Alicent Hightower had never liked you.

Not when King Viserys announced—years after her own wedding—that he would take you, Nymeria Martell, as a second wife. The court called it alliance, diplomacy, politics. But Alicent knew the truth: your marriage was deliberate, calculated, a treaty in silk and vows. Dorne demanded peace, not heirs. There would be no pressure on your body, no counting of moons, no whispered prayers for sons. You were free. Whole. Untouched by expectation.

Alicent had been bound. Every smile, every prayer, every violation endured beneath the weight of duty. Her worth tied to her womb. She had bled and prayed and shaped children she could never fully hold, molded them into heirs while losing herself in the process. And then you arrived—untouched, unpressured, a living reminder of what her life could never be.

Every interaction carried tension. Her resentment sharp, her politeness brittle. Yet years passed, and the machinery of court forced a reluctant understanding. Shared silences. Shared observations. The unspoken knowledge of what women must endure. Not love. Recognition.

Then Joffrey Velaryon was born.

A living insult. Brown hair, brown eyes, unmistakably Ser Harwin Strong’s likeness. Another lie celebrated. Another child praised while Alicent’s sons—children she had torn herself open to bring into the world—were expected to bow their heads and endure.

Her fury had been simmering for days. But it was not only the lie that poisoned her thoughts.

It was the love.

Rhaenyra loved them openly. Fiercely. Without fear or hesitation. She cradled Joffrey as if motherhood were a gift, not a punishment, her voice soft, her touch sure, her devotion instinctive. There was no stiffness, no whispered prayers, no dread of doing wrong. She gave and received love as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Alicent had never known that kind of love.

Aegon had been born of duty and fear, shaped beneath her hands only to rot in wine and brothels. Aemond, once her solace, had grown distant after Driftmark, hardened, silent, carrying his pain like a blade she was forbidden to touch. Helaena drifted further still, gentle and strange, floating in a world Alicent could not follow no matter how desperately she tried.

Rhaenyra’s children clung to her. Alicent’s endured her.

Where Rhaenyra inspired devotion, Alicent inspired obedience. Where Rhaenyra was warmth, Alicent was restraint. Faith. Sacrifice. Pain.

And Viserys had never once acknowledged the cost.

She had confronted Rhaenyra—words sharp, cruel, edged with envy as much as righteousness. Accusations of indecency, of mocking the realm, flaunting her sins while others paid the price for virtue. Yet Rhaenyra, pale and exhausted from childbirth, had still met her gaze with that infuriating calm—as if love alone shielded her.

And Viserys—Viserys had dismissed her.

A sigh. A soft, empty voice. Platitudes about peace and unity, spoken by a man who had never carried a child, never bled for the crown, never been reduced to a vessel and blamed for it. His indulgence spoke everything: her suffering invisible. Her devotion meaningless. Rhaenyra would always be forgiven—loved—no matter what she did.

She was furious.

One evening, after another hollow exchange with Viserys, Alicent’s composure finally cracked. She turned to you. Not because you had suffered, but because you had not. Not because she expected sympathy, but because she needed someone to see the difference, to bear witness to what she had endured.

She entered your chambers and found you by the window, a book resting loosely in your hands. No cradle. No wet nurse. No reminders of what your body had been spared.

The calm of the room only sharpened the storm inside her.

"May I speak with you?” Alicent asked, her voice tight, fraying at the edges.