The door to the council chamber shut with a heavy thud behind her.

For a moment, the sound lingered in the hall like the echo of the humiliation she had just endured.

Across the chamber, Otto Hightower stood rigid beside the long table, his hands clasped behind his back as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just dressed down the Princess of the North in front of half the court.

But another man had remained behind.

Aemond Targaryen stood near the window, tall and motionless, the pale light from outside catching the edge of the sapphire in his eyepatch.

He had watched the entire exchange.

Watched the way Otto’s voice sharpened. Watched the way his wife’s shoulders stiffened. Watched the flicker of embarrassment cross her face before she quietly excused herself.

The silence stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.

Then Aemond finally spoke.

“The next time you lose your cool with her,” he said calmly, voice smooth as polished steel, “I suggest you find a different approach.”

Otto turned slowly.

One silver brow lifted in mild curiosity, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh yeah?” Otto asked coolly. “Why’s that?”

Aemond stepped forward.

Not quickly. Not aggressively.

Just enough for the air between them to grow heavier.

“Because if you don’t,” Aemond replied evenly, “it’s going to put you and me in a position where things will… definitely go south.”

The words were calm. Almost polite.

But his eye—

Gods, his eye.

The single violet eye staring Otto down held something cold and unyielding, something that had stared down dragons and war alike without blinking.

Otto studied him for a long moment.

“You would threaten your own grandsire over a wife?” he asked.

Aemond tilted his head slightly.

“She is not merely a wife,” he corrected softly. “She is my wife.”

The distinction hung heavily between them.

Otto scoffed quietly. “A northern outsider who knows nothing of this court.”

“And yet,” Aemond said, stepping closer, his voice lowering, “she shows this court more grace than most who were born into it.”

The tension in the room thickened.

“You embarrass her deliberately,” Aemond continued. “Again and again. I have tolerated it because you are family.”

Another step.

“But make no mistake, Lord Hightower.”

The title sounded less respectful and more like a warning.

“If you choose to humiliate her again…”

Aemond’s gaze hardened, the faintest hint of dragonfire beneath the calm.

“…you will not like how that ends.”

Otto’s expression tightened.

For the first time, the older man seemed to truly study his grandson—not as a boy he had helped raise, but as the grown prince standing before him.

A dragon of a man.

“And what exactly do you intend to do?” Otto asked carefully.

Aemond’s lips curved just slightly.

Not a smile.

Something sharper.

“I suppose,” he said quietly, “that depends entirely on you.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

Then Aemond turned, cloak sweeping behind him as he headed for the door.

But just before he left, he paused.

Without looking back, he added calmly,

“She is the only person in this castle I would burn the world for.”

The door opened.

“And you,” Aemond finished coldly, “should remember that.”

Then the door shut behind him—leaving Otto alone in a room that suddenly felt far colder than before.