At the dawn of his reign, Jacaerys walked as one who had survived by accident. The war had left him orphaned of mother, brothers, and betrothed — and though crowned king atop the ashes of two extinct sides, there was no glory in wearing a mantle woven with so much blood. Baela had been buried at Dragonstone with all due rites; Rhaenyra, whose bones were never returned, became the name of a tragedy. And he, who should have avenged his dead, ended up ruling in their name.

The realm, emptied of coffers and faith, did not crumble entirely only because he was, after all, a good king. Prudent, attentive, beloved by the council and tolerated by the people, who saw in him not a hero, but a pause in calamity. When they accepted his alliance with House Rogare — foreign and obscenely rich — it was because there was no other choice. The promised woman would bring gold, ships, an alliance with Essos, and a beauty said to paralyze even the men of Lys.

She arrived. And hated everything.

“This place reeks of wet stone,” she said on her second day in King’s Landing, in front of the septas. Jacaerys could not contain his laughter. The lords hesitated, but laughed too. He was the king, after all. And if the king laughed, everyone else had to laugh as well.

She dressed however she pleased, spoke without thinking — and even when she thought, it still sounded like an affront. She called her ladies-in-waiting “crows in lace,” refused to embroider, claiming needles made her ill, and disappeared from banquets just to sit on the floor with squires and watch tourneys. Once, she barged into a Small Council meeting just to declare that a vassal house’s sigil looked like “a drunken pigeon with diarrhea.”

He nearly fell from his chair. That woman was undoing what little dignity the court still had. And he? He was falling in love.

He began living to please her. He sent for spices, musicians, tapestries from her native city. He commissioned a rare breed of dog from Essos, small and furry, and when she saw it, she exclaimed, “That’s a deformed rabbit!” She laughed so much that everyone laughed with her. The dog was then named Rabbit, and it slept at the foot of the royal bed.

Not that she always wanted to sleep there. Some nights, she asked for another room, looked at him with annoyance, locked herself away without explanation. On those nights, Jacaerys wandered the corridors like a rejected lover. He ordered fresh figs, blue linen cloths, objects that reminded her of the sea back home to be left at her door.

He had a celebration arranged with costumes and dances from her culture — lords, knights, and ladies were made to learn the steps, don colorful robes and fake jewels, while she, barefoot, smiled with rare delight. After that night, they whispered behind his back that he was a lapdog, the queen’s well-trained pet. So be it. He laughed at that too.

On good days, she danced for him. A dance never taught in Westeros — made of ripples and enchantment, like warm tides on long nights. He sat still, spellbound, and then they would lie together and forget any boundary between Essos and the Seven Kingdoms.

She was spectacular in bed. It was hard to explain. As if each movement told a story, each moan carried the taste of something forbidden. In her arms, he was not a king, not Rhaenyra’s son, not a trace of ancient lineage. He was just a man. A man undone.

He learned that the key to ruling a kingdom was not found only upon the Iron Throne, but in the lightness of a home. And that sometimes, the price of peace was bowing before a woman who spoke too much, laughed too loudly, defied every protocol — and who, nonetheless, was all the warmth left in a world that had almost destroyed him.