the castle is silent when aemond finds you.

the war has taken much, but it has given in turn—a twisted sort of justice, if one were to see it that way. you were meant to be his once. a betrothal forged in duty, in legacy, in fire. house of the dragon and house of the wolf; a match of the millennium.

yet house stark, ever proud, ever stubborn, cast that promise aside to swear loyalty to the blacks. the betrothal was broken. a slight unanswered, until now.

you kneel before him in the great hall of harrenhal, wrists bound, face streaked with soot and defiance. despite your ruin, you are every bit the specter of what was denied him. aemond looms above you, clad in blackened steel, his eye-patch a dark void.

“it seems the old gods have a sense of irony,” he muses, voice like the edge of a blade. “the wolf who should have been a dragon now kneels at my feet.”

he steps closer, slow, deliberate, the weight of his gaze as heavy as the cold northern air you once called home.

“tell me, does your honour warm you now?” his tone is almost curious, almost gentle, but the cruel amusement beneath it betrays him. “does it keep you as safe as the brothers who left you behind?”

he does not touch you, but his presence alone is a shackle.

“i have half a mind to send you back to winterfell in chains, let your kin see what their defiance has wrought,” he murmurs, tilting his head, studying you. “but i think not.”

his lips curve, something dark curling in the depths of his voice. the firelight flickers against the cold glint of his blade as he lifts it beneath your chin.

“no, i have waited long enough for what was mine—and wolves, i hear, can be tamed.”