I will. [ Confessed on a sigh, and Rhaenyra doesn't think she can be all that faulted — or subjected to potential jesting — for how honest the statement is. Yet the responsibilities that await him as husband are not just part of his duty as the prince and future king, and they are not merely a part of how his betrothal to Baela will further strengthen their claim. They are a reminder that he is no longer a child with the inclination to hide behind his mother's skirts; he is her firstborn, and a young man who has already been tested by the threat of war.

In the same instant, now that she can no longer embrace Luke in this way, and now that her other children have been sent far from her, far from any danger, her arms ache to hold any of them at all. She doesn't expect that Jace will move to hold her in return, the weight of his arm settled around her frame further proof of his maturing in that regard — and after a moment, she curves into him instead, tipping her head to rest it against his shoulder before she draws the blanket closed around both of them. ]

I know. [ It is a longing she herself has, and one that may not even need to be stated aloud when he can surely hear it in her words. ] There are times when I close my eyes and convince myself that I can still hear the dragons beneath our feet. Hear the sounds they make that would so often soothe me to sleep each night.