As always, the pregnancy was killing the poor Queen Consort Aemma Arryn.

She lay in her bed, fanning herself with trembling, half-prayed movements, the wide-open windows doing little to bring relief. The Red Keep’s stone walls held the heat like a furnace, pressing down on her chest, her hips, her head. Every ache in her body throbbed with cruel insistence, and her linen shift clung to her like a second skin.

She had known what this pregnancy would cost her. Seven had come before, and six had died—some quietly in her womb, others in the cradle. Only Rhaenyra had survived, bright and alive, defying every expectation—but a girl, and thus never enough for the court, nor for Viserys’s restless advisors.

Viserys, for his part, was rarely here. He spent his days among the Valyrian statues in his private chambers, his gaze distant as he admired their cold perfection; at feasts, where wine and celebration masked his anxieties; in ceremonies where the crown pressed on his brow but never on his heart. He loved his daughter—of that, Aemma did not doubt—but he was a king first, always, and a husband and father second.

Aemma’s isolation had grown over the years. The maesters had done nothing to ease it. Their distant hands, their cold insistence, the way they spoke as if her body were a vessel rather than a living, feeling woman—every visit left her smaller, weaker, more fragile.

Then a maid stumbled in, bowing low, voice trembling. “Your Grace…a doctor has arrived.”

Aemma blinked. She had not expected anyone—certainly not a doctor from outside the maesters’ circle. Someone whose methods, knowledge, even gender were unknown. This stranger had come not by the Faith, not by the maesters, but by a letter she had sent weeks ago in quiet desperation.

Her chest tightened. Perhaps this was her last hope. Perhaps it would not save her—but it was different. It was something beyond the cold calculations of the maesters.

Every movement sent shards of pain spiraling through her body, yet she raised herself weakly, gripping her fan like a lifeline.

This is it, she thought. My last chance. And I may not survive it.

Outside, the castle hummed with life—the distant clang of preparations for feasts, the laughter of courtiers, the hollow perfection of Viserys’s celebrations. He did not come to her bedside. He did not see her suffering. He was present in the halls, among statues and feasts, while she lay in silent agony, alone.

Aemma exhaled slowly, steeling herself against the pain and fear. The unknown doctor could be her salvation—or the end.