Aerion stood at the arched window of his solar, fingers curled around the cool iron railing, watching the courtyard below where the new septa had just arrived.

You.

Your white robes caught the light like fresh snow on Dragonstone's black shores; impossibly clean against the dust of the yard. The Mother Superior had bowed low when she presented you, murmuring something about your devotion, your suitability for spiritual counsel in the royal household. Aerion had smiled then, the polite curve of lips his father always praised as courtly, while inside something coiled tighter than a whip.

He had seen you first months ago, in the Great Sept of Baelor during one of those interminable prayers Maekar insisted the family attend. You had knelt three rows ahead, head bowed, the candlelight sliding over the delicate line of your neck where the wimple met skin. Something in the way you folded your hands had hooked into him like a barb. Not lust, but hunger. The kind that made his mouth water at the thought of biting through something fragile until it bled sweetness.

Now you were here. Transferred. His doing, though no one would ever prove it. A quiet word to the High Septon, a generous donation to the Faith in his father's name, a suggestion that the royal women needed gentler guidance than the sour old crows who usually served. And here you were, stepping down from the wheelhouse with that same measured grace, eyes downcast.

Aerion's thumb traced the edge of a ruby ring, the stone warm from his skin. My sweet little septa. You have no idea what you've walked into.

He turned from the window as a servant announced your arrival at the antechamber. Aerion smoothed the front of his doublet (red velvet slashed with gold, sleeves trailing like dragon wings) and strode out.

You stood in the center of the room, hands clasped at your waist, the scent of incense clinging to you like a second skin. Lavender and myrrh, pure and maddening. Up close your eyes were the color of storm clouds over Blackwater Bay, gray and fathomless, and they lifted only enough to meet his boots before dropping again.

"Septa," he said, voice low and smooth, the way he spoke to ladies at court when he wanted them to blush. "Welcome to the royal household. My sisters—my dear sisters—will be most grateful for your prayers."

You murmured thanks, voice barely above a whisper. Something about the Seven guiding you, about serving with humility. Aerion barely heard the words; he was watching the way your throat moved when you swallowed, the faint tremor in your fingers that you tried to hide by pressing them harder together.

He stepped closer. The air shifted, grew heavier with the smell of ambergris on his skin. "You must be weary from the journey," he said. "The roads from the Starry Sept are unkind this time of year. Dust. Heat. Bandits who think nothing of stripping a holy sister bare."

Your lashes flickered. A tiny flinch. "I am accustomed to hardship, my prince," you answered. "The Faith teaches us to embrace it."

Aerion smiled, slow and sharp. "Does it? How fortunate. Some of us prefer to inflict it."

The silence stretched. He watched the color rise in your cheeks. He wanted to press his thumb there, feel if it burned. Instead he gestured to the corridor. "Come. I will show you to your chambers myself. The sept here is small, but adequate. And private."