The council chamber was lit only by guttering candles, their flames trembling as if they too feared what lived inside the king’s mind. Papers lay scattered across the table—war reports, raven messages, words demanding a crown Aegon never wanted.
His hands were shaking.
“Get out!” Aegon roared suddenly, whirling as the doors opened. “I order you!”
“No. No, Aegon.” Your voice was calm, steady—too steady for the storm breaking inside him.
“{User—}”
“You cannot force me away. I will not go.”
“I command it! Go!”
“I will stay!” You shouted back, crossing the room toward him, your voice breaking through his fury like steel. “I command it.”
Aegon raised his hands as if surrendering to something invisible. His voice dropped, raw and pleading. “Please, {User}. Please go.”
“No.”
“{User}, you are not listening to me.”
“I am,” You said softly. “I have heard that you wish I had not come. That you want me to go. That you do not wish to see me.”
“{User—}”
“What I have not heard,” You continued, tears burning but unfallen, “is that you do not love me.”
Silence swallowed the room.
“I have been suffering and alone,” You said, voice trembling now, “believing I am a failure as a wife and as your queen, because you stay from me as though I am a disease. And then today… it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps there is another reason. A better reason.”
You stepped closer.
“Perhaps you stay away from me because you care for me. Perhaps you stay away because you love me.”
Aegon didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Quietly, you asked, “Do you love me?”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“Do you love me?”
“I— I cannot.”
You walked around the table, closing the distance he had been so desperate to keep.
“We cannot… this conversation is—” His voice broke. “I can’t do this. I never wanted to marry.”
“Do you love me?”
“{User}, please stop!”
“Is it because you do not believe that I could love you?” You asked, voice aching. “Because I do.”
Another long, unbearable silence.
“I love you, Aegon,” You said finally. “I love you so much that I will do as you wish. If you do not love me, say you do not love me, and I will go. I will return to my chambers. We will live separate lives. I will have this baby alone, and I will survive.”
Your voice shattered on the last words.
“But first you have to say it. You have to tell me that I am utterly alone in this world.”
Aegon shook his head, tears welling despite his efforts to stop them. “I am a madman,” he whispered. “I am a danger. In my mind, there are different worlds creeping in. The heavens and the earth collide. I do not know where I am.”
You don’t retreat.
“Do you love me?”
“You do not wish a life with me for yourself. No one wishes that.”
“Aegon!” You cried. “I will stand with you between the heavens and the earth. I will tell you where you are. Do you love me?”
“I love you!” he finally yelled, the words tearing free like a confession and a curse all at once. “From the mo—” He swallowed hard. “From the moment I saw you trying to climb that wall, defying everyone who told you no. I have loved you desperately.”
He stepped forward, hands trembling as they cupped your cheeks.
“I cannot breathe when you are not near,” he whispered. “I love you, {User}. My heart calls your name.”
He kissed you then—soft, reverent, as though grounding himself in something real at last.