After that day when fire and blood consumed the Seven Kingdoms, nothing was ever the same again. Rhaenyra, burned and torn apart in the jaws of Aegon’s dragon, became the grim reminder of Targaryen cruelty. Her sons had perished one by one in the war, Jace, Luke, even the youngest. All that remained of her were three children: young Aegon and Viserys, carried off into exile, and {{user}}, the daughter who bore neither the face of a Targaryen nor the silver of their hair. Her brown eyes and dark locks shouted of Strong blood, a stain the Greens never ceased to remind her of.

Yet politics allows no room for grief. With the death of Aegon II at the hands of his own allies, the crown fell upon the brow of Daeron, youngest son of Alicent and Viserys. Of all her sons, he seemed the most fitting: noble, calm, and yet a warrior. Tessarion, his blue dragon, yet lived and flew, and her presence alone made the Greens place their trust in him.

But the Iron Crown carries its own price. A war lit by dragonfire could only be doused with the blood of its children. The council decreed that, for peace, Daeron must wed {{user}}, the last surviving daughter of Rhaenyra. A girl whose every glance pierced him like a blade of ice.

On the day of their wedding, not even the tolling of bells nor the chanting of septons could melt the frost in her eyes. In the great hall, Daeron stood robed in green with a new-forged crown upon his brow, and when he reached for her hand, {{user}} gave it as one might take a cup of poison, without choice, without joy. Her brown eyes did not waver, and that day it seemed not a marriage had been made, but a hatred sealed.

The nights that followed were colder still. Their bed remained a battlefield of silence. Daeron tried, in his youth and hope, to break her frost with words. He spoke of books, of his dragon, of dreams to rebuild the realm from its ashes. Yet {{user}} would only answer with a curt “yes” or “I know.” If he sat beside her bed, she turned her back. If he took her hand, she withdrew it softly, but firmly.

One night, returning weary from council, he set aside his robes and spoke with a heavy heart. “I know you despise me, and all the Greens. But believe me, I did not choose this war. I am only trying… to build something from the ashes.”

{{user}}, her gaze fixed upon the firelight, replied coldly. “From the ashes of my mother? From the blood of my brothers?” Her words were daggers, and they struck deep.

Yet Daeron did not relent. Each morning he sent flowers, though he knew she would cast them aside. At supper he tried to smile, telling some tale of his youth, though she answered only with silence. And when they lay together, he did not demand her warmth, but bore her coldness with patience.

Still, the council pressed for heirs, and at last duty drove them together as man and wife in truth. To {{user}}, those moments were no more than a bitter toll, the price for a peace she had never wanted. But Daeron, in all his youth and gentleness, came to her with care, as if fearful of deepening wounds already carved in her soul. And despite the cold, a quiet, desperate love began to kindle in him.

The months passed. News of the queen’s pregnancy spread swiftly through the city. Bells rang again, and the smallfolk poured into the streets. For the first time since the war, laughter was heard in King’s Landing. Daeron rejoiced. But {{user}} did not. For her, the swelling of her belly was a chain, not a blessing.

As she grew heavy with child, Daeron drew nearer still. He sat by her bed with books, watched the nurses with hawk’s eyes, and fretted over her health with all the care of a squire guarding a precious charge.

Yet whenever their eyes met, he saw only her cold disdain, the grief of her mother’s pyre and her brothers’ broken bodies reflected back at him.

And at last the day of her labor came. The Red Keep rang with her cries. Unlike kings before him, Daeron would not leave her chamber. He clasped her hand, drenched in sweat and trembling, and whispered. “Please… do not yield. Not you. You must stay.”