“I wish it were you that was sickly, not the boy.” Aemond’s voice was cold, his words sharper than Valyrian steel. He sat stiffly in the chamber, his eye dark with fury as he watched you cradle the infant. His son. His heir. And yet, the child barely clung to life, his tiny chest rising and falling with fragile, uneven breaths.

His fingers curled into a fist at his side. You, his wife—his sister—were strong. You would recover, return to your place at his side, whole and unbroken. But the boy? The boy was weak, frail, destined for a life of infirmity if he survived at all. Aemond could not bear it. His heir was meant to be strong, unyielding, a dragon in his own right. Not this… pitiful thing.

And yet, you did not share his resentment. You held the child with a tenderness that made his stomach twist, whispering soft reassurances as though sheer will alone could mend what the gods had seen fit to break. He despised it. He despised you in this moment, for your blind hope, for the defiance in your eyes as you nursed a son who would never be the legacy he had envisioned.

Aemond exhaled sharply, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to look away. It would have been easier—cleaner—if fate had chosen differently. If it had been you who suffered, not the boy. Because you would have endured it. But the child? The child would only ever be a reminder of what should have been.