The Candle That Would Not Burn

The Great Hall of Dragonstone was a cavern of whispered conspiracies. Torches guttered in the salt-scoured air, casting long shadows that crawled across the stone like the fingers of the dead. Jacaerys Velaryon sat at the high table, his back straight as a sword, his hands folded in his lap. He had not touched the roasted swan or the sugared plums or the wine. Across from him, separated by a chasm of silver platters and fluted goblets, Helaena Targaryen had done the same. Her eyes were fixed on the candles. He had watched her all evening—not as a spy, though many at court would have called it that, but as a man trying to read a prophecy written in a tongue he did not know. Helaena was a dreamer, they said. She saw what would be. And what she saw now, apparently, was the soft drip of wax onto the oak table. “The third one,” she said, her voice low and matter-of-fact, as if she were commenting on the weather. “The one with the crooked wick. It will go out before the first course is cleared.” Jace blinked. The servants were still bringing in the second remove—a sea bass glazed with honey and saffron. The first course had been cleared a quarter-hour ago. He glanced at the crooked candle; it flickered but held steady. “You mean the first course,” he said, to fill the silence. Helaena tilted her head, her lilac eyes meeting his for the first time that night. “No. The first course is already gone. The third candle—it will not see the fish finished.” He found himself wanting to test her. To argue. But her certainty was quiet and absolute, like the tide. So he said nothing. He watched the candle. The flame danced, bent sideways, straightened, and died with a faint hiss. A breath of smoke curled upward. No one else noticed. Jace felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. “You see the future,” he said, not a question. “I see what happens,” she replied, and her gaze drifted back to the flickering remnants. “Sometimes it is simple. Sometimes it is a war you already know is coming, but cannot stop.” Her words hung in the air like incense. Jace thought of his mother, Queen Rhaenyra, who had wept when King Viserys announced this betrothal. He thought of Daemon, whose hand had inched toward Dark Sister. And he thought of Aegon, Helaena’s own brother, who had laughed when told he would sit beside his sister’s intended at the feast. The Greens and the Blacks had been forced into this dance by a dying king’s decree—a marriage meant to bind the warring factions before the first dragon took flight in anger. “Do you hate me?” Jace asked, surprising himself. Helaena’s fingers brushed the rim of her untouched goblet. “No. Hate is for people who have not yet seen the end. I have seen it. It does not matter who burns what candle first—only that we burn together, or we do not burn at all.” He did not understand her then. But he understood the weight of her eyes when she finally looked at him fully. She was not a prize. She was a gate, and he had just walked through. “Then let us not burn separately,” he said, the words rough in his throat. A faint smile touched her lips—the first he had seen, as fragile as a spider’s thread. “The second candle,” she said softly, nodding toward the one beside the dead wick. “That one will last until dawn. Some things endure longer than we expect.” Jace lifted his goblet at last and drank. He did not taste the wine. He only tasted the future.