Columbus, Ohio – 1921. Woodside Cabin
The cabin was a breath held between snowdrifts and silence, a lone ember in the bones of winter.
It stood tucked into a pinewood grove near the edge of a frozen pond—half-forgotten by the world but not quite asleep. Morning fog curled around its stone chimney like a protective spell, veiling it in smoke and frost. Somewhere in the distance, a crow called once and then was quiet.
Inside, time moved slowly. Or maybe not at all.
The piano spoke first.
Clair de Lune again—melancholy, weightless. Edward's long fingers drifted over the keys like ghosts tracing old letters. His sleeves were neatly rolled, waistcoat snug over his slim frame, golden eyes half-lidded, watching something beyond the keys. Or beneath them.
His profile was marble and shadow, carved in quiet torment. A god too weary for Olympus.
"Are you trying to haunt the room?" Hadrian's voice cut across the air like a warm current—dry, irreverent, and a little too amused.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, hunched over a half-gutted radio encircled by softly glowing runes. A graphite pencil perched behind one ear. His suspenders hung loosely from his hips, shirt faintly dusted with chalk and copper flecks. He looked like an inventor from a different century—and he was.
Edward didn't look up. "Debussy doesn't haunt. He lingers."
Hadrian smirked without looking away from the sigils. "Like a bad perfume."
From her wingback chair near the fire, Daenerys laughed under her breath. It was a delicate sound, as if she'd surprised even herself. The book in her lap—a worn copy of Le Morte d'Arthur—lay open to a chapter about doomed knights and worse kings.
Her legs were folded beneath her, toes barely peeking out from the hem of her green wool dress. Her platinum hair had been braided that morning, not intricately, but with an elegance that suggested care—her own or someone else's.
She turned a page, eyes tracing the ink with a reverence that bordered on religious. "Hadrian only mocks what he's afraid to feel," she said, voice soft but precise.
"Which part? The music or the memory?"
Daenerys looked up then. Her violet eyes shimmered faintly in the firelight—amethyst lit from within. "Both."
He met her gaze for a beat, something unspoken rising between them like steam, before he muttered, "You sound like Carlisle."
"And you sound like someone who hasn't slept."
Hadrian grinned. "Haven't needed to in years. But thanks for the concern."
The melody shifted slightly under Edward's fingers—deeper now, slower.
"You're stalling," Edward murmured without glancing their way.
"Working," Hadrian corrected, brushing a smudge of ink from his wrist. "This resonance rune refuses to behave. Might need to charm the capacitor itself."
"Or stop trying to enchant 1920s tech with 15th-century theory," Edward replied.
Daenerys, eyes returning to her book, murmured, "He likes challenges. Even ones that explode."
"Especially ones that explode," Hadrian muttered, poking a wire.
A spark fizzled.
Then—
Shimmer. He vanished with a pop of displaced air.
Daenerys didn't flinch. "You're not impressing anyone, Hadrian."
His voice came from behind her, smug: "Told you, wasn't trying to impress. I just didn't want to walk around the table."
He reappeared in a ripple of air, crouching beside the bookshelf now, grinning.
"Teleporting two feet. Very mature," Edward said dryly.
"I'm redefining effort. One lazy wizard moment at a time."
Daenerys's lips curved ever so slightly as she closed her book. "You're lucky you're charming when smug."
"I know I am."
Her gaze flicked back to him, lingering. "Do you ever wonder what's left of the boy you were?"
"Which one?" he said quietly.
The fire cracked. Silence fell like snow.
From the other side of the cabin, the front door creaked.
Boots on the porch. Snow shaken from wool.
And then, Carlisle Cullen stepped inside.
He was tall and unhurried, wrapped in a storm-grey coat, scarf still dusted with ice. His presence shifted the room—calm, magnetic, impossible not to notice. He had the ageless face of a man who'd been kind too long to stop now. Pale and striking, but softened by something older than time: compassion.
"Good," he said, voice smooth and deep—like melted steel. "You're all here."
He moved with quiet grace, shedding his coat by the door. Every motion precise, like it had been practiced in silence. As he walked toward the fire, Daenerys rose to meet him and wordlessly offered a cup of tea.
He accepted it, knowing she knew he wouldn't drink it.
"It helps me feel like I still know how to host," she said, almost sheepishly.
He smiled—warmth flickering behind eyes ancient as cathedrals. "And you do it beautifully."
She lowered her gaze, cheeks flushing despite herself.
Edward resumed playing—not Debussy this time, but something simpler. An improvisation. Notes like drifting snowflakes, touched once and gone.
Carlisle glanced at Hadrian, who had returned to his sigils, face lit with a faint magical glow.
"You're pushing the limits again."
"I'm calibrating," Hadrian said without looking up. "This thing's nearly a transmitter. Almost self-sustaining."
Carlisle knelt beside him, eyeing the runes. "And if you breach the fabric again?"
"I'll stitch it back up. I'm good with needles now."
A pause.
Then Carlisle touched his shoulder. Gently. Steadying.
"I trust you," he said.
Hadrian stilled. Just for a moment.
Then nodded.
Carlisle stood and turned to Edward. "Thank you for the music. It feels... quieter when you play."
Edward gave a faint nod. "It's the only way I remember her. My mother."
Carlisle's expression softened. "And she remembers you. I believe that."
Daenerys returned to her chair. "Do you believe memory is a kindness, Carlisle?"
He took a long pause before answering. "I think memory is a choice. What we keep, what we let go. The kindest thing is learning how to carry it."
Hadrian looked at the fire. "Even when it burns?"
Carlisle turned his gaze to him. "Especially then."
And for a moment—just a moment—the stillness between them was not cold. It was connection.
They were not human. Not entirely.
But in that cabin, they were something else.
Something better.
Strangers once. Legends now.
Bound not by blood—but by the fire that refused to go out.
—
The Next Day
The sun filtered through the pines like it had to ask permission first. Pale and reverent, it stepped delicately across the snow-crusted landscape, casting long shadows between the trees. Frost etched lace across the windows, filigree so delicate it looked spun by ghosts.
Inside the cabin, the world held its breath.
Carlisle had left before dawn.
He never made noise he didn't mean to. His coat had barely rustled when he slipped it on, and the door clicked shut like it feared to disturb the morning. He moved like something between a hymn and an apology—graceful, intentional, and always with the quiet weight of someone carrying too much hope on too wide a frame.
On the mantel, a folded note sat like a benediction.
Don't destroy the fabric of space-time while I'm at work.
Hadrian, that includes you.
—C.
His penmanship was immaculate—more brushstroke than ink. The scent of bergamot and pine still lingered faintly, like he'd touched the paper just before walking out into the world to be something more than just a doctor.
Because Carlisle Cullen was never just anything.
—
Edward sat by the window, legs folded loosely beneath him, one hand curled around a chipped mug of something he didn't need but liked to hold anyway. The book in his lap—The Picture of Dorian Gray—was as familiar to him as his own reflection. Not that he liked either.
The spine was broken in places, the corners curled like dead petals. He flipped each page with a reverence that wasn't about the words anymore. It was about routine. About punishment.
He wore melancholy like a second skin, beautiful in that too-pale, haunted way that made people stop looking after a beat too long. If you could hear his thoughts, they would've sounded like a Chopin nocturne—elegant, yearning, lonely.
The fire behind him whispered, more ember than flame. Outside, the pond was frozen in place, a mirror of a world too cold to move.
Across the ice, two figures emerged from the trees.
Daenerys and Hadrian.
They weren't talking.
But they were speaking.
—
Their boots crunched softly over the frostbitten crust, the woods folding around them like a cathedral. Pines reached toward the sky like supplicants. The air was sharp enough to bite.
Hadrian moved like something made for the wilderness—confident, sure, broad-shouldered beneath a dark coat that caught the wind like it was staged for drama. There was a glow to him—not supernatural, not even magical, just present. Like the world noticed when he entered a room.
Daenerys matched his pace, her expression unreadable under a fur-lined hood. Immortality had made her look untouchable. Ethereal. But with something colder behind the eyes. She moved with the ease of someone who'd learned, too early, that softness was dangerous.
A snow hare darted across their path. Her eyes flicked toward it. Then dismissed it.
Not enough.
She inhaled, slow and deep, and closed her eyes.
"Deer," she murmured. "Southwest. Two. Grazing."
Hadrian arched a brow, amused. "All yours."
She gave him a look, lips twitching—not quite a smirk, but close. "Gentlemanly," she said. "Or lazy?"
He grinned. "Why not both?"
She vanished into the trees like smoke. He followed, steps soundless.
—
They found them grazing beneath the ridge—one doe, one young buck, oblivious in their innocence.
Daenerys didn't hesitate. She moved with deadly elegance, a whisper of wind that became storm in an instant. She took the buck with practiced grace—no cruelty. Just necessity. Her fingers curled around its neck, and then there was nothing but stillness.
Hadrian watched her with a kind of solemnity. Then he turned to the doe.
He crouched, murmuring something in a language long dead before pressing his hand to the creature's brow.
"Forgive me," he whispered.
Then it was done.
When they stood, the world around them felt different—muted, as if the woods itself paused to let them pass. Their eyes glowed faintly, not with hunger now, but memory.
Snowflakes landed in Daenerys's hair and melted instantly.
"You still hesitate," she said, softly. No accusation. Just observation.
Hadrian wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Old habits."
"From when you were human?"
"From when I thought guilt meant goodness."
She turned toward him, something thoughtful in her gaze. "And now?"
He looked at her, really looked. "Now I think guilt's just memory in drag."
A beat. Then she laughed—short, breathy, surprised.
"You talk like you're quoting someone."
"Sometimes I am. Sometimes it's just me, trying to sound smarter than I feel."
"Does it work?"
"About fifty percent of the time."
They walked in silence, the kind that was safe.
Then she asked, "Do you miss it?"
He didn't pretend not to understand.
"I miss not knowing better," he said finally. "Ignorance was...soft. It let me hope without strategy."
"I miss being touched without thinking about power," she said, voice almost too soft for the trees to hear.
He stopped.
She kept walking. "You think I haven't noticed how careful you are? Like I'll break if you brush my hand."
"I'm not trying to be noble," he said, catching up. "I'm just not willing to lie to myself about what we are."
"You're afraid."
"I remember," he said. "That's worse."
They stopped at the edge of the frozen pond. The reflection of bare branches stretched over the ice like veins. Her breath curled visibly in the air. His didn't.
"I let myself believe what Drogo did wasn't rape," she said, calm and brutal. "Because if it was—and it was—then I wasn't strong. And I needed to be strong. For them. For me."
His voice was low. "I know. And I hate that you had to be."
She blinked hard. "Daario was...a pretty lie. A way to forget. Jon...Jon made me believe I could be more than a weapon."
"And then he made sure you weren't."
A pause.
"What about you?" she asked.
He gave a quiet laugh. "Cho kissed me once while crying about Cedric. Ginny... Ginny was something like sunlight. But I was already lost. There was always a war, or a prophecy, or a funeral. I forgot how to be wanted."
She tilted her head. "You've never even—?"
"No." He said it without shame. "Never."
She stepped closer. No hunger. No seduction. Just closeness.
"I'm not broken," she said.
"I know," he answered. "Neither am I."
And they didn't kiss.
They stood, foreheads brushing, breath shared but untouched, suspended in the quiet miracle of choosing.
—
Back in the cabin, Edward turned a page. The piano sat silent beside him, untouched. His fingers hovered over the keys once, then pulled back.
He could hear them in the woods. The heartbeat that wasn't there. The silence between them.
He could have read her thoughts. They were always easy. Raw. Beautiful in their pain. But Hadrian...
Hadrian's mind was a locked door wrapped in Occlumency and something older—something elemental. Something even Edward Cullen wasn't sure he wanted to open.
He respected the silence.
Respected the mystery.
And as he turned the page, he whispered to himself—
"They're going to break each other before they ever save each other."
Then he smiled.
And waited to see if he was right.
—
The stillness between them held—delicate, tensile, like silk strung between branches.
Snow had stopped falling. Or maybe the world had stopped noticing.
Daenerys stepped back first, just enough to meet his gaze directly. Her voice came quieter than before, barely brushing the edges of his hearing. "There's something I need to tell you."
He nodded once, as if he already knew.
She hesitated—not the way she did before a hunt, not the way someone unsure of danger would pause. This was the kind of pause born of truth that had waited too long. The kind that burned the tongue.
"You asked me, three years ago, what Valzyyrys meant," she said, eyes locked on his. "And I told you it meant prince."
A small smile ghosted across Hadrian's lips. "I remember."
"It doesn't. Not really." Her voice tightened, the syllables catching slightly. "It means husband."
Silence followed—but it wasn't empty.
It was thick with the weight of memory. With three years of shared silence, glances held too long, and the unspoken things they'd both carried through lifetimes.
She opened her mouth again, breath trembling like a matchstick about to spark.
But he shook his head gently. "You don't need to apologize."
Her brows drew together, but he continued.
"It was the first time you met me," he said. "You'd just died, bled out in a world that demanded too much of you. And now you were waking up in a new one, surrounded by strangers. Of course you lied. Of course you protected yourself."
Her throat worked, but no words came.
He took a step closer. "You don't owe me guilt, Daenerys. Least of all for a word."
"But it was for you," she said, not pleading, just honest. "Even if I didn't know you, not really—not yet. I said it like I'd always meant it."
His smile shifted, something softer behind it. "Then maybe don't tell me what you might've meant back then."
A pause.
"Tell me what you feel now."
She looked at him, and for once, it wasn't the look of a queen or a survivor or a woman who had dragged herself through fire. It was just her.
"I don't know yet," she said. "But I want to."
He nodded. "That's enough."
They stood there, unmoving, letting the truth settle without forcing it into shape. Letting it be.
Not a confession. Not a promise. Just a beginning.
Behind them, the forest breathed again.
—
Daenerys tilted her head back, pale lashes dusted in snow, eyes narrowing against the blank white sky as though it had personally offended her.
"I want to fly," she declared.
Hadrian, leaning against a tree with arms crossed and hood half-fallen from his shoulders, arched an eyebrow. "That's not exactly a request, your majesty."
She lowered her gaze slowly, silver hair slipping like moonlight across fur-lined shoulders. "It wasn't meant to be."
He huffed a laugh, something low and fond, and pushed off the tree. "You're insufferable when you're bored."
"And yet you adore me."
"Terrible affliction. No cure in sight." He held her gaze for a beat longer, something golden flickering in the depths of his forest-green eyes. Then, quietly—seriously—he asked, "Are you sure?"
Daenerys didn't hesitate. Her voice dropped into something older, something royal. "Yes. I want to remember what it feels like."
She didn't need to say before. He knew.
The wind stilled like it was listening.
Beneath the snow, the earth stirred. Not physically. Not violently. But with reverence. The old magic, the kind older than kingdoms and older still than gods, began to hum softly through the soil, through the runestones Hadrian had laid days ago beneath the roots of sleeping trees and frozen moss. They were awake now—wardstones, ancient and hungry, bound to his will.
He didn't move. Not yet.
His magic did.
Like threads being drawn through a loom, his will brushed through the perimeter. He checked the weave. The silence. The solitude.
No one else.
Only her.
Only him.
When he was sure, he gave the world permission to forget them.
The wards lifted.
A shimmer passed through the air like starlight exhaling.
Then Hadrian opened his eyes.
They were no longer green.
They blazed—a molten, infernal gold, ringed with ember-red, like the last light of a sun as it fell behind a burning horizon.
Daenerys sucked in a breath.
"Oh."
That was all she managed before he changed.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't explosive. It was… inevitable.
His body folded into itself, light pouring from bone and skin and soul. One moment he was a man with too many memories in his shoulders and a blade across his back; the next, he was myth given form.
He was other.
Massive. Winged. Divine.
The dragon that emerged was breathtaking—crimson and gold like fire meeting royalty, each scale gleaming like a jewel under thin sunlight. His wings stretched wide, curling at the edges with veins of sunlight and heat. When he moved, he did so with the grace of a predator and the weight of a legend. His eyes—his eyes—were still Hadrian's.
That was what undid her every time.
Daenerys didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
Then—
She moved.
Like lightning, like instinct.
Her hood flew back as she crossed the snow in long, purposeful strides, then sprinted the last stretch, hair whipping behind her like a banner of silver fire. She leapt in one fluid motion—higher than any human should, faster than any queen had a right to be.
She landed between his wings with practiced ease, her knees hugging the curve of his spine, one hand braced at the base of his neck where heat pulsed like a furnace under thick, golden scales.
"I'll never get used to this," she whispered.
Hadrian rumbled beneath her, the sound rich and ancient, like mountains shifting beneath glaciers.
She leaned down, pressing her cheek against the warm ridge of his spine. "But I like the view."
Another rumble. This one unmistakably amused.
"And stop pretending you didn't miss carrying me," she added. "You love it."
A low, draconic snort puffed smoke from his nostrils.
She smirked.
Then her expression shifted—became something fierce, something proud.
She rose to her feet on his back, wind teasing at her cloak, hair streaming. Her voice cut through the air like a blade.
"Sōvēs, Zaldrīzes."
(Fly, dragon.)
The world exploded.
Snow blasted back in a perfect ring as Hadrian launched upward, wings beating once—twice—catapulting them into the air like they were fleeing gravity itself.
Daenerys didn't scream.
She grinned.
It broke across her face like dawn—wild and unfiltered, as if joy itself had remembered how to be a girl again. She crouched low against his back, legs anchoring, hands gripping spines as they banked hard into a gust of wind.
The forest dropped away beneath them, the trees shrinking to matchsticks, the world flattening into color: green, white, silver. The clouds above parted as if the gods themselves had made room for them.
And Daenerys—Daenerys Stormborn—laughed.
"Is this the part where you show off again?" she shouted into the wind.
Hadrian twisted midair in reply, coiling into a breathtaking barrel roll that sent her hair flying. His wings sliced through the sky like a blade through silk.
"Oh, you bastard," she called, delighted. "You've been waiting to do that one."
He growled, pleased with himself.
"Try that again and I will braid your mane in your sleep," she threatened, kicking lightly at his shoulder.
Another twist. Another roar—one of triumph, not rage. It cracked the sky.
"Show-off!"
Another twist. A dive.
She whooped.
They climbed higher until the air was thin and the sky turned lavender with the encroaching kiss of twilight. Below them, the magical wards shimmered—a dome of secrecy protecting a moment that didn't belong to war or destiny or blood.
Just to them.
Daenerys leaned forward, letting her arms stretch wide. She closed her eyes, smiled like she was seventeen again and untouched by crowns or fire or betrayal.
"I missed this," she murmured, voice softer now.
Hadrian banked into a smooth arc, slower this time, steady. As if he understood. As if he remembered too.
"I missed you," she added.
The wind carried it.
She felt the answer in the way his wings tucked slightly, gliding closer to her body. In the warmth pulsing beneath her. In the breath that shivered out of him like an exhale he'd been holding for years.
"I know," she whispered, eyes still closed. "Me too."
They drifted.
Queen and dragon.
Daenerys tilted her head back, letting the sky claim her.
Hadrian flew—not with power, but with reverence.
And for a little while, there was no Iron Throne.
No ghosts.
No fire to walk through.
Only the wind.
Only the sky.
Only the girl who'd remembered she was a queen.
And the boy who'd always known she was more.
—
Later, back at the cabin…
The fire painted golden light over the walls, casting dancing shadows that curled like smoke across the floorboards. The scent of pine and snow clung to the air, but inside, it was warm—almost indecently so.
Daenerys, all bare feet and silver hair and quiet confidence, lay stretched on the bearskin rug like a goddess trying out mortality for a season. Her lilac eyes sparkled with mischief, framed by lashes that could launch wars. The white silk blouse she wore clung in all the right places, and her long legs were casually entangled in a thick wool blanket that had absolutely no business looking that suggestive.
"Remind me," she purred, "how you expect me to focus when you're half-dressed and dripping water everywhere?"
Hadrian—six-foot-freaking-five of brooding, dragon-touched muscle—stood near the fireplace, rubbing a towel through his hair. His shirt hung open like it had lost the will to fight him, exposing his chest and that smug, boyishly handsome smirk that never failed to make her want to bite him. In multiple ways.
"I wasn't aware I had to dress up for my own cabin," he said dryly, dropping the towel onto the back of a chair. "Though next time I'll put on a tux and tie my wings in a bow if you prefer."
"I wouldn't mind the wings," she murmured, watching him with a cat-like laziness. "They make excellent handles."
Hadrian blinked. "…Handles?"
"Mm-hmm."
Edward groaned from the corner. "I'm still in the room, you know. And the least hormonal among us."
Daenerys didn't even look his way. "Give it time, Cullen. You're what, 17 forever? Wait until you hit your midlife crisis."
"I collect rare medical journals. That was my midlife crisis."
"I rest my case."
Edward rolled his eyes and pretended to go back to his anatomy textbook, though his gaze slid right back to Dany a moment later. "So what's it like? Flying?"
Hadrian cracked his neck and flopped onto the couch, shirt still open, chest still offensively chiseled. "Like everything's quiet for once. No weight. No rules."
"Romantic," Edward muttered.
"Terrifying," Daenerys added, sitting up with a smirk. "Unless you're holding on tight."
"Which you were," Hadrian noted. "Tighter than necessary, might I add."
"I was cold."
"You were screaming."
"I was thrilled. There's a difference."
Hadrian leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "So… you enjoyed it."
Daenerys tilted her head. "The flying? Or the straddling you in midair part?"
He coughed. "Both?"
She smiled like a woman who knew exactly what power she held—and exactly when to wield it. "Let's just say I like riding dragons. Particularly one."
Hadrian froze, blinking.
Edward snorted. "Every damn time."
"Seriously!" Hadrian snapped, glaring at both of them. "Can we go one day—just one bloody day—without innuendo and public sexual tension?"
"No," Daenerys and Edward said in unison.
Then came the sound of tires crunching outside.
The warmth in the cabin vanished in a heartbeat.
Hadrian was on his feet immediately, posture straightening, eyes going sharp. Daenerys rose too, her expression shifting from feline tease to Queen in Exile. Edward was gone in a blur, appearing by the window like a shadow with golden eyes.
The headlights cut through the trees like a sword. The sleet had softened to a whisper, but it made everything feel hushed—expectant.
Carlisle's car.
Hadrian opened the door before the engine had fully cut off. Snow blew in on the wind, but it wasn't the cold that made his breath catch.
It was the smell.
Blood.
Carlisle stepped out, arms full, long coat swirling like a storm behind him.
"Help me," he said. His voice wasn't panicked. It was worse—it was controlled. A man holding the sky up by sheer will.
Daenerys was already pulling the door wide, her eyes locked on the limp woman in Carlisle's arms. Hadrian cleared the couch but Carlisle swept past it.
"Not here," Carlisle said. "Infirmary."
Edward was already ahead of him, lights flicking on down the hallway. The room transformed instantly—sterile, clean, ready. If Edward hadn't been a doctor, he'd have made one hell of a general.
Hadrian trailed behind, something knotting in his chest.
The woman—no, girl—in Carlisle's arms looked like a ghost someone forgot to bury. Her hair was brown and soaked, her hospital gown stained, clinging like seaweed to fragile limbs. Her skin was ashen, mottled with bruises, her wrists—
Gods.
Her wrists.
Carlisle lay her on the bed, hands already working to check her vitals. Daenerys hovered, whispering something soft and wordless as she brushed a damp curl from the girl's brow.
Hadrian swallowed. "Who is she?"
"Esme." Carlisle's voice cracked around the name. "Esme Evenson. Born Platt."
Daenerys stilled, eyes widening.
"She attempted suicide," Carlisle continued, each word like stone. "Jumped from a cliff after losing her baby. Her husband, Charles, was… abusive. The hospital declared her dead. They didn't care. Her body was going to be buried in an unmarked grave by morning."
"And you stopped that," Edward said, voice reverent.
"I… couldn't let it happen." Carlisle looked up, his jaw clenched. "Her heart's still beating. Barely."
Edward pressed his fingers to her wrist. "Faint… but there."
"She's dying," Carlisle said. "Human medicine can't save her."
"You want to turn her," Hadrian said, though it wasn't a question.
Carlisle nodded once. "I don't want to. But I have to."
"She deserves a chance," Edward said softly.
"She deserves a choice," Daenerys murmured.
"She won't wake if we wait," Carlisle whispered. "Not in time."
Silence stretched.
Daenerys moved to sit beside the bed, taking Esme's hand in hers. "If it were me… if someone had come for me in my darkest hour—I would've wanted to live. Even like this. Especially like this."
Hadrian exhaled slowly, shoulders heavy with grief that wasn't his. Then he nodded.
"Then do it," he said. "But let it be mercy, not pity. Let her wake knowing someone chose to care."
Carlisle looked at him with something like relief.
And then he bit.
Not with savagery—but with reverence. Like he was baptizing her in pain so she could be reborn in power.
Edward stood guard.
Daenerys whispered stories from another world, her voice the last thing Esme heard as her heart slowed to silence.
And Hadrian?
Hadrian watched.
Not as a dragon.
Not as a sorcerer.
But as a man.
One who knew what it meant to be broken…
…and still want to rise.
—
Three Hours Later
The fire had burned low to embers—soft copper against the dark. Its heat touched nothing but memory. The cabin was cloaked in silence, sacred and heavy, broken only by the faintest crackle of charred wood and the breathing of immortals who had no need to breathe.
The air smelled of scorched silk, iron, lavender ash, and something older. Something waking.
Carlisle sat unmoving at the edge of the bed, an alabaster sentinel in shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. His jaw was taut, lips a tight line, the blood at his cuffs dried into dark shadows against the white. But his hands—his impossible, infallible hands—remained still. Resolute. A surgeon's grace tempered by centuries of sorrow.
Esme lay cocooned in linen and soft blue, skin nearly translucent. If not for the faint flush now rising beneath the surface—like moonlight turning to dawn—she could've been a statue. But every now and then a tremor danced along her fingers, and the smallest breath hitched her ribs.
A war was being fought beneath her skin.
And she was winning.
—
Daenerys knelt beside the bed, her silver braid slipping loose down one shoulder like a coiled comet. She'd traded her blouse for a worn grey tunic—Carlisle's, judging by the fit—which swallowed her delicate frame in soft wool and ghosted spice. She smelled like fire and embers and something bright about to break. One hand brushed gently through Esme's curls. The other cradled a flame—soft lilac and slow-burning.
"She's burning it off," Dany murmured, eyes fixed on the shifting veins in Esme's arms. "Pain, shame, heartbreak. Every scar. She's making it fuel."
Hadrian leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, wand tapping absently against his thigh. "You sound impressed."
"I am impressed," Daenerys said. "Most women who've survived men like her husband—they die slow. Even after they live. But Esme…" Her voice went softer. "She's not dying. She's becoming."
"You say that like you've been there," Edward said from the shadows, his voice a blade of moonlight behind them.
Daenerys didn't look up. "I've been burned alive. Twice. I know the sound a woman makes when she chooses to rise."
Hadrian's eyes met hers across the room. She held his gaze longer than necessary.
"I wasn't talking about the fire," he said softly.
The corner of her mouth curved. "Neither was I."
—
Edward lingered near the window, the night wind teasing the edges of his torn shirt. He'd fed—enough to think, not enough to forget. His eyes were clearer, though the haunted edge remained. Always did. He watched the trees like they might judge him.
"She'll wake screaming," he said finally. "They always do. You'll think the sound will shatter the windows."
"She won't be alone when she does," Daenerys said.
"I know."
There was a quiet acceptance in Edward's tone now, a faint kinship that hadn't been there before. Maybe watching someone else fight their demons reminded him he didn't have to drown in his own.
Hadrian pushed off the wall with a groan. "Right. Wards."
He rolled his neck, joints cracking like distant thunder, and strode toward the door. A flick of his wand. A ripple of golden light spun out like silk, weaving itself through the frame. He whispered something under his breath—Latin laced with Old English and something older still.
Symbols flared like branded starlight before vanishing.
He turned to the others. "We're sealed in. Nothing gets out unless we let it."
Edward lifted an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"I've dated worse things than newborns," Hadrian deadpanned. "At least this one won't ghost me."
"Bold of you to assume she won't."
Daenerys snorted, covering her grin with her hand.
Hadrian caught it. "I heard that."
"You were meant to," she said, settling more comfortably on the edge of the bed. "Keep your ego from floating off."
"It floats because it's buoyed by facts."
"Delusion. It's called delusion."
He smirked. "You say that now. But wait till you see me in armor."
"Darling," Dany said, biting her lip, "if you wore that ridiculous armor you made shirtless again, the poor newborn might mistake you for her god."
Hadrian blinked. "You think I look like a god?"
"I think you want to hear me say it."
"I do."
"Well," she purred, smile slow and wicked, "earn it."
Edward groaned. "This is why I hunt alone."
—
Carlisle hadn't moved. His hands were resting gently near Esme's ankle, like anchoring her to something real. His voice, when it came, was quiet. Frayed.
"She fell from the cliff. Her back snapped. Her skull cracked on the rocks. She was still conscious. Just barely. If I'd been five minutes later…"
"You weren't," Hadrian said.
"She was dying."
"You saved her," Daenerys said, voice warmer now. "She chose to live. You gave her the chance. That's all any of us get."
Carlisle lifted his eyes slowly. The storm in them was quieter now. Not gone—but no longer drowning him.
"She's… kind. Strong." His lips twitched like he wasn't used to hope. "She deserves more time. I wasn't sure she'd want it."
Edward answered this time. "She survived Charles Evenson. She wants it."
No one argued.
—
Before Dawn
They didn't sleep. Not really.
Edward sat on the roof like a sentinel, tracking every sound the forest made.
Daenerys stayed at the bed, reading aloud in Valyrian from a thin book of poems—sacred things, with words like flame and wings and sorrow turned to strength.
Hadrian carved obsidian with his wand, threading runes into its surface. A pendant—small, powerful. His blood bound it. His magic infused it. A tether, for the thirst.
Carlisle hadn't moved from the foot of the bed.
The fire cracked once. The embers hissed.
Outside, the wind screamed.
Inside, something… stopped.
Esme's heart.
And then—
A breath.
A gasp.
Like drowning lungs finding air.
Her fingers flexed, too fast. Her lips parted, a half-sob, half-snarl.
Her eyes opened—
And the world tilted.
They were Blood Red.
Lilac fire sparked in Daenerys's palm.
Hadrian stood. One hand rose. The other held the pendant.
Carlisle leaned in, his voice barely a whisper. "Esme?"
She looked at him. At all of them.
And then—she smiled.
A slow, fractured thing.
But it was real.
And it was dangerous.
"Welcome back," Hadrian murmured.
Daenerys grinned, eyes alight with mischief and relief. "Burn the world if you must, sweet girl," she said. "Just start with the bastards."
Esme's voice—when it came—was silk and steel.
"Gladly."
---
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