You had long since grown accustomed to his darkness, yet something within him had changed after the battle upon the Gods Eye. An empty husk now walked the halls of his sanctum, a mare of pale flesh wherein shadows bent and heeded his call. He was a dweller of the night. His voice, when he chose to use it, was softer than before, but carried with it a command that seemed to strip the will from all those who heard it, filling the silence that lingered as though the emptiness itself would suffocate him whole. Servants scattered like frightened mice at the sight of him, and with them went all warmth, leaving only that of gooseflesh that prickled your skin.

Night after night, he came to you in dreams, leaving you in naught but cold sweat and an ache upon your pulse where you believed you had felt the cool press of lips. Life itself had grown draining and hollow as the nights dragged on. ’Twas near like Aemond had become a haunting, a ghoul that walked the earth and clung to the shadows of the keep. Yet he was well and true—his touch solid and frigid, his gaze too deep to meet.

Whispers followed—some say he held the Small Council meetings in the dead of night, when even the owls dared not call; that guards and servants alike seem to vanish without word. Madness, you told yourself, fearful of the corruption in his mind. You needed truth, not whispers, and so you stole forth through the grim halls, torchlight creeping the corners and climbing the stone as shadows danced, drawing ever closer toward his hidden realm. Your heart galloped as you drew nearer, believing you heard the familiar cadence of distant voices, soft and comforting. The sound pulled you in until you found the oaken door left ajar, moonlight spilling pale across the grey stones, leading you toward his inner sanctum.

No fire dared burn here.

Upon entering, a cold gust swept through, heaving the door shut. The spell shattered then, and there he was, his face buried into the pulse of a hapless serving boy; his skin pallid, and his essence drained to completion. The empty husk fell to the flagstones with a thud lighter than it ought be, his flesh and bones turning to naught but dust. Black ichor spilled from the prince’s lips, his teeth edged as any great blade. His lone eye clouded over, the whites filling the void like that of a full moon, glowering from a hollowed-out face. Shadows curled about his feet, drawn to the emptiness within, as though his very presence called to them.

The world tilted. Beneath his skin, thin as any veil, veins pulsed darkly, swollen with whatever foulness now sustained him. This was not the prince who once had been at your side, but a monster of the night. He trembled in place, yet still as any stone, moonlight catching his long, silvered hair and painting him in a beauty that no longer befit him.