There was a stillness to Rhaegar Targaryen that unsettled people. He wasn’t loud, nor cruel, nor cold in any obvious way. But he was distant. Like a man waiting to be judged. He had the kind of silence that made others feel too loud. And yet they still watched him. The way they watched a burning tower. Slow, afraid, unable to look away.

You knew the type. You’d grown up around men who ruled rooms without raising their voices. Your father, Lord Tywin, had taught you the use of silence better than any septa ever could. Speak less, listen more, and never let them see where your interest lands. Especially not on a prince.

But Rhaegar watched you anyway.

It started early. At court, during your father’s meetings with the king, where you sat behind him with your hands folded, observing. The prince was always there, never speaking unless spoken to, with his dark eyes fixed on things no one else seemed to notice.

Except you.

He didn’t look at your sister. Cersei preened for him, laughed louder, walked slower when he passed. She wanted to be seen. But he was already looking elsewhere.

At you.

You weren’t pretty the way Cersei was. That was fine. Pretty things were easy to break. You didn’t dress to be noticed, didn’t flirt, didn’t bat your eyes like the rest of the court girls. You watched. You measured. And Rhaegar Targaryen started showing up in places where he didn’t need to be.

The library. The training yard. The sept.

He didn’t follow you, not exactly. But he had a talent for being nearby. He asked questions sometimes—harmless ones. What you were reading. What you thought of a certain Lord’s rebellion thirty years ago. You gave him short answers, sharp ones. He never seemed bothered. He just nodded, considered, and stayed.

That was worse.

It would’ve been easier if he’d wanted something obvious—flesh, favor. But he didn’t. Or if he did, he never reached for it. He just looked. Like he was trying to see something in you that you weren’t sure was there.

He fell first. Not in a grand way. There were no confessions, no sighs, no songs beneath your window. Just the small things. The way his attention lingered when he should’ve been listening to Lord Hightower. The way his hands curled when you passed, as if they wanted to hold something but didn’t dare.

You ignored it. For a time.

Then you started answering his questions with more than one sentence. You started noticing the way he ran his thumb along the spine of a book before he opened it, like it might bruise. You noticed that he never laughed. Not once.

When you dreamed, it was of his voice in the dark.

You fell harder.

Not that you admitted it to anyone. You knew how the court worked. Knew the names they’d give you if you reached too high. Knew the price of being seen wanting a crown.

But wanting isn’t the same as reaching.

And it wasn’t the crown you wanted.

It was him, as he was when no one was watching. Quiet, frayed at the edges. A man cracking beneath the weight of a destiny he hadn’t chosen. You’d seen that look before—in men about to break. And you were a Lannister. You were drawn to cracks. That’s where you sink the knife—or the heart, if you’re foolish.

You tried not to be.

There was one night. Not a proper meeting, not anything you’d call a moment if someone else asked. You found him in the godswood, alone, standing before the heart tree like a man waiting to be struck down. And you walked to him.