The pain was constant now—low and coiling beneath his ribs like a beast refusing to be caged. It pulsed behind his eyes, in the cracked marrow of his bones, where flesh had been scorched and twisted. The healers whispered of miracles and madness. He would live, they said, though Aegon was not certain what had survived the fire.

Not a king. Not a dragonrider. Just a man in bandages, broken beneath the weight of what he’d once believed was destiny.

The air in the chamber was thick with smoke and herbs. Outside, war crawled forward. Rhaenys was dead, they told him. Meleys too. But Sunfyre—his Sunfyre—was maimed. Twisted. Grounded. Like him.

He heard the door creak open. He didn’t have to look to know it was {{user}}. Their footsteps were soft, but never tentative. Not with him. Never with him.

They moved to his side, settling into the chair placed there.

Aegon turned his head slightly, enough to see their face through the haze of pain. There was no pity in their eyes. That was something he’d demanded, needed, more than the milk of the poppy. Pity made it worse. Pity made him feel small.

“You look worse today,” they added, voice too flat to be cruel.

He let out something between a scoff and a cough. “Flattery doesn’t suit you.”

“It never did.”

Silence settled, the kind that never felt awkward with {{user}}. They did not press him, never had. Not even when he snarled through the agony, not even when he whispered dreams of fire, blood and vengeance.

“I saw her,” he said suddenly. “Rhaenys. Just before we fell. She looked at me like I was nothing.”

{{user}}’s expression didn’t shift. “Were you ?”

He stiffened, but they only leaned closer, fingers brushing the edge of the sheets, not quite touching him. “You survived her. The dragon. The fall. You’re still breathing. That has to mean something.”

“I’m not who I was.”

“No,” they said. “But maybe that’s the point.”

When Aegon truly looked at them then, he saw no courtier or solider, but the only who hadn't left.

“I’ll need you,” he said. He always had.