Phoenix-Rising29

She was wearing her short silk nightgown — pale pink, almost translucent if the morning light hit at the right angle — and his shirt, thrown on hastily when she had gotten out of bed to escape to the kitchen for that lifesaving coffee. The sleeves hung loose, hiding her hands right down to her fingertips, and it moved him to a cramp somewhere deep in his chest. She was funny and touching in her carelessness, and yet at the same time, such a quiet, profound feminine strength emanated from her that everything inside him clenched and turned over the moment he let his gaze linger on her a second too long. She didn’t notice — she rarely noticed how people looked at her, too caught up in her own thoughts — but he watched. He always watched.

For nearly a year, she had been coming to this house, to this quiet suburban neighborhood where mornings smelled of wet grass and neighbors’ pies, and each time he froze in the kitchen doorway like a boy, afraid to scare away the vision. She would get flustered when she caught him staring — it was written on her face, in the way she nervously averted her eyes, bit her lips, started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt or tapping her fingers on her mug, pretending to be terribly absorbed in the contents of her cup. At first, it frightened her — his habit of scrutinizing, of noticing every tiny detail, every line. The shadows under her eyes after another sleepless night when she was finishing a chapter and couldn’t stop. The small scratches on her forearms from the cat who loved to climb into her lap and dig in her claws at the most inopportune moments. The hangnails she chewed when she was nervous or working through a plot twist. He saw everything. And at first, she wanted to sink through the floor because someone could see her like that — real, without embellishment, without masks.

But then she got used to it. Even grew to love it, perhaps.

She had always been shy. From that very first meeting, when he saw her in a museum cafeteria at the next table, buried in a book and flinching at every loud sound — she couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Least of all him. His eyes, odd-colored, striking, piercing and deep, pulled out of her everything she tried to hide: childhood secrets, old grievances, skeletons in the closet she so diligently shoved to the back. She would look away, lower her lashes, bite her lips until they bled, just to avoid meeting his gaze directly. And then she would start to worry: what if he was offended? What if he thought she was ignoring him or didn’t want to be near him? But she did want to. Very much. She just didn’t know how.

Even when what they now called a relationship had ignited between them, the habit remained. She tried to fight it, forced herself to raise her eyes, to look openly and boldly, but her gaze would treacherously slide away the moment he narrowed his eyes slightly or smiled with the corners of his mouth. This trait had been ingrained in her since childhood, woven into her very core, and it was almost impossible to root out. Too many years she had felt insecure, too many years she had been haunted by complexes, doubts about herself, her appearance, her voice which was always too quiet, and words sometimes got tangled, stuck in her throat like a lump, and people would ask her to repeat herself, and she would blush to the roots of her hair. Adolescence was its own special circle of hell: her body was forming, changing, and she dreamed of looking like the models in glossy magazines, and hated herself for falling short. And then came that first love, stupid, naive, at sixteen, with a boy who smashed her heart to pieces and didn’t even look back. Since then, she had been gathering herself piece by piece, year after year, but the shards just wouldn’t glue back together perfectly.

Who knew that after five years of fruitless searching, disappointments, and attempts to love just about anyone, she would meet him? Mature, confident, composed — and he would not just accept her whole, lock, stock and barrel, with all her cracks and rough edges, but would love her so much that those cracks would begin to heal over, drawn together and sealed with the thin but durable fabric of his care.

He approached silently. First, she just felt the warmth, then the scent: their bedroom, rumpled sheets, his skin, and the faint aroma of cinnamon wafting from the candle she loved to light in the evenings, still guttering somewhere on the nightstand. His palm settled on her waist, squeezed gently, and a shiver ran through her body. She felt the scratch of his beard as he leaned down and kissed the bridge of her nose — right between her brows, where the little line from tiredness or concentration usually lay. A silent 'good morning'. And from that single touch, everything inside her became electrified to the limit, to the point of pain in her fingertips.

To him, she smelled of everything. The honey she put in her tea. That strange hairdryer that should have been thrown out ages ago, but she stubbornly used to dry her hair because “it’s family, you know?” The lavender soap she scrubbed her skin with under the icy morning shower, shocking herself back to reality after the night’s creative chaos, when the muse had wrung her out and left her sprawled exhausted on the bed among crumpled sheets. Baelor adored this cocktail of scents. He adored everything about her — to the point of nausea, dizziness, the desire to bite and never let go. She was disgustingly, unbearably attractive. Alive to the point of madness, to the point of trembling in every cell, and he could only occasionally inject his order into her chaos, but it seemed she even liked that.

Her hands, slender, with long fingers, carefully set the mug down on the windowsill, where a whole collection of cups already stood, half-drunk and forgotten during the night when she fought sleep with another gulp of strong tea or coffee, determined not to pass out before finishing a paragraph. She leaned into him, pressed her whole body against his, buried her cheek in his beard and rubbed against it like a cat, eyes narrowing contentedly. His beard needed trimming — it was scratchier than usual — but that had its own charm. She was fascinated by the gray flecks appearing in the dark stubble, and sometimes, when she drifted off into thought, her mind would wander far. For instance, to where that beard touched her thighs while his tongue traced patterns there, in the very center of pleasure, and at those memories, heat would flare up inside her, spread through her belly, sink lower.

She loved making love with him. It was a frenzy, a dissolution, something utterly unique. An endlessly intimate, unhurried ritual where tenderness and roughness intertwined, where the line between sacred and dirty was completely erased. Baelor — calm, composed, attentive in everyday life — transformed into someone else in bed. He let himself go, and it drove her crazy. He would bring her to multiple orgasms in a single night, in different ways, and each time it felt like the first — like he was discovering her body anew, a body he already knew better than his own. After nights like that, she would sleep until noon, sinking into a deep, dreamless slumber, and upon waking, she felt like the most alive, the most needed, the most loved person on the planet. His voice... god, his voice was hypnotic. When he whispered in her ear — tender words or outright dirty, vulgar things that sent blood rushing to her cheeks and lower — she lost touch with reality, drifted away, drowned. He knew how to turn her on. Knew how to please her. Knew how to make her scream. In everyday life, she spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, afraid of being heard, but in bed with him, sounds escaped her that frightened even herself. She tried to muffle them, bit her lip, hid her face in the pillow, but he wouldn't allow it. He would part her teeth, turn her onto her back, make her look him in the eye and demand: "Don't you dare. I want to hear you."

"Want me to make French toast?" he whispered, his breath warm against her ear, then pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. The most beautiful eyes in the world, he thought.

She couldn't hold his gaze. Again. She lowered her lashes, stared at his lips, tracing them mesmerized with the fingertips of her left hand, while her right still rested on his warm, strong shoulder.

"I want that," she breathed out, and, stretching up, pecked him on the lips. Quick, almost furtive. She touched the tip of her nose to his, lingered for a moment, inhaling his scent, then pulled back. "Need help?"

"Just be near me," he whispered, and those words sounded like something far more significant than a request.

He brushed his lips against hers — lightly, teasingly, almost weightlessly — and let her go, heading for the refrigerator. She stood still, absorbing the moment, feeling her gaze, against her will, fix on his back. He knew. He always knew when she was watching. Felt it in his skin, the back of his neck, every cell of his body. She kissed him with her eyes — tracing the line from his neck, where the shadow of his beard began, down to his broad shoulders, outlining the shoulder blades barely visible under the fabric of his home shirt. Slid lower, to his lower back, and there, where the edge of his clothes hid, her imagination drew the rest. She kissed him with her eyes greedily, abandonedly, until he turned around.

And then she looked away.

It happened beyond her control. Someone who had long ago taken up residence deep in her soul — tired, nagging — started whispering again: don't you dare, don't look, look away, you don't deserve this, you're not the kind of person who can look openly. Complexes, learned in childhood, etched into her very core, raised their heads, hissed like poisonous snakes, and she obeyed.

Baelor walked past, holding a couple of eggs, and in passing, without even looking, touched her hip. Just ran his palm over the curve, squeezed for a moment, and let go. It was enough to send goosebumps scattering across her skin. He paused at the counter, setting aside the coffee pot that just minutes ago had touched her fingers, as if it still held the warmth of her hands. And outside the window, suddenly there was a rustling, a tapping — rain. Finally. The overcast sky had been promising it for so long, heavy, leaden, through which not a single ray could penetrate, and now water streamed down the glass in murky paths, blurring the outlines of the houses opposite.

She froze again by the window, gazing into this familiar, cozy picture of the suburban neighborhood. Through the veil of rain and the light mist rising from the lawns, she made out familiar shapes. A couple of neighbors were walking their large guard dogs — shaggy, serious, the kind people keep in such areas for protection. In the distance, around the bend, a solitary car disappeared, tires swishing on the wet asphalt. And right in front of Baelor's house, an elderly couple passed by with paper bags, so overloaded it seemed the handles might tear any second. Had they really walked to that little grocery store around the corner? This scene — the rain, the grocery bags, the stooped backs hurrying home — touched her almost to tears. Pierced her with a kind of aching, warm sadness. And inspiration came instantly: she would write this down. In her journal, where she recorded the unstable, melancholic state of her soul, where all thoughts, all feelings, all observations flowed. She would write about this couple, and the rain, and the dogs, and how cozy it was to be here, inside, while it poured outside.

A warm torso enveloped her from behind, and she found herself wrapped in his arms like a blanket, like a cocoon where there was no room for cold or fears. He pressed against her more tightly, and she felt with her hips how he pushed into her — without any explicit intention yet, just because he could, just because he wanted to be closer. The front of her thighs bumped against the windowsill, a brief, fleeting pain that instantly turned to sweetness at the realization: he was here. He was clinging to her. He was hers. Arching back, she rested her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and listened to his breathing — measured, deep, calming.

"Write something new last night?" His voice came unexpectedly, pulling her from her half-doze.

She startled. He rarely asked about her writing. He knew she was shy, didn't like discussing what she'd written, especially what was born on nights like this — in a fever, half-delirious, on the edge of sleep and waking. But today... today was special. For the first time, she had ventured into erotica. Completely unknown territory, which she had entered with a pounding heart, and of course, describing those scenes, she had drawn from them. From their nights, from his hands, from his voice. From the way he took her. Except the action of her story took place in the morning. It started almost exactly like this...

"Yeah... I wrote something," her voice wavered, and she felt herself tense, and he sensed it. His fingers, skillful, sensitive, slid along the edge of her nightie, lifting the fabric slightly, stroking the tender skin of her thigh. "Something unusual..." she breathed out, being mysterious, and surprised herself with her boldness.

What if?.. The thought came suddenly and burned her. What if she tried to experience what her heroine had experienced? What she had described with such abandon, with such a tremor in her fingers tapping the keys? What if, right now, in this kitchen, they broke all the rules, erased the boundaries between fiction and reality? At this thought, everything inside her ached sweetly, melted into languor, as if she were already slipping into the skin of that other woman, the bold one, the uninhibited one, capable of anything.

Her hands reached for his, covered them, squeezed, and she slowly, timidly but insistently, guided them to her breasts. Pressed his palms against herself, letting them cover her, feel the weight, the warmth, the heartbeat beneath the thin silk. Down in her belly, everything flared, stopped, fluttered. Just the thought — here, on the kitchen floor, on the cold countertop, right now — brought an almost painful, sweet pleasure.

Baelor understood. He always understood her without words. With his lips, he tickled her earlobe, kissed the sensitive skin behind it, moving lower, along the blue vein pulsing in her neck. Nibbled, kissed the place where neck meets shoulder, inhaled her scent, mingled with the smell of coffee. And his hands gently kneaded her soft breasts through the sheerest fabric, and her nipples, taut, immediately showed through the silk, responding to every movement, every touch...

The age difference — twenty years, almost two decades, a whole lifetime contained between two numbers in their passports — remarkably never stood as a wall between them. Quite the opposite. At first, both were shy about it, of course. Shy about that sudden, sharp attraction that had flared between them like a match struck against a box: one moment — and already it couldn't be extinguished, already it had caught, already it was blazing, and nothing else mattered. He caught himself looking at her longer than was permissible for a man of his age, his position, his circumstances. She blushed and looked away when he smiled, and thought: this is wrong, this is strange, what does he even see in me?

But it wasn't wrong. Strange — perhaps. But not wrong.

Baelor was a widower. Everyone who knew him even slightly knew this. His wife had died five years ago — quietly, quickly, from an illness that consumed her in six months, leaving him with two teenage sons and a huge, cold house that, without a woman's touch, without her laughter, felt like a mausoleum. He hadn't looked for anyone. Didn't think he could ever again feel what he had felt back then, in his youth, when they were just starting out. And then she appeared.

She was the same age as his eldest son. This fact could have killed everything at the root, if he let himself think about it too much. But he didn't allow it. Because when he looked at her, he didn't see numbers, or years, or the difference in life experience. He saw a soul — fragile, sad, but no less beautiful for it. A soul that could see beauty where others walked past. That felt the world on some deep level, inaccessible to most. That noticed the rain outside the window and the elderly couple with paper bags, and tears welled up in her eyes from the aching tenderness for this world. He fell in love. He allowed himself to fall in love, even though an inner voice insisted: come to your senses, you're too old for her, you'll be a burden, you're stealing her youth.

But she looked at him differently. And that... was healing.

She suffered from pangs of conscience — he knew this for certain. Knew it from the way she would sometimes freeze in his arms, how she would tense up, withdraw into herself, and something hunted, guilty would appear in her eyes. I'm stealing your time, he read in that look. I'm too young for you to be spending the remains of your life on me. Foolishness, of course. He would give her his whole life — even the part already lived, even what remained — without reservation. But he knew: such thoughts tormented her, and it was normal. It was in her nature to doubt, to reproach herself, to look for a catch where there was none. She had always done that. And he didn't try to change her. He just stayed close, offered his shoulder when it was needed. Became the anchor in their strange, so sensual, so tender relationship, where age was just a number, meaningless.

But there was one secret. A little, dirty, sweet secret that they both carried inside and never spoke aloud.

The age difference excited them both.

He would never admit how turned on he got when he saw her — so young, incredibly beautiful — in his bed, in his kitchen, in his life. How the contrast of his graying beard and her smooth, delicate skin drove him crazy. How the thought that he was the first grown man in her life, that he was teaching her things she didn't know, that he was showing her the world of pleasure, the world of passion, the world where she could be herself without fear — this thought hit him like wine, spinning, spinning, spinning.

She would never admit how his age turned her on. How his confidence, his calmness, his knowledge of life and women made every cell tremble. How she caught herself looking at his hands — large, strong, with prominent veins — and thinking about all the things those hands could do. How she loved that he was older, wiser, that he led and she followed, that he protected and she let herself be protected. How his past, his experience, his life before her — all of it made him who he was, and she loved him like that. Completely. With all the baggage, all the pain, all the scars.

They never spoke of it. Not a word. But when he took her, especially greedily, especially deeply, especially possessively, when he whispered hoarsely in her ear: mine, — she knew: it wasn't just the lover speaking. It was the man who had taken her under his wing, who wanted to shelter her from all winds, who looked at her and saw both the woman and the girl hiding inside. And that knowledge jolted through her like electricity, made her arch, surrender, drown.

And when she, so young, so completely his, pressed against his chest afterward, traced her fingers through his gray stubble, kissed the corner of his mouth and whispered: thank you, — he understood: it wasn't just gratitude for the orgasm. It was gratitude that he existed. That he had chosen her. That he hadn't been afraid of the numbers. That he loved her — strongly, in a grown-up way.

The age difference wasn't an obstacle. It was secret fuel. That very spark that made their intimacy sharper, their feelings deeper, their bond — unbreakable.

Now, in the kitchen, under the sound of rain, pressing against him with her back and feeling his hands squeezing her breasts, his lips tracing a path down her neck, she suddenly thought of this again. That he was thirty-nine, and she was twenty-three. That he had grown sons who, if they knew, would probably be horrified. That she could be his daughter.

And at that thought, everything inside clenched and instantly exploded with heat.

She arched more deeply, pushed her hips back, pressing into him, and moaned softly, almost soundlessly, when his teeth closed on the sensitive skin of her shoulder. He heard. His hands tightened, and he pulled her even closer, letting her know: I'm here. I'm yours. And I don't care about anything except you.

"You have no idea," he breathed into her neck, his voice low, hoarse, trembling slightly, "how much I want you."

She turned her head, caught his lips with hers, and whispered back what she had never dared say aloud:

"I do. Because I want you just as much. And even more."

He froze for a moment, then kissed her as if his life depended on it. The rain outside intensified, drumming against the glass, creating its own rhythm, and that rhythm pulsed between her legs, in her fingertips, in her chest, in her head. She was ready to dissolve into him completely.

Baelor pressed his whole body against hers — heavily, hotly, possessively, knocking another moan from her chest that she didn't even try to suppress. His hand slid from her breast down over her stomach, teasing, tickling her skin through the sheerest silk, and she arched toward him, catching every touch like one catches a breath of air in a stuffy room. His fingers reached the edge of her underwear, tugged slightly at the elastic of her panties — slowly, excruciatingly slowly — and let go, snapping against her tender skin. It was enough to make her involuntarily push her hips back, pressing her buttocks right into his tense, hard arousal, which no clothing hid any longer.

He exhaled sharply — right into her ear, hot, ragged — and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, catching every sensation, savoring the desire mounting with each second. Her body beneath his hands was the best drug imaginable. And he was ready to pleasure her in the morning, afternoon, night, in broad daylight in this kitchen, with rain noise outside the window and neighbors walking past with their bags. He didn't care. There was only him and her.

She adored him. In these moments, in this oblivion, she forgot about how her body looked in the mirror, forgot about the hated curves and folds, about how she usually sucked in her stomach when she undressed in front of him. In moments of passion, that nasty, gnawing voice inside — the one that had whispered for years: you're not good enough, you're too thin, too fat, too ridiculous — finally fell silent. Drowned out by his loud, ragged breathing, his soft moans, those guttural growls that escaped him when he reached his peak. She began to love herself, because he loved her. Fiercely. Ardently. Mind-blowingly. And that was enough to believe: perhaps she really was worthy.

Without even noticing, she reached for his hand — the one still resting on her chest — brought it to her lips and first uncertainly, timidly, as if tasting forbidden fruit, licked his fingertips. She felt him freeze for a second. His body tensed, his breath stopped — he hadn't expected this sudden boldness. And then, it seemed, her actions aroused him more than ever. He pressed harder on her lower abdomen, pulling her into him, and began making slow, languid thrusts with his hips, rubbing against her through the thin fabric that had long since become wet.

She took his fingers deeper into her mouth, licked them more boldly, vaguely aware: he liked it. Liked it a lot. Her body trembled under his touch, even though Baelor still hadn't touched the very center of her arousal — that place where it was already incredibly, excruciatingly hot and wet, where everything pulsed in anticipation. She burned from within. Melted. Flowed.

His name fell from her lips — inarticulate, slurred, because her mouth was full of saliva and his fingers. She felt simultaneously humiliated and wonderful. Dirty and right. Shameful and incredibly good.

"What?" he breathed into her ear, hot, hoarse, almost growling. "Don't be shy, my sweet. You know I love it when you're loud. Love hearing you."

His aroused, rock-hard flesh rubbed against her buttocks through the thin fabric, and even this barrier didn't hide the heat, or the size, or how much he wanted her right now. His words fogged her mind completely, stripped away the last inhibitions. She soared into the abyss of passion, letting go of herself, allowing her body to do what it wanted, not what the eternally dissatisfied inner voice commanded.

She spoke his name again — on an exhale, almost soundlessly, with just her lips. Murmured something unintelligible, swallowed, and pushed her hips all the way back because the languor in her lower belly had become unbearable. Heat pulsed between her legs, demanding, insisting, begging. She couldn't stand still anymore. Her knees buckled, her legs suddenly felt like cotton, weak, as if all the bones had been removed. The only thing keeping her from falling was his arm, a steel band squeezing her lower stomach, and his body, which she pressed into, seeking support.

"Baelor..." she breathed, and in that name was everything: plea, passion, tenderness, despair, the desire to dissolve. "Please..."

She didn't even know what she was asking for. For him to enter her right here, by the window, under the sound of rain, in view of the whole world? For him to continue this sweet torture, bringing her to the edge from which there would be no return? For him to stop? No, just not to stop.

Her hand released his fingers, and she reached back, covered his palm lying on her stomach, and squeezed, pressing it harder, guiding it lower, to where it burned, where it pulsed, where everything waited only for him.

"There..." she whispered, blushing at her own boldness, but her voice didn't waver. "Please, there it's so... I need..."

He growled into her neck — satisfied, predatory, possessive — and his fingers finally slipped under the thin strip of lace, to where it was wet, hot, where everything clenched in anticipation. She cried out — loudly, forgetting her shyness, forgetting herself, forgetting everything in the world. The rain outside seemed to answer her, intensifying, drumming against the glass, creating a cacophony of sounds in which her moans, his ragged breathing, and the beating of two hearts ready to burst from overwhelming feelings were drowned.

Without letting his fingers enter completely — not even enter, just touch, just teasingly press on the most sensitive point and then instantly disappear — he drew from the girl a sound like a whimper. Desperate, plaintive, full of such hungry disappointment that everything inside him turned over. But he couldn't allow them to make love right here, by the window, in view of the entire waking suburb. Not because he was afraid of prying eyes — he didn't care about neighbors, random passersby, the whole world. But because he wanted the sight of her body, her heat, her love, her face contorted with pleasure to belong only to him. Only his eyes had the right to see this. Only he had the right to catch every breath, every tremor, every spasm of her ecstasy.

"Patience, my girl," he breathed hoarsely, and in that address — my girl — there was so much possessive tenderness that her knees would have buckled if he weren't already holding her so tightly.

He spun her around to face him in one motion, impatiently, almost roughly, and immediately crushed her wet, swollen lips with a kiss. Deep, greedy, all-consuming. His tongue replaced the fingers that had just been teasing her, and it felt so right, so unbearably sweet — to taste him on her lips. And then, lifting her by the thighs, in one movement he helped her onto the countertop — right next to the stove, where French toast should have been sizzling in the pan long ago, where the coffee pot was growing cold. Now they were in shadow, away from the ghostly morning light streaming from the window. Now only Baelor could see his beloved. See all of her. See her as he wanted.

The rumpled shirt that had slipped from her shoulders and hung somewhere around her elbows, he pulled off quickly, almost impetuously, and tossed aside with such deftness that the fabric landed on the back of a chair by the table, as if aiming there on purpose. The straps of her nightie followed the shirt — slid from her shoulders, baring her collarbones, and now only clung to the curves of her breasts, covering but not concealing. The thin silk barely touched her tense pink nipples, whose areolas had already emerged from beneath the fabric, teasing, inviting, begging for touch. She was a miracle of miracles. His miracle. And he was preparing to love this miracle fiercely and passionately, right here, in the kitchen, early morning, under the sound of rain and the scent of cooling coffee.

Her underwear disappeared in a few seconds that felt infinitely long and excruciatingly sweet. He pulled it off in one motion — and now she sat on the cold countertop, completely naked, except for the nightie bunched up to her waist, which only emphasized her nudity rather than concealing it. And then his fingers plunged into her again — this time for real, deep, immediately, without warning, and she cried out, throwing her head back. Goosebumps ran across her skin, gathering into electrical discharges somewhere at the base of her spine, and this sensation was almost akin to orgasm — the same explosion, the same loss of control, the same clouding of reason. Her mind and body were so aroused by his very closeness, his very emotional involvement, that any touch became twice as sensitive, twice as sharp, twice as unbearable.

His movements — at first languid, almost lazy, agonizing for them both — gradually picked up pace. He teased her, speeding up, then slowing down again, then withdrawing completely only to return immediately, and she went mad from this torture, from this sweet violence against her body. She caught his lips with hers, clung to them desperately, mingling their breath, their moans, saliva, tongues, losing the boundary between herself and him. Her fingers slid over his back, finding tense, steely muscles, dug in with her nails, scratched, leaving red trails, and she felt him shudder from it, felt how it turned him on even more.

"Baelor..." she breathed against his lips, and that name sounded like a prayer, like an incantation, like the only word that mattered.

He answered not with words but with a moan — low, guttural, vibrating — and sped up, thrusting into her with his fingers so deeply and so precisely that the world around ceased to exist. The kitchen disappeared, the rain outside the window disappeared, the forgotten toast and cooled coffee disappeared. Only he, she, and this rhythm remained, pulsing inside her, speeding her blood, winding everything within her into a tight spring ready to uncoil.

She felt the release approaching, felt her body arching on its own, beyond her will, felt her lower abdomen clench in a sweet spasm, and she bit her lip, trying to suppress the scream already tearing from within.

"Don't you dare," she heard his hoarse whisper. "Don't you dare hold back. I want to hear you. Look at me."

And she gazed at him with eyes fogged with pleasure — cloudy, wet, nearly sightless, reflecting the entire cosmos he had just awakened within her. And just a second before the long-awaited, maddening release, when her body was already arching in anticipation, when her lower abdomen was clenching in a sweet spasm, and her fingers were digging into his back, begging for more — the walls of her womb were stretched not by his fingers. He entered her sharply, without warning, in one movement, to the full depth, and she screamed.

It wasn't just an orgasm. It was a cataclysm, an explosion, the annihilation of everything that had come before this moment. His sudden intrusion — though what intrusion, she had wanted this, waited for it, begged for it — hurled her somewhere beyond reality. Crying out and moaning simultaneously, she soared upward, overstimulated to the point of pain in her hips, to spasms in her feet, to that sweet, agonizing convulsion that turned her inside out and reassembled her anew. God. This was genuine madness, which they abandoned themselves to with some primordial, animal satisfaction. And she knew already in that second, before even catching her breath: she wanted to repeat this again and again. Always. Every morning. Every night. Every minute he was near.

"Is this what you wrote about last night?" his voice sounded surprisingly soft, even tender, despite the fact that he was still inside her, filling her completely, feeling her pulse around him. "Is this what you were dreaming about?"

He stilled. Stopped moving, giving her time to recover, to catch her breath, to return from those celestial heights she had just visited. And this care — at what seemed like the most inappropriate moment — touched her deeply.

Out of habit, she averted her gaze. Lowered her lashes, hid, as she always did when he looked too intently, too perceptively, too deeply. But this time he didn't allow it. His long, grasping fingers cupped her chin, softly but insistently turned her head back, made her meet his eyes.

"Look at me," his voice became commanding. She rarely heard him like this — usually he spoke this way on the phone with his subordinates, when important decisions were being made, when unquestioning obedience was required. And from this contrast — moments ago he was tender, now he was authoritative — another wave of goosebumps raced down her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Not from fear, never from fear. From that pure, primordial desire she felt for this man. For the one who fought her insecurity with gentle persistence, who wouldn't let her hide, who dragged her into the light every time she tried to retreat into shadow.

"Tell me."

She looked into his eyes — odd-colored, flecked, deep as whirlpools you drown in without hope of rescue. And she drowned. Every time. Willingly, with relief, with gratitude.

"Yes," she confessed with surprising ease. Her voice didn't waver. For the first time, it seemed, ever. "Yes, about this."

And feeling a powerful thrust below — deep, reaching that most intimate point, that place where all the world's pleasure was born — she surged forward to meet him, beginning the dance again. Letting him in again. Losing the boundaries between her body and his again.

The rain outside had become a true downpour. Water drummed against the glass, creating a rhythm into which they wove their movements, their moans, their breath. Somewhere on the stove, the pan sat cooling, never having received its toast. The coffee pot had gone completely cold, and the mug now stood forlornly on the windowsill, forgotten, unnecessary. The whole world had shrunk to the dimensions of this kitchen, this countertop, their intertwined bodies.

She no longer held back her cries. Didn't cover her mouth, didn't bite her lip — she allowed herself to be loud, to be real, to be the one he wanted to see. And when the second wave crashed over her, almost immediately after the first, granting no respite, she screamed so loudly that probably even the neighbors heard. But she didn't care.

Because he was looking at her and because he saw her. Because Baelor loved her — all of her, without reserve, with all her cries, moans, the tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks from overwhelming emotion.

"I love you," she breathed, without thinking, without choosing words, without fear of seeming foolish or too vulnerable.

He pressed his lips to her temple, salty with tears and sweat, and whispered in reply what she already knew without words:

"I know, my girl. Me too. So much."

Like a moth to a flame. 

The sound of droplets followed your steps throughout the castle, hushed and quick. You didn’t set a concrete plan as to what you were about to do; you only rushed with an autonomy you could not quite understand. 

There is a tender ache in your chest whenever you lock eyes with him, no matter the distance. May it be across the room, the height of the steps, or the damning closeness of dining tables during feasts. It is wrong, you convinced yourself it was. 

It had to be. Who were you compared to the heir of the Iron Throne, the Hand of the King, the future of House Targaryen– Baelor Breakspear?

You were restless, your mind giving up on itself and recounting all the tiny moments you shared with him. 

The way he had greeted you– weeks ago, when your father had shipped you off to the Red Keep like some peace treaty– with the Prince’s warm hand bedding your own, and his lips leaving a burning kiss on your knuckles. 

The way his hand had clasped on the back of your waist, a reassurance that ended up as a dance during one of the feasts held in his name. His hand had traveled to the side of your waist then, his eyes remaining on you even after the songs had ended. 

When you found him in the library, nose-deep in books that keep the history of Westeros. The way his fingers had caressed the pages then, with such reverent care. The way he shared a smile with you, acknowledging your presence in the room.

It was maddening. You thought him oblivious.

You halted at the near half of the steps, trying to catch your breath and give your mind some clarity. The candelabra you held nearly left its pattern on your palm from the way you gripped it so tightly. You assessed yourself, setting the candelabra down and putting your hand on your beating heart. 

“My lady?” 

You thought yourself mad, now even more so than ever, for materializing his voice. You let out a breathless chuckle, shaking your head in disbelief. “You terrorize my very mind, and now make yourself known?” You say quietly, turning your head away from the voice. 

You then hear footsteps, ones that grow increasingly loud behind your back.

“I fear I do not know what you speak of.”

You feel his touch on the small of your waist. 

Your eyes snap open.

“My lady?” The voice of your lady-in-waiting brings you back to your mind. You look at her, puzzled at the sudden change of setting. “Were they bad dreams again?” She speaks softly, setting a pillow on your back to help you sit up, “You were mumbling.” She looks at you, handing you a goblet of fresh wine. 

“I-” You start, your hand instinctively reaching out for the cup, “I was- he was-” you try to make your words known, but you fail fairly quickly.

“His grace has asked your companionship during a council meeting as a cupbearer,” she helps you up, her hands familiar with the routine of your nightgown, “To assure your House that there is no ill will.” 

The council meeting went by quickly. Talks of peace treaties between Houses and trades across the seas, all for ensuring the stability of the Kingdom. Baelor, ever the observant one, took it upon himself to note the gown you were wearing. 

A playful light blue color, surrounded by gold accessories and white accents, topped with a bare corset that accentuated your figure. 

He lost himself at the sight, taking in a deep breath without any intention to do so. He linked his hands together, his fingers fiddling with the rings he wore. 

You thought it a nervous habit, one he does when faced with long talks of peace and courtly duties. 

You were completely unaware that you were his undoing. 

He gulped out of his cup, one for composure, another for focus. He gulped it like a man with thirst, a drop of wine spilling its way out of the corner of his mouth. 

You stepped forward with more wine, pouring it into his cup with practiced ease. He freezes, picking up your scent by the decreased distance between you. “That is quite enough now.” His voice wakes something inside of you, a feeling similar to desperation. 

He taps your hand gently, and you retreat the wine with a nod. 

Later that evening, you took to the castle gardens after you had dismissed your lady-in-waiting. 

The night was cold, and you found yourself clutching to the fabrics of your gown. You breathed in the cold, welcoming it with your warmth. 

You hear leaves crunching, accompanied by steps that seem to weigh royalty. 

You turned, immediately greeted by his eyes. 

“I think it best for you to be at your chambers at such time, my lady.” His hands are behind his back, his voice laced with regality. 

“And you, your grace–?”

“Baelor.” He insists.

“Baelor,” you sound it out, cautious and unyielding, “you must rest.” 

“I could not find sleep.” 

You nod.

He closes the distance between you two with a stride, his figure undeniably real and close. “I–” you start, your eyes shying away from his, “Don’t.” He hushes, his hand reaches out, the tip of his fingers tracing the outline of your throat. 

He keeps his eyes on you, the back of his fingers now gently caressing the plush of your cleavage. 

“You reside in my thoughts,” he whispers, “and through my actions.” 

He tips your chin up, wanting to maintain eye contact before inevitably crashing his lips on yours. 

He breaks away.

A beat.

“Do you want to stop?”

You cannot. You do not want to. Not now, not ever. 

Not when he has his lips attached to the side of your neck, his hands at your back, grounding you with him. 

Not when he has you backed up against a garden wall, with his hands traveling down your gown.

You retired to his chambers by his idea. Who knew that something so sweet would be Baelor Breakspear’s unbecoming? 

“You entice me.” He grunts, setting you atop his lap, “You, my fire,” he kisses you, his hands running through your back and unlacing your gown, “You hold my passion.” The gown falls and pools around your hips, revealing you bare in front of him.

He stares. He takes all of it in and commits it to his memory, “You are my undoing.” 

His thumb glides through the pit of your stomach before lowering itself on your cunt. 

“M-My prince, I am-” You panic, “I have not done this.” Your hand catches his wrist with the shake of your head. He looks at you with a gaze that seems like worship, “Let me guide you.”

He sets you down on the bed made of silk and feathers before undressing his tunic. “I have longed for you.” He lowers his head down to your mound, his breath fanning against your skin. His fingers trace through your folds, “This,” his finger rubs a circle against it, “is where I will lose myself.” He looks at you for any trace of discomfort before proceeding, “And here,” his finger pushes through your entrance, “is where you will feel me.” 

“It may hurt,” he cautions, slowly pushing more of his finger inside of you, “yet you take me well.” He praises, his other hand reaching up to cup your breast, “Tell me, my fire,” his tongue lands on your slit before tasting you, “do you long for me too?” he asks, eyes now focused on you. “It– it is wrong.” You whimper, overwhelmed by the new feeling. He rises, detaching himself from your sweet lips. He leans forward, holding your chin up to look at him, “That is not what I asked.”  You let out a labored breath when he sets his thigh between your legs, his piercing mismatched eyes looking at you with pure wonder. 

“I.. I do.” You stammer out, shying away from his gaze. “I find myself waiting on you,” blood rushes to your cheeks, “so that I may set my eyes upon you.” You now look at him, his gaze remaining still on you, “So that I may meet my desires,” your hand reaches out for his, “but even now I know not what they mean.” His hand meets the expanse of your body, visiting the plump of your breasts down to the curve of your waist. He nods, a small smile revealing itself on his face.

He pulls away, undressing the rest of his cloths. You feel yourself melt at the sight, mouth slightly agape in fascination. He reaches for you, holding you by the waist and setting you on top of him. 

He takes a nipple into his mouth, his teeth lightly grazing on the bud. Your hands find themselves on his short-cropped hair, your body leaning towards him a bit more. His hand cups your other breast, his fingers playing and pinching the nipple with skill. You start to let out sounds you have never made before, and lose yourself to his touch. 

When you let out a whisper of his name, his eyes open and look up at you. 

His cock grows impossibly harder, the length of it resting just by your stomach. 

“You will take me,” he whispers against your breast, “As I will you, as my lady wife.” 

He props you up slightly, lining himself up to your entrance. “Cry to me,” he kisses your sternum, “I am here, I will ground you.” With that, he sank you on his cock, the feeling burning its course through your whole body. He lets out a groan, his eyes shutting and letting the feeling wash over him. Tears escape your eyes, your arms melting on his shoulders. You lean forward, your head just by his cheek. He tuts, his palm cradling the back of your head, “You are beautiful.” He lets you adjust to his length, his body keeping both of you still, “You are good.” 

A rim of blood displays itself on his cock when he moves you upward. You wince, your thighs trembling. “Look at me.” He commands, you do as you are told. He sinks you down once more, his lips pressing gentle kisses on your tear-stained cheeks. 

“You can take it.” He reaffirms. 

“You will, won’t you?” He asks, his lips attaching to the crook of your neck.

You whine, nodding obediently, “Yes.” You hold on to the blade of his shoulder.

“Pretty thing.” 

Your cheek leans in to his touch, your body finding itself perfectly fitted into his arms. “Baelor, please..” Your hands reach down to your mound, your fingers desperately finding where he had tasted you earlier, “More.”

He thrusts up into you slowly, stretching your walls out so that they may accommodate his girth. “Are you certain you know of what you ask, girl?” You look at him, your hands coming up to cup his face. Your eyes are glazed with tears, your lips plump and wet. 

You are the very picture of perfection, he thinks. 

You nod, an answer to his question. 

“Speak.” 

“Please, my prince.” You grow desperate, your hips moving with a rhythm you could not control. Both of your hands glide down his chest, a slick feeling pooling at your core. “I need you.” Another tear slips down your cheek, but this time his thumb catches it, wiping it away. He kisses the spot softly, reverently, with a care that makes you remember the time with his fingers on Gods know what book. 

“You make a man mad.” he looks at you, hands flat on your back. “With your pretty tears and your honey-laced words,” he thrusts up, the tip of his cock bullying itself right to the deepest parts of your core, “And with this cunt.” 

With one swift motion, he lays you down on the flat of your back. His hands find the back of your knees, pressing you down with his weight. His cock is at just the right angle, hitting a spot that makes your breath quicken and your eyes tear up. 

He starts thrusting with renewed vigor, the once-gentle prince completely losing his composure and leaving him with only his primal instincts. “You have no idea–” he grunts, pushing you further down on the sheets, “Just what you do to me.” He locks eyes with you, looking all over your features. “You think I enjoy the games we play?” He asks, slamming his cock in you and keeping still. 

“I-I know not of what you say.” 

He lets out a laugh, mocking or genuine, you cannot tell. 

“You make me lose focus,” he starts thrusting, each word paired with a motion. “You look at me with those eyes I cannot run from.” He shakes his head, allowing himself a smile, “Even in sleep, I see you.” His thumb moves towards your cunt, rubbing a sensitive bud. “I want–” he shakes his head, his cock unrelenting and heavy, “I need to see you full of my seed.” He reaches down, taking your lips with his. His teeth bite down on your lower lip, hard enough to make it bleed. To your surprise, his tongue glides on the metallic taste almost in haste, like an instinct he could not falter. “I can never escape you.” He pulls away, his cock leaving your core. He holds your waist, carefully turning you over to your stomach. 

He lines his cock on your entrance, pushing the tip in before leaving a kiss on your shoulder. His hands find your hips, pulling you up with him before finally pushing his cock inside you. 

You feel all of him then. 

It was all so sweet. 

His hands, kneading the soft curve of your hips.

His thighs, slapping against yours. 

His words, ramblings that either make or break you. 

He feels your walls clenching around him, a plea for release. 

“Lose yourself to me.” He coaxes, his hands pulling you up to his torso. Your hand finds his shoulder, gripping it for support. “My heart.” He whispers, his lips ravaging your neck. He doesn’t stop his pace, obedient to what you need. 

You feel it building at the pit of your stomach. His thumb rubs against your bud, bringing you closer to release. “Take it, my love.” He says against your neck, his thrusts chasing his own release. 

You lose yourself, moaning his name with pure admiration. 

He bites down on your shoulder, desperate for his own release. His hands move everywhere– your breasts, your stomach, before ultimately settling on your neck. 

A grip, not too tight, but enough to make you understand that you are his. His lips move against your jaw, needy, desperate. All it took was the feeling of you closing in on him, an action done to relieve yourself from the overwhelming feeling of your release. 

He breathes your scent in, his nose nudged on the crook of your neck. He delivers the final thrust, your name escaping his lips. 

He spills his seed inside of you, his arms keeping you steady.

Both of you collapse on the silk sheets, arms tangled and bodies unbelievably close. His hands stay on you, not wanting to let go. 

He pulls his cock out gently, earning a quiet wince from you. He moves, leveling his head in front of your cunt. He spreads your folds open, his eyes intently watching his seed drop from your core. He uses his finger to scoop some, pushing it back inside of you.

You nestle back into his arms, his hands patting you off to sleep. 

“Nyke am ñuhor ao ñuhor nyke jēdrar.”

I am yours, my love. 

targaryen divider by @feimingo, sword divider by @honeyluvsw ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ !

a/n: baelor has completely taken over my every thought ever since he graced my screen in akotsk- he's just sooooo hot uggghhh.. please feel free to correct me about any mistakes i made! i hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it! reblogs, comments, likes, or any kind of interactions are deeply appreciated!! xo, pearl!

“You know me, Maekar,” he said. “You have watched me sit in judgment over hundreds of disputes brought before the king’s court. Do I tend to speak on impulse? Do I make a habit of judging people before I have listened to them?”

Baelor reached for the second cup on the small table, poured himself wine, but did not drink.

“You know you do not. If anything, I have always envied you for your patience and your ability to listen. I would have long gone mad hearing half of those petty quarrels,” Maekar snorted.

Baelor let out a humorless laugh and turned to his brother.

“Then why,” he asked, “when it came to myself, I could not do the same?”

Maekar watched him for a moment over the rim of his cup.

“You’ll have to give a bit more details, dear brother,” he finally said.

Baelor gave a short, bitter breath.

"I overheard something,” he went on, staring into the fire, the cup of wine still in his hand. He hadn’t lifted it to his lips. “I was so hurt and angry. I stormed in, accused her, before giving her a chance to speak a single word. I accused her of deceiving me, of bringing dishonour into my house, of… things that were never true.”

Maekar frowned slightly. “What exactly did she do?”

“Nothing,” Baelor said, and the word tasted sour in his mouth. “That is the worst part of it. She had done nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. There is no doubt about that.” Baelor finally drank from the cup, though the wine did little to warm him. “I was angry. I believed I had been made a fool of and instead of asking questions like a man with sense, I behaved like a jealous boy swinging at shadows.” 

Maekar watched his older brother for a heartbeat. It was not often that he saw him so … lost… 

“Because it was about you,” he finally tried. “Even men who can judge the world with clear eyes can go blind the moment their own heart and pride are involved.”

Baelor scoffed and set the cup down harder than he meant to.

“So I assume the wedding night didn’t go as well as expected,” Maekar stated over the rim of his cup.

“Expected? I expected nothing from her,” Baelor’s answer was so harsh, Maekar startled and coughed over the wine sip he had just taken. 

“You chased away the septon and the lords, which I certainly don’t blame you for doing, but, brother, you were seen leaving the chambers far too quickly. The court is already whispering,” Maekar shifted in his chair and the leather creaked softly.

“I don’t care about their petty schemes," Baelor scoffed.

“So what now?” Maekar asked.

“Now she looks at me like… like I’m her enemy,” Baelor said. “And I cannot even blame her for it. But I will do everything from now on to prove I am not the man she saw yesterday. I will earn her trust or if trust is too much… then her respect.”

Maekar took another slow sip of wine and shrugged with shoulders. 

“She is not the first woman to be married for politics, and she will not be the last. Wives bear children. They warm a man’s bed. That is the bargain. You are her husband, you are the future king and you like her. We both know, it’s a rare combination. She should be grateful that you are so lenient with her. I know dozens of men who wouldn’t hesitate taking what’s theirs.”

Baelor’s expression froze.

“You speak as if it doesn’t matter what she wants,” Baelor said. “She is still a person, Maekar.”

Maekar studied him with slight puzzlement in his eyes. “You’re making this unnecessarily difficult.”

Baelor shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I have already chosen the easy path once. That is how I ended up here.”

He paced a few steps before the hearth.

“You always liked complicated solutions,” Maekar leaned back in his chair.

“I ... I just want to build a marriage that does not feel like a prison sentence for her.”

Maekar sighed.

“I would rather earn her respect,” Baelor added. “Even if it takes time.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then at least I will know I did not make it worse.”

Maekar shook his head, half amused and half exasperated.

“You’re a very strange man, Baelor.”

Baelor kept his promise, not in grand gestures or expensive but meaningless presents. He didn’t try to buy you. Instead he started with the quiet, practical things. 

The very next morning he carefully asked, what would make this easier for you and when you told him you wanted your own maid from home, he did not argue that the Red Keep already had women to serve you. 

He only nodded once and said, “Then she will be sent for.”

And she was.

When she arrived some days later, dusty from travel and near tears at seeing you, you looked at Baelor with startled disbelief.

He only said, “I thought a familiar face might help,” as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

As you had said, you had almost meant it as a joke. You were not truly expecting a prince to respect your privacy, but to your pleasant surprise he did. From now on whenever he came to your chambers, he knocked.

Always. He never entered until you told him to. 

He was attentive without hovering, polite without being cold and as much as you tried to find some decoy in all it, you couldn’t. He remembered which wine you liked and which spices gave you a stomachache and always warned you if they were used in some dishes. He knew which flowers in the garden gave you headaches and ordered them to never be brought to your chambers. 

Slowly, maddeningly, it became harder and harder to dislike him, to suspect him and keep expecting harm. 

A few times you found him in the library.

The first time, you had gone there hoping for solitude and were almost disappointed to find him already inside, standing by a shelf with a book open in his hands. 

He looked up as you entered with a mild surprise.

“I can leave, if you prefer,” he offered at once.

“No,” you replied, perhaps too quickly.

At first you spoke only of the books themselves. He knew far more than you had expected about the kings and battles, and treaties, but also about all the strange little currents beneath them, the motives buried under official records. Then the conversation wandered from history into poetry. 

Wow, did he know poems!

Not merely by title, but by heart. Verses about winter seas and summer orchards and grief and angst and loneliness. He did not recite them like a man showing off a trick, he spoke them as though they lived within him.

It unsettled you at first, then it charmed you, then, before you knew how it had happened, your feet were carrying you toward the library again in a silent hope he would be there.

You began to notice the gentleness, the way he listened without interrupting, the way his mouth and eyes changed when he smiled for real. 

There were small other things that you noticed and that made your stupid heart race a bit faster than normal. The way his hand lingered half a heartbeat too long when he helped you from a carriage. The way he kissed your hand more often than courtesy required it. His lips touched your skin just briefly, almost more suggestion than contact, but his breath caught.

Sometimes he moved into your space without meaning to.

He would lean closer over a book to point something out, his shoulder brushing yours, only to realize it and draw back at once.

“Forgive me,” he would murmur.

Sometimes his hand would lift, as though to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and stop in midair. His face would change then with an almost painful restraint. He would lower it again and offer another apology.

And at some point you found yourself longing he would do that, smooth your unruly hair or stay there, leaning against your shoulder to explain the river roads to Wetlands and North.

And the more he restrained himself, the more aware you became of him, of the warmth of him when he stood near or the quiet roughness in his voice when he said your name. Gods, you loved the way your name sounded on his lips. 

There was care in his eyes, that did not look fake or like a duty. It looked real. Real enough to frighten you. 

You liked him. You liked his mind, his steadiness, his calm, the little flashes of his humor.

You liked him far more than was sensible and by the time you admitted to yourself that you truly enjoyed his company, that you watched for him in rooms and that your pulse changed when his fingers closed carefully around your hand, you were already too far gone. 

You were helplessly, stupidly in love with the most dangerous man in all the kingdoms. With your husband.

You were curious. You only wanted a glimpse. 

The throne room always had a strange effect on you. It was not that you dreaded it but still there was a certain reverence in you every time you entered it. It was a place that certainly didn’t belong to you, and you didn’t even want it to be otherwise, didn’t feel like you would ever feel at ease there. But it certainly was Baelor’s place.

The king had grown too old to sit through the audiences to hear all the petitions and grievances. So it was Baelor who held the court in his stead, seated not quite on the Iron Throne itself, but on a seat placed before it.

You slipped in quietly, concealed behind the carved pillars, but you could see him clearly.

He did not look grand. 

He looked attentive and somehow that was far more striking.

A lord from the Riverlands was speaking when you sneaked in, a broad man with a booming voice and an air of importance that entered the room several steps ahead of the rest of him. He was complaining about a boundary dispute, the sort of matter you might have expected to bore everyone present into a polite stupor.

Baelor listened. It was not some kind of performative listening, not the vacant courtly expression so many men wore trying to conceal they were bored to death. He listened with stillness, with focus and with such deliberate patience that made even the puffed-up lord begin, gradually, to speak more plainly and less theatrically.

When the man finished, Baelor asked two questions. Just two, but both cut neatly to the heart of the matter and made the lord stammer in a way nobody had expected. 

You felt a small, private jolt of admiration.

Then came a merchant, after him a widow and afterwards two peasants who looked as if they had spent the last few hours trying not to faint.

Baelor received them all the same way, gave them the same attention and the same measured stillness.

He made no distinction between a lord and a smallfolk woman twisting her hands raw in her apron and that was something that held you more than anything.

A farmer spoke of grain stolen by a neighboring village after floods had ruined half the harvest and Baelor did not wave him off.

A young visibly frightened woman came to beg relief from a tax collector who had begun demanding favors above the coin.

Baelor’s face sharpened in quiet fury as he asked her to repeat the man’s name and who had seen it.

He asked where she lived, who her father was, whether she would recognize the collector if brought before her.

And through all of it, his voice remained so calm that hers eventually stopped shaking.

You watched him lean slightly forward when people struggled to explain themselves, not out of impatience but to catch every word. You watched him wait through stammers, through tears, through badly told stories whose tellers had never before believed they were worth hearing.

Once, when a richly dressed lord tried to interject before the man explaining his claim could finish, Baelor turned his head and said, very mildly, “He has not yet done speaking.”

You had to lower your gaze to hide the smile that tugged at your mouth.

Petitioners came and went in an endless human tide of grievance, hope, desperation, pettiness, and genuine harm and still Baelor listened.

By the time an old man from Flea Bottom was brought in to complain about a baker watering down soup meant for the poor, you would have expected even saints to lose patience.

Baelor only asked, “How long has this been happening?” as if thin soup mattered because hunger mattered, and hunger mattered because people did.

He was good at this, not merely skilled or dutiful.

He was good and he took deserved pride in it. 

At one point Baelor lifted his head and looked toward the edge of the hall, toward you.

You froze.

For one dangerous moment you thought you had been discovered, you feared you would be punished for sneaking around where you didn’t belong, but if he was surprised to find you there, he gave no sign of it.

His gaze held yours for one heartbeat, and in that small suspended moment something softened in his expression before he turned back to the petitioner before him and said, “Go on.”

You ought to have left then.

Instead, you stayed until the end of the session, hidden in plain sight, and watched him hold a room full of ambition, grievance, vanity, and fear together through nothing but patience, intelligence, and that grave, steady courtesy which seemed to cost him nothing and mean everything.

You slipped away when the hall finally began to empty but the impression remained.

The sound of his voice, even and respectful, the impossible, dangerous warmth that had spread through you as you watched him.

And as you made your way back through the corridors, one thought kept returning, quiet and inescapable: no wonder people trusted him with their grievances.

You were beginning to trust him with your heart.

The riding party had begun in bright disorder with dogs barking and horses stamping. Men laughed too loudly before the first horn had even sounded as the promise of a good hunt seemed to put a certain fever into everyone’s blood.

You didn’t want to come, but the kind lady that had rescued you from the labyrinth of the Red Keep as you fled Aerion had insistently asked you to accompany her. You had become something you would carefully call friends in the meantime. 

You were still hesitant, but then Baelor had asked so carefully, without pressure but with so much hope in his eyes, and it had felt oddly hard to refuse him.

“If you tire of it, you tell me and we return early,” he had told you while a groom adjusted the bridle. “You need not prove anything to anyone.”

You had looked up at him and found nothing but calm gratitude and something very close to excitement that you have decided to join the party mixed with a pinch of that quiet attentiveness which had become so dangerous to your peace lately. 

He was glad you were coming, one could tell that from miles away, and you were suddenly glad too that you had changed your mind. 

Oh by the Seven, did he look good on his horse. It was a magnificent animal, full of pride and untamed fury but it obeyed Baelor’s lead.

“Thank you, your Grace,” you had said and you had meant it.

For a while, it was pleasant. It was a long time you had been out in the woods. You loved the fresh air, the silent hustle of leaves, the distant sounds of birds, calling to each other through the thicket of green leaves. 

Baelor kept near, not letting you out of his sight.

It happened too quickly for you to even understand.

You were calmly sitting on your mare, listening to your friend cursing about her dress getting stuck in the bushes. You were not really listening, you turned your head to look at the Baelor as your mare suddenly jerked sideways and reared.

You caught the reins, heart lurching into your throat, the mare came down hard, panicked, and bolted.

You heard someone cry out your name.

Branches whipped at you in sudden fury, you hauled at the reins, tried to steady your horse, but she had gone beyond listening. 

Behind you, faint at first and then closer, came another horse. You were too concentrated to hold yourself in the saddle to look around. 

By the time the guards finally understood what had happened and spurred into pursuit, the prince and his wife had already vanished from sight.

Your mare leapt a fallen log and the landing unseated you. You didn’t even understand it before the ground slammed into you and the pain burst through you so suddenly it turned the world white.

For a few seconds you could do nothing but lie there, every nerve filled with shock.

Then you heard Baelor’s voice. 

There was a harsh thud as jumped to the ground before his horse had even fully settled. He was beside you almost immediately.

“Gods, no, no, no,” he breathed, and you had never heard such raw and unguarded panic in his voice before. “Look at me! Can you hear me?”

His hands hovered over you as the fear of hurting you further battled with the need to make sure you were whole. 

“Are you hurt? Tell me where.”

“My shoulder,” you whispered. “And… I think my side.”

You tried to move but pain shot through your side and you wined. The sound was small, but Baelor heard it all the same. 

“Don’t… don’t move yet,” he said quickly. “Just breathe. Slowly.”

Hair had fallen loose over your face and he finally dared to brush it aside. You felt his fingers tremble slightly.

His eyes searched you, moving from your face to your arms, your ribs, your legs, checking for blood, for the unnatural angle that would betray a broken bone. 

“I need to… I need to check you for any broken bones, if you would permit me.”

You nodded and his hands started slowly moving over your body as gently as he could. He pressed along your arm and you winced, his jaw ticked as though he felt the pain.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured at once, easing the pressure. 

At last he let out a shaky breath that sounded like relief.

“Nothing seems broken,” he murmured, perhaps to you, perhaps to himself.

“You frightened me,” he admitted quietly.

After a while you finally managed to push yourself onto one elbow. Baelor moved instantly, slipping an arm behind your back to support you. 

“Easy,” he said. “We’ll do this slowly.”

With patient gentleness he helped you sit up and waited until the dizziness passed before guiding you further and helping you get back on your feet.

Your knees faltered, but Baelor was already there, one arm firm around your waist as he gently guided yours around his shoulders.

“I’ve got you.” 

He did not let go, not even when you found your balance again, his hand remained warm and secure around your waist and you were not sure anymore whether the dizziness was actually from the fall or from the way his breath warmed your neck.

You had never been so aware of him, of the careful but undeniable strength of his arm supporting you, of how steady and solid he felt as you leaned against him. Your heart suddenly began to beat in a strange, uneven rhythm that you suspected had very little to do with injury.

You tried to step away, if only to regain some fragment of composure, but the moment your weight shifted he tightened his arm instinctively, drawing you back against him before you could protest.

“Careful,” he murmured and went very still out of a sudden.

He seemed to realize the same moment as you did how close you were and you on your part were discovering, with alarming clarity, that you did not entirely want him to let go of you.

“Can you stand if I loosen my hold?” he asked.

You nodded.

He hesitated, studying your face, then he slowly released his hold on your waist. His hand still stayed close, ready to catch you again at the slightest sign of weakness.

“Thank you, your Grace,” you murmured, trying to hide the disappointment in your voice at the absence of his touch. It felt strangely abrupt and cold and you had to gather yourself not to lean against him again.

“I’m fine,” you said at last, trying for lightness in your tone. “It still hurts a little but…,” you suddenly looked around as the realization hit you: “My horse… my horse has run away.”

It took time to get you mounted again. Baelor refused to rush and risk hurting you. 

When you were finally up on his horse, he settled himself behind you, one arm firm around your waist to keep you steady.

Your back was pressed against his chest, and you were so acutely aware of how solid and warm it felt, it was almost embarrassing.

Baelor guided the horse through thick undergrowth and between blackening trunks, searching for any sign of a trail. He called out a few times, but there was no answer. You seemed to be literally in the middle of nowhere. 

The sky had started to dusk and the shadows were getting longer as at last the trees began to thin.

Baelor urged the horse forward until you finally broke out onto a narrow road neither of you recognized.

Then dusk slowly deepened into something close to night as you continued your way and then the rain began.

You shivered and Baelor felt it instantly.

“We need shelter,” he said, close to your ear and as if conjured by magic a light appeared further down the road. 

The house was small and a little crooked but the steady light in the windows promised warmth.

Baelor helped you dismount and running on the last leftovers of your strength you leaned into him heavily. He caught you. 

He got you beneath the narrow overhang and knocked hard on the wooden door.

The door cracked open, and an older woman peered out, candle in hand, her gaze moving from Baelor’s soaked riding leathers to your pale face and the way you leaned heavily against him.

“Please,” Baelor said, with no trace of rank in his voice now, only urgency. “My lady was thrown from her horse. We’ve lost the rest of our party in the woods. Could you give us shelter for the night?”

“My goodness,” she said, opening the door wider. “Bring her in before she falls where she stands.”

The woman had barely finished pulling the door open when a voice sounded from deeper inside the house.

“Who is it?”

A man appeared behind her, wiping his hands on a cloth. He took one look at Baelor, then froze as though the floor had turned to ice beneath his feet.

For a heartbeat he simply stared, then all the color seemed to rush from his face.

“Seven save us,” he breathed and before either of you could say a word, he dropped to his knees.

“My prince,” he said, bowing his head. “My prince, forgive us, forgive my wife, she didn’t recognise you…”

Baelor, still rain-soaked and holding your elbow to steady you, looked more startled by the kneeling than by the recognition.

“Tom…,” he said slowly. “Tom Barley… is that right?”

The man shuddered but didn’t dare to look up. 

“Yes, my prince,” he said with an unguarded awe in his voice.  

“You brought a complaint before the king’s justice two years ago,” Baelor continued. “Your landlord had falsified a debt and meant to force you from your holding.”

Tom raised his head and stared at Baelor as if he’d begun reciting prophecy.

“Yes, that was me.”

Baelor nodded. “You had three daughters, I recon, and the youngest was ill with a fever. You feared winter would kill her if you were turned out.”

The woman beside the door made a small sound and pressed a hand to her mouth.

“My prince,” Tom said, almost helplessly, “you remember?”

Baelor’s expression changed, only slightly, but enough for you to see the gentle perplexity in it, as though he could not understand why this should be surprising.

“You saved our home.”

Baelor shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I did what justice required.”

“Please raise,” Baelor continued. “Would you be so kind and help us? We’re apparently still miles away from the city and the lady needs to rest.”

The woman recovered first and fluttered into action as she hurried to clear space near the fire while her husband insisted on taking Baelor’s soaked cloak.

Baelor made certain you were settled close to the fire before allowing anyone to fuss over him. 

The family’s evening meal was already laid out on the table: a loaf of bread, a pot of onion soup, a heel of cheese, and a dish of stewed beans.

“Please forgive us, your Grace. If we had known the Seven would send such an honourable guest our way, we would have…” he didn’t finish and it was pretty obvious that even knowing before he wouldn’t have been able to come up with more to offer.

Baelor only thanked him and took the offered seat at the table. 

The woman poured the soup in a bowl and offered it to you with visibly shaking hands. You took it, thanked her and breathed in the scent. It smelled deliciously and your stomach confirmed it with an embarrassingly loud sound. 

You sat all together in the small room because there was no other place to sit. 

Baelor spoke to Tom as if they were two men sharing a road rather than a prince and a tenant farmer. Not a single time Baelor made the small house feel smaller because he was in it. He ate their plain supper without hesitation, thanked the woman for the soup and stew as though she had served a swan in saffron sauce. 

You found yourself watching him more than your food. You watched his easy courtesy and the way this poor and plainly frightened and overawed family slowly stopped trembling in his company and began instead to glow with pride at having him under their roof.

Later, when the meal was cleared, the practical problem of the night rose at last.

Tom and his wife exchanged one of those married couple looks that contained an entire conversation in silence.

“We have only one bedchamber,” the woman finally said, wringing her apron between her hands.

Tom cleared his throat. “With one proper bed,” he added. “We will lay blankets here by the fire for ourselves, but the chamber is yours, if it pleases you. I’m so sorry, your Grace…”

“You are too generous,” Baelor interrupted his apology and inclined his head in acknowledgment. 

The bedchamber was small. Baelor stepped inside first and held the door for you. It closed behind you and your gaze fell on the single bed in the middle of it. 

It was neatly made, even if the blanket had lost its colour from use. 

Baelor saw where your gaze had fallen.

“I will not bother you further, you need to rest,” he said immediately. “The stables have fresh straw,” he added. “And the roof is not leaking. It will do well enough.”

You looked up at him and wanted to speak, but before you could answer, he reached for your hand and lifted it to his lips. The kiss was brief and achingly gentle.

“You need not worry about anything,” he murmured against your knuckles. “These are good people. You are safe here.”

Then he let go and his hand moved toward the latch.

“No, wait!” You caught his sleeve before he could open the door.

Baelor turned back at once.

“You can’t… I mean, it isn’t acceptable…” you stammered, heat rushing to your face as the sentence collapsed before it could become anything sensible.

“We must make the best of the circumstances,” he said softly. “They have offered us all they have.”

“No, it is not that.” You shook your head, searching frantically for the right words. “I just…”

Your fingers didn’t let go of his sleeve.

“Baelor,” you said at last.

It was probably the first time you had spoken his name as you always preferred to stick to the official titles, they seemed safer but today something had profoundly changed and his name slipped out of your mouth without thinking.

Baelor went utterly still.

“I…” your voice slightly faltered. “I would not like you in the stables.”

For a moment he only looked at you.

“My comfort is of no importance compared to yours.”

“It is to me.”

The answer came before you could stop it.

Baelor’s eyes searched your face, as though trying to decide whether you understood what you were offering.

“And,” you added quickly, flustered by the silence that followed, “I would feel much safer if you stayed.”

“Please,” you added, looking up at him.

Baelor did not move, his gaze drifted slowly around the small room, as if hoping the walls might produce some other solution neither of you had noticed. At last his eyes settled on the floor near the wall.

“If that would ease your mind,” he said slowly, “I can sleep there.”

“What?”

You blinked at him.

“There,” he repeated calmly, gesturing toward the floorboards. 

“No,” you said immediately.

Baelor looked mildly puzzled by the strength of your answer.

“You’re a prince,” you said, almost helplessly. “You cannot sleep in stables or on the floor like some traveling hedge knight.”

“Why not?”

The question was simple, even too simple, and it left you staring at him in momentary defeat.

“Because…” You faltered, searching for something that sounded sensible and finding nothing at all. “Because you simply can’t.”

Baelor’s mouth twitched very slightly, though he did not quite smile.

“That is not a reason.”

You exhaled in frustration.

“There is enough space for both of us on the bed,” you said at last, gesturing toward it. “You said yourself we must make the best of the circumstances.”

Baelor’s gaze flicked toward the mattress, then back to you with unmistakable caution.

“That may not be… comfortable for you.”

“It will be perfectly comfortable.”

“I would rather endure a stiff back than make you uneasy.”

“You won’t,” you insisted. “I promise.”

He hesitated again.

“And besides,” you added quickly, grasping at practicality like a lifeline, “we still have to ride back to King’s Landing tomorrow. Which we will hardly manage if you wake with every bone in your body complaining.”

Baelor studied you, clearly unconvinced.

“I do not wish to make things awkward for you,” he said quietly.

“You aren’t,” you insisted, more softly. “Because I asked you to stay.”

You realized then that your hand was still clutching his sleeve.

Slowly, a little bit awkwardly, you released it.

“Please… stay with me,” you said, suddenly shy under the weight of his gaze. 

Baelor drew a slow breath, the sort a man takes when stepping onto uncertain ground.

“If that is your wish,” he said.

You climbed carefully onto the bed first, easing yourself down with a small wince as your bruised side protested. Baelor waited until you were settled before sitting on the very edge of the mattress.

Then he lay down beside you.

The space between you was… considerable.

Baelor lay rigidly on his back, hands folded over his chest like a knight carved upon a tomb, staring firmly at the wooden ceiling beams.

You lay on your side, facing away from him, acutely aware of every rustle of cloth, every careful breath he took as though even breathing too loudly might disturb you.

It might have been funny if it were not so painfully awkward.

You turned slightly and slowly, cautiously, you shifted a little closer.

Baelor noticed instantly.

You felt it in the subtle change in the air beside you, the quiet stillness of a man suddenly aware of movement he did not dare misinterpret.

You moved again.

Baelor turned his head to you.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” you said and shifted once more, until the warmth of his arm brushed your back and the last careful stretch of distance between you disappeared.

Baelor did not move, he didn’t speak and neither did you, until his breathing gradually deepened, evening out into the steady rhythm of sleep.

You on the other side couldn’t find one.

Your thoughts kept circling the day’s events, turning them over and over again.

The rain whispered softly on the roof as you lay awake listening to it.

Then, suddenly, Baelor shifted, still half asleep, he turned onto his side and his arm moved with him, settling around you.

A wave of warmth rushed through you.

For a moment you lay perfectly still, afraid that even the smallest movement might wake him and make him withdraw.

But he did not wake, his arm remained where it was, warm and steady across your waist.

Slowly, almost without thinking, you leaned back into him, fitting yourself against the solid warmth of his body.

Baelor could not flee the crown that weighed upon his temples like an invisible, yet palpable, band. Sarea, in turn, could not resist the call of her blood when her mother, Shiera, led her deep into the secret laboratory, where the air trembled with incantations spoken in an ancient tongue and shadows held the memory of forgotten curses.

If it were their will, they would have flown on the wind's wings to Dragonstone—the harsh abode of their ancestors, a fortress of black stone washed by stormy waters. A place where no commands or entreaties could reach them. Baelor would leave behind the wife who owed him duty; the father whose gaze, full of expectations, weighed heavier than plate armor; and even little Valarr—his son, whose laughter split his heart asunder. He loved the boy with a tremulous, tender love, but it paled before the all-consuming flame that blazed within him for his silver-haired lady.

And she, Sarea, would cast away without regret the mother whose love was like the clinging embrace of ivy, and the father whose cold calculation could burn. She would flee the whispers behind her back that hissed "bastard," the humiliating looks in the eyes of courtiers, and the heavy, disapproving gaze of King Daeron, who always seemed to find her—too beautiful, too bright, too alive—in the company of his sons. Especially Baelor. The King was not blind. He saw the lightning that flashed between their glances and heard the silence that fell when they were in the same room. But without proof, without open scandal, his hands were tied by the web of propriety.

Meanwhile, their forbidden love did not die—it bloomed in the shadows like an exotic flower. That kiss on the stairs had become their bold beginning. In public, they were models of restraint: a respectful distance, polite "my lord" and "my lady," sometimes exaggeratedly so, to provoke a smile of understanding from just one person in the hall. They tried. Oh, how they tried. But sometimes the dam broke: their fingers would casually intertwine on the back of a chair; their gazes would find each other in a crowd and speak whole sonnets in a split second; and her hand, innocently resting on his elbow during a walk, would burn his skin through the fabric.

They cultivated their dangerous habit like a rare, forbidden fruit. Every evening, when the castle sank into twilight and official duties were left behind, they would find each other in the tangled labyrinths of the garden. To an outsider's eye, it might look like a sweet tribute to childhood friendship—they had indeed always been inseparable. Who could condemn the crown prince and his uncle's daughter for reminiscing about old days? This illusion was their best cover.

But under the canopy of ancient cypresses, where moonlight fractured through the leaves and the noise of evening revelry in the castle turned into a distant, indistinct hum, the pretense evaporated. By the murmuring marble fountain, accompanied by the lute of a lone minstrel drifting from an open window, they kissed as greedily as if trying to breathe life from one another. Their whispers were sweeter than any wine, and their touch—the only prayer in which they believed.

Once, fate almost tripped them. They sat in a dimly lit gazebo facing the sea, so close they shared one breath. His shoulder touched hers, and his finger gently traced secret patterns on the inside of her wrist. Silently, they watched the moon's path dance on the black waves, the world narrowed to the point where their bodies met. At that moment, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting passed by on a nearby path, her steps crunching on the gravel. Only Baelor's keen hearing, sharpened by constant vigilance, caught the rustle of her dress. He drew back with the swiftness of a swordsman, and his voice, instantly clear and impersonal, rang out in the night, discussing his brother Maekar's new military merits. The corner of Sarea's eye caught a fleeting shadow and a fading smile in the distance. That time, they were lucky.

But when her own father, Brynden Rivers, spoke up, there was nowhere to run. He came to her chambers at dawn, as the grey light just began to scratch the windowpanes. His face, usually expressing only boredom or a calculating smirk, was grave.

He entered without knocking, which was a sign in itself. The air in the room, still holding the scent of yesterday's perfume, seemed to thicken. Sarea, up unusually early, was combing her thick mane of hair before the mirror, showing no agitation at her father's visit.

Brynden stood by the fireplace and, without looking at her, spoke in an even, almost indifferent tone:

"The night air seems harmful to your sanity, daughter. Or to your reputation."

"I don't understand what you mean, father. I often enjoy the fresh air. The King's garden is beautiful in the moonlight," Sarea replied, pretending to adjust a strand of hair without turning from the mirror. She understood exactly what he was hinting at. He knew. As always, he saw everything that happened in the castle.

"Don't play with him, Sarea. Don't play these foolish, dangerous games for which you are not yet ready. And I speak of the prince. The heir to the Iron Throne." The red eye of the Bloodraven glinted dangerously.

She froze, the comb in her hand becoming unbearably heavy. Her heart hammered somewhere in her throat, but she forced herself to meet his gaze with feigned calm.

"Baelor is my friend. We grew up together. You and mother always encouraged it."

Brynden took a step forward, and in his restraint, the steel grip of a man accustomed to danger suddenly showed through.

"Childish games are over. He is no longer just a boy. He is a married man. A father. A future king. And you…" He gestured dismissively, but without malice, in her direction, "you are a beautiful spark that could ignite a fire capable of burning not only yourself."

A bitter fury burned inside Sarea.

"So what would you have me do? Lock myself in four walls? Stop breathing so as not to be in anyone's way? You and mother gave me this name, this blood, but deny me the right to… to feelings?"

Brynden sighed, and for a moment something like weary pity flashed in his single eye.

"I deny you the right to suicide. His feelings for you… they are real, and that is the whole problem. If it were mere lust or foolish tenderness, it would have been forgotten long ago. But it has gone on for years now. He loves you. And the love of a man like Baelor, Sarea, is not a gift. It is a sword hanging over your head. With one motion, it could elevate you above all the ladies of the realm. With another, it could cleave your fate and his in two. And the second, believe me, is far more likely." For the first time in her life, Sarea heard something resembling care in her father's words.

"The King tolerates you out of fear of me and your mother. But his patience has limits. One wrong step, one proven hint of disgrace concerning his heir… and neither your blood, nor your mother, nor I, and certainly not Baelor, will save you. You will be ground to dust. Or, worse still, married off to some lord at the end of the world, where you will rot alive, remembering your nightly strolls."

He fell silent, watching her reaction carefully. Sarea looked at her hands, which just hours before had tenderly touched the crown prince's face.

"What do you want from me, father? To renounce him? To pretend nothing happened? Well, know this: that will not happen!" she exclaimed, but then dropped to a dangerous whisper in which the Bloodraven undoubtedly recognized Shiera's traits. "If anyone dares stand in our way, I will not spare them. I will unleash all my wrath upon them, and they will die an agonizing death. Even if it is the King. I do not care."

A thin, joyless smile touched Brynden's lips.

"I want you to be wiser," he said with perfect calm, unswayed by the young woman's fury, still lacking in experience. "If you must play with fire, you must control the flame, not hurl yourself headlong into it. Love him, if you cannot do otherwise. But love in a way that does not become your death sentence. Remember—his duty to the crown will always outweigh any feeling, no matter how beautiful."

He turned and headed for the door, but on the threshold, he looked back one last time.

"The next lady-in-waiting you fail to notice in the garden might be sent there on purpose. Be careful, my child. In this castle, even the walls have ears."

The door closed behind him without a sound. Sarea remained alone in the oppressive silence. Her father's warning echoed in her head. But deep within her lilac eyes, alongside fear and resentment, another spark smoldered—stubborn, proud, rebellious. Her father asked her to be a shadow, but how could one be a shadow when a dragon's defiant flame blazed in her chest?

Sarea wanted to prove him wrong—to prove that her love was more important to Baelor than any duty. Refusing to believe her father's words, she began to plot. And this time, her skill at subtle manipulation would serve her well.

At the very next family supper, she appeared in a dress of deep crimson—modest in cut, yet such that every seam emphasized the lines of her body, every turn of her head made the light play in the silver of her hair. She spoke with others, laughed, but her gaze always knew where Baelor was. And in the lilac depths of her lake-like eyes burned confidence. Confidence in his choice, which he would make not in favor of the crown, but in favor of her lips.

She had begun the game.

Their next "chance" meeting was planned with cunning precision. The setting was not the serene depths of the garden, but the very citadel of Baelor's duties—the library of the Red Keep. In the hour before sunset, when the sun cast long, slanting rays through the high stained-glass windows, painting myriads of dust motes in fiery gold, Baelor usually secluded himself here with his papers. The silence within these walls was unique—muffled, absorbing, as if the ancient tomes themselves, standing in dense rows on oak shelves, drank in any sound.

Sarea waited, having become almost part of the bookshelves, half-hidden in a deep niche between monumental cases that smelled of dust and time—the dry leather of bindings, a sweetish hint of mold, and secrets. When he entered, his steps echoed dully on the stone floor, his gaze fixed on the ground. State affairs swarmed in his mind.

She did not call out to him. Instead, a soft cough came from the darkness of the niche.

And in that moment when his eyes found her in the half-light, all the weight of his cares, all the fine lines on his face, fell away, replaced by an instant, genuine, dazzling joy. This was the very boy with whom she had once chased pigeons across the yard. But the joy lasted only one short heartbeat. It was replaced by bewilderment.

"Sarea? What are you… I thought we agreed to meet in the garden after supper." His voice was caring, but tension threaded through it. He glanced back at the door as if checking he hadn't brought curious eyes with him.

"I was looking for something about the properties of medicinal herbs… for mother. And you? Escaping the noise of the Small Council, my prince?" Sarea asked, clutching a random ancient tome to her chest, still remaining in the shadows.

A moment later, she took a light, almost inaudible step forward, emerging from the embrace of the shadow into a band of sunset light. A blazing beam illuminated her face—her extraordinary pallor and the shadows under her eyes, eloquent testimony to sleepless nights spent wrestling with ghosts and her own blazing heart.

"You haven't been sleeping well." Baelor's voice became soft and thick, turning honeyed. He reached out and lightly touched his beloved's cheek with his fingertips.

She lowered her gaze, allowing him to see a moment of weakness—carefully calculated.

"The dreams… they've become intrusive, Baelor. As if I'm standing neck-deep in black, icy water, and you—on the shore, wearing a crown that isn't yet on your head… And you just watch as a whirlpool drags me under. And your hand doesn't move, you don't hurry to help."

She said this without a trace of reproach, in an even, almost dispassionate tone, as if reading lines from a prophetic scroll. Then, as if catching herself for revealing too much, she shook her head sharply. That same dazzling, empty court smile climbed onto her lips.

"Foolishness. Forget it. I'm just tired of these endless lessons, the smells of herbs, and Mother's… teachings. Pay no mind to the ramblings of a tired girl."

This contrast—a moment of fragile, unprotected truth immediately concealed by a mask—worked better than any hysterics. He saw her weakness, saw that same melancholy girl from the garden whom the entire court weighed upon. He saw his own guilt. His inability to be her savior.

"Sarea… I…"

But she gently interrupted him, stepping a little closer.

"You know, sometimes I'm simply sorry that my heart doesn't know how to follow orders, like yours." She cut in softly, taking another tiny step forward. Now he could distinguish the subtle scents of jasmine and something bitter—wormwood, perhaps—emanating from her. "Mother scolds me for disobedience. But I can't help myself."

A tender, sad smile played on her lips, and her gaze became blissfully detached. Then, not allowing him to find an answer, she turned as if to dissolve into the labyrinth of shelves.

Her hand, waving in a farewell gesture, "clumsily" brushed against the edge of the heavy oak table where an old inkwell with remnants of thick ink stood. The vessel toppled, flying toward the floor. Baylor reacted with lightning speed—he lunged forward to catch her. Their hands met in mid-air, fingers intertwining.

The inkwell shattered against the stone slabs with a sharp, popping sound. Splashes of black, oily liquid fanned across the floor; several drops landed on the hem of her dress, irrevocably staining the fabric.

Silence fell. She did not pull her hand from his grip. Slowly, she raised her eyes to him. And in that moment, in her eyes, there was no hint of the previous sadness or artificial cheerfulness. There burned pure challenge. A challenge and a searing curiosity: would he finally hear her silent call, would he understand the hint?

They stood very close, and Baelor was fighting with all his might not to kiss those full, alluring lips right now; not to run his fingers through her shining curls; not to pull her to him. The prince knew—something had changed between them. And he sensed something was coming.

Without lowering her gaze, with the unshakeable dignity of a queen forced to tread through mire, she freed her hand from his fingers. In the very corner of her lips lurked a mysterious, knowing smile—the smile of a woman who had just proven to herself she could make a prince forget everything in a rush to protect her, even from spilled ink.

"Goodnight, my prince. Our meeting in the garden… is postponed. Mother requires my presence. A new spell brooks no inattention. And I, as you see, am far too… careless today."

And without looking back, paying no heed to the dark stain spreading across the expensive fabric, she walked away between the endless rows of books, leaving him alone.

The final act of her design Sarea prepared with a sophistication worthy of her mother. The invitation was delivered not through servants, but via a loyal maid—a girl with sea-colored eyes whom Shiera had once given into her daughter's service. The pretext was impeccable: "To discuss a found ancient manuscript concerning prophecies linked to dragons and dreams." For Baelor, whose mind constantly sought the roots and meanings of their fates, this was bait impossible to refuse. He knew it was a trap. But he also knew—if Sarea was summoning him to her chambers under a veil of secrecy and scholarship, then something greater than a mere tryst was at stake. It was a call to a battlefield.

He came via the secret passage—a narrow slit in the wall behind a tapestry, which they had discovered long ago in their distant childhood, playing hide-and-seek. The dusty, cramped corridor smelling of damp stone and must, known only to the two of them, had now become incredibly important for their secret. Baylor moved by feel, his heart pounding so loudly it seemed the echo would carry it throughout the castle. He could not allow anyone, not even his most loyal guard, to see the heir to the throne sneaking into the chambers of Shiera and Brynden's daughter by night.

Stepping over the threshold and sliding the hidden panel shut behind him, he froze. The room, familiar to him down to the last crack in the stone floor, was transformed. There was no garish opulence—only semi-darkness and a pleasant disarray. Dozens of candles in simple iron holders danced, casting a chaotic dance of shadows on the walls. The room lived by this tremulous light. Everywhere reigned the charming, creative clutter characteristic of Sarea: stacks of books rose like miniature towers right on the carpet; a rumpled blanket had slipped slightly to the floor, and silk pillows were scattered across the wide bed with the carelessness of an afternoon repose. But the main thing was the scent. The air was sweetly heavy, almost tangible. The aroma of jasmine, pungent sandalwood, and something else, spicy and slightly unsettling—perhaps a crushed root of some foreign plant. The scent was intoxicating.

Baelor, stopping at the threshold, asked with slight tension:

"Sarea… what is that smell?"

Hardly had he spoken when he felt a slight dizziness. Not unpleasant, but soft, lulling, as if everything around was veiled in a warm, golden haze. In this wavering mirage, the only clear, unbearably bright spot was her.

She stood by the open balcony doors, her back to him, her silhouette outlined against the velvet night. She wore only a nightgown of flowing silk—silvery-blue, shimmering with her every slight movement. The fabric clung to her tall frame, falling in soft folds, leaving her bare feet and slender ankles exposed. Her long hair, as if shot through with moonlight, cascaded down her back like a waterfall, shimmering in the candlelight. She seemed an unearthly creature stepped from the pages of ancient Valyrian scrolls—the embodiment of a forbidden dream and a secret.

The final act of her design Sarea prepared with a sophistication worthy of her mother. The invitation was delivered not through servants, but via a loyal maid—a girl with sea-colored eyes whom Shiera had once given into her daughter's service. The pretext was impeccable: "To discuss a found ancient manuscript concerning prophecies linked to dragons and dreams." For Baelor, whose mind constantly sought the roots and meanings of their fates, this was bait impossible to refuse. He knew it was a trap. But he also knew—if Sarea was summoning him to her chambers under a veil of secrecy and scholarship, then something greater than a mere tryst was at stake. It was a call to a battlefield.

He came via the secret passage—a narrow slit in the wall behind a tapestry, which they had discovered long ago in their distant childhood, playing hide-and-seek. The dusty, cramped corridor smelling of damp stone and must, known only to the two of them, had now become incredibly important for their secret. Baelor moved by feel, his heart pounding so loudly it seemed the echo would carry it throughout the castle. He could not allow anyone, not even his most loyal guard, to see the heir to the throne sneaking into the chambers of Shiera and Brynden's daughter by night.

Stepping over the threshold and sliding the hidden panel shut behind him, he froze. The room, familiar to him down to the last crack in the stone floor, was transformed. There was no garish opulence—only semi-darkness and a pleasant disarray. Dozens of candles in simple iron holders danced, casting a chaotic dance of shadows on the walls. The room lived by this tremulous light. Everywhere reigned the charming, creative clutter characteristic of Sarea: stacks of books rose like miniature towers right on the carpet; a rumpled blanket had slipped slightly to the floor, and silk pillows were scattered across the wide bed with the carelessness of an afternoon repose. But the main thing was the scent. The air was sweetly heavy, almost tangible. The aroma of jasmine, pungent sandalwood, and something else, spicy and slightly unsettling—perhaps a crushed root of some foreign plant. The scent was intoxicating.

Baelor, stopping at the threshold, asked with slight tension:

"Sarea… what is that smell?"

Hardly had he spoken when he felt a slight dizziness. Not unpleasant, but soft, lulling, as if everything around was veiled in a warm, golden haze. In this wavering mirage, the only clear, unbearably bright spot was her.

She stood by the open balcony doors, her back to him, her silhouette outlined against the velvet night. She wore only a nightgown of flowing silk—silvery-blue, shimmering with her every slight movement. The fabric clung to her tall frame, falling in soft folds, leaving her bare feet and slender ankles exposed. Her long hair, as if shot through with moonlight, cascaded down her back like a waterfall, shimmering in the candlelight. She seemed an unearthly creature stepped from the pages of ancient Valyrian scrolls—the embodiment of a forbidden dream and a secret.

"Myrrh, to clear the mind. Yarrow, to ward off bad dreams. And something else… for courage." She turned slightly but still did not look at him, gazing at the distant sea. "I'm afraid I cheated a little about the book. Or rather, the book was merely… the pretext."

She finally turned slowly. The warm light fell on her face, and to Baelor, it seemed he saw two faces in one: the innocent, almost childlike oval and full lips, and at the same time—the captivating, cunning lilac eyes holding secrets. She did not take a single step towards him. In her posture, in her slightly tilted head, in the mysterious half-smile, there was both challenge and expectation. She allowed him to make the journey across the room himself.

When he was two steps away, she spoke, her gaze sliding from his eyes to his lips, lingering there for a long, eloquent second.

"You said that night on the stairs was the longest battle of your life. That you lost it before it even began."

She took a tiny step forward. Now, less than a hand's breadth separated them. Her chest softly brushed against his doublet, and he felt that impact with his entire being. His hands, as if of their own will, settled on her waist, feeling the warmth of her body, the fragility of her ribs beneath the thin silk.

"I want to give you a chance to win. Or to lose for good. Once and for all. So this torture ends," her whisper became hot, moist, meant only for Baelor.

She raised a hand. Her fingers, cool and weightless, touched his cheekbone, traced the line of his jaw, and descended to his neck. She drew him a little closer and kissed his cheek—an innocent, childlike kiss.

Sarea now spoke enchantingly, mesmerizingly, each word a caress and a shackle.

"Here, within these walls, under this ceiling, there is now no crown prince, no daughter of the Great Bastards. No throne awaiting you in the hall. No wife sleeping in another part of the castle. There is only you. And me. Stay. Not as a prince, but as a man. Prove to us both that what burns between us is not a mistake, but the only true thing in all this false life."

They had never crossed the final line. All their secret happiness had so far fit into heated kisses, embraces that stole their breath, whispers. Sarea knew—today that line must be erased. Her desire was not mere passion; it was a rite of initiation, an act of final conquest.

Stepping back slightly but not taking her eyes off Baelor, she continued.

"I give you a choice now. To become mine—irrevocably, completely, without the right to retreat. Or… To leave now and leave everything as it is. Let our love remain a beautiful tale."

She masterfully used his own code—honor, duty, the courage to make a choice. But she turned everything on its head. To leave now meant not to fulfill duty, but to show cowardice before oneself.

She saw the storm in his dark eyes. Felt his fingers convulsively tighten on her waist, as if he were trying to hold onto the slipping balance of the world. And then she played her main, most important card.

She did not throw herself into his arms. She retreated a step and simply looked at him. Looked at him with such bottomless, quiet, all-accepting surrender to fate that it shattered the last walls of sanity in his soul. In this readiness to accept any verdict from him, even the cruelest, lay a power against which he was powerless.

More than just a blend of herbs hung in the air. There was a carefully measured dose of what Shiera had taught—the suggestion with a grain of magic. It merely dulled the whisper of reason and amplified a hundredfold the voice of blood, the voice of flesh, the voice of that primal, indisputable 'want' that lived in his very core.

"This… this is madness," his voice broke, sounding hoarse, choked, like a man suffocating from an excess of feeling.

Sarea gave an almost imperceptible nod, and sparks of that very madness flashed in her eyes.

"Yes. The sweetest, most beautiful madness in the world. And it awaits you. If you have the courage to step into it."

He did not step; he fell. With a quiet groan, in which all titles and fears dissolved, he closed the distance between them in an instant. His arms enveloped her as if he had suddenly become a hungry, thirsty, desperate man who had finally stopped fighting himself.

And when he, with hands trembling with impatience, tore away the treacherously slippery silk from her, and she helped him, her own fingers trembled not from fear or shame, but from triumphant, fiery victory. In this half-darkness, in the dance of shadows, she had finally lured into her web not the crown prince, but Baelor himself—his essence, his passion, his weakness. Every sigh, every muffled moan, every curve of her body that yielded to and guided his, was part of this victory.

She led him even here, in this intimate silence, whispering in his ear how to give her pleasure, her own moans becoming divine music to him. Her body was not merely beautiful—it was a mystery, magic, a dark and sweet fruit into which he was ready to plunge headlong, forgetting everything in the world.

And when he entered her, when their worlds merged in a single, painfully sweet explosion of sensation, when her nails dug into his shoulders, leaving red marks on his skin like ancient hieroglyphs—the seals of her ultimate victory—Sarea knew with absolute certainty.

Sarea grew up a mischievous girl, and this mischief only multiplied her charms. Her pranks were a fine art of balancing on the razor's edge of propriety, where punishment bordered on mercy, and light shame on delightful audacity. She realized early that her beauty was not just a gift but a weapon, a shield, and a currency all in one. And who else could have been her tutor in this but Shiera herself? The mother, whose laughter chimed like crystal and whose gaze could halt speech on the lips of the haughtiest lord, became her living textbook on conquering hearts and minds.

Though Shiera had never dreamed of motherhood, coming to it by chance, upon seeing her own reflection in her daughter, she decreed: her legacy must not fade into oblivion. Thus, from childhood, Sarea was initiated into the greatest of family secrets—magic. In the secret laboratory, where the air was thick with the scents of dried herbs, blood, metal, and something ancient, unknowable, time flowed differently. Under the light of flames flickering in crystal spheres, the girl felt something greater than mere blood awaken in her veins. It was a call. The call of an era when her ancestors bent the necks of dragons with a single word. The great winged lizards, alas, had turned to dust and legend, not waiting for her birth. But Sarea refused to mourn the shadows of the past—her present held enough living fire.

This fire was her friendship—or something more—with the princes of House Targaryen. King Daeron II, kind, wise, and cautious, kept his bastard kin at a respectful distance, shielding his trueborn offspring from them. But children, especially at a tender age, know not the prejudices of their elders. To the young princes, Sarea was a radiant, merry, captivating peer, whose lips were full of wondrous tales and whose laughter rang purer than little bells. They did not see—or chose not to see—the other side of her nature. The one shaped in the shadow of her mother's "care." Sarea learned not merely to charm, but to control. She honed the art of insinuation, skillfully directing rumors like poison into the right ear, and those who dared offend her sometimes met with inexplicable, petty, yet vexing misfortunes. Little wonder that behind her back other stories grew—of witchcraft, curses, and the evil eye.

But she never caused the princes the slightest harm, so they willingly turned a blind eye to the malicious gossip. She was their only peer, a bearer of the same ancient blood, a living, breathing embodiment of the forbidden romance of a bygone era. And Baelor was the most captivated of all.

She was never granted the title of princess. Simply "Lady Sarea." These two words burned her pride with a quiet, wrathful fire. She carried this stigma all her life. Her mother, reading the silent question in her eyes, would whisper in her ear, hiding a smile behind a goblet of Arbor gold: "You are the blood of the dragon. You are above their titles, my daughter. Remember that." And Sarea learned. Learned to hold her head so high as if it bore an invisible crown. And one prince, with every glance, every gesture, affirmed her right to that crown.

Baelor.

Kind, ardent, unhappy in his duty, Baelor.

The news of his betrothal to Jena Dondarrion struck Sarea like a dagger to the ribs. It was a cold, calculated political blow from King Daeron, forever cutting the Great Bastards out of the line of succession. That day, Sarea burst into her mother's chambers not as a girl, but as a raging tempest. Tears of fury and humiliation burned her cheeks; words full of venom and pain spilled from her lips. But Shiera merely observed this storm, serene and detached. The corners of her lips touched by a mysterious, knowing smile.

"Marital bonds are but thin chains that men so often break, my daughter," came her voice, quiet and persuasive. "Baelor can still be yours. Since when has fidelity been the lot of kings and princes?"

These words fell on the fertile soil of her soul, giving rise to a firm, unshakable thought. Her feelings for Baelor, which had always lived in the twilight of hints and half-spoken words, now took on a new dimension. Their youthful affection, once expressed in gifted books (she adored old tomes of Valyrian lore) and tender wildflowers, in the caring readiness to share silence or boisterous laughter, now took on the steel of a secret alliance.

He alone saw not just Sarea's charms, but the wounds beneath them. He saw her smile freeze when a seemingly innocent lord's compliment hid a barb. He felt her hand tighten in his when some lady uttered a dismissive word about her parentage. She was the daughter of a bastard and a sorceress, and every day at court was a battle for the respect others received by birthright. Baelor gave her not pity, but understanding—quiet, warm, and steadfast. He silently hated Brynden and Shiera for their thoughtlessness, which had broken their daughter's life, never suspecting that Shiera envisioned for Sarea a throne far higher than the marriage bed of a crown prince.

He never spoke of love aloud. That word was forbidden for them, too dangerous, too binding. But it lived between their glances, in a fleeting touch of the hand, in a silence more eloquent than any oath. He considered her the best of possible wives, had she been born trueborn. And she… she remembered her mother's lesson. And decided that if she could not be his queen, she would become his fate. His sweetest secret and his bitterest passion. The beginning of everything and, perhaps, the end.

Two moons passed, sixty long days filled with quiet despair and pointless waiting, before King's Landing resounded with the pealing of bells in honor of the wedding of Crown Prince Baelor and Lady Jena Dondarrion.

The entire Red Keep, and the city beyond, was awash in festivities worthy of a future king. In the throne room, illuminated by thousands of candles whose light fractured in the gold of ornaments, a feast was in full swing. The air was thick with the aromas of roast meat, spiced wine, and expensive perfumes. Musicians played lively melodies that merged with the din of voices, laughter, and the clatter of dishes into one continuous, deafening roar of celebration. But for Sarea, all this brilliance had turned into a dull, silent picture, as if she were observing it from behind thick glass. Sounds reached her muffled, the guests' smiles seemed like frozen grimaces, and the rich dishes tasted like flavorless chaff.

She sat with her mother and father at an honorary table, placed a step away from the royal one, close enough to demonstrate favor, but not enough to erase the line between legitimate and bastard-born. Shiera and Brynden seemed not to notice this humiliating distance. Absorbed in each other, as always in moments of public attention, they whispered, and Sarea knew about what: they were surely exchanging biting comments about the ladies' attire or the clumsy bows of young lords. Their world was small, self-sufficient, and cynical. There was no room for her quiet agony within it.

Sarea herself, clad in velvet the color of deep night—indigo, which set off the milky whiteness of her skin and the silver of her hair—seemed a statue of sorrow and pride. She aimlessly traced the delicate rim of her goblet with a fingertip, leaving a ghostly mark on the gilding, and followed the whirl of dancing couples with an empty gaze. Many had asked her to dance—young knights captivated by her beauty, and seasoned lords who saw in her a dangerous, and therefore all the more enticing, plaything. She refused them all with cold, impeccable courtesy. Male attention she had in abundance; men forgave her parentage for just a chance to touch this forbidden, mystery-shrouded beauty inherited from the Sea Star herself. But today it only evoked a nauseating weariness in her. She was not like her mother; she did not trade her charm for fleeting caresses. Her power was subtler, deeper, and there was no place in it for such cheap currency as physical intimacy.

Her gaze, against her will found Baelor again and again. He sat beside his new wife next to King Daeron. Jena Dondarrion shone, as befits a bride: her golden-red hair, styled in an elaborate coiffure, glowed in the candlelight, and her face was lit with a timid, deferential smile. She kept casting glances full of hope and trepidation at her husband, but Baelor… Baelor responded with the dry politeness worthy of a model heir. His attention was scattered, his gestures polished and lifeless.

How can he look at her, Sarea thought with bitter triumph, when in this very hall, some ten paces from him, she sits? When every nerve of his must feel her presence? She saw how his gaze, dark and usually so warm, now clouded by an inner struggle, slid over the crowd and invariably, with fatal precision, found her. Their eyes met for an instant—a sharp, painful touch in a sea of strange faces—and immediately recoiled, as if burned. In these fleeting flashes, there were no words, but there was everything: his guilt, her reproach, their shared, torturous pain.

She was afraid to think that in a few hours those hands, which had so tenderly tucked stray locks of her hair or adjusted the lacing of her dress, would embrace another. That those lips, which had whispered words of comfort to her, would touch the forehead of the red-haired lady from Dondarrion. This thought burned her from within with a merciless flame.

And then, yielding to a sudden, almost self-destructive impulse, she accepted a dance invitation from one of the young lords of the Vale. It was a challenge. To herself. To him. To everyone. Her slender figure in the midnight-colored dress dissolved into the stream of dancers, becoming an embodiment of grace and inaccessibility. Baelor, engaged in conversation with his father about something unimportant, felt the air leave his lungs. He saw how her palm rested on her partner's arm, how her waist followed the movements with flexible grace, how her silver hair shimmered with every turn. Every gesture, every tilt of her head was agony for him. It seemed to him that she was deliberately, with predatory precision, showing him the closeness he had lost, the tenderness he had sacrificed to duty.

"My son?" the King inquired, noticing the prince had lost the thread of the conversation.

"Forgive me, father. The noise…" Baelor murmured, fixing his gaze intently on his goblet, trying to distract himself with the wine red as blood.

But it was impossible. His soul tore towards her across the hall, through the music, the laughter, through the throne and the crown, through the red hair of his lawful wife sitting beside him. He burned with jealousy, shame, and inexpressible yearning, watching as another man held her by the waist, as her half-lowered lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. He caught her furtive glance—there was no reproach in it. There was understanding, complicit pain, and that wounded him a thousand times more.

And suddenly, she was gone. After the dance, she vanished into the crowd like a ghost and did not return to her table. Her disappearance was felt by Baelor almost physically. The space where she had just been became empty and dead. He understood. It was unbearable for her to stay, to watch the final act of this play, where she had been given only the role of an observer. She had left, leaving him alone in the very center of his own celebration, surrounded by hundreds of people, feeling utterly hollow.

His gaze darted to the exit, and his hand involuntarily clenched on the hilt of his dagger. At that moment, Jena gently touched his hand, asking something about the wedding gifts. Baylor turned to her, pulling a mask of calm over his face, and replied with something decorous. But his thoughts, his desires, his entire being had already rushed after the vanished silhouette into the blueness of the night—into the mist of the gardens, the labyrinths of the castle, anywhere, just to be far from this hall where his heart was left beating at the feet of another. He was bound to the throne by duty, but his soul, devoted and rebellious, had already slipped away with her—his silver-haired, his forbidden, his only Sarea.

They found each other in one of the narrow, dimly lit stairwells of the Red Keep, where the stone walls held the chill of centuries and the whisper of long-forgotten footsteps. It was long past midnight; Maegor's Holdfast, weary from the feast, had sunk into a heavy slumber. The silence here was thick, resonant, broken only by the crackling of torches in their iron sconces. Sarea, having decided it was time to return her mortal body to her chambers, froze on the steps, seeing a silhouette above.

He stood leaning against the damp wall as if waiting. She had spent several hours in the garden, trying to dissolve into the rustle of leaves and the indifference of the stars. She had stared at the tree crowns, black against the velvet sky, until her eyes watered, listened to the monotonous babble of the fountain until the sound turned to white noise in her ears. Weariness and bitterness sometimes overcame her, and she would fall into a brief, troubled sleep right on the cool, dew-damp earth. She dreamed of unfamiliar, intrusive touches, ardent kisses that made her head spin sweetly in the dream, yet made her heart clench with a gag of shame and desire upon waking. Awakening with a frightening emptiness inside, she had dragged herself back to the stone womb of the castle, not daring to hope for this encounter.

And here he was. Baelor wore no luxurious wedding doublet embroidered with golden dragons. Only a simple linen shirt, softly hugging his torso, hastily donned with the collar undone. This simplicity spoke louder than any words. It is done. A momentary, treacherous shiver ran through her body—not from cold, but from the clear, unbearable image: these hands, these lips, all that warmth, given to another. Suddenly, with terrifying clarity, she remembered her dream in the garden. Perhaps it wasn't a dream? Perhaps her suppressed magic, yearning and wild, had unconsciously stretched tendrils of consciousness towards his chambers, bringing her echoes of what she so desperately tried not to hear?

Lowering her eyes to hide the flaring pain and fury in their lilac depths, she tried to slip past, lifting the velvet hem of her dress. She took two hurried steps up the stairs, past him, breathing in short gasps. His hand—strong, accustomed to holding a sword, yet now seeming incredibly tender—closed like a shackle around her wrist. The grip was firm, but not rough; there was a plea in it. She froze, not turning around, feeling the heat of his skin burn through the thin fabric of her sleeve.

"Sarea. Stop. Just for a moment." Baelor's voice was low and quiet. He always spoke softly, but now there was a firmness in his tone.

"You should be… there. With your lady wife. Has she finally found words worthy of your attention, my prince?" she said evenly, still not turning, but poison seeped into her voice at the mention of his wife's title.

He sighed, and his fingers loosened slightly, but did not let go. He knew what she was thinking. Every tense muscle, every restrained breath screamed of it. He understood her pain as his own, and from that, a viscous, suffocating weight spread in his chest.

"Duty… It is done. All that was required of me. These hours were the longest battle of my life. And I lost it before it even began," he whispered, covering her hand with his other palm.

Slowly, giving her time to pull away, he turned her hand palm up. His thumb traced the thin, pale skin on the inside of her wrist where a rapid pulse beat faintly—an echo of her trembling, her anger, her life. Then he bowed his head. His lips, warm and soft, touched her open palm—a kiss that was unusual, more akin to communion, a silent vow.

Sarea flinched.

"Don't. You just… kissed her. I don't want to be your… respite." She tried to pull her hand away, but the movement lacked force, only helplessness.

Baelor, pressing her palm to his cheek, closing his eyes, said:

"I kissed because I fulfilled my duty. I touched because I was obligated. But now… now I am touching the only reality my heart acknowledges. I am touching you."

He opened his eyes and finally made her turn, pulling gently but inexorably on her hand. Their gazes met. In his dark, weary eyes, there was no regret. There was a storm of guilt, longing, a silent question, and such all-consuming tenderness that it stole her breath. He saw her pain, her pride, her fear. And in his gaze, he offered her all he could: understanding, not freedom, but fidelity.

"Forgive me," he whispered almost inaudibly. "Not for marrying. But for forcing you to breathe the same air as me now, and forgive my touches… And for my presence here now being just another wound."

"It would all be so much simpler if you kept faith with your wife. If you became hers and forgot me… everything would be much, much simpler. But I see I am still in your heart. You are mine. My Baelor." Sarea's voice cracked, and through the crack spilled thirst and tenderness.

She allowed herself to look at him again, and in her eyes, beyond the pain, a smoldering fire flared—the fire of that very forbidden feeling that was stronger than kings, stronger than marriages, stronger than duty.

He smiled sadly, a little guiltily. It was the smile of a fellow sufferer, a kindred spirit in a quiet, desperate rebellion. In this tight, dark passage smelling of stone and smoke, within a breath of each other, they stole from fate for a moment what did not belong to them: their own, separate, bittersweet reality. And the silence around them was no longer empty—it was filled with the resonant echo of the unspoken, with the beating of two hearts drumming in unison against the will of the whole world.

"Kiss me," her whisper was hot, fervent with long-restrained yearning. "I ask for nothing more. No oaths, no promises you cannot keep. But kiss me now. Let... let it heal my wounds for just an hour. For just a moment."

She stepped down one stair, closing the last sliver of distance between them, and her palm, light yet commanding, came to rest on his chest. Through the fine linen of his shirt, she felt the frantic, accelerated beat—the rhythm of a strong, kind, honest heart that now, it seemed to her, was torn in two.

He did not need to be asked twice. It was not a request, but a sentence, and he would gladly accept his execution. With a quiet, choked sound, a mix of a groan and relief, his arms encircled her waist, his fingers digging into the velvet of her dress, pulling her to him with such force as if he sought to break her fragile bones and pour her into himself, make her part of his own flesh. He did not kiss her at first. Shuddering, he buried his face in the curve of her neck, where it met shoulder, breathing in her scent—of night gardens, subtle perfumes, and wine. His embrace was a confession, a plea for forgiveness, and gratitude all at once.

His lips found hers. It was not a tender, tremulous kiss. It was a fall. The collapse of all dams—of duty, propriety, royal will. It was a kiss to quench a thirst, a kiss that was a battle and a homecoming. It held all the bitterness of separation and all the sweetness of forbidden reunion.

Sarea shuddered, freezing for a moment as if struck by the current of that touch, then surrendered to him completely, unreservedly. Her hands flew up, wrapping around his neck, her fingers tangling in the dark hair at his nape. She rose on her toes, practically hanging onto him, entrusting the full weight of her body to his strong arms, his unyielding support in that moment. The world narrowed to the point where their lips met, to the heat of their breath mingling as one, to the frantic pulse.

In this moment stolen from fate, there existed no kingdom, no lawful wife, no heavy burden of a future crown. They were simply young, passionate, and recklessly in love. They were two halves of one soul finding each other. They did not know what awaited them tomorrow, dared not think of the phantom future of their love. But deep within, in the most secret corners of their hearts, they knew with unassailable certainty: this kiss, this flash of absolute, unconditional bliss, would follow them as shadow and light for the rest of their lives. The kiss would become both solace and torment, the measure against which all future joys would forever seem too pale. They had stolen a spark of true fire from the gods, and now they were destined to burn eternally from within—either with the light of memory or the ashes of regret.

When their lips finally parted, they remained in the embrace, forehead to forehead, breathing short, ragged sighs into each other. No one spoke a word. Words would have been a sacrilege. All that could be said had already been said by skin, by lips, by the heartbeat transmitted from his chest to her palm—a quiet, tender utterance that would now forever mean: You are mine. I am yours. Beyond laws. Beyond time. Forever.

With age, the fog of incomprehension lifted, and by the time she turned fifteen, she could hold her own in a conversation about the vagaries of fate or the complexities of running a small business. She remained shy, her voice soft, but her interjections—rare and precise—would make the adults fall silent and exchange glances of surprise.

At sixteen, her world suddenly expanded when she came across a record of lute music. That sound—dry, achingly poignant, as if antiquity itself was speaking directly to her—pierced her through. She began collecting old recordings, sketched viols and harpsichords in her notebooks, learned the difference between a Renaissance and a Baroque lute. She even persuaded her parents to buy her a lute and taught herself, but quickly realized: music would remain her secret, not a public hobby. The world of musicians seemed too precarious and unpredictable, and her parents gently but persistently steered her towards a "proper" profession: "Languages, dear, are the key to everything." She obeyed and enrolled in linguistics, deciding that if she was to earn a living with words, she would do so pragmatically: translating documents, conducting negotiations, working with texts. But her heart, schooled in listening, yearned for something else. So when the time came to choose an elective, her hand instinctively reached for "Medieval History." It seemed a safe compromise: a hobby that didn't commit her to a career.

She was wrong. The elective became her secret addiction. And the reason was not so much the subject itself—though knights, plagues, and cathedrals genuinely fascinated her—as the man who taught it.

Professor Baelor would appear in the lecture hall soundlessly, as if materializing from thin air, and from the very first second, he filled the entire space. He was not young, yet not old—time seemed to pass him by, leaving only a trace of distinguished grey. His voice, soft and deep as a cello, would make students freeze at their desks. When he spoke of troubadours or courtly love, it felt as though he himself had witnessed those times. But what captivated her most were his hands. Long, pale, with slender joints, they constantly toyed with his rings—on his index and ring fingers, two antique bands glinted: one with a cloudy green stone, the other, darkened with age, resembling a signet. He would turn them slowly, thoughtfully, and that movement hypnotized her more than any words. It was so unlike the rough men in her circle—her father's friends who slapped backs and told loud jokes. In Baelor, she sensed mystery, a power that needed no display.

The discussions in his seminars were an event. He could pose questions in such a way that even the silent ones began to argue, forgetting their fear of being wrong. The room would heat up, the air vibrating with ideas, and only Baelor remained calm, a faint smile at the corners of his lips, conducting this chaos with a mere glance. And she, as always, was silent. It seemed to her she had no right to speak in this world he was unlocking. She was merely a listener. His listener. Sometimes, when he recited passages from ancient ballads by heart—and he read them superbly, in Old English, in Old French—she would close her eyes. His voice enveloped her, seeped under her skin, touched something within her whose existence she hadn't even suspected. In that voice was a seductive gentleness: listen to me, follow me, trust me—and you will know what is hidden from others. He was not just a teacher; he was the key to a mystery. And every student in his course, even the laziest, would suddenly burn with passion for the subject, writing brilliant papers, scouring archives. It seemed like sorcery.

How did he do it? How could an ordinary man, with just the timbre of his voice, just the turn of his head, hold forty people in thrall, making their hearts beat faster? He reminded her of an old-school commander—not the loud and brutal kind, but the one who leads troops into battle by his very calmness in the face of death.

But he was not ordinary. She understood this fully one evening. She was returning from work—she had a part-time job as a proofreader at a small publishing house specializing in academic literature, and also helped out at a local second-hand bookshop called "Pagina," tidying up crumbling folios and chatting with fellow bookworms, much like the one she herself was becoming. The money was meager, but the smell of old paper and the silence of the reading room soothed her. And so, passing by the university garden, she saw him. Baelor sat alone on a bench, gazing at the sunset. He didn't notice her, and she didn't call out to him. But in that fleeting, stolen glance, she suddenly saw not the professor, not the master of minds, certainly not a magician. But a man. Tired, perhaps lonely, staring into the distance with the same wistfulness with which she herself often gazed into the darkness of her room. He was not just a voice and not just a mystery. He was alive. And in that second, her quiet, cherished infatuation ceased to be mere admiration and became something else.

Baelor lived in a small but surprisingly cozy house outside the city. The drive to the university took exactly one hour—no more, no less—and this time had long become a kind of ritual for him, a voluntary seclusion between two worlds. He never considered moving closer to the center, though colleagues often advised him to save his energy and petrol. But in the silence of the empty highway, especially late in the evenings, when the sparse streetlights picked out only the wet asphalt and vanishing lane markings from the darkness, he found peace. In those hours, the road belonged to him alone, and the steady hum of the engine became music, conducive to deep thought or, conversely, to thinking of nothing at all. Returning home, his first task was to put the kettle on, brew some milk oolong in an old ceramic mug chipped on the inside—its soft, creamy sweetness always soothed his nerves after a long day—perch his thin-framed glasses on his nose, and immerse himself in reading.

But this evening, everything was different.

He was returning later than usual; the departmental meeting had dragged on, and now the hand on his watch was lazily crawling towards eleven. Past the window flashed the sleeping suburbs, the occasional petrol station with its sickly yellow light, and then, suddenly—a pub. Noisy, packed with young people, a muffled roar of music and laughter escaping through its open doors. Baelor was about to accelerate, to get past this blot of chaos as quickly as possible, when his gaze picked out a solitary figure from the darkness. A girl was walking along the roadside, almost hugging the bushes, her steps seeming unnaturally distinct in the blurred glow of the streetlamps—an orange-yellow light, harsh, mercilessly plucking every silhouette from the night.

He recognised her by her walk. Or rather, first by her shoes: little vintage-style heels with a sturdy heel, which made that same delicate, charming click-clack when she entered the lecture hall. He always heard that sound, even without turning towards the door. Then, by the enormous bag that seemed to hang from her shoulder defying the laws of physics and gravity. How many times had he caught himself thinking: how can one person carry so much? But every time she sat down at her desk and began to extract notebooks, tattered books, crumpled sheet music which she vainly tried to smooth with her palms from the depths of that bag, a slight smile touched his lips. She was like a walking stationery supply, ready to help anyone: if a groupmate suddenly ran out of paper for notes, she would silently hand over a spare notebook; if another's hair tangled in the wind, she would already be pulling out a comb. She did it without fuss, without any desire to please, simply because she knew no other way.

Baelor would involuntarily let his gaze linger on her longer than he should have. He liked her style—old tweed jackets, turtlenecks, soft woollen skirts. She dressed as if she had stepped out of a photograph from the middle of the last century, and there was such natural elegance in it that he, who himself preferred classics—cashmere, trousers with creases, even the occasional cardigan—felt a kindred spirit in her. "Charming," he would think, watching her adjust the slipping strap of her bag. "Utterly, dreadfully lovely."

And now this girl, whom he was used to seeing in the safe space of the lecture hall, stood alone on a dark road, a couple of blocks from the noisy pub, and looked lost. Or just tired. Or heaven knows what else. Baelor didn't deliberate long; he pulled over smoothly, rolled down the window. The autumn wind immediately rushed into the car, bringing the smell of wet leaves, exhaust fumes, and a barely perceptible hint of her perfume—something old, with jasmine and, it seemed, citrus. The streetlight fell on his face, and he saw her freeze, recognising him. Her eyes widened—so dark, almost black in that light—and a whole sea of emotions reflected in them: surprise, disbelief, and a slight fear.

They were silent. A second, another, a third. The pause stretched, becoming almost tangible, dense, like that same autumn mist that was already beginning to rise from the ground. Baelor suddenly became acutely aware of the absurdity of the situation: a professor, a man no longer young, stopping at night beside a student. What would she think? He was about to say something awkward, apologise and drive off, but her lips curved into an embarrassed smile, and he knew there was no turning back.

"Good evening," he breathed out, and immediately, as if ashamed of his own boldness, shifted his gaze to the dashboard, pretending to check his speed.

"Good evening, Professor," came a quiet voice, and there was not a trace of mockery or coquetry in it, only a warm recognition that, for some reason, made Baelor's heart skip a beat.

She had called him Professor. She hadn't met him with frightened silence, but had addressed him precisely like that—formally and yet intimately, letting him know they were acquainted, that she was not just a random passer-by. He looked up and met her gaze. And at that moment, under the harsh orange light of the streetlamps, in the noise of the quietening city, they both felt that there are no coincidences.

"Can I give you a lift?" His voice was soft, but with that special, respectful intonation she knew so well from his lectures. He looked at her through the lowered window, and in the lamplight, his odd eyes—one dark, one blue—gleamed almost cat-like. She surely had a long way home, and with that enormous bag, which seemed with each minute to pull her fragile shoulder closer to the ground. He saw her shift her weight from one foot to the other, and that gesture stirred in him an unexpected desire to help—not out of politeness, but from something deeper, almost instinctive.

"Are you sure it's no trouble?" She adjusted the slipping strap, and her soft short coat opened for a moment, revealing a navy-blue turtleneck. She leaned closer, resting her palm on the car door, and now only a few inches of night air separated them. Baelor caught a delicate scent—citrusy, with a bitter hint of bergamot, as understated and elegant as the tweed jacket she usually wore in his classes.

"No trouble at all. Where to?"

Her face lit up with a modest, slightly embarrassed smile, and in that smile was so much sincere joy that Baelor forgot where he was for a moment. She was clearly hesitating—her feet, accustomed to heels and long walks, were aching mercilessly today, forcing their owner to take a reckless step she would never have dared in her right mind. But the autumn night was conducive to recklessness. She gave the address—quietly, almost apologetically—and he immediately nodded, without even glancing at the satnav.

He had to turn around in the middle of the deserted road, right before the entrance to the highway he had just come from. She felt a pang of awkwardness: so they weren't going the same way at all. But Baelor executed the manoeuvre with ease, barely glancing in the mirrors, as if he had spent his whole life making U-turns for random strangers. He couldn't leave a lady in distress at such a late hour. In fact, at any hour of the day, he would not have allowed himself to drive past if he saw help was needed. It would have been a violation of his own, long-forged principles—chivalrous, gentlemanly, call them what you will. He had grown up on stories of courtliness and believed in them still, even when the world around had long since given up on such niceties.

The door clicked shut, and the car's interior filled with her presence. A delicate, unobtrusive fragrance mingled with the smell of the old leather seats and his own cologne. Baelor suddenly became acutely aware of how long it had been since he'd had a passenger in his car. Especially one like this. She sat beside him, fastening her seatbelt, and that sound seemed extraordinarily loud in the silence that had fallen.

"Thank you, Professor," she said, adjusting the bag she had placed on her lap, as if using it for protection. "I realise it's out of your way. If you'd like, you can drop me near the tube station, I can manage the rest myself…"

"Absolutely not," he interrupted gently but firmly. "I'll take you to your door. At this hour, the tube is no place for a girl with such a heavy burden." He glanced at her bag and couldn't suppress a smile. "Are you carrying bricks in there?"

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, then laughed—quietly, a little breathlessly, as if unaccustomed to laughing in front of others.

"Almost. Books. Sheet music notebooks. And, apparently, I also thought it necessary to put a thermos of tea in there today."

"A thermos," Baelor repeated with a warm chuckle, steering onto the main road. "A worthy assortment. You seem to be the only one in my course who never parts with notebooks and paper editions. I've noticed."

She felt a flush creep up her cheeks; she was embarrassed. So he had noticed after all.

He noticed not only her bag and little shoes.

"I… yes, I don't like e-books. It's not the same feeling. And with notebooks, it's convenient to draw diagrams," she faltered. "I mean, take notes. Although I do have diagrams on medieval philosophy too."

"Medieval philosophy is always diagrams," he agreed, a friendly irony colouring his voice. "Especially when you get to the debates about universals. You can't make sense of it there without arrows and circles."

They both smiled, and the tension that had hung in the air since she got in began to dissolve. Past the window floated the occasional streetlamp, the dark shop windows of closed stores, the silhouettes of trees. The city was falling asleep, and only his car hummed softly, tyres whispering on the damp asphalt, occasionally witnessing late-night pedestrians and a few couples in love heading home after youthful revelries.

"And why were you alone near that pub?" Baelor asked, careful not to let the question sound like an interrogation. "If it's not a secret, of course."

"A friend invited me to celebrate her birthday," she shrugged, returning to memories an hour old, where guys and girls from her group had taken turns congratulating her friend Natalie. Tomorrow was a day off for everyone, so no one was in a hurry to leave, planning to stay until closing time. But she couldn't allow herself that. She felt a strong pull towards home, towards her tiny apartment crammed with books, flowers, and musical instruments of various sizes and complexities. "I stayed for an hour, congratulated her, and left. I'm not very fond of noisy companies, to be honest. But I do love walking home. Only today, apparently, I overestimated my strength."

"I understand," he nodded. And he truly did understand. "Sometimes I leave the city during rush hour just to have some silence. In a car, you know, there's a particular kind of solitude—when you're alone, but not lonely. You drive and you owe nothing to anyone."

She looked at his profile—chiselled, with a slight shadow of fatigue under his eyes—and thought that he seemed to have just said something very personal. Or was she only imagining it?

"Do you have a house in the countryside?" she asked, remembering that he always left immediately after classes, never lingering at the department. Only today had been an exception.

"Yes, a small one, old, but very dear to me. An hour's drive, and I'm in another century. A stove, a garden, silence..." He turned his head slightly, glanced at her briefly, as if wanting to see her reaction. "You would probably appreciate it. There are many old things there, books… And sheet music, I think, as well. Only I don't remember for which instrument. I must have bought it long ago, and why—I don't even know myself."

She listened to him with that particular attention with which she usually absorbed every word in his lectures, but now there was no academic focus in it—only quiet, personal curiosity.

"I've seen you sometimes bring sheet music to class," he continued, and in his voice was a soft interest. "Do you play?"

"A little. The guitar," she admitted, and her voice became very quiet, as if she were sharing something intimate. "And I try to decipher old lute tablatures, but it's not easy."

Baelor gave a barely perceptible start. This girl, with her endless bag and tweed jackets, seemed not to belong to their century—just as he himself did not. He, who had never given in to his son's pleas to buy a "normal, modern" phone, drowning in apps and notifications; he, who wrote essays by hand, smudging his fingers with ink, because only then did thoughts fall onto paper correctly; he, who in the mornings listened to crackling vinyl and the announcer's voice on an old radio that had once belonged to his grandfather. Baelor suddenly felt, with sharp clarity, that unspoken closeness that arises between people who recognise a kindred spirit in each other. And it had taken only a few words for this feeling to take root. With a student. Baelor! — he mentally admonished himself and immediately felt embarrassed by his own thoughts, as if they might become visible through his skull.

He coughed, hiding his awkwardness, and instinctively reached for the gearshift, though the road ahead was empty and straight.

"The lute," he repeated, savouring the word. "You know, it has a remarkable history. In the Middle Ages, it was considered the instrument of the troubadours, the voice of courtly love. And then it almost vanished, giving way to the harpsichord, the guitar…" He glanced sideways at her.

She was silent, but he felt she was listening with bated breath. He suddenly wanted to know more about her than the random observations from the lecture hall allowed. To ask if she was from here or had come from another city, to learn why she had chosen his classes, what her major was, and what else she was passionate about…

"And why the lute in particular?" he asked, turning into a quiet residential district where houses no longer blazed with shop windows but only flickered with rare yellow lights. "Not the piano, not the violin—but this… this almost forgotten voice?"

She pondered, and the pause lasted just long enough for the answer to be honest, not perfunctory. She truly delved deep into this question. Why had this—as he called it, this forgotten voice—become her companion in life? Perhaps because she herself wanted to be heard, and by showing interest in an instrument everyone had forgotten, she was projecting her own thoughts onto the subject. But who would hear and save her? Who would play upon the strings of her soul and make her feel something, anything?

"I heard it once in an old recording," she began quietly. "Back in school. It was some medieval ballad, I don't remember which anymore. But the sound… it was such…" she faltered, searching for the word. "As if born not from outside, but from within. As if time disappears. I spent a long time afterwards searching for what instrument it was, listened to everything I could. And when I found out—lute—it felt like I had discovered something very personal. Silly, isn't it?"

"No," Baelor replied quickly, and more softly than he should have. "Not silly at all. I know that feeling. When a sound becomes more than just a sound."

He said this and was himself surprised at how easily the words had slipped out. Usually, he did not allow himself such raw frankness with strangers, as if afraid the wind would carry the words away before he could even understand why he had uttered them at all. He was accustomed first to testing the ground beneath his feet—every pebble, every unevenness—before stepping onto it without hesitation, trustingly and openly. Though he could create with people an illusion of easy friendliness, a readiness to converse about anything, behind this transparent screen always stood a man immensely careful, guarding his inner space like a garden behind a high fence, knowing the true worth of every hour, every minute of silence. But she… she somehow didn't feel like a stranger. This sensation—frightening and alluring—was taking root within him with every glance she stole, every word she uttered almost in a whisper.

They fell silent. And this silence was filled with something fragile, warm, almost tangible—as if between them hung a light haze woven from unspoken things and mutual curiosity. The car hummed softly, lullingly, tyres on asphalt; past the windows, like watercolour strokes, floated low houses with front gardens; somewhere in the distance a dog barked hoarsely but somehow domestically, and this sound only underscored the fragility of the moment. The city now seemed not a hostile nocturnal emptiness ready to swallow a solitary traveller, but a carefully painted backdrop for their conversation—a backdrop behind which someone had solicitously arranged the halftones and dimmed the lights.

"We've arrived," Baelor said quietly, almost apologetically, stopping by an entranceway submerged in the thick, inky shadow of old linden trees. The engine fell silent, and in the ensuing stillness, the slam of a vent window somewhere above could be heard.

Slowly, as if reluctantly, she shifted her gaze from the dark doorway to him, and in the depths of her eyes something elusive flickered—regret, it seemed. And indeed she did regret, with all the fullness of her still young but already weary heart, how fleeting this dialogue had proven. A dialogue with a man she secretly, almost reverently admired, whose lectures had always seemed to her not mere lessons but revelations. And now it turned out she had been noticed by him among hundreds of other female students—seen, distinguished, remembered, though all these months she had lived with the bitter certainty of the opposite.

The conversation had been sparing, woven more from pauses than from phrases, yet so meaningful, so filled with subtext, that for both of them it had become that very seed from which, perhaps, something more than mere mutual sympathy might one day grow.

"Thank you, Professor… Baelor," she breathed out, and this name, spoken in her voice—slightly husky, tired—sounded extraordinary to him, like a long-forgotten but beloved melody. "I… I don't even know how to thank you. Words, it seems, are no longer enough."

"No need to thank me," he replied, and in his odd-coloured eyes—the eyes of a man who had seen many different dawns and sunsets—reflected that same poignant, luminous weariness that had long since settled in her soul too, like a quiet but constant guest. "Take care of yourself. And… perhaps, sometime…" he faltered mid-sentence, suddenly feeling not like a professor with years of experience and the weight of lived years, but an uncertain boy, inviting a girl to dance for the first time in his life. "If you'd like to look at those sheets I mentioned… perhaps they might be useful… I could bring them to the university. Or… wherever is convenient for you."

She smiled—that same modest smile that, time and again, made something deep inside him grow warm, beneath his ribs, in that place where, as poets say, the soul resides.

"I would very much like that," she whispered, and in that whisper was so much promise and gratitude that for an instant it seemed to him the autumn evening had grown warmer.

She slipped out of the car into the embrace of autumn's chill—sharp, smelling of decaying leaves and woodsmoke—and immediately wrapped herself in her soft, slightly oversized coat. He watched as her light, almost weightless figure glided through the shadows, flashed as a pale spot in the dark entranceway, like a moth flying into the night. Only when the heavy door closed with a drawn-out creak, its echo reverberating through the empty courtyard, did Baelor finally allow himself to exhale—and then inhale the air that, it seemed, she had just been breathing.

The interior of his car still carefully preserved the warmth of her presence, the barely perceptible but so poignant scent of citrus mixed with the sweet note of jasmine. He sat for another minute, perhaps two, gazing at the window on the third floor that had lit up with a warm, cosy glow. There, behind the glass, a silhouette flickered—she took off her coat, adjusted the curtain. He suddenly desperately wanted to believe that she too, at this moment, standing by the window, was looking down at the dark street, at the solitary car frozen under the linden trees.

But he only slowly, as if reluctant to part with this instant, turned the car around and drove into his silence—outside the city, to where only the stove, old books with yellowed pages, and endless reflections, viscous as evening mist, awaited him. Reflections provoked in him by one single young woman. Just a student. But somehow now, in this empty car, on this deserted road, that "just" held no significance whatsoever. Only she mattered. And that tenderness, which he had neither expected nor summoned, but which had come— and remained.

The first lecture after that night was strange. Unusual. The world seemed to have acquired other, hitherto unknown tones and colours—deeper, more poignant, as if someone invisible had slightly adjusted the lens, and the picture had become more dimensional than before. Shadows fell quite differently than they should have according to the laws of the time of day—they spread softly at her feet, embraced corners, hid in the folds of clothing. Morning coffee tasted sweeter than usual, almost cloying, though she hadn't added a gram of sugar—simply because, rushing to close the lid of her cup before leaving home, she had left a light, barely noticeable kiss on its smooth white surface. The lipstick mark had long since faded, but the warmth seemed to remain, dissolving into every sip. Even the breakfast cereal—ordinary, tasteless, which she ate only out of habit—seemed extraordinarily crunchy today. And the overcast weather, which usually brought melancholy and a desire to wrap herself in a blanket until evening, suddenly became immensely fitting for her pensive, melancholic mood—as if the sky outside echoed her inner state, demanding neither cheerfulness nor a false smile.

She arrived at his class a little earlier than usual—a good twenty minutes, at least—and took her customary seat by the window, which overlooked the inner university courtyard with its bare, chilled trees. Their branches, stripped of leaves, reached towards the grey sky like hands frozen in prayer. Several students were already sitting in the lecture hall—someone leafing through notes, someone whispering, someone simply staring at their phone, scrolling indifferently through a feed. She was not alone, but the space around her seemed to have died out, fallen still, forming an invisible cocoon of silence. And this silence held its peace until he appeared in the doorway.

Baelor entered unhurriedly, slightly slower than usual, as if giving himself time to get reacquainted with this place. He paused for a moment, letting his gaze sweep over the room—his domain, his small world where he was both king and sage, and even, in some ways, a creator. And when his eyes, gliding over faces, met hers, something flickered in them. They smiled at the sight of her—she could clearly distinguish that soft, barely perceptible light in his odd-coloured eyes, or perhaps she simply wanted to believe she could. But she herself allowed only a barely noticeable nod in greeting—restrained, almost invisible to outsiders. And in that gesture was so much secret understanding, so much shared mystery, that it took her breath away. Between them now existed something more than just a professor-student relationship. A certain secret, fragile and elusive as the first ice on puddles, which they were destined to carefully preserve, shielding it from prying eyes and superfluous words.

The lecture began. But Baelor conducted it differently this time—more disjointed, less confident than usual. Phrases broke off, thoughts meandered, and once he even faltered mid-sentence, freezing with his mouth open in the middle of a complex term he undoubtedly knew by heart. This did not escape the attention of others—a light, puzzled whisper rippled through the room, someone raised their eyebrows in surprise. But not her. She sat motionless, her head slightly tilted to one side, watching him with that particular attention that turned everything inside him upside down. Why had the professor, eternally composed, concentrated on the subject at hand, suddenly become so distracted today, as if floating somewhere in the clouds?

He himself would like to know the answer to that question. Somewhere deep, in his subconscious, at the very bottom of his mind, he perhaps did understand the true reason for his state. But could he admit aloud—even to himself—that the mere sight of her, one single look from those calm, interested, infinitely deep eyes, was enough to knock him off his usual track, destroy years of built-up concentration, turn a lecture into a chaotic stream of fragmented thoughts? That he, a professor, author of numerous articles and books, suddenly felt like a boy stepping up to the blackboard for the first time? That she acted upon him like a quiet but irresistible force, against which any reasoning of the mind was powerless?

In his leather briefcase, standing by the lectern, the sheet music had been resting all this time. Old, yellowed at the edges, with faded ink and pencil markings made by an unknown hand many decades ago. The very same sheet music he had mentioned back then, in the car. The ones that had haunted him all these two nights, which he had spent sorting through old stacks of books, sifting through dusty folios and his own manuscripts, covered in his elegant, slightly old-fashioned cursive. He had searched for them especially for her—spent half the night in his study, by the light of his desk lamp, while the wind howled outside and firewood crackled in the fireplace. And now they lay close by, almost pulsing through the leather of the briefcase, reminding him of themselves with a heavy but pleasant burden. A promise. Hope. A chance for another meeting, another conversation, another moment of silence filled with something greater than mere words.

Baelor did not give her the sheet music that day. It remained lying in the leather briefcase, reminding him of itself with a heavy, tormenting weight. But he never stopped carrying it with him throughout the week, every morning transferring it from bag to briefcase and back again, feeling its presence somewhere nearby with each lecture, almost beneath his heart. And only by a happy coincidence—or perhaps by the will of that invisible force governing such encounters—did he come across her in the library. She was sitting in the farthest corner, by a pointed window, nestled in a deep leather armchair, her face hidden behind an open book, as if she were hiding from the whole world behind a paper screen. He recognised her anyway. Those little shoes. Small, elegant, with a buckle on the side.

He almost crept up to her—soundlessly, carefully, trying not to disturb the special atmosphere of concentration that enveloped her. Rays of sun, which had peeked out from behind the clouds, fell obliquely through the pointed window, drawing long golden stripes on the floor, and he caught them on himself as he approached. Then he paused by her table, took the sheet music from his briefcase—old, yellowed, with faded ink—and placed it quietly, almost reverently, on the small table beside her armchair. His movements were soft, fluid, as if he were afraid of shattering the crystalline silence of that place.

Immersed in her reading, she didn't immediately sense another presence nearby. Only when his shadow fell across the pages, blocking the sunlight, did she frown, slowly lower the book from her face, and look up. And at that same moment, she started—with her whole body, her entire being, as if struck by thunder. The book nearly slipped from her weakened fingers. She hadn't expected to encounter Baelor here, in this quiet haven of book dust and solitude. But this meeting—she understood it at once, as soon as the initial fright subsided—was undeniably pleasant. Her heart skipped a beat, then began to race.

He merely nodded in greeting—brief, restrained, masculine. And a soft, almost shy smile touched his lips, making the wrinkles around his mouth appear sharper, deeper, rendering his face simultaneously older and more handsome. Lowering her gaze to the table, she discovered beneath his fingers—those long, nervous fingers—the very sheet music. The sheets he had mentioned back then, in the car. The ones that had haunted her all these days.

"You brought them after all," she breathed, her voice trembling with surprise and gratitude. She placed her hand on her heart—a sincere gesture, almost childlike—delighted by such a gift. And a gift it certainly was, nothing less. Everything that came from his hands acquired special weight, special meaning. He was giving her something that belonged to him with such astonishing ease, as if these sheets meant nothing to him. But she sensed: they did. Otherwise, why would he have kept them at home? This realization made her chest ache—sweetly, anxiously, poignantly.

"I couldn't not do it," he replied quietly, looking directly into her eyes. "I couldn't forget..." The last words hung in the air, unfinished, cut off mid-sentence. Though Baelor hadn't planned to continue—not now, not here. But the truth was simple to the point of despair: he couldn't forget her. Couldn't forget their conversation, her voice, that scent of citrus that now seemed to haunt his every step, appearing from nowhere at the most unexpected moments—in empty corridors, in the car, even at home by the fireplace, when he was utterly alone.

Her face suddenly softened, losing that wariness that always appeared when meeting strangers. It took on a strange, slightly sad, almost resigned expression, though a small, timid smile continued to bloom on her lips. She understood. She understood everything without words.

"I was actually about to finish," she suddenly said, carefully setting the book aside, as if parting with an old friend. "I was thinking of going to a café, getting something warm to drink..." She hesitated for a moment, gathering her courage, and raised her eyes to his—eyes in which a sudden boldness, surprising even herself, was swimming. "Perhaps... you'd join me for coffee? I could look at the sheet music more closely, and if they... if they seem unsuitable, I could return them right away. So as not to keep you waiting."

He froze. Stood still as a statue in a museum hall, only somewhere deep inside everything trembled and stirred. He was clearly hesitating. Thoughts darted like frightened birds: a professor and a student in a café—what would people think? What would students say if they saw? His reputation, his years-long image of a composed, inaccessible man—all of this suddenly loomed before him, ready to collapse from one careless move. But she looked at him with such open, such sincere hope, as if this invitation had cost her dearly, as if she had overcome her shyness and now awaited his verdict. And in that gaze, there was not a shadow of doubt about the inappropriateness of the situation—only a desire to prolong the moment, only quiet joy that he was here, beside her.

He glanced at his wristwatch—old, with a worn leather strap, inherited from his father. The hands showed a quarter to four. Somewhere in the depths of his memory surfaced a vague reminder of another scheduled departmental meeting, but it seemed so distant, so unimportant now, in this library bathed in slanting sunlight, under her attentive gaze. He pondered briefly, pretending to weigh all the pros and cons, though his heart had long since made its decision.

And then he nodded in agreement.

They sat in a small café on the outskirts of the city, where she had suggested going to avoid random glances from acquaintances. They ordered coffee—espresso for him, cappuccino with cinnamon for her. They spoke first of the sheet music, of music, of the old manuscripts he collected. But then the conversation imperceptibly drifted into other channels—into the personal, the intimate. She told him about her childhood, about her first music teacher, about how at sixteen she had wanted to drop out of school. He listened without interrupting, and in his odd-coloured eyes reflected something long forgotten—youthful enthusiasm, the ability to marvel at another person.

The coffee had long gone cold; the waitress had twice approached to ask if they wanted anything else. Outside, darkness had fallen, streetlights had ignited, and the asphalt glistened from the recently ended rain. When they finally stepped outside, the cold air struck their faces, sobering, but inside both of them burned a pleasantly searing, inextinguishable fire.

"May I walk you home?" he asked, considering it his duty to do so.

She smiled and silently nodded. Thus began their first walk—long, unhurried, across the entire city, past sleeping houses and rustling trees. And when they stopped at her entranceway, he suddenly realized he didn't want to leave. Not now. Not ever.

"Tomorrow..." he began and faltered. "Tomorrow will you come to the lecture?"

"I will," she answered simply. "And after... perhaps we could have coffee again?"

"With great pleasure."

They didn't start seeing each other immediately—no. It happened differently: slowly, cautiously, they grew accustomed to one another, came to know each other's souls.

At first, there were only those chance (or perhaps no longer chance) encounters in the library. She came there more often than usual; he found reasons to drop by between lectures. They exchanged a few words, smiles, glances—and parted, carrying the warmth with them. Then came the tea gatherings in the café—once a week, then twice, then on Wednesdays and Fridays it became a tradition about which both remained silent, but awaited with bated breath.

He was in no hurry. Baelor never knew how to rush when it came to what truly mattered. And she—sensitive, attentive—valued this unhurriedness in him, this ability to be near without demanding anything but her presence.

Their first trip outside the city happened in late November. He took her to see the frozen lake near where his house stood, and they stood for a long time on the wooden bridge, watching the sun set behind the tops of the pines. There, for the first time, he took her hand. Simply took it—silently, firmly, as if afraid she might disappear, dissolve into that transparent air. She didn't pull away, only squeezed his warm, reliable palm a little tighter.

The first kiss happened in his house, by the fireplace. She had come to listen to his collection of records, which he had been gathering since his student years, and fell asleep in the armchair to quiet music—exhausted from preparing for exams. He covered her with a blanket, sat on the floor beside her, and watched for a long time as the fire played across her face while soft music filled the room. And when she awoke, opened her eyes and met his gaze—he crawled over to her on his knees and kissed her. Gently, tenderly, as if asking permission. She responded.

What followed was that which is not spoken aloud but remembered by the skin: his fingers, studying her hands and body like a musical staff; her whisper in the darkness of his bedroom; long conversations towards morning, when it no longer matters who you are or how old you are—only that you are here, that you both breathe in unison.

They didn't publicize their relationship. He remained a professor, she a student. But between them existed an unspoken rule: beyond the threshold of the university, their own world began. A world without lectures and grades, where there was only tea or coffee, old records, her laughter, and his smile—which no one but her had ever seen so open, almost boyish.

One day after a lecture, everything changed. Irrevocably. Irreversibly.

She had stayed behind to help him with papers—or so she said. In truth, both were seeking a pretext to remain near each other a little longer, for a few more minutes of this searing, tormenting presence of one another. His office was in creative disarray: stacks of student papers towered on the desk, books lay on the windowsill, pens scattered across the table. She was sorting through some manuals, he was organizing old syllabi—and suddenly their hands met over a folder.

Met—and froze.

She looked up. He was gazing at her as never before. In that look, there remained neither professorial restraint nor habitual gentleness. There was hunger. There was that frightening, extraordinarily powerful passion she had read about in books but never thought she would experience herself. And certainly not—with him.

She stepped closer. Herself. Brave to the point of madness, to the point of trembling knees.

He kissed her as if he had waited his whole life for this—greedily, deeply, almost desperately, while her back pressed against the cabinet door, feeling the wooden surface cool her shoulder blades through her thin blouse. Her legs weakened with each moment, buckling, and only his hands—hot, strong, assured—held her at the edge of the abyss. One hand on her waist, the other lower, bolder, more insistent. She arched towards him, bit her lip to keep from moaning, but he caught that moan with his lips, muffling it, absorbing it into himself.

And then he, disregarding all rules of propriety, his status, the student papers scattered across the desk—swept them to the floor with one broad motion. Papers fanned out across the parquet in all directions, white sheets covered with others' thoughts, others' hopes—they couldn't have cared less. There was only her. Only the two of them in this cramped office, flooded with pre-sunset light.

He bent her over the desk—carefully, tenderly, but authoritatively. His fingers touched her back, found the clasp of her bra. A click—and the delicate lace fell somewhere downwards, onto the heap of now-insignificant papers. She gasped at the coolness of the air and the heat of his palms simultaneously. And he, pausing for a moment, gazed at her, bared to the waist, as if before him stood not a woman, but the greatest work of art.

"How beautiful you are..." he breathed, lost for words.

He pulled down her skirt with particular care, almost reverently. His fingers, accustomed to the most delicate touch upon documents and manuscripts, now touched her skin, her thighs, and these touches made one want to weep—from tenderness, from the strength of feeling, from the very fact that all this was happening. He seemed afraid of tearing the fabric of her skirt, removed it very cautiously—not because he valued the garment, but because he knew: she wouldn't thank him later. They both wanted to preserve this moment as perfect, to play it without a single false note.

Then they both threw caution to the wind. To the fact that his colleagues might be just down the hall. To the fact that the office door wasn't properly closed. To the age difference, to their statuses, to "what people might think." All of it burned in the fire that blazed between them, leaving only one thing: him and her. His lips on her neck, her fingers in his hair. His whisper, full of tenderness and desperation. Her name, falling from his lips like a prayer.

And when it was over—when they, exhausted, clung to each other amidst that chaos, amidst scattered papers and books pushed into piles—she raised her eyes to his and smiled.

"I regret nothing," she whispered. "Do you hear me? Nothing."

He pressed her to him, burying his face in her hair, inhaling that same citrus scent that had haunted him for so many months. And for the first time in years, he felt truly alive.

She was in her fourth year when he first said "I love you." Not in bed, not in a moment of passion, but in the morning, in the kitchen, when she, sleepy, wearing his shirt, was stirring oatmeal. He said it—and froze, as if frightened by his own boldness. She came over, embraced him from behind, pressed her nose between his shoulder blades.

"I know," she whispered. "Me too."

And so their feelings flowed on: slowly, warmly, deeply, like a bottomless pool. Meetings at her place when her roommate was away for weekends. Evenings at his, with the fireplace and wine. Joint trips to small towns where no one knew them. Her graduation, where he watched her from the back rows and for the first time in many years felt not like a professor—but simply a man, infinitely proud and infinitely in love.

And then came the night after her defense, when she arrived at his place with her diploma and a bottle of champagne, and they drank on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and she suddenly said:

"Now I'm no longer your student."

He turned his head, looked at her with a long, attentive gaze.

"You never were," he replied. "You were simply... mine. And I was yours. From the very first moment we spoke."

And Lady Fate, meanwhile, was not idle: she played and schemed, stealthily binding them with common, invisible ties, the existence of which neither she nor he even suspected.

Then, suddenly, like a whirlwind, disaster struck: the Unknown took the life of the beautiful Jenna Dondarrion in an instant, leaving Baelor utterly alone to bear an immense burden — to raise his children and to manage both the realm and his own grief. And the princess, who at the time was only ten and five, felt, with a surprising, burning clarity, an overwhelming need to be near her uncle during this period of his deep sorrow. She didn't know for sure, and couldn't know, if true, all-consuming love had existed between the spouses, but the crown prince certainly harbored the warmest and most tender feelings for his late wife. His grief was genuine.

And she was there. She would appear like a shadow, silently sit in the armchair by the fire in his chambers, bring cool water when he forgot to eat, trying to cheer the man if not with a timely word, then at least with her quiet, sympathetic presence. And Baelor endlessly valued his niece for this sensitivity, so beyond her years. The prince did not know, did not suspect, that even then, in those mournful days, something more than simple familial affection had been born in the maiden's heart. It was infatuation. The very first, fragile and tremulous infatuation, which began to bloom profusely in the light of his gratitude for the care shown during the most difficult period of his life, when, besides his wife's death, urgent state affairs also rained down upon him. King Daeron, feeling old age approaching, was gradually transferring all his duties and burdens of rule to his eldest son, but Baelor himself did not desire this. His soul had no inclination for the Throne. He had to submit, gritting his teeth, and accept his inexorable fate as heir to the Iron Throne.

And who could have known that unexpected help would come from this young, almost child-like niece? Yes, she was mature beyond her years, was even wise in her own way, even though she sometimes lacked personal, hard-earned experience. But, to his great surprise, she always intuitively knew just what to say and what to do, what advice to give, and which actions were definitely not worth taking. Sometimes, looking at her, Baelor clearly saw before him not a young girl, but a grown woman, wise with life, who had lived as many years as he had. But certainly not that young princess of dragon's blood, who should only be interested in new fabrics from the Free Cities and long, languid evenings spent embroidering and engaging in empty talk with her friends. The princess seemed, as it were, not of this world — so it occasionally, but very vividly, seemed to him. And Baelor received new confirmations of this in those moments when he happened upon her in complete solitude and deafening silence. She could for a long time, without blinking, stare at the same spot on the wall or out the window, completely motionless and unaware of the sounds of the surrounding world. He was always tormented by curiosity: what could this young maiden with hair white as moonlight, silver, be thinking about? What thoughts, what secrets could concern his beloved niece? But he never once dared to ask, preferring to remain a silent shadow behind her.

Years passed. Months gave way to one another, and that first, tremulous infatuation, which the princess in her naivety considered merely a fleeting fancy that would disappear without a trace after a couple of moons, only grew stronger with each new day spent in Baelor's company. Neither of them noticed how time had slipped by imperceptibly, and the young girl had transformed into a beautiful, stately beauty with a sharp and agile mind. The youthful softness and plumpness had finally left her body, revealing the true, perfect dragon beauty. And not a single lord at court, not a single visiting guest, could leave this change without greedy, admiring attention.

But the princess was no longer interested in marriage as such. Her heart had finally and irrevocably fallen prisoner to Baelor, caught in that very clever trap he had set without knowing it. This happened when she, despite all her mental maturity, had still recklessly surrendered to her first deep feeling. She liked to feel, to the point of trembling, the flutter in her chest at the mere sight of her uncle; she liked to catch his every word; she liked to receive his sparing, yet so desired praise. Especially when she, casually discussing some seemingly insignificant matter of state with him, would suddenly steer her thoughts in the right direction, sincerely delighting the prince with her un-childlike wisdom and sound judgment.

Once, during one such conversation by the fireplace, when the wind was howling outside and the room was warm and cozy, her uncle said something to her that she remembered for the rest of her life. He said that she would have made an excellent ruler — wise, just, and far-sighted. And if her memory did not deceive her or blend with imagination, Baelor had then gently stroked her head, brushing a strand of silver hair from her forehead.

"Perhaps so," she had agreed then, unable to suppress the broad, happy smile brought on by his unexpected and so valuable compliment. "It's just a pity I was born a woman."

She clearly remembered that moment: how her uncle had frowned then — as if heavy storm clouds had suddenly rolled over his always so open and kind face. He did not like her words, steeped in the bitterness of the accepted injustice of the world. He let her know this immediately, unafraid to broach the slippery and dangerous topic. He set aside the scroll he was holding and turned his whole body towards her.

"Don't you dare say that," Baelor said quietly, but with an unexpected steel in his voice. "Your mind is sharper than that of many lords sitting on the Small Council. Your blood is the blood of the Conqueror. Do you truly believe that your gender determines the value of your future decisions?"

The princess froze, not expecting such fervor. In his eyes swam something new, unfamiliar to her until then — not just pity for her words, but real conviction. This sparked something new in her — excitement, an even greater attraction to the man who was now defending her from herself.

"But such is the order, uncle," she replied quietly, lowering her eyes. "A woman is a pawn. Her lot is to bear heirs and be a beautiful shadow to her husband."

"Nonsense," Baelor cut her off more sharply than he probably intended. He took her palm in his, not taking his gaze from his niece. "Orders are written by people. And people, as is known, make mistakes. You... you are not just my niece," he faltered, as if the words were coming to him with difficulty, searching for the right definition. "You are my most faithful and wise advisor. And I want you to know: by my side, you will always have a voice. And that voice will be heard. Do you understand?"

A log in the fireplace cracked loudly, sending up a shower of sparks. In the ensuing silence, the princess looked at their intertwined fingers and felt something hot and immense growing in her chest, ready to burst from within.

After that memorable evening, when she had nearly broken her heart against his steadfastness, the princess seemed to shed invisible shackles. If before she had carefully hidden her feelings behind the mask of a respectful niece, now, in despair, she allowed herself more and more liberties. It seemed to her: if she was destined to burn in this fire, then let the flames burn bright. She sought any pretext to be near him.

A fleeting touch of their hands, when she handed him a cup of wine, made her heart beat faster, and his — hesitate, frozen in indecision. Glances across the table at some banquet — she would catch his eyes, even when he looked away, and in those glances there was so much left unsaid that the air between them seemed to crackle. She would loop her arm through his, pressing a little closer than etiquette allowed, inhaling the familiar scent of old wood, ink, and the subtle incense that clung to his clothes. Once, when they were alone in the small drawing-room, she casually went to adjust the Hand's brooch on his chest — her fingers trembled, touching the cold metal. And the next moment, obeying a sudden impulse, she slid her hand higher and playfully tugged at his short beard, in which more and more silver threads were appearing. Baelor froze then, not knowing how to react, and she laughed — brightly and desperately, to hide the tears that had risen to her throat at her own audacity.

Hiding her feelings became harder with each passing month. The princess fell into melancholy sadness more and more often whenever she was alone. She was afraid to speak directly to her uncle — the fear of rejection paralyzed her will. She was certain: to him, she was merely a dear niece, a valued conversationalist, perhaps a friend. But nothing more. He would not accept her love; he would refuse, turn away — too proper, too faithful to duty, too frightened of what others might think. She knew Baelor well enough to predict his reaction: first disbelief, then cold politeness, and finally, complete estrangement. And this estrangement, which she had already begun to feel, seemed to her a harbinger of disaster.

But Baelor suspected. He had begun to suspect long before he allowed himself to admit it. Her glances had become too obvious, her touches too tender, she spent too much time near him, forgetting about others. He saw how she blossomed in his presence and how she dimmed when he left. And this realization crashed down upon him, crushing a heart already tormented by doubts. He could not, did not have the right to reciprocate — neither his age nor his position as heir allowed him even to think of it. And he made the cruelest decision, but, as it seemed to him, the only right one — to distance himself. To shield them both from falling into that bottomless abyss from which there was no escape. Better to do it now, before it was too late.

But the prince did not understand one thing: this "too late" had already arrived. It had arrived the very moment he first caught himself looking for her in a crowd. When his hand froze an inch from her hair, but never dared to touch. When he realized that his decision to distance himself caused pain not only to her, but to himself as well.

The days dragged on, unbearably long and agonizing for both of them. Of course, she noticed his aloofness. She would not have been herself if she hadn't noticed how mercilessly her uncle turned away from her, how he stopped calling her to the library for those long, intense, mind-stirring discussions that had become the meaning of her existence. No more notes hinting at an interesting book, no more invitations to stroll through the garden, no more of those warm, semi-private dinners in a small circle where she felt needed. Days passed in a gray succession; she stopped feeling connected to the outside world, with each hour sinking deeper into the abyss of her own emotions, enveloping her soul in impenetrable darkness. She unconsciously dug her nails into her palms every time she was ignored. She suffocated, being in the same space as him, yet receiving neither a glance nor a word.

At one banquet, they were seated on opposite sides of the hall — whether by the king's will or by chance, but it eased life for neither of them. They became unwilling participants in others' conversations, surrounded by lords, ladies, brothers, and cousins. Baelor, unable to resist some invisible force, kept catching himself searching for her gaze. And when he finally succeeded, he regretted it. Her eyes, usually so alive, understanding, sparkling with intelligence, were now empty. Empty and indifferent — the way one looks at things that no longer matter. In that emptiness lurked such sharp pain that Baelor's breath caught. Resentment was also there, but the princess hid it even from herself, considering that feeling unworthy. She couldn't understand: why? What had she done wrong? When had she said something rude or made a misstep? It seemed to her there was no place in her life for such baseness. She had always tried to control herself, so that neither word nor action would betray her true emotions, but with each passing day, with each empty conversation, it became harder to keep the dragon in check.

The feast stretched on in an endless succession of toasts, the clinking of goblets, bursts of laughter, and that obligatory small talk which never truly ends but merely flows from one empty form into another. The Princess had learned long ago, in her early youth, to exist within this noisy vortex without being fully immersed in it. She smiled when etiquette demanded it, nodded when it was appropriate, and had long since stopped listening to what was being said around her. Too tiresome, too meaningless. Her thoughts wandered far from these walls, bathed in the light of a thousand candles—or rather, they were there, where he sat at the high table, encircled by lords, advisors, and ever-flattering courtiers.

Baelor did not look her way. Not for months now, for an eternity—since that day when something between them had broken. She had grown accustomed to the pain, though growing accustomed to such a deep, gnawing emptiness inside was as impossible as getting used to living without air. She had simply learned to hide it deep, in the very depths of her soul, carefully masking it with a facade of icy indifference. And credit where it was due, she did it masterfully. Lately, not a single soul had dared ask the Princess what had happened, why she was no longer seen in the company of the Crown Prince, where that particular light had gone that used to ignite in her eyes upon his arrival. She pretended to be perpetually busy—with affairs, with walks, with playing the lute, embroidery, reading—just to avoid unwanted questions and the sticky, web-like gossip. Though, truth be told, she hardly cared about the gossip when everything inside her ached with longing, twisted with unspoken words and the impossibility of simply approaching him and touching his hand.

"—...and so I tell him, this arrogant lord: 'My lord, if you are seeking a bride, you should look not at me, but into the book of noble lineages. All the names are written there, and I dare say, mine is not among them for you,'" finished Lord Mallister his long-winded speech, laughing loudly and smugly at his own joke, awaiting praise for his wit.

She smiled—politely, distantly. The lord was young, rich, favored by the king, and seemed genuinely intent on vying for her hand. The second one this month. And likely the tenth since the start of the year—the Princess was not in the habit of counting suitors; they faded from memory faster than frost melts in the morning sun. She had long stopped remembering even their names, because her entire being, every thought and every heartbeat, belonged to another Targaryen. To the one who now sat twenty paces away and did not even look her way.

"You are cruel, Princess," Lord Mallister suddenly said with playful reproach, stepping impermissibly close, his lips almost brushing her temple, his hand nearly touching her elbow. He reeked of wine and self-satisfaction. "It seems your thoughts are occupied with something else, and I must admit, it stings. Tell me, what could possibly concern the beautiful Princess, heiress to the ancient blood of Valyria?"

She opened her mouth to reply with something sharp—one phrase would have sufficed to put the presumptuous lord in his place—but she didn't get the chance. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a sudden movement where Baelor had been sitting motionless just moments before. Her heart skipped a beat, then began pounding somewhere in her throat. Emerging from the crowd's hum, from behind Mallister's back, came that voice—so familiar, so longed-for, at the very sound of which everything inside her turned upside down. He spoke evenly, coldly, and with authority:

"Forgive me, Lord Mallister. I need to speak with my niece. Immediately."

Baelor stood a step away from her, though just a minute ago he had been sitting at the table surrounded by other lords and the king himself. He extended his hand to her—a formal gesture, impeccably polite, as etiquette demanded when a gentleman invites a lady. But when her trembling fingers touched his palm, he squeezed them a little tighter than necessary. For one brief, searing moment, she closed her eyes, feeling that long-awaited warmth of his skin. It instantly dispelled the sticky, grasping fingers of darkness and despair that had been suffocating her for weeks.

He led her through the hall—neither fast nor slow, pacing his steps so as not to attract undue attention. But his hand did not release her fingers even when they stepped into the coolness of the nearly empty gallery, passed through an enfilade of rooms, and arrived at the balcony. Here, under the high canopy of stars, only the night, the moon, and the autumn garden below could witness their conversation.

"Baelor?" her voice came out soft, bewildered. "What happened? Why did you...?"

He was silent. He stood half-turned away from her, his gaze fixed on the darkness of the garden, the wind tousling his dark hair, where, in the moonlight, an early streak of silver glinted like a thread. His hand still held her fingers—and then, as if suddenly coming to his senses and regaining control over his body, he loosened his grip. But he did not let go completely. Instead, he ran his thumb over her knuckles—lightly, almost weightlessly, as if testing the feel of the most precious fabric in the world—and paused.

"That lord," he finally spoke, though the reason for his actions now seemed trivial to him, unworthy of the Crown Prince leaving the feast and taking his niece out into the night. "Mallister."

She froze, afraid to breathe, afraid to break this moment.

"What about him?" she breathed, barely audible.

"He..." Baelor faltered, as if struggling to find the right words. He turned his head, looked at her piercingly, searchingly. How long had it been since they stood like this—close, alone, not playing their assigned roles. There was a dull ache in his chest—perhaps his heart, withered during the months of separation, had finally shown signs of life. "He is not a suitable match for you."

She wanted to ask: why? Who could possibly be suitable for her? She wanted to scream in his face that she didn't care, that she would never marry anyone, that the only man she wanted by her side every morning and every night was him. But the words lodged in her throat like a lump, because Baelor suddenly stepped closer, cutting off any attempt to continue this agonizing dialogue. He stood right in front of her. So close that she could feel the heat of his body on her skin, hear his ragged breathing, see the pulse beating in his temple.

He leaned towards her—slowly, infinitely slowly, as if giving her time to retreat, to run, to hide. As if testing whether she would let him tear down all the walls that he himself had erected between them. And she did not retreat. She stood frozen in disbelief, gazing into his eyes, which in the moonlight now seemed almost black, bottomless, drawing her in. She would have given anything—everything to the last drop of blood—just to hear the cherished words now that would shatter the chains of this mad estrangement. Why else would he have come? Why else would he look at her like that?

"You deserve better," he whispered, and in that whisper there was anguish. "Far better than that... than any of them."

His hand slowly rose toward her face—and halted an inch from her cheek. She bit down on her lower lip until it hurt, feeling the searing heat of his palm, the almost-touch. Sparks seemed to leap between his fingers and her skin. But he could not bring himself to take that final step, to shatter that boundary. Just one touch—that was all she desired now, all she prayed for. His finger traced the line of her cheekbone in the air—without making contact, yet goosebumps raced across her skin, and everything tightened low in her belly with aching anticipation.

"Baelor..." she breathed, and in her voice there was a tremor, a plea, desperation.

He snatched his hand back as if burned by the sound of her voice. Stepped away, as though an invisible wall had once again risen between them. Ran his palm over his face, banishing the spell, banishing her image that stood before his eyes. He no longer looked at her, but her face still shone before his gaze, bathed in moonlight, making her features intoxicatingly beautiful, her eyes impossibly huge, knowing, absorbing all his pain.

"Forgive me. I should not have..." His voice failed, grew hoarse. He berated himself for this unforgivable weakness, for that single impulse that had made him rise from his seat and rush here, saving her from a lord who merely had the foolishness to stand too close. "It seemed to me that lord was too forward. Your reputation..."

"My reputation is perfectly fine," she interrupted more sharply than intended. Her chest trembled from his proximity, from this almost-touch, from the way he had looked at her. "And you, Baelor, know perfectly well that I do not intend to marry."

He glanced at her, eyes slightly narrowed, searching. Her words, contrary to his expectation, sparked not concern in his eyes but a strange flash of satisfaction, which he futilely tried to hide:

"Why?"

The question hung in the air between them. She could have answered. Could have told the truth—now, here, under this starry sky, when they stood so close. The words hovered on her tongue, burned it: "Because I love you, you fool. Because my heart belongs to you and you alone." But a sticky, all-consuming fear clamped her throat in iron jaws. Fear of rejection, fear of shattering this fragile moment, fear of hearing cold, polite pity in return.

"Because I see none worthy among them," she said, and her voice came out steady, though everything inside her screamed. And these words were partly true—let Baelor guess, if he wished, that the only man worthy of her stood before her now.

She saw him give a short nod, as if this was precisely the answer he had expected, as if he had been testing something for himself. Something elusive flickered in the depths of his eyes—relief? Or disappointment that she hadn't dared?—and vanished instantly, swept away by the familiar mask of composure.

"You should return now," he said, and his voice once again carried the steely notes of the King's Hand, a man accustomed to commanding and concealing his feelings.

"And you?" she asked, unable to move from the spot, tethered to him by an invisible thread.

"I will come later. I need to..." He didn't finish, only gestured vaguely into the darkness of the night garden. But at that moment, he was thinking of only one thing: how he longed to press her against the cold stone wall, to crush her lips—so unsmiling lately, so sad—in a desperate, hungry kiss, and erase with a single motion all those foolish boundaries he himself had built between them. Leaving only one thing—heat, pain, and maddening desire.

She slowly turned, took the first uncertain step toward the archway from which they had come. Stopped, looked back over her shoulder.

He stood exactly where she had left him—motionless, like a statue carved from stone. And he was watching her, silently following her with his gaze.

"Baelor," she called softly, almost timidly. But there was no continuation to these words. The Princess could not find them, and were they even needed?

He only gripped the balcony railing tighter, his knuckles turning white in the moonlight.

And she left. And in her chest, with each uncertain step, with each heartbeat, something warm, tremulous, long-forgotten and therefore frightening began to grow. He had come for her. He had taken her away from that pushy lord. He had looked at her as he hadn't looked at her in long, endless months. He had almost touched her face. He...

What did it all mean? Why had he done it?

She did not know yet. But for the first time in a long, dragging while, deep within her wounded soul, a tiny, timid flame of hope flickered to life.

Returning to the stuffy, noisy hall, she smiled absently at Lord Mallister, who immediately rushed over with concerned questions, and didn't even notice what he was saying. The hum of the feast, the clinking of goblets, the music—all merged into one distant noise. Her thoughts were elsewhere—on the cold balcony, under the stars, with him.

And Baelor returned to the banquet hall only an hour later, when the feast was in full swing. He sank heavily into his seat, accepted a full goblet from the hands of an obliging servant, raised it to his lips—and immediately, as if burned, set it back down on the table. The expensive wine tasted to him bitterer than wormwood itself.

She had almost stopped eating. The hope that had blossomed after their conversation on the balcony shattered into a million pieces in the following days, days filled with loneliness and silence. Food seemed tasteless, and her stomach clenched in a spasm at the very thought of dining in the great hall, where he sat so far away and yet so close. She spent more and more time in her chambers, voluntarily imprisoned within four walls. She paced her rooms—from door to window, from window to fireplace, day after day, like a caged animal. Sometimes she simply lay on the bed without moving, staring at the ceiling and counting the cracks. The rare moments she left the castle, she shared with her faithful horse, riding him into the Kingswood. Only there, beneath the canopy of trees, could she breathe freely. The wind tousled her silver hair, carrying the scent of pine needles and the sweetish aroma of rotting leaves—autumn had finally claimed its dominion. The forest was withering, and this withering seemed to her a pitiful reminder of her own feelings for Baelor—feelings she was afraid to put into words, to go to him for an honest conversation.

When King Daeron announced a great hunt, the Princess received the news with dread. She knew that all members of the royal family were required to attend. And that meant seeing Baelor again. Feeling again that high wall between them. Smiling again and pretending everything was fine.

The hunt began on a clear autumn morning. The sun gilded the treetops, the air was transparent and fresh. Baelor, as always, was the center of attention—stately, important, in a sturdy hunting tunic of dark green wool, a dagger at his belt. People looked at him with admiration and awe—the Crown Prince, the kingdom's pillar, the future king. And she... She was lost in the crowd, like a ghost, restless and forgotten by everyone, even him. She wandered among the pavilions, paying no mind to how strangers looked at her. Her thoughts were tangled, the sun blinded her, and the smells—roasted meat, horse sweat, leather, and smoke—assaulted her nose, causing a throbbing headache. She rubbed her temples with her fingers again and again, trying to quell the pulsation.

Finally, she could bear it no longer and, leaving the noisy camp, ventured deeper into the forest. Ancient oaks, which remembered her ancestors and those same endlessly repeated hunts, welcomed her into their shade. It was quiet here, only the rustle of fallen leaves underfoot and the distant call of hunting horns somewhere far away. She leaned her back against the rough trunk and closed her eyes, hoping the headache would subside. She cared nothing for the festivities in the pavilions, for the talk and laughter. It all seemed empty and false. And she preferred not to see Baelor at all—each meeting only brought a fresh wound.

But fate, as is well known, does not ask our permission.

She did not hear his footsteps—the leaves muffled them. But suddenly she felt someone's presence. She opened her eyes and started. A few paces away stood Baelor. He was alone, without his retinue, without his horse, and he was looking at her as he had not looked at her for many days—with concern, with pain, and with something else. Could it be?...

"You left," he said hoarsely, and in that single word there was so much: reproach, pain, and a desperate, almost angry relief at having found her. "I saw you heading into the forest. Alone. Do you have any idea what that means? It's reckless. It's unsafe."

She stood with her back against the rough trunk of the old oak, watching him. The autumn forest breathed cold and the scent of decaying leaves; somewhere far off, a crow cawed, and these sounds seemed the only reality in a world that had just been turned upside down.

"Since when do you care about my safety, Baelor?" she asked, her voice quiet and cracking, sounding so tired and bitter that it made his heart clench. "You don't even look at me. For months. You walk past me as if I don't exist. As if I were an empty space."

He stepped closer—impulsively, without thinking—but in the next instant stopped, as if hitting an invisible, yet no less real, barrier. His gaze, fixed on her, was filled with such a tangled knot of doubt, pain, and confusion that she could barely withstand its pressure. He himself, apparently, could not untangle his own feelings—or perhaps he was simply afraid to look too deeply. She lowered her eyes and saw his hands, hanging at his sides, clench convulsively and then release, and this gesture told her more than any words. He was tense to the limit. He was on the edge.

"You know perfectly well why I don't look."

"No," she slowly shook her head, and in her eyes, glistening in the dim sunlight, tears suddenly appeared—the very tears she had held back so long, so desperately, all these endless months. All her learned composure, all her feigned maturity and impenetrability, dissolved in an instant, falling away like dry leaves. Now before him stood not the princess of dragon's blood, not the statue everyone was used to seeing. Before him stood simply a young woman whose love—the one and only, all-consuming love—remained unrequited. Or so she thought. "I don't know, Baelor. I don't know anything. You just disappeared. From my life, from my days, from everything. You wouldn't even spare me a glance. Explain it to me. Please. I deserve at least that after everything that was between us… I deserve to know the truth."

He was silent, and in that silence, in the resonant stillness of the autumn forest, there was so much unspoken anguish… Why? Why did he have such expressive eyes when he allowed it? Why did they speak louder than any words, but only when he let them?

Finally, he exhaled—hoarsely, brokenly:

"If I allow myself to look at you… if I allow myself to be near you, to breathe the same air as you, to touch you… I won't be able to stop. Whether you understand it or not, I won't be able to. I won't be able to pretend anymore that you're just my niece. Just my brother's daughter. Because that is a lie. A lie I've told for too long, and it's a vile one."

"You're afraid," she said quietly, but with complete, absolute certainty in her words. She straightened up, squared her thin, tense shoulders, and met his gaze. Fearless. Stubborn. Desperate to the last spark. "You've always been afraid, Baelor. Of your own feelings, of what others think. Of what people will say, what the lords will think, what the council will decide. You hide behind your duty, behind your crown, behind your age… But I'm not afraid of anything. Do you hear me? Nothing, except one thing—losing you. I would rather burn in this fire myself than spend my whole life warming myself at someone else's cold hearth."

She stepped towards him herself—swiftly, not giving herself time to think, not allowing fear to bind her hands and feet again. In a rush, in a desperate lunge, she grabbed the collar of his traveling doublet with both hands, pulling him towards her with a strength he hadn't expected from her. The heavy Hand of the King's brooch, the symbol of his power and his damned duty, flashed and was immediately hidden beneath the folds of his cloak. Before Baelor could pull away—and did he even want to?—their faces were inches apart. To keep his balance, to avoid falling onto her, pressed against the tree, he had to brace his hands against the rough oak trunk on either side of her head. He was taller, broader, stronger—and yet he felt like a cornered animal, no longer knowing if it even wanted to escape.

"You won't lose me," his voice broke as he breathed these words directly onto her lips, almost touching them. "I will always be near. Always. As your uncle, as a friend. As an elder who is duty-bound to protect you."

He said this, but… did he himself believe what he was saying? Did he fully understand the meaning of the words he was uttering, words meant to be a saving lie for them both? He wanted to believe there was some truth in them, that he could somehow—reshape his feelings, compress them into acceptable familial boundaries. Only somewhere deep in his soul, in its darkest, most honest corner, he understood: such a relationship, if forced into the accursed bed of duty, would bring only pain. And the main thing—was he himself willing to suffer like that for the rest of his life?

"And what if being just a niece is not enough for me?" the princess whispered passionately, barely breathing, and as she spoke, her lips almost brushed against his. "What if being just your brother's daughter, whom you are obliged to teach and protect, is not enough? What if I love you not at all the way a niece should love her uncle? You know this. You've always known it."

He slammed his eyes shut—sharply, as if she had struck him—and a shadow passed over his face.

"Don't say that. Please," he exhaled, and his own voice sounded foreign to him: hoarse, almost pitiful. He wanted to laugh bitterly at himself, at his helplessness, at how easily this girl, whom he still remembered as a foolish child, shattered all his armor to pieces.

"Why?" she didn't relent. Her fingers, still clutching his doublet, loosened slightly but didn't let go. "Because it's the truth? Or because you feel the same way yourself, but you don't have the courage to admit it?"

He opened his eyes wide, and in them, in those bottomless dark eyes, such despair blazed, such raw, uncovered pain, that she froze, afraid to move. She searched them, trying to read the answer to her question, and suddenly felt her hands, still clinging to the thick fabric of his tunic, slide upward of their own accord. To his neck. To his heated skin, which she had so desperately wanted to touch all these long months. Her palms, chilled by the damp autumn air, by the cold that penetrated even her thick cloak, came to rest on his neck, and this contrast—her icy fingers and the heat of his blood—burned them both.

"Yes," he exhaled, and his face contorted into a grimace as if, at that very moment, a spear had pierced him, had run him through, and his insides were flooded with hot, salty blood. "Yes, I feel it. Damn you, girl, I feel it. And every night I lie awake, thinking of you. And every time you walk past me, I want to grab your hand, pull you to me, and never, do you hear me, never let you go. Every damned moment you smile at someone else, I want to break that someone's neck. Satisfied? Is this what you wanted?"

She looked at him, pale, with dilated, enormous pupils, and her lips trembled—whether from the cold or from what was happening inside her.

"Then why are you tormenting us both?" she whispered, barely moving her lips, and in that whisper there was a plea. "If you feel… if I mean something to you… why this torture?"

"Because I am your uncle," his voice cracked into a rasp, almost a moan. He said it as if the word itself was a sentence he had passed on himself and was powerless to appeal. Targaryen traditions, the customs of their ancestors, the incestuous marriages that were once the norm—all of it was foreign to him. He had grown up in a different time, at a different court, when close-kin unions in their house had faded away, become a dark legend, a shadow of the past not spoken of. But the princess could not, would not accept this attitude from him. To her, it was a betrayal—not of tradition, but of them. "Because I am nearly forty, and you have only just turned nineteen, and your whole life is still ahead of you. Because I am the heir to the Iron Throne, the King's Hand, and if a single living soul finds out what is happening here… do you have any idea what filth they'll throw at you? What slander, what vileness? They'll call you a wanton, a seductress, practically a witch who bewitched a foolish old man. And me—a dishonorable old fool who defiled his own niece. I cannot allow that. I have no right. I cannot let you ruin your life, ruin your future, ruin everything you could have, because of a foolish… because of some girlish infatuation."

She dug her fingers into his neck with such force that crimson marks would surely remain—bruises that would become for him a painfully sweet reminder of this day, of this mad forest, of her despair turned into victory. She wanted to feel him under her fingers—alive, real, hers. To prove to herself with every touch, with every cell of her body, that this was not a dream, not another painful delusion, not a trick of an imagination inflamed by long solitude, which had so many times painted similar pictures for her, only to shatter her heart with cruel reality come morning.

"This is not a foolish infatuation!" she exclaimed, and her voice, rising to a cry, tore through the silence of the autumn forest. But in that cry there was no anger, no reproach—only a desperate, plaintive plea to finally be heard by the one whose voice meant more to her than all the songs of all the minstrels in the world. "And I don't care about the filth! I don't care! What dare they say against the blood of the dragon? What do I care for their gossip, for their filthy tongues, for the whispers behind my back, when you stand here now, before me, and confess that I haven't been going mad alone all this time? I can endure anything. Anything they dare throw in my face, if you are by my side. If I know that in the evening I will go not to my empty, cold chambers, but to you. But if you push me away now..."

She sobbed—convulsively, brokenly, no longer able to hold back the tears that had long been a lump in her throat, suffocating her at night, threatening to overwhelm her at the most inopportune moments. She had balanced on this damned edge for so many days, so many endless nights, that now, when the dam had finally burst, it flooded out with unstoppable force. Tears streamed down her cheeks—large, salty, hot—falling onto the withered autumn leaves at their feet, and she didn't even try to wipe them away. Let him see. Let him know what his silence had cost her, those averted eyes, that damned propriety of his.

"...then life will no longer be worth living," she finished in a barely audible whisper, and in that whisper there was so much resignation, so much quiet, hopeless despair, that Baelor's heart would have shattered into pieces, had it still been made of flesh and blood, and not of that frozen stone he had so diligently tried to make it all these long months.

He grabbed her by the shoulders—sharply, impulsively—shook her so hard her head snapped back and her silver hair whipped across her face. Roughly. Desperately. Trying to reach her through the haze of her hysteria, through this flood of tears and confessions that threatened to sweep them both away. His eyes blazed with angry fire, but that anger was not directed at her—oh no, not at her. At himself. At his cowardice. At his damned propriety, at his duty, at all those years he had spent keeping his distance from her, years that had nearly destroyed them both.

"Don't you dare say that!" he growled, his voice, low and hoarse, coming out as almost an animal snarl. "Never! Don't you dare."

"Then stop turning away!" she cried back, looking at him through her tears, and in that outcry there was as much pain as there was defiance. Her voice, ringing and desperate, startled the birds in the crown of the old oak—they rose into the rapidly darkening sky in a noisy, frightened flock, showering them from above with a veritable rain of crimson and gold leaves. "Stop pretending I don't exist! If we are destined to burn—let us burn together. But I can no longer suffocate in this loneliness! I cannot wake up every morning with the thought that today you will again walk past me without even a glance!"

Her chest heaved beneath the fabric of her dress, large, salty tears burned her cheeks, her soul cried out for mercy—or for execution, she no longer distinguished between the two. She needed only one thing: for him to save her from herself, from this endless wavering between the hope that smoldered somewhere in her heart and the black, hopeless despair that engulfed her every evening. For him to free her from the power of his own hands and his own heart, which tormented her more cruelly than any sophisticated torture—with their damned inaccessibility.

He looked at her, and in his eyes a true storm raged. Desire, accumulated over years, suppressed, trampled down by the heavy boots of duty and honor. Fear of the inevitable—fear that stopping this now would be impossible, that there was no turning back. And an all-consuming, wild, no-longer-restrained love, which he had buried for so long under a bushel of propriety and decency. All of this now swirled in his soul in a frantic, frenzied dance, depriving him of the last crumbs of reason, sweeping away all the barriers he had built over the years.

And then, unable to bear another second of this torment, he wrenched her to him—wrenched her so hard that she slammed against his chest—and crushed his mouth to hers in a kiss.

Desperate. Hungry. Frenzied.

Like a drowning man who, after long minutes underwater, when his lungs are already burning and the last sparks of life are flashing in his mind, finally gasps for life-giving air. Like a starving beast finally reaching its long-awaited prey, no longer controlling its animalistic, primal nature. Like a boy experiencing for the first time the intoxicating, maddening taste of first love—though what boy, what first love...

She gasped.

The entire world—the autumn forest, the cold wind, the rustling leaves, the cries of startled birds—all disappeared, fell away somewhere, compressed into a single point of contact: their lips. Every sensation sharpened to an impossible, painful degree. She felt every moment: the searing touch of his lips—so firm and yet so gentle; his hands, like a steel band gripping her shoulders—his fingers digging into the fabric of her dress, surely leaving bruises; the frantic, mad pounding of his heart, which she felt even through the thick fabric of his tunic and her own ribcage. Her knees suddenly buckled, lost all strength, and she hung on him, suddenly powerless, like a rag doll. Her legs no longer held her—all the strength, all the fury, all the inhuman pain of the last weeks and months had drained out of her with her tears, leaving behind only an emptiness, which was instantly, immediately filled by a pulsating, all-consuming, painfully sweet desire to be even closer. To dissolve into him. To become him.

But her uncle's strong arms—beloved, the only one—did not let her fall. Caught her under her back, pulled her to him, pressed her against his body so tightly, as if afraid she would dissolve into the autumn air, disappear, turn into a ghost to mock him one last time. She clung to him with her hands—convulsively, feverishly, in a frenzy digging her fingers into the thick, rough wool of his travelling cloak on his back, crumpling the expensive fabric, not caring about anything in the world. She arched in his arms, pressing closer, grinding her hips against his, instinctively, by touch seeking that singular closeness she had been deprived of for so long. Feeling how tense his body was, how every muscle, every sinew trembled with barely restrained, bursting-forth passion, with years of hunger that now demanded its due.

She moaned—deeply, brokenly, unable to bear this sweet tension any longer, tension that still sought release. Her whole body trembled with a fine, uncontrollable shiver—whether from cold or from an excess of feeling—as Baelor's hands slid down her back, pressing into her sharp shoulder blades, tracing the line of her spine, descending lower, to her waist, pulling her even closer, if that were possible. She was burning. Burning alive in this dank autumn forest, under ancient oaks, and she wanted no salvation. No other salvation but him.

He tore his lips from hers only to draw in a ragged, whistling breath—and immediately pressed them to hers again, no longer kissing but seemingly devouring her, trying to drink her in, to sate himself with her for all the years he had deprived himself. To quell a hunger that tormented him more fiercely than any dragonfire. His palms roamed her back, buried themselves in her silver hair, tangled in it, gently tugging at strands, making her tilt her head back and bare her throat to his greedy, wet, burning kisses.

"My girl," he breathed into the hollow behind her ear, into the sensitive skin behind her lobe, and his voice sounded so unfamiliar, so foreign to the composed, impenetrable, calm prince and Hand he had been just an hour ago. "My little girl... What are you doing to me... What are you turning me into..."

She sobbed—not from pain anymore, but from an excess of feeling that swelled in her chest, finding no other outlet. From happiness so immense it barely fit within her body.

"I love you," she whispered into his neck, pressing her face into his heated skin, inhaling the scent she had known since childhood and which now, mixed with the smell of the forest and decaying leaves, seemed the most intoxicating aroma in the world. "I've loved you for so long... You have no idea how long. Since I was fourteen, and you first praised me for giving good counsel. You didn't even notice then, but I remembered it forever."

He froze for one endless moment, and then his hands clenched on her buttocks with such force that she nearly cried out—but it was a pleasant, sweet pain.

"I do," he replied hoarsely, burying his nose in the crown of her hair. "Oh, believe me, I do. Because I've loved you almost as long. I just never allowed myself to even think about it. I forbade myself. I strangled every feeling, every thought of you. And I thought I was succeeding."

She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes—those bottomless, multi-hued eyes that now, in the forest's half-light, seemed like two stars fallen from the heavens. There were no more storm clouds in them, no more lightning flashes, no more of that agonizing struggle that had tormented him just minutes ago. Only a quiet, calm, boundless sea, reflecting the autumn evening sky and her own face—happy, wet with tears, flushed with color.

"And now?" she asked almost soundlessly, with just her lips, afraid to frighten away this fragile, newborn happiness with a loud noise.

He ran his palm along her cheek—gently, tenderly—wiping away her tears with his thumb. Paused for a moment, tracing the line of her cheekbone, then moved to her chin, tilting her face up. And he smiled—that very smile she had loved so much in childhood: warm, a little sad, endlessly dear. The smile for which she would have done anything.

"And now," he said quietly, but in that quiet there was such strength, such resolve as she had never before seen in him, "we'll have to learn to live anew. Together. Not hiding, not looking back, not being afraid. If, of course, you haven't changed your mind. If this mad hour in the woods hasn't sobered you."

She laughed—ringingly, happily. Laughed, throwing her head back, and that laughter scattered through the forest, startling yet more birds, echoing somewhere in the distance.

"Never," she breathed, still laughing and crying at once. "Never in this world."

And she reached for him for another kiss—no longer that desperate, frenzied, almost bestial kiss like the first one. But a tender, long, promising one. The kind all their subsequent kisses would be.

Somewhere in the distance, a horn sounded again, drawn-out and bassy, reminding them of the world that existed beyond their small forest, beyond this oak, this clearing, this evening. Reminding them of the feast, of the guests, of the king, of duty, of the thousand little things that make up a life.

But they had no concern for that world. Today, that world could wait. Today, they had the right to nothing but each other.

Only someone thought otherwise.

Maekar's grumbling, dissatisfied voicerangg out quite nearby—seemingly just behind the nearest bushes:

"Where in seven hells are they?" He was clearly looking either for them or for his perpetually disappearing sons, who had taken it into their heads to go on a nighttime escapade. "I've walked the whole forest, and those scoundrels are nowhere to be found!"

They froze, staring at each other with wide eyes. The Princess pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing—hysterically, from the surprise and absurdity of the situation. Baelor, cursing under his breath—something he'd never been known to do before—hurriedly began straightening her cloak, smoothing her disheveled dress, tucking away stray strands of hair. She, in turn, with trembling hands, straightened his tunic, smoothed his ruffled hair.

"Easy," he whispered in her ear, quickly kissing her temple. "We go out one at a time. You first. I'll follow in a few minutes. And pretend you were just walking and got lost."

You stand where the eye does not reach.

Traitor, disloyal, unworthy. Usurper.

You had grown up hearing such words spoken about your family, in particular your father.

Blackfyre.

The name still hangs heavier than any crown ever could.

Since the downfall of the rebellion, you were forced to renounce your family name and pledge your allegiance to House Targaryen in front of King Daeron II, your uncle by blood. He had spared you, after all. Spared you and bound you to his heir so your father’s blood might never rise against the throne again.

Your father's demise, you believed, would somehow liberate you. It seemed like the perfect reason to seek forgiveness for his misdeeds and to distance yourself from the stain of your lineage, the burden of your name, and most significantly, the sins of your father.

But, on the contrary, for some reason, your life had deteriorated even further since the death of Daemon Blackfyre. The end of the rebellion had been sealed by arranging your marriage union with Prince Baelor.

To keep your remnant family from banishment to distant lands, your own hand had been the price.

The chariot comes to a halt in the courtyard, and for a long moment you do not move, hearing the herald announce your arrival, pronouncing your name.

From House Targaryen, he says. And the words rings so foreign to you that you scarcely realize he is referring to you.

Every time you hear that family name attached to your person, you are reminded that you are a traitor to the ghosts of your fallen brothers. Your father's shadow hangs heavy over you, black wings swarming around, crushing you under the weight of his own doom.

“They’re waiting, my Lady,” your attendant whispers softly.

Of course they are.

The crimson dress you have been forced to wear weighs like scale armor, a taunting reminder of the blood that flows through your veins.

“The Black Dragon’s daughter,” someone sneers from your right. “How dare she wears red?”

The ceremony goes by like a fever dream. The Septon recites sacred words about the union of two bloodlines, about peace and forgiveness, but to you they are nothing but empty words.

You feel Baelor's hand seeking yours to seal the pact; his touch is firm, yet surprisingly gentle. He does not squeeze, he does not claim, he only waits.

When your hands meet, a shiver runs through you, but you keep your eyes downcast on the embroidery of your own skirt.

You kneel when instructed and rise when told and you don't speak a single word to each other. The silence between you is an ocean deep and teeming with ghosts. Neither of you tries to pry the other into conversation, nor do you seek each other's gaze intrusively in the midst of the nobles cheering for a truce born of your own sacrifice.

“In the sight of gods and men, I hereby proclaim you husband and wife.”

The king inclines his head once in approval.

The Court claps even louder, sealing the union and sealing away the sorrow of the past behind it.

An hour later, the banquet degenerates into a torture of fake laughter and hypocritical toasts.

The mood becomes unbreathable, claustrophobic. Every time someone steps forward to congratulate the “Crown Prince and his new wife,” all you want to do is hurl insults and screams.

The Crown Prince.

Baelor... you had only heard of him. The image you had created in your mind is nothing like what he actually is. He has a dignified and charming presence, dark hair, and a pair of exceptionally gentle eyes that, when they're brave enough, fall upon you by his side, occasionally glancing sideways at you to ensure that you are physically still there.

He carries himself with quiet dignity, yes—but not cruelty.

Cruelty would have been easier, cruelty you understand.

The atmosphere in the Great Hall hangs heavy, with echoes of bitter memories flooding back, the sound of whispers of your name and the sting of venomous glances.

So many eyes.

Curious. Suspicious. Appraising.

As Lords Bracken and Peake surround Baelor to discuss matters of the Realm, you begin to feel truly suffocated.

Not thinking twice, you seize the opportunity. Your fingers dig into the fine satin of your dress, you lift your skirt just enough, and your feet fly over the floor.

You pass through the limestone archway, and instantly the clamour of political intrigue and your own marriage fades away, to be replaced by the rustle of the wind in the myrtle bushes and the sweet scent of summer roses. The Royal Garden feels like it did when you were but a child—comforting.

You freeze near a young oak tree, leaning your back against the trunk and focusing on steadying your erratic breathing. Your eyes begin a panicked, unconscious sweep of your surroundings, searching for an exit, a fence to climb over, a way to slip away.

Your lungs burn and your heart thumps in your ears as you stray from the main path and venture into the undergrowth until you come up against a fence of bushes, so tall and thick that it hides any view of the outside world.

Your fingers dig into the branches, looking for a place to hold on as you look up at the height of the massive shrubs, made to be unclimbable.

You quietly curse the weight of your gown and the tightness of your corset. You're figuring out how much it'll cost you to climb over to the other side without breaking an ankle or without messing up your hair—

“If you try to climb up there, I'm afraid the thorns of the hidden roses will ruin your hands before you reach the top, my lady.”

You flinch violently, releasing the branches with a huff of frustration, but you don't turn around just yet; you're too furious, too humiliated for having been caught trying to sneak away like a thief in your own home. And even worse, on your wedding day.

“Well, I prefer thorns to the forked tongues of the Lords in there,” you spit venomously, still with your back turned to him and gazing up at the top of the bushy wall. “And if you’re so keen on giving advice, you could start by learning not to stalk people in gardens. Go lick some Targaryen’s boots and leave me alone. I don't need another guard watching my every move.”

A tense silence falls over the garden, and you're waiting for a reprimand, an insult, or to be grabbed by the arm and escorted back to the castle.

But what you hear is a soft, humorous sigh.

“That's fair advice,” he agrees, and you can sense a hint of a smile in his words. “Although, technically, I'm not a guard.”

You turn slowly, head held high and fire gleaming in your eyes, ready to blast anyone who dares interfere with your escape plan.

“Look, don’t meddle in what doesn’t concern you—”

But the words die in your throat when you recognize him.

Prince Baelor stands before you, his hands interlaced in front of him gracefully. He doesn’t display the stern, triumphant expression you had braced yourself for. Much less does he have the sharp, judgmental tone he should have addressed the usurper's daughter with.

Your eyes widen as you realize, with a sinking feeling in your stomach, that you have just told the future king of the Seven Kingdoms to go lick some boots.

“I don’t want to meddle, but I’m afraid,” he adds with a slight tilt of his head, in your shock-stricken silence, “that I won't be able to have my own wife run away on our first day of marriage.”

The air gets stuck in your lungs, and the defiance you felt seconds ago falls apart in a flash, leaving you with cold chills running down your spine.

There are no guards around him, no White Cloaks, only him and his gaze, one that holds no offense or disdain, but rather sympathy and lighthearted humor.

“I... Y–your Grace...” you stumble, finally releasing the branch of the bush you were still clutching as if it were a weapon. Your cheeks, previously flushed with rage, now burn with crushing embarrassment as you give him an apologetic bow. “Do forgive me.”

Baelor steps forward to lend you a hand in helping you out of the undergrowth and flowerbeds and back onto the main paved path. You accept it immediately, avoiding eye contact as he carefully guides you by his side.

“Anyone would be overwhelmed in your situation, my lady,” he comforts you with his words and his gaze. Then, an eyebrow arches on his forehead, “but I never thought marrying me would cause such distress that you’d wish to run away.”

The ground beneath your feet seems to become wobbly as you walk beside him, and the warmth of his hand on yours is a puzzling contrast to the coldness you would expect from the man who helped quell your father's rebellion.

“It’s not... it’s not marriage that distresses me, Your Grace,” you assure him under your breath, your gaze focused on the tips of your shoes peeking out from under the silk. You feel your throat tighten, but your pride, though wounded, urges you to speak. “It’s—it’s this place. The walls seem to have grown since I was a child; they feel taller, more suffocating... and more red.”

“The Red Keep has that habit, it does,” he concedes, and for the first time you hear a tinge of weariness in his voice, but then he offers you a shy smile, tilting his head to seek your gaze. “But I’ve been told this was your favorite spot. I spent much of the morning making sure the gardeners didn't trim this section so much. I thought you might prefer a bit of... wild disarray, rather than the rigidity of the court.”

“Why are you so kind to me, my Prince?” you blurt out unexpectedly, the question spilling from your lips before you can hold it back.

Baelor’s eyes soften even more when they finally lock onto yours. Standing so close, you notice that each of his eyes has a different color, neither the purplish hue that characterized the other Targaryens, nor matching the dragon’s wrathful gaze. The sun of Dorne lingers beautifully in his complexion, with a sharp bridge of his nose, delicate lips, and expressive eyes.

The intensity of his stare alone sends a tingling sensation through your stomach, and you have to force yourself to maintain eye contact.

“Just call me Baelor,” he says, shaking his head dismissively. His smile morphs into a sheepish little grin, suddenly bashful now that you’re so close to him, looking up at him like that. “And you are my wife. You are more deserving of my kindness than anyone else in all the Seven Kingdoms.”

You had spent weeks building up a shell of resentment and fear, preparing yourself for a tormentor, but Baelor... Baelor is gentleness itself.

“Baelor,” you repeat in a whisper, rolling the name around on your tongue, tasting it. It sounds strange, less intimidating, but much more intimate.

He nods, and you notice how the tension in his shoulders also subsides as he hears you speak his name.

Together, you begin to walk slowly along the stone path, away from the fence you were trying to climbed over.

“I know you didn’t choose this,” he clears his throat, breaking the silence as he comes to a stop in front of a rose bush that exudes an enchanting fragrance. “I know my name is a reminder for what you lost. And I’m sorry about that, I really am. I wish it hadn’t been this way.”

You stand still and glance at him out of the corner of your eye, twisting your head to observe the bees buzzing around the flowers. As you watch the insects get lost among the crimson petals, it occurs to you that they move with a freedom you do not possess.

“You don’t have to apologize for winning, Baelor,” you eventually state. You turn a little to face him, keeping a safe distance. “My father chose his own path. I’m just… what’s left behind. And now I’ll have to pay for his mistakes for the rest of my life.”

“You are not your father,” he says quietly. “Just as I am not my own.”

You let out a brittle laugh. “You say that now. But the court will never forget. They look at me and see rebellion. Treason. They’ll be waiting for me to stab you in the back and betray you.”

“They look at you and see what frightens them,” Baelor corrects gently. “You are living proof that war ends. That enemies can sit at the same table. That blood does not have to answer blood forever.”

He looks like he’s absurdly trying to make this work.

“You are very good at saying the right thing,” you observe.

He smiles faintly. “I rehearse them in my head. Often badly.”

That earns the smallest curve of your lips.

Silence falls again, but it is softer this time, sess suffocating, more comforting. Somewhere beyond the hedges, a fountain trickles steadily as the bees continue their lazy orbit around the roses.

“If you truly rehearse your words,” you break the silence quietly, looking up at him sheepishly, “what did you plan to tell me tonight? Once the doors to our chambers were closed and the Lords were no longer watching us?”

The afternoon sunlight accentuates the Dornish tones of his skin as well as the sincere radiance in his two-toned eyes when they look back at you.

“I had rehearsed a speech about duty and loyalty,” he admits sincerely, breathing a sigh. “About how our families need this union to heal.” Then his fine lips twist into a frown of distaste. “Now I just want to let you know that you don’t have to be my wife in the way they expect.”

You look at him in utter disbelief, your eyebrows raised. In Westeros, an unconsummated marriage is a sign of weakness, a loophole that one’s enemies absolutely relish in exploiting.

“You're a future King,” you breathe, the shock finally overriding your caution. “The succession, the optics... the court would tear you apart if they thought you couldn't—or wouldn't—claim your prize.”

The word 'prize' tastes like ash in your tongue. It’s what you’ve been called in every hushed corridor of the Red Keep since you arrived.

“I am a Prince of the Blood,” he states, “And you are a woman who has lost her home, her name, and her family. I will not add your dignity to that list of thefts.” He pauses, his gaze drifting to the scuffed toes of your shoes—the evidence of your attempted climb. “If the door is locked from the inside, the court will assume what they wish to assume. Let them whisper. They have been whispering since the Redgrass Field; a few more rumors won't break the throne.”

You offer him a warm, genuine smile. “Thank you, Baelor”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Baelor replies, his voice light. “We still have to survive the rest of the evening. And the sun is setting. If we stay out here much longer, my father will send the Kingsguard to find us, and I’d rather not explain to Ser Gwayne why my lady wife has oak bark in her hair.”

You instinctively reach up, your fingers brushing against your temple. Sure enough, a small shard of bark is tangled in a stray lock. But before you can pluck it out, Baelor’s hand is there. His touch is lightning—brief, electric, and devastatingly careful.

He removes the debris and holds it up like a trophy before letting the wind take it.

He offered you his arm and this time, you don’t hesitate. You slipped your hand into the crook of his elbow, the fine fabric of his doublet smooth beneath your fingertips.

You stand by the foot of the massive bed, your fingers nervously twisting the silk of your skirts.

“You look like you’re waiting for an executioner, wife,” Baelor points out, unbuttoning the top buttons of his doublet to breathe more easily, exhausted in the aftermath of the overwhelming experience of the ceremony.

“I expected the executioner to have a less friendly face,” you reply quietly, forcing a small smile as your fingers finally release the silk of your skirt.

Baelor places his doublet on an oak chair and runs a hand through his dark hair, undoing the perfect composure he had maintained through the entire feast. Without the layers of heavy silk and state jewels, he looks less like a legendary prince and more like just a man.

“I’m afraid the only punishment awaiting you tonight is absolute silence and a bed that's too big for one person,” he responds, gesturing gracefully toward the bed as he walks over to one of the tables and pours water into two glasses.

You bite your lip, observing how he moves around the room with peaceful confidence in your direction, offering you one of the glasses.

“Baelor... the court is not naive. Tomorrow they will search for marks, they will search for that... ‘proof’ we spoke of. If the sheets are clean, your father will know.” You shake your head gently, taking a long sip of water. “Your enemies will know. They will say that you are not man enough to claim what is yours by right.”

“Let them say what they want,” he shrugs, unconcerned. “I’d rather they question my manhood than have me question my own honor. I won’t take by force what should be a voluntary act of devotion. You are not spoils of war, even if my father sees you that way.”

After taking a long sip of water himself, he draws a small dagger from his belt, its blade glinting in the candlelight.

Without taking his eyes off yours, he presses the tip against the palm of his hand. A small trickle of red blood, as vibrant as the dress you are wearing, flows from the wound. And with an uncanny sense of calm, he walks over to the bed and presses his hand against the white linen sheets, staining them irrevocably.

“There’s your proof,” he declares, letting out a sigh. “On the morrow, the maids will see what they want to see.”

You approach him quickly, your bare feet scarcely making a sound on the rugs as you dig through a small chest nearby, where you know the maids keep basic supplies. You find a roll of clean linen bandages and a bowl of water that had been left out for nighttime washing.

“My prince, let me,” you plead, carefully taking hold of his wrist.

He seems a little surprised by your initiative, but he doesn't pull his hand away. You sit down on the edge of the bed, right next to the stain he made, and invite him to sit down beside you. With a gentleness you weren't aware you could muster, you clean the wound with fresh water.

“You didn’t have to do this,” you murmur without looking up, focused on the crimson line across his palm. “It's quite a deep wound for a simple deception.”

“A prince must be willing to bleed for his people,” Baelor reassures you calmly, observing how carefully you wrap the bandage around his hand. “And you are my people now. My family.”

Your fingers brush against his warm skin as you adjust the knot of the bandage.

“Thank you, husband,” you whisper in gratitude, your hands cradling his in a tender embrace.

Baelor does not withdraw his hand; instead, he loosely closes his fingers around yours, holding them in a gesture that seeks to offer comfort. Only for a fleeting moment, because right after that, he's already pulling away from you, putting himself on his feet.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he soothes you, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve spent my whole life learning to be a good heir, a good warrior, and a good son. But I think I’d rather learn to be a good man for you.”

Then he explains that he will be sleeping on the settee by the fireplace, assuring you that you can have the bed to yourself, but you barely hear what he is saying, for you can only sit there gazing at him in silence, observing the subtle gestures of his body, the shifting expressions on his face, and the way his eyes linger on your face.

You can only sit there, watching him as though he were a riddle you had not yet decided how to solve.

He moves about the chamber with deliberate calm, removing the last of his rings and placing them carefully upon the table.

“You needn’t look at me as if I’ve grown a second head,” he points out abruptly, and you can notice a faint flush creeping up his neck beneath your scrutiny.

“I’m trying to decide,” you hesitate, “whether you are very foolish... or very brave.”

He pauses, considering that. “I’ve been accused of both before.”

“You would truly sleep there?” you ask, glancing at the narrow settee by the hearth.

“If it grants you peace, yes.”

Peace. That’s what this is all about.

Because peace is safe, peace is distant, it means space.

And you are not entirely certain you want him so far away.