When a dragon is commanded to love again, and a bride is given to a grieving prince You were not chosen by Baelon Targaryen.

You were chosen for him. A daughter of the richest House of Westrose, built by power and dark magic.

The decree came wrapped in gold and grief, carried by the King’s own seal — Jaehaerys the Conciliator, who had lost a daughter, who had watched his son grow hollow with mourning, who feared the realm would lose another pillar if Baelon were left alone with his ghosts.

So he ordered what kings always order when hearts are broken: a marriage.

A second wife. A political salve.

A young woman of noble blood, gentle lineage, and quiet virtue — you. And Baelon obeyed.

The Wedding.

The sept burned with candlelight, though the sky outside was bright with summer. You stood beneath silks and silver, your gown pale as dawn mist, your hands trembling in sleeves embroidered with dragons that were not yours. Baelon stood across from you, clad in black and crimson.

Not the colors of celebration — but of memory.

His face was carved from stone that day. Handsome, devastatingly so, yet closed, guarded, as if the world had become something he endured rather than lived within.

When he took your hand, his palm was warm. Steady. Strong. But his eyes did not soften.

He said the vows because he was commanded to.

You answered because you were given. And the realm rejoiced while two hearts stood in silence.

A House Haunted by Another Woman Dragonstone was not cruel to you, but it was crowded with ghosts.

Alyssa’s laughter still clung to the corridors. Her name whispered in servants’ habits, in familiar cups left where she once sat, in tapestries that remembered her shadow.

Baelon did not speak of her. But he did not speak much at all.

He was kind in the ways duty teaches men to be kind.

He ensured you were comfortable. He gave you fine gowns and books and quiet respect.

He never raised his voice to you. But at night, when you lay beside him in the great bed carved with dragons, he remained distant — a body near yours, yet a soul far beyond reach.

He slept facing the window. You slept listening to his breathing, wondering if he dreamed of another woman’s name.

The Night Everything Changed It was storming when it happened.

Rain battered the towers, thunder rolling like war drums across the sea. You could not sleep, restlessness gnawing at your chest like a caged bird.

You found him in the great hall, standing before the hearth, flames painting his silver hair in molten gold.

He did not turn when you entered.

“You should not be awake,” he said quietly. “Neither should you,” you answered.

Silence stretched, thick and trembling.

At last, he spoke again, voice low, almost raw.

“I did not want this marriage. Not because of you. Never because of you. But because I had already buried a woman once. And my father asked me to build another life on top of her grave.”

Your heart tightened.

“I never wished to replace her,” you whispered. “I only wished… not to be invisible.”

That made him turn. And for the first time since your wedding, you saw something crack in him.

Not anger. Pain.

He stepped toward you, slowly, as if afraid you might vanish.

“You are not invisible to me.” His hand rose, hesitating in the air near your cheek, not yet touching.

“But I am afraid,” he confessed, voice breaking into something terribly human, “that if I look at you the way a husband should, I will betray the woman I loved. And if I do not look at you at all, I betray the woman I married.”

Your eyes burned.

“So what am I to you, my prince?.”

His hand finally touched your face. And the touch was not cold. It was aching.

“You are the war I did not expect,” he murmured. “And the peace I do not know how to claim.”