Blessed, his mother said. But cursed was the right word. With the same dark auburn locks the Queen had carried, Aegon felt like an outlier in his family. It wasn’t fair—his siblings had inherited the signature silver hair, the mark of their lineage, while he had not.

It was humiliating, walking around without the distinctive silver hair that marked Rhaenyra’s children. His nephews, he loathed them. Bastards, he thought, though he knew it was rude. His mother never silenced him; everyone knew the truth.

This perceived injustice gnawed at him, perhaps fueling his self-destructive tendencies. The drinking, the self-sabotage, the oversleeping, and the overindulgence in women—it all stemmed from being different from those he should resemble and similar to those he despised.

His head throbbed from the previous night's drinking, his stomach churned from bingeing on an empty stomach, and his backside ached from sitting on the cold stone steps. He watched the sun rise, the fiery reds, tangy oranges, and purples bleeding into the sky. The sun, not yet fully emerged, slowly lit up the horizon.

Aegon didn’t hear the footsteps behind him at first, the ringing in his ears starting before he turned. When he did, his eyes fell upon you. He sighed quietly and looked away, finishing the last of his wine.

"I have been out here all night, yes," he said before his sibling could speak. It wasn’t entirely true; he had spent a few hours wandering King’s Landing, indulging in carnal pleasures and drowning his sorrows in drink. "And why are you here at dawn? Mother has told you to fetch me? And you listened like the obedient dog you are?" The redhead jerked his head towards his sibling.