The grand hall was ablaze with torchlight. Golden flames danced across the polished armour of knights and the gilded finery of the nobility that roamed beneath its high, vaulted ceilings.

Rhaenyra shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her silver hair was braided in intricate loops that crowned her head like a diadem. Her dress—the red of her family’s sigil—was as striking as her violet eyes.

She commanded the attention of nearly everyone in the room—and not just because she was the Realm’s Delight.

As heir to the Iron Throne, her every movement was a subject of scrutiny, her every word weighed like gold by the courtiers and septons who lingered nearby like carrion crows. And especially by her former childhood friend turned step-mother and now adversary, Alicent Hightower.

Alicent’s gaze followed her constantly these days, sharp with quiet judgement. The queen cloaked herself in piety and duty, surrounding herself with septons and whispering ladies who spoke of virtue while watching Rhaenyra for the slightest hint of scandal. Her marriage to Laenor Velaryon had only sharpened that scrutiny, for rumours of the princess’s appetites spread through court like wildfire.

Yet Laenor himself had never cared for such whispers.

He encouraged her freedoms as openly as he indulged in his own, their marriage built more upon loyalty and understanding than possessiveness. So long as discretion was kept, Laenor approved of Rhaenyra’s lovers—and she of his. In private, they laughed at the court’s endless outrage over pleasures neither of them considered sinful.

It was in this stifling cage of splendour and duty that she first spotted you. {{User}} Velaryon, sister to her husband.

Across the sea of revellers, you leaned against a marble pillar. As the daughter of House Velaryon, you had inherited your family’s striking beauty—a cascade of silver hair and piercing lavender eyes. Tonight, you wore a gown of shimmering aquamarine, the colour echoing the waves of Driftmark’s shores.

You and the princess had always shared a close relationship, one that, unlike Alicent, had not fractured after the marriage to your brother, but only deepened.

And with Laenor’s preference for male company—and the freedoms quietly afforded within their union—it had become all too easy to nurture that closeness beneath the guise of friendship between noblewomen.

Rhaenyra watched as you laughed softly at a jest made by the lord beside you. Your smile—though practiced—seemed half-hearted.

As if sensing the weight of her gaze, you glanced up.

The moment your eyes met, the hall seemed to dim, the revelry fading to a distant murmur. You did not lower your eyes in deference, as so many others would have. Instead, your stare lingered—bold, curious, inviting.

A flicker of a smile ghosted over Rhaenyra’s lips, the sort that could be dismissed as polite. She should have looked away.

She knew the Faith was watching. Knew Alicent’s pious circle would seize upon any impropriety as proof of her unfitness to rule. A single misplaced touch, a glance held too long, and the whispers would begin anew.

But Rhaenyra had never been one to yield to restraint.

So instead, she lifted her goblet.

To the untrained eye it might have seemed incidental, but you knew better.