Valarr Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to an heir, stood at the window of his chambers in the Red Keep and watched the banners stir in the wind. The city below roared with life, fishmongers shouting at the river gate, smiths hammering in Flea Bottom, the bells of septs tolling faintly over Blackwater Bay, but all of it seemed distant to him.

His world, for the moment, was no larger than the bed behind him.

There, propped among silken pillows the color of dusk, lay his husband, his beautiful, impossible husband, eldest son of Rhaegel Targaryen and Alys Arryn. At four-and-twenty, he was already father to a brood that rivaled that of their formidable uncle Maekar, which Valarr found endlessly amusing.

Seven daughters. And now, at last, a son.

The babe slept in the crook of his sire’s arm, a monstrous thing of ten pounds at birth, so robust that even the maesters had muttered in wonder. He was round as a summer peach, all rolls and solemn frowns, with a shock of black hair like his father’s, yet through it ran a single, unmistakable streak of silver, bright as dragonfire.

Valarr had laughed when he first saw it.

“Even the gods could not decide which of us he favors,” he had said.

His husband had only smiled, exhausted and radiant, pale lilac eyes soft as dawn. Those eyes, rarer even than Valarr’s own violet kin, had undone him the first time he’d seen them. Black hair, moon-pale skin, the elegant, sharp-boned beauty of old Valyria tempered by the falcon grace of Arryn blood.

A rare male omega, the maesters had whispered when he first presented. A political treasure. A curiosity. A blessing.

To Valarr, he had been none of those things. He had simply been his.

Their daughters had come in quick succession, like summer storms rolling over Blackwater Bay.

Aerea first, bold from the moment she could stand. Eight years old now, with silver-gold hair and those pale lilac eyes she had stolen from her sire.

Maegella followed, red-gold like Dondarrion flame, with Valarr’s ice-blue eyes, an inheritance that startled courtiers who forgot, sometimes, that not all dragonlords bore violet. A silver streak marked her right side, much like her namesake uncle Matarys. She was sharp-tongued and quicker-witted still, sassy and bright.

Visenya, tall and fierce at six, with braided silver-gold hair and dark violet eyes, preferred wooden swords to dolls. She bloodied squires twice her age and had announced her intention to squire for Maekar one day, as if it were a matter already settled. There was alpha steel in that one.

Rhaenys, sweet and five, loved music and movement more than dragons. She danced in corridors and sang to the stablehands. adored riding with her father across the kingswood.

Baela at four bore Martell dusk in her eyes, deep and dark, shot through with violet sparks. Two thick silver-gold streaks framed her face. Bold as any Dornish princess.

Jacaera, solemn at three, trailed maesters through dusty libraries, brown-haired and blue-purple-eyed, clutching scrolls larger than her arm. She would have been named Jaehaerys had she been born a boy, and perhaps the old king would have approved of the scholarly bent she displayed.

Daerina, two and perpetually drowsy, was her sire’s shadow. Thick black hair, pale skin, lilac eyes half-lidded with sleep. She preferred to curl against her father’s side and refused slumber without him near. Valarr suspected dragon-dreams might one day haunt that gentle head.

Seven daughters. Seven proofs of love and lineage and the tireless strength of the omega who bore them.

It was no secret that his husband had scarcely known a year free of childbearing since their wedding. The court whispered, of the prince who seemed forever with child.

Valarr had heard the whispers.

He had also heard, two nights past, as his husband, flushed, exhausted, but smiling, murmured against his shoulder. “Perhaps… we slow now.”

Valarr had pressed a kiss to black hair damp with sweat. “If you wish it.”

He had meant it. The son changed nothing of that. And yet, Gods, but he was proud.