⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆Tay☭⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.

That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).

You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.

You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.

“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.

“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.

“I was,” Gwayne nods.

“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”

He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed. 

The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.

Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve. 

“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”

“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.” 

“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”

You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.

“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.

Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”

“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”

“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.

“It feels less and less so these days.”

“They’re only frightened—”

“I’m frightened,” you remind him.

The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud. 

He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”

“No Hightowers?” you add.

“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”

You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”

“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”

“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”

“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”

“They won’t.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”

“So do most men—”

“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”

Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.

“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”

“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.

A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”

“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”

“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”

Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.

But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.

And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.

ii. OATHS & ASHES

The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself. 

It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”

Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.

Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.

You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask. 

The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.

Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.

“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.

“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.

Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.

“Well, I was going to, of course.”

“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood. 

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”

“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”

“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”

“The king has given orders—”

“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”

Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”

“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”

“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”

Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you. 

His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.

“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”

“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”

“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”

“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…” 

You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.

“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.

The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.

The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.

“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely. 

“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”

“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”

The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”

Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”

Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”

Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.

“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.

“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”

Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.

He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.

This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.

It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.

The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.

“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there. 

He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.

He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”

You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you. 

“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.

Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.

His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.

Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.

Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”

You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.

 Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.

His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.

“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”

“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.

Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”

“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.

“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.

Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”

iii. CROWNS & CAGES

You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.

Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”

You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.

Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.

You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.

“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”

Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.

“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”

“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”

“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”

“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”

Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”

“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”

“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”

The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle. 

Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.

A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.

Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned. 

A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.

Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map. 

“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone. 

“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”

Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”

“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace. 

His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.

“I expected someone… older.”

His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”

“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”

“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”

You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”

“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”

You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.

Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”

“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”

“For… What purpose?” he laughs.

You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all. 

You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.

“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”

Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude. 

It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.

Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.

The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.

It had been four days since then. 

And you haven’t eaten once in protest.

It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?

On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.

He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it.  The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.

There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow. 

Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless. 

Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.

“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”

Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.

“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”

His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”

You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”

“Eat.”

You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”

“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”

You respond with only a glare.

Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”

You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.

“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.” 

Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.

He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.

“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides.  “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”

“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”

“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”

“When?” you spit.

“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”

A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”

His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?” 

His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.

“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches. 

A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth. 

“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”

Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.

“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”

Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”

“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”

Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.

iv. SILK & SWORDS

You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.

Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.

Your days, however, remained painfully empty.

Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.

The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.

Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.

“Is that a love letter—?”

The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.

It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”

“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.

You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.

His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.

Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”

“Please, don’t—”

His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.

The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.

His head turns slightly under the blow.

Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.

The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.

“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.

You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.

“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”

“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”

The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.

Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.

You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.

Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.

“My lady…”

You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.

Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.

Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.

“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”

Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.

v. SANCTUARY & SIN

The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.

For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm. 

Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.

Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.” 

His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.

“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.” 

It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.

Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.

You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.

But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.

Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.

“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."

You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.  

You haven’t left his bed since.

The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.

No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. 

You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.

You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.

“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders. 

“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.

The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”

“I learned everything from you, did I not?”

When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.

Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”

“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.

“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”

You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.

His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.

“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”

You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”

“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."

“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.

“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.

He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you. 

One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.

It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.

You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.

“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.

“Ought what?”

“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”

You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”

Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction. 

“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”

You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”

He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”

You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.

He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.

Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.

Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.

You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.

“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”

Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”

Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.

Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.

Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.

“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.

“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”

A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.

“There it is…” he praises.

“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”

The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you. 

His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.

It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins. 

Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.

You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.

He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth. 

He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”

Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”

Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”

“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.

Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”

The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.

“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”

Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit. 

Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.

Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you. 

The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass. 

He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you. 

You aren’t far behind.

He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.

“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”

Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one. 

The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.

“My lord?”

The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.

“My lord—”

“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”

The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”

You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.

Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”

“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”

Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”

After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”

It was not joy alone that heavied your chest at the sound of his name. It was much closer to dread, which burned as it rose into your throat like bile — alongside something that should’ve felt like love but had since grown into something far more complicated in your last few moons as prisoner. You turned from him at once and shoved the tent flap aside just in time to exorcise your sickness onto the dewy grass below.

The dread did not leave with it, and neither did the guilt.

Now you sit at the long table of another manse’s dining hall, far humbler than that of the Red Keep but still a palace compared to the war tents, and watch the last of the orange sunrise die over the hills through the arched windows. Somewhere down that road, your husband rides towards you — alone and hunted and entirely unaware of what awaits him in these walls. 

“You’ve hardly touched your supper,” Ormund says beneath the soft scrape of his knife as he cuts himself a slice of honeyed boar. Despite not having properly dined since the war began, he eats with a methodical sort of restraint. He takes small bites, chews each of them thoroughly, and doesn’t talk again until he swallows. “I’m not going to have to feed you myself again, am I?”

You miss the amusement dancing on the edge of his melodic voice with your attention fixed on the window, where the dark edge of the hill meets the violet sky. “I’m not hungry,” you answer distantly.

“Yes. You said as much yesterday as well,” Ormund sighs with all the exasperation of a man grown tired of losing his battles with you. “I’d have thought you might be glad to have a proper kitchen. With proper cooks. With proper food.”

His apathy cuts you like a blade, which has grown sharper and more frequent since the letter arrived at camp. It seemed to sever whatever spell had briefly held the two of you together before now; or otherwise shut something in Ormund that has not opened since he learned of his cousin’s imminent arrival.

“Well, forgive me, my lord,” you say with a voice as thin as Valyrian steel. “If my husband’s sudden return from the dead has rather spoiled my appetite.”

Ormund’s eyes snap up from his plate at once. They’re pale and unreadable and utterly void of the warmth you’d grown so accustomed to. When the blue of his eyes are warm, they’re like swimming in the languid blue of a summer sea. They carry none of that silken familiarity tonight.

“He is not dead yet," Ormund reminds you with his brows raised to his hairline. “So far as either of us knows, anyway.”

Yet. The word alone makes you flinch, though you cannot yet tell if he means it as cruelly as it feels. You find more and more these days that you can no longer tell the difference with him now.

“What am I to say to him?” you wonder suddenly aloud, as if the question had been building in your throat since you learned of Gwayne’s arrival. Your anxious hands twist in the charcoal-silver skirts borrowed from Lady Footly’s closet; a gift, Ormund called it, despite it not belonging to either of you. “When Gwayne arrives— what do I tell him? How am I meant to look at him?”

“You are his wife,” Ormund responds plainly, with one careless roll of his broad shoulders. “I suppose you’ll look at him as you always have.”

Your face screws with a choked-back anger. “That’s not an answer—”

“No. But it’s the only one I have.” He sets his fork and knife on the plate with a heavy clink and leans back in his chair. He tilts his chin upward to stare at you over the top of the glittering candles between you, ringed fingers fidgeting over the pale white cloth.

“I have an army to feed, men to protect, and walls to build before Rhaenyra’s dragonfire can swallow the castle whole,” he continues in a monotone. “Unfortunately, I no longer possess the luxury, or the patience, of coddling your guilt.”

His words burn red-hot through your chest, searing you like a brand. You flinch away from them as if he’d struck you physically, though it might’ve hurt less if he had. Your eyes sting as your throat tightens around all the words you want to fling back at him — perhaps that he had not seemed so burdened by you a week past, when his mouth was on you and his fingers were in you; that he had not been so burdened by your guilt all the weeks before that, when he swore your safety mattered to him above his cousin’s own claim to you.

But you swallow down the accusations now and throw your napkin onto your untouched plate instead. Your chair scrapes hard against the cobbles as you rise from the table in a rush of black and silver silk.

“Where are you going now?” Ormund huffs.

“For a walk,” you answer without looking back at him.

“You haven’t even touched your food,” he calls to your retreating figure, motioning to your uneaten plate with a ringed hand. His even voice begins to fray at the edges, “Sit down and eat—”

“Feed it to the hounds—”

“Sit!” His voice cracks through the room like thunder when your hand curls around the cold brass door handle. The sheer volume of his voice, the raw bite underneath it, roots you in place. Your head turns slowly to find the man glaring at you from his spot at the table, though the scowl on his chiseled features disappears just as quickly as it came on.

His eyes flutter shut as his broad chest inflates behind his emerald coat, with a slow breath in through his nose. You watch the man walk himself down from some invisible ledge — tense shoulders dropping, clenched fists easing, rough breaths coming easier again.

“I’m sorry…” Ormund says when he opens his eyes again. The light in the pale blue of his gaze has returned to him, you find, and so has the softness in his smile when he rises from his chair to meet you. “I am sorry, my love— I forget myself— This war has driven me half-mad, if you could not already tell.”

He exhales a faint laugh that you do not join him in. He crosses the distance between you in a few short strides, wide hands settling along the outsides of your elbows — warm, even through the thin sleeves of your gown. You peer up at him through your lashes, uncertain whether the tenderness he extends to you now is real or simply the version he’s allowing himself to show you.

“If ever I am… cross with you. Or short with you in any way— It is never because of you, understand?” Ormund confesses lowly, eyes darting back and forth between your weary ones. “It takes me a moment to remember myself, is all… You understand that, don’t you?”

You swallow hard and nod wordlessly in response, though what you most desperately want to tell him in that moment is that Gwayne had never been so cross with you. That not once in your moons of marriage had he so much as raised his voice at you or frightened you the way Ormund has in such short time. You want to say it if only to see it hurt him the way his words have hurt you. Instead, you say nothing. 

“He does not have to know,” Ormund murmurs to you, thumbs brushing your arm in an absent, reassuring gesture. “Nothing occurred between us that was not asked of me. I gave you only what you wanted— Surely a man cannot be faulted for answering his summons.”

Your brows lower over your narrowed eyes. “Are you saying that… that what we did is my fault alone?”

“Of course not!” Ormund laughs, broad hands rising to cup your burning cheeks between them. His palms are warm and calloused; they feel like velvet as they brush your skin. “I’m saying neither of us is at fault— You said it yourself, did you not? The war broke your vows. Not us.”

Some traitorous part of you, so desperate for absolution, nearly softens into his touch at that. You did not ask to be taken from the Red Keep; you did not ask for Ormund's protection; you did not ask for a husband to ride off at dawn and leave you to wonder all these months whether he was living or dead.

You are desperate and half-convinced in your own madness, but you think that perhaps Gwayne will understand that. That surely a woman who believed herself abandoned and already widowed cannot be faulted for the comfort she found in the meantime. It is a thing far too fragile to build a conscience on, but you cling to the comfort of it anyway.

“My cousin rides to Tumbleton alone— without his own army and with Daemon’s surely hunting him,” Ormund coos gently to you, sweeping his thumb across your skin. “It is entirely possible that he will not survive the journey here at all. And then there would be nothing for you to confess… And you would’ve spent all these days worrying for naught.”

The words settle over you like ice in your veins. Your eyes dart back and forth between his own as you search for something human within him — some acknowledgment of what he’s just comforted you with — and find nothing in return.

“You speak of his death like it would be a mercy to me,” you whisper, voice thick with unshed tears. 

“I speak of it only as a possibility," Ormund corrects softly. “I only mean to spare you the fear of it, my love. Is that not a kindness?”

You do not answer him. You could not even if you wanted to; not with the invisible hand curling its way around your throat, as you listen to the man who’s protected you from certain death frame your husband's demise as a kindness done on your behalf.

But when Ormund ducks softly down to press a sickly sweet kiss to your mouth, tasting of the sweet wine and honeyed figs from supper, you cannot seem to pull away from him. Gods forgive you, but you lean into it instead; you ball the collar of his coat into fists and chase the comfort in his mouth the way you’ve chased the safety of his hands since you were brought to his side.

You think of the man who fed you bread from his own fingers when you would not eat; who cut down a hedgeknight before he could harm you; who wrapped you in his blankets and warmed your fingers in his hands on particularly freezing nights. 

That man is still in there, somewhere, hidden beneath the throes of war. 

You fear what might become of him before it’s done.

vii. MUD & MERCY

You stand before the tallest window of the Tumbleton manse, overlooking the winding ivied streets below. They lead straight to the western gate, where the scouts had seemingly spotted a rider without banners in the distance — a messenger from another camp, they said, or maybe Gwayne. The dying sunlight paints the sky in milky orange hues while you pick at the ragged skin of your thumbnail in an absentminded worry. The delicate nailbed splits and blooms red.

You do not notice until a silken handkerchief is motioned suddenly in the corner of your eye.

Your head whips to find Daeron standing at your elbow, green eyes glimmering and pink mouth fixed into a firm line of boyish solemnity. He stands taller than you now, which hadn’t been the case when you first arrived at camp — now you have to look up to properly meet the young boy’s gaze.

“Oh,” you say within a surprised breath. “Thank you.”

You take the cloth from him with a trembling hand. The pale linen blooms pink when you press it to the raging skin of your bleeding thumb. Daeron grimaces sympathetically in return, though you aren’t looking at him to see it. 

“Are you nervous?” he wonders aloud, hands crossed firmly behind his back.

“A bit…” you confess in a sigh, dabbing at the wound and knowing that there is no string of words you could possibly put together to express just how nervous you are.

“Aye,” he nods. “I suppose I am, too… I’ve not seen him since I was a child.”

Your head turns slowly to flash the boy a knowing look. “You are still a child, my prince,” you remind him with a smile.

“A younger child, then,” Daeron mutters sheepishly back, freckled cheeks flaring as he turns back toward the window. His long, auburn tendrils sway softly at his shoulders when he shakes his head. “Long enough that I can no longer recall the last conversation I had with him… Though I’m sure it was about you, no doubt, with his betrothal to you and all…”

“Well, he spoke of you often,” you tell him, and watch the boy’s pale eyes flicker with a newfound life when he turns to you again. “He made it clear he was quite proud of you… And if it’s any consolation, I did not intend to steal him from Oldtown.”

“I’m glad for it,” Daeron blurts, then shakes his head at himself when the words don’t come out right. “Not that he left, of course, but that it was you he was given. There are far worse fates, to be true…” 

He trails off and watches your face twist with confusion. His anxious gaze drops to the blood-spotted handkerchief as the tips of his ears glow pink. The words seem to escape him without a single thought in his floundering attempts to explain himself. 

“I only mean that— that he is good. My Uncle Gwayne. The best of us, really, and Ormund is…” Daeron forgets why he brings up the older man the second his name spills from his lips, though he cannot seem to stop talking. “Ormund is good, too, I’m sure. Somewhere deep down. But he— He does not lose well, my lady. And I’ve learned that… that it's a dangerous thing, to— to be the prize he’s decided he’s won.”

The words come out of him in a rush; sentences half-formed and stumbling. He glances at you only once in a quick and searching look, before looking away again like he can’t stomach a second more of the contact. Your stomach twists in a sick feeling at each word from his mouth. Your throat runs dry as you choke on whatever response you might have given him — some careful deflection, maybe, or a warm laugh to soothe the boy — but a horn sounds from the tower before you can find any response at all. 

Three short, sharp blasts send the keep into motion immediately.

“He’s here!” someone yells, far off in the distance. “Open the gates— it’s Ser Gwayne!”

Your feet seem to move on their own accord. Despite the dread sitting heavy in your belly, your legs carry you instantly towards Gwayne. You hold your dress skirts in your fists as you rush down the winding stone stairs, through the crowded hall, and out the heavy oak doors of the entrance. The humid, evening summer air takes the breath from your lungs as it strikes you across the face; it becomes near-impossible to take another one in, with your heart climbing so suddenly in your throat.

The thundering of hooves against cobblestone finds you before you’ve made it down the steep stone steps of the ancient castle. You’re blinded, briefly, by the setting sun until you hold a hand over your squinted eyes. Armored knights and groomed horses come into view — straddled loosely behind Bold Jon’s mare is Gwayne, though his face and hair are so caked with dirt and blood you scarcely recognize him.

Gwayne tries and fails to dismount on his own. His legs betray him after days of nonstop walking, and the exhaustion makes them buckle almost instantly. “Gwayne!” he hears you shout, right before he feels your hands reach for him before he can fall. 

Your arms curl beneath his own to keep him upright. He leans the bulk of his weight against you without ever really meaning to, clinging to your warmth and the scent of floral bathing oils he isn’t quite used to. And, though he smells like dirt and death, you hold him back just the same. 

“You’re alive,” you pant, breaths fanning in his muddied hair.  “Gods, you’re alive—”

“Well…” He huffs a not-quite laugh that you can feel in his shoulder, pulling just far enough away to meet your wet eyes with a pair of duller, paler ones. “I told you I meant my vows, didn’t I?” 

His words come out in rasps, voice dry from days of thirst and weeks of shouting. His chest sears with a foreign feeling at the way you’re looking at him now — like he’s half stranger, half god. “Apologies for my appearance, dear wife,” he pants and swallows down the sudden urge to cry. “But I have had a… rough go of things as of late…”

Your features crumble under the weight of your own tears. You shake your head at the man, and at his sorry attempt at a joke. “Gods, I’ve missed you...”

Gwayne exhales slowly through his nose as his cracked lips curve into a crooked smile, visibly exhausted but his even still. “Not nearly as much as—”

“Ser Gwayne.” The voice cuts through the bustling courtyard at once.

You feel every muscle in your body seize on instinct as your head whips back towards the stone steps, where Ormund stands at the top of them. His eyes scan the scene below — of you and Gwayne and your bodies only just now easing apart as the red-haired man attempts to stand on his own. 

The silver chain of Ormund’s pomander clinks faintly in the newfound quiet as he brings the perfumed incense up to his nose, inhaling deeply to rid the scent of sweat and blood and death from his nostrils.

“I see you’ve made it,” is all he says.

Gwayne exhales an exhausted huff, a mixture of a laugh and a scoff. He sways softly on his muddied boots and clutches onto your shoulder with his free hand. “It’s good to see you too, cousin…” he responds in a monotone.

Ormund turns to Daeron, who’s hovering just beside him with his pale hands clenched into fists — it takes every bit of strength in the young boy’s body not to run down to his uncle alongside you, worried about how Ormund might react. 

“See that a room is made ready for your uncle. And a hot meal is sent with haste— whatever the kitchens can manage quickly,” Ormund says to the boy, then pauses as his eyes drift back to Gwayne’s. “And perhaps a bath.”

Gwayne’s cracked lips curl into a slow smile. He breathes a laugh through his nose as he watches his cousin spin on his heel to walk away. “You always did have delicate sensibilities…” he attempts to call to the man, though he fails to muster the strength in his voice to be heard. 

It is you who insists on escorting Gwayne to the bath. You wave off hovering knights and Tumbleton servants with a firmness that surprises even you — no longer a prisoner of war, but a high lord’s wife. 

Gwayne, it seems, is much too spent from the journey to do anything more than lean into your shoulder the whole way up the winding castle. He braces himself on your firm weight as you peel the ruined layers of clothing from his body and coax him gently into the steaming tub. 

Your own borrowed gown joins his tattered things in a forgotten heap on the cobbled floor as you sink into the water alongside him. The warmth laps gently at your waist as you shift yourself over his lap, resting the bulk of your weight on his thighs.

The bathwater turns the color of weak tea by the time you’ve worked the worst of the grime from Gwayne’s pale skin. Dark streams of dirt and old blood swirl away beneath the cloth in your hand, brushing a tad too gently over his shoulders and chest and back, as if anything too hard might break him entirely.

Gwayne sits slumped against the tub, eyes half-closed and head lolled back. The war had certainly taken its due upon his pretty features — the new hollows beneath his cheekbones, the fresh scar above his brow, the deep grey exhaustion under his once bright eyes. There’s a leanness to him now that suggests missed meals and weeks of marching; and a sort of heaviness in his gaze that suggests longer weeks of grief.

But still he softens for you, minute by minute, as you drag the cloth over the angle of his dirtied jaw. He exhales slowly through his nose and leans instinctively into your touch.

“You needn’t do this to yourself, you know?” the man murmurs, but makes no further move to stop you. “There are servants more than capable of tending to my bath.” 

“I want to do it,” you tell him simply, dabbing at a speck of blood on his cheek. “I’ve missed you too much— I’d rather not share you with a servant just yet.”

He gives you a tired, crooked smile in response. “I missed you, too,” he says with a sigh, fingers clutching you harder by the waist beneath the water’s surface, like he’s still trying to make sure you’re still real. “Gods, you cannot imagine how badly…” 

You rinse the cloth in the cooling water and press it gently to his hairline, dabbing at the remnants of dirt clinging stubbornly to him there. His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows through a tightening throat — being touched this gently threatens to undo him entirely, after weeks away and days of nonstop bloodshed. 

His tense shoulders finally sink beneath the water as he admits, “I thought only of you… The entire way here… I fear it’s the only way I managed it— knowing that I could not die without seeing you first.”

Your throat tightens as guilt strangles you all over again; the bitter reminder of what you’d done, and all the nights you forgot to miss him back. Your fingers move anxiously to set the cloth on the rim of the tub and dip into the ceramic dish lying there. You scoop a handful of lavender soap onto your fingertips, and work it between your palms until it starts to foam.

“I thought of you, too,” you tell him with an averted gaze, which is true enough even though it feels like a lie when it escapes your mouth. “Every day.”

“And what of Ormund?” Gwayne wonders aloud, cracking one pale eye open to study your face as you rake the suds through his long auburn hair. The dull, muddy strands slowly return to their proper flaming color with each gentle pass of your fingers, as the last of the war’s blood and grim streams down his pale shoulders in dark rivulets. “I trust my cousin treated you well in my absence. He can be insufferable, I know, but he is not unkind… Not truly.”

You falter at the mention of him. Your hands still briefly in his damp tendrils as a sick feeling curls in the pit of your stomach. You swallow hard through the cold hands of guilt strangling your throat and force your fingers to keep moving, praying he does not notice how they tremble faintly against his scalp. 

“He was… accommodating,” you answer carefully, eyes trained on his hair rather than on his attentive gaze, lest he read the whole truth of it plainly upon your face. “He kept me fed. Housed. Safe… For the most part— Tilt your head back; let me rinse your hair.”

You lift yourself slightly off the man’s lap to reach for the pitcher resting on the table beside the tub. Glittering rivulets of bath water cascade down your arms, glimmering in thin ribbons over the curves of your breasts in the dancing candlelight. Gwayne tips his head back to oblige you when you settle astride his scruffy thighs once more. His long, pale fingers smooth absently over your hips beneath the water, tracing idle circles along your soft skin.

“You’ve gone rather short with your answers, dear wife…” he observes lowly, peering at you from the bridge of his nose. “That’s not like you…”

“I’m just tired, is all…” you deflect, cupping one hand over his brow to shield his eyes while your other pours the clean water steadily over his hairline. The suds run clear down his temples and trickle back into the bath below. “It’s been a long day… A long several months, if I’m honest…”

“Yes… For us all, I’m sure,” Gwayne sighs and lifts his head once more when you shift to place the pitcher back onto its table. He arches an auburn brow and musters a quiet smile; the simple ease of being with you returns to him by the minute now, as his fingers settle over your ribcage again. “Though I do hope my letters kept you some company… Small comfort as they must have been.”

You go suddenly very still above him, muscle locking despite yourself. The guilt that had been simmering in your chest surges up your throat all at once now, in a red-hot flame that makes you feel halfway sick. For a long moment, you fail to make sense of the words — his letters — after so many months of waiting to hear from your husband, and after so many months of hearing Ormund tell you each day that there had been not a single word from him.

“…Your letters?” you repeat on bated breath.

“Yes,” Gwayne nods, brows pinching at your confusion. “I wrote every time I could manage it— At every stronghold we arrived… Did you not receive them?”

Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to find the words to respond — words that would placate your own confusion without disclosing what you had been doing in the days awaiting his letters. “Perhaps… Perhaps they got lost. Along the road…”

Gwayne scoffs a humorless laugh at the thought. “Well, I pity the poor hand who got my letters instead of you…” he croons lowly.

“Why?” you press with a wavering grin. “What did they say?”

“Nothing of substance,” he shrugs his bare shoulders. “Just… foolish things.”

“Like…?” you trail off, soothing your palms down the pale canvas of his chest.

A faint uncertain smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your hands dip below the waterline. “I wrote of… what fields I passed. What foolish things Ser Criston said that day. What I’d seen— What I missed of home, what I missed of you…” 

He trails off when your fingers find his cock, lying limp along his left thigh. He feels like velvet in your fist as you massage him slowly hard. “Keep going…” you coo to him.

His hips twitch beneath you when you tighten your grip on his stiffening length. “I— I wrote of your hands,” he manages, and swallows hard when your thumb swipes across the sensitive tip of his cock. His eyes grow heavy with desire as he watches you work at him through the haze of cloudy water. “How I missed the— the feel of them on me… Gods…” 

“Go on…” you murmur, smearing your lips along his jaw.

“I wrote that… that I missed your smell,” he confesses, fraying with each slow pass of your hand. “Your hair after a bath… The wine on your breath after supper… The sweat between your thighs after a long day— Seven fucking hells.” 

His jaw clenches tight when your free hand dips down to cradle his balls, squeezing the sensitive sack between your fingers until his cock jerks in your fist. His heavy head lolls into your kiss; he feels you smiling against his cheek. 

“You’re already close, aren’t you?” 

He swallows hard. “You have no idea how long it’s been…” he confesses in a blissful sigh.

“I’m sure there were plenty of whores on the road,” you singsong in his ears.

He shakes his head instantly in protest. “None as beautiful as you…” 

His denial does little to comfort you. Instead, you feel a white-hot rage searing in your chest. Some distant, ugly part of you wishes he had taken a thousand whores while he was away, if only to take the weight of your own betrayal off your shoulders. At least then you could share it, this guilt, instead of living alone in your sin. You hate yourself most of all for even wishing it, and you feel very suddenly disgusted in your own skin — eager to be free of him and this moment altogether.

“Then cum,” you command against his pulse, jerking his cock faster in your fist. Gwayne’s fingers clutch at the plush skin of your hips hard enough to etch bruises there, and you revel in the hurt as his grumbled moan fills the bathing chambers. “Come on. Cum for me—”

He makes a broken sort of sound in the base of his throat as he seizes just beneath you, tense and trembling as his high hits him full force. The cooling water threatens to slosh off the rim as he twitches through his orgasm, which spurts into the cloudy water in short ropes of pearly-white, until he relaxes finally with a sigh.

“Give me a moment…” he pleads through ragged breaths. “I’ll make you feel good, I just— I need a moment…”

“I’m alright,” you assure him with a shake of your head, and with a sad smile that he doesn’t catch with his eyes still closed. “You rest tonight… I’ll see you in the morning.”

viii. CAGE & CONFESSION

You do not go to find Ormund until long after Gwayne’s breathing has steadied. 

He takes up the whole of the bed in his inhuman exhaustion; one leg straight and the other bent beneath the quilts, one pale arm slung over his bare stomach and the other left reaching out for your empty side of the bed as you slip from beneath the silk. You storm for Ormund’s solar in the dimly lit halls in nothing but your thin ivory nightgown; the fabric catching at your ankles with every furious stride in the man’s direction.

You find the room lit by a sea of glittering candles when you throw open the door without ceremony. It strikes the wall a harsh bang, far too loud for the late night; the wind of the blow makes the flames gutter wildly in their sconces. 

Ormund’s head snaps up from his dispatches at the sudden intrusion. His quill pauses on the parchment — because the work of war is never truly done, not even at the dead of night. His eyes are cold for a flicker with a soldier’s instinct, then warm again all at once when he finds no threat — only you. The corner of his mouth curls into a slow, knowing smile accordingly.

“Come to warm my bed already, have you?” the man lilts in his usual melodic voice, setting his quill aside as he slouches back into his cushioned seat. “I confess, I hardly expected to see you tonight, what with your husband so newly returned. Bold of you, really—”

“Don’t,” you snap. 

The word slices through the solar like a blade, and wipes away the smug curve of his smile in an instant. Your nightgown billows around your ankles with every furious step inside; the shadows of the fabric catch in the candlelight and turn you into something half-spectral as you loom over the desk across from him.

“He wrote to me. For months, he wrote to me,” you agonize. “And when he asked whether I’d received them, I sat there like a fool, knowing I hadn’t gotten a single one.”

Ormund draws a long, even breath through his nose. His ringed fingers settle flat over the desk as he keeps a measured composure about him, even though yours unravels by the minute.

“Ah…” he hums under his breath.

A shocked laugh escapes your mouth. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

“What would you have me say?” he asks, pale eyes locked with yours as he braces himself on the arms of his chair to rise. The wood scrapes harshly along the cobbles when he stands to full height. “That I kept them from you? That I— read them for myself and burned each one in the hearth when I’d finished? Very well… I did.” 

The plain admission threatens to knock the breath from your lungs. You had braced yourself for denial, to be true, to spend these late hours coaxing the truth from his lips. You were not prepared for confession; not so soon, and not so easily. 

“Why?” you demand, half-breathless with tears. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I did not wish to hurt you,” Ormund says, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “You wept for that man every night for the better part of a moon’s turn. I thought it might ease you, if you’d believed he didn’t care enough to write to you at all. I thought I was sparing you the grief of it.”

“That was not yours to decide!” you shout, voice shaking beneath the weight of your girlish fury. “Those were my letters, Ormund! My husband's words! You had no right—”

“No right?!” he thunders through an emotionless laugh, ocean eyes flickering with madness in an instant. “You are my prisoner! Or have you so quickly forgotten, given how generously I’ve treated you?”

You flinch back as he rounds the desk, though you cannot seem to leave the spot ahead of him as he inches towards you like a predator to prey.

“You’re lucky you’re standing here at all. Any other Targaryen beast would be in chains, but you…” he continues, prowling another step closer. “I let you share my tent, my table, my bed. And I did it gladly because I came to love you despite the— taint in your blood.”

You peer up at him through teary eyes when he towers finally in front of you — brows raised, eyes hardened, jaw clenched tight.

“But… you are still my prisoner,” he reminds you evenly. “You have been since the day you arrived at my camp. So I have every right to decide which letters enter your hands and which ones do not.” 

Each word strikes you like a physical blow — worse, somehow, than the searing one the hedgeknight had dealt you, which has caused an unnatural cracking of your jaw ever since. Maybe because these cruel, cruel words come from the same mouth that has kissed you, pleasured you.

“Prisoner?” you repeat tearily, features screwed in disbelief. “You say you love me and yet you call me beast in the very same breath. Wh… What am I meant to make of that?”

Ormund’s face falters finally at the sight of your tears, clinging to your lower lashes and glimmering gold in the candlelight. A soft crack splits down the unforgiving marble of him as he shakes his head down at you. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says and turns away.

“Like what?” you spit at the back of him.

“Like I've wounded you,” he snaps, long coat fanning slightly at his waist when he turns to face you again, now several paces away. “Where was your Gwayne when you hadn’t eaten in five days, and I fed you bread from mine own hand? Tell me that.” 

Your mouth parts, but nothing comes out.

“Where was your dutiful husband when that hedgeknight had you pinned in the dirt with your skirts torn to your thighs?” Ormund continues, palms splayed at his sides for effect. “Because I did not see him riding to your rescue as I had. I did not see him holding you through the nights you woke screaming. That was me— Only me— And yet you still stand here and weep over a handful of mindless letters, as if that erases the whole of what I've done for you.” 

Your chin jerks back as you flinch hard at his words, at the weight of them, which you can feel heavying your chest until every new breath feels impossible. Ormunds goes silent for a moment; the shadow of his clenched jaw comes and goes as he grits his teeth. His fists open and close at his sides until they finally relax, when the anger within drains into mourning.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters suddenly, boots padding along the cobbles as he closes the distance between you once more. “Forgive me. You’re right, I— I should not have kept them from you. I only meant to spare you, you understand that, right?”

His wide, gently calloused hands reach for your cheeks with a tenderness that feels maddeningly sincere compared to the vitriol he’d thrown at you moments ago. He lifts your chin and ducks his head into your eyeline when you do not meet his gaze. His blue eyes go round and wet with a boyish grief as hurt sears through his chest.

“I only want to keep you safe,” he whispers. “Whatever else I’ve done wrong— that much has always been true… You know this, don’t you?”

He peers down at you and waits on bated breath for a response. You say nothing just yet. Your trembling hands reach from the gold buttons of his coat. At first, he thinks you mean to push him away — you want nothing more, in fact, than to push him away and wrench yourself from his hands and return to your place in bed next to Gwayne.

You do not.

You just close your eyes, exhausted past the point of arguing any further. The threads of guilt and love and fury and anguish tangle together somewhere deep in your chest, until one is utterly indistinguishable from the others. The only thing you know now for certain is that the whole of your life can be categorized into two groups: those who have stayed and those who have gone. 

Your own family had sailed across the Narrow Sea and left you behind without so much as a backwards glance; and Gwayne, gentle as he is, still rode off to serve a cause that mattered more to him than you. 

Ormund is, perhaps, the only person in your life who has never once abandoned you. Whatever else he has done to you before now — however cruel or calculating or maddening he has since become — he has never once walked away from you. Not when you intended to starve yourself, not when you were pinned in the mud by your skirts, not when you woke up screaming on particularly brutal nights.

You hate how much it all matters to you, however fickle it may seem. You hate it, and you hate that cannot make yourself stop needing it all the same.

“I don’t know what to do…” you confess in a broken voice, clutching him hard by the collar of his coat. His softened face is bleary behind the tears burning in your eyes. “I feel so guilty, Ormund— I do not know for how long I can bear it. It sets heavy on my chest, all the time, and I cannot set it down—”

“Then let me carry it,” he tells you. His grip goes more solid when you attempt to turn away, thumbs pressing harder into your cheeks. “I can bear it well enough for the two of us, I swear it—”

The breath of his words fans across your chin when he ducks down to kiss you, hard and sudden and searing. He tastes of wine and mint leaves when the velvety pad of his tongue licks into your mouth without warning. 

You sigh hard through your nose at the feeling of him and cling to the front of his coat as he walks you backward a few paces towards the desk. The edge of the wood catches hard against the backs of your thighs. Ormund’s hands dip from your face to your hips, balling the fabric of your gown until it rises up your legs.

“Did you take him into your bed tonight?” he pants rough against your mouth, with the tip of his broad nose nudging yours. “Your husband? Did you fuck him? Tell me.”

“No,” you shake your head on an exhaled breath. Your fingers curl into his dark curls as his wet mouth drags along your neck, down to your exposed collarbone. “I only pleasured him with my hand. Nothing more.” 

Ormund nods swiftly, as though pleased by the admission. He peers up at you through his lashes as he kisses down your clothed chest. “Always a giver, aren’t you?” he hums lowly, mouth quirking softly at the edges. “Allow me to return the favor, then…” 

He sinks to his knees, with your ivory skirt now pushed up to your thighs. You keep one hand splayed along the back of his knuckles and the other tangled in his curls as he kisses your cunt like he would your mouth. He moans when his tongue slots between your sticky folds, a muffled growl you can feel in the very pit of your stomach.

Ormund is not quite as measured with his mouth as Gwayne had been the evening before he left you. He’s fast and sloppy and loud — you can hear his tongue as it flicks against you, his lips as they suckle your clit, his moans as your honey pools on his tongue.

You swallow down a moan before it can swell through the quiet room. It turns into a whimper in your throat instead. “Ormund—” you gasp quietly, tugging him hard by the hair as his tongue laps at your swollen clit.

His bleary eyes open to peer up the length of your body — your heavy head tilted to your chest, your gaze lidded and glassy with pleasure, your chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. “Let me have it,” he slurs against your pussy, and smiles to himself at the pretty sound you make for him in response. “That’s it— Let me have it…” 

Your mouth presses into a tight line to choke back a moan when his mouth returns to your cunt, suckling the sensitive button between his lips and flicking his tongue against it simultaneously. You shudder against his mouth when you cum for him, whimpering when he buries his moans and muffled murmurs of praise against your drooling pussy.

You do as you’re told — you give it all to him, you let him bear it — while Gwayne sleeps off the remnants of war across the hall.

ix. GARDENS & GHOSTS

The gardens of Tumbleton are modest things compared to the grandeur of the Red Keep, though you struggle to remember it so vividly now. Here there are only a few neat rows of late-summer roses gone wild for want of a gardener, an overgrown path winding between shaggy hedges, and a slowly weeping fountain gone quiet and still. You spend Gwayne’s second evening at the foreign castle walking beneath a canopy of drooping wisteria, with your hands looped loosely through the crook of his arm and your dress skirts whispering against the stone with every languid step.

“I’d nearly forgotten what this was like…” Gwayne hums, studying the wilting roses with distracted interest. “Walking somewhere without waiting for an arrow to find me first…”

“Don’t worry, Ser Gwayne…” you squint with a teasing lilt. “I’ll keep you safe.”

And though Gwayne hasn’t so much as seen you hold a real sword in your hand, he flashes you a tight-lipped smile anyway. “Of that, dear wife, I have no doubt…” 

You fall into an easy quiet thereafter; the ordinary rhythm of marriage, though it still feels a bit foreign to you now. He asks only about small things: if the summer storms had frightened you too badly, if the men at the Hightower camp treated you well, and if you’d truly meant what you said about that farm. You answer each in turn, grateful for the ease of it — or, at least, for the brief illusion that nothing had changed between you at all.

“And the encampment?” Gwayne asks then, flashing you a knowing look from the corner of his eye. “You’d said precious little of it thus far. Surely, it wasn’t so unbearable— Though I’m sure my cousin likely wasn’t making it easy for you.”

“There isn’t much to say,” you shrug with a feigned air of detachment, though the words come out a little quicker than you mean them to. You catch the faint furrow of confusion between his brows, and pretend to be more preoccupied by the wilting wisteria overhead instead. “It was… eventful. I suppose. In its own way.”

“Eventful?” Gwayne repeats with an arched brow. An unsure laugh sputters from his chest a second later. “I can’t tell whether that’s meant as a comfort or a warning…”

“It’s nothing worth troubling over,” you tell him. “Truly.” 

Gwayne’s eyes flit down to where your wrists are curled lazily around his bicep. The dull nails of your right thumb and forefinger pick aimlessly at the already marred skin of your left. He stops instantly in place — he had sensed something amiss since you caught him in the yard, to be true, but he sees it more plainly in your being than he had the night before.

“Did something happen?” he blurts.

Your head whips to him, eyes widening in an innocuous look. “I… I don’t know what you mean?”

He swallows once and rephrases. “Something happened…” he repeats, this time as a firmer statement. “At the camp. Something you’re not telling me.” 

You exhale a slow and shaking breath, though it does little to loosen the tightness in your chest now. You find that, once cornered and with his pleading eyes searching your face, you cannot quite bring yourself to lie to him again.

“There was a… a man," you start unsteadily, eyes fixed on the overgrown hedge behind his shoulder rather than his face. “A hedgeknight. I was out gathering berries, and he— He asked me about a letter. The one you left me. And when I wouldn't— He tried to—”

“He tried to what?" Gwayne presses when you trail off, ducking his auburn head into your eyeline when you avert your gaze. His voice is low and careful, but you can hear the tension straining beneath it already. 

“He grabbed for it… And I struck him, without thinking, and he struck me back…” Your fingers lift absently to your cheek, brushing the ghost of a bruise with your finger, long since healed but not yet forgotten. Your gaze goes glassy and unfocused with the recollection of the memory — the smell of the berries, the taste of the blood, the feeling of the wet earth beneath you. The rest of the words come out in choppy and nonsensical. “And I fell— and my skirts— I think he meant too— I don’t know truly, but I— I could not stop him—”

“Gods…” Gwayne huffs, as if the breath had been punched out of him entirely. His pale, handsome features screw together in horror as his pale eyes glitter with anger at himself. “I should’ve been there… I never should’ve left you.”

“Ormund killed him,” you add quickly and watch a complicated look flicker behind Gwayne’s eyes at the name. “Before he could…”

Gwayne nods when you trail off, signaling that you need not go on any further. “I am glad for that, at least,” he says, though there is a strain in his voice that suggests something other than gladness. His palms reach for your hands then, preventing you from picking at the skin there. “I am glad my cousin was there for you. Truly. I was a fool leaving you behind. I should’ve stayed, I should’ve—” 

You shake your head in protest of his apologies. “No—”

“I should’ve been there—”

“Don’t,” you tell him, though the word spills broken from your mouth when you jerk your hands free from his. The sudden loss of his touch leaves your fingers strangely cold. “Don’t apologize. I do not deserve it.”

“Deserve it?” Gwayne echoes with lowered brows. “What do you mean, deserve it?”

“Your kindness,” you sniffle. “I don’t deserve it.”

Gwayne blinks owlishly at you, and feels a strange searing in his chest when you flinch back from him as he tries to step closer. “Why are you saying this?” 

“I have— I have sinned.” Your breath catches hard on a sob. Your wet eyes try and fail to meet his gaze. “I have betrayed you.”

Gwayne tenses at once. His face goes still and solemn; the warmth he’d had for you moments ago drains slowly from his features now. “What do you mean?” he wonders lowly.

“With— With Ormund— We— I,” you attempt to speak through hitched breaths, though you cannot seem to get any of the words out. “I cannot express to you— how unspeakably lonely I have been—”

“Lonely?” he repeats, spits back at you like venom. “Do you think I was not lonely?”

“You at least had a war to fight!” you argue tearily. “I was taken prisoner, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“And do you think I would not have rather been home?” Gwayne shouts. “With you, instead of watching my men die in a field over a war I never wanted any part of?”

“You’re the one who left!” you exclaim when he turns away from you, already retreating down the gravel path before he can lose his composure completely. “If you stayed, we could’ve been together! And none of this would’ve happened! You act like someone was dragging you by your boots to go fight a useless war!”

Gwayne stops at that, a few paces ahead. His shoulders are rigid beneath his borrowed doublet when he turns to you again, though not enough to face you fully. Only his profile is visible to you now, with his auburn hair falling over his brow and his emotionless grin hinting at the corner of his mouth.

“I did not… want this marriage…” he confesses in calculated murmurs. “Not at first, anyway. That much I’ll admit, but… From the moment I wed you, it never once crossed my mind to seek comfort elsewhere.”

“Gwayne, I—”

“I meant my vows,” he tells you and turns, finally, to face you fully. You found no trace of fury in his face now, only a pained sort of look that turns his pale eyes a glassier shade of blue. “I have always meant them.”

“I didn't know if you were alive!” you agonize through a sob. “Don’t you understand that? Months, Gwayne — months without a single word! Not knowing whether you were breathing or rotting in some unmarked grave! And I couldn't even write to you to ask, because Ormund told me it wasn't safe. He said the letters might be intercepted, might lead Rhaenyra's army straight to you, and I could not risk that—”

“Ormund told you that?” Gwayne interjects, voice gone dull and cold. “That your letters weren’t— safe to send?”

“Yes,” you nod. “He said that—”

“And mine?” Gwayne presses with a slow step closer. “I presume he kept mine from you as well. That’s why you never got them, isn’t it? Because of him?”

You go quiet, unsure of how to answer — like there’s some joke here somewhere you have not yet been let in on. But, to Gwayne, your silence is answer enough. He exhales a long, shuddering breath through his nose.

“Ormund and I used to play a game,” he tells you suddenly, with a humorless smile ghosting across his mouth. “Run the tower, we called it— a footrace to the top beacon. And I let him win. Every time. Because he could not bear to lose even the smallest thing.”

Your eyes widen slightly, as you remember Daeron’s warning in the castle window — his anxious, hardly intelligible ramble. “It’s a dangerous thing to be the prize he’s decided he’s won,” the boy had told you. You hadn’t understood what he meant by that until now.

Gwayne’s features screw with a withheld fury, one that Ormund would’ve already unleashed on you tenfold by now if the roles were reversed.

“He was a thin-skinned twat even then. I thought it harmless, at the time. I never imagined…” he trails off, clicking his tongue against his teeth when he turns to you again. He shakes his head as his mouth twitches into a sympathetic sort of smile. “If you think Ormund loves you, dear wife, I assure you, he does not. He simply decided that you were another game worth winning.”

He does not wait for your response. He turns on his heel, and when he walks away this time, he does not stop. 

His feet carry him down the overgrown path, through the winding unfamiliar castle, and straight towards Ormund’s solar — without him ever fully registering any of it; not until he swings open the heavy oak door, at least, and is met instantly with the humidity of an incensed bath. He nearly chokes on the musky oils sitting heavily in the air.

“Leave us,” Gwayne orders Daeron in lieu of a real greeting. The boy’s eyes widen in shock at the sudden intrusion from where he stands obediently off to the side, robe in hand. His gaze flits to Ormund’s on instinct, who gives him a curt nod of approval without looking up, before scurrying out of the room.

The older man sits submerged to the chest in a steaming copper tub. A wooden tray sits balanced across the rim, with his inkpot and parchment laid before him. His quill scratches against the paper in swift strokes until Gwayne unsheathes his long sword with a sharp hiss. The older man tenses when the steel kisses the soft skin of his throat.

“You will explain yourself,” Gwayne says, peering down at the man from the bridge of his nose. “Or, by the gods, I will open your throat right here in this tub.” 

Ormund does not so much as flinch when he sets his quill back into its inkpot. He tilts his chin just slightly to look up at the man and feels the faint pressure of the blade against his adam’s apple. Amusement flickers in his blue eyes.

“She told you, then,” he hums — not quite a question but not entirely a statement either. “I did wonder how long that might take.”

“She told me everything,” Gwayne bites out through clenched teeth. “The letters— mine to hers; hers to me. Months of lies, cousin, you called protection.”

“Yes. I protected her," Ormund nods without reservation. “More than you ever did, seeing as you were hundreds of leagues away and all. I fed her when she attempted to starve herself grieving you. I killed a man who meant to rape her in a berry patch while you were off playing at war like a child—”

Gwayne tenses at the accusation buried in his words. The edge of the blade presses harder to Ormund’s throat, but still, he does not waver.

“I gave her a place to sleep when the storms came, and warmth when the nights grew cold, and company when she felt no one else in the entire realm cared whether she lived or died,” the man lilts evenly. His voice does not rise and his stare does not yield, not even with the cold steel resting steadily against his pulse. “So, please, spare me the outrage, cousin. I only gave her what she asked for— freely, and often, and more enthusiastically than you can imagine.”

Gwayne’s whole body goes rigid. A mixture of fury and humiliation prickles red-hot at his pale skin. His knuckles turn white around the hilt of his sword, but the blade does not move an inch.

“Well, go on, then,” Ormund tilts his head, eyes glimmering with amusement. “Finish it, if you mean to. Open my throat here, in my own bath, and we’ll see who she weeps for. You or me.”

Silence fills the empty solar. Gwayne grits his teeth and wills his hand to move; to either strike the man down or turn away entirely. He cannot seem to do either. 

Ormund lifts a lazy hand to swipe the blade away without a word. He rises slowly from the bath a second later. Rivulets of water glisten as they rush down his lean body and trickle audibly when they hit the surface again. He stands before his cousin, unabashedly bare, and reaches for the linen cloth draped over the edge of the tub. 

“For what it’s worth, cousin,” he says, swiping the nettle across his toned, golden skin. “I never intended to make an enemy of you. And I rather think, whatever she may tell you now to spare your pride, that she’d choose to stay exactly where she is, if given the choice.”

Gwayne opens his mouth to argue.

“Daeron!” Ormund calls out before he can. 

The door creaks slowly open a second later. The younger boy reappears with an obvious hesitance, refusing to meet either of their eyes as he rushes to his uncle’s side. He settles the emerald fabric over the older man’s broad shoulders, and Ormund slides his arms through the long sleeves. He ties the sash with slow hands and with an expression that looks almost sympathetic.

“Best wash up soon, cousin,” he grins. “It’s nearly time for supper.”

x. STEEL & SUPPER

Supper that evening is a small and wretched thing; four places set at a round table dragged in from some lesser hall to make the arrangement feel less tribunal. It’s close enough that you can feel the heat of both men suffocating either side of you, along with the cold, watchful silence of Daeron across the way; young enough to shift awkwardly in his seat at the tense silence, but old enough still to understand exactly what such silence truly means.

No one speaks a word of the hard truth of it out loud. Neither of you needs to — the whole of your sin sits at the table like an uninvited guest, souring the wine in every cup and thickening the air until you can scarcely draw a single breath around it.

“So…” Ormund says first to break the silence. He talks beneath the soft scraping of his knife against the porcelain as he cuts into his meat. “Ser Criston fights on, and yet you alone have returned to us… Why is that, I wonder?”

Gwayne turns slowly to glare at the man with dull, blue eyes, already too annoyed for idle blather. “Because fighting on is madness,” he answers distantly.

Ormund scoffs with a wad of food in his cheek. He smiles as he swallows it down, angling his head in the young prince’s direction. “Do you think me mad, boy?”

Daeron’s eyes shoot up from his plate. His spine straightens instinctively at his uncle’s sudden attention. “No, sire,” he answers quickly.

Ormund nods, pleased, and then turns slowly to you. A fondness flickers in his pale gaze behind the challenge in his eyes. “And you, my—” He catches himself half a breath too late; my love, he’d nearly said, though you cannot tell if it was an intentional attempt to rile his already aggrieved cousin. “My lady… Do you think me mad?”

Your brows bounce in response, though your gaze never lifts from your lap as your nails work relentlessly at the already torn skin of your thumb. “I don’t think you want me to answer that—”

You freeze in place when Ormund’s wide hand reaches suddenly to splay his calloused palm over the back of your knuckles. Your head whips in his direction. You struggle to tell if the action is heedless or entirely uncaring, as Gwayne sits close enough to watch the exchange on the other side of you. The man inhales sharply through his nose and straightens his spine as he reaches for his goblet, trying hard to pretend he hadn’t noticed it at all.

“Why do you insist on ruining yourself this way?” Ormund wonders lowly, as his thumb rubs soothingly over your marred one.

“Seems to be a common affliction as of late,” you answer distantly and draw your hands from beneath his touch. “Messing with things we ought to leave well enough alone…”

“You are aware—” Gwayne says gruffly as he swallows down his bitter wine, setting down his chalice with a bit more force than likely necessary. “—That while you’re all in here playing happy families, there’s a dragon sitting on the hill above us? And five more not thirty leagues away?”

“Why do you think we came here, cousin?” Ormund scoffs and waves his concern away with a lazy flick of his knife. “Rhaenyra will not burn her own subjects. She is a woman, after all. Squeamish, by nature.”

A short laugh spills suddenly from your lips. “Squeamish?” you echo. “Says the man who requires a milk bath twice daily, lest he make it everyone else’s burden to bear?”

The jab earns a proud smile from Gwayne that he tries hopelessly to bite back, and a small grin from Daeron that he conceals behind the rim of his goblet. Ormund swallows hard through the embarrassment strangling his throat, angled jaw clenching as he grits his teeth.

“Well… If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were taking up the usurper’s cause.”

“I’m not taking up anyone’s cause,” you mutter. “I just want to go home.”

“Oh?” Ormund hums with a feigned air of curiosity, though you do not miss the bite in his words as he wonders aloud, “And where is that precisely? King’s Landing? Oldtown?”

“Well, it’s certainly not here—”

“No,” he agrees instantly, warmth freezing over in an instant. “But when the usurper’s host comes here, we will fight on our own terms, on our own ground— turning King’s Landing against that overweening cunt, little by little, bite by bite… And when we expose her as weak and unsuited to rule, the great houses will flock to our side, and then, my lady, we can all go home.”

“Have any yet come?” Gwayne wonders knowingly. “Great houses, I mean.”

Ormund’s gaze snaps in his direction. “The patient hunter gets the kill, cousin,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’d have thought you’d learned that much by now.”

“Only one of us at this table has actually been hunted, if you’ll recall…”

“Yes, you have endured much,” Ormund huffs and returns to his boar. “Though I’m sure you find some solace along the road… with whores, perhaps, or your… brothers in arms…”

The insinuation sits heavily in the quiet, thicker than smoke and choking the three of you accordingly. Gwayne’s jaw tightens hard enough to make the muscle flex. Whatever retort had been rising in his throat at that moment is killed instantly by the sudden creaking of the heavy door across the room. Bold Jon enters, flanked by a couple of punier squires. 

“My lord,” the older knight announces. “House Baratheon has sent an envoy. They mean to bend the knee to House Hightower.”

Ormund is aglow in an instant. The sourness of the previous moment rolls off of his broad shoulders as a newfound satisfaction kindles behind his blue eyes. “Let the Stormlands lead the way…” he mutters to himself, mouth curling into a grin. “Highgarden will have no choice but to follow…” 

He flashes you a proud and knowing look as he rises from his seat. “Alright. Stand up,” he says and begins to round the small table. When no one follows him quick enough, he snaps, “Stand up! All of you.”

You rise at once, abandoning your plates as you follow him to the front of the dining table. The three of you fall into line beside the high lord, who stands just ahead to greet the incoming knights Ser Jon ushers in. The knights are caked in dirt from the long road; their yellow cloaks are crusted thick with mud, and their boots track dark prints across the fine pale stone beneath them. They smell like earth and sweat, hardly noticeable to you, though you spot Ormund’s shoulders tensing instantly when the stench hits him.

“Lord Ormund Hightower,” Roxton announces formally. “Beacon of the South, Defender of the Citadel, and Voice of Oldtown.”

“Well met, Ser Ormund," the head of the envoy greets with a polite nod, arms propped along the pommel of his longsword. “I come on behalf of Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.”

“Mm…” Ormund hums, ringed fingers fidgeting at his sides as he attempts to swallow through the invisible hand strangling him. “You are quite welcome, Ser…?”

“Ser Arrion Baratheon. Cousin to Lord Borros.”

You freeze at once. A newfound fear settles ice-cold in your veins. Your eyes squint as you study the stranger’s bearded face more closely — his curls, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. You find that he looks nothing like the Ser Arrion you had once met, at a tourney some several moons back; the one where you first laid eyes on Ser Gwayne Hightower.

The man himself tenses at your elbow. His jaw clenches tight with knowing as he turns slowly to flash you a single, silent glance. You communicate without words. His folded hands fall casually beside the sheathed sword at his hip; yours cross behind your back, as you reach blindly for the fruit knife idling somewhere beside the plates of supper.

“I most regret presenting ourselves to you in this state,” the stranger continues. 

Your jaw clenches tight in frustration as your fingers miss the handle in several agonizing attempts. You slide it closer with the very tip of your middle finger, slowly so as not to draw attention, before your fingers close finally around the hilt. You grip the blade to your back, palm going clammy around the grip.

“The road was long and filthy, but I thought it best to speak to you immediately.”

“We are honored to receive you,” Ormund assures him, entirely unaware. “And what word does Lord Borros send?”

“House Baratheon offers its banners in alliance with House Hightower,” the envoy says. “I have been charged to swear fealty on Lord Borros' behalf.”

“Well,” Ormund grins. “Your lord has made a wise choice—”

“Ser Arrion?” you call at once, stepping forward and drifting instinctively in front of Daeron with your arm still tight around your back. The boy’s eyes widen when he catches sight of the blade behind you. Your smile remains as artificially sweet as ever, despite the way your heart hammers hard against your ribs. “You do remember me, don’t you?”

The man’s heavy brows furrow as confusion flickers across his bearded face. He musters a similarly fake grin. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, my lady—”

The hesitant answer is confirmation enough. Gwayne unsheaths his sword in a blink and slices the imposter across the neck before he can finish his sentence. His throat splits wide open, bright crimson blood gushing out instantly. You feel it splattering across your cheek as the man falls limp to the ground in front of you.

The dining hall erupts into chaos in a blink. The shouting of Baratheon imposters and Hightower knights fills the room at once. One lunges towards you, trying to get to Daeron, you figure, though he’s met with the small blade clutched in your trembling grip before he can. 

You drive the knife into the first soft place you can find — his eye, you think, and then the side of his neck, before he crumples to the floor screaming.

“No!” Ormund’s voice shouts over the ringing of colliding blades, flashing a fiery look at Ser Jon. “Stop them, you fool!”

Daeron steps quickly in front of the older knight. “No!” he says to the man, small as he is, but standing his ground regardless.

“These are assassins!” Gwayne shouts over the clash of steel, kicking one knight down before striking him across the skull. “Sent for Daeron— and probably you!”

A pair of thick hands close hard around your wrist, cold and calloused and unforgiving. It yanks a memory from some buried place in your mind — spilled berries, wet earth, pooled blood in the mouth. You do not know whether or not he intends to strike you, or if he truly does, or if he only means to stop you. You only feel a girlish fury clawing its way from your throat as a buzzing adrenaline prickles at your burning skin. 

The bloody knife in your fist cuts him clean across the face — his throat, his jaw, his cheek, his eye, his temple. He stumbles back against the wall, bloodied and unrecognizable, but still you do not stop. Your blade follows him as he sinks to the ground in a gurgling, limp ball. His blood splashes warm across your face, clinging sticky to your fingers, but you still do not stop.

“Enough, enough…” you hear a voice say from behind you, muffled through the ringing in your ears. You feel a warmth press against your side and a gentle hand curl around your wrist. Gwayne’s voice follows more clearly in your ear, “He’s dead… It’s over now...”

The adrenaline seems to ebb from your veins at once, with a raw sob sputtered from your mouth. The knife slips from your limp fingers, clattering audibly to the bloodied cobbles below. You feel something warm trickling across your forehead and reach to wipe it with the back of your hand; blood smears wet across your brow in its place.

Across the wrecked hall, Ormund hunches over the back of his chair on the other side of the table. His face has gone pale-white; made more ashen, perhaps, behind the drops of vivid crimson splattered across his face. The thick copper stench of it settles in the back of his throat, along with the sweat and mud and death and shit hanging in the air.

“How—” he chokes hoarsely out. “How did you know— These men were false?”

“I was nearly betrothed to Lord Borros’ son once,” you hear yourself answer, though the words sound a bit distant, like they’re coming from someone else’s mouth. “I met his cousin… Lord Arrion…  at a tourney in King’s Landing years ago… I gave him my favor that day—”

“Right before I cut him down,” Gwayne adds through panted breaths, with a distant satisfaction in his voice at the memory. “The real Ser Arrion Baratheon has hair of light chestnut, stands near a foot taller and is, as it happens, far more comely."

Ormund makes a low, strangled sound in the back of his throat. “I will cleave the bitch— From crown to cunt—” he manages between heaving breaths “—She will die wishing she never dared to... dared to…” 

His body seizes as he retches — once, then twice — before doubling over the table and vomiting his supper along the plates ahead of him.

Gwayne watches on with a grim sort of amusement. “Best wash up now, cousin,” he hums in jest, as drily as Ormund had to him earlier that day. 

His amused smile fades when he catches you swaying in the corner of his eye.

The room seems to tilt on its axis under your feet. The cobbles sway softly beneath you, as if you were standing on water instead of stone. You reach blindly for the back of the nearest chair to steady yourself; you watch your fingers curl around the embellished wood, though you cannot feel it under your palms. Daeron’s quick hand catches you beneath the elbow in a small attempt to steady you.

“My lady?” he mutters softly, beneath Gwayne’s firmer, “Are you hurt?” 

Your mouth parts, but it takes a moment for the words to come out. They fall from your tongue in strange slurs that sound nothing like your voice. “My back…” You trail off before choking on a whimper. It is not pain you feel, not completely, but rather a cold numbness blossoming wide along the left side of your spine.

Ormund perks instantly, swiping a hand along his chin and fighting off his own dizziness when he watches Gwayne close the distance between you. His long, pale fingers skim carefully along your shoulders as he examines the back of you. They settle finally just above the thin tear in your bodice, where the fabric of your borrowed dress starts to bloom a darker crimson from the blood spreading from underneath it — from where a soldier’s blade must’ve kissed you in the chaos.

“Gods…” you hear Gwayne breathe just behind you. “You’re bleeding— Someone call the maester!” 

Your knees buckle underneath you as the strength spills from your body like sand through your fingers. Two sets of hands keep you upright; one smaller and trembling, the other wider and far more steady. They guide you into the seat before you can collapse. You watch Gwayne kneel into your vision with his palms resting firmly on your knees. The world continues swaying all around you.

“Let me see it,” Ormund says through panted breaths, gripping the table’s edge as he attempts to walk to you despite his own weakening state. He’s still pale and sheening with sweat from the blood clinging to his skin and nostrils.

“You can barely stand yourself,” Gwayne scolds drily. “She is my wife— I am more than capable of tending to her.” 

Ormund attempts to laugh, though the chuckle comes out wearier than he means to. “Are you?” the older man manages to choke out. “Because you surely haven’t cared about tending to her while you were off playing at war—”

“Enough…” The word comes out slurred and hoarse from your mouth. The men fall silent at once. Their heads whip in your direction with matching expressions of concern that would’ve felt almost comical in any other moment.

The pain has started to sharpen now beneath the somewhat pleasant numbness. A hot, insistent throb begins to settle in its wake, searing through you like fire.

Your first instinct is to reach for Gwayne, but the guilt of what you’d done to him weighs on your hands like cement — what right do you have, you think, to reach for him now with bloodied hands, after months of reaching for another? 

And then you think inevitably of Ormund and the particular safety you’ve always found in his hands, after he’s already seen you blood-soaked and broken and ugly from war, and never once flinched away at any of it. And then you think of the burned letters and the lies, and then of Gwayne’s departure with only a sliver of parchment left in his wake. 

You reach, in the end, for neither of them.

“Daeron,” you call instead to the boy hovering beside you. You turn your swimmy gaze to his wide and frightened ones. Your voice is unnaturally thick in your throat as you ask him, “Can— Can you help me up to my chambers, please?”  

The boy blinks and forgets to look to his uncle for approval first as he nods. “O-Of course, my lady,” he stammers and loops your arm carefully over his shoulder. “Lean on me…” 

You do not look back at either man behind you as Daeron eases you from the chair and guides you slowly towards the door; but you do feel both of their eyes following you like twin points of heat searing through your dress, just like the soldier’s blade had. Neither Gwayne nor Ormund says a single word; the hollow sound of your fading footsteps fills the silence as you go. 

The two of them are left standing alone together, amid the bloody wreckage of the unfamiliar hall, staring at the space where you’d once been.

This morning was like the others. You woke to dawn light filtering through the narrow windows of the Tower, to the familiar scent of old parchment and candle wax, to the gentle rise and fall of your husband's chest. His arm was around you, his long fingers splayed against the curve of your waist. His eye was closed, his breathing even. He looked, in these rare moments of counterfeit sleep, almost peaceful.

You propped yourself up on one elbow and studied his face. The birthmark that others whispered about, the blotch of deep red that climbed his neck and pooled on his cheek, no longer seemed odd to you. It was simply part of him, like the silver of his hair or the pale arch of his brow. You traced a finger lightly along its edge. His eye opened.

"Good morrow," you said.

"Good morrow." His voice was rough with disuse. "You are staring."

"I am admiring."

A faint crease appeared between his brows, his version of a puzzled expression. "There is little to admire."

"There is everything to admire." You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, then to the scarred hollow where his missing eye had once been. He held still for this ritual, as he always did, and when you reached his mouth, his hand came up to cup the back of your head and hold you there for a moment longer.

"You are very odd," he said when you pulled back.

"I am your wife. I am allowed to be odd."

"Hm." The sound was almost amused. He released you and sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. The morning light caught the pale angles of his torso, the lean muscle. "I have something for you."

"You always have something for me."

He rose from the bed and crossed to his desk, where a small wooden box sat beside a stack of parchments. You watched him, the way he moved with that uncanny grace, the way his silver hair fell across his bare shoulders. When he turned back, the box was in his hands.

"For you," he said, placing it on the bed beside you.

You opened it. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, lay a necklace. The chain was white gold, so fine it seemed spun from spider silk, and from it hung a pendant of deep green emerald, carved into the shape of a leaf. Oak leaves. Your house sigil.

"Brynden." Your voice caught in your throat. "This is…where did you find this?"

"A craftsman in Myr. I commissioned it some moons ago. It arrived by ship yesterday."

The emerald caught the light, flashing green fire. You lifted it reverently, and the chain slithered through your fingers like water.

"It is beautiful," you breathed.

"You said once that you missed the Reach. The trees, the green." He was standing awkwardly now, his hands clasped behind his back, his eye fixed on your face with slight anxiety. "I thought perhaps you might like to carry a piece of it with you."

"I love it." You rose from the bed and went to him, the necklace clutched in your fist. "Put it on me please."

He took the chain with careful fingers and fastened it around your neck. The pendant rested against your collarbone, a small green anchor to the home you had left behind.

"There," he said. "It suits you."

You looked down at the emerald leaf, then up at your husband's pale, strange, beloved face. "You give me so many things," you said. "The ruby bracelets, the sapphire hairpins, the pearl drop earrings. The ivory comb from Volantis, the silk shawl from Yi Ti. My jewelry chest is overflowing."

He tilted his head, that familiar birdlike gesture. "Do you not like them?"

"I adore them. Every piece." You reached up and touched his cheek, the smooth skin beside the birthmark. "But you do not need to bring me treasures every week, Brynden. I am not Shiera."

The name hung in the air between you. It was the first time you had spoken it since that night in the solar, the night everything had changed. You watched his face carefully, looking for the flinch, the shadow of old pain. It flickered there for a heartbeat, and then it was gone.

"I know you are not," he said.

"I only mean that I do not require rare jewels to be happy. Shiera collected beautiful things. I…" You hesitated, searching for the right words. "I collect moments."

He was silent for a while, his eye searching your face. Then, slowly, he leaned down. It was a gesture he had developed in the first weeks of your true marriage, when he had noticed how you stretched onto your toes to reach his mouth. So he had taken to bending toward you whenever you were close, a small, unconscious courtesy.

You kissed him. When you pulled back, he looked thoughtful.

"I see," he said.

"I am not ungrateful…"

"You are not." He touched the emerald leaf at your throat. "But I have been foolish. I have been courting you with the wrong currency."

"Brynden…"

"I have a meeting with the Master of Coin this morning." He was already turning toward his wardrobe, reaching for his doublet. "It will be tedious and I will likely have to threaten someone before it is done. But afterward…" He paused, his shirt half-buttoned. "Afterward, I have no obligations. The afternoon is clear."

You blinked at him. "It is?"

"I have ensured it." He finished the buttons. "I thought we might take a walk in the gardens. I have heard there is a new fountain, some ghastly thing from Braavos with mermaids. I would like to hear your opinion on it."

A walk in the gardens. Such an ordinary, unremarkable thing that any husband might do with any wife. Yet your eyes stung with sudden tears, because you understood what he was offering. Time. His time, which was the rarest treasure of all.

"I would like that," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Very much."

He nodded, a crisp, businesslike gesture, but you had learned to read him now. The faint relaxation around his mouth, the slight softening of his red eye. He was pleased.

"Good," he said. "I shall send for you when the meeting is done."

He crossed to the door, then stopped, turned, came back to you and leaned down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"Wear the necklace," he said. "It truly does suit you."

True to his word, Brynden sent a servant to fetch you in the early afternoon. You had dressed with care, a gown of pale cream silk, simple in cut but elegant in drape, the emerald necklace displayed against the bare skin of your throat. Your hair you had left loose, the way he seemed to prefer it. When you descended the Tower stairs and found him waiting in the courtyard, his single eye swept over you with an intensity that made your cheeks heat.

"You look lovely," he said.

"You look like you have just threatened the Master of Coin."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I did. He was most cooperative afterward."

The gardens of the Red Keep were beautiful in the afternoon light, the roses in full bloom, the lemon trees heavy with fruit, the sea breeze carrying the salt-tang of Blackwater Bay. Lords and ladies strolled along the gravel paths, their silks and velvets a shifting tapestry of color. As you walked at Brynden's side, his arm tucked through yours, you felt their eyes on you. The whispers, too, rising like the hum of insects.

"…the Oakheart girl and the sorcerer…"

"…look at his face, gods be good…"

"…she seems happy enough, poor deluded thing…"

You had learned to ignore them. More than ignore them, you had learned to pity them, for they could not see what you saw. They could not know the quiet sweetness of the man beside you, the way he described the Braavosi fountain in a dry, precise deadpan that made you laugh aloud. The way he paused to point out a particularly clever raven perched on a fig tree, explaining how it had been trained to deliver messages. The way his hand tightened on your arm when you stumbled on an uneven stone, steadying you before you could fall.

"That fountain," he said, gesturing to the marble monstrosity ahead, "The mermaids were supposed to spout water from their mouths. As you can see, they are spouting from their…elsewhere."

You clapped a hand over your mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway, bright and startled. The mermaids were indeed spouting water from anatomically dubious locations, their stone faces frozen in expressions of eternal surprise.

"Who commissioned this?" you managed.

"Lord Redwyne, as a gift to the king. I suspect it was revenge for the wine tariffs."

You laughed again, and the sound drew stares from a nearby cluster of ladies. You did not care. You were walking in the gardens with your husband, your arm in his, he was making you laugh, the afternoon sun was warm on your face, and the emerald leaf was a cool weight against your skin.

"Brynden," you said, when your laughter had subsided.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For this afternoon."

He was quiet for a moment, his eye on the fountain. The mermaids continued to spout water from various unseemly places.

"I have been thinking," he said, "about what you said this morning. About collecting moments. I have realized that I do not know how to be a husband. All of my tools are wrong." He turned to face you. "I gave Shiera jewels because jewels were what she wanted. I gave you jewels because I did not know what else to give."

"You give me plenty," you said, touching the emerald. "I was not complaining."

"But you were teaching me." He took your hand, his cool fingers wrapping around yours. "And I am a quick learner."

He lifted your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, right there in the middle of the garden path, with half the court looking on. The whispers rose to a crescendo, but you did not hear them. You only heard the beat of your own heart, the soft intake of your husband's breath, the rustle of the wind through the trees.

"Come," he said, releasing your hand but keeping your arm in his. "There is a bench by the sea wall. I am told the view is tolerable."

It was more than tolerable. It was magnificent, the bay spreading out before you in a sheet of hammered gold, the sails of ships glinting in the distance, the sky a pale, washed blue. You sat together on the stone bench, your shoulder brushing his, and watched the waves.

"May I ask you something?" you said after a while.

"You may."

"What do the ravens see? When you look through their eyes?"

He was silent for a moment, and you worried you had overstepped. But then he spoke, his voice low and contemplative.

"It is difficult to describe. It is like…being in two places at once. I am here, with you, but I am also above the city, riding the wind. I see the rooftops and the streets and the people going about their lives. I see ships coming into harbor and carts rumbling along the roads. I see a thousand small moments that no one else notices, all happening at once." He paused. "It is overwhelming, sometimes. It is why I do not sleep well. There is always something to see."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It is simply…much." His eye found yours. "Does it frighten you? Knowing that I can see through them?"

You considered the question. "It should," you admitted. "But I have grown rather fond of ravens."

"One raven in particular, I suspect."

"Pebble is a good friend."

"Useless creature."

"You could stand to be kinder to Pebble."

Brynden Rivers laughed. It was a small sound, rusty, as though his throat had forgotten how to make it. But it was unmistakably a laugh, and it transformed his face. For a moment he looked young.

"I shall endeavor to be kinder to the raven," he said. "For your sake."

"Thank you."

A raven fluttered past, disappearing into the dusk sky towards rookery. You slipped your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek to his shoulder.

"Bad news?" you asked.

"No. Merely information." He turned in your embrace, his hands settling on your hips. "Lord Butterwell has been buying up land. I will need to look into it."

"Tomorrow."

He blinked. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw. "Tonight, you are mine."

His eye softened, the red dimming to something warmer. "Am I?"

"You are." You tugged gently at his collar, pulling him down. He leaned obligingly, bending to your level, and you pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "We are going to have supper. You are going to eat more than three bites. And then we are going to sit by the fire, and you are going to tell me about the most ridiculous thing you have seen through your ravens this week."

"The most ridiculous thing?"

"Surely there must be something. Courtiers are absurd creatures."

He considered this. "Lord Bracken was seen attempting to serenade a milkmaid last Tuesday. He fell into a cow pat."

You laughed, delighted. "There. That is exactly what I mean."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Very well," he obliged. "Supper. And cows. And…being yours."

"Good." You kissed him again. "Brynden."

"Yes?"

"I am happy."

"So am I," he said, and there was wonder in his voice, as though he had only just realized it was true.

The hour was late, and the Tower of the Hand was silent save for the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls over Blackwater Bay. You had retired to your chambers hours ago, leaving Brynden to his endless parchments and his murmured consultations with agents who came and went like shadows. You had grown accustomed to these nights, they no longer stung the way they once had, back in the cold early days of your marriage, when every empty hour had felt like a rejection.

Now, you simply waited. You knew he would come to you eventually.

You were half-drowsing when you heard the door open and close, the soft tread of boots on stone. The mattress dipped as Brynden sat on the edge of the bed, and you heard the familiar sounds of him undressing: the rustle of his doublet, the soft thump of his boots hitting the floor. You kept your eyes closed, a small smile playing at your lips, savoring the anticipation.

He slid under the covers beside you, and his hand found your hip in the darkness. His touch was urgent in a way it rarely was. Usually, he came to bed with a kind of restrained gentleness, as though he were still learning the language of intimacy and wanted to pronounce every word correctly. Tonight, his grip was firmer, his body pressing closer, his voice was rough with a weariness that went beyond the physical.

"I need you," he muttered. "Today was…I need to not think. I need to be here. With you. Only you."

Your heart clenched. You knew his burdens, the weight of a kingdom pressing down on his shoulders, the endless schemes and counter-schemes, the dark whispers that followed him wherever he went. You opened your eyes to tell him that you were here, that you would always be here, that he could lose himself in you as much as he needed…and then you remembered.

"Brynden," you whispered carefully. "Wait."

His hand had been sliding up your thigh. It stopped. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. It is only…" You bit your lip. "There is something under the covers."

He went still. You felt the shift in him, the instinctive alertness of a spymaster who had survived a dozen assassination attempts. "Something," he repeated.

"A friend."

"A fr…" He stopped. His eye, adjusted to the darkness, dropped to the lump in the blankets between your bodies. A small lump.

From beneath the covers came a soft, contented squawk.

Brynden reached over and pulled back the blankets with a sharp flick of his wrist. There, sprawled across the soft mound of your stomach, wings spread as though drunken, lay Pebble. The raven's eyes were closed, his beak slightly open, his round belly rising and falling with each tiny breath. One of your hands was still resting on his breast feathers, frozen mid-stroke.

There was a long silence.

"My lady," Brynden said, in the tone of a man who was choosing his words with extreme care, "why is there a raven in our bed?"

"He was lonely."

"Lonely."

"He was tapping at the window. It is cold outside tonight. And you were working so late, and I was alone, and he looked so sad with his little beak pressed against the glass…"

"So you brought him into the bed."

"I put down a towel," you said weakly. "In case of…accidents."

Brynden stared at Pebble. Pebble, perhaps sensing that he was the subject of discussion, opened one bleary black eye, regarded the Hand of the King with casual insolence, and closed it again.

"He is lying on your stomach," Brynden said.

"He likes to be close to me."

"He is lying on your stomach in our bed, where I was about to…" He stopped himself, took a breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My love. You have made my raven into a lapdog."

"He is not a lapdog. He is a raven."

"A lapraven, then. A creature that does not exist in nature. You have invented it." He reached down and scooped Pebble up with one hand. The raven let out an indignant squawk, his wings flapping uselessly. "This bird was bred to carry messages across the Seven Kingdoms. To fly through storms and evade hawks. To serve as my eyes and ears in places no man could reach. And now he sleeps on silk sheets and eats from your fingers."

You sat up, clutching the blankets to your chest. "He still carries messages."

"Once a fortnight. To the kitchens. Begging for scraps."

You tried to look dignified. It was difficult when your hair was mussed and your husband was holding your pet like a naughty child. "I will put him back on his perch," you offered.

Brynden sighed. It was a long, tortured sigh of a man who had spent the day dealing with treasonous lords and bickering councilors and who had come to bed wanting nothing more than to bury himself in his wife's warmth, only to find a plump bird in his place.

"Stay," he said. He crossed to the perch near the window and deposited Pebble onto it with more gentleness than you had expected. The raven ruffled his feathers, gave Brynden a reproachful look, and tucked his head under his wing with the air of a monarch who had been grievously insulted.

Brynden returned to the bed. He did not lie down. Instead, he sat on the edge, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight. The scars on his shoulders, old and pale, traced patterns you had memorized with your fingertips.

"I am not angry," he said, without turning around.

"I know."

"I am…concerned."

You crawled across the bed and knelt behind him, wrapping your arms around his chest and pressing your cheek to his back. He was tense, the muscles hard. "Concerned about what?"

"Pebble is not a pet. He was never meant to be a pet. He is a tool that has forgotten its purpose. And you…" He paused, and his hand came up to cover yours where they rested on his chest. "You have made him forget. With your kindness, with your attention, with your need to nurture something."

"Is that wrong?"

"It is not wrong. But it is…misdirected." He turned, shifting so that he faced you, his single eye found yours in the dim light. "A raven cannot love you back. Not truly. It can only take what you give and grow lazy on it. You deserve something that can return your affection."

"Pebble returns my affection."

"Pebble returns to anyone who feeds him. I have seen him beg from the kitchen maids."

You wanted to argue, but the image of Pebble waddling after the scullery girls, croaking pitifully for bacon rinds, was unfortunately vivid. "I like ravens," you said instead, a little defensively. "They remind me of you."

Brynden went still. "They remind you of me."

"Your eyes. Your cleverness. The way you tilt your head when you are thinking." You reached up and touched his cheek. "When you are away, which is often, Pebble is…a piece of you that stays with me. A small, feathery, ill-behaved piece. But a piece regardless."

"Then perhaps," he said slowly, "what you want is not a raven at all."

"What do you mean?"

He took your hand from his cheek and held it in both of his.

"Perhaps what you want is a child."

The word hung in the air between you. A child. Your breath caught, your heart stuttered, and you felt the blood rush to your cheeks.

"I…" you started, and stopped. "I did not mean to suggest…"

"You did not suggest. I am suggesting." His thumb traced circles on the back of your hand. "You have made this Tower warmer than it has ever been. You have filled it with your laughter and your gentleness and your stubborn insistence on loving things that are not easy to love." His eye met yours, and there was something almost vulnerable in its depths. "A child would be lucky to have you as a mother. And I…" He hesitated. "I would be honored to give you one."

Your throat tightened. "Brynden, you do not have to…you said once that you were not a man given to tender feeling. That you were strange and secretive and cold. If you do not want children…"

"I did not say that."

"Then what are you saying?"

He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours. "I am saying that I have spent my life serving the realm. I have given my eye, my youth, my conscience, everything I have, to the Iron Throne. And I would do it again. But there is a part of me that is tired. A part of me that wants something that is not duty." His hand tightened on yours. "Something that is ours."

Your eyes were burning. You blinked rapidly, but a tear escaped anyway, tracing a hot path down your cheek.

"You want a child with me?" you whispered.

"I want a family with you." He said it simply, as though it were a fact he had long since established and was only now reporting. "I want to see you holding our son or daughter in your arms. I want to teach them to read and to shoot a bow and to understand the language of ravens. I want to watch you be the mother I know you will be: patient, kind, fierce when you need to be." He paused, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "And I want to stop finding birds in my bed."

A laugh burst out of you, wet and startled. "That is what this is about? You are jealous of Pebble?"

"I am not jealous of a raven."

"You are. You are jealous of a useless raven."

"I am not…" He stopped, his smile widened involuntarily. "Perhaps a little. He sees more of you than I do, some days. And he is always on your stomach."

You laughed again, it the tears spilled over. You threw your arms around his neck and kissed him. He caught you and kissed you back with a fervor.

"You are a ridiculous man," you murmured against his mouth.

"I am a pragmatic man. I see a problem, I propose a solution."

"A child is a solution?"

"A child is many things." He pulled back, his red eye bright in the firelight. "A legacy. A hope. A piece of us that will outlast all the schemes and wars. A child is the one thing that matters more than the realm." He gently brushed a strand of hair from your face. "You asked me once what I wished for. I told you I had wished for foolish things. But this…this is not foolish. This is the wisest thing I have ever wanted."

You kissed him again. His hands slid up your back, pressing you closer. You felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he let himself sink into you.

"What about Pebble?" you asked breathlessly as his lips traced a path down your throat.

"Pebble," he said between kisses, "can sleep on his perch tonight. And every night hereafter. Our bed is about to become considerably less accommodating to ravens."

"That seems unfair to him."

"I will buy him a larger perch. The finest perch in the Seven Kingdoms." He lifted his head and looked at you, his expression was serious now. "But this is not about the raven. This is about us."

Part 3: coming soon...

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Her name was everywhere in the Red Keep, whispered by serving girls and sung by minstrels, painted in miniature on ivory pendants that his paramours wore at their throats. The most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, they called her, and when they said it in your hearing, their eyes would dart to you with something between pity and amusement. See the Oakheart girl, their glances said. See how plain she looks beside the memory of Seastar’s shimmer.

Back in the Reach, you had been called beautiful. You had believed it. Here, you were a candle held up against the sun. Back in the Reach, you were praised as a proper lady, and Shiera was called a shameless whore with nothing more than derision. But King's Landing valued influence, the ability to captivate and draw interest, which Shiera had in abundance.

You did not hate her. Hatred required energy you did not possess. But you feared her. You feared the day she would return to court, trailing silk and scandal behind her, and you would have to stand beside your husband and watch his single eye follow her across the hall. You feared the quiet, courteous dismissal that would surely follow. You had married a man who loved another woman. It was a common enough fate for highborn ladies, you knew, but knowing it did not make your marriage bed any warmer.

You spent your days wandering. The gardens, with their rose trellises and marble fountains, their sharp-scented herbs and imported lemon trees shivering in the sea wind. The library, where you read histories of the Seven Kingdoms until the words blurred before your eyes. The sept, where you knelt before the Maiden and asked for guidance that never came. And the stairway that spiraled up to the Hand’s solar, where you would sometimes sit on the cold stone steps with a book open on your lap, close enough to hear the murmur of voices beyond the iron-banded door, the scratch of a quill, the rustle of parchment. You never knocked. You were too afraid of being turned away.

It was on one of those steps, three moons into your marriage, that Brynden Rivers finally spoke to you about the raven.

You had Pebble on your knee, feeding him strips of roasted capon you had wrapped in a napkin and smuggled from the kitchens. The bird was growing stout, you could see it in the way his breast swelled over his claws, the way he waddled rather than hopped when he moved along the windowsill. You had noticed but you had not cared. You had to keep feeding him so he wouldn't leave you as well.

“What am I doing, Pebble?” you whispered. “What am I doing here? My husband does not want me. The court does not see me. My family’s name is a jest and a warning both. I am a wife in name only, and I do not know how to become anything more. I was not taught how to be a wife to a man like him. I was taught how to be a wife to a lord who wanted a gentle lady to manage his household and bear his children. But Lord Bloodraven has a household that manages itself and no desire for children of his body, or so they say.” You paused, your fingers stilling on the raven’s feathers. “Perhaps he would want children if they were Shiera’s.”

The raven croaked.

You stroked the raven’s feathers again, and your voice cracked. “I am even afraid that you will leave me, Pebble. You are the only friend I have in this place. Please do not fly away.”

The door to the solar opened. You scrambled to your feet, the napkin falling from your lap, capon scattering across the stone. Pebble let out an indignant caw and flapped onto the windowsill, his wings laboring under his weight.

Lord Bloodraven stood in the doorway.

His hair, silver-white, fell straight to his shoulders, and his skin was so pale it seemed to drink the light. The red birthmark that crept up his neck and cheek, the source of his name, was vivid as a splash of wine against snow. He wore black, and the eye that fixed on you now was the deep, unsettling red of dying embers.

The other eye was gone. A pale, smooth scar ran from brow to cheekbone, and beneath it, a dark hollow that seemed to see more than any living eye could.

“My lady wife,” he said. His voice was quiet, precise, each word placed as carefully as a stone on a cyvasse board.

“My lord.” You dropped into a curtsy, your heart hammering. You had not expected him to emerge. He rarely did before the hour of the bat. “Forgive me, I did not mean to disturb you. I was only...”

His gaze had moved past you to the raven. Pebble was worrying at a shred of capon, his beak tearing at the meat with smug contentment. Bloodraven’s expression did not change, but the air shifted, a faint tightening like the pause before a thunderclap.

“That is my raven,” he said.

“Yes, my lord. I hope you do not mind. He comes to my window, and I...”

“He is fat.”

The words fell like a stone into still water. You felt heat rise to your cheeks, the familiar burn of mortification. Your fingers twisted in the folds of your skirt, a pale lavender silk, pretty and demure. Here in the grey light of the tower it seemed washed-out and childish. You were a woman grown, a wife, and yet you felt like a girl being scolded by her septa for some minor transgression.

“I have been feeding him,” you admitted in a small voice.

Bloodraven stepped forward. His movements were unsettlingly smooth. He lifted one long-fingered hand, and the raven, your Pebble, your greedy, ungrateful Pebble, fluttered up to perch on his wrist without the slightest hesitation, as though you had never existed.

“A raven of the Tower must be lean,” Bloodraven said, stroking the bird’s breast with one pale thumb. Pebble closed his eyes in bliss. “He must fly swiftly over distances that would exhaust a lesser bird. He must carry messages through weather that would kill a hawk. He must be quick, clever, and sharp as a blade.”

He turned that burning red eye back to you.

“You have made him useless.”

The words struck harder than they should have. You had not thought yourself capable of tears, you had not wept once since leaving the Reach, not at your wedding, not on your wedding night when your husband failed to come to your bed, not in all the lonely days that followed, but now your throat tightened and your vision swam. You blinked rapidly, fighting it down, but a single tear escaped and traced a burning path down your cheek.

You ducked your head, hoping he had not seen. The silence stretched, unbearable.

“I am sorry,” you whispered. “I did not know. He came to me. He seemed friendly. I only offered him kindness.”

“Friendly.” He said the word as if it were a foreign concept. His blood-eye seemed to gleam in the half-light, and for a moment you could have sworn you saw the raven’s reflection in it, a dark bird within a darker pool. “Ravens are tools, my lady. They are not pets. This one has been made useless by your kindness.”

The word useless stung again. You dropped your gaze to the floor again, studying the worn flagstones beneath your slippers. “I apologise. I will not feed it anymore.”

You did not wait for a response. You gathered your skirts and fled down the winding stair, your slippers slapping against the stone, your breath coming in short, hitching gasps. You did not stop until you reached your chambers, where you threw yourself onto the great empty bed and buried your face in the pillows and wept until there was nothing left inside you.

You did not go to the Tower the next day, nor the day after that. You kept to your rooms, claiming a headache when your maids inquired. You took your meals alone, the food tasteless on your tongue. You did not open your shutters, though you heard the scratch of claws on the sill more than once. You could not bear to see Pebble, to see the raven who had abandoned you as easily as breathing, who had flown to his master’s hand without a backward glance.

It was on the third day that a servant knocked at your door and informed you that the Hand of the King required your presence in his solar.

You dressed carefully, your hands trembling on the laces of your gown. You chose a dress of pale green, the color of new leaves, the closest you dared come to the Oakheart colors. You pinned your hair up in a simple coil and pinched your cheeks to bring some color back into them. You looked, you thought, like a woman preparing for an execution.

The solar was warm, lit by a fire in the great hearth and by candles in iron holders. Books lined the walls, more books than you had ever seen in a private chamber, their spines cracked and worn from use. Maps and charts covered a long table, and in the corner, a perch held three ravens, their heads tucked under their wings.

Bloodraven sat behind a desk of dark oak, a quill in his hand. He did not rise when you entered, but he set the quill down and gestured to a chair across from him.

“Sit,” he said.

You sat. Your hands folded in your lap, the picture of a well-bred lady. You had been trained for this, after all: to be still, to be silent, to be pleasing. It was the only weapon you had ever been given.

Bloodraven regarded you for a long moment. In the firelight, the port-wine stain on his cheek seemed to shift and writhe like something alive. His eye, that terrible red eye, seemed to see straight through you, past the careful composure and the pretty dress and into the hollow ache at your center.

“You have not been to the Tower,” he said.

“I did not wish to disturb you, my lord.”

“You have not been to the gardens, either. Nor the library. Nor the sept.” He leaned back in his chair, steepling his long fingers. “My birds tell me things.”

Your heart lurched. The ravens. Of course. You had forgotten, in your misery, the whispers that surrounded your husband like a cloak of shadows. He could see through the eyes of his birds, they said. He could watch the whole of the Seven Kingdoms from his Tower, and nothing escaped his notice. You had thought it a fanciful tale, a legend spun to explain the unerring accuracy of his spy network. But the way he looked at you now made you wonder.

“I have been tired,” you said, which was not entirely a lie.

“You have been crying.”

The words were blunt, without softening. You flinched, your gaze dropping to your hands.

“My lady,” Bloodraven said, his tone had shifted. It was not kind, you did not think kindness was in his nature, but it was less cold than before. “Look at me.”

You raised your eyes.

“The raven,” he said. “You named him.”

It was not a question. You nodded anyway.

“Pebble,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “Because of his breast feathers. They reminded me of home.”

Bloodraven was silent for a moment. Then he rose from his chair and crossed to the window, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight.

“I have had many ravens,” he said. “Hundreds, over the years. I breed them in the Tower, train them, dispatch them across the realm. They are tools, nothing more. I have never given one a name.”

He turned, his single eye finding you again.

“No one has ever named one of my ravens before.”

You did not know what to say. You sat frozen, your heart beating a nervous rhythm against your ribs.

“He is not useless,” Bloodraven said, and there was something akin to curiosity in his voice. “I examined him this morning. He is plump, yes, but he is healthy. His plumage is glossy. His eyes are bright. He is more docile than the others, more accustomed to human touch. There are uses for such a raven.”

He took a step toward you, then another, until he stood before your chair, looking down at you with an expression you could not read.

“I have been a poor husband,” he said.

Your mouth opened but no sound came out.

“I did not ask for this marriage,” he continued, “and neither did you. We were both bound by the king’s will, and I have not made the binding easier for you. I have been…absent. Preoccupied.” He paused. “Unkind.”

“My lord, you have been...”

“Do not,” he said, lifting a hand to stop your protest, “be polite. I am surrounded by polite people. I find it exhausting.”

You closed your mouth.

Bloodraven lowered his hand. “I loved Shiera,” he said, and the name was a blade between your ribs. “For many years. I asked for her hand more times than I can count. She always refused. Perhaps she was wise.” His jaw tightened, a flicker of old pain crossing his pale features. “But she is not my wife. You are.”

He reached down, and before you could react, his fingers closed around your hand. His skin was cool, dry. But his grip was steady.

“I cannot promise you love,” he said. “I am not a man given to tender feeling. The whispers about me are not all false. I am a sorcerer, of a kind. I do see through the eyes of my ravens. I have done things that would make you flinch to hear, and I will likely do more before I am through. I have little patience for the courtly games that fill the days of most highborn ladies.”

He paused, and his thumb brushed once across your knuckles.

“But I am not cruel without cause. I do not take pleasure in suffering. And I have watched you these three moons, my lady. Through the eyes of my ravens, yes. I have seen you in the gardens, sitting alone on the stone benches. I have seen you in the library, reading the same page over and over because your mind is elsewhere. I have seen you feeding my raven, speaking to him as though he were a friend, because you had no one else to speak to.”

Your face was burning. You wanted to look away, to hide, but his eye held you as surely as a pin holds a butterfly.

“I did not intend to spy,” he said, and there was a note in his voice that might have been regret. “At first, I was merely curious. Then I was...concerned. You are withering, my lady. Like a flower deprived of light. And I am the one who has kept you in the dark.”

He released your hand and stepped back.

“I would like to propose a truce,” he said. “A beginning. I will not pretend to be something I am not. I will always be busy with the affairs of the realm, always be strange, secretive and perhaps a little frightening for your liking. But I will make an effort to be present. To speak with you. To…know you.” He tilted his head, a gesture eerily reminiscent of his ravens. “If you will permit it.”

You stared at him, your heart pounding so loudly you were certain he could hear it. This was not what you had expected. This was not the cold dismissal, the polite abandonment, the quiet return to separate lives. This was an opening, a crack in the armor.

“I would like that,” your voice came out steadier than you had hoped. “My lord.”

“Brynden,” he corrected. “If we are to attempt this, you may as well use my name.”

You swallowed. “Brynden.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of a smile. “See? Not so difficult.”

He returned to his desk and picked up his quill, but he did not dismiss you. Instead, he gestured toward a smaller table near the fire, where a tray of fruit and cheese and a pitcher of wine had been laid out.

“Stay,” he said. “Eat. You have been hiding in your rooms for three days, and I suspect you have not been eating properly.”

You rose from your chair, your legs unsteady beneath you. As you crossed to the table, you saw a perch near the window, separate from the others. On it sat Pebble, his head cocked, his black eyes fixed on you with reproach.

“He has been sulking,” Brynden said, not looking up from his parchment. “He does not understand why you stopped coming.”

You reached out a trembling hand and stroked the raven’s breast. Pebble made a soft sound and pressed his head against your fingers.

“I am sorry,” you murmured to him. “I am here now.”

Behind you, you heard the scratch of the quill pause for just a moment, and then resume.

From that day, you took your evening meals in the solar with Brynden, sitting at the small table by the fire while he worked at his desk. He did not speak much, but he answered when you asked questions, and sometimes he would pause in his writing to ask one of his own. Small things at first: how you found the Red Keep, whether the sea air agreed with you, what books you had been reading. You answered honestly, and he listened with a focus that was almost unnerving, his eye fixed on you as though every word you spoke were a piece of intelligence to be filed away.

Then he started inquiring about your life, so you told him. Your father had pledged fealty to both King Daeron and Daemon Blackfyre, sending one gold and the other men. King Daeron had kept his crown, and House Oakheart's reputation had suffered. Instead of emerging unscathed either way, as Lord Oakheart had intended, the King inflicted punishments on him. His eldest son, your older brother, was assigned to become a Kingsguard. He had to refute his title, land and future of marriage and instead serve as a guard to the same King he had fought against. You, the eldest daughter, were given to Hand of the King as a reward he didn't ask for. A legitimate lady to solidify his standing. Your mother had acted as if everything was fine, which you suspected it was for your sake, although you didn't want such strained treatment. And you scarcely saw your brother since arriving in King's Landing, even though you both lived at the Red Keep.

You learned things about him in return. He had been born with the birthmark, with hair already white, and his mother had wept when she first saw him. He had been a poor swordsman as a boy, too thin and frail, so he had turned to the bow out of desperation. He loved his Blackwood sisters. He did not sleep well. He never had.

One evening, a fortnight after your conversation in the solar, you gathered your courage and asked the question that had been burning in your throat since the day you arrived.

“Do you wish I were her?”

The quill stopped. The fire crackled in the silence. Pebble, perched on the back of your chair, shifted his weight from one claw to the other.

Brynden set the quill down slowly. “That is a foolish question.”

“I am not afraid of the answer.” You were, of course. You were terrified. But you had spent months living in the shadow of a ghost and you could not do it any longer.

He rose from his desk and came to stand before the fire. The flames cast his face in red and gold, the birthmark nearly invisible against the glow. His back was to you.

“I wished for many things,” he said at last. “I wished for her to love me. I wished for her to choose me, just once, over all the others. I wished for a great many foolish things that a wiser man would have let go long ago.” He turned to look at you. “But I do not wish you were her. You are not her. You are nothing like her, and that is…not a bad thing.”

“I have heard she is the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms,” you said, and you hated the smallness of your voice, the jealousy that crept in despite your best efforts.

“She is,” Brynden said, and your heart sank. “But beauty is a strange thing. Shiera’s beauty is like wildfire: brilliant, consuming, and utterly indifferent to what it destroys. I spent years burning in it, and I have the scars to show. You are different. Your beauty is like…” He paused, searching for the word. “Like the first green shoots after winter. Blooming. Steady. Something that grows rather than blazes.”

You did not know what to say. Your face felt hot.

“I am not good at this,” Brynden said with a flicker of frustration in his voice. “I am no poet. I do not know how to court my own wife.”

A laugh bubbled up in your throat, unexpected and slightly hysterical. You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle it, but it escaped anyway, a small, surprised sound that made Brynden’s eye widen a fraction.

“I do not know how to be courted,” you admitted. “I was taught to be a lady, not a wife. No one ever told me what to do with a husband who did not want a wife.”

“I never said I did not want a wife.” He took a step toward you. “I said I did not ask for this marriage. There is a difference.”

“Is there?”

Another step. He was close enough that you could smell the faint scent of ink and old parchment that clung to his clothes. Close enough that you could see the tiredness around his eye.

“I am learning,” he murmured, “that I may have wanted something I did not know I did.”

His hand rose, and this time, he did not stop at your fingers. His cool palm cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth with a gentleness that contradicted everything you had heard about him: the cold sorcerer, the ruthless spymaster, the man who had killed Daemon Blackfyre and his sons with arrows guided by dark magic. In this moment, he was only a man, touching his wife’s face for the first time.

“You are trembling,” he said.

“I am afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Of this ending.” Your voice cracked. “Of Shiera returning. Of waking up tomorrow and finding that you have remembered you do not want me after all.”

His eye searched your face. You had the unsettling sensation that he was seeing more than your skin and bone, more than the fear in your eyes. Seeing into you, the way he saw through the eyes of his ravens.

“Shiera is in Lys,” he said. “She left months ago, before our wedding. She may return someday, she always does, but she is not here now, and she has no claim on me. Whatever I felt for her, it is done. I have been a fool for her long enough.”

He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours.

“As for waking up tomorrow,” he murmured, “that is simple. You shall wake up in my bed.”

Your breath caught.

“The bedding ceremony was waived,” he continued, “because I requested it. I did not think it fair to subject you to the court’s crude jests when we were strangers. But we are not strangers now. Not entirely. And I find that I am tired of sleeping alone in my cold solar while my wife sleeps alone in her cold tower.”

His thumb traced the line of your jaw.

“If you are willing,” he added, and the hesitation in his voice, the faint uncertainty, undid you completely.

“I am willing,” you whispered.

He kissed you. His lips were cool, like his hands. The kiss was cautious, almost experimental, as though he were tasting a new wine and trying to decide if he liked the vintage. But it deepened, slowly, his hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck. You felt a knot of tension loosen in your chest.

When he pulled back, his breathing was slightly unsteady.

“You will not be alone.” He took your hand again, this time, he laced his fingers through yours. “I have a thousand eyes. Some of them will always be watching over you.”

It was perhaps the strangest declaration of affection any woman had ever received. But you found yourself smiling anyway, a real smile, the first you had worn since leaving the Reach.

That night, you did not return to your lonely tower rooms. You slept in the Hand’s bed, in the Hand’s arms, and though he did not sleep, he had told you he rarely did, he held you in the darkness, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your shoulder.

In the morning, you woke to find him already dressed, standing at the window with the pale dawn light on his hair. He turned when he heard you stir.

“Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning, Brynden.”

He crossed to the bed and sat on its edge. From behind his back, he produced a single winter rose, its petals white as fresh snow, its center a deep, vivid blue.

“There are no winter roses in King’s Landing,” you said, taking it with trembling fingers. “How did you...?”

“I have my ways,” he said, the faint smile on his lips was no longer tentative. It was the smile of a man who had unraveled a mystery and found the answer rather pleasing.

You lifted the rose to your nose and breathed in its sweet, cold scent. Through the window, you saw a raven circling against the pale sky, not Pebble but another, its black wings cutting the air with swift precision. It was returning home, carrying something in its beak.

“What is he bringing?” you asked.

“A letter,” Brynden said. “From the Arbor. Lord Redwyne is plotting something tedious involving wine tariffs.” He paused. “Would you like to watch me unravel it?”

“Yes,” you said. “I would like that very much.”

He offered you his hand, you took it.

Pebble, watching from his perch, let out a satisfied croak and followed you and your husband up the winding stair to the solar.

Part 2: coming soon...

a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out.

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a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the series taglist. Rn I'm tagging those who went along with my freaky birdman propaganda.

Taglist: @foul-human-123 @autumnevanescence @thearchivistshaven

"Your lady longs for you so much that you're sending a second letter this fortnight, Ser Gwayne?"

And the Hightower heir can sense the slight dissatisfaction beneath Ser Criston's tone, but he does not dwell upon it. Only smiles, nodding. "Yes, Ser. My lady worries, for her heart is pure and sensible. I must do what I can to quell her doubt of any mishaps that might've befallen me."

"Ah, of course. A most dutiful husband you are, Ser."

It isn't until their troops inevitably need to fall back to Oldtown two moons later that Gwayne gets to see his sweet lady wife again.

You've been waiting for this moment for so long, your heart hammering into your chest like a bird's wings as you see your husband's horse trot through the gates.

No one and nothing matters when you finally are cradled in Gwayne's arms, pressed to his steel-clad chest, sweet nothings whispered against your temple as your man peppers your warm skin with kisses of tenderness and longing.

Ser Criston looks away from the sight, scoffing. He knew the acclaimed Hightower heir was good for nothing but sweet presses of lips and warm embraces. Not even a kiss on the lips when greeting his lady wife? He should be ashamed to not bestow such gifts upon a gorgeous creature such as you.

Later, when the crowd had thinned and most knights were off to their sleeping arrangements, the Commander had to do one last search of their horses and supplies before calling it a night as well.

What Cole didn't think to find in the stables was Gwayne, on his knees, head squeezed between your thighs as he feasted on your cunt, moaning like a man starved, the sound muffled by the folds of your pussy.

The sight stopped Ser Criston dead in his tracks.

Ser Gwayne. Pious, dutiful, ever devoted to the faith, now sitting in the same position one would for prayer, but using his mouth not to plead to the Gods, but to bring his lady pleasure.

And what immense pleasure he did bring, for your hands were fisted in his auburn hair, tugging with intent, the demand for more crystal clear. You wanted more, smushing the knight into your heat, hips grinding against his face with abandon as you whined, trying to quiet the volume of your wantonness with your hand pressed to your mouth, but it was in vain. Nothing felt as good as your husband's tongue between your legs, only second to the feeling of his cock splitting you open.

"Yes, yes, my love, yes," fell from your ruddy lips, eyes glistening with unshed tears from how good Gwayne was making you feel. "I missed your mouth greatly," you lilted, fingers unrelenting as they weaved through your husband's hair, offering him respite from your rough insistence, petting him as you would an obedient hound as he continued to circle his tongue against your hole, the tip of his nose bumping against your clit. "Couldn't wait until we were together anew, husband."

All you got in return was another moan, unbashed and wet from the slick of your cunt against Gwayne's mouth, your words spurring him on, broad palms smoothing up your thighs to lift your skirts higher, bunching them at the waist, held in his fists. "My sweet wife," he babbled, flattening his tongue from hole to clit, parting your folds on the ascent. "The moons without your cunt have been dreadful," your knight says, words woven around a whine, lapping at the peeking nub between every word, kindling the heat in your lower belly. "Not being able to taste you each morrow left me wanting, even in times of battle and bloodshed."

Oh, what a debauched picture that was. Your dutiful husband, ever present when called to arms, thinking about worshipping between your legs as he swung his sword, falling enemies and stealing breath after breath from steel-clad men. The thought made you shiver, brushing auburn hair from Gwayne's temples to get a good look at those baby blues you so cherished, a dopey smile onto your lips as you whispered. "You must be cautious, my love," you chastised, albeit tenderly, running your fingers through his hair to soothe, hoping the ache for you had dwindled, if only a little. "Such thoughts might distract you, and then you might not come back to me."

Gwayne shook his head swiftly upon hearing your reprimand, leaning into your touch as a flower moves towards the sun, soaking up all its warmth down to the marrow. "Never," he protested, eyes widening, ever eager to prove his devotion to you. "I shall never fall to another man's sword, if it meant not seeing you again, sweetling," and he turns his face towards one of your palms, pressing a searing kiss upon the skin as he whispers. "That is my solemn vow."

You feel like your heart is going to burst out of your chest and splatter at your husband's feet from the earnestness of his promise, weaving warmth along your body, from your head down to your toes, a full-body gratefulness at having such allegiance offered to you.

"A vow you had upheld valiantly, my love," you praise, your hand shifting to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing against the plump of his bottom lip as you slowly tug him down, back towards your cunt, to which he allows without resistance. "One for which you shall have the prize you so dreamt of, even in bloodshed."

Gwayne's tongue lolls out as you guide his head, eager to have you on his palate again, eyes fluttering shut as the sweet musk of your pussy becomes more potent. It coaxed him to dip his chin so he could press his nose in damp curls and inhale deeply, exhaling a punched-out groan, as if he had forgotten the smell of you in the mere moments that had passed since he'd been tongue deep between your thighs.

"This cunt is a gift from the Gods, sweetling," he praises, mouth open and panting against your folds, just breathing you in lungful by lungful. "I wish I could have it with me on campaign," Gwayne continues, white-knuckling the skirts bunched at your waist, as if the imagery of such a thing wounds him. "Feast on it from morrow to dawn. Allow you to have my tongue whenever you please, my love."

You cannot help but moan at such a confession, fingers returning to his auburn strands to grip and tug, eliciting a muffled whine from your husband, whose tongue dipped between your folds anew, flicking at your clit on the upstroke, knowing how much you favoured it. "You're so good to me, husband," you coo, lips curling into a loving smile, holding your knight still by his hair as your hips resume their grinding, humping against Gwayne's awaiting tongue, using him for your pleasure.

And he loves it. Gods, does he love it. Blue eyes half-lidded, heated with love and lust as he only gives you more of it, poking his tongue as far as it would go for you to rub your clit against, moaning with each movement of your hips, bringing you even closer by the grip on your skirts.

"Oh, my sweet husband," you moan, feeling the heat tingling up your spine and pooling low in your belly with each wet swipe against your clit. "I can't wait to have your cock as well." The words are the opposite of pious, not at all what a lady wife should offer her betrothed, but you are past caring. "For your mouth feels heavenly, and still, I cannot wait to feel you inside me again."

The words melt and light Gwayne in equal measure, feeling his cock strain even harder against his breeches, hips kicking, rubbing himself along the seam of his pants in anticipation of what's to come. He nods, the motion making his tongue rub in rapid succession along your clit, the stimulation so delicious it makes you cry out, wanton and unbashed. Words fail him, the only thing that matters now being making you cum so he can sheathe himself into your pussy and have you milk him for all he's worth, like a prized stallion made for breeding.

It doesn't take long for your back to arch off of the hay bale you are lounging upon, Gwayne's name on your lips, your juices flowing down his tongue and chin, which your husband laps greedily. He has to stop the grind of his hips to not cum into his breeches like an untrained squire, even if the friction of his hard cock against the material of his pants feels heavenly.

He knows your pussy surpasses that by the thousands, which is why he forces himself to still the pathetic humping of his hips. It's only moments now until he'll be inside you, letting you catch your breath, pressing sweet, open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs and behind your knees as he massages the muscle there, willing you pliant and lax for what's to come. "Thank you, sweetling. Gods, so pretty for me," he whispers against warm skin, reverent and grateful, mouth still wet with your slick. "Missed you so much. Never want to be away from you again. Never, never—"

Perhaps it's safe to assume that Ser Criston Cole will not utter a word about Gwayne and his lack of prowess anytime soon, after what he witnessed tonight.

You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.

That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).

You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.

You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.

“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.

“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.

“I was,” Gwayne nods.

“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”

He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed. 

The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.

Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve. 

“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”

“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.” 

“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”

You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.

“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.

Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”

“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”

“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.

“It feels less and less so these days.”

“They’re only frightened—”

“I’m frightened,” you remind him.

The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud. 

He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”

“No Hightowers?” you add.

“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”

You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”

“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”

“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”

“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”

“They won’t.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”

“So do most men—”

“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”

Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.

“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”

“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.

A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”

“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”

“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”

Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.

But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.

And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.

ii. OATHS & ASHES

The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself. 

It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”

Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.

Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.

You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask. 

The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.

Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.

“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.

“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.

Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.

“Well, I was going to, of course.”

“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood. 

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”

“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”

“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”

“The king has given orders—”

“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”

Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”

“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”

“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”

Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you. 

His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.

“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”

“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”

“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”

“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…” 

You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.

“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.

The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.

The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.

“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely. 

“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”

“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”

The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”

Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”

Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”

Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.

“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.

“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”

Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.

He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.

This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.

It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.

The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.

“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there. 

He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.

He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”

You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you. 

“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.

Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.

His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.

Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.

Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”

You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.

 Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.

His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.

“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”

“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.

Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”

“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.

“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.

Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”

iii. CROWNS & CAGES

You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.

Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”

You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.

Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.

You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.

“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”

Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.

“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”

“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”

“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”

“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”

Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”

“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”

“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”

The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle. 

Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.

A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.

Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned. 

A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.

Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map. 

“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone. 

“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”

Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”

“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace. 

His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.

“I expected someone… older.”

His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”

“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”

“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”

You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”

“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”

You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.

Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”

“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”

“For… What purpose?” he laughs.

You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all. 

You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.

“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”

Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude. 

It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.

Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.

The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.

It had been four days since then. 

And you haven’t eaten once in protest.

It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?

On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.

He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it.  The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.

There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow. 

Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless. 

Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.

“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”

Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.

“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”

His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”

You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”

“Eat.”

You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”

“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”

You respond with only a glare.

Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”

You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.

“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.” 

Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.

He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.

“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides.  “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”

“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”

“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”

“When?” you spit.

“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”

A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”

His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?” 

His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.

“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches. 

A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth. 

“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”

Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.

“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”

Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”

“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”

Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.

iv. SILK & SWORDS

You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.

Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.

Your days, however, remained painfully empty.

Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.

The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.

Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.

“Is that a love letter—?”

The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.

It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”

“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.

You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.

His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.

Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”

“Please, don’t—”

His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.

The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.

His head turns slightly under the blow.

Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.

The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.

“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.

You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.

“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”

“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”

The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.

Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.

You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.

Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.

“My lady…”

You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.

Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.

Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.

“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”

Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.

v. SANCTUARY & SIN

The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.

For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm. 

Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.

Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.” 

His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.

“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.” 

It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.

Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.

You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.

But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.

Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.

“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."

You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.  

You haven’t left his bed since.

The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.

No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. 

You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.

You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.

“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders. 

“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.

The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”

“I learned everything from you, did I not?”

When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.

Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”

“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.

“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”

You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.

His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.

“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”

You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”

“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."

“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.

“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.

He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you. 

One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.

It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.

You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.

“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.

“Ought what?”

“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”

You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”

Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction. 

“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”

You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”

He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”

You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.

He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.

Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.

Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.

You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.

“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”

Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”

Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.

Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.

Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.

“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.

“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”

A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.

“There it is…” he praises.

“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”

The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you. 

His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.

It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins. 

Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.

You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.

He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth. 

He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”

Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”

Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”

“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.

Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”

The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.

“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”

Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit. 

Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.

Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you. 

The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass. 

He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you. 

You aren’t far behind.

He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.

“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”

Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one. 

The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.

“My lord?”

The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.

“My lord—”

“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”

The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”

You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.

Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”

“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”

Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”

After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”

You and Brynden had grown together in the shadow of whispered names and divided loyalties. Bastards, the both of you—though different in blood and temper, the two of you were bound by something fiercer than either title could define. Where others saw omens in his pale hair and red eye, saw rivalry in the way lords measured him against his half-brothers, you saw only the boy who watched too much and trusted too little. 

The boy who had never hesitated to stand between you and the world.

And you…you never hesitated to do the same.

There had been days when your half brother, Aegor, let his resentment toward Brynden spill into open violence. The yard would ring with the crack of steel and the low snarl of boys becoming men too quickly. Blood was drawn more than once. Bruises bloomed dark beneath tunics. Pride was shattered before being rebuilt harder. 

What started as childish rivalry slowly twisted into something uglier—an obsessive need in Aegor to take whatever Brynden guarded, to dominate whatever he valued, and to prove himself not merely equal but superior.

Soon, that point of contention had become your shared youngest half-sister, Shiera Seastar.

She had drifted between them like perfume and poison. She delighted in the tension she inspired. She liked to be fought over and desired. There was power in that, and she wielded it as naturally as breath.  

You, however, did not.

With the temper of both dragon and storm in your blood, you had been fiercely protective of the boy Aegor delighted in provoking. You never masked your disdain. When Aegor’s cruelty crossed from rivalry into something uglier, you answered it openly and more than once with the near promise of steel. There had been days when it seemed you and Aegor might come to blows yourselves, tempers snapping bright like sparks against dry timber.

But you were sent away before the worst of what would become of Brynden and Aegor could root itself too deeply. It was decided that distance might temper you. That time away from court and the infamous rivalry might shape you into a more suitable for the realm. A proper lady. 

You were sent first to Dragonstone. There, you resided with your half-brother, Prince Daeron, and his family. 

Dragonstone was unlike King’s Landing. Within those ancient walls, you were steeped in your Valyrian heritage. Maesters drilled the old tongue into you until it no longer felt foreign upon your lips, until High Valyrian came as naturally as breath. You learned the histories of dragonlords and conquerors, reminded that dragon blood was not merely lineage but legacy. 

And in time, you grew close to the dragon prince and your nephews, especially Baelor and Maekar. Though you were younger than they, you were keenly aware of what your birth meant. You were a noble bastard, but in the eyes of many you were considered a stain. 

But at Dragonstone, you were not treated as such.

Unlike in King’s Landing, you were not reminded of your birth at every turn. Princess Myriah treated you with warmth from the start, offering open kindness. Daeron treated you with honour. When he corrected you, it was as he would Baelor never with cruelty, always just and fair. 

Baelor was the easiest—earnest, open, guided by his own rigid sense of right and wrong. In his company, you felt only the expectation that you would rise to whatever standard you decided upon yourself.

Maekar had been different. Prickly. Suspicious. He was quick to bristle at perceived slights and quicker to guard what he believed his. With your fiery tempers, the two of you clashed often.

But time has a way of wearing down the edges of petty rivalries and slowly, grudgingly, the two of you warmed to the other.

By the end of your stay, even Maekar no longer looked at you with the disdain he once had. He looked at you as family.

From Dragonstone, you were sent to Storm’s End, where your mother and her kin welcomed you with open arms and louder laughter. It was there you met your younger cousin Lyonel, the future Lord of Storm’s End. He accepted you without judgment.

Storm’s End taught you something Dragonstone had not. It taught you to never apologize for being yourself. Pride there was worn openly, loyalty fiercely defended.

And finally, you were sent to Dorne.

At Daeron’s behest, you were dispatched south to strengthen the still fragile ties to House Martell. And there, beneath relentless sun and silken smiles, you thrived.

The Dornish courts were a den of snakes—but you learned quickly that snakes could be allies as easily as threats. You studied the art of negotiation, trained in combat and even learned the careful sciences of the deadliest poisons in the realm. 

You discovered the power of whispers and learned to listen more than you spoke. The alliances you forged were not decided through the purity of your name, but through your strength, your intelligence, your ability to stand your ground without flinching.

Being a bastard meant little there.

Worth was measured in action. Respect was earned, not inherited. And in that sun-scorched land, you learned to shed the shame others had once tried to press upon you like a brand.

And through it all, you built your connections. By the time you returned, the realm no longer whispered your name solely with shame. They spoke it of it in favour.

When you finally returned to King’s Landing, you were no longer the girl hiding away in the shadows, but a woman shaped by distance and discipline. 

War met you at the gates.

The First Blackfyre Rebellion had already begun to tear at the realm’s seams, banners rising in defiance, loyalties tested in blood.

With you, you brought the alliances you had cultivated in Storm’s End and Dorne to aid Baelor as he gathered troops to fight Daemon Blackfyre’s rebellion. Stormlords who had laughed with you at your cousin’s table now answered your call, with Lyonel leading them. Dornish captains who had once tested your resolve now marched beneath Targaryen command because you called for them to support princess Myriah and her family.

You rode at Baelor’s side as he rallied the allies you had forged in distant courts. And when the armies converged, you joined Maekar upon the field.

History would remember that day in bloodied iron.

The Hammer and the Anvil, they called your kin—Baelor Breakspear and Maekar Targaryen. One to drive the rebels forward with relentless force. One to hold the line unyielding as stone.

Then there was you the spark that rekindled the hope of victory. 

When Aegon, Daemon’s eldest, rode at the front of the Blackfyre charge, the field trembled beneath the weight of hooves. His banner snapped black behind him, his blade raised high, his men surging with him with a determined roar meaning to shatter Maekar’s position in a single devastating strike.

For the span of a single breath, the world narrowed as you saw him.

Your fingers drew the bowstring back in one smooth motion, utterly steady. The poison that tipped your arrow glistened faintly in the sun.

With an exhaling breath, you released.

The shaft flew true.

It pierced through Aegon’s armour and buried itself in his chest. He jerked sharply in the saddle, breath torn from him, before pitching backward into the churned earth just moments before his charge could crash against Maekar’s line.

It was his death that would draw on the opportunity to kill Daemon, who gathered Aegon’s dying body into his arms, heedless of the battle raging around them. For a fleeting, terrible moment, he was not rebel king nor pretender—only a father cradling what he had lost.

But grief turned swiftly to fury.

When Aegon’s life finally slipped away, Daemon rose, his gauntlets slick with his son’s blood, and his gaze found yours across the field. Blinded by rage and desperate for retribution, he charged, cutting a path through any who stood between him and his target.

And it would be Brynden’s arrow that slew Daemon, loosed the instant he saw where the rebel king’s fury was aimed—at you.

For your actions, you turned the tide of the Battle of the Redgrass Field. After, its victory you returned to court, drawing the attention of not only the courtiers but of Brynden as well. His gaze followed you taking in the fierce beauty that you’ve become.

There was a time he felt the stirrings of feelings but at the time he’d been too shy, hiding away in his youth. Yet, now time and challenge had hardened him into a lord whose name was whispered with fear throughout the realm. 

He felt as though something long dormant had woken the moment you stepped into the Red Keep. You carried yourself with the quiet assurance of someone who had learned to survive in courts not her own. Compared to them, the red keep seemed almost filled with sheep. 

He was not the only one who noticed your beauty, admirers were quick to flock you but unlike Shiera who indulged and even flaunted the attention of her admirers to his face, you remained polite to those who sought your hand.

That was until you saw him, he was sure his heart stuttered as you gave him that familiar bright grin devoid of any fear as you came up to him, enveloping him in a warm hug before he could even react.

“Brother,” you greeted warmly, and your embrace was like a summer wind from the Marches, cutting right through his cold exterior.

Brynden froze. For a man who claimed to see through a thousand eyes and one, he was momentarily blinded by the sheer, grounding reality of your presence. His arms, usually stiff and poised for the weight of a bow or the scratching of a quill, hovered uncertainly for a fraction of a second before they closed around you.

“You’ve grown taller, Brynden,” you said lightly, your voice softened by the lingering cadence of the Dornish and Valyrian accents you’d picked up in your travels. The vowels rolling warm against his ear.

You drew back just enough to look him in the red eye that so unsettled others, before shifting to the still healing socket half-hidden by pale strands of hair.

You didn't flinch or recoil in disgust like so many others did at the sight but your lips did briefly tip down. You had heard the rumours of what happened, heard that it was Aegor who had taken Brynden’s eye. 

Your fingers lifted instinctively, moving to brush the silver hair aside for a better look.

Brynden’s hand shot out before you could touch him. His fingers closed firmly around your wrist and for a heartbeat, his expression looked as if it were carved of stone.

You let out a soft huff at the sight of his stoicism and lowered your hand, easing from his hold without resistance. “And far too serious,” you teased, though your voice remained tender. “Have you forgotten how to smile? Or has the Red Keep finally turned you to stone?”

At last, his mouth twitched.

“I’ve grown taller, as one does with age,” he drawled dryly, choosing to answer your first comment instead. A faint snort escaped him. “The last you saw me was five summers past. Long enough for boys to become men.”

Your gaze couldn’t help but once again trail down his form, this time to properly take him in.

Up close, you could see the change in him more clearly. The pale hair still fell straight and stark against his red and smokey grey doublet. His ruby red eye still burned bright beneath the pale hood of his lashes—the colour unnerving to some, mesmerizing to you. But the softness of youth had been stripped away by time and trial. What remained were sharp cheekbones that lent him an almost gaunt severity.

Even as a child, he had been lean to the point of frailty, all long, gangly limbs. Now that same leanness had hardened. Muscle lay coiled beneath cloth and leather belonging to those of a seasoned warrior. 

He had grown into himself.

His voice snapped you out of your perusal, "They told me you were a 'proper lady' now," Brynden said, his lip curling into the ghost of a wry, jagged smile. He reached out, his pale fingers ghosting over the golden chains of your Dornish dress. "But I see the sun of the South didn't completely burn the dragon out of you. It only tempered the blade."

He glanced over your shoulder at the flock of courtiers who had been hovering nearby, their faces a mask of poorly hidden envy and sudden caution. With a single, icy look from Bloodraven, they scattered like ash in a gale.

You hummed softly, unfazed. “Yes. My time away taught me much.”

“So it did,” he murmured, his gaze returning to you. There was curiosity there now. “Tell me—was it Dorne that taught you your skill with the bow?”

A slow smirk curved your lips.

“Why?” you asked lightly, leaning forward just enough to shorten the space between you. “Are you worried I may take your place as Westeros’s most skilled archer?”

He could not help but mirror the movement, leaning in as well, the red eye glinting with quiet amusement. The corner of his mouth lifted into a rare, genuine grin. 

“I do not—”

“Well,” a new voice drawled, cutting clean through the moment, dripping with mockery and unwanted heat, “the lost doe returns to the dragon’s den. And I heard she’s grown quite a set of horns in the Stormlands.”

You didn't have to turn to know it was Aegor. A single glance at Brynden was enough. It seemed the old rivalry you remembered between them had not died in your absence—only festered. The air around Brynden seemed to still, the warmth leaching from it as if winter had come. 

His jaw tightened; the faint amusement you had received from him, vanished without a trace.

Slowly, you turned.

He looked like an older version of the childish brute you remembered—harder, heavier in muscle, a beard shadowing his jaw. The same restless aggression simmered beneath his skin, though now it wore the arrogance of a man riding the high of his new legitimized status.

His gaze dragged over you with open appraisal.

You forced a smile.

“Aegor,” you greeted evenly. “I see your tongue is still as blunt as your sword. Has no one taught you how to greet a lady in my absence, or do I need to show you how they handle such rudeness in the Stormlands?”

A faint murmur rippled through the nearby courtiers, that had been brave enough to stay. 

Aegor’s lips twitched into something you couldn’t even call a smile. “Stormlanders correct rudeness with fists, if I recall.”

“Oh, good,” you replied sweetly. “There is something within that head of yours. I worried for a moment it might be hollow.”

He scowled. 

“I see not even exile could teach you to become a proper lady,” he said, voice tightening. “Your mouth is still as crass as ever.”

"Crass?" You let the word hang in the air, tilting your head as if weighing its value. "In the South, they call it candor. But I suppose to a man who only understands the language of a grunt and a grumble, any sentence with more than three syllables sounds like an insult."

Aegor’s face flushed a dull, angry purple, his hand twitching toward the heavy signet ring on his finger. "You always did have too much of our father’s arrogance and none of his sense. You think those Dornish trinkets and Stormland boasts make you untouchable? You’re still a bastard just like the rest of us sister, sister. Just one with better fabric and a sharper tongue."

"And a better aim," Brynden cut in, his voice like a sheet of ice cracking. He hadn't moved, but the air around him felt charged, dangerous. His single red eye was fixed on Aegor with a lethal focus. "Or have you forgotten whose arrow spared Prince Maekar’s line from being overrun. It wasn't a lady's embroidery needle that pierced Aegon’s plate, Bittersteel."

The mention of the Redgrass Field and his fallen nephew turned Aegor’s irritation into a raw, bleeding snarl. He stepped into your space, Looming over you, the scent of leather and old sweat rolling off him.

"Careful, Brynden," Aegor hissed, though his eyes remained locked on yours. "The war is over, but the grudges are long. Your little 'doe' might have found some horns, but I’ve broken stags before."

“Try it,” you whispered, not retreating a single inch. Your hand came to rest openly on the hilt of the slender Valyrian steel dagger at your thigh—a gift from Prince Daeron himself. “And I’ll show you why the Dornish say it’s the smallest vipers that carry the most certain death.”

Aegor’s gaze dropped to the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger, his pupils narrowing. He recognized the ripples in the dark metal. The sight of it, held by a woman who had already tasted the blood of what was once his cause, seemed to stoke the fire behind his eyes until it threatened to boil over.

“A gift from the Scholar-King?” Aegor sneered, though he did not step closer. “He gives you toys of ancient steel while he gives nothing to the men doing the real fighting, like Maekar. You haven’t change, hiding behind titles and trinkets.”

“And you,” you replied softly, your voice dipping into something far more dangerous than anger, “are still the same brat who screams at the sun because it refuses to stop shining.”

Anyone in proximity had gone silent.

“You speak of real fighting,” you continued, honeyed and lethal. “Yet I recall quite clearly the sight of your back as you fled the Redgrass Field. Tell me—did Blackfyre teach you that particular stride, or did it come naturally?”

The insult struck home like a hammer.

Aegor surged forward, fury finally breaking through restraint. His hand flew to the hilt of his sword, leather creaking beneath the force of his grip.

Steel sang half an inch from its sheath—

Brynden moved instantly, stepping between you with his arm raised to halt him—

—but you were faster.

Your dagger was in your hand before most realized it had left its sheath. In a single fluid motion, you stepped in close and pressed the edge of Valyrian steel to Aegor’s throat. A thin line of red blossomed across his skin where the blade kissed flesh. He was fortunate you had not dipped it in poison, as you so usually did.

“Careful,” You all but crooned warningly.

“Some might consider your behaviour to be one of traitor,” Brynden warned quietly, “After all, you only just managed to clear your name of any treason.”

Aegor stilled.

He had been one of Daemon Blackfyre’s most ardent supporters, convinced of the righteousness of a rebel crown. When the rebellion shattered at the Redgrass Field, when banners burned and brothers turned their blades inward, survival had demanded a different posture. He had claimed blindness and manipulation. Claimed he had been misled by ambition and false promises. He had bent the knee to Daeron and sworn himself renewed in loyalty.

It had been by the narrowest edge of royal mercy that his head had remained upon his shoulders.

And he knew it.

For a long, tense moment, he glared at the two of you, fury warred with calculation behind his gaze. Slowly, he stepped back, fists clenched in a physical effort to restrain his anger.

A throat cleared nervously.

A few steps away, a young servant stood stiff as a pike, face pale beneath the torchlight. “M-my lord,” he said, voice wavering slightly, “the Lady Shiera requests your presence.”

You fought the urge to scoff at the sound of your half sister’s name but you didn’t miss the way Brynden’s shoulder went stiff from beside you.

Aegor’s expression shifted as smug curve tugged at his mouth as he glanced at Brynden. Anger replaced by petty satisfaction at the perceived victory. Without a word, he turned and followed the servant down the corridor.

Only when he was fully out of sight did Brynden’s shoulders ease, the rigid line of him loosening by a fraction.

"Well," you muttered, the metallic snick of your Valyrian steel dagger sliding home into its sheath puncturing the silence. "He’s still the same as ever."

"He is worse," Brynden corrected, his voice a low.

When you looked at him, the edge of cold calculation had returned to his features—but beneath it was something else. 

Concern.

“Be on your guard around him,” he said seriously. “Aegor is ruled by his temper,” Brynden continued. “He won’t so easily forget such a slight against him.” His jaw tightened, the pale skin over his bone structure pulling taut. “I fear he will seek repayment.”

You snorted softly. “I’ve survived far worse than our brother.”

“I do not question your strength,” he began, his single red eye narrowing as he prepared to press the matter further, to make you understand the gravity of his warning was not just something you could brush aside—

“My lady.”

The interruption came from your left.

You turned to find a herald standing stiffly at attention, the three-headed dragon sigil embroidered across his chest in threads of obsidian and flame.

“The Hand requests your presence,” the man announced. “At once.”

You inclined your head gracefully. “Of course.”

Brynden’s jaw tightened with frustration

When you turned back to Brynden, something unspoken passed between you.

He leaned in, his voice a ghost of a whisper. “Do not dismiss what I said.”

You offered him a faint, teasing smile, the kind that had always managed to disarm his gloom. “I won’t,” You reassured, “I’ll see you later.”

He only inclined his head, standing perfectly still like a sentinel of bone and shadow, watching as you walked away.

That night, Brynden dreamed.

In his sleep, he walked a narrow path—one he had been treading for years, the earth well-worn beneath his boots. At its end stood Shiera. She wore a radiant smile across her plush lips, yet she remained perpetually just out of reach, no matter how long he walked. 

Beside him stood Aegor, blade drawn, anger ever simmering. In that future, Brynden saw the years stretching on in endless contest: challenges in the court, wars waged for a woman who belonged to neither and delighted in belonging to both. There was no peace there. No certainty. Only a lifetime locked in rivalry, chasing affection that would never root itself fully in him.

It was a life of endless stalemate for a loveless war disguised as devotion.

Then the dream shifted.

The path split.

The second road was quieter. There was no spectacles, no rivalry. Only you.

You stood beneath a sky washed in gold, your expression steady and unafraid. In this future, Brynden did not have to fight Aegor for scraps of attention. He did not measure his worth against his brother’s rage. He stood beside you—not above, not in pursuit—beside.

When he reached you, the smile you gave him was blinding, reaching into the cold corners of his soul. Your fingers came up to his pale, red-stained cheek, cupping it tenderly. You looked at him as though you saw every shadow and flaw he carried and did not recoil. As though loving him was not a challenge to conquer but a choice you happily made.

He saw then what that life could be. You, with the alliances you had cultivated from the jagged cliffs of Dragonstone to the sweltering courts of Dorne. You, who had won the respect of the realm through intelligence and strength rather than seduction and brute force. Lords who trusted you extended that trust to him. You, who would not toy with his heart, but guard it as fiercely as he would guard yours.

There was no endless duel upon this path, only devotion and love. 

When Brynden woke, he realized there was no choice to be decided. You and he had always been two halves of a whole. Shiera had been his attempt to fill the space your absence carved into him. A distraction.

Now that you had returned, there was no room for substitutes.

It would only ever be you.

But Brynden was not the only one whose gaze shifted. Aegor’s had as well, for the sole reason because Brynden now wanted you. The rivalry that had once been tempered by pride and sharpened by Shiera’s indulgence darkened the moment it centered upon you. 

Your half sister had a beauty that men drowned in with indulgence. You, however, had a beauty that sent men to their knees, begging for the smallest of tastes.

While Shiera had entertained them both, weaving the tension between Brynden and Aegor like a spider spinning silk around its prey, you offered neither invitation nor game. You did not flirt or indulge in his crass attempts. In truth, you did not even look Aegor’s way, for since you had been a young girl, it was only ever Brynden who held your heart.

However, continued denial to a man accustomed to conquest, was its own provocation. It was a month after your return when he finally found his opportunity to corner you alone.

“What does he have that draws you to his side?” Aegor demanded one evening, stepping from shadow as you made your way toward your chambers. “Is it sorcery? Or do you simply enjoy the company of things that should have been drowned at birth?”

You glared, “Watch your tongue.”

“Is he fucking you?” he demanded, his voice dropping into the gutter. He stepped closer, his bulk looming over you, the scent of wine heavy and sour on his breath. “Are you so desperate for a man that you would settle for such a freak?”

He didn't wait for an answer. He leaned down, his voice laced with a grotesque sort of arrogance that made your skin crawl. “If it’s a man you need, I can assure you I would satisfy you far better than he ever could.”

The sound of your palm striking his cheek echoed down the stone corridor like a whip-crack.

Aegor's head snapped sideways, the force of the blow jarring his teeth. For a heartbeat, he stood frozen, stunned less by the physical sting than by the sheer, audacity you would do such a thing. A dark, angry crimson flared along his jaw where your hand had landed.

You let out a cold, mocking, humourless laugh.

“You reek of desperation,” you spat, your voice like winter steel. “It’s pathetic.” 

You took a step closer, forcing him to meet your eyes, refusing to be intimidated by his size. “You’re pathetic, Aegor. You’re so consumed by what Brynden has that you’ve forgotten how to be a man of your own. And that is why you will always be second to him.”

Slowly, Aegor’s head turned back toward you. The surprise was gone, replaced by a raw, white-hot fury that ignited in his eyes. "You'll regret that," he hissed.

Your other hand moved instinctively for your dagger — but this time he was ready.

Aegor caught your wrist mid-motion, his fingers clamping down hard enough to bruise. Before you could twist free, his other hand seized your remaining arm. In one brutal shove, he drove you back against the stone wall, the impact knocking the breath from your lungs. Cold stone pressed into your spine as he pinned your arms above you, using his weight to anchor you.

You struggled immediately, muscles straining, trying to wrench free from his grip.

“Let me go!” you shouted, fury lacing your voice.

But he was larger — broader through the shoulders, heavier with muscle. You were fast and trained, but in sheer size you were nearly half his measure. Your wrists burned beneath the pressure of his hold as he forced you still against the wall, his breath hot and unsteady against your face.

He let out a dark, jagged chuckle, leaning in until the stench of wine was suffocating. “If you have doubts of me being a man, then let me show you. Let me show you exactly what a man can do.”

You snarled, whipping your head forward in a desperate attempt to get free. Your forehead met the bridge of his nose with a sickening, wet crack.

Aegor let out a pained howl, his grip breaking as he staggered back, clutching his face. Stars danced across your vision, and a high-pitched ringing erupted in your ears from the impact. You gasped, your hand flying to your own throbbing brow as you stumbled, fingers clawing at the stone wall for purchase. You tried to shove past him, to find your footing and flee, But Aegor recovered faster than you expected.

He surged forward with a snarl, his weight slamming into your shoulder and shoving you back against the masonry with enough force to knock the air from your lungs. One hand clamped around your wrist again, pinning it high above your head. The other hand reached out and fisted the fine Dornish silk of your bodice and tore downward.

The delicate fabric let out a violent rip and gave way beneath his rough fingers.

There was a near-manic glint in his eyes, blood from his broken nose smearing across his lips as he bared his teeth. “Let’s see if he will still desire you after I ruin you,” he spat. It was the ultimate, ugly logic of a man who equated possession with power: if he could not win your regard, he would take your dignity and call it a victory over the brother he hated.

You let out a scream, the sound torn from your throat as a searing hatred for your own helplessness flared hotter than the fear. His grip was iron, crushing the bone of your wrist, and for a fleeting, terrifying heartbeat, the world narrowed to the bruising pressure of his hand and the suffocating smell of wine on his breath.

Then—

He was torn away from you before you fully understood what had happened.

The weight was suddenly gone. Aegor staggered back, his boots scuffing violently against the floor as he fought to keep his footing. Blood poured down his face from the gushing, broken nose you had delivered, staining his beard and collar in crimson streaks.

Behind him stood Brynden. He was fury rendered in absolute stillness, his pale face carved into something cold and utterly lethal. 

Aegor laughed through the blood, a wet, breathless sound devoid of any humour. He spat a glob of red onto the floor, his eyes wild and jagged with spite as he looked from his brother to you.

Brynden’s expression darkened further when his gaze swept over you, taking in the torn fabric at your bodice, the disheveled strands of your once-styled hair, and the fear you were trying so fiercely to master.

He had tolerated much in his life.

He had endured Shiera’s games, the tension and jealousy she caused by the cruelty of her whims, the shared affections she distributed between him and Aegor. He had accepted the sting of it because that had been her choice. But this—this was not a choice.

Brynden lunged.

They collided with brutal, bone-jarring force, crashing to the stone floor in a violent tangle of limbs and raw fury. The corridor erupted in the sound of chaos—boots scraping frantically against the masonry, shoulders slamming into heavy pillars, and the sound of grunts as knuckle meeting flesh.

Aegor recovered quickly, snarling as he swung back, breath tearing from battered lungs. His fist glanced off Brynden’s jaw; Brynden answered with one to the ribs that drove the air from him.

They grappled like beasts, years of rivalry igniting in full.

Eventually, Brynden gained the upper hand.

With ruthless efficiency, he forced Aegor onto his back. He braced his knees against Aegor’s ribs, pinning him to the stone. Then, his fist came down.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

And again.

The sound of knuckles striking flesh and bone echoed sickeningly through the corridor. Blood splattered across pale skin and grey stone alike. Aegor’s face became a swelling, bloodied ruin beneath the relentless assault.

Brynden did not slow; his movements were mechanical, driven by a cold, white-hot rage that had finally found its outlet. Each strike carried the weight of years of restrained fury, and in that moment, you understood with chilling clarity: if you had not moved—if you had not seized his arm and spoken his name, begging him that it was enough—he would not have stopped until he had beaten the life out of the man beneath him.

The Keep would not remember this as another brotherly fight but for a brother’s death. 

He would not be called Bloodraven.

He would be called kinslayer.

“Brynden! That’s enough!”

Your voice cut through the corridor. Your hand closed around his sleeve, halting his next move mid-arc. The fury in him did not vanish—you could feel it vibrating through his entire frame—but at your touch alone, he stilled. His fist hovered in the air for one agonizing heartbeat before finally lowering.

His shoulders heaved with ragged, silent breaths.

For a long moment, he did not move.

Then, slowly, he rose.

Aegor lay groaning on the stone, blood pooling beneath him, but Brynden no longer looked at him. His attention shifted to you instead—and whatever rage had consumed him moments before dulled beneath something far more urgent.

Worry.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was a quiet rasp, stripped of its usual icy composure. His single red eye trailed down the length of you, cataloging the damage with a near clinical precision. He took in the wild disarray of your hair, the jagged tear at your dress, and the angry, purple imprint of fingers already darkening against the skin of your wrist.

As he reached the bruises, something in his expression darkened further, a flicker of the monster returning to his eyes before he forced it back down.

Without a word, he unfastened his cloak in one smooth motion. He draped the heavy black fabric around your shoulders, the weight of it swallowing you in warmth and the faint, sharp scent of pine and old parchment.

You swallowed hard, the adrenaline finally beginning to ebb, leaving a cold shiver in its wake.

“Thank you,” you murmured, your fingers clutching the silver-weighted edge of the cloak as if it were an anchor. Your gaze dropped briefly to the stone. “I should have taken your warning more seriously… I did not expect him to—”

Brynden’s hand rose to your cheek. His palm was cool against your flushed skin

The touch was so sudden and so gentle that it stilled the very breath in your lungs.

“It was not your fault,” he said, his voice dropping to a register meant only for you. “You are not responsible for Aegor’s actions. Never suggest otherwise.” 

His thumb brushed lightly along your jaw carefully. A near reverent caress that felt like a benediction— so different from the violence he displayed moments before. 

“Time has only made him more twisted,” he continued quietly. “More vile.”

Behind you, Aegor shifted with a pained groan as he slowly pushed himself to sit up.

Your gaze snapped to his broken form. The softness Brynden had drawn out of you vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating fury that mirrored the steel at your hip. Without a word, you stepped around Brynden and knelt over Aegor. Before he could even blink through the blood in his eyes, you had your dagger out, pressing the sharp point of the blade directly against his groin.

Aegor stilled instantly. He let out a sharp, hitching breath as he felt the barest, stinging pinch of the Valyrian steel through his breeches.

“Try this again,” you whispered, your voice a lethal caress, “and I will personally ensure that the next time you try to bed a woman, you’ll find you are missing the parts required for the task. I will make a eunuch of you before you can even draw a breath to plead.”

Aegor’s jaw worked, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists against the floor. Even broken and bleeding, he looked ready to strike, desperate to prove his dominance with the only tool he truly understood: violence. But the bite of the blade was the only thing that kept him at bay.

"You're a madwoman," he hissed, his voice bubbling through the blood, though his eyes darted nervously to the blade in your hand.

"I'm a dragon," you corrected him sharply, your voice devoid of mercy. "And I've spent enough time with vipers to know exactly where to bite."

With those words, you straightened up, the adrenaline beginning to leave your limbs. Brynden offered his arm and you accepted it, letting him lead you away from the wreckage of his brother. The heavy sweep of his cloak trailed behind you, a dark shroud that hid your torn dress from the prying eyes of the Red Keep.

Once inside the safety of your chambers, Brynden turned to face you.

“Do you need me to call the maester?” he asked softly. His fingers reached toward the swelling at your brow where you had struck Aegor.

You winced as the dull throb behind your eyes intensified, then shook your head. “I’ll be fine. A maester will only ask questions that might cause the realm to gossip.”

He exhaled a long, sharp breath through his nose, his jaw tightening. “You should have let me kill him. He doesn't deserve the air he breathes, let alone the mercy you showed him.”

“And have the realm call you kinslayer?” you scoffed, looking up at him. “The gods know you have enough enemies, Brynden. You don't need that blood on your hands.”

“At least we’d be rid of him,” he muttered darkly, his single red eye fixed on the door as if he could still see Aegor’s broken body through the wood. “The world would be quieter without his constant, grasping greed.”

“And then your reputation would be tarnished beyond repair,” you pointed out, reaching up to lay your hand over his.

It was his turn to scoff, a jagged, self-deprecating sound. “It can seldom get worse, you know. You’ve heard the songs. You know what the people say about me. A thousand eyes and one, all of them belonging to Westeros’ darkest sorcerer.”

He looked down at you, his expression softening into something painfully vulnerable. “I’ve long stopped caring for what the realm thinks of me.” His hand turned beneath yours, lacing his fingers through your own. His knuckles were still stained a dark, drying crimson—a stark contrast to the milk-white of his skin. “I care only for what you think of me”

Your breath hitched. You swallowed harshly, “And what of your paramour, the Lady Shiera? I’m sure our sister would have been remiss if you had succeeded in killing off her other lover.”

The mention of her name acted like a douse of ice water, but not in the way you expected. Brynden didn’t flinch; instead, his entire posture went rigid, his single eye snapping open to lock onto yours with a startling, crystalline focus.

"Shiera," he repeated, the name sounding foreign on his tongue in the sanctuary of your chambers.

He let out a short, sharp breath that might have been a laugh if it weren't so bitter. He pulled his hand back, though only far enough to frame your face, his blood-stained knuckles inches from your hair. “I care not for what she thinks.”

“Lovers quarrel?” You arched a brow.

The faintest tightening touched his jaw, a flicker of genuine irritation—or perhaps pain—crossing his pale features. “Have you really no idea of my feelings for you?”

You stilled, “What are you talking about?” Your shoulders stiffened instinctively, retreating even as his hand remained gentle against your skin. “Do not think I am willing to be a part of this… this triangle you, Shiera, and Aegor insist on orbiting.”

Your voice sharpened.

“I did not leave King’s Landing only to return as someone’s shared amusement.”

Brynden flinched as if you had struck him, his hand dropping from your face as he recoiled a fraction, expression shifting into one of hurt.

“Amusement?” he repeated quietly. “You think I would place you among her games?” His red eye burned fiercely with emotion. “That I would ask you to share what has always been yours?” 

"I have spent my life in that triangle because I believed it was the only place for a man like me," he said, his red eye fixed on yours with a terrifying, unblinking honesty. "A freak born of a King's whim. I took what was offered because I never believed I deserved more. Shiera is a mirror of all my worst impulses, a reflection of the darkness I thought I was born to inhabit. But you?”

He reached out again, his fingers hovering just shy of your pulse point, waiting for your permission. When you didn't pull away, he let his hand settle, his thumb tracing the frantic beat of your heart against your neck.

"I want to be the man you deserve, not the monster they see. If you think this is a game to me—if you think I am merely looking for a new way to spite my brother—then I have failed you more than he ever could."

You let out a trembling breath, “What changed? Why now?”

“Because you finally came back, and I realized I could no longer continue on this path without at least trying to take a leap of faith and follow my heart.”

He leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead. “You do not need to give me an answer now,” he murmured against your skin. “I know what I am asking.” 

He pulled back slightly, though his gaze held yours.

“All I ask is that you consider me.”

Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, leaving you standing alone in the silence of your chambers to ponder the weight of his confession.

Not long after the incident with Aegor, you would decide to cut your stay at court short. King’s Landing had begun to feel less like home and more like a snare. You had grown fond of the freedom your birth afforded you—the small mercy of bastardy, which loosened the heavy chains binding trueborn royals to endless, suffocating ceremony.

You had meant to depart alone.

But Brynden had refused to let you, insisting on staying by your side to join you on your travels. You had agreed, if only to see what a life shared with him might look like when the realm wasn't watching.

Aegor’s presence had also loomed over you like a gathering storm. The memory of his hands on you and the look in his eyes remained a jagged wound, and you feared he might strike again if left to his own devices. That unease, more than anything, had fuelled your decision to leave the Red Keep.

Together, you rode first for the salt-sprayed cliffs of Dragonstone, then to the thunderous heights of Storm’s End to meet your family, and eventually to the ancient, weirwood-shaded peace of Raventree Hall to see Brynden’s family.

In that freedom, away from the prying eyes of the capital, you discovered one another. Without the court poised between you to judge every glance, the tension began to melt into something sturdier. Despite the depth of your own feelings, you had been reluctant to accept his confession back at court; Shiera’s presence seemed to show up at every turn, and your sister had done everything in her power to remind you of the space she once occupied in Brynden’s bed.

But the open road was mercifully free of such games.

Brynden watched you closely in those months as you traveled, and he never pressed for more than you were willing to give or an answer to his confession. If anything, he seemed content simply to ride at your side.

He watched as you renewed the ties you had forged in earlier years. And for those where familiarity lacked, you created new alliances. Unlike Shiera, you did not seduce loyalty—you earned it.

You were cunning, yes—sharp-minded and sharp-tongued in your speech—but you were not cruel. The alliances you shaped were not fragile threads spun from vanity or waning desire. They were rooted in trust, in reciprocity, and in quiet demonstration of worth.

With each land you crossed, the distance between you narrowed in ways neither of you were quite ready to name aloud.

Brynden felt it long before you did.

He had already seen the shape of what could be.

In dreams that came unbidden and unrelenting, he glimpsed futures branching before him like veins of light and shadow. In some, you stood at his side—not in obligation, or as a pawn—but as a partner. He saw the way your influence would steady his own, how your grace would soften the jagged edges of his reputation without dulling its strength. He saw halls filled not with bitter rivalry, but with respect. He saw you looking at him not as a brother-in-arms, but as the man you had chosen.

He woke from those dreams with certainty. He loved you. He had loved you for years, but he had been too much of a coward to say it—and now, he was paying for his actions with the doubts he had caused you.

But unlike him, you did not carry the burden—or the blessing—of foresight. You did not see the roads unfurl before your feet. You felt only the present: the comfort of riding beside him, the way his silence felt companionable rather than cold, the jump in your pulse when his hands would come up to grip your waist as he helped you dismount your horse.

He was patient.

He had always been patient.

If the future he saw was meant to belong to the two of you, he knew it would not require force; it would arrive in its own time. And eventually it did.

There was no singular moment that split friendship from something more. Instead, it unfolded quietly—like dawn creeping across a darkened sky. What began as companionship began to deepen into something steadier. 

The realization finally took hold at Raventree Hall. You found him amongst the ancient weirwood of his mother’s people. The Brackens had poisoned the site long ago, and the massive tree stood skeletal and pale, dead yet still towering. Its white branches were no longer heavy with red leaves, but with hundreds of ravens watching those who would come before it.

“You are missing out on the celebrations,” you mused, your voice cutting softly through the heavy silence of the godswood.

Brynden didn’t turn at first. He stood as still as the wood itself, his pale skin nearly matching the bone-white bark of the tree. 

“I’m afraid my tolerance for drunken cousins has its limits,” he replied dryly, his voice low and even. “Before long, I find myself seeking the solace of silence.”

You huffed a quiet laugh as you came to stand beside him, your shoulder almost brushing his arm.

“Your mother’s kin do celebrate with enthusiasm,” you said. 

“None can match those of your kin,” he answered, finally turning his head. A ghost of a smirk tugged at his mouth. “Baratheon celebrations remain unmatched.”

You let out a quiet laugh, gazing at the great tree.

“It is beautiful, in its own way,” you murmured, the cold air biting at your cheeks.

“Most see only death,” he said quietly. “Though I suppose you always did prefer the broken things.”

You hummed softly, a small plume of breath blooming in the night air. "Perhaps. There is more character in a ruin than in a fresh-built wall. You know exactly where the strength lies when everything else has been stripped away."

Brynden went still at your words. He turned fully now, his single red eye tracking the way the moonlight caught the edge of your cloak—the same cloak he had draped over you a year ago, now worn thin from the dust of the road.

“Is that what you saw in me,” he asked quietly, the dryness gone from his voice, replaced by something far more fragile, “when you stood up against Aegor all those years ago to protect me? A broken boy?”

You raised your hand to his face. "You were never a ruin to me, Brynden," you whispered, your thumb tracing the line of his jaw and his eyes fluttered shut at your touch. 

“Even back then,” you continued softly, the words a bridge between the children you were and the people you had become. “You were the boy who made sure none of the courtly girls dared mock me again after you found me crying in the gardens because they called me a lowly bastard.”

A faint exhale left him at the reminder of the memory.

“You were the boy who would sneak raspberry squares from the kitchens simply because you knew they were my favourite,” you said, a fragile smile touching your lips. Your thumb brushed lightly beneath the scarred hollow of his eye socket, a gesture of intimacy that no one else in the Seven Kingdoms would have dared—not even Shiera. “You were the first person who made me feel as though I never had to be anyone but myself, even when the entire court was trying to mold me into a proper lady. It’s those memories and more that made me love you since we were children, Brynden.”

He opened his eye then, the crimson depth of it searching yours with a clarity that no prophecy or vision could ever provide. He reached up, covering your hand with his own and pressing your palm more firmly against his face.

“We lost our chance in youth,” he murmured, his voice low and jagged with the weight of years spent in silence. “I cannot give you back the time I spent being a cowardly fool. But allow me the chance to love you now, as a man.”

He leaned closer, the breath between you mingling in the cool, crisp air beneath the skeletal branches of the weirwood. Above, the ravens grew still, their dark forms silent witnesses to the shifting of fate.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his lips only a breath from yours, his single eye searching for any hint of hesitation. “Tell me now, and I will.”

You didn't speak. Instead, you simply closed the distance. Your lips met his in a gentle, unhurried kiss—years of unspoken longing finally given shape.

Brynden’s hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair to hold you there, as if he feared you were another one of his dreams and you would vanish once he woke up. A low, ragged sound—half-sigh, half-growl—vibrated against your lips. 

You pulled him closer, your hands gripping the heavy fabric of his doublet, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart against your chest. For all his talk of being a monster or a creature of shadow, his mouth was warm and devastatingly human. 

He broke the kiss just enough to trail his lips across your jaw, his breath hot against your ear. "I have spent a thousand nights dreaming of this," he rasped, his voice thick with an emotion he could no longer control. "And not one of them was enough. Not one of them compared to the truth of you."

By the time the first murmurs began—soft whispers that you and Brynden were courting in all but name—the truth of it had already rooted itself too deeply to be denied. You found your gaze instinctively seeking his across crowded halls whenever your duties kept you apart. You found yourself attuned to the subtle cadence of his voice and the rare, private curve of amusement on his lips that was reserved for you alone.

Rumour traveled faster than ravens.

It reached the Crownlands soon enough, bleeding into the stones of King’s Landing and reaching ears that burned at the mere thought of your union. Shiera did not take kindly to losing the man she had once considered her most devoted toy, and Aegor did not appreciate being displaced in significance—least of all by the brother he had sworn to outshine.

The praise sung of you—of your valour in the Battle of the Redgrass Field, of your celebrated beauty and grace, and now of the growing bond between you and Brynden—struck at both of them differently, but the sting remained equally sharp.

When word came of the tourney at Ashford, you and Brynden decided it was finally time to step out of the quiet safety of the provinces and to return to the Crownlands. You would attend the celebration and he would join the games, and afterward ride back to the Red Keep with the Targaryen procession.

Many turned to look as the two of you rode in.

Conversations faltered. Cups paused midway to lips as they took the two of you in. Lord Bloodraven and Lady Y/n.

You had purposefully chosen to dress in a red reminiscent of blood—a deep, vivid shade that caught the sunlight like living flame. Gold thread traced the seams in subtle patterns of dragons and stags, your two lineages woven together in defiance of those who would see you as lesser. Golden ornaments were threaded through your braids, the small pieces glinting as they moved through the length of your loose hair, catching the wind as you rode.

Atop a dapple-grey horse, you looked every inch the storm dragon’s daughter, born from two unyielding houses and beholden to none.

Beside you rode Brynden, a stark contrast in all black. Black cloak, black leather, and a black stallion. The hood of his cloak shielded his pale skin from the unforgiving sun and cast his features into deep shadow, leaving only the faint, crimson glint of his eye to unsettle the hearts of lesser men.

The two of you rode close, knees nearly brushing. Your chin remained high as the crowd parted. Yes, you were a bastard. But you were a noble one.

Across the lists, a boy with a shaven head squinted through the dust toward the road, his eyes brightening with instant recognition.

“She’s here!” Egg exclaimed, nearly bouncing on his heels.

“Who is?” Duncan asked, following the boy’s gaze with a puzzled frown.

“Y/N Storm,” Egg breathed, excitement softening his usual youthful caution.

“Isn’t that a bastard’s name?” Duncan questioned, recognizing the surname given to the high-born children of the Stormlands.

Egg nodded fervently.

“And who’s the one beside her?”

“Brynden Rivers,” Egg supplied, his voice dropping an octave in awe. “They’re among the Great Bastards. My father says they were pivotal to the victory at the Redgrass Field and without them, the battle would have been lost.”

Duncan raised a curious brow. “Have you met them?”

Egg nodded, his gaze fixed on the dapple-grey horse and its rider. “Lady Y/N stayed with my family back on Dragonstone. She was kind.” His cheeks heated. “And definitely the most beautiful, too.”

Duncan coughed, his gaze drifting toward a nearby tent where Shiera Seastar had straightened from her languid recline. Her mismatched eyes—one emerald, one sapphire—narrowed into slits as she watched the procession. “I heard the men say that she was?” He nodded subtly toward the silver beauty in the pavilion.

Egg wrinkled his nose. “Shiera is beautiful,” he admitted reluctantly. “But she’s an ugly witch underneath.”

Before Duncan could murmur a reprimand for such insolence, Egg had already slipped from his side, darting down the slope toward the stables where you and Brynden were just beginning to dismount.

Your mare stamped lightly as you drew her to a halt. You were perfectly capable of dismounting without assistance—you had done so since childhood—but Brynden stepped forward all the same, as he always did when you were in his company.

His hands settled at your waist, firm and assured, and he lifted you from the saddle with ease before setting you gently upon the ground. 

You looked up at him, and for a fleeting moment, the clamour of the tourney faded to a distant hum. Your fingers rose almost without thought, slipping beneath the edge of his hood. The fabric brushed your knuckles as you pushed it back just enough to reach him. You traced your fingertips along his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the cool shade that shielded him from the sun.

His red eye softened at your touch, the severity of his usual expression easing into something reserved for you alone. He leaned ever so slightly into your hand—but the sound of hurried footsteps shattered the moment.

You turned just as a small figure barrelled toward you, nearly tripping over his own haste.

“Y/N!” Egg called breathlessly, skidding to a stop before you, his face split by a wide, gap-toothed grin.

Laughter escaped you before you could stop it. You crouched slightly, arms opening without thought as he threw himself forward in greeting.

“Egg,” you breathed warmly, steadying him. “Look at how much you’ve grown.”

“Everyone still says I’m puny for my age,” he huffed, though he couldn't hide his delight at the praise.

“You will grow; you are still young,” you reassured him, leaning back just enough to take him in properly. Your fingers brushed over his newly shorn head, and a brow arched in amused disbelief. “And what,” you asked lightly, “have you done with your hair?”

He only shrugged sheepishly, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Behind you, Brynden straightened. One gloved hand rested idly near his belt where his sword hung—the gesture born more of habit than of threat. His posture remained watchful, but the sharp edge of his presence softened as he observed the scene.

There was something almost indulgent in his expression.

Brynden did not often smile. The world had not shaped him into a man to give easy warmth. Yet, as he watched you kneel in the dirt of a stable to embrace a child, witnessing the genuine affection you gave so freely, something in him eased.

One day, he thought—with quiet certainty—he would see your belly swell with his child not only in the shifting shadows of dream, but beneath his hand in waking life.

Egg beamed up at you, oblivious to the stares gathering around the stables or the dark intensity of the man standing behind you. “So, you’re back?” he asked, as though he had half-feared you would never return.

“We are,” you replied, smoothing your hand over his head once more. “And after the tourney, we’ll be returning to the Red Keep as well.”

His eyes lit up at once. “Could I ride with you? On the way back?”

“If your father agrees,” you said with a small, knowing nod. “I would not dare steal the young prince without his permission, Egg.”

He only waved you off, “Father would agree to almost anything when it comes to you, so long as you don’t mention—“

He cut himself off shooting Brynden a nervous glance. It was no secret of Maekar’s dislike for Brynden and vice versa. But in all fairness both men were known to be notoriously hard to get along with.

You only laughed and pulled him back into a brief embrace, pressing something small into his palm as you did so.

“For later,” you whispered, your voice conspiratorial.

He glanced down at the wrapped handful of sugared almonds now tucked in his hand, then back up at you with his delight barely contained.

You gave him a wink before straightening, “Now, off you go,” you added, straightening your skirts. “Before your father begins to wonder where you’ve run.”

Egg nodded dutifully, though he lingered a moment longer than necessary. His gaze shifted to Brynden, who stood a quiet step behind you, black-clad and watchful as a sentinel.

“Will you win?” Egg asked earnestly, his voice echoing the hopes of every boy watching their favourite knight gather.

Brynden’s mouth curved faintly, that rare ghost of amusement flickering across his pale features. “I do not enter the lists to lose.”

Egg considered this gravely, then nodded as though sealing a pact. “Then you must crown her,” he declared, gesturing toward you with the sugared almonds still clutched in his fist. “The Queen of Love and Beauty.”

You let out an amused giggle and for a heartbeat, your gaze met Brynden’s. His red eye held yours, softening in a way that was only reserved for you.

“Even without titles, she is the finest beauty in the land,” he murmured.

Your cheeks heated, the flush deepening beneath the golden ornaments in your hair. You had faced the terror of the Redgrass Field without flinching, yet a few quiet words from this man made your heart flutter like a trapped bird.

Egg, satisfied with his decree, gave a small nod and hurried back toward the lists, already peeling at the paper wrapping in his hand as he returned to where he had left Duncan. You and Brynden watched him go, shared amusement lingering at the corners of your mouths.

You did not notice the tall man Egg made his way toward across the yard, but he had caught Brynden’s eye.

Your lover’s gaze had shifted, resting for a moment too long upon the broad-shouldered knight whose dirty-blond hair gleamed in the afternoon sun. There was something calculating in that look, something almost prophetic, as though Brynden were placing a vital piece upon a board only he could see.

Yet his focus was soon drawn back to the present when you slipped your hand into his. As the two of you turned away from the stables and the cluster of pavilions, his fingers closed around yours at once and the simple contact steadied the restless pulse at your throat.

Together, you moved toward the training grounds, where the clang of steel rang sharp in the sunlit area.

Below, several knights were already practicing for the morrow’s events; lances struck shields in splintering bursts, and swords flashed in disciplined arcs. The smell of trampled grass and sweat hung thick over the packed earth.

The sight of Brynden did not go unnoticed.

Conversations faltered. One knight lowered his blade mid-swing; another turned too late and nearly stumbled over his own footing. A ripple of murmured whispers followed the sight of the infamous Bloodraven, and the lady in red who walked so comfortably at his side.

His reputation preceded him, and yours was just as formidable.

You leaned toward him to murmur something low and teasing, your attention fixed on his shadowed profile rather than the path ahead—

—and nearly walked straight into a wall of black and gold.

You halted abruptly, your hands instinctively but Brynden caught your waist and steadied you before you could stumble.

“Careful there,” rumbled an amused voice, deep as thunder. “Wouldn’t want to trample the fairest jewel at Ashford.”

You looked up, a genuine smile breaking across your face. “Cousin,” you greeted warmly.

Lyonel Baratheon grinned down at you, all broad shoulders and easy arrogance, the golden crowned stag antlers of your mother's house gleamed atop his head. For all his intimidating size, he took your hand with surprising gentleness and pressed a courteous, lingering kiss to your knuckles.

His dark eyes flicked past you to Brynden, and though his smile remained, caution entered his stance.

“Rivers,” he acknowledged.

“Baratheon.”

The exchange was simple, neither outright hostility nor complete ease.

You knew your lover wasn’t the easiest man to warm to, his quiet nature often put many at unease. Lyonel was his opposite in nearly every way—boastful where Brynden was restrained, loud where Brynden was quiet, easy to laugh while Brynden often remained stoic. The Stormlands blood ran like a tempest within the Laughing Storm; pride came to him as easily as breath, and charm was his natural armour.

Until, of course, someone struck the wrong chord. Then, the legendary Baratheon temper would reveal the jagged lightning behind the clouds. For now, however, the storm lay dormant.

Lyonel rolled his broad shoulders as though loosening them for a bout already begun, his dark eyes gleaming with anticipation. “You’ve come at a good time,” he said, glancing between you and Brynden. “The lists tomorrow promise better sport than half the dreary affairs we’ve endured this year.”

Brynden inclined his head slightly. “I was under the impression Stormlanders preferred melees to lances.”

“We do,” Lyonel replied at once, his grin widening. “There’s something honest about a proper swing of steel. None of this splintered-wood pageantry.” His gaze flicked toward the practice field where a green knight had just awkwardly dropped the lance he was inspecting. “Still, I’ll settle for spectacle if it draws the right opponents.”

“Is that a challenge, Lyonel?” you asked lightly.

“I dare not challenge you, cousin. You are the deadliest being in the land,” Lyonel said with faux seriousness, before breaking into a booming laugh when you playfully slapped his arm at his jest. His gaze then shifted to Brynden with a spark of mischief. “However, I would not mind a bout with your paramour.”

Brynden’s expression did not change, but there was a subtle sharpening in his eye. “Then I hope you are prepared to be disappointed.”

Lyonel barked another laugh. “Careful, Rivers. You’ll make me think you’ve grown fond of arrogance.”

“I have not grown fond of it,” Brynden replied dryly. “I have merely learned to tolerate it after being forced to endure your company for months on end.”

You smothered a smile, enjoying the rare sight of Brynden engaging in even the smallest amount of banter.

Lyonel looked to you as though seeking an ally. “You see how he speaks to me? And here I was prepared to offer him ale and decent company tonight.”

“You offer ale to everyone, Lyonel,” you countered, your eyes dancing.

“Aye, but decent company is selective.” He placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “And I had hoped to convince you both to join us this evening. There’ll be music. And dancing.”

You smiled, answering before Brynden could find a way to decline. “We’ll be sure to stop by, cousin.”

At your side, your other half released the faintest, most put-upon sound beneath his breath—so quiet most would have missed it.

You did not.

Lyonel’s grin widened at Brynden’s discomfort. He clapped him once more on the shoulder, a heavy-handed gesture that would have made a lesser man stumble, then bowed with exaggerated gallantry, his lips brushing over your knuckles once more.

“Until tonight, cousin. Rivers.”

As the Laughing Storm sauntered off toward his tent, his booming laughter trailing behind him, Brynden exhaled slowly through his nose. “Must we attend?”

You turned toward him, feigning innocence as your fingers idly toyed with the edge of his dark cloak. “If you do not wish to join,” you said sweetly, “I can go on my own. I wouldn't want to bore you with something as trivial as music.”

His eye narrowed at once.

Before you could step away, his hand found your waist and drew you closer, his black shadow folding over your vivid red skirts as easily as night claims the day.

“Out of the question,” he murmured, his voice a low, possessive vibration.

“Oh?” You tilted your chin, teasing him, enjoying the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth that signalled his rising protective streak.

“You will not wander into a pavilion full of drunken knights and idle lords unescorted,” he stated, his grip firming just enough to emphasize his point.

“I could have Lyonel as my escort,” you pointed out lightly, as though the thought had only just occurred to you. “You are hardly fond of dancing, my love. Lyonel, at least, would not sulk in the corner while the musicians attempt to coax you into civility.”

A faint breath escaped him—something between disbelief and reluctant amusement. He leaned down, his forehead nearly touching yours, the heat of his presence drowning out the chill of the afternoon breeze.

“I do not sulk,” he corrected softly.

“You brood.”

“I observe.”

“You glower.”

His eye playfully narrowed at that, a faint spark of warning flickering in the crimson depth.

You sighed dramatically, though your fingers still toyed idly with the edge of his cloak. “It is only music, Brynden.”

“And dancing,” he reminded you, as if the word itself were a sentence to the Wall.

A small, almost hopeful smile touched your lips. “Perhaps I should like to see you dance.”

His expression shifted at once—horrified first, then faintly affronted, as if you had suggested he take up the harp in the middle of a siege.

“I do not dance.”

You tilted your head, studying him. “You survived battles. You survived the courts. You survived our mad half brother.” Your gaze softened just a fraction, your voice dropping to a tender murmur. “Surely you can survive one song.”

He did not answer at once. The breeze tugged at his hood, shifting and making the silver of his hair catch the light. His red eye lingered on yours, calculating the weight of his refusal.

“I would look ridiculous,” he said at last.

“Then we shall look ridiculous together,” you replied with an easy, radiant smile.

The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, the ghost of a real smile finally threatening to break through his stoic mask. He let out a long, defeated sigh, his hand tightened affectionately at your waist.

“We’ll see,” he conceded, which, coming from the Bloodraven, was as good as a promise.

You stepped closer, hope warming your expression. “Does that mean you will attend?”

He looked down at you then, at the expectancy he could never quite withstand. “As if I would refuse you,” he muttered.

Your smile brightened, but past his shoulder, you caught sight of Shiera. She was gliding toward the two of you, her mismatched eyes locked on Brynden with a predatory grace. You felt your shoulders stiffen, the warmth of the moment cooling instantly.

Noticing the shift in your mood, Brynden's gaze sharpened immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

You swallowed, forcing the edge from your expression before turning back to him. “Nothing.”

Despite knowing Brynden and Shiera had once been… entangled—knowing the way she had looked at him and the way he had once answered in kind—some small, treacherous part of you wondered. Even though he had chosen you, though he stood at your side now, you wondered if he ever missed his time with her, or if he might one day seek to rekindle that old flame.

He turned his head just enough to catch Shiera’s approach before looking back at you. “I chose you,” he said simply, “There is no reason for you to feel threatened.”

Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Who said I’m threatened?” you scoffed.

His lips twitched faintly. “Is this frown not because you are jealous of the past I share with her?”

The words were purposefully provoking, and part of you knew it. You bit the bait anyway.

Your fingers, which hadn’t stopped tracing the edge of his cloak, suddenly fisted the heavy, dark fabric. With a firm tug, you yanked him down toward you until his face was barely an inch from yours.

“What is there to be jealous of?” you demanded softly, your voice low and edged with the warning. “I am a storm-born dragon, and you are my treasure.”

Your grip did not loosen as you felt his breath hitch in surprise.

“It would be foolish of her,” you continued, your chin lifting just slightly as Shiera drew closer. “To think she could take what has already been claimed. Unlike her, I do not share.”

For a heartbeat, his expression stilled. Then, he smirked. “It’s a good thing, I do not intend to be shared.”

He leaned closer, the hood of his cloak casting a deeper shadow across his pale features. His voice dropped further, “You seem to be forgetting one thing, ñuha prūmya. You are not the only one with the blood of the dragon,” he murmured. “You are mine just as I am yours.”

His gloved hand slid to your waist again; this time, the gesture was overtly possessive, as if staking a claim for whoever might be watching. “It would be foolish of her,” he finished, his red eye glinting faintly beneath the hood, “to even attempt to take me away from you.”

His thumb pressed lightly into your side, a silent tether between you.

“Ñuha prūmia iksis iā.” My heart is yours.

Your gaze softened at once, the last remnants of doubt dissolving beneath the absolute certainty in his voice. Without hesitation, you rose onto your toes and pressed your lips to his, showing the world that you could be every bit as possessive as he was.

He did not hesitate.

Brynden’s hand tightened at your waist as he returned the kiss with a sudden, fierce hunger that ignored the approaching footsteps. When you finally parted, his forehead rested briefly against yours, his breath warm against your skin.

“Never doubt the love I have for you,” he said quietly.

A sharp, pointed throat-clearing forced the two of you to reluctantly part. Turning, you found Shiera standing a few paces away. Her posture was immaculate, her expression a mask of effortless perfection, yet the slight tightness at the corners of her mouth, and the fire burning in her gaze betrayed the emotion she fought to conceal.

Jealousy did not suit her.

Still, it was there, and you could not deny the faint stir of smugness at the sight of it. 

For a long moment, the two of you regarded one another wordlessly. Shiera Seastar stood draped in pale ivories and silvers that shimmered like moonlight—an echo of the sea and the name she bore. You stood as her opposite, a vision in blood-red and gold and no less alluring.

Brynden’s arm remained firm around your waist, an unspoken declaration you did not resist. You were content to remain tucked against his side as the tension between you and Shiera stretched as taut as a drawn bowstring.

“Brother,” she greeted smoothly, her voice polished to a fine edge. She chose to ignore your presence entirely, her focus fixed solely on him. “I had wondered when you would grace us with your return. The court has been quite dull without your company.”

“Shiera,” he replied. His tone was perfectly even—neither warm nor cold. The fire he had once felt for her had long since burnt to ash, leaving behind nothing but indifference.

Her mismatched eyes drifted downward, lingering on the place where his gloved hand curved possessively against your hip. For the briefest instant, her composure faltered. A faint shadow of resentment darkened her features before her face smoothed into a mask of porcelain apathy once more.

“Do you plan to compete in the tourney tomorrow?” she asked him, her voice drifting like silk.

“I do.”

Shiera’s smile deepened, and her voice dropped to a low, suggestive purr. “Mhm. You were always so... insatiable after a match.”

Your fingers tightened in the dark fabric at Brynden’s side—the only outward sign that the remark had struck its mark. Otherwise, you remained the picture of regal composure. 

In fact, your smile widened.

“Really?” you asked, sounding genuinely intrigued. “How interesting.”

You tilted your head slightly, studying her with open, almost playful curiosity. “I find myself able to keep up with him quite easily.” There was no bite in your tone, only the faintest lilt of innocence. “If you found it difficult,” you continued pleasantly, “I’ve heard the septas sometimes prepare a restorative tea for such… fatigue. Perhaps you should ask for the recipe if you are struggling to preform.”

For a moment, Shiera did not move. Her mouth parted, then closed again as though the perfect retort had fled her entirely.

Beside you, Brynden made an abrupt, strangled sound. He turned his head sharply away, one gloved hand rising to cover his mouth, though the tell-tale shake of his shoulders betrayed him. He attempted to disguise the outburst as a cough, but the effort was transparent. The laughter in his eye was unmistakable.

Shiera’s gaze flicked toward him, then snapped back to you. A faint flush of colour rose along her throat before she forced her smile to settle into something more composed.

“Oh,” she said lightly, the edge beneath the softness sharpening to a razor’s point. “Is that what you use to aid you? Tonics and teas?”

“Dear gods, no.” You placed a hand against your chest in gentle protest. “If that were the case, I’m afraid Brynden and I would never have found the strength to leave the bed.”

Whatever advantage she had intended to claim slipped neatly from her grasp and was returned to her, wrapped in sweetness and delivered without visible effort.

Brynden cleared his throat again, mastering himself with an arduous effort. He straightened, his composure returning in measured degrees, though the faint curve at the corner of his mouth refused to disappear entirely. His red eye moved briefly between the two of you, shimmering with dark amusement.

Shiera inhaled slowly, reclaiming the serenity she wore like armour. When she spoke again, her voice had regained its smooth cadence, but something brittle lingered beneath the surface.

“You are… refreshingly candid,” she observed, her voice tight.

You offered a small shrug, as though the matter were of no particular consequence. “I see no reason for a dragon to mimic the modesty of the sheep we so often find ourselves surrounded by,” you replied with effortless ease. “Though I suppose court life does encourage such habits. Everyone becomes so… agreeable.” Your gaze met hers directly, unblinking. “Isn’t that so, sister?”

Her gaze lingered a moment longer, before looking to Brynden as if hoping he might step in—perhaps expecting him to chide your sharp tongue or offer a shred of the gentlemanly defence he had once afforded her.

But Brynden did not step in. He did not offer her a single grain of the validation she sought. Instead, he simply adjusted his grip on your waist, pulling you a fraction closer until your shoulder was tucked firmly against his chest.

Her gaze dropped to where Brynden’s thumb traced a slow, rhythmic circle against your silk-clad hip.

Shiera’s nostrils flared, the only crack in her porcelain mask. For years, she had been the sun around which he orbited, the one woman who could command his attention with a mere glance of her mismatched eyes. To be dismissed so casually—to be treated as an observer to his devotion rather than the object of it—was a blow she wasn't prepared to handle in the mud and dust of a tourney ground.

At last, she inclined her head, the whisper of pale fabric following the movement as she stepped back with tense grace. “Enjoy the tourney tomorrow,” she said, her tone light but brittle at its edges. “I should hate for Ashford to lack excitement.”

“I do not believe that will be a concern,” Brynden replied mildly, though the trace of restrained laughter still threaded through his voice.

Shiera gave him one last stare, searching for any lingering spark of the man who had once composed poetry for her. Finding only the hard, red gaze of the Bloodraven, she turned on her heel and retreated toward the tents of the high lord, her silver silks snapping like a whip in her wake.

When she finally disappeared into the crowd, the tension that had quietly coiled between the three of you finally unwound.

Brynden looked down at you, no longer bothering to conceal the amusement warming his expression.

"Restorative tea?" he repeated, his voice thick with amusement. “Quite merciless of you to suggest such a thing.”

You lifted your chin without apology. “She began it.”

The shadow of his hood concealed his face from prying onlookers, but you could see the pleased grin he wore quite clearly. His hand, still firm at your waist, drew you a fraction closer.

“Yes,” he murmured, the words too low for any listening ears, “and you finished it.” His red eye held yours, sparkling with unmistakable fondness. “My vicious storm dragon.”

The day of the tourney dawned bright and merciless.

Sunlight spilled across the lists in a hard, golden glare, reflecting off polished helms and armour. Trumpets blared in the distance, combining the excited mutterings of the gathering crowds.

You fought back a wince.

Your eyes burned, and your head throbbed with every cheer that erupted from the stands. Even the rhythmic flapping of the silk overhead felt like a hammer striking directly behind your temples. Lyonel Baratheon’s celebrations were never modest affairs, and despite your better judgment, you had allowed yourself to be coaxed into drinking far more of the Stormlands' heavy red than you should have.

Flashes of the night surfaced in scattered, dizzying fragments. You remembered the torchlight flickering wildly and the thunder of Lyonel’s laughter as he demanded the musicians play faster. You remembered dancing in a loose, breathless circle, your skirts swaying and boots thudding in time with a rhythm. Your cousin’s booming voice had carried over the music as the two of you nearly sloshed your wine onto yourselves. There had been no courtly reserve, only the reckless freedom that followed good wine and better company.

At some point, the memory blurred into the sensation of Brynden’s arms sliding around your waist without warning. The world had tilted—the stars and torches swapping places—as he hoisted you over his shoulder to a chorus of Lyonel’s approval and the raucous cheers of the camp. You had protested—or you thought you had—but the sound had dissolved into dizzy laughter as he carried you away from the noise and into the sanctuary of your tent.

Your eyes, which you had not realized had drifted shut against the morning glare, snapped open as the next memory surfaced with mortifying clarity. Back in the privacy of the pavilion, you had abandoned what little dignity remained. Driven by a possessive haze of warmth and wine, you had clung to him with shameless determination, all but mauling him as you pressed your mouth to his throat, his jaw, and his chest—anywhere you decided needed to be marked. You had been intent on leaving no doubt as to whom he belonged, lest Shiera entertain any further illusions of her own.

Heat crept up your neck, rivalling the sting of the morning sun.

You shifted in your seat, smoothing your skirts with trembling hands and willing a mask of regal composure back into place.

You sat in the royal pavilion beside your nephews, Baelor and Maekar Targaryen. The great dragon banners snapped sharply overhead in the relentless wind, the sound like the crack of a whip against your fragile senses.

Maekar let out a rough, knowing chuckle, his eyes fixed on the field but his amusement directed entirely at you. “Fun night?”

You exhaled slowly, pressing two fingers briefly to your temple before lowering your hand. “Never underestimate Stormlands hospitality,” you replied. “It seems their barrels—and their tolerance for wine—are endless.”

Maekar snorted at that.

“Baratheons rarely understand the meaning of moderation,” Baelor said mildly. Though his expression remained as poised as ever, the faint curve of his mouth suggested he found the situation more amusing than scandalous.

“That’s why they throw such fine fucking parties,” Maekar added with a rough barking laugh that rumbled deep in his chest.

The sound struck your aching head like a mallet against a bell.

Baelor noticed the sudden strain in your expression before you could fully mask it. His voice softened, pitched low enough that it did not carry beyond the royal enclosure. “You have my sympathies,” he murmured. “The morning after such revelry is rarely kind. Why not return to your chambers and rest? No one would begrudge you the comfort of some shade and silence.”

You shook your head at once, though the motion sent a sharp pulse of pain behind your eyes. “There would be no rest to be found,” you replied. “Not when I know Brynden rides today.”

Baelor’s gaze shifted toward the lists below, where armoured figures were assembling in gleaming ranks of steel and silk. “He is a skilled fighter and a cunning man,” he said calmly. 

“Even so,” you answered, your tone steady despite the lingering thrum in your skull, “knowing his skill does little to ease the worry. Accidents happen—even to the most formidable of warriors.”

Maekar grunted, raising his cup slightly in a grim salute to the truth of your words. “Very true. Steel doesn't care for bloodlines once the horses start galloping.” His gaze drifted to his own son, Aerion, who was riding toward the pavilion at a leisurely pace. “The worry only gets worse once you have sons of your own to watch.”

The young prince pulled his mount to a halt before the stands, his black armour gleaming with dragon sigils of polished ruby. Aerion removed his helm, shaking out his cropped silver-gold hair and sending you a cocky, self-satisfied smile that spoke of entitlement rather than charm.

He inclined his head in mock courtesy. “Father. Uncle,” he called smoothly, before his eyes settled fully upon you. “And my radiant aunt. Perhaps you will grant your favour to a true dragon this day.”

A ripple of laughter moved through the nearby nobles—some genuinely amused by the Prince's boldness, others merely eager for the spectacle of a family spat. Maekar let out a low, irritated sigh, but he didn't silence his son.

Not far away, Shiera, reclined upon her silken cushions, let out a soft scoff edged with jealousy. She adjusted the fall of her lace, clearly displeased that the circle of attention had shifted away from her.

You had just parted your lips to deliver a stinging reply to your nephew when a sudden movement at the edge of the lists drew the crowd’s collective focus.

From the shadowed mouth of the fighters' pavilion, a squire peeked out, eyes wide with dawning panic as he realized his lord had wandered beyond armouring reach. The boy hovered uncertainly at the threshold, clutching a steel vambrace uselessly as he stared after his master.

Unbothered by the young boy’s frantic concerns, Brynden emerged into the light. He was not yet clad in the full weight of his plate; instead, he stood only in his dark riding trousers. The stark simplicity of the garment left the hard, whipcord lines of his lean, powerful torso fully revealed to the morning sun.

The light struck the pale planes of his skin, rendering him almost luminous against the darker canvas of his tent and the mud of the field.

And there, stark against that pale expanse—

Faint, bruised crescents and deep purplish shadows marked the line of his throat and collarbone, trailing lower in a path that disappeared suggestively beneath the waistband of his trousers.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Heat rushed to your cheeks with humiliating speed as memory and evidence collided beneath the relentless sun. You suddenly became acutely aware of every pair of eyes that might follow the same line of sight, every idle lord and lady hungry for gossip.

Maekar made a low sound beside you, a rough, suppressed rumble of amusement. “Quite a night indeed,” he muttered, his voice thick with a dry, soldier’s humour.

Your fingers tightened in the fine fabric of your skirts, anchoring yourself as you willed your composure to remain intact, even as the warmth climbed higher up your throat.

Aerion, however, had not missed a thing. His eyes darted between the marks on his uncle and the flush on your face, his smirk sharpening into something wicked.

“Well,” he drawled loudly, ensuring his voice carried to the surrounding tiers, “it would seem the lists are not the only battlegrounds this week.”

A few nearby lords chuckled, emboldened by the Prince's audacity, and one, less subtle than the rest, let out a low, appreciative wolf whistle that echoed through the tourney grounds.

The squire behind Brynden cleared his throat nervously, still clutching the vambrace as though the tournament might collapse entirely if his lord did not armour himself at once. “My lord,” the boy ventured, his voice tight with urgency, “they’re nearly ready to call the first tilt.”

Brynden did not look away from you.

“A moment,” he replied calmly. For a brief second, you saw his lips twitch with a ghost of a smirk. Your eyes narrowed, but before you could send him a warning look, he turned toward Aerion, his expression snapping back to its usual mask of cold disinterest.

“If you require commentary on my private affairs,” Brynden said evenly, his voice carrying just enough to reach the surrounding nobles without rising to a shout, “I suggest you first prove yourself capable of managing your own.”

Aerion’s smile faltered by a fraction.

“And if you desire my lady’s favour,” Brynden continued, his gaze drifting over the young prince with chilling indifference, “then I suggest you prove yourself worthy of it.”

The meaning was clear, a metaphorical gauntlet thrown in the mud between them.

Aerion’s jaw tightened beneath the gleam of his helm, his pride warring visibly with his caution. The lists lay between them, open and waiting. To accept would mean meeting Brynden in earnest—not in a courtly dance of lances, but against a man  whose reputation had not been forged in tournaments alone.

He shifted in the saddle, glancing briefly toward the royal stand where his father sat, then back to Brynden. The calculation flickered plainly in his eyes; Aerion was arrogant, but he was no fool.

“I have no need to prove myself to a bastard,” Aerion replied at last with a forced, hollow scoff.

Brynden’s expression did not change; the slur carried no weight against him or you.

Aerion’s pride flared, but not enough to carry him into a fight he wasn't sure he could win. Instead, he forced a tight, brittle laugh and lowered his helm back into place with more force than necessary.

“I will seek a more worthy opponent,” Aerion declared, wheeling his horse away from the unspoken challenge with a final, desperate attempt at dignity.

Beside you, Maekar exhaled heavily as he watched his son ride off, the sound more weary than surprised.

“A fool he is,” he muttered, rubbing at his jaw with a calloused hand, “but at least he’s a smart enough fool to know when to concede.” His eyes drifted toward Brynden below with a look of begrudging, reluctant respect. “Else he’d find himself courting the god of death before the first tilt.”

You cleared your throat, though your gaze had never left Brynden. Below, he moved with unhurried purpose back toward his pavilion, his stride easy and arrogant, as though the public exchange—and the scandal written in purple across his skin—had been of no consequence at all.

“Excuse me,” you said softly.

Baelor inclined his head in quiet, graceful understanding, his expression unreadable. Maekar only grunted, though the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that suggested he knew exactly where you were going and why.

You rose and descended the steps of the viewing stand. The murmur of the crowd swelled around you like a rising tide before falling away into a respectful, curious hush as you crossed the grounds. Knights, lords, and squires alike made way without being asked, their eyes trailing the fiery sweep of your gown.

The red of your skirts whispered against the trampled grass as you crossed the encampment, leaving the glaring sun and the prying eyes behind. With a steady hand, you pushed aside the heavy silk and slipped beneath the shadowed mouth of Brynden’s pavilion.

Inside, the sudden dimness acted as a balm, cooling the harsh ache that still lingered behind your eyes.

He had not yet dressed.

Brynden stood near the armour stand, bare from the waist up, his pale skin starkly marked by the fading, vivid evidence of the night before. The canvas walls stirred faintly in the breeze, carrying the scent of oiled leather, polished steel, and the man himself.

The squire hovered uncertainly near the table, his hands full of straps and buckles, looking as though he might puke from fear.

“Leave us,” you ordered.

“But my lady—the tournament—”

“Do as she bids,” Brynden drawled, his gaze already locked on yours with a predatory stillness. “That will be all for now, Elmar.”

The squire, looking immensely relieved to be dismissed from the tension, gave a frantic bow and vanished through the secondary flap, leaving you alone in the sudden, heavy silence.

Your eyes drifted down Brynden's body, a heady mix of hunger and renewed possessiveness stirring in your chest.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a slow, knowing smirk. “I thought after last night you would have had your fill of me,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration in the small space. “Or do you intend to paint every inch of my body in your marks before the sun sets?”

You scoffed softly, though the sound held more warmth than protest, and stepped closer until the heat radiating from his skin brushed against your silk bodice. Your fingers rose of their own accord, trailing down the center of his chest, tracing the hard lines of muscle and the fading evidence of your boldness.

“You emerged into full daylight wearing those marks for all to see,” you replied, your touch feather-light and agonizingly slow. “If the realm speaks of nothing but our indiscretion today, you will only have yourself to blame.”

His breath slowed beneath your fingertips, his chest expanding as he took you in.

He swallowed, his throat bobbing against the purplish bruise that sat just above his collarbone. “Is that not what you wanted?” he murmured, reaching out to catch your wrist, though he didn't pull you away. “For everyone—Aerion, the lords, our sister—to know exactly who I belong to?”

You nearly preened at the open admission in his words, a fierce satisfaction unfurling in your chest. By evening, you knew the whispers would be spreading like wildfire; the realm’s most unsettling bastard son of the dragon wore a woman’s claim openly upon his skin. Many would speculate it was you—and they would be correct—and no doubt they would carry those whispers further, turning them like a blade to question your honour.

They would be correct in that as well.

You did not care. You never had.

You were both Great Bastards. Even legitimized, the stain lingered in the eyes of those who needed such distinctions to feel superior. You had grown up beneath the weight of scrutiny and the sharp, open whispers of disdain. You could not have given a damn what the realm thought; you had learned long ago to draw strength from the very things meant to diminish you. Where others saw shame, you had found freedom.

Unlike highborn daughters groomed for alliances and bargaining tables, you had never been shaped for political purity. You were not raised to remain untouched, preserved like a relic to secure a treaty or soothe a rival house. Your value had never depended upon an unblemished marriage bed, for in the eyes of the "righteous," you would remain forever tainted regardless.

So, you had forged your worth elsewhere.

The loyalty you amassed had not been handed to you by decree or marriage—you had earned it, piece by piece, across every court you were sent to. And Brynden? Brynden was feared and known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Together, you did not rely on the approval of the realm because you both understood, far too well, how to rule it from the shadows by bending perception to your collective will.

Outside, a trumpet sounded in the distance, a sharp, brassy note signalling that the first calls to the lists would soon follow.

The sound acted as a bucket of cold water on the simmering heat of the tent. You broke his gaze, clearing your throat softly as you stepped back, smoothing the front of your gown. The moment stretched one heartbeat longer before you reached for the dark linen tunic draped across the chair and tossed it toward him.

“Come,” you murmured, stepping closer again. “I’ll help you get dressed.”

Brynden caught the tunic effortlessly but he did not immediately pull it on. Instead, a slow, wicked smirk curved his mouth, his red eye dancing with a light that made your pulse skip.

“That’s a first,” he observed, his voice dropping an octave. “Usually, it is the opposite.”

You huffed softly, rolling your eyes to mask the fresh heat rising to your cheeks. “Shall I call back the squire? I’m sure Elmar would be much more efficient and far less prone to... commentary.”

You turned as though to leave, your skirts swishing in a mock display of indignation, but you did not reach the tent flap. Before you could take a second step, his hands closed around your hips drawing you back against him in one smooth motion until your spine was pressed against his bare chest.

“Apologies,” he murmured near your ear, the low tenor of his voice sending a thrill straight down your spine. The warmth of his breath brushed your skin. “I would be most gratified for my lady’s assistance. Truly.”

He let his hands linger a moment longer, his thumbs tracing the curve of your hip bones through the silk, before he finally released you to pull the tunic over his head.

You exhaled through your nose, determined not to rise to his bait, and set yourself to the task instead. Your hands moved with calm efficiency, guiding leather and steel into place, fastening straps and settling everything where it belonged. His armour was black, a signal of his Targaryen blood, yet in place of the royal sigil he bore his own arms: a white dragon with red eyes, breathing crimson flames.

Tightening the final strap at his shoulder, you reached for his sword—Dark Sister—resting nearby. But instead of placing it into his waiting hand, you drew it an inch from its sheath. Pale light rippled along the Valyrian steel, the watered pattern shifting like smoke beneath ice.

You tilted the blade slightly, admiring the living shimmer within the metal.

“Such a pretty blade,” you sighed, the note of longing in your voice entirely unashamed.

His hand closed over yours, large and steady, guiding the sword back toward its sheath without force. “If I recall,” he murmured, voice low, “you possess a Valyrian weapon of your own.”

His other hand slid through the hidden slit of your gown, finding the dagger strapped to your thigh with unerring familiarity. His fingers lingered only a heartbeat against the cool metal and warm skin before trailing higher.

You caught his wrist immediately, firmly guiding his hand away before the touch could escalate into something far less innocent. With your other hand, you pushed the sword hilt-first into his grasp.

“Now look who is insatiable,” you said dryly, though your eyes betrayed your amusement.

He used your grip on his wrist to yank you forward instead of releasing you. You collided lightly with his armoured chest, the cold steel of his breastplate a stark contrast to the heat that had been radiating from his skin.

“For you?” he murmured. “Always.”

He leaned in, his breath warm against your skin, the space between you narrowing until it was scarcely more than a promise—

—and then the thunder of galloping hooves shattered the moment.

Both of you turned toward the tent flaps as the sound surged closer. The ground itself seemed to vibrate beneath the weight of the approaching rider.

“Bloodraven!”

The calling roar carried like a war horn, raw and jagged with a lifetime of resentment.

Brynden’s face darkened at the familiar voice. Without a word, he seized his helm and stepped out of the pavilion with a terrifying, icy calm. You followed a heartbeat later, schooling your expression even as unease coiled like a cold weight in your chest.

Aegor Rivers waited astride his great warhorse before the tent, a vision of iron and fury.

His violet eyes burned with flagrant hatred, fixed wholly upon Brynden. Bittersteel did not wait for the formalities of the lists. Instead, he lifted his sword, the blade catching the morning light as he pointed it directly at his half-brother’s heart.

“I challenge you,” Aegor called, his voice ringing across the encampment and drawing the eyes of every gathering spectator. “Let us, for once, settle who is worthy.”

Your blood went cold.

“No,” you said at once, stepping forward to place a hand against Brynden’s armoured chest. You looked up at him, pleading, before turning a venomous glare upon Aegor. “You are worth nothing compared to him, Bittersteel.”

Aegor snarled, his horse sidestepping beneath the tension in its rider, but Brynden had already moved. His arm came around you with quiet firmness, guiding you behind him as he met Aegor’s gaze.

“I accept.”

You felt your stomach drop.

You caught his sleeve before he could step away, gripping the dark fabric tightly.

“You know how this ends,” you whispered fiercely. “You two always end in a stalemate of blood and ruin. Neither of you will leave the field whole.”

His fingers rose to brush your jaw, the gesture impossibly gentle despite the cold, hard steel of his gauntlet. “Not today.”

“You cannot risk yourself for pride,” you hissed.

A faint, chilling smile ghosted across his lips. “It is not pride.”

You searched his face, desperate to understand what he was thinking, but he had already turned. He mounted his horse in one fluid motion as it was brought forward by his trembling squire.

You did not understand…Not yet.

With a frustrated huff, you gathered your skirts and strode back toward the stands, forcing your expression into something resembling composure. The weight of dread settling heavy in your chest. By the time you resumed your seat, you could barely remain still, anxiety gnawing relentlessly at your thoughts.

“Well,” Maekar muttered beside you, voice rough with blunt interest, “we’re finally getting some proper entertainment.” His gaze remained fixed on the field. “This ought to be… memorable.”

You did not dignify that with a response, your jaw set so tight it ached.

At least Baelor had the decency not to agree aloud. His hand settled lightly against your arm in a quiet gesture of reassurance, though his eyes remained focused on the tension mounting below.

“They are both highly skilled,” he said gently, his tone measured. “And neither is foolish enough to throw away their life for a mere tourney tilt.”

You nearly laughed at that, a bitter, jagged sound that died in your throat.

Skill had never been the issue between Brynden and Aegor. Nor was it a matter of foolishness.

It was hatred—pure, distilled, and decades in the making.

“Aegor is a brute,” you replied tightly, your voice barely a whisper above the roar of the crowd. “And seldom does either of them gain true victory over the other. It always ends the same—a stalemate of blood and broken bone. They don't know how to stop until one of them is forced into the dirt, unable to continue.”

You stiffened as both men rode up before the stands, their horses snorting and sidestepping beneath the tension that hung thick in the air. Brynden reached you first.

 He didn’t hesitate to extend his lance toward you, the tip steady despite the weight. “May my lady grant me her favour?”

Behind him, Aegor let out a sharp scoff, a sound designed to carry. “Perhaps,” he called, his voice edged with both challenge and a jagged, wounded pride, “the lady would care to favour the true winner for once.”

You did not so much as glance in his direction.

Instead, you fixed Brynden with a look that made your displeasure abundantly clear. Your jaw tightened, and your brows drew together in a hard line. You wanted him to see the danger in this—the needless escalation, the centuries of bad blood he was inviting back to the surface. You wanted him to see that his life was worth more than a moment’s satisfaction against a brother who lived only to hate him.

He held your gaze, his solitary red eye unblinking and eerily calm.

With a measured breath, you rose to your feet, the red silk of your gown spilling like a pool of blood against the stone of the pavilion. The movement drew a fresh ripple of murmurs from the stands. From your wrist, you removed a wreath of dark, woven ribbon, heavy with small golden charms that clinked softly in the wind.

He raised his lance high so you would not have to lean, but you leaned anyway, closing the distance until you were close enough to speak.

“This is folly,” you murmured under your breath, the words for him alone.

“Trust me,” he replied, his voice a low, steady anchor in the storm.

You fought back a grumble, the sound caught somewhere between rising anger and a reluctant, bone-deep faith in him. Your fingers worked quickly, fastening the token just beneath the steel head of his lance, tying the silk in a knot so firm it would take a blade to undo it.

Aegor’s knuckles whitened around his own weapon, his horse shifting restlessly beneath him as he watched the intimacy of the exchange.

You stepped back to your seat without sparing him so much as a glance.

He scoffed loudly, a sound brittle with resentment, but if he had hoped to draw your attention, he was disappointed. Rebuffed and radiating a cold, jagged fury, he gave a sharp tug on his reins, wheeling his horse toward Shiera’s place in the stands.

Aegor drew up before her and raised his lance in an unmistakable, aggressive invitation. “My lady,” he called, his voice ringing with a pride sharpened by spite, “I would ride in your honour. For there is no other in these Seven Kingdoms worthy of the title of Queen of Love and Beauty.”

Shiera did not rise immediately. She allowed her mismatched eyes to drift briefly toward Brynden, searching for some flicker of jealousy or regret—but he gave her nothing. Jaw clenching, she returned her gaze to Aegor. Only then did she stand, pale silks spilling around her.

If she felt the sting of being the second choice, a mere instrument for Aegor’s retaliation, she did not show it. With practiced, delicate fingers, she removed a slender ribbon of silver from her sleeve and tied it to Aegor’s lance, her gaze lingering on him with a smile that was as beautiful as it was hollow.

Below, Brynden had already turned his horse toward the far end of the lists, his focus locked entirely forward. He did not look toward Shiera. He did not look toward Aegor, who was now riding back into position, his violet eyes blazing with murderous intent beneath his helm.

You resumed your seat slowly, lowering yourself with a measured grace that belied the unrest thrumming beneath your ribs. Your fingers curled into the folds of your gown, gripping the fabric as if to anchor yourself against what was to come.

Across the lists, the brothers took their places at opposite ends.

The murmurs of the crowd swelled to a fever pitch and then abruptly died away, anticipation settling over the field like a held breath.

Banners snapped overhead.

Finally the trumpets sounded.

Lances met shields with a crack that echoed across the lists like a thunderclap, splintering wood and scattering sharp fragments into the rising dust. Horses screamed, their hooves tearing deep gashes into the earth as the sheer force of the impact reverberated through both rider and mount. The crowd erupted in a roar that seemed to swallow the morning air.

They wheeled and rode again.

And again.

Neither yielding. 

The rivalry between them was older than this field, older than this tourney. It had been whispered in halls and shouted in taverns for a generation—Bloodraven and Bittersteel. Blackwood and Bracken. Targaryen and Blackfyre. It was a hatred inherited as much as it was earned, sharpened through decades of pride, ancient history, and far more personal grievances.

On the third pass, Aegor struck true.

His lance hit Brynden square against the center of his shield. The force of the strike shuddered through the black armour, the sound of protesting steel and wood sharp enough to make you flinch. For a terrifying heartbeat, Brynden was nearly jarred clean from the saddle, his body tilting precariously as his horse stumbled under the weight of the blow.

A collective, jagged gasp rippled through the stands.

But Brynden did not fall alone.

Even as Aegor’s blow connected, Brynden adjusted with a cold, terrifying calculation. He angled his own strike as he fell, his lance splintering against Aegor’s chest plate with enough force to shift the man’s center of gravity.

In a heartbeat, both men were thrown.

They struck the ground hard, armour clanging violently against the packed earth as their horses thundered past, riderless and panicked. A thick cloud of dust rose from the impact, obscuring the two figures as they lay motionless in the dirt.

The crowd erupted, a wall of sound as spectators screamed their encouragements for the champion they supported.

Through the choking haze, Aegor was the first to move. He rolled and sprang upright with a roar that cut through the noise, his voice raw with a singular, focused fury. “My sword!” he bellowed, his hand already reaching toward his squire.

Across the field, Brynden was already rising, slower but no less steady. His squire rushed forward, hands shaking visibly as he presented Dark Sister.

From the stands, your nails bit painfully into your palms, the sharp sting the only thing keeping you grounded. The brothers now faced one another on foot, swords drawn. This was no longer a tournament; the hatred between them was no longer restrained by the courtly rules of a tilt. This was the ancient, bloody heart of their feud laid bare for all to see.

Steel rang sharp and unforgiving as the brothers closed the distance between them.

Aegor struck first.

There was no ceremony in his movements now, no pretence of sport. His blade came down in a brutal arc meant to crush through guard and bone alike, fuelled by the raw strength of his resentment. Brynden pivoted just enough for the strike to glance off his pauldron; sparks spat where the metal met metal, the sheer force of the blow driving him half a step sideways into the churned earth.

Aegor did not hesitate. The second blow followed almost immediately, heavier than the first.

Brynden answered it.

Dark Sister moved unlike common steel. In his grasp, the Valyrian blade seemed almost alive—light and lethal, its edge slicing cleanly through the space between them as he turned Aegor's strike aside with a flick of his wrist, returning a blow of his own.

Aegor fought with brute strength, each swing designed to overwhelm by sheer power. Brynden, by contrast, was lighter on his feet, fluid in motion, almost dancing around the heavier man. He gave ground only when it suited him, his boots carving careful arcs through the dust as he slipped just beyond the reach of those crushing, bone-deep blows.

The crowd roared with every clash, every near-miss that skimmed armour or bit shallowly into leather. Lords leaned forward in their seats, their voices lost in the din. Knights shouted encouragement for the man they supported.

Blackwood and Bracken.

Bloodraven and Bittersteel.

The names collided as fiercely as the swords.

Aegor’s blade caught Brynden across the thigh—not too deep but enough to score the armour and draw a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth. The impact rang out in an ugly, screeching scrape of steel that made those nearest to the lists wince.

Across from him, Aegor’s grin split wide beneath sweat-damp strands of hair, his violet eyes blazing with savage, unadulterated satisfaction.

“Bleed for me, bastard,” he snarled, circling like a wolf, his sword held loose but ready.

Brynden did not dignify the taunt with an answer. Instead, he lowered his stance by a fraction, centering his balance as though settling into himself. Dark Sister angled slightly downward in his grip, the point steady, poised for what would come next.

Aegor charged again, putting every ounce of his brute force behind the swing. His blade cut through the air in a savage diagonal, once again meant to break armour and bone in one final, crushing stroke.

Brynden did not meet it head-on. At the last possible breath, he stepped aside, his boots shifting cleanly in the dust as the heavier blade cleaved through nothing but air and empty space.

In the same motion, Dark Sister flicked upward. The Valyrian edge found the narrow seam where armour parted at the joint, slicing across Aegor’s forearm with the ease of a razor through silk.

Blood answered immediately.

Aegor roared, more in rage than pain. He lunged again, recklessness bleeding into his technique. Each strike grew heavier than the last, powered now by fury rather than discipline. He fought like a hammer, determined to batter through Brynden's resistance by sheer force of will.

Brynden moved like water around stone.

He pivoted around Aegor’s weight as he slipped in and out of range. He yielded inches only to reclaim them in the next breath, letting Aegor’s strength carry him just slightly too far, forcing his half-brother to burn through his stamina with every frustrated, empty swing.

Aegor’s blade slashed wildly. Desperation bled into his movements as he overextended in his need to land something decisive—to finally crush the infuriating, calm composure of the man in front of him.

He lunged once more, committing too much of his weight to the strike.

Brynden met it. He twisted his wrist, locking their blades in a shriek of grinding metal that set everyone's teeth on edge. For a suspended heartbeat, they stood chest to chest, faces inches apart, their breath hot and ragged behind the narrow slits of their helms.

Hatred radiated between them, thick enough to choke the air.

Aegor’s lips curled into a jagged, bloody snarl. “When I win,” he breathed, his voice low and venomous, meant for Brynden’s ears alone, “I’ll finally take our pretty little sister as my prize. And I’ll make sure she forgets your name in my bed.”

The pressure between their locked blades increased, the steel groaning under the strain of two men who shared a father but nothing else.

“I’ll make her scream for me,” Aegor continued, violet eyes blazing through the narrow slit of his visor, “loud enough for you to hear it from wherever you fly off to next.”

Something in Brynden went utterly still.

It was not a fiery rage that answered Aegor’s provocation, but something far more frightening. An icy fury settled over Brynden’s features, cold and ancient as winter in the North. The red of his eye burned darker, like banked coals stirred to life by a sudden, lethal wind.

The bind between their blades broke with terrifying control.

Brynden shifted his weight and drove his knee sharply into Aegor’s midsection, the impact forcing the breath from him in a ragged grunt. As Aegor folded forward, Brynden brought the pommel of Dark Sister across the side of his helm with a crack that snapped his head sideways. The sound of teeth breaking carried sickeningly clear even above the roar of the crowd; fragments of white scattered onto the dirt as blood sprayed hot against black armour.

“You will not speak of her,” Brynden warned, his voice dangerously low, each word carved from ice.

Aegor staggered but did not fall. Fury and humiliation drove him onward. He swung blindly, catching Brynden across the shoulder and forcing him back a pace, metal shrieking on metal as the blow glanced off armour.

Brynden did not falter. Dark Sister flashed low in a blur of pale steel, slicing behind Aegor’s knee where armour thinned. The Valyrian edge cut clean through leather and flesh alike. Aegor screamed as his leg buckled beneath him, blood spilling freely down his greave. Before he could recover, Brynden followed through with a sweeping strike to the chest that knocked the heavier man flat onto his back, the impact sending up a cloud of dust.

Aegor tried to rise—gods, he tried—spitting blood and clawing for his sword where it had fallen just out of reach. His fingers scraped uselessly against the churned earth. Brynden scoffed and kicked the sword back into Aegor’s grasp.

Gasping, Aegor tried to swing one last time.

Brynden parried the desperate move and struck. The sharp Valyrian blade sliced through muscle and bone with terrifying ease. An ugly, guttural scream tore through Aegor’s throat as he clutched at his arm, staring in sheer, unadulterated horror at the stump where his hand used to be.

The crowd let out a horrified gasp.

"Nor will you touch her," Brynden stated, standing over him like a pale god of vengeance, “ever again.”

From where you stood, the world seemed to narrow until it held only the two of them. For one terrible heartbeat, you thought Brynden might finally end it—that he might drive his pale blade through helm and skull alike to finish the feud once and for all. The hatred between them had cost the realm too much already; one decisive stroke could silence it forever.

Brynden stepped forward, raising Dark Sister, he brought his blade down in a brutal strike with the flat of the steel against the side of Aegor’s helm. The impact was a sickening, metallic thud that resonated through the entire stand.

Aegor’s body went slack.

Disturbed dirt settled slowly around him as he lay unmoving, his blood seeping into the parched earth beneath his broken form. Brynden remained standing over him for a moment longer, his chest rising and falling in a steady, lethal rhythm. He kept the point of the Valyrian blade angled downward, ready should the fallen man so much as twitch.

Silence fell like a heavy curtain across the lists, the thousands in attendance held captive by the sheer brutality of the exchange.

From your place in the stands, your fingers had curled so tightly into the fabric of your gown that your knuckles had gone pale. You didn’t even realize you had risen to your feet until the silence stretched too long to bear.

“And the winner is… Lord Bloodraven!”

The announcer’s voice cracked through the hush, and only then did you feel the breath leave your lungs in a ragged rush. The tension slipped from your body, leaving you lightheaded.

The roar that followed was deafening. The stands erupted in thunderous applause and frantic shouts. Nobles rose from their seats, and knights pounding fists against shields in approval. The name Bloodraven rolled through the crowd in waves,

Below, Brynden did not raise his arms in triumph. He did not acknowledge the praise.

Instead, he turned. Dark Sister sliding back into its sheath, as he lifted his gaze—not to the cheering lords, not to the royal stand—

—but to you.

You did not hesitate.

The world around you blurred into noise and colour as you gathered your skirts and descended the steps of the stand without care for decorum. Someone called your name—Baelor perhaps—but you did not slow. Behind Brynden, squires were already hauling Aegor’s limp, mangled form toward the healers’ pavilion, a dark crimson streak marking the churned earth in their wake. Further down the lists, men were already moving to reset the barriers, preparing for the next joust to come.

But none of it mattered.

Not to you.

Brynden crossed the remaining distance in three long strides. Dust clung to the crevices of his black armour, and a thin line of blood traced a path from his temple into his pale hair where he had struck the ground, the red stark against the white. Strands of hair clung damply to his brow, and yet his eye burned with something fierce and resolute.

He stopped before you.

Then, before the princes, the lords, and the gathered thousands of Ashford, Brynden Rivers—Lord Bloodraven, the most feared of the Great Bastards—dropped to one knee in the blood-stained dirt.

The field quieted as realization rippled outward.

From within his gauntlet, Brynden drew forth a golden ring. A dragon wrought in fine detail wrapped protectively around a deep crimson ruby, the stone catching the sun so that it seemed to burn from within.

Your hands flew to your lips, your breath hitching in your throat.

“Ñuha prūmia,” he murmured softly. My heart.

“I have stood alone most of my life,” he continued, and though his voice remained steady, it was stripped of the cool distance he wore before the realm. “But with you, I am not alone.”

He drew in a slow breath, as though gathering something far harder than courage—vulnerability.

“Nyke jorrāelagon ao hen ñuha lēkia,” he said, the ancient tongue of your ancestors vibrating in the air. I would conquer the world with you at my side.

A faint, private smile touched his mouth, there and gone in a heartbeat, meant only for you to see.

“Nyke iā sȳndor,” he said quietly. I am a shadow. “Se ao ōños.” And you are flame.

The ruby between his fingers caught the sunlight and flared brilliantly, red light dancing across his pale skin and dark armour alike.

“Without you,” he said, his gaze unwavering, “I am only half of what I could be.”

His voice lowered then, intimate despite the watching realm.

“Vezof iā morghūltas,” he murmured. There is but one death. “Nyke dōrī ao ñuha jīvi.” I offer you my life. “It is yours, if you wish it.”

Your heart pounded so fiercely you feared the entire field might hear it.

“Skori se iā dārys ziry?” he asked, the High Valyrian rolling from his tongue like velvet drawn over steel. For who else would I face that death with?

He lifted the ring slightly in offering, not as a trophy, not as a claim—but as a vow.

“Be my wife,” Brynden finished, his voice low yet carrying clearly across the hushed lists. “Stand with me—through blood, through fire and shadow, through whatever else may come.”

His gaze never left yours, his red eye burning with a devotion that bordered on worship.

“And I will stand with you,” he said, softer now, though no less certain. “Until that one death finds us both.”

Your eyes stung, but you did not look away. You were nodding before he had even finished speaking, your heart had answered long before he even finished speaking.

“Yes,” you breathed. The word trembled, barely more than a ghost of air between you before growing stronger, fuelled by the conviction in your chest. “Yes. Yes!”

Cheers broke out at your acceptance.

A bright, genuine smile transformed Brynden’s face. For many watching, it would be the first and only time they would ever see the fearsome Bloodraven smile so openly. The icy severity that defined him fell away, replaced by a radiance that was unmistakably happy.

He rose to his feet and slid the golden ring onto your finger. His hands, though calloused from the sword and still stained with the dust of the lists, were perfectly steady.

Somewhere through the deafening cheers, you heard a young voice shrieking louder than the rest. You glanced toward the sound and saw little Aegon—Egg—perched triumphantly atop the massive shoulders of Ser Duncan the Tall, his small fists raised high in pure, unadulterated celebration.

And then, cutting through the chaos with all the subtlety of a summer storm, your cousin’s voice boomed across the field with booming delight.

“This calls for a celebration!” Lyonel Baratheon roared, his laughter infectious and grand.

Laughter rippled outward at once.

Brynden gave a quiet, disbelieving snort at the mention of yet another Baratheon celebration, as though the notion amused him far more than it tempted him. His gaze flicked briefly toward the direction of your cousin before returning to you.

Then, without warning and without the slightest regard for the thousands of prying eyes or the rigid decorum of the royal court, he bent and swept you cleanly off your feet.

You gasped, your hands instinctively flying to his shoulders—one hand pressing against the cold, hard steel of his gorget. One of his arms secured itself beneath your knees, the other braced firmly at your back, he lifted you as though you were no heavier than silk. A ripple of laughter and startled gasps followed the gesture, but he paid them no mind.

Intent was written plainly in every stride as he turned toward his pavilion. As Brynden carried you across the field, his gaze lifted briefly from you and swept the gathered nobles.

It found Aerion.

The young prince’s face had gone noticeably pale beneath the gilt edges of his helm, the arrogance that had dripped from him earlier nowhere to be found. His violet eyes flicked once—just once—toward the place where Aegor had fallen, where the dirt was still dark with blood and pieces of teeth remained.

Aerion swallowed hard. Then, stiffly, he dipped his head. There was no challenge to be found now, only a silent, terrified concession.

Meanwhile, from your vantage over Brynden's shoulder, the field stretched wide and sunlit behind him—and your gaze caught on pale silk standing still amidst the noise.

Shiera.

Her composure remained immaculate as ever, yet envy burned in her mismatched gaze, a heat she could not quite extinguish. For the first time, she was the spectator in a story she did not control.

You could not help the slow, satisfied smile that curved your lips as Brynden carried you toward the shadowed mouth of his tent. The ruby on your finger flashed like a drop of dragon’s blood, and the roar of the crowd began to fade behind you like a distant, retreating storm.

Among the many paths the gods had laid before you and Brynden, you had both chosen to step upon the one that led to each other.

Not because it was easy.

Not because it was expected.

But because it was yours.

If given the choice again—to walk willingly into shadow and storm, into blood and fire, until the road narrowed and the world fell away and there was only him and only you—you would not hesitate.

You would choose him again. Every single time.