25 year old ‼🔞‼ 》Shifter《 ☆Ravenclaw☆ ⚜ Requests ‼ Closed‼ ⚜
⚜ Asks - Closed⚜
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Yandere / Obsessive / Dark / Themes alert. The photos I use (except for some photos
I designed myself) do not belong to me.
Owned by all credit holders.
🔶️🔴 🔶️Minors please do not interact as this is an 18+ blog.🔶️🔴🔶️
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🔴 Please make sure that there is a time frame that I accept requests before sending them. I feel happy when you send me requests, but when you send me requests while my requests are closed, I get overwhelmed and stressed. You can send me your ideas and dreams while my requests are closed. You can chat with me.🔴
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🔷️I write in yandere and normal genres. I try to answer your request as quickly as I can. But you should know that sometimes I reply late. I write for the characters in the list. But feel free to write requests for characters that are not on the list. As long as there is information about the character you want, I will write your request. When writing requests, please make sure you write them descriptively. Be sure to use punctuation marks when writing your request.🔷️
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It's jarring when a companion's voice doesn't fit her face. SweetDream lets you tune both during creation, so the voice she calls you with actually suits the person you designed. That harmony is easy to overlook and impossible to unhear once it's right.
It's another sign of the platform's quality. Everything is meant to fit together, looks, personality, voice, calls, into one coherent companion. On sweetdream.ai your AI girlfriend feels like a single person, not a pile of features.
Yandere!Orion and Yandere!Cygnus agreed to share Reader. Unfortunately, that led to Reader giving birth to the Black sisters (Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Andromeda) and the Black brothers (Sirius and Regulus).
So now Orion and Cygnus constantly argue over whose children’s achievements are greater and which bloodline is superior.
Hi darling. I love writing about these two men 😍🥰❤️ Thank you for your request. I hope you like it. ✨️
》Scenario《
You were actually a young woman with a normal life. Until the Black men chose to enter your life. At first, it was just friendship and casual dating. Then it evolved into a multiple-person relationship with both of them. The rivalry between these two men quickly made you an expert at ignoring them. They competed so much in terms of intelligence, strength, or what they offered you. To avoid being a referee, you sometimes learned to secretly retreat to your room when things got heated. Frankly, you were content with them spoiling you and adoring you. You had a life that could be considered normal as long as the competition wasn't involved. Of course, the competition didn't disappear after the children were born. Now there was the rivalry between the two men and their children. Which child will walk first? Which child will talk first? Which child will achieve something first? Which child is more talented? And countless more competitive questions that will make you stop counting. When things get heated, you ignore both men, gather your children in your bedroom, and spend quality time together. Both men are smart enough not to try to interrupt your time with mothers and children. Or not brave enough to try. And you're so glad it's that way.
Hii! If your taking requests could you do a yandere stark family to Ned’s new wife after catelyn died? like all the children (including Jon and Theon) are like obsessed with the motherly love that comes from her and the older kids don’t even mind that she is closer in age to them than she is to her father. I imagine that ned would love this so much that he would ensure that his wife would be pregnant every chance he could. Like it’s common knowledge that once their newest kid hits 3 months that soon she will be prego again
Emh... I... Well. Well. This started as a funny cute request but I think I had too much fun... I wasn't supposed to write this much but here we are lmfaooo Anon I know you probably hoped for something completely different but here we are!
⋆°｡⋆♡ TW/CW: DARK CONTENT?, SMUT, 18+ (MINORS/AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DON’T INTERACT), Bad English, AFAB Reader (Birth, no gender words if i can remember, Smut as in female genitalia), Age Gap, Yandere/Dark Stark Family, Mention of Death, Grief, Toxic Relationship, Also Toxic Father?, No use of Y/N, Not specific House for reader, Reader has one characteristic which is motherly, The ages are mostly the show ones than the book, Reader age is not specified (I only say that she's older than robb), let me know if I need to add more TW/Tags ♡ My blog contains dark content, be careful when interacting/following! Please if you like my work don't forget to reblog/interact with me♡
°˖➴ Characters: Mostly Ned Stark but also all the kids (including Theon and Jon ofc)
Catelyn's death was unexpected and devastating for all the people in the North. She was a loved and respected Lady Stark by everyone who ever met her, with the exclusion of Jon, perhaps. But even the boy was devastated for her passing, regardless of what they thought of each other, they were family. Catelyn was the closest thing to a mother he had, and now? Gone.
And seeing his siblings being devastated was the worst, they all showed in different ways; like Robb who did not shear a tear in front of no one and hugged his youngest siblings, Rickon and Bran who are far too young to be left without a mother and don't fully understand what's happening at first, as close and strong as he could. He considered himself too old to cry or to be hugged in pity and comfort, but he still was just a boy who lost his mother far too soon. Even he had to be comforted by his father, Ned Stark, who held the boy like he did when he was small enough to be picked up with ease. The girls, Sansa and Arya, who usually would never get along and bicker all the time, were closer without insulting each other for once. At least, after the initial shock where they ignored each other.
And the Warden of the North himself, Ned, was too full of grief and sorrow he did not think of remarrying ever again. Catelyn was his truelove, and his heart died alongside her that horrible day. During the first months after her passing no one dared to say anything, not wanting to offend Lord Stark with marriage proposal when clearly he's still suffering his late wife. But time passes and people start talking, gossiping, about the possibility of Ned Stark remarrying. He is still capable of having children, and maybe he will marry someone for political reasons.
The first one who hears it's, unfortunately, Sansa. One of her friends directly asks her about what is lord stark thinking, because they have an older sister who is of age. Obviously the poor girl goes to her father crying and asking if it's true. If he's going to remarry already when her mother body is still intact, if she's going to have another woman in her house that she has to call mother. Part of her knows that it's only normal for a lord like her father to remarry, but it's a hard thing to swallow. Ned, on the other hand, kept himself busy with work so he had no idea that this rumour was going around in the first place. He calms Sansa down and reassure her that everything is going to be fine, to not worry.
After Ned accompanies his daughter to her room, he immediately goes to talk to his loyalest men about this matter. He isn't sure what to think when they do say that getting remarried might be a good idea, since the kids are still young and in a need of a mother figure stable than someone working for them, and a good way to make new allies and secure the North even more. Part of him is angry and unwilling, he is a devoted man to his late wife and will not take another wife just for politics and to warm his bed. The other part of him does see his poor children not knowing what to do without their mother, even Jon and Theon.
That's where you came from. Words of your beauty and personality comes to the ear of Maester Luwin who immediately tries to suggest a meeting with your parents to Ned, your family did send a letter with condolences and grievances to the inability to come to the funeral since your parents knew the couple. Your father fought with Ned as an heir to his house against the Tagaryens, while your mother was a close friend to Catelyn. Ned doesn't quite remember their faces, perhaps too many moon cycles passed, nor did he know they have got married and had children. He decided to let your parents come; both as a way to not hear Maester Luwin, both as to remember the gold time and to let a good friend of his late wife, grieve her as she should. Ned didn't think too much about it in the first place.
You are older than Robb, as your father is also much older than Lord Ned Stark, and is in second marriage with your stepmother. Your mother died when you were too young to remember, and you grew up with your stepmother as the only mother figure you ever knew. So, while you knew the real reason as to why you were actually going to Winterfell, you still couldn't help but feel sorry and empathy for the kids even if your situation is completely different. And you saw how the sudden departure of Lady Catelyn actually hurt your mother, and being unable to be there for the funeral broke her even more. So you are glad that at least she's able to properly mourn her friend.
You were also glad that your father attention wasn't on you this time. Sure, he still hoped that maybe he might marry you off to Robb, but his youngest children were closer in age to Lord Stark's so he wanted to stipulate some type of pact. A betrothal. Being the oldest child still being unmarried is somewhat a shame, but you were unlucky in your search for a spouse as for now. You knew that your father had already sent letters to some lords that you hardly ever heard, and you will go back to meeting young men that are to become lords pretty soon. There is nothing you hated more, but it's not like you can reject it so you will try to enjoy your little "vacation" to Winterfell.
And when you arrive at Winterfell it's sure a sight as you never been this far in the north, it has it's own beauty compared to other places you have seen. Ned Stark and his oldest son, Robb, wait for you to come out to your carriage to greet you. Robb is a good-looking man, his feature look more like a Tully than a Stark, but the way he presents himself, his expression, his stance, it's clearly Stark's. And talking about Lord Stark... You understand where Robb, and his kids, also take half of their beauty from. He's clearly a man of the north; polite, honest, grump and cold looking, but there is some softness in his eyes that you happen to catch up. Ned is probably far from what your friends hope for a husband, but maybe you are different. He seems like he would treat you with respect and care, which is something very rare nowdays.
Not that you are going to marry him anyway. So you try to not think about it, to ignore it, and take care of your younger siblings.
But you didn't notice how father and son looked at each other after they greet you, kissing your hand and introducing themselves, Maester Ludwig wasn't joking or exaggerating his words; you were a beauty who were very motherly, and it was clear by the way your siblings looked at you, searched for your comfort, and followed you. Part of Ned was already convinced to marry you, especially after looking at Robb who liked already as well, but the other part told him no. You were younger, probably with a betrothed already, and he still wasn't over Catelyn death.
However, the more you stay in Winterfell, the more everyone is smitten with you. Even with Jon and Theon, who usually are a bit colder and far from other family members, it only takes them a while to fully open up to you easily. It's worse when all his most trusted man insist on marrying you as well, that's good for the kids; all of them are much happier now, and they all like so much. They would be so so sad if you had to leave to go back home, marrying someone else. Plus you are young, you might be able to give him even more kids. Poor Ned tries to deny it every time, he's fine being a widower, and his kids are going to be fine too when time passes. Little by little his resolution start to disappear, and his words come out more insecure and unsure, he lets silence linger instead of responding immediately. His breaking point is when all of his children plot against him and basically start begging him to marry you: they will talk about how life is so much better with you around, how everyone is happy, and if he's not going to do it maaybe Robb will. Robb likes you too, no? So if Ned isn't willing...
In the end, he asks your father your hand in marriage. He's overjoyed, and you are... Okay with it. The Stark kids can be a little bit weird, they are too obsessed with you for your liking, but you tell yourself that they have lost their mother recently, it's only fair that they want to spend so much with you. Maybe something in you reminds them of Cat? Although, the oldest sons do look at you in a completely different way... But you try to ignore it most of the time. Ned Stark is also a fine husband you know for sure, except for his bastard Jon, he was always faithful to his first wife and clearly loved her. So it could be worst you think, at least with Ned you have some sort of chemistry and will probably be too busy with his duties to actually be with you.
The wedding preparation will take awhile, since your father insisted for a marriage in honour of your religion, the new gods, so that the whole family can celebrate and later have a marriage in of the old gods, that the Stark believe in. Ned accepted of course, and you learn that in his first marriage everything was made fast due to the rebellion. Personally, you are fine with whatever, but Ned does ask about what you want and your opinion on many things, which is nice. In the end, your marriage day is a beautiful one as you meet people you don't know, dressed in beautiful clothes and accessories that make you feel like royalty, and watch as your siblings and the Stark child have the fun of their life and the ceremony is one you know well. You are curious about the ceremony in honour of the old gods, as you knew barely nothing of it. But the ceremony will be not right after your family leaves, and the wedding night approaches...
Right. The wedding night. You forgot. And know you feel sick to your stomach noticing how the day is slowly fading away and people giving again their congratulations before going back home...
Honestly, you shouldn't worry too much since this is Lord Stark, your husband now, second wedding and he had many children. But still, you are scared. You have heard many things about the wedding night, about sex, from your married friends and mother; it can be pleasureble, but the first time always hurts, and most of men care only about putting their seed inside to have a babe. Nothing else. You have also heard about men who actually care about their spouse and how sex can be pleasure for both, so you aren't sure what to think. What kind of men is Ned Stark in the sheets?
The day of the marriage you had to prepare yourself with baths, oils, hair accessories, preparing your hair... It's very tiring. Some old ladies took pity in you and try to explain what will happen on the wedding night, and that they don't believe that Lord Stark is going to mistreat you as a way to comfort you. Part of you does feel better, but the other part can't but be stressed. And you learn that Ned is a very careful, soft, and attentive man; must be all those years of a loving marriage with Catelyn. But you can somewhat tell he's holding back, like he wants to jump on you and makes you his, but he's making sure you are prepared first with his fingers, and you have never felt an ecstasy like this ever. The way his fingers feel you up... The way he looks at you asking how does it feel, how wet you are... You are burning. Sevens if you are burning. You want more, you want this to never stop. And Ned is more than happy to oblige and to go faster, deeper, however you like until you are coming on his fingers, soaking them in your fluids. And even then Ned doesn't give you right away his cock but instead just slowly humping it between your puffy and sticky lips, and he takes steady breathes as if grounding himself. Like just being sandwiched between your lips is already driving him insane and he doesn't want to pounce you immediately like a beast. But sevens if you want him to do so.
But poor Ned is trying. Trying to not immediately push his too big cock inside of your virgin pussy and completely destroy you. To breed you until you are for sure already pregnant, too sore for any type of movement but so full you feel complete. "Be gentle, be gentle, be gentle" he keeps repeating in his head while slowly pushing his cock inside of you, watching you squirm and take it so good... Holding into him and eyes half closed with pretty tears ready to fall down, sweet moans coming out your mouth. Ned goes slow and deep first, trying to get used to all of this until he gets your approval to move faster, harder. And while he's tired, he will at least give you one more round or two if he manages. Expect to feel sore for days and very tired in the morning!
And you do feel sore the next morning. Sore, tired, hurting a little bit but you assume it was normal. The rest of the day passes quickly and the same goes for the rest of the week.
Until you start to wake up sick. And you stay sick for the entire day, and the day after, and the day after that… Ned decided to call the maester, but he's already sure of what is happening to you. Isn’t too soon though? Too fast? You didn’t do it only one time at the wedding night sure, but… Isn’t that too soon?
The maester does confirm his “worry”. You are pregnant. And everything seems healthy as well as you are young, but since it’s your first babe it’s better to be careful and keep you under watch for anything that happens, but that’s more Ned command than the maester. A command that all of his children take to heart; Sansa, who is now reaching maidenhood, asks you many questions about everything her mind comes out with, while Arya asks you to watch her doing something she’s not supposed to do or asks why you can’t do many things now, and how does it makes you feel, Rickon is too young to understand what’s fully happening so you try to explain to him in simple terms and take care of him, while Bran often is there wanting attention (and an excuse to escape his lessons). The older boys are weirder; Jon definitely stalks you, making sure you are okay and trying his hardest to not interact too much with you, but seeing Robb and Theon being so carefree with you, Theon is even touching you without care! It makes him so angry.
Fortunately for you, the pregnancy and birth both go well. Your child and you are very healthy and safe, so no one needs to worry no longer. Because, yes, everyone was worried sick: Ned requested to be there for the birth, holding your hand, and while his kids are forced to way behind the door. Neither you or Ned wanted them there, no matter how much they beg and cry to be let in.
But it’s only the first of many pregnancy for you. You do catch Ned staring at some his little babies, sometimes with love, other times with… Question, in his eyes. You do wonder why since they all look like him more than you, or more like his kids from his first wife but without the Tully classic characteristic…
This work belongs to @/sapphireis, do not repost, translate, copy, rewrite, use for AI, or share on tiktok without my permission. Reblogs/interaction are appreciated and encouraged♡
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ
・The Cannibal was a dragon not many have considered riding.
・Except you...
・Men have tried to bond with The Cannibal and every single one have died.
・However, you believed it was your destiny to bond with the fearsome beast.
・It was an even greater challenge as he was a wild dragon. Not been socialised. Never been around other dragons, not been touched by strangers; all he knew was survival.
・So when you did bond with The Cannibal, you didn't fly him back home to the dragonpit.
・You let him stay where his own home was, and started teaching him Valyrian there.
・You brought him food; so he didn't have to hunt or attack any other dragon.
・It was as if you were giving your dragon a glow-up.
・Teaching him anew felt like it was taking an eternity. But after 8 months of training he was changed for the better.
・He's incredibly large - as big or slightly bigger than Vermithor, with an even more fiery temper.
・His scales are as black as the night, with green eyes that mirror his fire.
・He gets grumpy quite quickly. And sometimes it's easier to leave him be.
・Your bond feels like jumping from a high place; excitement, a rush of adrenaline.
・When you bonded, one of the first influences he had on you, was your ambition, your want for power... it increased. Not by a large amount, but by a distinuishing one.
𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔
Big Scary x Small Intimidating
Snarky Power Couple That Can, And Probably Will, Destroy You
"We’re Gonna Rule The World Together"
𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆
"Watch your tone." (You) x "Or what?" (Cannibal)
Soft For Exactly One Person (Cannibal) x Is That One Person (You)
⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ
𝐺𝘩𝑜𝑠𝑡
ISTP
・Always there protecting you, even if you cannot see him.
・Obeys without question
・Well, he is well-trained because you took the time to do so.
・Ghost is always quiet, no matter where he is. He ends up scaring people because of it.
・Sleeps at the foot of your bed. He is the first to react when there's the slightest of movement, or sound.
・Doesn't let you go anywhere alone.
・Doesn't trust anyone, besides you.
𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟
ISFJ
・An intelligent and wise guardian, who always looks over you.
・You are bonded because you needed Summer's calm, loyal steadiness.
・She's not as ferocious as the others; her temper is stable.
・But do not take that as weakness.
・Summer boosts your confidence, making your bond a strong one.
・You can feel her through the bond. It has a physical feeling - like a warm pour of tea between two cold hands.
𝑁𝑦𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎
ENTJ
・When you first bonded with her, you felt a surge of confidence...No, of pure power.
・You never saw yourself as someone who was powerful, but Nymeria made you feel that way.
・She grew larger and larger everyday; her ferocity grew as well. It became unmatched.
・Your bond meant you both have a warrior's spirit. Wild, and rebellious.
・No one could scare either of you
・She sleeps on the ground, right next to your bed. So, no one can get to you before getting to her first.
𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑦𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑
ISTJ
・Is a soldier, but secretly loves to play. That's what happens when the bond is in place. Both personalities mix.
・That's what your bond is - strong, playful, protective, fun.
・Checks anyone who wants to be close to you i.e., smells them, makes you tell them to undo their pockets (yes he tells you, that's how strong the bond is).
・Sleeps in front of your door, so no one can get in.
・Understands you more than anyone else. And you completely and utterly believe that.
𝑆𝘩𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑦𝑑𝑜𝑔
ISTP
・He is unruly, aggressive to those who come too close, and can be incredibly wild.
・You know the difference between his growls. They range from a warning, to curiosity, to aggression.
・His eyes are like glowing emeralds. Through the bond, sometimes you are able to see what he is seeing.
・Bares his teeth, snarls, and snaps at anyone who gets too close to you.
・You have started to train him, since you two were bonded later on.
・He can be quite volatile at times, but you know he would never hurt you.
𝐿𝑎𝑑𝑦
ESFP
・Gentle and graceful, she lives up to her name.
・The bond between the two of you means she comes with you absolutely everywhere you go. Because she is a Lady.
・And a Lady is permitted everywhere as long as she has manners (which of course she does).
・You have a bond like two best friends.
・One that means you watch each other's backs and keeps the enemies at bay.
・She sleeps in bed with you. Tucked in like the princess she is, by the morning, you're half off the bed while Lady is sitting pretty in the middle.
May I request a Yandere Orion, who, after meeting Reader at a party, got rid of Walburga and kidnapped Reader—forcing her to play the role of his wife and the mother of Regulus and Sirius?
Hello darling. I hope you like it. I love writing for this man. ❤️
》Scenario《
Orion Black, to be honest, had never been a man who believed in love. As the heir to a pureblood family, he had married a pureblood and had two sons. The truth is, he couldn't really say he loved or desired Walburga. Years ago, he had married his cousin at his family's behest. They were indifferent and uninterested in each other. He had left all the authority regarding raising the children in Walburga's hands. However, Orion's life changed completely overnight. The pureblood witch at the pureblood ball he attended stole his heart with a single glance. At first, Orion wanted to convince himself that it was just a fleeting infatuation. Unfortunately, he hadn't succeeded in that. So he devised a plan to include this woman in his life forever. Initially, he planned to get rid of Walburga. But by doing it stealthily, he managed to avoid raising any suspicion. Within a few weeks, Walburga fell ill and passed away. To avoid suspicion, Orion played the role of a grieving widow for a few months before moving on to the second part of his plan. He tried to win the reader's heart with letters and gifts. Since things weren't progressing as quickly as he'd hoped, one evening Orion kidnapped the reader and brought her to 12 Grimauld Place. The poor reader, terrified and panicked, tried to understand what was happening. Orion entered the sitting room with Sirius and Regulus. Both children looked frightened and anxious. Orion explained to the children that the reader was now their new mother and that they would soon be married. Orion used the children to manipulate the reader's empathy, threatening her with the loss of her family, friends, and everything she held dear if she tried to escape. The reader, for the sake of the two frightened children and the people she loved, accepted Orion Black's marriage proposal. In other words, she chose the golden cage.
⤷ female, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
a/n: thank you for the request! I absolutely loved it! Let me know if you want a part two or maybe focus on one couple in particular. @lilvampirina.
18+
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ
𝑆𝐸𝑅 𝐷𝑈𝑁𝐶𝐴𝑁
・It took him a while to understand you were a witch, even though you were outright about it.
・He was slow to accept. Even though he loved you fiercely, you were highly intimidating.
・You would heal him and Egg (who already knew and understood the lengths of your power).
・Egg asks you questions daily, and you're happy to answer. It's almost like an inside joke between the two of you.
・You keep everyone safe at night with your enchantments. No one can see the camp, especially when you three need to bathe.
・Sometimes you scare Dunk with the spells you do; blood work for example. The use of your blood makes him upset. He doesn't want to see you hurt in anyway possible.
・But he's learning that magic isn't what it seems. It's a pure mystery to him.
・You wear black charcoal around your eyes.
・And have dirt underneath your nails from using it in enchantments.
・Animals seem to follow you wherever you go... some come to you for help. Others have followed your group of three, like a completely brown cat who will randomly disappear, than show up at other times.
𝐿𝑌𝑂𝑁𝐸𝐿
・You have a few familiars; two cats and a crow.
・One of the cats is completely black except for a white pattern on his forehead.
・Your other cat is large, fluffy and completely white, except for a black pattern on her forehead.
・Your crow is lovely. Always bringing you presents like coins, pebbles, rocks, and such. You whisper to it and everyone except Lyonel thinks you're crazy.
・They adore being around you. And the crow is usually seen on your shoulder
・When they're around, you look like a goddess with a crow on your shoulder, two cats at your feet, with your black dress with charcoal smudge over your eyes and the bridge of your nose.
・You wear many rings on your fingers and have big earrings that dangle. There's bangles on your arms and necklaces that are enchanted.
・Everyone based you on your appearance. Deeming you hellish. One that has come from the Seven Hells.
・But Lyonel loves you, with all his heart, body and soul... and anyone who even looks at you the wrong way, is going in the stocks.
・Lyonel gifts you jewellry and herbs; ingredients that are hard to get yourself. He asks one of the servants to go and find certain herbs and the like. But he doesn't just choose a random servant - there are those that want to become a physician and so they had been chosen! A win for everyone!
𝐵𝐴𝐸𝐿𝑂𝑅
・Power Couple
・Everyone is taken aback by your magic, your abilities and enchantments.
・Some people think you shouldn't be here. That you're somehow wrong.
・Baelor does everything in his power to shut those people up. You're his wife, and you aren't going anywhere.
・He knows your heart and loves you with all of his.
・You wear a headpiece whenever you go out. And you have a tattoo on your face, a line going down your forehead, nose, lips and chin.
・You also wear a veil when it's a full moon. It's black, with lace trimmings.
・Baelor was shocked when he first saw you. He wasn't afraid - moreso ... enchanted...
・You weren't like anyone he's ever known. Ever seen before.
・And your powers were of no match. Tendrils of a shining orb of light appear at your hands.
・You can control the orb; it swirls around your fingers and you can summon it at will.
・Baelor is the one who has seen it up close, and he's overwhelmed with emotion.
・It swirls around your fingers, can grow big or as small as you like. You can use it as a shield, or as a way to summon something. It's the source of your power.
𝑀𝐴𝐸𝐾𝐴𝑅
・Everyone at court are intimidated by you. They walk on eggshells because a woman shouldn't have such power at her disposal.
・But those in your close circle of friends (and husband), aren't afraid of you at all. They know your heart.
・Well... at first Maekar was terrified of your magic.
・You had come to the castle to heal some of the sick.
・You have immense knowledge about herbs as well as having the ability of healing magic.
・Everytime you heal someone, a tendril of hair turns white.
・When Maekar had fallen in love with you, he actually asked you if you put a love spell on him because he felt so deeply about you.
・You were so upset, you didn't speak to him for nearly a week. Not even a glance in his direction.
・ He didn't want you to be angry at him anymore, so he did one thing that he thought he'd never do...write a letter, a romantic one at that.
・You read it and nearly wept at how much love he poured into his words.
AUTHOR’S NOTE — I wrote an alphabet like this for Gwayne back in the day and decided his sexy cousin needs one as well. 💚 Ormund is living in my head rent free so much these days, I should start charging! 😭
WORD COUNT — 1,940
🔞 THIS FIC IS 18+ 🔞
ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.
A = AFTERCARE (what they’re like after sex)
I don't think Ormund is much into it. If you had sex in the evening and he is not in a hurry to go anywhere after, he would let you rest your head on his chest as he plays with your hair and rubs your back. However, after a quickie during the day, all you can count on is him patting your cheek and saying my good girl.
B = BODY PART (their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)
Ormund loves every part of his body. He knows he is handsome, strong and capable. And he knows you find that attractive. About you he loves your hair the most. It is soft and smooth and smells deliciously. He often buries his head in your hair when he leans down to kiss you on top of your head to let you know he is proud of you.
C = CUM (anything to do with cum, basically)
He wants children. He wants a lot of them. He needs male heirs of House Hightower, he needs the future Lord of Oldtown but he also needs beautiful young ladies that would be his pride and one day create powerful alliances. Therefore, Ormund likes to keep you full of his cum. He'd breed you early in the morning after waking up and before sleep in the evening. Sometimes he'd take you somewhere by the wall during the day just to keep your womb full of his seed.
D = DIRTY SECRET (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)
He enjoyed brothels back in the day, when he was younger, before marrying you. A nasty sanctuary of debauchery full of smoke and horrible scents mixed with cheap incense. You would have never guessed that and you'd struggle to imagine him there yet he was fascinated with those places in his younger days and he learnt a lot from there.
E = EXPERIENCE (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)
I certainly think he is well-experienced. As the heir of Oldtown and a handsome young man, many young women were all over him. Perhaps he was not disnhonouring noble ladies but I can see him messing around with maids in The Hightower and sleeping with women in the brothels he was visiting.
F = FAVOURITE POSITION (this goes without saying)
He likes to be the one in control. Ormund loves you on your knees with your hands clasped behind your back and your mouth open as you look up at him with watery eyes. He loves to take you from behind while pressing your back to his chest by grabbing your throat. And he certainly loves it when you take him missionary style like a good little wife he expects you to be for him.
G = GOOFY (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)
I don't think he gets playful much. He might tease you here and there but he won't giggle and he will discipline you if you does. Sex is serious and quite mechanical to him.
H = HAIR (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)
He is extremely clean and properly groomed. He pays lots of attention to his image and his hygiene.
I = INTIMACY (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)
On some days Ormund would feel more romantic. He might lift you up when he fucks you missionary to make you sit up and face him as he thrusts into you. He will wrap his arms tightly around you and look deep into your eyes as he whispers sweet things to you but all of those mention the way you belong to him fully and completely.
J = JACK OFF (masturbation headcanon)
Because you have sex a lot, I don't think he needs to take care of his own needs. And when you are unaivalable to him, I also think he can go for a long time without using his hand because he is a master of self-restraint.
K = KINK (one or more of their kinks)
Choking. It's a part of him being in control over your body. It's the thrill he feels when he knows your life is in his hands when he can feel you breathe and swallow under his hand. Cockwarming. Because he can restrain himself for a long time, he loves to teach you a lesson about patience as well. Ormund loves you to sit on his lap when he's answering letters with your dress pulled up as you warm his cock. He often invites you to take baths with him and he expects you to sit still astride him with his hard cock deep inside of you. Spanking. Because he feels like he's responsible for your behaviour and what you represent. And he loves to scold you, give you lessons and then reward you for being good. Your scent. Natural sweet sweat mixed with your perfumes. He would often sniff your clothes.
L = LOCATION (favourite places to do the do)
Bathtub because you're both clean and smell good from all the scented oils in the water. His chambers because they're the most private part of the whole Hightower and he can do whatever he wants with you there.
M = MOTIVATION (what turns them on, gets them going)
Ormund sees sex as a way to punish you, to remind you who you belong to and to put you in your place, therefore each time you misbehave, his eyes darken with lust. If you don't agree with him in public or smile too much at another man, he will make sure to teach you a lesson later. Despite him claiming how righteous and religious he is, he also gets excited when your corset squeezes your breasts tigther than usual. He will scold you for that but he will certainly be all over your chest later.
N = NO (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)
I don't want to say he would not hurt you because we all know what he is like but I genuinely think he would not hurt you knowingly. He sees himself as righteous and honourable, therefore he would not want to hurt his Lady Wife who is under his protection. He might teach her a lesson, he might put her in her place... But he doesn't hurt her for sport or because he enjoys the act of hurting itself.
O = ORAL (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)
He expects to get his cock sucked quite a lot because this degrading position it puts you in makes him feel even more powerful. He is not against eating you out, though, but it happens less often. He usually does that when you've been a good girl for him as some sort of a reward. He is obsessed with the natural scent between your legs mixed with the smell of the body oils rubbed into your thighs.
P = PACE (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)
Ormund is rough and fast, systematic and nearly mechanical most of the time. He can get slower but it is still rough with long strokes. He's not the one to make love like a delicate and gentle knight. He fucks like a man who knows his worth and his position. He is a cocky lover but he's good at it so he has every right to be. He will tease you if you find the pace too overwhelming. But he won't stop.
Q = QUICKIE (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)
He often grabs you by your wrist or waist and drags you to a dark corner to pull your dress up and fuck you against the wall. It's his way of reminding you throughout the day that you're his wife and to keep your womb full of his seed. It's also his way to get lost in your scent. He usually uses you like this when he gets angry at something or he's frustrated with someone.
R = RISK (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)
Ormund likes to experiment with the new ways of dominating you. He likes to test your boundaries and introduce new things gradually. He loves to see how much you are willing to do to please and satisfy him. He will put you in degrading positions, he will make you ride his thighs, hump his boots, tie you up and make you crawl.
S = STAMINA (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)
One very long round for him during which you cum two or three times or two shorter rounds where you both cum at the same time. However, he regenerates quickly.
T = TOYS (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)
I’m not sure if they have any sex toys in Westeros but I think Ormund is a type of a man who finds them to be a threat or a dishonour for his Lady Wife to use such things when his cock is all ready and available.
U = UNFAIR (how much they like to tease)
A lot. He might edge you for hours or leave you without cumming so you struggle to focus on your daily tasks and all you can think of is how he will let you cum in the evening. It's another way of him controlling you.
V = VOLUME (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)
He talks dirty in low whispers as he gives you commands, praises you or scolds you. That's mostly during the foreplay, though. When he's actually fucking you, he tries to be quiet to keep his cold image but he will end up grunting into your ear as he thrusts.
W = WILD CARD (a random headcanon for the character)
It is something he would never admit out loud because he is so religious and righteous but sometimes when he catches you with your maids giving you a bath, dressing you up or rubbing scented oils into your skin, he imagines you making love to a woman. On the other hand he would hate to share you with anyone, so he keeps this fantasy entirely to himself.
X = X–RAY (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)
I think he's quite big. He walks like it's big and like he knows it is. Quite thick as well. Nothing extreme but big and thick enough for him to feel confident about it. You always struggle to take it, especially down your throat.
Y = YEARNING (how high is their sex drive?)
As I mentioned before, two times a day usually – once early in the morning and then before sleep in the evening. Occasionally, a quickie here and there throughout the day. However, some days of course he is too busy or you are unaivalable to him. Those are rare situations, though.
Z = ZZZ (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)
He usually gets up right after fucking you in the morning and he goes back to his business right after having a quickie with you during the day. But after fucking you in the evening, he will lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for some time while caressing your back. He thinks about his day and schemes about the future but he rarely shares those thoughts with you. He eventually falls asleep but most of the time it happens when you're already in the land of dreams in his arms.
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- Summary: A forbidden love survives in secret as war closes in.
- Pairing: targ!reader/Criston Cole
- Note: This one-shot is an alternate universe based exclusively on the worldbuilding, history, characterization, and political lore established in ASOIAF and F&B. It does not follow the altered canon, character interpretations, or fanon-driven plotlines created by HOTD.
- Rating: Explicit 18+ (adult content, age gap, blood and gore)
The histories would remember Criston Cole as Kingmaker, oathbreaker, butcher, Hand of the King, and the most dangerous son ever born to a steward. They would argue over what passed between him and Princess Rhaenyra, whether he had tempted her or refused her, whether his hatred grew from wounded pride or injured honor. Maesters would count the battles he won, the lords he condemned, and the corpses left behind wherever his white cloak appeared. They would write that he died beside the Gods Eye with three arrows in his flesh and no song granted to him. They would never write of you. They would not know what he whispered when there were no witnesses, how he held his daughter with the same scarred hands that had crowned a king, or how many times he stood outside your locked chamber pretending to be your gaoler because admitting himself your lover would have destroyed you both. No chronicle would record the little girl with silver-black curls who called him Ser Criston before servants and Papa when every door had been barred. History preferred great betrayals. It had little use for hidden tenderness, and none at all for the bastard daughter of a princess who refused, even under threat, to speak her father’s name.
You were born in 102 AC, five years after Rhaenyra and three before Queen Aemma’s final child tore the life from her. Your birth had been difficult enough to frighten your father and easy enough, by comparison with what followed, to be remembered as a blessing. King Viserys feasted the court for seven days. He placed a pale dragon egg beside your cradle, veined in red and warm as banked coals, and proclaimed that his youngest daughter had inherited her mother’s eyes. Queen Aemma named you herself. Rhaenyra, solemn with the importance of being five, had climbed onto the bed and inspected you with an expression more suited to a maester examining some rare and questionable creature. She touched your tiny fist, declared that you were too small, and then struck a wet nurse for suggesting she return to her own rooms without you. For the first years of your life, you belonged as much to Rhaenyra as you did to your parents. She dressed you in scraps of her old gowns, carried you through the Red Keep when she was forbidden to do so, and informed every visiting lord that you would be her lady companion once you learned not to chew ribbons. You remembered almost nothing of your mother except softness, the scent of rosewater, and a song whose words had disappeared long before the melody did. Your clearest memory of Aemma was not her face but her fingers moving through your hair while Rhaenyra lay curled at her other side. Then came blood, closed doors, a newborn prince who lived for less than a day, and a silence in your father that no feast could mend. You were three when the queen died. Rhaenyra was eight. Afterward, your sister stopped complaining whenever you crept into her bed.
The egg placed in your cradle hatched the following spring. Aegarax emerged amid smoke and fragments of blackened shell, long-necked and furious, with scales the color of storm clouds and wing membranes as dark red as old wine. His first act was to bite Grand Maester Runciter on the thumb. His second was to crawl beneath your blankets and coil against your legs, leaving three nursemaids shrieking and a scorch mark across the royal nursery. He grew lean rather than bulky, all whipcord muscle, hooked talons, and watchful golden eyes. Even as a young dragon he disliked confinement. Dragonkeepers learned to approach him from the front, never from behind, and never carrying the scent of another dragon upon their robes. He tolerated Rhaenyra because you loved her, though he hissed whenever Syrax came too near. He tolerated your father because Viserys always brought smoked mutton. Everyone else was judged according to standards known only to him. Criston Cole was the first man outside your blood whom Aegarax permitted to touch his snout.
You first saw Criston at the tourney at Maidenpool. You were too young to understand why the commons roared for a steward’s son in battered armor, but old enough to remember how he moved. He was not the richest knight in the lists, nor the most splendid. His shield bore no great lineage. His mail had been mended in several places, his horse was good without being remarkable, and there were men beneath silk pavilions who laughed at him before he entered the field. They ceased laughing after he knocked Dark Sister from Prince Daemon’s hand with his morningstar. By the end of the day, Criston Cole had beaten men whose ancestors had worn crowns when his own forebears were likely tilling hard soil beneath the Dornish Marches. His black hair clung damply to his brow when he removed his helm. His eyes were pale green, startling in a face browned by sun and war. He looked up toward the royal gallery only once. Rhaenyra was leaning over the rail, delighted, and you were beside her with both hands clamped around a carved wooden dragon.
“That one,” Rhaenyra told your father. “I want that one.”
Viserys laughed because he laughed easily in those days. “As a husband or a sworn shield?”
“As my shield. He is much too old to be my husband.”
Criston heard her. His mouth moved with the smallest hint of a smile, though he lowered his head before anyone could accuse him of insolence. Not long afterward, he wore white. Rhaenyra had chosen him over knights of greater lineage, and for years he repaid that favor with a devotion so complete it became one of the wonders of court. He followed her through the galleries, stood outside her chambers, accompanied her on hunts, and guarded the foot of the Iron Throne when she sat beside your father. The singers praised his courtesy. Young ladies invented reasons to cross the yard while he trained. Older lords resented the influence of a man with neither lands nor ancient name. To you, he was simply Ser Criston, the patient knight who found you hiding inside Rhaenyra’s wardrobe and did not betray you to the septa.
“Princesses are not meant to crawl through cupboards,” he said.
“You are not meant to find me.”
“That is my duty.”
“Your duty is Rhaenyra.”
His gaze shifted toward the door through which your sister had departed with Septa Marlow. “My duty is to the king and every member of his house.”
“Then you must not tell.”
Criston considered you with grave attention, as if concealing a child’s disobedience required the same judgment as commanding men at war. “What will you give me for my silence?”
You handed him the wooden dragon.
He accepted it. Years later, long after its green paint had worn away, you found it tucked inside the bottom of his travel chest.
Whatever occurred between Criston and Rhaenyra happened when you were still young enough to be dismissed from adult conversations but old enough to recognize that something had gone badly wrong. The court never agreed upon the truth. Some whispered that your sister had offered herself to him and been refused. Others claimed the knight had begged her to flee across the narrow sea, only to learn that the Realm’s Delight would not trade a crown for oranges and sellswords. You asked Rhaenyra once. Her expression became so cold that you did not ask again. You asked Criston years later and received no better answer.
“She loved you,” you said.
“No.”
“You loved her.”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“You hate her with far too much effort for there to have been nothing.”
He looked at you then, and the truth lay in what he would not say. Whatever he had wanted from Rhaenyra, whatever she had asked of him, it had died without being buried. Its corpse poisoned everything that followed. He turned toward Queen Alicent and became her champion. At the tourney celebrating Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor Velaryon, Criston killed Ser Joffrey Lonmouth and left Ser Harwin Strong with a broken collarbone and shattered elbow. He did not batter Joffrey to death before a wedding feast, as some vulgar mummer’s tale might later claim. The death occurred in the melee, with blunted weapons that became murderous in the hands of men who understood how little bluntness mattered when enough strength drove the blow. Criston said it was a mischance of combat. Few believed him. Least of all your sister.
Rhaenyra withdrew to Dragonstone after the deaths of Laenor and Harwin Strong, and after taking Prince Daemon for her husband before either corpse had gone cold in memory. You meant to leave with her. Your trunks had been packed, your riding leathers laid across the bed, and Aegarax made ready at the Dragonpit. Rhaenyra sent a place for you aboard the ship carrying her household, though you intended to fly beside it. Your father forbade it before sunrise.
“I need one daughter who does not flee from me whenever the court becomes unpleasant,” Viserys told you. Age and rich food had thickened him, though his voice retained the warmth that made refusal sound almost reasonable. “Rhaenyra has her husband and children. You have obligations here.”
“What obligations?”
“We shall discuss a suitable marriage.”
“You have been discussing one since I flowered.”
“Then perhaps it is time we settled upon a name.”
“You promised I might go.”
“I said I would consider it.”
“You considered it until her ships were loaded.”
His face sagged. Viserys hated contention, especially when affection could be used to avoid it. He reached for your hand, but you drew it away. “Do not make this crueler than it is.”
“You are keeping me because Alicent wants someone of Aemma’s blood beneath her eye.”
His mouth hardened at that. “The queen has nothing to do with my decision.”
The lie hurt worse than the command. You left before grief could turn your anger childish. When you reached the outer yard, four royal guards stood across the gate. Criston waited in the center of them, his white cloak stirring in the sea wind.
“Move,” you told him.
“The king has ordered that you remain.”
“My dragon is waiting.”
“Aegarax has been returned to his cavern.”
Rage struck with such force that the courtyard blurred. “You had no right.”
“I obeyed your father.”
“You obey Alicent.”
His eyes narrowed, but he did not rise to the insult. “Go back inside, Princess.”
You had known him since childhood, yet that morning was the first time you hated him. “Did you enjoy doing this to my sister too?”
The barb landed. Nothing showed in his posture, though a pulse beat hard beneath his jaw. “Go back inside.”
Rhaenyra departed without you. Aegarax remained in the Dragonpit, restless and furious. Your father spoke of marriages for another year without selecting one. Alicent opposed every proposed husband who might have given you wealth, ships, or a defensible castle. She objected to a Redwyne because the Arbor commanded too great a fleet, to a Stark because the North was too remote, to a Royce because your Arryn blood might draw the Vale too tightly around you, and to a younger Baratheon because Storm’s End stood within an easy flight of Dragonstone. Viserys, weary of argument, postponed the matter each time. Only later did you understand that no match had ever been intended. A married princess could leave the Red Keep. An unwed daughter remained beneath her father’s authority, valuable to everyone and powerful nowhere.
Criston avoided you for half a year after the morning at the gate. When duty placed him in your presence, his courtesy was faultless and empty. He called you Princess. You called him Ser. He did not mention Rhaenyra, and you refused to acknowledge that you missed speaking to him. At one-and-twenty, you were no longer the child he had discovered inside a wardrobe. Men watched you at feasts now. They praised your silver-gold hair, your violet eyes, your resemblance to Aemma Arryn, and the dragon that made marriage to you both tempting and dangerous. None of them interested you. Lords’ sons spoke as though every sentence had been rehearsed with their fathers. Knights boasted of battles fought by other men. Courtiers looked at you and saw proximity to the Iron Throne, a dragon, a womb, or an offense waiting to be exploited. Criston looked at you as though you were an opponent whose next movement mattered.
The silence broke in the training yard on a rain-soaked afternoon. You had dismissed your ladies and taken a practice sword from the rack, intending to exhaust the temper that had plagued you since Rhaenyra’s departure. Criston found you striking a wooden post hard enough to blister both palms.
“Your grip is wrong,” he said.
“You have spent six moons refusing to speak to me. Do not begin with criticism.”
“The sword does not care whether you are offended.”
“Neither do you.”
“No.”
You swung at the post again. Criston caught the blade in one gloved hand before it landed. Even blunted steel should have cut through leather. He closed his fingers around it without flinching.
“Release it.”
“When you hold it properly.”
“I know how to hold a sword.”
“You hold it like a prince in a tapestry.”
You tried to pull the weapon free. He did not move. Rain slid from his black hair and collected along his lashes. His white cloak was soaked through, heavy against his shoulders. You hated the emblem more every time you saw it.
“Perhaps I should ask Ser Harwin how to improve,” you said. “If your lessons are anything like your tourneys, I am certain he remembers them.”
Criston tore the sword from your grip and threw it aside. It clattered across the stones. “Do not speak of matters you do not understand.”
“You never explain them.”
“I owe you no explanations.”
“No. You owe me nothing. Not even the truth.”
“You want the truth?” He stepped closer. “Your sister believes the world was made to answer her desires. Your father indulged that belief until the realm began splitting beneath his feet. Every man who warned him was called grasping. Every law that displeased her became an insult. She wants the rights of an heir and the freedoms of a prince, with none of the judgments either must bear.”
“You sound like Alicent.”
“Perhaps the queen sees what you refuse to.”
“And what do you see when you look at me?”
The question stopped him. Rain struck the flagstones between you. Somewhere beyond the wall, thunder rolled above Blackwater Bay.
Criston should have given a safe answer. He should have said he saw the king’s daughter, the princess he was sworn to protect, or another spoiled Targaryen who believed consequence was meant for lesser blood. Instead, he looked at your wet hair, your blistered hands, and the anger that had brought color into your cheeks.
“Something I ought not,” he said.
He turned away. You caught his cloak before he could leave.
Criston went still.
The white wool twisted around your fingers. “Then look again.”
He faced you slowly. For a heartbeat neither of you moved. His hand came up, hesitated beside your cheek, and dropped before he touched you.
“You do not know what you are asking.”
“I am not asking anything.”
“That makes it worse.”
“You have broken men for less than the way you have spoken to me.”
“You are welcome to summon the king.”
“And tell him what?”
His laugh contained no amusement. “Exactly.”
The first kiss was almost an act of anger. He seized the back of your neck and brought his mouth to yours with none of the courtly restraint for which he was praised. Rain chilled your skin, but he was warm beneath wet mail and boiled leather. His lips parted yours. You tasted rainwater and the bitter ale he had taken with his midday meal. Your fingers tightened in his cloak as if hauling down a banner from a captured wall. Criston kissed you once, deeply enough to strip thought from your mind, then wrenched himself away.
“No,” he said.
You had not spoken.
“This does not happen.”
“It already has.”
“No one can know.”
“Are you ordering me?”
“I am trying to save your life.”
“My life was decided before I learned to speak. Do not pretend another cage is salvation.”
His expression changed. The anger remained, but something more dangerous emerged beneath it. Desire was not gentle in Criston. He distrusted it too much. He approached every weakness as something to master, and discovering one that wore your face offended him.
“Go inside,” he said.
You picked up the discarded practice sword. “Coward.”
His gaze followed you across the yard. He did not deny it.
For eight days he kept away. On the ninth, he came to your chamber after midnight through a narrow stair once used by servants carrying wood to Queen Alysanne’s apartments. You had never told him the door would be unbarred. He had never promised to come. Yet you were awake when the latch lifted. Criston entered without his cloak, dressed in dark wool with a dagger at his hip. He closed the door and stood listening until the footsteps of the watch faded down the gallery.
“You should not be here,” you whispered.
“You called me a coward.”
“That was more than a week ago.”
“I considered the accusation.”
“And?”
“It was true.”
You crossed the chamber barefoot. One lamp burned beside the bed, gilding half his face and leaving the other in shadow. “What changed?”
“Nothing.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No answer would satisfy you.”
“Try me.”
Criston drew a slow breath. “I have spent years watching men take whatever they wish and name the taking their right. Princes, lords, heirs, kings. I despised them for it. I swore vows because vows made a man more than his hungers.”
“And now?”
“Now I know hunger can wear down anything.”
He touched you at last. His thumb moved over your lower lip, careful where the kiss in the yard had been punishing. The gentleness undid you more thoroughly. You leaned into his palm. Criston closed his eyes for a moment, as though even that small trust caused pain.
“If I ask you to leave,” you said, “will you?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie. You both knew it.
You kissed him before fear could restore his discipline. This time he did not stop. He caught you around the waist, lifting you against him while your arms circled his neck. His dagger struck the edge of a table. The sound made both of you freeze. When no alarm followed, he carried you to the bed and set you upon its edge. Every movement afterward held the tension of a drawn bow. He unlaced your nightgown slowly, watching your face as the linen slipped from one shoulder and then the other. You untied his dark doublet with less patience. Beneath it, his body bore the record of the life he had lived before white silk disguised him as a figure from a song. A pale ridge crossed his ribs. Another scar, round and puckered, marked the place beneath his collarbone where a spear had once entered. His hands were rough with calluses. One knuckle had healed crooked. Nothing about him resembled the smooth young lords who perfumed themselves for court.
“You are staring,” he murmured.
“So do men when I enter a hall.”
“I am not those men.”
“No. They would have spent half the night telling me how fortunate I was.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You are fortunate. I am told I was very handsome as a boy”
“You were two-and-twenty when I first saw you.”
“Then you cannot contradict me.”
The quiet humor vanished when you kissed the scar beneath his collarbone. Criston’s fingers moved into your hair. His breathing deepened, and the hand at your waist pressed harder. He laid you back among the covers with an unexpected care that made the danger of him more intimate, not less. He kissed your throat, your breasts, the hollow beneath your ribs, learning you with the concentration he brought to combat. When your body tensed, he slowed. When you pulled him closer, restraint began to fracture. You had expected urgency, perhaps even roughness, because so much in him existed beneath rigid control. Instead, he treated every breath you gave him as a secret entrusted to his keeping. By the time he settled between your thighs, your hands were trembling against his shoulders.
“Look at me,” he said.
You did.
“If you want me to stop, say it.”
“I will not.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know you have talked enough.”
A low sound left him, part laugh and part surrender. When he entered you, pain flared briefly beneath the pleasure. He held still, his brow touching yours, and waited until your body eased around him. Nothing in the songs had prepared you for the heat of him, the weight, or the strange vulnerability of having a man renowned for violence trembling because you had drawn him close. You wrapped your legs around his hips. His discipline lasted three more breaths. Then he began to move.
He covered your mouth when pleasure made you cry out, not harshly, but from necessity. Servants slept beyond two doors. Kingsguards walked the gallery. Your father occupied chambers in the same castle. Every stroke carried ruin within it. Criston’s hand remained over your lips while his gaze held yours, pale eyes darkened almost black in the lamplight. You bit his palm when release seized you. He followed with his face buried against your neck, holding himself silent through force that left both of you shaking. For a long while afterward, he did not move. His body remained curved over yours as if he could shield you from the consequences by refusing to let the world return.
At last you whispered, “Your vows.”
“I know.”
“Do you regret it?”
Criston lifted his head. Sweat dampened his hair at the temples. “Ask me when I have enough honor left to answer.”
He stayed until the first birds began calling from the rookery. Before he left, you fastened his doublet and smoothed the dark cloth across his chest. There was no white cloak for you to return to his shoulders. He had left it folded in his chamber, as if sin became less real when committed outside the garment that named him.
“This cannot happen again,” he said.
“You said that after the yard.”
“This time I mean it.”
“So did you then.”
He looked down at you with an exasperation that concealed fear. “You are impossible.”
“I am a dragon’s daughter.”
“So is your sister.”
“You came to the wrong chamber if you meant to insult me.”
Criston caught your chin and kissed you once more. “Lock the door behind me.”
The relationship lasted nearly five years.
It survived because the Red Keep had been built by a suspicious king and finished by another who enjoyed secrets. Passageways ran between walls. Stairs ended behind tapestries. Narrow galleries allowed unseen listeners to stand between chambers and hear confessions never meant for them. Maegor had killed the builders who knew every hidden way, but stone remembered even when men did not. Criston knew the castle better than most because guarding it required knowledge of every weakness. He used those same weaknesses to reach you. Some nights he came before midnight. Other times months passed without privacy. You met in disused apartments, a locked armory, a bathing chamber beneath the royal sept, and once within the Dragonpit after the keepers had withdrawn. Aegarax watched Criston approach across the cavern floor, smoke leaking from his nostrils. You warned the knight to remain still. Criston ignored you and extended one bare hand. The dragon lowered his vast grey head, inhaled, and allowed Criston’s fingers to rest between the ridges above his nose.
“He knows,” you said.
Criston glanced toward you. “About us?”
“He knows everything I feel.”
“That is not comforting.”
“You smell afraid.”
“I am standing beneath a dragon’s teeth.”
“You were less frightened in my bed.”
“I have never seen you swallow a goat whole.”
Aegarax huffed smoke into his face. Criston coughed, and you laughed until the cavern returned the sound in rolling echoes. For years afterward, whenever you accused him of possessing no humor, he reminded you that he had once entertained both a princess and a dragon at considerable risk to his dignity.
You learned the boundaries of the man beyond the cloak. Criston slept lightly and woke reaching for a weapon. He disliked sweet wine, singers, and men who boasted of tourneys as if painted shields were proof of courage. He sent much of his Kingsguard stipend to his father at Blackhaven, though he never spoke of it. He could read, but slowly, tracing difficult lines with a scarred finger when he believed himself alone. He kept his possessions ordered with military severity. He had no patience for needless cruelty, yet possessed a frightening talent for necessary cruelty and a flexible notion of what necessity allowed. He believed Rhaenyra’s sons by Laenor Velaryon were bastards. He believed their existence was an insult to law, succession, and every man expected to pretend not to see what stood before him. When you pointed out the hypocrisy of those words while lying naked beside him, he rose and dressed without speaking.
“You think our child would be different?” you called after him, though there was no child yet. “Would your seed become lawful merely because it was planted in a daughter of the king?”
Criston stopped with his hand on the door. “There is no child.”
“That was not my question.”
“No,” he said. “It would not be different.”
He left. You did not see him alone for six weeks.
Love did not make either of you kinder. It provided new places to wound. You defended Rhaenyra even when you knew your sister could be vain, vindictive, and careless of those beneath her. Criston defended Alicent’s sons even when Aegon pinched serving girls, drank beyond reason, and fathered bastards throughout the city. You accused him of dressing ambition in righteousness. He accused you of believing blood excused every failing. Arguments ended with doors closing, oaths muttered against each other’s mouths, or long silences during which both of you waited for the other to yield. Neither did. He returned because he could not remain away. You received him because the rest of your life belonged to the crown, the king, and the designs of men who discussed your future across tables. Criston was the only choice you made entirely for yourself, even if it was the choice most likely to destroy you.
You knew you carried his child before the maester confirmed it. Your moon’s blood failed to come. Food smelled wrong. Aegarax became agitated whenever anyone approached you, snapping at dragonkeepers he had tolerated for years. You summoned Criston after midnight and found him waiting behind the tapestry before you reached the hidden door.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Your message said it could not wait.”
“I am with child.”
Criston did not move. His face emptied so completely that for one terrible moment you believed he felt nothing.
“Say something.”
“How certain?”
“Certain enough.”
“Has a maester seen you?”
“Not yet.”
“Who knows?”
“My maid suspects. No one else.”
He paced once across the narrow chamber. The room had belonged to a dead septon and still smelled faintly of dust and old incense. “There are ways to end it.”
Your hand struck his face before you decided to move.
Criston accepted the blow. A red mark spread across his cheek. “I did not say you must.”
“You thought it.”
“I am thinking of what they will do to you.”
“And to you.”
“That is not important.”
“It is to me.”
“If the king learns I broke my vows with his daughter, the Wall will be mercy. Alicent may demand my head before your father finishes deciding whether to pardon me.”
“Then I will not name you.”
“They will question every guard, servant, and knight who has come near your chambers.”
“I will tell them the father is dead.”
“And when the child is born with black hair?”
“Half the realm has black hair.”
“And my face?”
You hated that he was right. Criston came closer but did not touch you. “Leave. Go to Dragonstone before your belly shows. Rhaenyra will protect you.”
“You stopped me once.”
“I was obeying the king.”
“And now?”
“Now I am asking you to disobey him.”
“With your child inside me, while you remain here serving the woman who has spent years working against my sister?”
Pain flickered across his face and hardened into anger. “Do you want me to desert?”
“I want you to tell me that we matter more than that damned cloak.”
He looked toward the door, though the white garment was hidden on the other side. “If I leave, suspicion follows us. Rhaenyra will demand the truth. Daemon will learn it. Do you think he will suffer the man he hates to live beside his wife’s sister?”
“Then we cross the narrow sea.”
“And spend our lives watching every harbor for hired knives?”
“Men do live outside Westeros, Criston.”
“Princes do not stop being princes because they sail east.”
“You mean you cannot bear to stop being Ser Criston Cole.”
His voice fell. “And you cannot bear to stop being a princess.”
The accusation cut because some part of it was true. You had dreamed of freedom without understanding poverty, exile, or the humiliation of selling jewels to afford another month in a foreign city. Criston knew hunger and dependence in ways you never would. Yet he also knew what it meant for men to bow when he entered, for a queen to trust his sword, and for highborn lords to conceal their resentment behind courtesy. Neither of you was willing to surrender everything. The child would pay for that failure.
He knelt before you. Criston had knelt to kings, queens, and altars, but never like this. He pressed his forehead against your stomach, still flat beneath your gown. His hands closed around your hips.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“For the child?”
“For being afraid.”
You placed your fingers in his hair. “So am I.”
The court discovered your pregnancy before the fourth moon. Viserys summoned you privately. Alicent was already seated beside him, green silk immaculate, her expression composed. The king looked old in a way you had not permitted yourself to notice. His cheeks sagged beneath his eyes, and pain had settled into the lines around his mouth. He dismissed the maesters, servants, and guards. Criston remained outside the door. You could feel his presence as surely as Aegarax’s heat beneath the Hill of Rhaenys.
“Who?” Viserys asked.
You had prepared lies, but the sight of your father stripped them away. “I will not say.”
His fist struck the arm of his chair. “You will.”
“No.”
Alicent watched without interruption.
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“A knight?”
You said nothing.
“A lord?”
Silence.
“Did he force you?”
“No.”
“Then why protect him?”
“Because his name is mine to keep.”
Viserys rose too quickly and nearly fell. Alicent steadied him, her hand closing around his arm. The king tore himself free.
“I gave you every comfort,” he said. “Every indulgence. You shame your mother’s memory beneath my own roof.”
The words struck more brutally than any blow. “Mother’s memory has been used to shame both her daughters whenever we cease pleasing you.”
Alicent inhaled softly.
Viserys stared as if he did not recognize you. “Get out.”
You turned toward the door.
“This child will not carry the name Targaryen,” he called after you. “Do you understand?”
You looked back. “The child will have my blood whether you grant a name or not.”
Criston stood in the gallery when you emerged. His face revealed nothing. Only his left hand betrayed him, clenched so tightly at his side that blood marked his palm where his nails had broken the skin. He could not comfort you. Alicent came through the door moments later and would have seen. He bowed as you passed.
Your daughter was born during a summer storm in 126 AC. The labor lasted most of a day and half the night. Viserys did not come. Alicent sent a septa to ensure the babe lived and to search for any mark that might expose her father. Criston guarded the outer door because the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard could do so without causing comment. He heard every cry. Later he told you that no battlefield had ever made him feel so helpless.
You named the child Daella, for the grandmother you had never known and the Arryn blood that the court preferred to forget. She entered the world furious, red-faced, and loud enough to frighten ravens from the window ledge. Damp curls clung to her head, too dark to be called Targaryen silver and too pale to be wholly black. When her eyes opened, they were grey-green around the pupils, with a thin ring of violet near the edge.
The midwife crossed herself.
“Unusual eyes,” Alicent’s septa remarked.
“Arryn eyes,” you answered.
The babe was entered into the court rolls as Daella Waters, natural daughter of Princess Y/N Targaryen by an unnamed father. Viserys refused to see her for three moons. When at last you placed Daella in his arms, she caught his thumb and would not release it. Your father wept. He never legitimized her, but he ordered that she be raised within the Red Keep and granted the courtesies due to a royal bastard. It was his customary compromise: affection without courage, protection without public defiance.
Criston first held his daughter six nights after her birth. He came through the hidden stair near dawn, pale from exhaustion and rigid with fear. You were propped against pillows, Daella asleep beside you in a cradle carved with falcons and dragons. Criston stood over her for so long that you began to wonder if he intended to leave without touching her.
“She will not break,” you said.
“I know.”
“You look unconvinced.”
“I have never held one so small.”
“Then sit.”
He obeyed. You lifted Daella and placed her in his arms. Criston held her as if someone had passed him a vessel filled to the rim with wildfire. His hands, capable of swinging a morningstar through plate, seemed absurdly large beneath her body. Daella stirred, opened her strange violet-green eyes, and stared at him. Criston stared back.
“She knows you,” you whispered.
“No, she does not.”
“She heard your voice before she was born.”
His thumb moved over the dark silk of her hair. “That seems unlikely.”
“You may argue with the maesters once you have finished arguing with me.”
The child yawned. Her tiny fist closed around the edge of his sleeve.
Criston bowed his head. You saw the moment his composure failed. He made no sound, but tears gathered beneath his lashes. One escaped and struck Daella’s blanket. He wiped it away quickly, ashamed even before you.
“I have nothing to give her,” he said.
“You gave her life.”
“A name would be more useful.”
“She has mine.”
“She has Waters.”
“She has Targaryen blood, Arryn blood, and the blood of a man who made half the realm learn his name without inheriting so much as a ruined tower. That is enough for any child.”
He looked toward you. “You should not speak well of me. It encourages sin.”
“You entered by a hidden stair to hold your bastard daughter. I think encouragement is no longer the problem.”
Daella called him Papa for the first time when she was two. Criston had been teaching her to balance on the edge of a carpet, pretending it was a castle wall. She took three uncertain steps, fell against his knee, and announced the word with perfect clarity. He froze. You did not breathe.
“Ser,” you corrected gently. “He is Ser Criston.”
“Papa,” Daella insisted, patting the white cloth across his thigh.
Criston caught her hand. “Only here.”
She smiled because she understood nothing except that she had pleased him.
“Only when the doors are locked,” you told her.
“Locked,” Daella repeated.
It became a game to her. Before speaking the forbidden word, she ran to every door and pushed it closed. She never understood why Criston’s eyes followed her with such grief.
Alicent knew. You were never certain when suspicion became certainty, but the queen missed little that concerned her household. Perhaps a servant saw Criston emerge from the wrong passage. Perhaps she noticed Daella’s eyes, or the way the Lord Commander positioned himself whenever the child entered a crowded hall. She revealed her knowledge on an autumn evening when Daella was nearly three.
“You have shown remarkable loyalty by guarding the father’s identity,” Alicent said as her women fitted pearls into her hair.
You stood beside the hearth, forced into attendance at the queen’s invitation. “There is no loyalty in refusing to feed court gossip.”
“Names are not always necessary. Faces can be eloquent.”
Your blood chilled.
Alicent dismissed her women. When the door closed, she studied you through the mirror. At forty, the queen remained handsome. Motherhood and ambition had refined rather than diminished her beauty. “Do not look so frightened. If I intended to expose him, I would have done so before now.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know the man’s attention strays toward your daughter whenever he believes himself unwatched. I know he volunteered to guard your door during the birth and refused relief for eighteen hours. I know Daella Waters has his eyes.”
You forced your hands to remain still. “What do you want?”
“Nothing today.”
“And tomorrow?”
“That depends upon your sister.”
There it was. Not outrage, not piety, not disgust over broken vows. Usefulness. Alicent had found a chain stronger than iron and wrapped it around all three of you.
“If you harm Daella,” you said, “Aegarax will turn this castle into her funeral pyre.”
“Then you had best ensure the child remains useful alive.”
From that day onward, you understood your true place in the Red Keep. You were not merely an unmarried princess delayed by your father’s indecision. You were a hostage whose cage happened to contain silk gowns, servants, and gardens. Daella was leverage against you. You were leverage against Criston. Both of you could be raised before Rhaenyra as proof that the Greens held Aemma’s younger daughter and a dragon within their grasp. Aegarax remained beneath the Dragonpit, his chain shortened under the pretense that he had become unruly. Each time you visited, he pressed his forehead against yours and flooded the cavern with smoke.
Viserys died in the third moon of 129 AC while King’s Landing slept beneath cold rain. The bells did not ring. The doors to his chambers were sealed, servants confined, and ravens forbidden from leaving the rookery. You learned of it from silence. Breakfast did not arrive. The guards outside your rooms doubled. Daella asked why no one would take her to the yard.
Criston came after dusk. He entered openly in his white armor and cloak, accompanied by four guards in Hightower green.
“My father is dead,” you said.
He did not answer.
“How long?”
“Since last night.”
“And Rhaenyra has not been told.”
The guards heard everything. Criston’s face remained impassive. “You and the child will remain in these rooms until the succession is settled.”
“The succession was settled twenty-four years ago.”
“Do not do this here.”
“Where would you prefer I do it, Lord Commander? Before Aegon while you place my father’s crown upon his head?”
Something flared behind his eyes. “Take care.”
“You allowed his corpse to rot so Alicent could steal my sister’s throne.”
“I said take care.”
Daella emerged from the bedchamber clutching a carved horse. She saw Criston and began to smile, but your expression warned her. The child stopped before speaking.
“Why are there men outside?” she asked.
“To keep you safe,” Criston replied.
“From what?”
He looked at you. “From what comes next.”
That night you attempted to flee. Your maid bribed a kitchen boy to open the lower passage. You dressed Daella in a stable hand’s rough tunic, hid your silver hair beneath a brown hood, and carried her through cellars stinking of wet stone and onions. If you could reach the Dragonpit, Aegarax would take you to Dragonstone before the city gates opened. Rhaenyra would know the truth before Aegon could be crowned.
Criston waited at the end of the passage.
He stood alone beneath a smoking torch, armored from throat to heel. His white cloak filled the narrow way behind him.
“Move,” you said.
“No.”
“I will not ask twice.”
“You will not reach the Dragonpit. The city watch has sealed the hill.”
“On whose order?”
“Mine.”
Daella clung to your neck. Beneath the hood, her eyes moved between you.
“You knew I would try.”
“I know you.”
“You know nothing about me if you believe I will kneel to Aegon.”
“I do not need you to kneel. I need you alive.”
“For Alicent to display in chains?”
“For our daughter to keep her mother.”
The word our changed the air. Daella heard it. Her little brow furrowed.
You lowered your voice. “Come with us.”
Criston’s face tightened.
“Aegarax can carry three,” you continued. “We fly to Dragonstone. Tell Rhaenyra what happened inside the council chamber. Tell her how long they hid our father’s death. Whatever passed between you years ago, she may spare you for bringing warning.”
“Daemon will have my head before we land.”
“I will not allow it.”
“You cannot command Daemon.”
“I am asking you to choose us.”
“I am choosing you now.”
“You are barring the road.”
“If you reach Rhaenyra with a dragon, Alicent will name you an enemy. Aemond will hunt you. Vhagar is larger than Aegarax. If you remain, no one will harm you.”
“You believe you can keep that promise?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are a greater fool than I thought.”
Criston approached. You stepped back.
“Do not touch me.”
“Return to your chambers.”
“You are not my protector anymore.”
“I have never ceased protecting you.”
“You became my prison door.”
Something broke across his expression before discipline concealed it. “Then hate me from the safety of your rooms.”
He took Daella from your arms. You struck him, clawed at his armor, and tried to wrench her back. Criston endured it without retaliation. Daella began to cry. He held the child against his shoulder with one arm and caught both your wrists with the other.
“Enough,” he said.
“Give her to me.”
“When you stop.”
“She is not yours to take.”
The words wounded him. You meant them to.
Criston released your wrists. He looked down at Daella, whose small fingers had tangled in the clasp of his cloak. “No,” he said quietly. “Nothing is mine.”
He returned the child. Then he escorted you back to your prison.
At Aegon’s coronation, Criston placed the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown upon the prince’s head and made him king. The commons cheered because bread and spectacle could make treason look holy. Sunfyre roared. Bells shook the city. You remained locked inside the Red Keep with Daella on your lap while Aegarax screamed beneath the Hill of Rhaenys. Before nightfall, ravens carried the news to every corner of the realm.
Criston came to you after the coronation.
“Kingmaker,” you said when he entered.
“Do not call me that.”
“It is what they shouted in the yard.”
“Aegon was crowned by law.”
“My father named Rhaenyra.”
“The realm will never accept Daemon beside the Iron Throne.”
“So you stole it for a drunken boy.”
“He is the king’s eldest son.”
“You knew that when you swore to defend Rhaenyra.”
Criston closed the door. He looked exhausted rather than triumphant. “Aegon did not want the crown.”
“That almost makes the theft noble.”
“He believed Rhaenyra would spare him. I told him the truth.”
“Your truth.”
“If she ascends, Alicent’s sons become threats merely by breathing. Daemon has killed for less.”
“And what am I?”
His gaze moved toward Daella, asleep beside the hearth. “The reason you are still alive.”
“No. I am the reason you tell yourself this was necessary.”
He left without touching either of you.
War followed. Rhaenyra crowned herself upon Dragonstone. Aemond killed Lucerys above Shipbreaker Bay and returned expecting praise. Aegon feasted him while Alicent and Otto recoiled from the stain of kinslaying. Blood and Cheese entered the Red Keep by forgotten passages and murdered little Prince Jaehaerys before his mother’s eyes. Afterward, no door felt secure. Helaena ceased eating, bathing, and looking upon her remaining children. Aegon hanged ratcatchers by the score. Otto Hightower lost the Hand’s chain, and Criston took it in his place.
The first time he came to you wearing the golden hands of office, you laughed.
“You have climbed high,” you said.
“I did not ask for this.”
“Of course not. Ambition simply keeps mistaking you for someone who wants it.”
He studied you across the chamber. Months of war had pared away what remained of the handsome tourney knight. His face was leaner. Sleeplessness bruised the skin beneath his eyes. “Rhaenyra sent no answer to the last terms.”
“Did you expect her to thank Aegon for taking her crown and Aemond for killing her son?”
“I expected her to consider the children still living.”
“You ceased thinking of Rhaenyra’s children as children years ago.”
Criston’s mouth tightened. “Where is Daella?”
“Asleep.”
“I want to see her.”
“You want many things.”
“I leave at dawn.”
Fear pierced the anger. “Where?”
“Rosby first. Duskendale after. Rook’s Rest when the road is secure.”
“You are marching to war.”
“That is generally what a Hand does when half the realm is in rebellion.”
“Do not call it rebellion.”
“I did not come to argue.”
“You always come to argue. Sometimes you remove your clothes first.”
He almost smiled, but weariness killed it. “Let me see her.”
Daella slept in the adjoining room beneath a quilt patterned with falcons. Criston removed the Hand’s chain before approaching the bed. He set it on a chest as if unwilling to carry the weight near his daughter. The child woke when he sat beside her.
“Ser Criston?”
“Were the doors locked?”
Daella glanced toward you. At your nod, she pushed herself upright and flung both arms around his neck. “Papa.”
Criston held her fiercely. His eyes closed against her hair. “Have you minded your mother?”
“Mostly.”
“That means no.”
“She would not let me see Aegarax.”
“The Dragonpit is not safe.”
“He misses me.”
“He misses your mother.”
Daella drew back. “Will you bring me something?”
“From the war?”
“Yes.”
“What does a princess want from a war?”
“I am not a princess.”
Criston went very still.
Daella had heard it from other children, perhaps from a servant. The court called Aegon’s sons princes and his daughter a princess. No such style belonged to Daella Waters.
Criston cupped her small face. “You are more than most princesses I have known.”
“Can I have a sword?”
“No,” you said.
“A small one,” Daella bargained.
Criston looked at you over her head. “A wooden sword.”
“She already has three.”
“Then a better one.”
He stayed until she slept again. In your chamber, he fastened the Hand’s chain around his neck. You watched his fingers fumble with the clasp and stepped forward to help. Neither of you spoke until it was secured.
“Rook’s Rest belongs to Lord Staunton,” you said. “He declared for Rhaenyra.”
“Yes.”
“You expect her to send a dragon.”
“Yes.”
The understanding sickened you. “It is a trap.”
“It is war.”
“You will kill one of her riders.”
“If I can.”
“And if Rhaenyra comes?”
Criston met your gaze. “Then the war may end.”
“You once swore your life to her.”
“I remember every oath I have broken.”
You slapped him. His head turned with the blow. This time, unlike the night you told him of Daella, he seized your wrist before you could strike again.
“I hate you,” you whispered.
“No, you do not.”
“I should.”
“Yes.”
He kissed you with the desperation of a man expecting death. You fought him for one breath, then gripped the front of his doublet and dragged him closer. It was not forgiveness. Nothing could forgive what lay between you. Yet his mouth was known to you, his body remembered yours, and dawn threatened to take him where grief could become permanent. Criston backed you against the wall. His forehead rested against yours.
“Say you want me to stop.”
“You know I will not.”
“That has never made it right.”
“Nothing about us was ever right.”
He kissed you again, slower now. You unfastened the chain you had just secured and let it fall to the floor. He stayed until the sky paled, though neither of you slept. When he dressed, he left the golden hands on the table.
“You forgot something,” you said.
Criston looked at the chain. “Keep it.”
“I do not want it.”
“Neither do I.”
He returned from Rook’s Rest alive. Princess Rhaenys did not. Meleys’s severed head was dragged through King’s Landing while the commons watched in fearful silence, for a dead dragon did not resemble victory as closely as the king’s men had hoped. Aegon lay burned and broken. Sunfyre remained near the battlefield, too wounded to fly. Criston had won his battle and looked like a man who had discovered victory tasted of charred flesh.
He came to Daella before reporting to Alicent. His armor smelled of smoke, horse, dried blood, and dragonfire. A burn reddened one side of his neck. Daella ran toward him, but stopped when she saw the blood.
“Is it yours?” she asked.
“Some of it.”
“Did you bring my sword?”
Criston made a sound that might have been a laugh. From his belt, he drew a small wooden sword painted white. Daella accepted it solemnly.
“You remembered.”
“I said I would.”
You waited until the child went to show her nurse. “Rhaenys?”
“Dead.”
“Meleys?”
“Dead.”
“And Aegon?”
“Living.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Criston looked toward the window. “I have seen men burned before. I have never watched armor melt into a king.”
“You arranged the trap.”
“I did.”
There was no plea in the admission. Criston did not ask you to absolve him. That, more than remorse would have done, reminded you why men followed him. He never pretended his hands were clean.
Aemond took the regency and placed the iron-and-ruby crown upon his own head while his brother drifted through milk of the poppy. Criston marched again, this time with Aemond and Vhagar, leaving King’s Landing exposed in pursuit of Daemon. Before his departure, he gave you a knife small enough to hide beneath your skirts and told you which postern would remain guarded by men loyal to him.
“If the city falls, take Daella and go south,” he said. “At the Mud Gate, ask for a woman named Mara Cole. She sells onions near the river. She is my father’s cousin.”
“You have family in King’s Landing?”
“I brought her here after Daella was born. She does not know everything, but she knows enough.”
“You planned an escape for us while preventing every attempt I made.”
“I planned for a day when escape offered more safety than remaining.”
“You always believe you alone can decide that.”
“I have usually been right.”
“You are insufferable.”
“I am alive.”
“For now.”
Criston glanced toward Daella, who was playing near the hearth. “If I do not return, Mara will take her to Blackhaven. My father may still be living. Lord Dondarrion has no love for me, but he is not a man who murders children.”
“You speak as if I will not be with her.”
“You will.”
“Say it as though you believe it.”
He could not.
You caught his arm before he turned away. “Choose us this time.”
“I am trying.”
“No. You are riding after another prince with another army. You are choosing war again.”
“If Aemond kills Daemon, the Blacks lose their greatest weapon. If we retake Harrenhal, Rhaenyra’s cause may collapse.”
“And then?”
“I come back.”
“To do what? Keep me locked here while Aegon feeds my sister to Sunfyre?”
Criston’s face hardened. “Do not ask me to choose between you.”
“I already did. You chose the crown.”
“I chose a realm where Daella might live.”
“You made the realm where she is in danger.”
Daella looked up at the sound of her name. Both of you fell silent.
Criston knelt. The child came to him, wooden sword in hand. He adjusted her grip, closing her fingers around the hilt.
“Not too tight,” he told her. “A rigid hand tires quickly.”
“Will you teach me when you return?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Criston looked at you.
“Promise her,” you said.
He kissed Daella’s brow. “I promise.”
He left without saying farewell to you.
Rhaenyra took King’s Landing less than a moon later. With Aemond, Vhagar, and Criston absent, the city’s defenses crumbled. Gold cloaks still loyal to Daemon opened gates. Queen Alicent was seized. Aegon vanished with his children. You awoke to bells, shouting, and the thunder of dragons above the city. Syrax circled the Red Keep while Caraxes roared from the walls. Guards abandoned your door. You dressed Daella, took Criston’s knife, and prepared to reach Aegarax.
Rhaenyra found you first.
Your sister entered the chamber wearing black armor and a crown, Daemon at her side. She was heavier than when she had left court, her face marked by grief and childbirth, but nothing had dimmed the force of her presence. This was not the laughing girl who carried you through corridors. It was the queen who had lost sons, a throne, and any remaining belief that blood alone guaranteed loyalty.
For one heartbeat you saw your sister.
Then Rhaenyra saw Daella.
“You are alive,” she said.
“No thanks to those who held us.”
Her gaze moved over your face. “They told me you refused to declare for either side.”
“I was locked in these rooms.”
“You signed a letter urging me to yield.”
“Alicent threatened my child.”
Daemon closed the door behind him. His eyes rested upon Daella with predatory interest. “And who is the child’s father?”
When you were alone, Rhaenyra removed her crown and set it on the table. “I asked Father to let you come to Dragonstone.”
“I know.”
“He said you wished to remain.”
“He lied.”
Pain moved through her face. “I believed him.”
“You found it convenient to.”
“I had children, a husband, enemies on every side.”
“And I had nothing?”
“You had a dragon.”
“Chained beneath this city.”
Rhaenyra looked toward Daella again. The child had Criston’s pale green eyes that day. There was no violet visible around them.
“Does he live?” your sister asked.
You did not answer.
Her stare sharpened. “Criston.”
Hearing the name spoken aloud felt like a blade entering the room.
Rhaenyra stepped nearer. “It is him.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Seven hells.”
“You will not touch Daella.”
“That creature crowned Aegon.”
“She is four.”
“He murdered Joffrey. He crippled Harwin. He hunted my supporters, set the crown on my brother’s head, and helped burn Rhaenys alive.”
“I know what he has done.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“And you loved him?”
The question carried old poison. Whatever had passed between them had not faded. It had merely acquired more corpses.
“I do,” you said.
Rhaenyra recoiled as though you had struck her. “All these years.”
“All these years.”
“He made you their hostage.”
“He also kept them from killing me.”
“For his own use.”
“Do not speak as if you know him.”
“I knew him before you were old enough to understand what he wanted.”
“You knew what he was to you. That is not the same.”
Rhaenyra’s cheeks flushed darkly. For a moment you thought she might call the guards. Instead, she looked at Daella and seemed to see the child properly for the first time.
“She has his eyes.”
“She has mine too.”
“If Daemon learns this, he will use her.”
“Then do not tell him.”
“Why should I protect Cole’s bastard?”
“Because she is Aemma’s granddaughter.”
The name silenced her.
Rhaenyra returned the crown to her head. “You will remain in the Red Keep until this war ends.”
You almost laughed. “So I have changed gaolers.”
“It is for your protection.”
“That is what Criston said.”
Hatred flashed across her face. “Do not compare me to him.”
“You have both locked the same door.”
Rhaenyra forbade you from flying Aegarax. She claimed every dragon might soon be needed, yet she placed guards around the cavern and ordered the keepers not to remove his chains. You were permitted to visit, always watched. Aegarax had grown savage during the war. He snapped at strangers and scorched the stone whenever soldiers approached. Only your touch quieted him. You pressed your body against the warm scales beneath his jaw, murmuring in High Valyrian while his golden eyes followed every guard.
Rhaenyra’s reign decayed around you. Lord Celtigar imposed taxes that emptied purses and filled the streets with resentment. Heads appeared above the gates. Ser Tyland Lannister was given to the torturers. The smallfolk cursed dragons, kings, queens, and every silver-haired child who ate while their own families starved. The Shepherd preached that the beasts were demons and their riders abominations. Helaena fell from Maegor’s Holdfast onto the spikes below. Whether grief, murder, or despair sent her through the window, no one could prove. The city answered with riot.
News of Criston’s death reached the Red Keep before the mobs gathered at Cobbler’s Square. The report came from the riverlands: surrounded south of the Gods Eye, he had offered to fight three enemy commanders in single combat. They refused him. Three arrows struck him, and his men were slaughtered. His head was said to have been carried on a spear.
You read the message twice. Then a third time. The letters remained unchanged.
Daella found you beside the cold hearth.
“Is Papa coming back?” she asked.
You folded the parchment. “No.”
“He promised.”
“I know.”
“Papa does not break promises.”
You could not tell her that Criston had built his life from broken vows. You pulled her onto your lap and held her while she demanded answers that did not exist.
That night Aegarax screamed beneath the city until blood ran from the mouths of two dragonkeepers.
The Storming of the Dragonpit began the following evening.
From the Red Keep, the Hill of Rhaenys appeared crowned in flame. Bells rang without rhythm. Thousands of voices merged into a roar that rolled across the city like the sea. Men and women armed with axes, spears, butcher’s hooks, hammers, and rusted swords surged toward the Dragonpit. The Shepherd’s lambs believed the Seven would protect them. The dragons taught them otherwise.
You felt the first death through Aegarax.
Pain tore across your chest so violently that you fell against the window. Daella screamed your name. Far across the city, fire erupted from the Dragonpit’s entrances. Shrykos died beneath blades and axes. Morghul burned scores before a spear entered her eye. Tyraxes became tangled in his chain and was hacked apart by men who continued striking after the dragon’s death had already crushed those nearest him. Dreamfyre broke loose, wounded and maddened, and hurled herself against the great dome until stone collapsed upon dragon and mob alike.
Aegarax fought from the deepest cavern. His chain had been shortened so often that he could not reach the doors. Through the bond between you, the world became heat, blood, and blind fury. You felt iron biting into his leg. You smelled men burning inside armor. A spear entered the soft flesh beneath his jaw. Another tore through the red membrane of his wing. He called for you, not in words, but with the same desperate need that had driven him beneath your blankets as a hatchling.
You tried to reach him.
Guards blocked the stair. One caught you around the waist while another tore Criston’s knife from your hand. Daella clung to your skirts. You fought until the pommel of a sword struck your temple and the corridor spun.
“My dragon is dying!”
“The queen has ordered everyone kept inside.”
“He is chained!”
The guard looked away.
Aegarax wrenched against the iron until bone cracked. The chain held. Men swarmed beneath him. His fire filled the cavern, consuming flesh, banners, straw, and old dragon dung. A crossbow bolt vanished into his golden eye. The agony drove you to your knees.
Then the roof fell.
Aegarax died with your name inside him.
The silence left behind was worse than pain. Something that had lived beside your soul since infancy simply ceased. You vomited on the stones. Daella wrapped both arms around you while the Dragonpit burned bright enough to make midnight resemble dawn.
The Red Keep began emptying before sunrise. Rhaenyra meant to flee for Dragonstone. Her remaining guards seized chests of coin, clothing, jewels, and royal records while servants stole whatever could be carried. No one came for you. Whether your sister intended to take you or abandon you could no longer matter. The castle gates had opened. Gold cloaks were deserting. Mobs filled the streets.
Your chamber door opened while you were tying a cloak around Daella.
The man who entered wore a black mantle over battered plate. Blood had dried along one side of his throat. His beard had grown unevenly. One arm was bound against his chest, and fever hollowed his cheeks.
You drew the knife hidden beneath your sleeve.
Criston pushed back his hood.
For several breaths, neither of you moved.
Daella saw him first. “Papa?”
Criston’s face crumpled.
She ran. He dropped to one knee and caught her with his good arm. The force nearly toppled him. Daella clung to his neck, laughing and crying at once.
“You came back,” she said. “I told Mother you promised.”
Criston buried his face in her hair. “I promised.”
You could only stare. “They said you were dead.”
“They were close.”
“Your head was on a spear.”
“Someone’s head was.”
He rose with difficulty. Beneath the black mantle, his armor was pierced at the belly. Dried blood covered the plates. A broken arrowhead remained lodged near his shoulder.
“What happened?”
“The archers loosed before I finished speaking. One shaft struck my gorget. Another glanced from the breastplate. The third entered below the ribs.” His voice was rough. “I fell. Bodies covered me when the fighting began. Two men pulled me free after dark.”
“Your army?”
“Gone.”
“And you came here?”
“I spent six days unable to sit a horse. After that, yes.”
“Why?”
Criston looked at you as if the answer ought to have been obvious. “For you.”
Anger arrived before relief could soften it. You struck his chest with both hands. He staggered but remained upright.
“You came now?”
“I came as quickly as I could.”
“You left us in this castle. You chose Aegon, Aemond, the Hand’s chain, and every damned battle. Now the city is burning, my dragon is dead, and you come crawling from beneath a pile of corpses expecting what?”
“Nothing.”
“You promised her.”
“I know.”
“You promised me nothing.”
“I knew I could not keep it.”
You struck him again. Criston caught your wrists, but there was little strength left in his grip.
“I hate you,” you said.
“I know.”
“No, you do not. I hated you every time the lock turned. I hated you when Aegon wore the crown. I hated you when they brought Meleys’s head through the streets. I hated you when the raven said you were dead.”
Criston’s eyes shone. “I know.”
“I waited for you anyway.”
“I know.”
He pulled you against him. The armor beneath his mantle was cold and sticky with reopened blood. You buried your face against his neck, breathing leather, sweat, smoke, and the scent you had believed gone from the world. Criston held you and Daella together, one arm around his daughter and the wounded other braced across your back.
“The river,” he said after a moment. “Mara waits near the Mud Gate with a boat. We can reach the lower passage before Rhaenyra’s men seal it.”
“Rhaenyra is fleeing.”
“Then we go before the city chooses another ruler.”
“To Blackhaven?”
“If the roads south remain open. If not, Duskendale, then Pentos.”
“You would leave Westeros?”
His mouth twisted. “I have lost my king, my army, my office, and most of my blood. Pride is becoming expensive.”
“You forgot your honor.”
“No. I lost that years ago.”
Criston kissed you. There was no anger in it, no struggle for command, and no secrecy left worth preserving. Daella stood between you, clutching both your garments. The castle could have fallen around you and for one heartbeat it would not have mattered.
“I should have gone with you when you asked,” he whispered.
“At the passage?”
“Before Daella. Before any of this.”
“You would have hated exile.”
“I hated myself here.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
“You cannot mend five years with one regret.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It is all I have left.”
You touched the blood dried beneath his jaw. “Then get us out.”
The three of you entered the hidden stair while the Red Keep descended into panic. Criston carried Daella despite his wounds. You led with the knife. Smoke drifted through cracks in the walls. Somewhere above, men shouted that the queen had departed. Somewhere below, a door splintered and a woman screamed.
The passage opened behind a tapestry near the armory. Two dead guards lay in the gallery. Their cloaks were black, their throats cut. Criston took a sword from one and tested its balance.
“Stay behind me.”
“You have one working arm.”
“One is enough.”
“It was not enough at the Gods Eye.”
“I survived.”
“Barely.”
“Stay behind me.”
You almost laughed. Even half dead, stripped of crown and command, he remained impossible.
They recognized him in the lower yard.
A dozen men in mismatched armor had gathered near the postern, some belonging to Rhaenyra’s household, others to the city watch. One stared at the bloodstained plate beneath Criston’s mantle.
“White armor,” the man said.
Criston kept walking.
Another lifted a torch. Light struck his face. “Seven save us. It’s Cole.”
Swords left scabbards.
Criston placed Daella in your arms. “When I open the gate, run.”
“You cannot fight them.”
“I do not require permission.”
The first man rushed him. Criston moved with none of his former elegance, but experience remained after strength failed. He turned aside the descending blade and drove his sword beneath the man’s chin. Another came from the left. Criston caught the strike upon his wounded arm, grunted, and opened the attacker from hip to ribs. Blood sprayed across his white armor.
“Kingmaker!” someone shouted.
More men entered the yard.
You ran for the postern. The gate was barred. You set Daella down and hauled at the beam. It did not move. Criston fought behind you, boots slipping on wet stone. He killed a third man and lost his sword inside the body. A spear glanced along his backplate. He tore the weapon from its owner and struck with the butt, crushing the man’s mouth.
“Mother!” Daella screamed.
You turned.
A crossbowman stood upon the gallery.
He aimed at Criston.
You moved before thought could stop you.
The bolt entered beneath your collarbone and drove through your back.
There was no pain at first, only impact. The courtyard tilted. You sat down hard upon the stones, puzzled by the sudden weakness in your legs. Daella’s face appeared above you. Her mouth opened, but the ringing in your ears swallowed the sound.
Criston killed the crossbowman.
You did not see how. One moment the man stood above the gallery rail, and the next he fell into the yard with Criston’s spear through his chest. Criston reached you before the body struck the ground.
“No,” he said.
Blood filled your mouth when you tried to breathe.
“No. No, look at me.”
“I am looking.”
He pressed his hand around the bolt. His face had become the frightened face of the young knight who first held his daughter, the man beneath every title and crime.
“You cannot pull it out,” you said.
“I know.”
“Then stop touching it.”
“I can carry you.”
“You can barely carry yourself.”
“We are leaving together.”
“Criston.”
He looked at the blood spreading beneath you. Denial collapsed.
Daella knelt beside your head. “Mother, get up.”
You reached for her. Your fingers left a red mark upon her cheek.
“Listen to Papa.”
The child began sobbing. “You said Ser Criston outside.”
“No need now.”
Criston bowed over you. “Do not.”
“You came back for her.”
“For both of you.”
“You came too late for me.”
“I will not leave you here.”
“You will if you ever loved me.”
His eyes closed. A tear slipped through the dirt on his cheek.
“Take her to Mara,” you whispered. “Take her where no one knows what blood she has.”
“I cannot do this without you.”
“You have done everything without me.”
“That was the ruin of it.”
“Then do this right.”
The sounds beyond the yard grew louder. The mob had reached the outer walls. Bells rang above the city. Smoke veiled the paling sky.
Criston leaned down and kissed you. His mouth trembled. You tasted blood, though you no longer knew whether it belonged to him or to you.
“I loved you,” he said.
“You still do.”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
He lifted Daella. The child fought, reaching for you over his shoulder.
“Mother!”
Criston staggered toward the postern.
The beam had loosened. He put his back against it and forced it upward with a cry torn from somewhere beneath his wounds. The gate opened enough for him to drag Daella through. He looked back once.
You watched him leave.
The last thing you saw was the ruined white cloak beneath his black mantle and your daughter’s small hand stretched toward you.
Criston carried Daella into a city gone mad. The child screamed until grief exhausted her voice. Streets burned. Men dragged corpses from houses. The Shepherd’s followers staggered from the Dragonpit blackened by flame, praising the Seven while melted flesh hung from their bones. Others proclaimed new kings in alleys and squares. The gold cloaks had ceased pretending to hold order. Criston kept to the narrow ways, his sword in one hand and Daella pressed against his wounded side.
At the foot of Aegon’s High Hill, three men tried to take the child. The first believed her silver-black hair meant ransom. The second recognized Criston. The third wanted only the sword.
Criston killed all three.
The effort opened the wound beneath his ribs. Blood poured through the gap in his armor and soaked Daella’s tunic. He continued toward the Mud Gate.
Mara Cole waited beneath a torn awning beside the river, an old woman with Criston’s pale eyes and a knife hidden among baskets of onions. A fishing boat knocked against the quay behind her.
When she saw him, she crossed herself. “Gods be good.”
“They have not been,” Criston said.
“Where is the princess?”
He did not answer.
Mara looked at Daella and understood.
“Take her south,” Criston said. “Not by the kingsroad. Find my father if he lives. If Blackhaven is unsafe, cross into Dorne. If Dorne is closed, sell the jewels sewn into her cloak and take ship from Weeping Town.”
“You can tell me aboard.”
Criston shook his head.
“You crossed half the realm with an arrow in your guts. You can cross a river.”
Men appeared at the end of the street. Some wore black cloaks. Others carried the seven-pointed star of the Shepherd. One pointed toward the bloodstained knight.
Criston set Daella in the boat.
She caught his hand. “Come with us.”
He removed the white cloak from beneath the dark mantle. Once it had been snowy wool and heavy silk. Now it was torn, burned, and brown with old blood. Criston wrapped it around his daughter.
“This will keep you warm.”
“You promised to teach me.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
Criston kissed her brow. “Forgive me.”
Mara seized the oars. The boat drifted from the quay.
Criston turned to face the street.
The men came in greater numbers than he could count. He had no lord to command, no king to crown, no army waiting for his orders. The white cloak was gone. The Hand’s chain lay in a chamber that might already be burning. His sword arm was failing, blood filled one boot, and every breath ground the arrowhead deeper beneath his ribs.
Still, he stood between the mob and the river until the boat vanished into smoke.
They killed him within sight of the Mud Gate. It took six men. One opened his wounded belly with a hooked blade. Another drove a spear beneath his arm. Criston remained upright long enough to break the spearman’s neck. He fell only when a sword entered the gap above his gorget, in almost the same place where an arrow had failed to kill him beside the Gods Eye.
No songs were sung for him.
Daella survived.
Mara took her south by river and road, hiding her silver-black hair beneath brown dye and calling her a dead soldier’s orphan. Lord Dondarrion permitted the girl to remain at Blackhaven once the worst of the war had passed, though he never acknowledged whose blood she carried. In the marches she became Daella Cole, not Waters and never Targaryen. She learned the sword with her right hand, rode horses too fierce for larger children, and kept a ragged piece of white wool hidden beneath her mattress. She remembered a mother with violet eyes, a father in bloodstained armor, and a grey dragon screaming beneath a burning hill. She remembered enough.
The maesters never joined your name to Criston’s. They never entered Daella among the descendants of King Viserys and Queen Aemma. To history, the Kingmaker died childless, his white cloak stained by ambition and the blood of the Dance. You became a lesser tragedy in a war overflowing with them, a princess lost during the fall of King’s Landing, your bastard daughter presumed dead beside you.
History was wrong.
The crown destroyed both of you. The war took your dragon, your sister, his honor, and every future you might have shared. Yet the child you made in secrecy lived beyond it all, carrying the blood of the dragon and the steward’s son into a world that never learned enough to hunt her.
In the end, that was the only promise Criston Cole managed to keep.
It was a very touching story. Thank you for this wonderful work. I wish the Princess, Criston, and their daughter could have been happy together. But I'm so glad Daella survived.
- Summary: A forbidden love survives in secret as war closes in.
- Pairing: targ!reader/Criston Cole
- Note: This one-shot is an alternate universe based exclusively on the worldbuilding, history, characterization, and political lore established in ASOIAF and F&B. It does not follow the altered canon, character interpretations, or fanon-driven plotlines created by HOTD.
- Rating: Explicit 18+ (adult content, age gap, blood and gore)
The histories would remember Criston Cole as Kingmaker, oathbreaker, butcher, Hand of the King, and the most dangerous son ever born to a steward. They would argue over what passed between him and Princess Rhaenyra, whether he had tempted her or refused her, whether his hatred grew from wounded pride or injured honor. Maesters would count the battles he won, the lords he condemned, and the corpses left behind wherever his white cloak appeared. They would write that he died beside the Gods Eye with three arrows in his flesh and no song granted to him. They would never write of you. They would not know what he whispered when there were no witnesses, how he held his daughter with the same scarred hands that had crowned a king, or how many times he stood outside your locked chamber pretending to be your gaoler because admitting himself your lover would have destroyed you both. No chronicle would record the little girl with silver-black curls who called him Ser Criston before servants and Papa when every door had been barred. History preferred great betrayals. It had little use for hidden tenderness, and none at all for the bastard daughter of a princess who refused, even under threat, to speak her father’s name.
You were born in 102 AC, five years after Rhaenyra and three before Queen Aemma’s final child tore the life from her. Your birth had been difficult enough to frighten your father and easy enough, by comparison with what followed, to be remembered as a blessing. King Viserys feasted the court for seven days. He placed a pale dragon egg beside your cradle, veined in red and warm as banked coals, and proclaimed that his youngest daughter had inherited her mother’s eyes. Queen Aemma named you herself. Rhaenyra, solemn with the importance of being five, had climbed onto the bed and inspected you with an expression more suited to a maester examining some rare and questionable creature. She touched your tiny fist, declared that you were too small, and then struck a wet nurse for suggesting she return to her own rooms without you. For the first years of your life, you belonged as much to Rhaenyra as you did to your parents. She dressed you in scraps of her old gowns, carried you through the Red Keep when she was forbidden to do so, and informed every visiting lord that you would be her lady companion once you learned not to chew ribbons. You remembered almost nothing of your mother except softness, the scent of rosewater, and a song whose words had disappeared long before the melody did. Your clearest memory of Aemma was not her face but her fingers moving through your hair while Rhaenyra lay curled at her other side. Then came blood, closed doors, a newborn prince who lived for less than a day, and a silence in your father that no feast could mend. You were three when the queen died. Rhaenyra was eight. Afterward, your sister stopped complaining whenever you crept into her bed.
The egg placed in your cradle hatched the following spring. Aegarax emerged amid smoke and fragments of blackened shell, long-necked and furious, with scales the color of storm clouds and wing membranes as dark red as old wine. His first act was to bite Grand Maester Runciter on the thumb. His second was to crawl beneath your blankets and coil against your legs, leaving three nursemaids shrieking and a scorch mark across the royal nursery. He grew lean rather than bulky, all whipcord muscle, hooked talons, and watchful golden eyes. Even as a young dragon he disliked confinement. Dragonkeepers learned to approach him from the front, never from behind, and never carrying the scent of another dragon upon their robes. He tolerated Rhaenyra because you loved her, though he hissed whenever Syrax came too near. He tolerated your father because Viserys always brought smoked mutton. Everyone else was judged according to standards known only to him. Criston Cole was the first man outside your blood whom Aegarax permitted to touch his snout.
You first saw Criston at the tourney at Maidenpool. You were too young to understand why the commons roared for a steward’s son in battered armor, but old enough to remember how he moved. He was not the richest knight in the lists, nor the most splendid. His shield bore no great lineage. His mail had been mended in several places, his horse was good without being remarkable, and there were men beneath silk pavilions who laughed at him before he entered the field. They ceased laughing after he knocked Dark Sister from Prince Daemon’s hand with his morningstar. By the end of the day, Criston Cole had beaten men whose ancestors had worn crowns when his own forebears were likely tilling hard soil beneath the Dornish Marches. His black hair clung damply to his brow when he removed his helm. His eyes were pale green, startling in a face browned by sun and war. He looked up toward the royal gallery only once. Rhaenyra was leaning over the rail, delighted, and you were beside her with both hands clamped around a carved wooden dragon.
“That one,” Rhaenyra told your father. “I want that one.”
Viserys laughed because he laughed easily in those days. “As a husband or a sworn shield?”
“As my shield. He is much too old to be my husband.”
Criston heard her. His mouth moved with the smallest hint of a smile, though he lowered his head before anyone could accuse him of insolence. Not long afterward, he wore white. Rhaenyra had chosen him over knights of greater lineage, and for years he repaid that favor with a devotion so complete it became one of the wonders of court. He followed her through the galleries, stood outside her chambers, accompanied her on hunts, and guarded the foot of the Iron Throne when she sat beside your father. The singers praised his courtesy. Young ladies invented reasons to cross the yard while he trained. Older lords resented the influence of a man with neither lands nor ancient name. To you, he was simply Ser Criston, the patient knight who found you hiding inside Rhaenyra’s wardrobe and did not betray you to the septa.
“Princesses are not meant to crawl through cupboards,” he said.
“You are not meant to find me.”
“That is my duty.”
“Your duty is Rhaenyra.”
His gaze shifted toward the door through which your sister had departed with Septa Marlow. “My duty is to the king and every member of his house.”
“Then you must not tell.”
Criston considered you with grave attention, as if concealing a child’s disobedience required the same judgment as commanding men at war. “What will you give me for my silence?”
You handed him the wooden dragon.
He accepted it. Years later, long after its green paint had worn away, you found it tucked inside the bottom of his travel chest.
Whatever occurred between Criston and Rhaenyra happened when you were still young enough to be dismissed from adult conversations but old enough to recognize that something had gone badly wrong. The court never agreed upon the truth. Some whispered that your sister had offered herself to him and been refused. Others claimed the knight had begged her to flee across the narrow sea, only to learn that the Realm’s Delight would not trade a crown for oranges and sellswords. You asked Rhaenyra once. Her expression became so cold that you did not ask again. You asked Criston years later and received no better answer.
“She loved you,” you said.
“No.”
“You loved her.”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“You hate her with far too much effort for there to have been nothing.”
He looked at you then, and the truth lay in what he would not say. Whatever he had wanted from Rhaenyra, whatever she had asked of him, it had died without being buried. Its corpse poisoned everything that followed. He turned toward Queen Alicent and became her champion. At the tourney celebrating Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor Velaryon, Criston killed Ser Joffrey Lonmouth and left Ser Harwin Strong with a broken collarbone and shattered elbow. He did not batter Joffrey to death before a wedding feast, as some vulgar mummer’s tale might later claim. The death occurred in the melee, with blunted weapons that became murderous in the hands of men who understood how little bluntness mattered when enough strength drove the blow. Criston said it was a mischance of combat. Few believed him. Least of all your sister.
Rhaenyra withdrew to Dragonstone after the deaths of Laenor and Harwin Strong, and after taking Prince Daemon for her husband before either corpse had gone cold in memory. You meant to leave with her. Your trunks had been packed, your riding leathers laid across the bed, and Aegarax made ready at the Dragonpit. Rhaenyra sent a place for you aboard the ship carrying her household, though you intended to fly beside it. Your father forbade it before sunrise.
“I need one daughter who does not flee from me whenever the court becomes unpleasant,” Viserys told you. Age and rich food had thickened him, though his voice retained the warmth that made refusal sound almost reasonable. “Rhaenyra has her husband and children. You have obligations here.”
“What obligations?”
“We shall discuss a suitable marriage.”
“You have been discussing one since I flowered.”
“Then perhaps it is time we settled upon a name.”
“You promised I might go.”
“I said I would consider it.”
“You considered it until her ships were loaded.”
His face sagged. Viserys hated contention, especially when affection could be used to avoid it. He reached for your hand, but you drew it away. “Do not make this crueler than it is.”
“You are keeping me because Alicent wants someone of Aemma’s blood beneath her eye.”
His mouth hardened at that. “The queen has nothing to do with my decision.”
The lie hurt worse than the command. You left before grief could turn your anger childish. When you reached the outer yard, four royal guards stood across the gate. Criston waited in the center of them, his white cloak stirring in the sea wind.
“Move,” you told him.
“The king has ordered that you remain.”
“My dragon is waiting.”
“Aegarax has been returned to his cavern.”
Rage struck with such force that the courtyard blurred. “You had no right.”
“I obeyed your father.”
“You obey Alicent.”
His eyes narrowed, but he did not rise to the insult. “Go back inside, Princess.”
You had known him since childhood, yet that morning was the first time you hated him. “Did you enjoy doing this to my sister too?”
The barb landed. Nothing showed in his posture, though a pulse beat hard beneath his jaw. “Go back inside.”
Rhaenyra departed without you. Aegarax remained in the Dragonpit, restless and furious. Your father spoke of marriages for another year without selecting one. Alicent opposed every proposed husband who might have given you wealth, ships, or a defensible castle. She objected to a Redwyne because the Arbor commanded too great a fleet, to a Stark because the North was too remote, to a Royce because your Arryn blood might draw the Vale too tightly around you, and to a younger Baratheon because Storm’s End stood within an easy flight of Dragonstone. Viserys, weary of argument, postponed the matter each time. Only later did you understand that no match had ever been intended. A married princess could leave the Red Keep. An unwed daughter remained beneath her father’s authority, valuable to everyone and powerful nowhere.
Criston avoided you for half a year after the morning at the gate. When duty placed him in your presence, his courtesy was faultless and empty. He called you Princess. You called him Ser. He did not mention Rhaenyra, and you refused to acknowledge that you missed speaking to him. At one-and-twenty, you were no longer the child he had discovered inside a wardrobe. Men watched you at feasts now. They praised your silver-gold hair, your violet eyes, your resemblance to Aemma Arryn, and the dragon that made marriage to you both tempting and dangerous. None of them interested you. Lords’ sons spoke as though every sentence had been rehearsed with their fathers. Knights boasted of battles fought by other men. Courtiers looked at you and saw proximity to the Iron Throne, a dragon, a womb, or an offense waiting to be exploited. Criston looked at you as though you were an opponent whose next movement mattered.
The silence broke in the training yard on a rain-soaked afternoon. You had dismissed your ladies and taken a practice sword from the rack, intending to exhaust the temper that had plagued you since Rhaenyra’s departure. Criston found you striking a wooden post hard enough to blister both palms.
“Your grip is wrong,” he said.
“You have spent six moons refusing to speak to me. Do not begin with criticism.”
“The sword does not care whether you are offended.”
“Neither do you.”
“No.”
You swung at the post again. Criston caught the blade in one gloved hand before it landed. Even blunted steel should have cut through leather. He closed his fingers around it without flinching.
“Release it.”
“When you hold it properly.”
“I know how to hold a sword.”
“You hold it like a prince in a tapestry.”
You tried to pull the weapon free. He did not move. Rain slid from his black hair and collected along his lashes. His white cloak was soaked through, heavy against his shoulders. You hated the emblem more every time you saw it.
“Perhaps I should ask Ser Harwin how to improve,” you said. “If your lessons are anything like your tourneys, I am certain he remembers them.”
Criston tore the sword from your grip and threw it aside. It clattered across the stones. “Do not speak of matters you do not understand.”
“You never explain them.”
“I owe you no explanations.”
“No. You owe me nothing. Not even the truth.”
“You want the truth?” He stepped closer. “Your sister believes the world was made to answer her desires. Your father indulged that belief until the realm began splitting beneath his feet. Every man who warned him was called grasping. Every law that displeased her became an insult. She wants the rights of an heir and the freedoms of a prince, with none of the judgments either must bear.”
“You sound like Alicent.”
“Perhaps the queen sees what you refuse to.”
“And what do you see when you look at me?”
The question stopped him. Rain struck the flagstones between you. Somewhere beyond the wall, thunder rolled above Blackwater Bay.
Criston should have given a safe answer. He should have said he saw the king’s daughter, the princess he was sworn to protect, or another spoiled Targaryen who believed consequence was meant for lesser blood. Instead, he looked at your wet hair, your blistered hands, and the anger that had brought color into your cheeks.
“Something I ought not,” he said.
He turned away. You caught his cloak before he could leave.
Criston went still.
The white wool twisted around your fingers. “Then look again.”
He faced you slowly. For a heartbeat neither of you moved. His hand came up, hesitated beside your cheek, and dropped before he touched you.
“You do not know what you are asking.”
“I am not asking anything.”
“That makes it worse.”
“You have broken men for less than the way you have spoken to me.”
“You are welcome to summon the king.”
“And tell him what?”
His laugh contained no amusement. “Exactly.”
The first kiss was almost an act of anger. He seized the back of your neck and brought his mouth to yours with none of the courtly restraint for which he was praised. Rain chilled your skin, but he was warm beneath wet mail and boiled leather. His lips parted yours. You tasted rainwater and the bitter ale he had taken with his midday meal. Your fingers tightened in his cloak as if hauling down a banner from a captured wall. Criston kissed you once, deeply enough to strip thought from your mind, then wrenched himself away.
“No,” he said.
You had not spoken.
“This does not happen.”
“It already has.”
“No one can know.”
“Are you ordering me?”
“I am trying to save your life.”
“My life was decided before I learned to speak. Do not pretend another cage is salvation.”
His expression changed. The anger remained, but something more dangerous emerged beneath it. Desire was not gentle in Criston. He distrusted it too much. He approached every weakness as something to master, and discovering one that wore your face offended him.
“Go inside,” he said.
You picked up the discarded practice sword. “Coward.”
His gaze followed you across the yard. He did not deny it.
For eight days he kept away. On the ninth, he came to your chamber after midnight through a narrow stair once used by servants carrying wood to Queen Alysanne’s apartments. You had never told him the door would be unbarred. He had never promised to come. Yet you were awake when the latch lifted. Criston entered without his cloak, dressed in dark wool with a dagger at his hip. He closed the door and stood listening until the footsteps of the watch faded down the gallery.
“You should not be here,” you whispered.
“You called me a coward.”
“That was more than a week ago.”
“I considered the accusation.”
“And?”
“It was true.”
You crossed the chamber barefoot. One lamp burned beside the bed, gilding half his face and leaving the other in shadow. “What changed?”
“Nothing.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No answer would satisfy you.”
“Try me.”
Criston drew a slow breath. “I have spent years watching men take whatever they wish and name the taking their right. Princes, lords, heirs, kings. I despised them for it. I swore vows because vows made a man more than his hungers.”
“And now?”
“Now I know hunger can wear down anything.”
He touched you at last. His thumb moved over your lower lip, careful where the kiss in the yard had been punishing. The gentleness undid you more thoroughly. You leaned into his palm. Criston closed his eyes for a moment, as though even that small trust caused pain.
“If I ask you to leave,” you said, “will you?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie. You both knew it.
You kissed him before fear could restore his discipline. This time he did not stop. He caught you around the waist, lifting you against him while your arms circled his neck. His dagger struck the edge of a table. The sound made both of you freeze. When no alarm followed, he carried you to the bed and set you upon its edge. Every movement afterward held the tension of a drawn bow. He unlaced your nightgown slowly, watching your face as the linen slipped from one shoulder and then the other. You untied his dark doublet with less patience. Beneath it, his body bore the record of the life he had lived before white silk disguised him as a figure from a song. A pale ridge crossed his ribs. Another scar, round and puckered, marked the place beneath his collarbone where a spear had once entered. His hands were rough with calluses. One knuckle had healed crooked. Nothing about him resembled the smooth young lords who perfumed themselves for court.
“You are staring,” he murmured.
“So do men when I enter a hall.”
“I am not those men.”
“No. They would have spent half the night telling me how fortunate I was.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You are fortunate. I am told I was very handsome as a boy”
“You were two-and-twenty when I first saw you.”
“Then you cannot contradict me.”
The quiet humor vanished when you kissed the scar beneath his collarbone. Criston’s fingers moved into your hair. His breathing deepened, and the hand at your waist pressed harder. He laid you back among the covers with an unexpected care that made the danger of him more intimate, not less. He kissed your throat, your breasts, the hollow beneath your ribs, learning you with the concentration he brought to combat. When your body tensed, he slowed. When you pulled him closer, restraint began to fracture. You had expected urgency, perhaps even roughness, because so much in him existed beneath rigid control. Instead, he treated every breath you gave him as a secret entrusted to his keeping. By the time he settled between your thighs, your hands were trembling against his shoulders.
“Look at me,” he said.
You did.
“If you want me to stop, say it.”
“I will not.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know you have talked enough.”
A low sound left him, part laugh and part surrender. When he entered you, pain flared briefly beneath the pleasure. He held still, his brow touching yours, and waited until your body eased around him. Nothing in the songs had prepared you for the heat of him, the weight, or the strange vulnerability of having a man renowned for violence trembling because you had drawn him close. You wrapped your legs around his hips. His discipline lasted three more breaths. Then he began to move.
He covered your mouth when pleasure made you cry out, not harshly, but from necessity. Servants slept beyond two doors. Kingsguards walked the gallery. Your father occupied chambers in the same castle. Every stroke carried ruin within it. Criston’s hand remained over your lips while his gaze held yours, pale eyes darkened almost black in the lamplight. You bit his palm when release seized you. He followed with his face buried against your neck, holding himself silent through force that left both of you shaking. For a long while afterward, he did not move. His body remained curved over yours as if he could shield you from the consequences by refusing to let the world return.
At last you whispered, “Your vows.”
“I know.”
“Do you regret it?”
Criston lifted his head. Sweat dampened his hair at the temples. “Ask me when I have enough honor left to answer.”
He stayed until the first birds began calling from the rookery. Before he left, you fastened his doublet and smoothed the dark cloth across his chest. There was no white cloak for you to return to his shoulders. He had left it folded in his chamber, as if sin became less real when committed outside the garment that named him.
“This cannot happen again,” he said.
“You said that after the yard.”
“This time I mean it.”
“So did you then.”
He looked down at you with an exasperation that concealed fear. “You are impossible.”
“I am a dragon’s daughter.”
“So is your sister.”
“You came to the wrong chamber if you meant to insult me.”
Criston caught your chin and kissed you once more. “Lock the door behind me.”
The relationship lasted nearly five years.
It survived because the Red Keep had been built by a suspicious king and finished by another who enjoyed secrets. Passageways ran between walls. Stairs ended behind tapestries. Narrow galleries allowed unseen listeners to stand between chambers and hear confessions never meant for them. Maegor had killed the builders who knew every hidden way, but stone remembered even when men did not. Criston knew the castle better than most because guarding it required knowledge of every weakness. He used those same weaknesses to reach you. Some nights he came before midnight. Other times months passed without privacy. You met in disused apartments, a locked armory, a bathing chamber beneath the royal sept, and once within the Dragonpit after the keepers had withdrawn. Aegarax watched Criston approach across the cavern floor, smoke leaking from his nostrils. You warned the knight to remain still. Criston ignored you and extended one bare hand. The dragon lowered his vast grey head, inhaled, and allowed Criston’s fingers to rest between the ridges above his nose.
“He knows,” you said.
Criston glanced toward you. “About us?”
“He knows everything I feel.”
“That is not comforting.”
“You smell afraid.”
“I am standing beneath a dragon’s teeth.”
“You were less frightened in my bed.”
“I have never seen you swallow a goat whole.”
Aegarax huffed smoke into his face. Criston coughed, and you laughed until the cavern returned the sound in rolling echoes. For years afterward, whenever you accused him of possessing no humor, he reminded you that he had once entertained both a princess and a dragon at considerable risk to his dignity.
You learned the boundaries of the man beyond the cloak. Criston slept lightly and woke reaching for a weapon. He disliked sweet wine, singers, and men who boasted of tourneys as if painted shields were proof of courage. He sent much of his Kingsguard stipend to his father at Blackhaven, though he never spoke of it. He could read, but slowly, tracing difficult lines with a scarred finger when he believed himself alone. He kept his possessions ordered with military severity. He had no patience for needless cruelty, yet possessed a frightening talent for necessary cruelty and a flexible notion of what necessity allowed. He believed Rhaenyra’s sons by Laenor Velaryon were bastards. He believed their existence was an insult to law, succession, and every man expected to pretend not to see what stood before him. When you pointed out the hypocrisy of those words while lying naked beside him, he rose and dressed without speaking.
“You think our child would be different?” you called after him, though there was no child yet. “Would your seed become lawful merely because it was planted in a daughter of the king?”
Criston stopped with his hand on the door. “There is no child.”
“That was not my question.”
“No,” he said. “It would not be different.”
He left. You did not see him alone for six weeks.
Love did not make either of you kinder. It provided new places to wound. You defended Rhaenyra even when you knew your sister could be vain, vindictive, and careless of those beneath her. Criston defended Alicent’s sons even when Aegon pinched serving girls, drank beyond reason, and fathered bastards throughout the city. You accused him of dressing ambition in righteousness. He accused you of believing blood excused every failing. Arguments ended with doors closing, oaths muttered against each other’s mouths, or long silences during which both of you waited for the other to yield. Neither did. He returned because he could not remain away. You received him because the rest of your life belonged to the crown, the king, and the designs of men who discussed your future across tables. Criston was the only choice you made entirely for yourself, even if it was the choice most likely to destroy you.
You knew you carried his child before the maester confirmed it. Your moon’s blood failed to come. Food smelled wrong. Aegarax became agitated whenever anyone approached you, snapping at dragonkeepers he had tolerated for years. You summoned Criston after midnight and found him waiting behind the tapestry before you reached the hidden door.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Your message said it could not wait.”
“I am with child.”
Criston did not move. His face emptied so completely that for one terrible moment you believed he felt nothing.
“Say something.”
“How certain?”
“Certain enough.”
“Has a maester seen you?”
“Not yet.”
“Who knows?”
“My maid suspects. No one else.”
He paced once across the narrow chamber. The room had belonged to a dead septon and still smelled faintly of dust and old incense. “There are ways to end it.”
Your hand struck his face before you decided to move.
Criston accepted the blow. A red mark spread across his cheek. “I did not say you must.”
“You thought it.”
“I am thinking of what they will do to you.”
“And to you.”
“That is not important.”
“It is to me.”
“If the king learns I broke my vows with his daughter, the Wall will be mercy. Alicent may demand my head before your father finishes deciding whether to pardon me.”
“Then I will not name you.”
“They will question every guard, servant, and knight who has come near your chambers.”
“I will tell them the father is dead.”
“And when the child is born with black hair?”
“Half the realm has black hair.”
“And my face?”
You hated that he was right. Criston came closer but did not touch you. “Leave. Go to Dragonstone before your belly shows. Rhaenyra will protect you.”
“You stopped me once.”
“I was obeying the king.”
“And now?”
“Now I am asking you to disobey him.”
“With your child inside me, while you remain here serving the woman who has spent years working against my sister?”
Pain flickered across his face and hardened into anger. “Do you want me to desert?”
“I want you to tell me that we matter more than that damned cloak.”
He looked toward the door, though the white garment was hidden on the other side. “If I leave, suspicion follows us. Rhaenyra will demand the truth. Daemon will learn it. Do you think he will suffer the man he hates to live beside his wife’s sister?”
“Then we cross the narrow sea.”
“And spend our lives watching every harbor for hired knives?”
“Men do live outside Westeros, Criston.”
“Princes do not stop being princes because they sail east.”
“You mean you cannot bear to stop being Ser Criston Cole.”
His voice fell. “And you cannot bear to stop being a princess.”
The accusation cut because some part of it was true. You had dreamed of freedom without understanding poverty, exile, or the humiliation of selling jewels to afford another month in a foreign city. Criston knew hunger and dependence in ways you never would. Yet he also knew what it meant for men to bow when he entered, for a queen to trust his sword, and for highborn lords to conceal their resentment behind courtesy. Neither of you was willing to surrender everything. The child would pay for that failure.
He knelt before you. Criston had knelt to kings, queens, and altars, but never like this. He pressed his forehead against your stomach, still flat beneath your gown. His hands closed around your hips.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“For the child?”
“For being afraid.”
You placed your fingers in his hair. “So am I.”
The court discovered your pregnancy before the fourth moon. Viserys summoned you privately. Alicent was already seated beside him, green silk immaculate, her expression composed. The king looked old in a way you had not permitted yourself to notice. His cheeks sagged beneath his eyes, and pain had settled into the lines around his mouth. He dismissed the maesters, servants, and guards. Criston remained outside the door. You could feel his presence as surely as Aegarax’s heat beneath the Hill of Rhaenys.
“Who?” Viserys asked.
You had prepared lies, but the sight of your father stripped them away. “I will not say.”
His fist struck the arm of his chair. “You will.”
“No.”
Alicent watched without interruption.
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“A knight?”
You said nothing.
“A lord?”
Silence.
“Did he force you?”
“No.”
“Then why protect him?”
“Because his name is mine to keep.”
Viserys rose too quickly and nearly fell. Alicent steadied him, her hand closing around his arm. The king tore himself free.
“I gave you every comfort,” he said. “Every indulgence. You shame your mother’s memory beneath my own roof.”
The words struck more brutally than any blow. “Mother’s memory has been used to shame both her daughters whenever we cease pleasing you.”
Alicent inhaled softly.
Viserys stared as if he did not recognize you. “Get out.”
You turned toward the door.
“This child will not carry the name Targaryen,” he called after you. “Do you understand?”
You looked back. “The child will have my blood whether you grant a name or not.”
Criston stood in the gallery when you emerged. His face revealed nothing. Only his left hand betrayed him, clenched so tightly at his side that blood marked his palm where his nails had broken the skin. He could not comfort you. Alicent came through the door moments later and would have seen. He bowed as you passed.
Your daughter was born during a summer storm in 126 AC. The labor lasted most of a day and half the night. Viserys did not come. Alicent sent a septa to ensure the babe lived and to search for any mark that might expose her father. Criston guarded the outer door because the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard could do so without causing comment. He heard every cry. Later he told you that no battlefield had ever made him feel so helpless.
You named the child Daella, for the grandmother you had never known and the Arryn blood that the court preferred to forget. She entered the world furious, red-faced, and loud enough to frighten ravens from the window ledge. Damp curls clung to her head, too dark to be called Targaryen silver and too pale to be wholly black. When her eyes opened, they were grey-green around the pupils, with a thin ring of violet near the edge.
The midwife crossed herself.
“Unusual eyes,” Alicent’s septa remarked.
“Arryn eyes,” you answered.
The babe was entered into the court rolls as Daella Waters, natural daughter of Princess Y/N Targaryen by an unnamed father. Viserys refused to see her for three moons. When at last you placed Daella in his arms, she caught his thumb and would not release it. Your father wept. He never legitimized her, but he ordered that she be raised within the Red Keep and granted the courtesies due to a royal bastard. It was his customary compromise: affection without courage, protection without public defiance.
Criston first held his daughter six nights after her birth. He came through the hidden stair near dawn, pale from exhaustion and rigid with fear. You were propped against pillows, Daella asleep beside you in a cradle carved with falcons and dragons. Criston stood over her for so long that you began to wonder if he intended to leave without touching her.
“She will not break,” you said.
“I know.”
“You look unconvinced.”
“I have never held one so small.”
“Then sit.”
He obeyed. You lifted Daella and placed her in his arms. Criston held her as if someone had passed him a vessel filled to the rim with wildfire. His hands, capable of swinging a morningstar through plate, seemed absurdly large beneath her body. Daella stirred, opened her strange violet-green eyes, and stared at him. Criston stared back.
“She knows you,” you whispered.
“No, she does not.”
“She heard your voice before she was born.”
His thumb moved over the dark silk of her hair. “That seems unlikely.”
“You may argue with the maesters once you have finished arguing with me.”
The child yawned. Her tiny fist closed around the edge of his sleeve.
Criston bowed his head. You saw the moment his composure failed. He made no sound, but tears gathered beneath his lashes. One escaped and struck Daella’s blanket. He wiped it away quickly, ashamed even before you.
“I have nothing to give her,” he said.
“You gave her life.”
“A name would be more useful.”
“She has mine.”
“She has Waters.”
“She has Targaryen blood, Arryn blood, and the blood of a man who made half the realm learn his name without inheriting so much as a ruined tower. That is enough for any child.”
He looked toward you. “You should not speak well of me. It encourages sin.”
“You entered by a hidden stair to hold your bastard daughter. I think encouragement is no longer the problem.”
Daella called him Papa for the first time when she was two. Criston had been teaching her to balance on the edge of a carpet, pretending it was a castle wall. She took three uncertain steps, fell against his knee, and announced the word with perfect clarity. He froze. You did not breathe.
“Ser,” you corrected gently. “He is Ser Criston.”
“Papa,” Daella insisted, patting the white cloth across his thigh.
Criston caught her hand. “Only here.”
She smiled because she understood nothing except that she had pleased him.
“Only when the doors are locked,” you told her.
“Locked,” Daella repeated.
It became a game to her. Before speaking the forbidden word, she ran to every door and pushed it closed. She never understood why Criston’s eyes followed her with such grief.
Alicent knew. You were never certain when suspicion became certainty, but the queen missed little that concerned her household. Perhaps a servant saw Criston emerge from the wrong passage. Perhaps she noticed Daella’s eyes, or the way the Lord Commander positioned himself whenever the child entered a crowded hall. She revealed her knowledge on an autumn evening when Daella was nearly three.
“You have shown remarkable loyalty by guarding the father’s identity,” Alicent said as her women fitted pearls into her hair.
You stood beside the hearth, forced into attendance at the queen’s invitation. “There is no loyalty in refusing to feed court gossip.”
“Names are not always necessary. Faces can be eloquent.”
Your blood chilled.
Alicent dismissed her women. When the door closed, she studied you through the mirror. At forty, the queen remained handsome. Motherhood and ambition had refined rather than diminished her beauty. “Do not look so frightened. If I intended to expose him, I would have done so before now.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know the man’s attention strays toward your daughter whenever he believes himself unwatched. I know he volunteered to guard your door during the birth and refused relief for eighteen hours. I know Daella Waters has his eyes.”
You forced your hands to remain still. “What do you want?”
“Nothing today.”
“And tomorrow?”
“That depends upon your sister.”
There it was. Not outrage, not piety, not disgust over broken vows. Usefulness. Alicent had found a chain stronger than iron and wrapped it around all three of you.
“If you harm Daella,” you said, “Aegarax will turn this castle into her funeral pyre.”
“Then you had best ensure the child remains useful alive.”
From that day onward, you understood your true place in the Red Keep. You were not merely an unmarried princess delayed by your father’s indecision. You were a hostage whose cage happened to contain silk gowns, servants, and gardens. Daella was leverage against you. You were leverage against Criston. Both of you could be raised before Rhaenyra as proof that the Greens held Aemma’s younger daughter and a dragon within their grasp. Aegarax remained beneath the Dragonpit, his chain shortened under the pretense that he had become unruly. Each time you visited, he pressed his forehead against yours and flooded the cavern with smoke.
Viserys died in the third moon of 129 AC while King’s Landing slept beneath cold rain. The bells did not ring. The doors to his chambers were sealed, servants confined, and ravens forbidden from leaving the rookery. You learned of it from silence. Breakfast did not arrive. The guards outside your rooms doubled. Daella asked why no one would take her to the yard.
Criston came after dusk. He entered openly in his white armor and cloak, accompanied by four guards in Hightower green.
“My father is dead,” you said.
He did not answer.
“How long?”
“Since last night.”
“And Rhaenyra has not been told.”
The guards heard everything. Criston’s face remained impassive. “You and the child will remain in these rooms until the succession is settled.”
“The succession was settled twenty-four years ago.”
“Do not do this here.”
“Where would you prefer I do it, Lord Commander? Before Aegon while you place my father’s crown upon his head?”
Something flared behind his eyes. “Take care.”
“You allowed his corpse to rot so Alicent could steal my sister’s throne.”
“I said take care.”
Daella emerged from the bedchamber clutching a carved horse. She saw Criston and began to smile, but your expression warned her. The child stopped before speaking.
“Why are there men outside?” she asked.
“To keep you safe,” Criston replied.
“From what?”
He looked at you. “From what comes next.”
That night you attempted to flee. Your maid bribed a kitchen boy to open the lower passage. You dressed Daella in a stable hand’s rough tunic, hid your silver hair beneath a brown hood, and carried her through cellars stinking of wet stone and onions. If you could reach the Dragonpit, Aegarax would take you to Dragonstone before the city gates opened. Rhaenyra would know the truth before Aegon could be crowned.
Criston waited at the end of the passage.
He stood alone beneath a smoking torch, armored from throat to heel. His white cloak filled the narrow way behind him.
“Move,” you said.
“No.”
“I will not ask twice.”
“You will not reach the Dragonpit. The city watch has sealed the hill.”
“On whose order?”
“Mine.”
Daella clung to your neck. Beneath the hood, her eyes moved between you.
“You knew I would try.”
“I know you.”
“You know nothing about me if you believe I will kneel to Aegon.”
“I do not need you to kneel. I need you alive.”
“For Alicent to display in chains?”
“For our daughter to keep her mother.”
The word our changed the air. Daella heard it. Her little brow furrowed.
You lowered your voice. “Come with us.”
Criston’s face tightened.
“Aegarax can carry three,” you continued. “We fly to Dragonstone. Tell Rhaenyra what happened inside the council chamber. Tell her how long they hid our father’s death. Whatever passed between you years ago, she may spare you for bringing warning.”
“Daemon will have my head before we land.”
“I will not allow it.”
“You cannot command Daemon.”
“I am asking you to choose us.”
“I am choosing you now.”
“You are barring the road.”
“If you reach Rhaenyra with a dragon, Alicent will name you an enemy. Aemond will hunt you. Vhagar is larger than Aegarax. If you remain, no one will harm you.”
“You believe you can keep that promise?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are a greater fool than I thought.”
Criston approached. You stepped back.
“Do not touch me.”
“Return to your chambers.”
“You are not my protector anymore.”
“I have never ceased protecting you.”
“You became my prison door.”
Something broke across his expression before discipline concealed it. “Then hate me from the safety of your rooms.”
He took Daella from your arms. You struck him, clawed at his armor, and tried to wrench her back. Criston endured it without retaliation. Daella began to cry. He held the child against his shoulder with one arm and caught both your wrists with the other.
“Enough,” he said.
“Give her to me.”
“When you stop.”
“She is not yours to take.”
The words wounded him. You meant them to.
Criston released your wrists. He looked down at Daella, whose small fingers had tangled in the clasp of his cloak. “No,” he said quietly. “Nothing is mine.”
He returned the child. Then he escorted you back to your prison.
At Aegon’s coronation, Criston placed the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown upon the prince’s head and made him king. The commons cheered because bread and spectacle could make treason look holy. Sunfyre roared. Bells shook the city. You remained locked inside the Red Keep with Daella on your lap while Aegarax screamed beneath the Hill of Rhaenys. Before nightfall, ravens carried the news to every corner of the realm.
Criston came to you after the coronation.
“Kingmaker,” you said when he entered.
“Do not call me that.”
“It is what they shouted in the yard.”
“Aegon was crowned by law.”
“My father named Rhaenyra.”
“The realm will never accept Daemon beside the Iron Throne.”
“So you stole it for a drunken boy.”
“He is the king’s eldest son.”
“You knew that when you swore to defend Rhaenyra.”
Criston closed the door. He looked exhausted rather than triumphant. “Aegon did not want the crown.”
“That almost makes the theft noble.”
“He believed Rhaenyra would spare him. I told him the truth.”
“Your truth.”
“If she ascends, Alicent’s sons become threats merely by breathing. Daemon has killed for less.”
“And what am I?”
His gaze moved toward Daella, asleep beside the hearth. “The reason you are still alive.”
“No. I am the reason you tell yourself this was necessary.”
He left without touching either of you.
War followed. Rhaenyra crowned herself upon Dragonstone. Aemond killed Lucerys above Shipbreaker Bay and returned expecting praise. Aegon feasted him while Alicent and Otto recoiled from the stain of kinslaying. Blood and Cheese entered the Red Keep by forgotten passages and murdered little Prince Jaehaerys before his mother’s eyes. Afterward, no door felt secure. Helaena ceased eating, bathing, and looking upon her remaining children. Aegon hanged ratcatchers by the score. Otto Hightower lost the Hand’s chain, and Criston took it in his place.
The first time he came to you wearing the golden hands of office, you laughed.
“You have climbed high,” you said.
“I did not ask for this.”
“Of course not. Ambition simply keeps mistaking you for someone who wants it.”
He studied you across the chamber. Months of war had pared away what remained of the handsome tourney knight. His face was leaner. Sleeplessness bruised the skin beneath his eyes. “Rhaenyra sent no answer to the last terms.”
“Did you expect her to thank Aegon for taking her crown and Aemond for killing her son?”
“I expected her to consider the children still living.”
“You ceased thinking of Rhaenyra’s children as children years ago.”
Criston’s mouth tightened. “Where is Daella?”
“Asleep.”
“I want to see her.”
“You want many things.”
“I leave at dawn.”
Fear pierced the anger. “Where?”
“Rosby first. Duskendale after. Rook’s Rest when the road is secure.”
“You are marching to war.”
“That is generally what a Hand does when half the realm is in rebellion.”
“Do not call it rebellion.”
“I did not come to argue.”
“You always come to argue. Sometimes you remove your clothes first.”
He almost smiled, but weariness killed it. “Let me see her.”
Daella slept in the adjoining room beneath a quilt patterned with falcons. Criston removed the Hand’s chain before approaching the bed. He set it on a chest as if unwilling to carry the weight near his daughter. The child woke when he sat beside her.
“Ser Criston?”
“Were the doors locked?”
Daella glanced toward you. At your nod, she pushed herself upright and flung both arms around his neck. “Papa.”
Criston held her fiercely. His eyes closed against her hair. “Have you minded your mother?”
“Mostly.”
“That means no.”
“She would not let me see Aegarax.”
“The Dragonpit is not safe.”
“He misses me.”
“He misses your mother.”
Daella drew back. “Will you bring me something?”
“From the war?”
“Yes.”
“What does a princess want from a war?”
“I am not a princess.”
Criston went very still.
Daella had heard it from other children, perhaps from a servant. The court called Aegon’s sons princes and his daughter a princess. No such style belonged to Daella Waters.
Criston cupped her small face. “You are more than most princesses I have known.”
“Can I have a sword?”
“No,” you said.
“A small one,” Daella bargained.
Criston looked at you over her head. “A wooden sword.”
“She already has three.”
“Then a better one.”
He stayed until she slept again. In your chamber, he fastened the Hand’s chain around his neck. You watched his fingers fumble with the clasp and stepped forward to help. Neither of you spoke until it was secured.
“Rook’s Rest belongs to Lord Staunton,” you said. “He declared for Rhaenyra.”
“Yes.”
“You expect her to send a dragon.”
“Yes.”
The understanding sickened you. “It is a trap.”
“It is war.”
“You will kill one of her riders.”
“If I can.”
“And if Rhaenyra comes?”
Criston met your gaze. “Then the war may end.”
“You once swore your life to her.”
“I remember every oath I have broken.”
You slapped him. His head turned with the blow. This time, unlike the night you told him of Daella, he seized your wrist before you could strike again.
“I hate you,” you whispered.
“No, you do not.”
“I should.”
“Yes.”
He kissed you with the desperation of a man expecting death. You fought him for one breath, then gripped the front of his doublet and dragged him closer. It was not forgiveness. Nothing could forgive what lay between you. Yet his mouth was known to you, his body remembered yours, and dawn threatened to take him where grief could become permanent. Criston backed you against the wall. His forehead rested against yours.
“Say you want me to stop.”
“You know I will not.”
“That has never made it right.”
“Nothing about us was ever right.”
He kissed you again, slower now. You unfastened the chain you had just secured and let it fall to the floor. He stayed until the sky paled, though neither of you slept. When he dressed, he left the golden hands on the table.
“You forgot something,” you said.
Criston looked at the chain. “Keep it.”
“I do not want it.”
“Neither do I.”
He returned from Rook’s Rest alive. Princess Rhaenys did not. Meleys’s severed head was dragged through King’s Landing while the commons watched in fearful silence, for a dead dragon did not resemble victory as closely as the king’s men had hoped. Aegon lay burned and broken. Sunfyre remained near the battlefield, too wounded to fly. Criston had won his battle and looked like a man who had discovered victory tasted of charred flesh.
He came to Daella before reporting to Alicent. His armor smelled of smoke, horse, dried blood, and dragonfire. A burn reddened one side of his neck. Daella ran toward him, but stopped when she saw the blood.
“Is it yours?” she asked.
“Some of it.”
“Did you bring my sword?”
Criston made a sound that might have been a laugh. From his belt, he drew a small wooden sword painted white. Daella accepted it solemnly.
“You remembered.”
“I said I would.”
You waited until the child went to show her nurse. “Rhaenys?”
“Dead.”
“Meleys?”
“Dead.”
“And Aegon?”
“Living.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Criston looked toward the window. “I have seen men burned before. I have never watched armor melt into a king.”
“You arranged the trap.”
“I did.”
There was no plea in the admission. Criston did not ask you to absolve him. That, more than remorse would have done, reminded you why men followed him. He never pretended his hands were clean.
Aemond took the regency and placed the iron-and-ruby crown upon his own head while his brother drifted through milk of the poppy. Criston marched again, this time with Aemond and Vhagar, leaving King’s Landing exposed in pursuit of Daemon. Before his departure, he gave you a knife small enough to hide beneath your skirts and told you which postern would remain guarded by men loyal to him.
“If the city falls, take Daella and go south,” he said. “At the Mud Gate, ask for a woman named Mara Cole. She sells onions near the river. She is my father’s cousin.”
“You have family in King’s Landing?”
“I brought her here after Daella was born. She does not know everything, but she knows enough.”
“You planned an escape for us while preventing every attempt I made.”
“I planned for a day when escape offered more safety than remaining.”
“You always believe you alone can decide that.”
“I have usually been right.”
“You are insufferable.”
“I am alive.”
“For now.”
Criston glanced toward Daella, who was playing near the hearth. “If I do not return, Mara will take her to Blackhaven. My father may still be living. Lord Dondarrion has no love for me, but he is not a man who murders children.”
“You speak as if I will not be with her.”
“You will.”
“Say it as though you believe it.”
He could not.
You caught his arm before he turned away. “Choose us this time.”
“I am trying.”
“No. You are riding after another prince with another army. You are choosing war again.”
“If Aemond kills Daemon, the Blacks lose their greatest weapon. If we retake Harrenhal, Rhaenyra’s cause may collapse.”
“And then?”
“I come back.”
“To do what? Keep me locked here while Aegon feeds my sister to Sunfyre?”
Criston’s face hardened. “Do not ask me to choose between you.”
“I already did. You chose the crown.”
“I chose a realm where Daella might live.”
“You made the realm where she is in danger.”
Daella looked up at the sound of her name. Both of you fell silent.
Criston knelt. The child came to him, wooden sword in hand. He adjusted her grip, closing her fingers around the hilt.
“Not too tight,” he told her. “A rigid hand tires quickly.”
“Will you teach me when you return?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Criston looked at you.
“Promise her,” you said.
He kissed Daella’s brow. “I promise.”
He left without saying farewell to you.
Rhaenyra took King’s Landing less than a moon later. With Aemond, Vhagar, and Criston absent, the city’s defenses crumbled. Gold cloaks still loyal to Daemon opened gates. Queen Alicent was seized. Aegon vanished with his children. You awoke to bells, shouting, and the thunder of dragons above the city. Syrax circled the Red Keep while Caraxes roared from the walls. Guards abandoned your door. You dressed Daella, took Criston’s knife, and prepared to reach Aegarax.
Rhaenyra found you first.
Your sister entered the chamber wearing black armor and a crown, Daemon at her side. She was heavier than when she had left court, her face marked by grief and childbirth, but nothing had dimmed the force of her presence. This was not the laughing girl who carried you through corridors. It was the queen who had lost sons, a throne, and any remaining belief that blood alone guaranteed loyalty.
For one heartbeat you saw your sister.
Then Rhaenyra saw Daella.
“You are alive,” she said.
“No thanks to those who held us.”
Her gaze moved over your face. “They told me you refused to declare for either side.”
“I was locked in these rooms.”
“You signed a letter urging me to yield.”
“Alicent threatened my child.”
Daemon closed the door behind him. His eyes rested upon Daella with predatory interest. “And who is the child’s father?”
When you were alone, Rhaenyra removed her crown and set it on the table. “I asked Father to let you come to Dragonstone.”
“I know.”
“He said you wished to remain.”
“He lied.”
Pain moved through her face. “I believed him.”
“You found it convenient to.”
“I had children, a husband, enemies on every side.”
“And I had nothing?”
“You had a dragon.”
“Chained beneath this city.”
Rhaenyra looked toward Daella again. The child had Criston’s pale green eyes that day. There was no violet visible around them.
“Does he live?” your sister asked.
You did not answer.
Her stare sharpened. “Criston.”
Hearing the name spoken aloud felt like a blade entering the room.
Rhaenyra stepped nearer. “It is him.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Seven hells.”
“You will not touch Daella.”
“That creature crowned Aegon.”
“She is four.”
“He murdered Joffrey. He crippled Harwin. He hunted my supporters, set the crown on my brother’s head, and helped burn Rhaenys alive.”
“I know what he has done.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“And you loved him?”
The question carried old poison. Whatever had passed between them had not faded. It had merely acquired more corpses.
“I do,” you said.
Rhaenyra recoiled as though you had struck her. “All these years.”
“All these years.”
“He made you their hostage.”
“He also kept them from killing me.”
“For his own use.”
“Do not speak as if you know him.”
“I knew him before you were old enough to understand what he wanted.”
“You knew what he was to you. That is not the same.”
Rhaenyra’s cheeks flushed darkly. For a moment you thought she might call the guards. Instead, she looked at Daella and seemed to see the child properly for the first time.
“She has his eyes.”
“She has mine too.”
“If Daemon learns this, he will use her.”
“Then do not tell him.”
“Why should I protect Cole’s bastard?”
“Because she is Aemma’s granddaughter.”
The name silenced her.
Rhaenyra returned the crown to her head. “You will remain in the Red Keep until this war ends.”
You almost laughed. “So I have changed gaolers.”
“It is for your protection.”
“That is what Criston said.”
Hatred flashed across her face. “Do not compare me to him.”
“You have both locked the same door.”
Rhaenyra forbade you from flying Aegarax. She claimed every dragon might soon be needed, yet she placed guards around the cavern and ordered the keepers not to remove his chains. You were permitted to visit, always watched. Aegarax had grown savage during the war. He snapped at strangers and scorched the stone whenever soldiers approached. Only your touch quieted him. You pressed your body against the warm scales beneath his jaw, murmuring in High Valyrian while his golden eyes followed every guard.
Rhaenyra’s reign decayed around you. Lord Celtigar imposed taxes that emptied purses and filled the streets with resentment. Heads appeared above the gates. Ser Tyland Lannister was given to the torturers. The smallfolk cursed dragons, kings, queens, and every silver-haired child who ate while their own families starved. The Shepherd preached that the beasts were demons and their riders abominations. Helaena fell from Maegor’s Holdfast onto the spikes below. Whether grief, murder, or despair sent her through the window, no one could prove. The city answered with riot.
News of Criston’s death reached the Red Keep before the mobs gathered at Cobbler’s Square. The report came from the riverlands: surrounded south of the Gods Eye, he had offered to fight three enemy commanders in single combat. They refused him. Three arrows struck him, and his men were slaughtered. His head was said to have been carried on a spear.
You read the message twice. Then a third time. The letters remained unchanged.
Daella found you beside the cold hearth.
“Is Papa coming back?” she asked.
You folded the parchment. “No.”
“He promised.”
“I know.”
“Papa does not break promises.”
You could not tell her that Criston had built his life from broken vows. You pulled her onto your lap and held her while she demanded answers that did not exist.
That night Aegarax screamed beneath the city until blood ran from the mouths of two dragonkeepers.
The Storming of the Dragonpit began the following evening.
From the Red Keep, the Hill of Rhaenys appeared crowned in flame. Bells rang without rhythm. Thousands of voices merged into a roar that rolled across the city like the sea. Men and women armed with axes, spears, butcher’s hooks, hammers, and rusted swords surged toward the Dragonpit. The Shepherd’s lambs believed the Seven would protect them. The dragons taught them otherwise.
You felt the first death through Aegarax.
Pain tore across your chest so violently that you fell against the window. Daella screamed your name. Far across the city, fire erupted from the Dragonpit’s entrances. Shrykos died beneath blades and axes. Morghul burned scores before a spear entered her eye. Tyraxes became tangled in his chain and was hacked apart by men who continued striking after the dragon’s death had already crushed those nearest him. Dreamfyre broke loose, wounded and maddened, and hurled herself against the great dome until stone collapsed upon dragon and mob alike.
Aegarax fought from the deepest cavern. His chain had been shortened so often that he could not reach the doors. Through the bond between you, the world became heat, blood, and blind fury. You felt iron biting into his leg. You smelled men burning inside armor. A spear entered the soft flesh beneath his jaw. Another tore through the red membrane of his wing. He called for you, not in words, but with the same desperate need that had driven him beneath your blankets as a hatchling.
You tried to reach him.
Guards blocked the stair. One caught you around the waist while another tore Criston’s knife from your hand. Daella clung to your skirts. You fought until the pommel of a sword struck your temple and the corridor spun.
“My dragon is dying!”
“The queen has ordered everyone kept inside.”
“He is chained!”
The guard looked away.
Aegarax wrenched against the iron until bone cracked. The chain held. Men swarmed beneath him. His fire filled the cavern, consuming flesh, banners, straw, and old dragon dung. A crossbow bolt vanished into his golden eye. The agony drove you to your knees.
Then the roof fell.
Aegarax died with your name inside him.
The silence left behind was worse than pain. Something that had lived beside your soul since infancy simply ceased. You vomited on the stones. Daella wrapped both arms around you while the Dragonpit burned bright enough to make midnight resemble dawn.
The Red Keep began emptying before sunrise. Rhaenyra meant to flee for Dragonstone. Her remaining guards seized chests of coin, clothing, jewels, and royal records while servants stole whatever could be carried. No one came for you. Whether your sister intended to take you or abandon you could no longer matter. The castle gates had opened. Gold cloaks were deserting. Mobs filled the streets.
Your chamber door opened while you were tying a cloak around Daella.
The man who entered wore a black mantle over battered plate. Blood had dried along one side of his throat. His beard had grown unevenly. One arm was bound against his chest, and fever hollowed his cheeks.
You drew the knife hidden beneath your sleeve.
Criston pushed back his hood.
For several breaths, neither of you moved.
Daella saw him first. “Papa?”
Criston’s face crumpled.
She ran. He dropped to one knee and caught her with his good arm. The force nearly toppled him. Daella clung to his neck, laughing and crying at once.
“You came back,” she said. “I told Mother you promised.”
Criston buried his face in her hair. “I promised.”
You could only stare. “They said you were dead.”
“They were close.”
“Your head was on a spear.”
“Someone’s head was.”
He rose with difficulty. Beneath the black mantle, his armor was pierced at the belly. Dried blood covered the plates. A broken arrowhead remained lodged near his shoulder.
“What happened?”
“The archers loosed before I finished speaking. One shaft struck my gorget. Another glanced from the breastplate. The third entered below the ribs.” His voice was rough. “I fell. Bodies covered me when the fighting began. Two men pulled me free after dark.”
“Your army?”
“Gone.”
“And you came here?”
“I spent six days unable to sit a horse. After that, yes.”
“Why?”
Criston looked at you as if the answer ought to have been obvious. “For you.”
Anger arrived before relief could soften it. You struck his chest with both hands. He staggered but remained upright.
“You came now?”
“I came as quickly as I could.”
“You left us in this castle. You chose Aegon, Aemond, the Hand’s chain, and every damned battle. Now the city is burning, my dragon is dead, and you come crawling from beneath a pile of corpses expecting what?”
“Nothing.”
“You promised her.”
“I know.”
“You promised me nothing.”
“I knew I could not keep it.”
You struck him again. Criston caught your wrists, but there was little strength left in his grip.
“I hate you,” you said.
“I know.”
“No, you do not. I hated you every time the lock turned. I hated you when Aegon wore the crown. I hated you when they brought Meleys’s head through the streets. I hated you when the raven said you were dead.”
Criston’s eyes shone. “I know.”
“I waited for you anyway.”
“I know.”
He pulled you against him. The armor beneath his mantle was cold and sticky with reopened blood. You buried your face against his neck, breathing leather, sweat, smoke, and the scent you had believed gone from the world. Criston held you and Daella together, one arm around his daughter and the wounded other braced across your back.
“The river,” he said after a moment. “Mara waits near the Mud Gate with a boat. We can reach the lower passage before Rhaenyra’s men seal it.”
“Rhaenyra is fleeing.”
“Then we go before the city chooses another ruler.”
“To Blackhaven?”
“If the roads south remain open. If not, Duskendale, then Pentos.”
“You would leave Westeros?”
His mouth twisted. “I have lost my king, my army, my office, and most of my blood. Pride is becoming expensive.”
“You forgot your honor.”
“No. I lost that years ago.”
Criston kissed you. There was no anger in it, no struggle for command, and no secrecy left worth preserving. Daella stood between you, clutching both your garments. The castle could have fallen around you and for one heartbeat it would not have mattered.
“I should have gone with you when you asked,” he whispered.
“At the passage?”
“Before Daella. Before any of this.”
“You would have hated exile.”
“I hated myself here.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
“You cannot mend five years with one regret.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It is all I have left.”
You touched the blood dried beneath his jaw. “Then get us out.”
The three of you entered the hidden stair while the Red Keep descended into panic. Criston carried Daella despite his wounds. You led with the knife. Smoke drifted through cracks in the walls. Somewhere above, men shouted that the queen had departed. Somewhere below, a door splintered and a woman screamed.
The passage opened behind a tapestry near the armory. Two dead guards lay in the gallery. Their cloaks were black, their throats cut. Criston took a sword from one and tested its balance.
“Stay behind me.”
“You have one working arm.”
“One is enough.”
“It was not enough at the Gods Eye.”
“I survived.”
“Barely.”
“Stay behind me.”
You almost laughed. Even half dead, stripped of crown and command, he remained impossible.
They recognized him in the lower yard.
A dozen men in mismatched armor had gathered near the postern, some belonging to Rhaenyra’s household, others to the city watch. One stared at the bloodstained plate beneath Criston’s mantle.
“White armor,” the man said.
Criston kept walking.
Another lifted a torch. Light struck his face. “Seven save us. It’s Cole.”
Swords left scabbards.
Criston placed Daella in your arms. “When I open the gate, run.”
“You cannot fight them.”
“I do not require permission.”
The first man rushed him. Criston moved with none of his former elegance, but experience remained after strength failed. He turned aside the descending blade and drove his sword beneath the man’s chin. Another came from the left. Criston caught the strike upon his wounded arm, grunted, and opened the attacker from hip to ribs. Blood sprayed across his white armor.
“Kingmaker!” someone shouted.
More men entered the yard.
You ran for the postern. The gate was barred. You set Daella down and hauled at the beam. It did not move. Criston fought behind you, boots slipping on wet stone. He killed a third man and lost his sword inside the body. A spear glanced along his backplate. He tore the weapon from its owner and struck with the butt, crushing the man’s mouth.
“Mother!” Daella screamed.
You turned.
A crossbowman stood upon the gallery.
He aimed at Criston.
You moved before thought could stop you.
The bolt entered beneath your collarbone and drove through your back.
There was no pain at first, only impact. The courtyard tilted. You sat down hard upon the stones, puzzled by the sudden weakness in your legs. Daella’s face appeared above you. Her mouth opened, but the ringing in your ears swallowed the sound.
Criston killed the crossbowman.
You did not see how. One moment the man stood above the gallery rail, and the next he fell into the yard with Criston’s spear through his chest. Criston reached you before the body struck the ground.
“No,” he said.
Blood filled your mouth when you tried to breathe.
“No. No, look at me.”
“I am looking.”
He pressed his hand around the bolt. His face had become the frightened face of the young knight who first held his daughter, the man beneath every title and crime.
“You cannot pull it out,” you said.
“I know.”
“Then stop touching it.”
“I can carry you.”
“You can barely carry yourself.”
“We are leaving together.”
“Criston.”
He looked at the blood spreading beneath you. Denial collapsed.
Daella knelt beside your head. “Mother, get up.”
You reached for her. Your fingers left a red mark upon her cheek.
“Listen to Papa.”
The child began sobbing. “You said Ser Criston outside.”
“No need now.”
Criston bowed over you. “Do not.”
“You came back for her.”
“For both of you.”
“You came too late for me.”
“I will not leave you here.”
“You will if you ever loved me.”
His eyes closed. A tear slipped through the dirt on his cheek.
“Take her to Mara,” you whispered. “Take her where no one knows what blood she has.”
“I cannot do this without you.”
“You have done everything without me.”
“That was the ruin of it.”
“Then do this right.”
The sounds beyond the yard grew louder. The mob had reached the outer walls. Bells rang above the city. Smoke veiled the paling sky.
Criston leaned down and kissed you. His mouth trembled. You tasted blood, though you no longer knew whether it belonged to him or to you.
“I loved you,” he said.
“You still do.”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
He lifted Daella. The child fought, reaching for you over his shoulder.
“Mother!”
Criston staggered toward the postern.
The beam had loosened. He put his back against it and forced it upward with a cry torn from somewhere beneath his wounds. The gate opened enough for him to drag Daella through. He looked back once.
You watched him leave.
The last thing you saw was the ruined white cloak beneath his black mantle and your daughter’s small hand stretched toward you.
Criston carried Daella into a city gone mad. The child screamed until grief exhausted her voice. Streets burned. Men dragged corpses from houses. The Shepherd’s followers staggered from the Dragonpit blackened by flame, praising the Seven while melted flesh hung from their bones. Others proclaimed new kings in alleys and squares. The gold cloaks had ceased pretending to hold order. Criston kept to the narrow ways, his sword in one hand and Daella pressed against his wounded side.
At the foot of Aegon’s High Hill, three men tried to take the child. The first believed her silver-black hair meant ransom. The second recognized Criston. The third wanted only the sword.
Criston killed all three.
The effort opened the wound beneath his ribs. Blood poured through the gap in his armor and soaked Daella’s tunic. He continued toward the Mud Gate.
Mara Cole waited beneath a torn awning beside the river, an old woman with Criston’s pale eyes and a knife hidden among baskets of onions. A fishing boat knocked against the quay behind her.
When she saw him, she crossed herself. “Gods be good.”
“They have not been,” Criston said.
“Where is the princess?”
He did not answer.
Mara looked at Daella and understood.
“Take her south,” Criston said. “Not by the kingsroad. Find my father if he lives. If Blackhaven is unsafe, cross into Dorne. If Dorne is closed, sell the jewels sewn into her cloak and take ship from Weeping Town.”
“You can tell me aboard.”
Criston shook his head.
“You crossed half the realm with an arrow in your guts. You can cross a river.”
Men appeared at the end of the street. Some wore black cloaks. Others carried the seven-pointed star of the Shepherd. One pointed toward the bloodstained knight.
Criston set Daella in the boat.
She caught his hand. “Come with us.”
He removed the white cloak from beneath the dark mantle. Once it had been snowy wool and heavy silk. Now it was torn, burned, and brown with old blood. Criston wrapped it around his daughter.
“This will keep you warm.”
“You promised to teach me.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
Criston kissed her brow. “Forgive me.”
Mara seized the oars. The boat drifted from the quay.
Criston turned to face the street.
The men came in greater numbers than he could count. He had no lord to command, no king to crown, no army waiting for his orders. The white cloak was gone. The Hand’s chain lay in a chamber that might already be burning. His sword arm was failing, blood filled one boot, and every breath ground the arrowhead deeper beneath his ribs.
Still, he stood between the mob and the river until the boat vanished into smoke.
They killed him within sight of the Mud Gate. It took six men. One opened his wounded belly with a hooked blade. Another drove a spear beneath his arm. Criston remained upright long enough to break the spearman’s neck. He fell only when a sword entered the gap above his gorget, in almost the same place where an arrow had failed to kill him beside the Gods Eye.
No songs were sung for him.
Daella survived.
Mara took her south by river and road, hiding her silver-black hair beneath brown dye and calling her a dead soldier’s orphan. Lord Dondarrion permitted the girl to remain at Blackhaven once the worst of the war had passed, though he never acknowledged whose blood she carried. In the marches she became Daella Cole, not Waters and never Targaryen. She learned the sword with her right hand, rode horses too fierce for larger children, and kept a ragged piece of white wool hidden beneath her mattress. She remembered a mother with violet eyes, a father in bloodstained armor, and a grey dragon screaming beneath a burning hill. She remembered enough.
The maesters never joined your name to Criston’s. They never entered Daella among the descendants of King Viserys and Queen Aemma. To history, the Kingmaker died childless, his white cloak stained by ambition and the blood of the Dance. You became a lesser tragedy in a war overflowing with them, a princess lost during the fall of King’s Landing, your bastard daughter presumed dead beside you.
History was wrong.
The crown destroyed both of you. The war took your dragon, your sister, his honor, and every future you might have shared. Yet the child you made in secrecy lived beyond it all, carrying the blood of the dragon and the steward’s son into a world that never learned enough to hunt her.
In the end, that was the only promise Criston Cole managed to keep.
It was a very touching story. Thank you for this wonderful work. I wish the Princess, Criston, and their daughter could have been happy together. But I'm so glad Daella survived.
The silk sheets of Oldtown were soft, but they belonged to a corpse.
You knew that better than anyone. Six months ago, the true daughter of Lord Ormund Hightower had succumbed to a silent, burning fever in the dead of night. She had drawn her last breath in a room lightened up by candlelight, and when her eyes opened again, it was you sitting up in her bed, a modern soul trapped in a world of fantasy.
You hadn't asked for any of this. You certainly hadn't asked to inherit the burden of the Green campaign, nor the suffocating behavior of a psychopathic father.
Honestly you have read the books, but you never imagined that Ormund would be a psychopath, and that Daeron The Daring is not 'Daring' at all but a meek boy in front of The lord of Oldtown
What is worse is that you have to deal with Ormund on a daily basis, there's no escape from that.
"Where is it?" His demands. "The pomander. The musk I had prepared for you, you're not wearing it."
You stared at him. "I— what?"
"The scent." He stressed out, but his eyes remained fixed on you. "I ordered a specific blend for you, bergamot, ambergris, a touch of clove. It was made to my specifications. I could smell it on you from across a room, and I enjoyed that. I told you to wear it daily."
The pomander, you remembered now, a little glass orb on a chain that had come with your wardrobe. You'd assumed it was just another accessory.
You stopped wearing it weeks ago because the clove gave you a headache.
"I didn't realize it was a requirement," you said carelessly. "I thought it was perfume."
"It was not perfume." His voice rose, and he stepped closer again, this time bringing his face within inches of yours. He inhaled once more, but in a more theatrical manner, like a man sampling a dish that had gone bad.
"I cannot abide this scent on you. It's wrong. You smell wrong. Like common soap and that cheap rosewater the maids use. I told you, the musk was for you. It marked you as mine."
Your stomach turned. The way he said marked you as mine, the possessive weight of it, the way he'd leaned in to sniff you like you were a whore he was considering purchasing, made something cold and greasy slide down your spine.
"Back up," you said, pushing your chair back a few inches. "You're too close."
Ormund didn't move. His expression changed, disbelief, and warring with outrage. "You're telling me to—"
"I'm telling you that you're standing in my personal space, and I don't like it. The scent is gone, because I stopped wearing it. If that's a problem, it's your problem."
Suddenly, Ormund grabs the sides of your head as if wondering whether to bash it against the wall behind you just like he did with your mother when she angered him.
But, again, he is too obsessed with you to let you go, to kill you, even his greed for power couldn't overcome this obsession.
He wished to we'd you to Daeron, it ensured that you would sit on the throne beside the future king, that his grandchildren through you would become kings.
"You will wear the pomander every day, and you will not make me seek you out to confirm that you're obeying, do you understand? I should not have to come to you like a hound tracking a scent. The fact that I can't smell you properly now, that you've removed what I gave you on purpose, tells me you're testing me."
"I'm not testing anything, I told you I don't like it."
"Then you will learn to like it." He reached into his pocket and produced a small glass vial, stoppered with silver. He held it up, and even from a few feet away, you could smell the clove and musk, heavy, cloying, nauseatingly strong.
"I keep a spare. Because I anticipated you might try something like this. Now" He uncorked it and extended it toward you.
"Apply it. Now. Before I lose my patience entirely."
You didn't take it. You just stared at him, at the vial, at the absolute certainty in his eyes that he had the right to dictate what you smelled like.
"You're creeping me out," you said, before you could stop yourself. "You know that, right? this is not normal, no father sniffs his daughter like she's a—"
"Don't finish that sentence." He snapped
"Don't you dare. I am the Lord of this house. I decide what is normal. I decide what you wear, what you eat, what you smell like. You are my daughter, and you will obey me in all things, or you will learn what disobedience costs."
You took the vial.
Not because you wanted to, but because the way Ormund's fingers had tightened on your skull, the way his thumbs had pressed against your temples like he was testing the give of bone, had reminded you, with startling clarity, that you were not in a world where you could win every battle.
You were in a world where men like him killed girls like you and called it justice.
Ormund watched. His nostrils flared with satisfaction.
"There," he cooed, his voice softening into something almost paternal, which made it worse.
"That wasn't so hard, was it? Now go give your prayers to the Mother and thank her for having a merciful father like myself."
I’ve been rewatching httyd 2nd movie and I love toothless interaction with cloudjumper ! Would it be ok if I request platonic toothless concept being very attached to a storm cutter reader (maybe reader very motherly and we know toothless met hiccup when he was also a kid , maybe reader fits the parent void in his life ) please if that’s ok with you ; if not no worries ^_^ hcs please:)
I can try, sure, still not the best with dragon/dragon pairings 💀. I did get more motivation for this after playing a HTTYD Roblox game that's official though... I find that game fun. I'm not proud of this... but I tried.
"Yandere!" Platonic! Toothless with Stormcutter! Reader
(Mini HCs - Dragon x Dragon)
Pairing: Platonic
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Reader, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Violence, Clingy behavior, Blood, Murder, Territorial behavior, Using the term yandere VERY loosely here, Dubious companionship.
Honestly I can think of some cute scenarios with this.
I still struggle to write yandere dragons towards other dragons, but I'll try my best.
Stormcutters are intelligent and confident dragons that often act as guardians.
They are quite rare from what I've seen in the series so these aren't dragons you see often.
They often express curiosity, observing both dragons and humans.
So I can definitely see Stormcutters being parental... especially like what we see with Cloudjumper towards baby Hiccup and Toothless... somewhat.
Toothless could probably have met you in the dragon sanctuary like with Cloudjumper.
You act like a guardian over other dragons and respect Valka for caring about you and the others in the flock.
Who knows, if you want to add more characters maybe you're close with Cloudjumper, mate or not.
You end up meeting Toothless probably when Hiccup is introduced to the sanctuary.
Toothless is an incredibly intelligent dragon, similarly to Stormcutters.
So you two will no doubt interact well, similarly to how he does with Cloudjumper.
I feel like Toothless isn't a very intense yandere in this situation... anything I come up with is just dragon behavior?
Toothless seems extremely excited around Cloudjumper.
I imagine you're curious about the rare Night Fury... since he's also a rare dragon.
Maybe you even try to take Toothless off Cloudjumper's claws since the other Stormcutter seems displeased around the young dragon.
Most if not all yandere dragon behavior is animalistic in nature and territorial.
Which... I wouldn't even really consider yandere?
Dragons are naturally possessive or protective when they deem something as theirs.
Toothless would probably feel the same towards you the longer he's around you.
Toothless hasn't really had parents.
The Night Fury species has been hunted to near extinction by hunters.
He hasn't exactly been... raised.
Hiccup became one of his only companions who he truly called family.
He... hasn't exactly had a dragon parental figure.
Yet when the Night Fury meets you?
He keeps excitedly bounding around you growling playfully as you watch him curiously.
You don't pay him much mind at first, quietly grumbling at him as you walk around the sanctuary Valka lets you stay in.
However... Toothless still settles beside you, looking up at you with wide expectant eyes.
I feel like Toothless is mostly just going to be clingy.
Especially if you begin to reciprocate some affection.
Eventually Toothless may grow on you... leading to you nuzzling the Night Fury or draping a wing over him.
Toothless takes this as a sign you accept him as family... which soon means you can't get rid of him.
Imagine Toothless getting clingy with you to the point Hiccup and Valka can barely separate you?
You're a big dragon... which means you have a pretty big nest...
Yet you unfortunately find yourself sharing the space with a certain Night Fury sneaking his way into it.
Poor you is just trying to sleep upside down... only for Toothless to paw at you with a small whine due to not getting your attention.
Poor you feels like you're babysitting a hatchling....
You can probably try to roar or get him to back off... but Toothless then just follows at a distance.
You may even leave the sanctuary to hunt... only for Hiccup to have to hold Toothless back from following you without a rider.
Hiccup definitely has to supervise Toothless since the Night Fury is attached.
Hiccup's a skilled rider... so I think he can definitely see your irritation with his dragon.
Your tail flicks, you keep trying to isolate...
Then there's Toothless rubbing against you like a cat... trilling excitedly.
Perhaps he's a little too excited to find a dragon like you.
I feel like you'd be a mentor-like figure to Toothless... when he isn't being clingy.
In return... Toothless tends to get overprotective.
When other dragons, even if they're part of the flock, it usually leads to Toothless growling a bit and sitting in front of you.
Once again... I think dragons are protective of family.
Not even Hiccup can get him to leave you alone.
I feel like Toothless isn't extremely violent... but may snap or shoot a plasma bolt as a warning to other dragons?
Hiccup scolds him... but is usually met with a disgruntled grumble from the Night Fury.
I feel like you can try to ignore Toothless... but he'll find a way to get your attention eventually.
Maybe by nipping your tail or something.
Toothless is easy to manage as you're the bigger dragon and can typically keep him in line.
But I feel like where things would get bad is when he becomes the 'Alpha' at the end of HTTYD.
Then you can't ignore him.
It takes one roar and you're meant to bow.
Toothless would of course never hurt you.
He's mostly just overprotective as you're seen as a parent to him.
If you want him even worse and more protective... maybe you get severely injured during the final battle against Drago?
Sure, Toothless becomes Alpha...
But you're now being looked after by other Dragon Riders to check if your wounds will heal properly.
Toothless is naturally on high alert.
The dragon rushes to your side... nudging your head with a concerned grumble.
He never leaves your side long after that.
Hiccup can barely even get him to fly until you're healed.
The only time Toothless leaves you is to give you fish he caught, the smaller dragon hunched over with a small whine as he watches you.
Toothless often sounds his time curled up against you, quietly listening to your rumbling breaths.
He never really leaves your side after that.
Nearly losing you makes him hover around you like a little bodyguard.
Anyone too close makes his eyes narrow before lunging with a growl, mouth crackling with plasma.
He holds back enough to not draw blood...
But if he was pushed to it?
Then... maybe they were asking for it by getting so close.
Wherever you go, Toothless follows.
In his eyes... you are family... you are his parent like Valka is to Hiccup...
Now... Toothless will never be alone if he keeps you safe.
If anyone else comes to threaten such a decision, dragon hunters for instance...
Maybe Toothless won't bother holding back anymore.
Imagine it... how horrifying it would be to see Toothless covered in blood after an attempt to protect you.
You may not care too much... dragon and all that...
But the humans around you too...?
They're starting to see how far this connection has gone... Toothless has changed since meeting you...
No one will be able to get close enough to stop him either... not if they want to be a bloody mess too.
⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
18+
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ
・Glorfindel is a loving partner.
・Confident, loyal and joyous. He makes every day feel special.
・He's quick-witted, yet wise. Playful yet graceful. A walking contradiction ... or is he made of magnitudes?
・As your husband, he loves being in your company. He spends as much time as he can with you.
・Glorfindel loves when you braid his hair; your soft hands moving through his golden strands as if they were made of silk.
・Many people think he is the dominant one in your relationship. But what they don't know is that Glorfindel would get on his hands and knees for you.
・He always carries a rock you gave him when you first started courting. He has an array of them now. Never once throws them away. What you give to him is precious.
・His height is ridiculous. 6"6 or taller. You look like a dwarf in comparison. But you feel so safe, even just standing next to him.
・You often go on picnic outtings. Food and beverages, all neatly packed in a basket.
・Hand in hand you walk.
・Your littler legs moving faster than that of your husband's.
・But you're both in a happy mood, having woken up well past sunrise, in each other's arms with nothing to worry about on this day.
・That's how it is with Glorfindel ... well ... when he isn't needed and whisked away on some risky quest.
𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔
Survives Because Of Pure Luck (You) x Is The Pure Luck (Glorfin)
"Why are you babying me" (You) x "Because I know you like it" (Glorfin)
Love Language Is Physical Touch (You) x Is Touch Starved (Glorfin)
𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆
Soulmates/Bonded Pair
Unbreakable Bond
Slow Burn to Unshakeable Devotion
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈
I Need You by James Newton Howard
Tristan & Yvaine by IIan Eshkeri
Gwen & Arthur by Rob Lane
𝑆𝑚𝑢𝑡 / 𝑁𝑆𝐹𝑊
・Large, thick, and heavy. His cock is just as beautiful as he is.
・Sculpted almost, it's difficult not to stare everytime he takes his clothes off. But he is the most beautiful specimen you have ever seen in your life.
・But don't think you're getting away with it. He comes over to you, standing you up and starts to undress you.
・You may have insecurities but Glorfindel chases them away. "What folly," he says. Kissing your neck, your chest, and nipples.
・All insecurities melt away once you're in your husbands thick, tanned arms.
・Glorfindel likes to watch you as you sit in his lap, both naked, while you whimper at his size. His large cock inside of you was almost too much. And yet, you kept rocking back and forth, up and down.
・Feeling him and the stretch he gave you. It was a mix of pleasure and pain.
・It felt too good, and you did your best to stay quiet, but your little moans and huffs made your husband fuck you a little harder.
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• He listens when you speak during councils or dinners, asks your opinion even when others overlook it, and remembers every answer.
• He wants a wife who has a brain to match her beauty.
• He begins treating you as his equal early on. Preparing you to be a Lady of Oldtown.
• He introduces you to household staff by name, explains which bannermen are loyal and which require careful handling, and even asks for your opinion on charitable matters.
• During your walks he speaks about the Citadel, the Starry Sept, the harbor, and the Hightower itself.
• He is loyal from the start. If a lord insults you, Ormund won’t make a scene. He will make sure he pays though.
• Invitations stop arriving for that man. Trade agreements suddenly become more difficult. By the time you notice, your honor has already been quietly avenged.
• Once he is comfortable with you, being with you is one of the only times he feels as though he can truly relax.
• Behind closed doors, the weight of command slips from his shoulders. He’ll loosen the collar of his tunic, pour the two of you wine himself instead of calling a servant, and ask how your day was first.
• His proposal isn’t a huge spectacle, but it is truly sincere and he makes sure that it holds a lot of meaning to the both of you.
GWAYNE HIGHTOWER
• Gwayne is a true gentleman by nature.
• He always offers his arm before a walk, stands when you enter a room, pulls out your chair, and never allows you to walk nearest the street or the edge of a battlement.
• He falls first and everyone notices except you. The servants catch him smiling whenever you enter a room.
• He enjoys dancing with you, even if he’s not exceptional at it. During feasts he’ll always ask for at least one dance.
• He has a great sense of humor and finds joy in making you laugh.
•He believes family is important and makes sure to get to know and become close with yours early on.
• Before every farewell he makes certain you know exactly when he’ll return. He never leaves after an argument without making peace first.
• He is very attentive with letting you know he is always thinking of you.
• Brings you little gifts/trinkets from his travels. Wildflowers picked during patrols, a ribbon from Oldtown’s markets, polished seashells from the Reach’s coast.
• Whenever duty separates you, the first raven you receive is always from Gwayne, usually ending with: “Until I can say these words in person again… know that you are missed.”
Ormund discovers his wife’s secret journal, revealing your hidden desires. Your restrained marriage ignites into a fierce, intense connection as he claims you fully, blending passion, power, and vulnerability in a charged, private moment.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒; dark!ormund, possessive behaviour, explicit sexual content, this is intense and fuck, very, very much explicit, so minors dni.
I wrote this whilst waiting in court, do not blame me, I was bored.
Ormund Hightower did not mean to find it.
The library was his sanctuary, not yours. You preferred the gardens, the solar, the bathhouse with its steam curling against the stone—anywhere the books were not. And yet there it was, tucked between a crumbling copy of The Seven-Pointed Star and a history of the Conquest he had not opened in years.
A small leather-bound journal, soft from handling, smelling faintly of jasmine and something warmer beneath.
Your scent. He knew it the way he knew prayer.
He pulled the journal free and the spine fell open in his palm, as though it had been waiting for him. The pages were filled in your looping, impatient hand, you had never taken to the septa's lessons on penmanship, and he meant only to close it, to set it back, to forget he had ever held it.
Then he read the first line his eyes found.
I dreamt again of his hands. Not the careful ones he offers me at table, not the ones that brush my cheek like I might break. The others. The ones he keeps locked away when he thinks I am not looking.
His breath stopped in his chest.
He read on. He could not have stopped if the library had caught fire around him.
Tonight at supper he did not look at me once. Not once. He spoke of tariffs and the harvest and whether the new maester would arrive before winter, and I sat across from him and wanted him to push the plates aside and take me across the table like a man takes what is his. I wanted the wine to spill. I wanted to feel the wood against my back and his weight pressing me into it until I could not breathe for wanting him.
The words blurred. He blinked, and the ink sharpened again, merciless.
I have been his wife for two years and he has never—not once—
“Fuck,” a single line remained below, and he did not finish reading it.
He closed the journal.
He set it on the table with a care that surprised him, given the way his hands were shaking, given the way the blood had gone from his face and returned somewhere lower and altogether more dangerous. He stood very still for a moment, the way a man stands before he does something he cannot undo and then he let out a breathless laugh, rubbing a hand across his face.
“You fucking little minx.”
Then he went to find you.
You were in the solar, as he had known you would be. The afternoon light came through the narrow windows and caught in your hair, and you were bent over some needlework you did not care about, your needle moving in that restless, impatient way that meant your mind was elsewhere. You did not hear him come in. You did not hear him cross the room.
You heard nothing until his hand closed in your hair, not gently, because that was not what you wanted, “You are a rather good pretender, my little sweetling.”
You gasped as the needlework fell, and your head was snapped back with a violent jerk, forcing your spine to arch and your throat to expose itself to the harsh afternoon light. A sharp cry of shock escaped your lips, but it was quickly stifled as he tightened his grip, winding the strands of your hair around his fist to ensure you couldn't pull away.
He leaned down, his breath hot and smelling of iron and leather against your ear. He didn't speak, as the silence of the room was now filled only by your ragged, panicked breathing and the soft thud of the embroidery hoop rolling across the stone floor.
With a sudden, cruel tug, he pulled you further back, forcing you to look up at him. Your eyes were wide, shimmering with a mixture of terror and a dark, forbidden thrill that you couldn't suppress. He stared down at you, his expression cold and possessive, his eyes scanning your trembling form. “Do you have any fucking idea what you have just done to me?”
Without warning, he shifted his weight, slamming you forward against the heavy wooden table. The impact knocked the wind out of you, and the scattered threads of your needlework clung to your skin like webs. He didn't let go of your hair, using it as a handle to keep your face pressed hard against the wood.
His other hand moved with predatory speed, gripping your hip and bruising the flesh as he hauled your backside up and back, pinning your chest to the table.
“Ormund!”
The rough fabric of your gown bunched up around your waist, leaving you vulnerable. He pressed his hard, demanding heat against the curve of your ass, letting you feel the rigid length of his cock through your clothes, marking you as his before a single garment had even been removed.
He bent lower, burying his face against the curve of your throat where the pulse hammered wild and frantic. He inhaled, deep, deliberate, the way a man drinks when he has been dying of thirst and the scent of you flooded him.
Jasmine and the faint salt of fear-sweat, because beneath it, the unmistakable honeyed musk of your arousal, already blooming between your thighs because of what he had done to you.
“Filthy,” he breathed against your throat. The word was almost a prayer. “You filthy little whore.”
You made a sound, half sob, half something else entirely and he felt your body shudder beneath his hands.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the grin that spread across his face was not the grin of the careful husband who brushed your cheek at table. It was something older, something that had been locked away in the same place as the hands you had written about. It was the grin of a man who had found what he was looking for and meant to take it without apology.
He had no intention of being gentle. “Go on, admit it. Tell me that this isn't what you wanted? Tell me that you have not imagined me bending you over a godsdamned desk like some fool desperate to get his cock wet?”
The hand in your hair twisted, wrenching your head to the side so that your cheek ground against the rough grain of the table. You whimpered, a real sound, not one of your careful sighs at supper and he felt something savage and satisfied curl through his chest at the sound of it.
“Two years,” he said, and his voice was low and rough, nothing like the voice he used in the great hall. “Two years you've been writing that you wanted this, and you never once had the courage to say it to my face.”
His free hand found the laces at the back of your gown and pulled, not carefully, not with the patience of a man who yearned for his wife's desperate mewla.
The laces did not give so much as surrender, threads snapping, fabric tearing, the sound obscene in the quiet solar, cool air hit the skin of your back and you arched against it, because at that moment, Ormund didn’t give you a moment to recover.
He reached down, his fingers hooking into the fine silk of your undergarments. With one violent, decisive rip, the fabric tore, the sound echoing like a war horn in the quiet solar. He didn't care for the cost of the lace, he only cared for the access it granted him.
He shoved you further onto the table, sweeping a vase of lilies and a stack of parchment to the floor with a crashing thud. He didn't let go of your hair, keeping your head pinned, your cheek pressed against the polished oak. He could feel you trembling, a fine, rhythmic shudder that told him you were terrified, but the way your hips instinctively tilted back toward him, seeking the friction of his cock, told him you were starving.
“You wanted this,” he snarled, his voice a low, guttural rasp. “You sat across from me and fantasized about me breaking you. You wrote it down like a little secret, thinking I would always be the gentle lord.”
He released your hair only to slam his hand down onto the small of your back, pinning you flat. His other hand reached between your legs, his fingers diving deep into your soaking heat. He didn't tease, not now, not when he ached to devour every inch of your skin as he drove two fingers inside you with a brutal thrust that forced a loud, sharp scream from your throat.
He felt the tight clench of your walls around him, the desperate, wet grip of a woman who had been dreaming of this violation for years.
“Look at you,” he hissed, his fingers curling and pumping inside you with a ruthless rhythm, stretching you open. “Dripping for me. You're nothing but a craving, aren't you? A little hole that needs to be filled by a man who doesn't care if he hurts you.”
He withdrew his fingers with a wet pop and moved with a sudden, predatory urgency. He fumbled with his breeches, freeing his cock, thick, pulsing, and engorged to the point of pain. He didn't use any lubricant other than the overflow of your own arousal.
He gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your skin, leaving marks that would turn purple by morning. He positioned the head of his cock at your entrance and, without a word of warning, drove himself home in one singular, devastating plunge.
You shrieked, your fingers clawing at the wood of the table, your back arching violently as he bottomed out inside you. The impact was jarring, a collision of flesh and bone that left you breathless. Ormund groaned, a sound of pure, possessive triumph, as he felt your tight heat wrap around him, squeezing him with a desperation that nearly broke his resolve.
He didn't give you time to adjust. He began to fuck you with a savage, unrelenting pace. Each thrust was a claim, a violent punctuation mark to the silence of your marriage.
He slammed his pelvis against your ass, the sound of your bodies colliding—slap, slap, slap—filling the room. He was no longer the husband, but rather now he was the master, and you were the vessel for every dark impulse he had suppressed for two years.
“Tell me,” he commanded, his voice shaking with lust, his teeth sinking into the soft meat of your shoulder, drawing blood. “Tell me you're my whore. Tell me you want me to ruin you.”
“Yes!” you sobbed, your voice broken and high, your head tossing from side to side. “Please... Ormund, please! Fuck me... break me... yes!”
The admission acted like fuel to a fire. He reached around, his hand finding your clitoris and grinding against it with a cruel, heavy pressure even as he continued to hammer into you from behind. The dual stimulation was too much as you began to peak, your internal muscles pulsing in violent spasms around his shaft.
Ormund felt his own climax rushing toward him, a tidal wave of heat and aggression. He gripped your hair again, pulling your head back so he could see the agony and ecstasy etched onto your face. He accelerated, his thrusts becoming short, sharp, and punishing, driving you further and further into the table.
“You're mine,” he growled, his voice thick. “Every inch of this filthy, wanting body is mine.”
With a final, guttural roar, he buried himself as deep as he could go and erupted. He felt the hot, thick jets of his cum flooding you, filling you to the brim, marking you internally just as he had marked your skin.
He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, his chest heaving, his weight crushing you into the wood, letting you feel the slow, rhythmic throb of his cock as it began to soften.
He didn't pull out immediately. He leaned down, kissing the back of your neck with a sudden, jarring tenderness that was almost more frightening than the violence.
“I read your journal, my sweetling,” he whispered, his voice returning to that smooth, noble tone, though the edge of cruelty remained. “And I think we shall spend the rest of the evening ensuring every single one of your dreams comes true. Whether you can stand for it or not.”
Ormund didn't let you linger in the afterglow. He withdrew from you with a wet, sliding sound, leaving your legs shaking and your pussy leaking his seed across the polished oak of the table.
Before you could even draw a full breath, he gripped your arm and hauled you to your feet. You stumbled, your ruined gown clinging to your thighs, your body humming with a mixture of exhaustion and desperate, lingering hunger.
The look in his eyes, cold, commanding, and utterly possessive told you that the game had only just begun.
He spun you around and marched you toward the nearest stone wall, his grip on your arm like a shackle. When they reached the cold masonry, he slammed you back against it. The impact jarred your teeth, and you let out a small, startled whimper, your palms flattening against the rough stone for balance.
Ormund stepped into your space, his massive frame blotting out the afternoon light. He didn't touch you with his hands this time, but he pressed his chest against yours, pinning you firmly to the wall, his hard, semi-erect cock rubbing against the damp silk of your dress.
“You’ve spent two years pretending to be the dutiful, delicate lady,” he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous vibration against your skin. “And you've spent those same years writing filth about your husband in a leather book. I think it's time we reminded you of exactly what you swore to me before the High Septon.”
He reached up, his hand wrapping around your throat, not to choke you, but to tilt your head back, forcing you to look into his eyes. His thumb pressed firmly against your windpipe, just enough to make you swallow hard.
“The vows,” he commanded. “Every single one. Recite them. Now.”
You trembled, your breath coming in shallow hitches. “Ormund... please...”
He tightened his grip on your throat, his eyes narrowing. “Do not 'please' me. Recite the vows, or I will find a much more painful way to make you remember them.”
Tears of arousal and fear pricked your eyes as you began, your voice shaking. “I... I take you to be my wedded husband...”
“Louder,” he snapped, his other hand sliding down to grip your thigh, hoisting it up and hooking it over his hip, forcing your legs open and exposing your dripping heat to the cool air of the solar.
“I take you to be my wedded husband!” you cried out, your voice cracking.
“And?”
“I... I promise to honor you... to cherish you... in sickness and in health...”
As you spoke the words of devotion, Ormund’s hand moved from your thigh to your center. He didn't use his fingers this time, he used the heel of his hand to grind hard against your clitoris, crushing the sensitive nub against the stone wall. You gasped, your words dissolving into a moan.
“Finish the vow,” he hissed, his teeth grazing the shell of your ear.
“In... in poverty and in wealth!” you sobbed, your hips bucking instinctively against his hand. “Until death do us part!”
“And the vow of obedience,” Ormund reminded you, his voice dropping to a guttural rasp. He released your throat only to grab both of your wrists, pinning them high above your head against the stone. He leaned in, his lips brushing yours, though he didn't kiss you. “The one where you swear your will is my will. Your body is my property. Your pleasure is my gift.”
“... I swear my will is yours,” you whispered, your eyes fluttering shut, your body sagging against him as you surrendered completely to his dominance. “My body... is your property.”
“Good girl,” he breathed.
He shifted his weight, his hand sliding back down to grip your ass, lifting you entirely off the floor. He pinned you against the wall with the sheer force of his body, his cock positioning itself perfectly at your entrance.
“Now,” he growled, “let's see if you can recite the prayers to the Father while I fuck the lies out of you.”
The cold stone bit into your back as he pressed you harder against the wall, the heat of his body searing through the thin fabric still clinging to your skin. You gasped, your legs wrapping instinctively around his hips as he lifted you higher, the head of his cock nudging against your slick folds. Your breath hitched at the pressure, at the promise of being filled, claimed, taken.
He didn't push inside, not yet. Instead, he held you there, suspended between the rough wall and his iron grip, his eyes boring into yours. The dark intensity in them made you feel small, worshipful.
“Pray,” he commanded. “The first one. You know it.”
Your mind was hazy, drowning in the scent of him, the weight of him, the ache between your legs that pulsed with every heartbeat. You swallowed, your throat dry.
“Oh Father, who watches from the sky...” you started, your voice trembling, barely a whisper.
“Louder,” he snapped, his hand coming down on your ass in a sharp crack that echoed off the stone. You cried out, your body jolting against him, the sting blooming across your flesh like fire.
“Oh Father, who watches from the sky,” you repeated, your voice stronger, steadier, even as tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. “Guide my hands, guard my heart...”
He thrust into you with one brutal, seamless motion, burying himself to the hilt. Your words dissolved into a moan, your head falling back against the stone as he stretched you, filled you, claimed the deepest parts of your body. He didn't move, just held himself there, letting you feel every inch of him pulsing inside you.
“And I will walk in Your light,” you gasped, forcing the prayer out through ragged breaths.
“Don't stop,” he growled, his hips beginning to move, slow, devastating with each stroke as his cock dragged against your walls, pulling pleasure and pain in equal measure. His grip on your wrists tightened, his fingers digging into your flesh like brands. “Pray.”
“And I will walk in Your light,” you repeated, your voice breaking as he picked up the pace, fucking you harder now, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the space between your broken verses. “I will kneel... before Your throne... and offer... my devotion—oh, gods, please—”
He slammed into you, cutting off your plea. “Finish it.”
“Offer my devotion... until the stars... fall from the sky,” you sobbed, your body arching into his, your cunt clenching around him as he drove you toward the edge you could feel building, coiling, unbearable.
His forehead pressed against yours, his breath hot and ragged. “The second prayer. Now.”
“Father of storms, Father of steel,” you began, the words scraping out of your throat like glass. “Harden my spirit... make me... unbreakable...”
“Good girl,” he hissed, his rhythm faltering as his own release approached. “One more verse. One more.”
You clung to him, nails raking across his shoulders, your body trembling on the verge of shattering. “And when I fall... let me fall... upon Your mercy...”
He came with a guttural groan, his hips driving deep and holding, his cum flooding you in hot, thick pulses. You shattered, your climax tearing through you like a crack of lightning, your vision white, your scream swallowed by his mouth finally claiming yours in a bruising, possessive kiss.
When he broke the kiss, you were limp in his arms, your breath coming in shallow gasps. Your eyes were glassy, your body slick with sweat and his seed dripping down your thighs.
He pulled out slowly, watching you wince at the loss, and lowered your feet to the ground. You sagged immediately, your knees buckling, but his arm kept you upright, pinned against his chest.
“You will learn,” he said, his voice low and rough, his hand stroking your hair like you were a thing to be soothed. “Every prayer. Every verse. Every word of submission. And you will mean them all.”
You nodded, your lips parted, your mind empty of anything but the taste of him, the feeling of being owned so completely that nothing else in the world mattered.
He tilted his head towards the bed, “Now pray to the Mother for mercy, for I will have none. You little fucking vixen,” Ormund murmurs as he smooths down your hair, tilts your chip up and huffs, “such a good girl, my sweetling. You will never, ever, keep your thoughts from me again, do you fucking understand?”
You nodded, the movement small and unsteady.
“Yes,” you whispered.
Ormund searched your face for the slightest trace of defiance. Finding none, the hard line of his mouth eased, though his gaze remained unwavering. His hand lingered against your cheek for only a heartbeat before he let it fall.
“Good,” he said quietly. “I would sooner have your honesty than your obedience, sweetling. Remember that.”
Your throat tightened. Shame, relief, and something far more complicated tangled together until you could scarcely breathe. You lowered your eyes, unable to bear the weight of his stare.
“I understand.”
“You will not hide from me again?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation this time, and he gave a single curt nod, as though the matter had finally been settled. The silence that followed was heavy, but no longer sharpened into a blade.
It was the silence left after a storm had spent itself, leaving only two hearts to reckon with what had been said.
