The days following Jacaerys's return from the North were a calculated dance of preparation. To the outside observer, the Prince was a whirlwind of activity—overseeing the training of the new recruits, inspecting the grain stores, and spending hours in the library with the Maesters. But Jace was not merely working; he was weaving.
His Supernatural Senses allowed him to operate on a level no one else could perceive. He could feel the tension in the air before a storm arrived, and he could hear the hushed conversations of the kitchen staff from across the courtyard. He used this to identify three spies sent by Larys Strong, men who thought they were invisible. Jace didn't execute them. Instead, he cornered them individually in the dark corners of the castle.
With a touch, he didn't just enhance them; he rewrote their loyalties. Using a refined version of his Skill Sharing, he pushed their cognitive abilities to Peak Human levels, making them master infiltrators. But he added the silent constraint: they could never speak a word of Jace's secrets, and their every waking thought was now dedicated to his mother's victory. He sent them back to King's Landing as double agents, his eyes and ears in the heart of the Green council.
The training yard became Jace's primary theater. He took his younger brothers, Joffrey and the little Aegon and Viserys, under his wing. He was careful not to show his Divine Level mastery all at once. He moved with the grace of a prodigy, but one who struggled and sweated like everyone else.
"Focus on the balance, Joff," Jace said, adjusting his brother's stance. As he touched Joffrey's shoulder, he felt the familiar hum of his power. He began the slow process of enhancing his brothers' physical potential. He wasn't giving them supernatural powers, but he was ensuring that their growth would be perfect, their reflexes unmatched, and their bones as dense as iron.
No one noticed the change immediately. They only saw a group of brothers training harder than any Targaryens in history.
Rhaenyra, however, noticed everything. The enhancement Jace had provided her had sharpened her intuition. She watched from the high gallery as Jace moved among the men. She saw the way the guards looked at him—not just with respect, but with a burgeoning, cult-like devotion. She saw the way her other children flourished under his touch.
That evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sea in shades of blood and gold, Jace found Rhaenyra in the drum tower. She was looking at a map of the Reach, her brow furrowed.
"You are doing more than training them, aren't you?" she asked without turning around.
Jace stepped into the room, his boots silent on the stone. "I am ensuring they survive, Mother. The Greens have Vhagar. They have the wealth of Oldtown. We have only our dragons and our blood. I am making that blood count for more."
He came to stand behind her, his presence filling the small room. The air grew heavy with the familiar, intoxicating scent of dragon-musk and jasmine. Rhaenyra leaned back into his chest, closing her eyes.
"Sometimes I look at you and I feel... small," she whispered. "As if you are a force of nature I cannot hope to command."
"You don't need to command me," Jace murmured, his hands sliding around her waist to rest on her stomach. "I am the extension of your will. Everything I do, every life I shape, is for you."
His hands began to move, his Skill Mastery making every contact a trigger for a deeper, more intense sensation. He began to unlace her gown, his Supernatural Senses guiding him to the exact rhythm of her breathing.
The intimacy that followed was a slow, deliberate exploration. Jace was no longer just a lover; he was a sculptor, and Rhaenyra was his masterpiece. The smut was intense, a detailed choreography of passion that lasted until the stars were high. He used his supernatural stamina to keep her on the edge of ecstasy for hours, his mastery of the human form allowing him to evoke responses that felt like they were peeling back the layers of her soul.
In the quiet aftermath, Rhaenyra looked at him, her eyes bright and clear. "You said our children would be the purest. Do you truly believe that?"
Jace kissed the hollow of her throat. "I know it. The blood in me is not just Targaryen anymore. it is something older, something divine. And when we have a child, it will be the first of a new race. A race that will rule for ten thousand years."
Rhaenyra shivered, not from cold, but from the sheer scale of his ambition. She felt the power humming within her own body, the peak-human health Jace had gifted her making her feel as though she could fly without a dragon.
"And what of the war?" she asked.
"The war is a forge," Jace replied, his voice cold and certain. "It will burn away the weak. It will destroy the old laws. And in the end, there will only be us."
He knew that within a few days, the formal declaration of war would come. He knew that Luke would soon have to fly to Storm's End. But this time, Jace was ready. He had already begun the process of enhancing Arrax, Luke's dragon, in secret. The small dragon was growing faster, its scales hardening, its fire becoming hotter.
Jace stood up, pulling a cloak over his shoulders. "I must go to the Dragonmont. Vormax is restless. He senses the blood in the wind."
"Be careful, my King," Rhaenyra said, her voice filled with a fierce, possessive love.
Jace smiled, a flash of violet in the dark. "Careful is for those who can be hurt, Mother."
He vanished into the shadows, leaving Rhaenyra to contemplate the map of a kingdom that was about to be remade in their image.