, flat as stone, like she was handing him the point in a game she wasn’t playing. No defensiveness. No emotion. Just a brutal kind of agreement that offered no comfort.

Then, after a beat, her tone shifted, still dry, but quieter, more precise. Like someone pulling a knife to examine its edge. — “But how’s it work, then? Got some idea of it… but there’s consequences, aren’t there?” —  She didn’t look at him when she said it. Not fully. The question wasn’t just about blood. It never was. It was about what he’d done. What it meant. And what it was already doing to her. Rhaegar let the words settle like dust — quiet, inevitable, impossible to take back once spoken. 

“There are,” — He said, each syllable dropped with the care of someone laying down a verdict rather than an answer. — Then he paused, just long enough for silence to stretch and tighten around them. —  “To my kind, you are now… my responsibility.”

He said it without inflection, but not without weight. The phrasing was clinical, almost bureaucratic, but beneath it lurked something older, hungrier. A claim he didn’t want to admit was a claim. The kind of truth he’d rather dress up as duty, because calling it anything else would make it too real. Too dangerous. Too hers.

Lyanna didn’t ask it like someone seeking clarity. She asked it like someone holding a knife behind her back, careful, composed, but ready to cut. — “Why’d ye do it?” — The words left her low and plain, no tremor, no tilt. Not angry. Not even curious. Just… steady. Too steady. The kind of calm that comes after a fire’s already gutted the place.

Her eyes didn’t leave him. They stayed fixed, quiet as a grave. Not demanding a confession, but watching to see if he’d lie anyway. It wasn’t just a question.  It was a test.  And Rhaegar knew, with the old instinct of predators and poets, that the answer mattered more than she was letting on. A loaded question. Asked softly, like a trap.

Rhaegar asked softly, his voice smooth but wary, measured like a man stepping carefully across thin ice. — “What do you mean?”

Lyanna didn’t flinch. She didn’t raise her voice or sharpen her tone. She just leaned in, barely, but enough, and fixed her eyes on him with that flat, unsparing look she wore like armour. — “I mean…” —  her voice low, unshaken, — “... Why’d you do it, then?”

Her gaze cut through him, not searching for the truth but watching to see if he’d try to dodge it. She wasn’t asking for an explanation. She was demanding accountability, in the quietest, most dangerous way she knew. Rhaegar let out a breath, one he didn’t need. The urge to deflect was overwhelming. He could have said anything — he was very good at saying anything. But she was still there. Her feet were still in his lap. Her presence still burned under his skin like embers pressed to flesh.

Rhaegar spoke like someone giving a lecture he never intended to deliver: slow, precise, each word selected as though it might explode in his mouth.  — “The exchange of blood is not uncommon,” — He began, tone even but edged with restraint. — “But it’s not meant to be repeated. Not… frequently. Not to the point of creating a bond.”

He glanced at her, but not for long. Eye contact made the truth heavier. — “Unless one has feelings for the person,” — He added, quieter now: clinical, almost. — “A connection like that… it’s something we do when it means something. When they mean something.” — The last part slipped out more raw than he liked. He didn’t take it back. He didn’t need to.  But it lingered there between them, unfinished, unspoken, undeniable.

She narrowed her eyes, Lyanna asked it quietly, but not gently. Her voice had that cool, matter-of-fact tone she used when pressing a bruise just to see if it still hurt. —  “So ye did it ken what might happen?”

There was no anger in it—just clarity. The kind that comes after you’ve already decided what to do with the answer. Her eyes stayed on him, steady, unreadable. She wasn’t fishing for guilt or begging for honesty. She was just asking. And that made it worse. He studied her, trying to read the dissonance behind her voice. Was she angry? Violated? Curious? She was impossible to read—part of why she occupied so much of his mind. That and the fact that her absence had nearly reduced him to something feral.  Rhaegar answered the way a man might defuse a bomb — carefully, voice low, each word weighed with the tension of knowing there was no perfect version of this truth.

“I was aware of what might happen,”  — He said, tone measured, almost too calm, like restraint was the only thing keeping him from unraveling. — “And I didn’t stop it. Because I do have feelings for you.”

The admission hung there, stripped of embellishment. Stark, precise. Unavoidable. — “I wished to keep you safe,” — He continued, his gaze flicking to her, then away again. — “It’s... instinct, partly. Vampiric. But it’s also because I feel something for you. More than I should.” —He exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that didn’t give him any relief.

“I regret only that I didn’t tell you sooner.” — A pause. Then, quieter, like the thought cost him something, — “I understand it might’ve felt like a violation. For me not to have said anything…” — He didn’t plead. Rhaegar Targaryen didn’t beg. But the weight in his voice, the brittle edge of guilt pressed into dignity, said everything he wouldn’t. A silence bloomed. It didn’t feel like an accusation. It felt like a shift. 

Lyanna didn’t rush to respond. She just sat there, eyes steady on him, unreadable as ever, then finally spoke, her voice quiet but grounded, like she’d already made peace with the worst of it. — “I get it,” — She said, Northern vowels thick and flat, giving nothing away. — “I’d feel worse about it if it wasn’t the only reason I got outta hell in one piece.”

Her tone was stripped down — no sentiment, no softness, just facts delivered with her usual deadpan edge. But underneath the bluntness, there was something else. Not gratitude exactly, but something close. A reluctant understanding. Like she’d accepted what it was, even if she didn’t know what to do with it yet. And in true Lyanna fashion, she left it at that. No fuss. No invitation for comfort. Just a truth, tossed between them like a shard of glass. Rhaegar didn’t respond right away. He watched her as she spoke — her words halting, her frustration bleeding through the cracks in her usually unshakable tone. This wasn’t her default sharpness or calculated cool. This was Lyanna grappling with something strange, intimate, and deeply unwelcome: hope.

“I saw again,” — She said.  — “Weren’t the demon thing… it were the blood. Cured my blindness. “Can’t find it in me to be mad, really.” —  His heart, what was left of it, tightened. Not from guilt. Not even from pride. But from the quiet horror of knowing that, despite centuries of practice, he’d done something irreversible.

She didn’t blame him. Not really.  She even said she didn’t feel bad about it. But that made it worse. Because Rhaegar Targaryen could handle rage. Could weather accusations, betrayal, even grief.  But acceptance? Gratitude? Those were the things that undid him. Especially from her.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, steadier than he felt. —“Then I’m glad,” — He replied, measured, deliberate. — “Not that I kept it from you. But it kept you safe.” — He didn’t add the rest.  That he would have given her all his blood if it meant keeping her in the light.  That he already had.

He put his mind to what had happened to him after tasting her blood that had been a trip. The mixing of their blood was a lot. He theorised it had enhanced the feeling of what he had felt for her. Who knew banshee and vampire pairing was crazy.  Rhaegar studied her with the quiet detachment of a man pretending not to care which thread would unravel the entire tapestry.

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” — He asked, tone deceptively mild.

Lyanna rose from the sofa, a sharp movement in the corner of his vision. She stood over him — casual, predatory, unreadable as ever. The light caught the edge of her buzzcut and the ghost of a scar along her jaw. She looked like trouble in a storm’s clothing.

“Nah,” — She said, eyes narrowing slightly. — “Actually… there’s one more. Well, two, if I’m honest.” — Which was never a comforting sentence.

“Which is?” —  He asked, already bracing.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a knife. Not a normal one — not even by his standards. Double-bladed, compact, and humming with a strange shimmer in the metal. The light bent strangely against it, like it couldn’t quite decide how to reflect off something that didn’t belong in this dimension. The sort of thing that wasn’t forged so much as summoned. He tensed — just a fraction. Enough to notice, not enough to admit.

“First off, we’re gonna have to hide this,” — She said, plain as anything. —  “An’ I’ll need the name o’ the bloke who sorts yer passports.”

Rhaegar didn’t flinch. His tone was bone-dry, almost bored, as if she’d just asked to borrow a coat and not forge a new identity. — “You’re looking for a forger?” — He said, arching a brow. —  “Should I be worried?”

It wasn’t the words — it was the delivery. Cool, polished, and faintly amused, like he was playing the part of the disapproving gentleman when in reality, his mind was already cataloguing who owed him favours in the underworld. The dryness wasn’t indifference. It was armour. His way of cloaking the sharp spike of unease rising under his ribs — the unspoken knowledge that Lyanna only ever asked for things like this when the sky was about to fall. What he meant was: Are you leaving again? What he didn’t say was: Don’t. What he almost said, but didn’t, was: I won’t survive it a second time.

“Cos o’… y’know…” — She started, then trailed off, as if the words were jammed behind a door she hadn’t decided to open.

And then, without warning — of course, because warning was too generous a concept for Lyanna — she took the knife and cut her own hand. It happened in a single, brutal motion. She dragged the strange blade across her palm like it was nothing. No flinch. No hesitation. Like someone proving a point only she understood. Rhaegar was on his feet before the blood hit the floor. His first thought was: Hell did something to her. His second: She’s lost something. And I don’t know what it is. He reached for the knife, took it from her with a swift, firm hand — not aggressive, just automatic. As if he could control the damage by controlling the blade. But it was already too late for that. Her hand bled—crimson and immediate — and he stared at it, waiting for the sting of panic, the scent of mortality. Instead, he watched as the skin stitched itself back together. Slowly. Surely. By the twenty-second mark, the wound was gone. His third thought: No. She's gained something. He looked up at her, and for once, let the expression show: What the fuck was that?

She only shrugged. — “Hell were a trip,” — She said. — “Brought a few things back wi’ me. Figured I oughta find out what they are.”

Of course she had. Rhaegar stared at her for a long moment. She, who had vanished into death and returned with a blade from nowhere, a healing wound, and a request for forged documents. Of course she wasn’t done. And neither, gods help him, was he.

***

Going from Hell to Heaven wasn’t the relief people made it out to be. No. It was worse. Hell, at least, had rules. Fire and iron and blood that smelled the way it should. Pain was pain, and it stayed where it belonged — in the bones, in the breath, in the dragging weight of a body that didn’t want to keep moving. Hell had edges. It was real. Tangible. Solid enough to claw at when the panic set in. Euron’s weight had been pressed into her like a second spine, shackled and sweating, and that was honest in a way Heaven could never be. Heaven? Too clean. Too quiet. Too easy. It looked like a hallucination drawn by someone who’d never bled in a gutter. A bright, green dale cut between steep hills, slopes sharp like a blade but softened by sunlight and birdsong. The grass looked fake — too lush, too green, like the earth had never seen a grave. Trees scattered like they’d grown just for the aesthetic. Even the wind felt scripted.

She didn’t trust it. Lyanna walked slow, boots crunching over gravel like a heartbeat in a padded room. The path curled through the valley, too neat to be real. The sky was a polite sort of blue, clouds fluffy enough to piss her off. Somewhere in her gut, something ancient twitched — some part of her banshee soul, that feral little knot of death that didn’t belong here. She didn’t feel Euron anymore. No weight she was carin . No shadow following. No whisper at the edge of her hearing. And that, somehow, was worse. Her fingers twitched toward her belt, phantom muscle memory reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. She kept walking. Eyes narrowed. If this was the afterlife, someone was pulling a joke. She’d seen prettier morgues. Heaven being empty. Now that was properly tragicomic.

She scanned the valley again, half-expecting some glowy bastard in a robe to come floating down with a clipboard. Nothing. Just grass, trees, sky, and silence. The kind that settles in behind your ears and makes your skin itch. She hated it here. Not because it was bad. Because it felt like a lie. And Lyanna had spent her whole life crawling through the filth to find the truth. She didn’t believe in perfect places. Not without blood under the floorboards. So she kept walking. One foot in front of the other. No destination, no map, just instinct and spite. The way she always had. And somewhere beneath the hum of birds and breeze and celestial nothing, she waited for something real to break through. Maybe Rhaegar’s voice. Maybe her own. Maybe the scream she hadn’t let out yet.

After walking what felt like days without getting tired she hiked through the rolling green valleys, where paths wound between steep, grassy slopes and rocky outcrops, she felt a pull towards  something. The inland air, crisp and carrying the scent of damp earth and wild grasses, had been a welcome change, but now a different horizon beckoned. She began leaving behind the secluded dales. The landscape gradually softened, the dramatic inclines of the valleys giving way to gentler undulations. Eventually, the distant, hazy line of the coast appeared, growing clearer with every kilometer. The air began to shift, carrying a subtle salt tang, a refreshing contrast to the earthy aroma of the valleys. As she neared the coastline, the vegetation changed. The dense deciduous trees of the valleys were replaced by resilient, wind-swept pines and scrubby Mediterranean flora. Finally, the azure expanse of the sea unfolded before her, a breathtaking sight after the enclosed beauty of the valleys.

Lyanna followed the winding coastal road, the salt tang thickening in the air like a promise she didn’t trust. Waves slapped rocks with that steady, hollow rhythm — some kind of natural soundtrack for a place that felt anything but natural. Then, tucked tight in a rocky cove, she spotted it: a tiny white house, stark as a bone, its red-tiled roof jabbing bright against the deep blue sea and the stubborn green of the pines. No one around. Not a soul. Perfect, if you liked your heaven deserted and suspicious. She walked up, boots crunching on gravel, and saw the door hanging open like it was waiting for her — either an invitation or a trap. Inside, the place was almost painfully simple. A single bed shoved against a wall, a chair with its back turned, a closed door she didn’t like the look of, a counter with an oven that smelled faintly of old wood smoke and sea salt, and a window thrown wide to the endless sea. Bucolic. Idyllic. Deadly boring.

She didn’t like it. Her eyes flicked everywhere, looking for cracks, clues, anything that might explain how she got here — or why. But the place was too clean, too still. Like a crime scene staged to look like a summer postcard. Then — steps. Behind her. She snapped around, hand twitching near the belt where her knife should be if she weren’t so damn tired of carrying ghosts. A woman in black, veiled like she’d stepped out of a funeral procession. Banshee, no doubt. The way she moved, dressed, the quiet that hung around her like a scent. Lyanna opened her mouth, ready to tell the banshee to fuck off, that she had no business here and needed to open the damn portal between their worlds if she was gonna play ghost-guide. Then the woman lifted the veil.

And the face beneath knocked the wind clean out of Lyanna’s lungs. It was the face she saw every goddamn day in the mirror — her mother’s eyes. Not quite the same shape, a little more rounded, but unmistakably hers. Frozen, Lyanna stared at the woman who looked so much like the one she’d just seen moments ago — on the bridge, attacked, torn apart by the demon that had tried to kill her. Was this her mother? Or a trick?  She didn’t know. But this—this wasn’t a confrontation she’d signed up for tonight. Or today. Or whatever the hell time it was in this place. Lyanna grabbed the knife tighter than she needed to. Blade bit into her palm just enough to make a point. She’d been searching for where to open — whatever passed for a “portal” in this godforsaken dream of a coast. The thing that would let her cut through to the void again. Get back to the place that at least made sense in its horror.

“Uhm… ye 'ere t’take me t’the void, then?” — She asked, not turning yet.

The voice that answered was too calm. Worn like old silk. The kind of voice that remembered things you wished you didn’t. — “Will yeh not greet yer mother, child?”

That stopped her in her tracks. She turned — slowly, carefully, like movement would confirm it — and saw the woman standing just inside the doorway. Dressed like a proper banshee, in black from chin to heel, veil shadowing her face like mourning had become a second skin. Lyanna narrowed her eyes. Voice steady, cool, her thumb brushing the blade’s hilt in warning.

“Been baited before by things wearin’ my kin’s face before,” — She said. The woman, this… banshee, only tilted her head.

“You’ve grown,”  she said. “Still as suspicious as you were as a child… I imagine Doctor Spock would be proud.”

“You’ve grown,” — She said it with a dry fondness, like the words had sat on her tongue for years, waiting for the right moment to breathe again. — “right enough… Still got that same squint in yer eye, suspicious as ever. Reckon Doctor Spock’d be proud o’ that.” — It was the kind of thing only a mother could say. Low, steady, wrapped in the warmth of shared history and the cool distance of the grave. And when she said Doctor Spock , there was a flicker in her eye, a glint of the woman who once sat beside her daughter on a secondhand couch, watching stars fly past a screen and dreaming of escape.

Lyanna blinked. Well, fuck. That was specific. Nobody knew about Spock. Not the way she’d loved him — deadpan, logical, unshakable. Not how she used to fall asleep to old Star Trek reruns, curled up between her mum and Benjen, pretending they were on a starship far from all the screaming and stinking of real life. This woman knew. And Lyanna didn’t know if that made her feel safer—or worse.

“I mean… it’s good t’see thee,” — She said stiffly, like someone admitting the weather was fine. The woman, her mother, maybe, maybe not, arched a brow.

“Is that all, then? I’d hoped ye’d grown some sense o’ feelin’ by now.” — Lyarra said it deadpan, flat and sharp, like a knife cutting through years of silence. Her voice carried the weight of endless time, stripped of warmth, almost like a tired judge passing sentence. No softness, no patience, just a blunt truth laid bare.

“Wow,” —  Lyanna muttered.  — “ Right for t’jugular.=.”

“Ye speak like thy father.”  — Lyarra said it quietly, with a trace of weary resignation, like she’d heard that line too many times before and it carried more weight than any insult. There was no anger, just a cold, calm fact.

That one landed harder than she let show. The woman opened her arms, and against all sense and instinct and banshee training, Lyanna stepped into them. It was the way the body felt. Familiar. Warm. Known. She didn’t want to cry, so of course she did. Not a sob, not loud — but something small cracked inside her chest and leaked out her eyes. She pulled back quickly, swallowed it whole. Her mother — if it was her — cupped her face gently, like she hadn’t died screaming in fire.

“Thou art my bonnie bairn,” — Lyarra said it soft but firm, like a blessing carried on the cold wind,  — “and I’m proud o’ thee.”

“I missed ye,” — Lyanna said, before she could stop herself.

Lyarra said it like a slow, proud echo from a long-forgotten time, her voice steady and sure, — “Thou cam’st, thou conquer’d.”

“Right,”  — Lyanna muttered, swiping at her eyes. — “Where d’you want me t’cut, then?”

Her mother — Lyarra — didn’t ask about Euron. Didn’t ask why Lyanna had a demon-chained vampire draped across her memory like a bad tattoo. Just took her hand and led her away from the little coastal house, like they were on a walk and not about to carve a hole between worlds. The sun glittered on the water like it had no idea what grief was. They walked the path, sea breeze licking at Lyanna’s coat. Finally, they reached a spot in the rocks—an opening that looked like nothing. A crack where the air shimmered just wrong.

“Put thy blade to the vei,” — Lyarra said it like a command wrapped in ritual, quiet, deliberate, but with an edge of power that didn’t need to raise its voice. 

Lyanna asked it with the rough edge of disbelief, her voice caught somewhere between annoyance and exhaustion. She wasn’t scared—just sick of riddles and ancient half-answers. The knife was in her hand, the air still solid. Her brow furrowed, and she glanced back at her mother like seriously? now? — “Wi’ what? I mean, how d’ye want me t’do it?”

“Veilpiercer,” — Her mother replied, like that explained everything. — “Sharp it is. Now, make thy try.”

Lyanna didn’t roll her eyes, but it was a near thing. She raised the blade and swiped at the air. Nothing. Just a whoosh and a puff of sea spray. She looked back. Lyarra gave her that not like that mum face that defied the laws of death and time. Lyanna exhaled through her nose. Grounded herself. Tried again — slower this time. Let the knife feel like part of her. And then — there. A tear. Not in fabric. In reality. She felt it before she saw it. Cold and dark and deep, like something inside the air had collapsed. She pulled the blade down. The opening widened, black leaking out around the edges like ink in clean water. Her mother walked through without a word. Lyanna took one more breath, squared her shoulders, and followed. The cold hit her instantly — good, biting, familiar. The Banshee’s Realm. Felt more like home than Heaven ever had. Same chamber as before. Same dark marble. Same circle of veiled figures. Only this time, Lyarra stood with them.

“Come forth, bairn,” — Said the eldest. —  “Thou’st crossed the veil. Thy task is done.”

“Brilliant,”—  Lyanna muttered. —  “Thank the gods that’s bloody done with.”

A younger banshee glanced at Euron, still slumped on the ground, chains glinting dull around his limbs. —  “An’ the lad?” —  One younger banshee asked.

“Well this is a right mess, innit? Can I get a hand wi’ this one?” — Lyanna said it with a sharp edge, voice low and dry like a warning wrapped in sarcasm. 

One of the veiled figures knelt, pressed a hand glowing black to his chest. Euron snapped upright with a gasp like a bad resurrection.

“Where the feck did ye take us, kid?” — Euron grunted, voice gravelly and thick with irritation, like a beast roused from a deep, uneasy sleep. There was a sharp edge of danger beneath the surface, the kind that warned you he wasn’t just annoyed, he was ready to snap if pushed any further.

Lyanna didn’t answer. She barely looked at him. Her eyes were on Lyarra, who turned her wrist, revealing the mark of the demon’s claim. She took Lyanna’s wrist in return. The brand there didn’t matter anymore.

“Now thou hast fulfilled thy quest,” — One of the banshees said, —  “thou must make thy choice.”

 “I want t’go home,” —  Lyanna said it low, the edge in her voice barely held back.  —  “Please.” —  There was a raw, worn-out kind of plea wrapped in those simple words, less hope, more a demand from a part of her that just wanted to stop fighting. It wasn’t soft, but it wasn’t angry either. Just tired. Like the last cigarette after a long night.

“If thou return’st,” — Lyarra said, voice low, — “thou shalt be Deathless.” —  That gave her pause. 

“Wait, tha’s real? Not just some underworld campfire story, then?” — Lyanna said it with a sharp edge of disbelief, her voice cracking just enough to betray a flicker of hope beneath the sarcasm

Lyarra spoke with the solemn weight of centuries bearing down on her words, each syllable measured and heavy like the toll of a funeral bell. Her voice was low and steady, — “Thou hast crossed the veil. Should’st thou turn back, death shall not claim thee as before. Thy banshee gifts shall be sundered, yet thy flesh shall ken the path still. Thou shalt live.”

“Aye, sounds proper tragic,” — Lyanna said it with a crooked grin and a flicker of dry humor, her voice dripping with sarcasm like it was second nature.—  “Sign me up.”

Before she could say anything else, the knife was pulled from her grip. The eldest banshee stepped forward, cradled Lyanna’s face like a ritual. Then the blade touched skin. Pain flared. Not sharp. Deep. Then the world tilted. Her knees buckled. She reached out, but nothing was solid. The last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her was her mother — watching. Not smiling. Just there. Then: Earth. Dirt. Weight. Buried. And rising.

***

He didn’t want her to leave. Not just because she had only just come back from Hell — though that alone would’ve been reason enough. No, it was the way her body moved now, like it didn’t quite belong to her. The too-smooth healing, the impossible recovery. Something was wrong. Or worse — something was evolving. It was a fucking mess. A beautiful, infuriating, terrifying mess. After they’d hidden the knife inside the drywall of his apartment — how romantic — he thought, absurdly, that might be the end of it. That the monster had been disarmed, the portal closed, the chapter finished. But Lyanna looked exhausted in that way only someone dragged through purgatory could. He didn’t ask her to stay out of politeness. He asked because he needed her under his roof, where he could watch. Where he could pretend, for a few hours, that keeping her close meant keeping her safe.

She said she was too tired for that — which he initially misread, reflexively bracing for rejection. But when she added that she didn’t want to be alone, he almost laughed aloud. Not because it was funny, but because it was so her. Too stubborn to admit fear. Too sharp to fake sweetness. Instead, she dropped her guard in the plainest terms possible and handed him a knife with the blade down. He took it gently.  He offered her the guest room. She declined. He didn’t press. They went to bed. Not to bed, just — to bed. She fell asleep quickly, curled in a way that looked too small for someone who’d faced down demons. Rhaegar lay beside her like a sentinel, unmoving, letting his gaze linger on the shape of her in his sheets. He didn’t pretend anymore. He wanted her. Wanted to keep her. And that terrified him more than whatever abyss she’d climbed out of.

They would be separated again — of course they would. Their work practically guaranteed it. They hunted ghosts, they poked sleeping gods, they dragged secrets out of the dirt. Sooner or later, one of those secrets would bite back. And whatever miracle had kept her alive this time, he didn’t trust it to save her twice. His body shut down as vampires do — cadaver-still, no heartbeat, no breath, no dreams. Just a black void where sleep used to be. And when he opened his eyes again, she was gone. The room was colder without her. The space beside him felt like a wound. On the nightstand sat a scrap of paper, as casual as a grocery list: Howland called. Got a new case. See you later. No ‘love’ no kiss mark, not even a ‘thanks for the bed’. Of course. He dressed in silence, knotted his tie like a noose, and drove to her office — her mess of a flat, really. Peeling wallpaper, too many case files, and that eternal smell of burnt coffee and blood.

She was already buried in paperwork like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t died. Like she hadn’t kissed him. — “Finally,” — She said, glancing up from her desk. — “Bout time. This one’s proper mad, you’re gonna love it.”

No hug. No warmth. Just business. Rhaegar knew her too well to be surprised. But it still unsettled him — the performance of normalcy, the quiet retreat behind her armor. She wasn’t cold; she was terrified. He could see it in the way she didn’t meet his eyes too long, in the tension in her shoulders. She was already running. Not with her feet, but with her instincts.

Rhaegar adjusted his cufflinks. Gave nothing away. — “Then tell me about it,” — He said. His voice was calm, level. He’d bleed, he did it on the inside.

A client, young boy called, Khort Stane, claimed he had been reincarnated for centuries and needed her help to find his long lost lover, but in a cruel twist of fate- apparently caused when his last life was kept in a coma after the accident that automatically killed his wife-, this time she's ten years older... and already married.

She said psychosis like it was weather, just one more ambient concern to get through before lunch. — “Was thinkin’ it might be psychosis,” — Lyanna muttered, not looking up from her notes. — “Thought maybe ye could sniff it out.”

Rhaegar raised an eyebrow. — “I’m good at deduction, Lyanna. But I’m not a bloodhound.”

She didn’t laugh. She rarely did when she was actually worried. — “Not like that, but he says he’s got memories. From his old life. I asked him t’ swing by so ye could… y’know. Make sure I’m not sittin’ here chattin’ to some bloody loon.”

That caught his attention. Not the memory part — souls were stubborn things; they stuck to old grooves like wax on vinyl. No, it was the fact that she was asking him to confirm reality. As if she didn’t trust her own judgment anymore. Rhaegar replied with the careful calm of someone placing a chess piece—not for the move it made now, but for what it set up later. His voice was quiet, measured, but carried the edge of insistence that made it clear: this wasn’t a suggestion.

“Alright,” — He said, controlled, almost casual. Then, eyes fixed on her, voice dipping slightly lower, warmer, but firmer, —  “But we’re talking later.” — Not a threat. Not a plea. Just a promise. And Rhaegar Targaryen never made promises lightly.

Lyanna didn’t look up. Her fingers kept moving — tapping the edge of the file, flipping a page, underlining something that probably wasn’t relevant but made her feel in control. Her voice came out flat, distracted, like she was answering someone calling from another room.

“Soon as I’m done wi’ this,” — She said, like it was obvious. Like it wasn’t a deflection. Like she didn’t know damn well he could tell. She didn’t mean to push him off. But some part of her still flinched at the word talk. It always meant more than it said.

“You sure?” —  Rhaegar asked it softly, almost too softly, like he didn’t want the question to land too hard. But it did. It always did, coming from him. His tone was careful, laced with quiet concern and that particular tension he carried when it came to Lyanna, like he was trying not to touch a bruise too directly.

Lyanna said it like a shrug with vowels, clipped, dry, half-dared. —“Aye, sure.” — There was no warmth in it, but no bite either. 

He didn’t believe her. But he said nothing. The boy arrived a few minutes later. Boy being generous. He looked like he’d been dragged out of a skatepark by the gods themselves. Loose jeans, rolled cuffs, striped socks. Converse, of course — black, scuffed, performatively disinterested in the world. He wore the kind of slouch only teenagers and the already-dead could pull off. Rhaegar took one glance and resisted the urge to sigh. This was the supposed ancient soul? Reincarnated memory? He looked like a mall rat.

“Nice to meet you, young man,” — Rhaegar said politely.

“‘Young man’ isn’t really accurate,” — The boy, Lyanna, had called him Khort, replied.

Of course it isn’t. Lyanna had mentioned he claimed to remember Lys — four hundred years ago. A time when Lys had been more marble than mirror, when its waters were thick with perfume and secrets.

“Skoroso istan iā ēdruta iā hen Lȳs, Lyannā jorrāelagon,” — Rhaegar said, ‘ You said you lived or died in Lys, Lyanna told me ’ his voice slipping into the ancient tongue like it had never left him. — “Vezofy iā vēttan azantys hen Valyrio ēngos. Ābre ēdruta issi?” — He continued, ‘I speak the older tongue of Valyria. Do you still speak it?’

Without hesitation, the boy answered, fluent, elegant, and irritatingly perfect. Too perfect. —

“Of course,” — ‘Of course’, Khort said in the tongue of centuries past. — “Skoriot nykēla iā hen Lȳs ēdruta bē rōvēgrie ābrar?” — ‘ Did you live in Lys four hundred years ago, then?’ , he continued.

Rhaegar responded in kind, his voice like silk over a blade. — “Ābrar ivestraksen vestri. Skorion jāhorot daor?” — his voice as he said, ‘Your inflection’s sharp. Where did you learn it?’ sound like silk over a blade

“Tegon ūndegon,” — the boy said, in a perfect inflection, 'I was born there' he said, — “Hen iā jemot uēpa hen buzdari lentor, lenton Saera ēngoso tolī ērinagon. Riña ēdruta hen ñuqir. Rōvēgrie ēngot jemēle. Ryptas ēza. Iā vīlībāzma tegon.” — He described the place at the time perfectly, ‘In one of the pleasure houses, near the Temple of Saera. The Maiden Made of Light. There was a thermopolia just up the street, good olives. Dried fish. Cheap wine.’ 

The memories came too easily. Too vivid. Rhaegar felt the weight of it — truth, or a very well-rehearsed lie. — “Se rytsas?” —  He asked, ‘ And your partner? ’ keeping his tone neutral.

“Riña āeksia Saera,” — Khort replied, with ‘She was a priestess of Saera ’. Of course she was. 

Rhaegar’s eyes narrowed slightly. — “Rytsī daor jēdri ēdruta. Vezof jin azantys perzys. Rhaenagon daor. Rāelza, tolī.” — He recalled, ‘They weren’t supposed to have partners. That much I remember. It was forbidden. Strongly.’

“Bisy ēdruta īlva,” — Khort said it, ‘That’s what killed us ’. — “Ñuhor ābrar Saera ēngoso jemī jorrāelagon. Kesir ivestragī, ēdruta vala ēdruta jemot. Adere perzys hen lentor.” — He told Rhaegar, ‘ They sacrificed us to the goddess Saera. I figure that’s where it began, this mess. The first loop in the chain’ .

Charming, Rhaegar thought, as the boy recounted the tragedy of being sacrificed to a goddess for the crime of love. Blood, betrayal, divine hypocrisy — just another day in paradise. He folded his hands, thumb brushing the edge of his cufflink in a gesture that felt less like thought and more like restraint. There was more to this. Much more. That familiar itch behind his eyes told him the pieces were starting to slide into place — but slowly, maddeningly. Still, he could feel Lyanna watching him out of the corner of her eye. Trying not to. Pretending to be fine. Which, of course, meant she wasn’t. She was already slipping. Back into the case, back into the smokescreen of sarcasm and forensics and vengeful ghosts. It was her default setting — armor made of cynicism and caffeine, and he knew it too well. Knew, too, that she wouldn’t talk until she’d buried it deep enough not to feel anymore. He wondered — again — how many times he’d have to watch her vanish before it broke him. And whether it already had.

So, he did what he always did. He worked. — “I believe him,”  —  Rhaegar said quietly, glancing at the boy. “There aren’t many teenagers who speak perfect Old Valyrian.”

“Weren’t no movies he could’ve picked that up from,” — Lyanna muttered. She was pacing, always in motion when she wanted to avoid something. Him, probably.

Rhaegar replied it with that familiar, cool-edged composure, — “Not that I’m aware of,” — He murmured, as if he’d already cross-referenced every film, every archive, every whisper of ancient Valyrian on the internet just to be sure. 

Lyanna turned to the boy, already digging. — “Right then. How d’we find yer girl, little time-hopper?”

“We, uh… usually have tells,” — The kid said. — “I’m always left-handed. She always has heterochromia, one eye reddish brown, one purple. We tend to die together. That’s… kind of our thing.”

Romantic. Rhaegar suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. — “So what happened last time?”

“Car crash. She died on impact. I assume I didn’t die with her… From what I gathered from most of our lives I'm ten years off.” — He made a vague gesture that could’ve meant died, transcended, or remembered.

“We’re after a lass ’round twenty-five wi’ freaky eyes,” — Lyanna said flatly. — “Feels proper icky, that.” 

“You said you’d help,” — The boy pressed.

Lyanna closed her eyes like the universe itself had just stubbed her toe, let out a slow exhale through her nose, and planted her hands on her hips — elbows sharp, posture pure exasperation.

“I’m regrettin’ it already,” — She muttered, voice flat as a morgue drawer and twice as cold. It wasn’t loud, but it carried weight, like a verdict handed down by someone who’s seen enough shit to know when it’s about to hit the fan again.

“Age ain’t nothin’ but a number,” —  the boy added.

Rhaegar winced before Lyanna even opened her mouth. — “Ye did not just say that,” —  Lyanna snapped, brows shooting up as she leaned in, voice thick with disbelief. —   “’Course it’s more than a number, you absolute…” — She didn’t finish the insult, didn’t need to. The look on her face said enough. 

She cut herself off, but the point landed anyway. It wasn’t lost on Rhaegar either. That phrase, flippant as it was, wormed into his mind in a way he didn’t appreciate. He was over five centuries old. She was — what, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Jaded as a war widow, sure, but still devastatingly young. And for a moment, as she stood there scowling at the kid, he felt absurdly exposed. Ancient. As if the age difference between them had suddenly become visible, like a scar he couldn’t cover. He didn’t like that feeling.

“Y’know what?” — Lyanna said, voice clipped, brows already halfway to war. — “I’ll start diggin’ in the mornin’. But for now…” — Blunt as a shovel, with that no-nonsense snap like she’d just made peace with a bad decision and was already regretting’ it.

“Can we do it now?” — the boy interrupted.

And just like that, any chance Rhaegar had of dragging her into a real conversation evaporated. What followed was a blur of details: shared names, eerily repeated deaths, hazy memories. Colin and Anya. Car crash. Thermopolia and temples. The closer the life was to the one the boy was living now, the fewer details he could recall. Typical. Nothing conclusive. Which meant Lyanna defaulted to detective mode — sharp, controlled, emotionally bulletproof. And any conversation that might’ve cracked the surface between them? Postponed indefinitely. Rhaegar said nothing. He knew the rhythm too well by now. When she resurfaced from Hell, cracked and blinking like she’d clawed her way out of a nightmare — there’d been a window. A raw, fragile opening. And now? Now they were back to cases and corpses. Routine. The great anesthetic. And Lyanna Stark, once again, was a storm he couldn’t stop — only watch. A train wreck with teeth. And gods help him, he’d already bought a front-row seat.

***

The station still smelled like burnt coffee and broken promises. Of course it did. Lyanna didn’t come here for the ambiance. She slid past the reception desk with a nod to the kid in uniform — new face, too clean — and followed the piss-yellow linoleum floor toward purgatory. Otherwise known as the file room. Sigorn had waved her off like he always did, muttering about a couple who’d tried to kill each other at the same time — how romantic — and told her to go dig through the archives herself. She hated the archives. Dustier than the afterlife and twice as cruel to her eyes, which weren’t exactly thriving lately. But she needed records. Names: Colin and Anya. Timeline: twenty-five years back. Category: flaming car crash, possible lovers’ pact, supernatural vibes optional. Apparently, there were a lot of Colin-and-Anya-shaped wrecks. Go figure.

The basement lights buzzed like bugs in a jar. Her boots echoed through the silence as she sifted through the digital graveyard of old files, narrowed it down, scrolled until her eyes burned. The hum of the screen blurred against the static behind her eyes, the dull pressure that came with being too close to death too often. Again. Then there it was. Colin and Anya Falker . Dead couple — well, half-dead. She died. He didn’t. Colin lingered in a coma like a stubborn ghost. Checked out of life, but not quite gone. And now, apparently, reincarnated into some cocky teenage boy with a thing for retro trainers and soulmates.

Lyanna snorted. — “Oh, bloody fun, that.”

The door creaked open, and the smell of burnt espresso preceded Mance by half a second. Two coffee cups in hand, both probably shite. — “Sig said you'd be skulkin' down here.”

“Aye. Lookin’ for a crash, I am.” — Her voice was hoarse, but steady. She didn’t look away from the screen.

Mance didn’t bother with the empty chair beside her — just swung one leg over the table and settled next to her like he owned the place. Elbows on knees, posture loose as ever, eyes scanning her face like he could still read it.

“Got yer caffeine in ya already, then?” — He asked, voice low and rough with sleep or something like it, laced with that dry, familiar amusement.

Lyanna didn’t look up. Just blew a stream of air through her nose, deadpan as ever, and muttered, — “Got me a supernatural bullshit fix instead, didn’t I.” — Dry. Sharp. 

Like coffee laced with arsenic. The kind of tone that said don’t ask unless you really want the answer. He chuckled, setting the cup beside her like a peace offering. She didn’t thank him, but she took a sip anyway. Lyanna slumped back in her chair, spine half-melted with exhaustion, one hand dragging down her face like she could wipe the whole case off with it. She let out a sigh — long, gravelly, and full of regret for ever opening the door this morning.

“Kid walks into me office,” — She muttered, voice flat as cold steel. — “Says he’s bloody reincarnated. Wants me to find his wife, says they always come back together, like it’s some doomed fairy tale stuck on loop.” — Deadpan. Cynical. Already mentally filing the kid under ghost-adjacent headache.

Mance settled back against the worn edge of the table, eyes sharp beneath heavy brows, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. His voice was low, rough as gravel, carrying that lazy mix of curiosity and dry humor that made you think he’d seen it all — and wasn’t impressed.

“Bit What Dreams May Come , innit? What made you take that on?” — He tilted his head slightly, waiting, the kind of question that felt casual but dug beneath the surface, poking at the why behind the chaos.

She didn’t answer right away. Because honestly? She didn’t fucking know. Except she did. Her head was still a mess from the kiss. That kiss. That thing she should’ve never let happen. One stupid moment with Rhaegar and now her brain was in knots. Her hands too. And her ribs. Her ribs, for fuck’s sake. She kissed him. He kissed her back. That part was fine — great, even. But now everything hurt. Like she’d opened a door she didn’t mean to, and behind it was just her own stupid reflection in a cracked mirror. He was five-hundred years old. Five. Hundred. He’d seen empires rise and fall and probably had lovers stacked like trading cards across every century. Lyanna? She was a banshee with PTSD, a chain smoking habit and a poor track record for keeping people alive. She couldn’t stomach it. Couldn’t bear to hear some softly spoken letdown, that it’s not you, it’s the undead live . So she buried the feelings. Same as always. She turned to the case like it was a life raft. Took the weird gig. Ignored the ache in her throat.

Lyanna shrugged, her voice flat but with a hint of dry wit slipping through the cracks. — “I needed summat to do. An’ I got a pro bono quota to meet.” — She didn’t bother with any fake enthusiasm, just the blunt truth, wrapped in that familiar edge of sarcasm and tired resolve.

Lyanna said it with a dry edge, like she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. Her voice clipped, eyes sharp, — “Glad ye’re back. Sig reckoned ye got lost in some forest, off the map for three months. Middle o’ the woods, got yerself a wee ‘shot’, his words, not mine.”

She snorted again. — “Sig’s a shite liar.” —  Lyanna said it flat, like it was just another damn fact, — “I went to hell.”

Lyanna said it with a half-smirk, voice low and steady, like she wasn’t surprised one bit,  motining to her cheek, —  “Aye. I wouldn’t be expectin’ anythin’ else from ye.”

She didn’t say more. Didn’t need to. Hell wasn’t the headline here — it never really was. It was just the world turned inside out. A place that peeled back your skin and held up a mirror, cracked and stinking of ash, daring you to look. She’d seen enough. Brought back more ghosts than she left with. Again. But now she had something. Not peace. Not closure. Just a thread. Colin and Anya Falkner — caught in some cosmic loop, life bleeding into death and back again like a scratched vinyl track. If they’d made it back from wherever souls wandered… maybe she hadn’t completely lost the plot. Or maybe she was just clinging to a distraction, anything to keep her from thinking about that kiss. About Rhaegar’s mouth on hers and the way it didn’t feel like a mistake. Before he asked what it meant. Or worse — before she did. Before she asked him to mean it.

Work. Focus. The case. Always the case. She lit a cigarette she wouldn’t finish and pulled up the Falkners again. Car crash, two-lane highway, nothing poetic about it. Emergency team scrambled the story like eggs — ‘equipment delay,’ ‘unstable vitals,’ ‘unforeseen complications’ — but bottom line? Anya was dead on impact, and Colin clung to life in a coma for ten years before finally letting go. She stood. Her legs ached from crouching too long, her eyes stung from reading too much in too little light, but she moved anyway. Mance trailed behind her like the loyal mongrel he was, quiet until he had something worth saying. She handed him the folder as they reached the lightbox.

“Mance…” — She started, like it was nothing. — “D’you reckon there’s anythin’… genetic? Like, weird markers, somethin’ rare in her file?”

He took it, flipping through like it was Sunday reading. She watched the moment his eyes snagged, that slight hitch in his breath when something clicked. — “Hemophilia,” — He muttered.

Lyanna raised an eyebrow. — “Blood thing, innit? Don’t it pass down through the X chromosome? But ain’t it more of a lad thing?”

“Aye, that’s the rub.” — He thumbed the page like it’d personally offended him. — “The gene’s on the X, see? So lads usually get the shite end, one X, one dodgy copy, and that’s it, you're leakin’ like wet paper. Lasses’ve got two, so unless they get dealt two bum hands, they’re just carriers. Don’t tend to show much.”

Lyanna blinked. — “But Anya were marked hemophilic, aye?”

Mance nodded. — “Aye. Marked an’ diagnosed, plain as day.”

Her brain clicked into motion. — “Ye reckon there’s, like… an association or summat? Registry for rare blood shite?”

Mance hesitated, then nodded. — “Aye, actually. I get updates from one. Shared data pool, mostly medical shite, but if we have a proper dig...”

She narrowed her eyes. — “Ye never told...”

He shrugged, defensive now. —  “Ye never asked, did ya? Folk find out, they treat us like we’re made o’ sugar glass. Like we’ll crack if the wind blows wrong.”

Lyanna didn’t say anything to that. Just pressed her lips together and nodded once. He’d done her a solid, that was enough. They ran the search — White Harbor, women under thirty, confirmed hemophilia. Only three hits. One matched the age bracket. Bingo. She jotted the address down, grabbed her coat. No time to feel anything. That could come later. Maybe. Probably not. She made it back to the office just past dusk, headlights slicing through the haze like a scalpel. Driving felt different now. Everything did. Her eyes — clearer, sharper. Not quite the burn of vampire blood, but something else. Something her mother’s hands had left behind, stitched into her bones like a parting gift. A curse lifted, maybe. Or just changed shape.

Either way, she could see better. Unfortunately, that included the juvenile delinquent passed out on her sofa like he paid rent. Of course he was still here. Of course Howland had let him in. The kid looked like he'd lost a fight with a hoodie and won a staring contest with the ceiling. She was halfway through wondering whether she should call his bloody parents when he cracked one eye open and sat up like some awkward resurrection.

“So, Doc,” — He croaked, still sleep-thick, —  “you get anything?”

“Ye were in a coma,” —  Lyanna said, dropping her coat like a dead thing over her desk sofa. —  “That’s why ye’re younger, innit? Reckon whoever was lookin’ after ye took their sweet bloody time pullin’ the plug.”

“...Fuck,” —  was all the  boy managed.

“That’s one way o’ puttin’ it.” —  She tossed him a granola bar without looking.  — “I got us an address. We’ll head there soon, long as you don’t go doin’ owt daft. You hear me?”

Khort said it with a crooked half-smile and zero real conviction, like a teenager promising not to crash the car while already turning the keys. A shrug in his voice, all charm and trouble. — “I’ll try.”

Not exactly a promise. But close enough. They drove out in silence, her rustbucket of a car wheezing up through the manicured suburb like it didn’t belong — which, to be fair, it didn’t. Neither did she. The house was red-brick and smug about it. White window frames, neat teal door, not a weed in sight. A little paved path leading up like the fucking Yellow Brick Road. Charming. Picture-perfect. She hated it on sight. Khort was practically vibrating beside her, hope chewing holes in his face. Lyanna felt it in her gut: this wasn’t just a house. This was a family. Which meant things were about to get messy. She rang the bell. The door opened. And there she was. Early twenties, just like he’d said. Heterochromia — one eye red-brown, the other purple. Almond-shaped eyes, sharp cheekbones, that kind of casual beauty that didn’t try too hard and still made you feel underdressed. Long black hair fell past her hips, the kind of hair people in shampoo commercials sold their souls for.

“Ey,” — the woman said, all polite and clueless.

“You look older,”  — Khort breathed, smiling like a kid at a ghost story come true.

Lyanna didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. Just watched, waiting for the pin to drop. And then it did. The man stepped in behind her. Tall, gym-bodied, blue-eyed suburban nightmare. Looked like he played tennis for fun and never skipped leg day. She prayed he was the plumber. But she knew he wasn’t.

“What’s going on? Anne, who are these people?” — He asked it sharp, protective, shoulders tensed, voice edged with suspicion. The kind of tone that said he didn’t like surprises at his front door, especially not ones involving strangers and his wife.

Of course she had a name like Anne. Of course he was protective. And of course Khort didn’t — “Who the fuck are you?” — Khort asked, voice cracking like glass under pressure.

Lyanna sighed, arms folding across her chest. — “I’m gonna guess… husband.”

The taste in her mouth went metallic. She didn’t need to look at Khort to know he was unraveling beside her. And she sure as hell didn’t need to look at Anne to know this was going to be hell. Because no one comes back from the dead to find their soulmate with a mortgage and a man who mows the lawn.

Khort said it softly, like the words had been sitting on his tongue for centuries, half-hopeful, half-desperate, and already knowing the answer was going to break him. — “My love, please…”

By the old gods and new. Lyanna didn’t need a sixth sense to feel the air thicken. The guy — the husband, probably — stepped into the doorway like he owned the brick façade and the woman inside it. Tall, good-looking, the kind of man who smiled in bank ads. Blue-eyed and about to lose his shit.

“What the fuck? Honey, do you know this kid?” —  The husband said it sharply, his voice rising with confusion and protectiveness. He stepped forward, tense and suspicious, casting a glance between Khort and his wife like he was bracing for something ugly.

The woman’s eyes bounced between them — her husband, Khort, Lyanna. A flicker of something crossed her face. Recognition? Maybe. Or maybe she just didn’t like surprises on her doorstep. Lyanna didn’t blame her. Ghosts had a way of showing up uninvited. But then the woman did what most people did when confronted with the impossible: she shut it down.

“I’ve never seen him before.” — Anne said it slowly… Too slowly.

Like she was choosing each word with surgical care, afraid one wrong syllable might crack something open.  That was it. Lips sealed. Eyes on the man she’d married, the life she’d built. Not on the boy who looked like his whole damn soul had been ripped out.

Khort stepped forward. Dumb move. — “What? Baby…”

“Hey, hey. If you two don’t get the fuck off my property, I’m calling the police.” — The husband snapped it out, sharp and clipped like a whip crack. His eyes darted between them, daring anyone to call his bluff.

Lyanna stepped in like she always did, right before things tipped past salvageable. — “No need for that. We’re off.”

She didn’t look back until they were halfway down the walk. Brick behind them, neat hedges lining the path. A house with a teal door and a wife who’d chosen comfort over ghosts. Probably smart.

Khort's boots scraped against the concrete like regret. — “I was her. We have to go back.”

“Boy, that ship’s sailed. Proper big time.” — Lyanna said it flat, eyes cold and sharp, like she was cutting through any hope with a single breath. There was no patience left in her voice, just quiet finality and a touch of bitter amusement, like she’d seen this kind of mess a thousand times and knew exactly how it’d end.

“I have to do something. I have to get her back.” — Khort said it quiet but fierce, like a man clutching’ at the last straw. His voice trembled just enough to show the weight behind the words, desperate, stubborn, and too damn determined to quit.

Gods. Lyanna pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head was starting to throb. The banshee senses didn’t like being near this many threads snapping at once. Her eyes didn’t soften — they stayed sharp, tired but sharp — like she was trying to ground him before he fell too far. 

“I’m gonna be straight wiv ye, Khort. She’s ten years older than ye. Could’ve been yer teacher, maybe yer social worker for all I know. This ain’t no tragic teen movie wiv violins an’ big moments. It’s real life. An’ it’s not gonna turn out how ye want it.” — Lyanna mentioned it steady, no sugarcoat, arms crossed like she was bracing herself against the cold truth she had to spit out. Her voice had that edge of hard-earned wisdom, laced with a rough kindness she wouldn’t bother explaining.

He stared at her like she’d just kicked his puppy. But it needed saying. — “Well, thanks for the heads-up, Doc. I need to bounce. Get some air.”

Of course he did. They always needed air, like that was gonna fix the rot underneath. Lyanna sighed, shoving her hands in her coat pockets. She hated pulling people and letting them get into her orbit. But she’d taken Howland in. What was one more lost soul orbiting her mess of a world?

“We can regroup later. Y’got my number. Door’s open.” — Lyanna said it clipped and no-nonsense, like she was done for the day but still leaving the door just cracked open. 

She didn’t stop him. Just gave Khort that look — level, unsentimental — the kind that said get your head on straight and call me when it’s not spinning . And off he went, stomping down the pavement like heartbreak was something that could be walked off. She didn’t watch him go for long. Didn’t have the stomach for it. Her own apartment-office hybrid greeted her with the usual mess: lukewarm takeout, folders that multiplied like cockroaches, and bills she was half-ignoring out of spite. Sigorn had fronted the fees during her little jaunt to Hell, and now the bastard had receipts. Of course he did. She lit a cigarette she wouldn’t finish and cracked open the paperwork. Going through death and back hadn’t made her less allergic to bureaucracy. Her eyes still stung under the lamplight, but they stung less than they used to. Something the banshees said — curse loosened, not gone. She could see better now, sharp edges where before it was all blur and fog. Rhaegar’s blood might’ve jumpstarted it. She didn’t want to think too hard about that.

Howland muttered something about calling the kid — checking in, being human — and she just waved him off, buried in a report. Then came the sound she hated: the door creaking open slow. Her heart jerked in her chest before she could scold it. Too many years of expecting the worst. But it wasn’t the worst. Not quite. It was him. He didn’t knock. Rhaegar Targaryen didn’t knock. He just walked in like he was the goddamn moonlight, like the room belonged to him just by virtue of existing in it. He looked... Gods. Like a magazine ad for expensive vices. Black tailored suit, shimmering just enough to catch the light, some sheer mesh shirt that did not belong in a private investigator’s office, silver chain catching at the hollow of his throat. Boots clicking with every step, some ridiculous heel that made him taller and smugger. He looked like sex and secrets and sin. He also looked like trouble, which was nothing new.

“So how’s the case going?” — He asked, voice smooth as velvet and just as irritating.

She didn’t look up. — “Not great. We found the lass… but she’s married.”