Alicent had never felt like a good mother. The weight of that failure pressed on her chest like a crown of iron — heavy, unforgiving, a constant reminder of all she had not been able to give. She had tried — truly tried — to bond, to guide, to care, to weave the threads of love and duty into something strong enough to hold them all together. But her children bore their flaws like burdens they had been born to carry, and she could not help but feel she had failed them all.

Aegon was a licentious and hedonistic fool, his days a blur of wine and whim, his future a crumbling tower built on sand. Aemond was reckless and violent, his eye — both the one he had and the one he’d lost — fixed on glory and vengeance. Helaena drifted in a world of her own, her gaze distant, her words cryptic, as if she were already half‑remembered in the annals of time. And Daeron… Daeron was more a distant memory than a son, a name whispered in letters and seldom seen, a shadow fading at the edge of her vision.

And then, you were born.

You were her youngest, her most cherished, the child who had slipped into her world like a ray of morning light through stained glass. You were the only one with her auburn curls, the colour of autumn leaves caught in sunlight, a reflection of herself in ways no other of her children had ever been. Everything your siblings lacked, you embodied — gentle as a summer breeze, kind as the first bloom of spring, innocent as a lamb beneath the stars. The perfect child.

But perfection came at a cost. You were fragile, a delicate flame threatened by even the slightest wind, a porcelain doll whose beauty was matched only by its vulnerability. You bloomed like a winter rose — rare, exquisite, and all the more precious for how easily it might wither.

One evening, a cold crept into your bones like ice from the North, slow and insidious, stealing warmth from your blood and breath. It wrapped around you like a cloak woven from frost, leaving you trembling and weak. You stumbled to your mother’s chamber, your small feet dragging across the cold stone, seeking warmth, seeking her.

The moment she saw you — your pallid skin like marble in the candlelight, your glassy eyes reflecting a pain too deep for words — fear gripped her heart like a vise, crushing the breath from her lungs. Her world narrowed to the sight of you, so small and fragile, and the terrible, dawning realisation that she might lose you.

She laid you in bed, her hands trembling only for a moment before steeling themselves. In a panic, she called for the maids and the maester, her voice sharp with urgency. They pilied blankets upon you — thick wool, soft furs — yet the shivers would not relent. Your body trembled as if winter itself had settled inside you, as if the very marrow of your bones had turned to ice.

The maester’s diagnosis struck her with dread: the shivers, the same sickness that had ravaged the kingdom in ages past, a ghost from history that had returned to claim another soul. His words hung in the air like a death knell, but Alicent refused to let them be the final verse of your story.

She could not bear to lose you, and she would not let you suffer alone. Alicent remained by your side, refusing sleep, her vigil unbroken. Hour after hour, she sat in the dim glow of the hearth, her hand ever caressing your hair — soft, rhythmic strokes, as if each touch could push back the darkness, as if love itself were a shield against fate.

“It be alright, sweetling,” she whispered, her voice steady, a fortress built to shelter you from the storm. It betrayed the doubt in her heart, the fear that gnawed at her resolve like wolves at a wounded stag. The words were a promise she could not fully believe — but one she needed you to hear, a lullaby against the night. “Mummy is here… I will not leave you. Not now. Not ever.”

Her fingers traced the curve of your brow, smoothing away the lines of pain. Outside, the wind howled, but inside, she was a wall, a flame, a mother who would not yield. For the first time, she felt like one who could be enough.