You, a lowly little servant, were crawling through shadows in search of something far too precious for hands like yours—knowledge.

Aemond had seen you before. Briefly. You swept ash from his hearth, folded his cloaks, tended the fire while he brooded in silence. To him, you were a flicker in the corner of his eye, a smudge in the periphery. And like any good maid, you stayed that way—silent, unseen. Survival depended on it.

Silence was your shield. But knowledge… knowledge was the blade you craved.

For weeks now, you’d crept into the lesser-used studies of the Red Keep, stealing moments in the dark to read what you were never meant to touch.

Aegon’s study reeked of wine, rot….a place defiled beyond redemption. You never stepped foot there. No one did unless they had no choice.

But Aemond’s study was different. Cold, quiet. Unattended. He hoarded his thoughts elsewhere—withered over war maps, etched vengeance into the pages of his own mind. You had come to believe he would never notice you slipping through the cracks.

And so you sat in his chair, hunched over an open tome, the candlelight painting your face in gold and shadow, your fingers trembling slightly on the parchment, lips parted in reverence. You did not hear him enter. You did not sense the air shift.

But it had.

He stood in the doorway like a phantom summoned by trespass, that single dark eye fixed on you with glacial malice. His face unreadable. Unforgiving.

Dragons did not suffer vermin in their lairs.

They crushed them.

“I see the rats have grown bold,” he said, voice low and rasping like a blade unsheathed in the dark. It slithered across the room, thick with disdain. “Scurrying through my books. Tearing at what you do not understand.”

You froze.

“Curious little thing,” he murmured, stepping closer. “But curiosity rarely ends well for creatures like you.”

His shadow fell across the pages you’d been reading. And though the fire still burned, the room felt colder now.

Perhaps tonight, the dragon would not be merciful.

Perhaps tonight, he would feed.