Baelon, the Prince of Spring, was drawn to you like a moth to flame — though he would never say as much aloud.

You had always been there, tucked away in the Red Keep like a relic too dangerous to discard and too precious to display. The king and good Queen Alysanne had “taken you in” when your Valyrian gifts first flared — blood magic, fleshcraft, and the shaping of metals not spoken of since the Doom. While the queen offered you books and quiet sympathy, most at court only offered wary glances.

As a boy, Baelon was kept far from you. Too dangerous, the king had warned. But in time, as your control deepened, so too did his nearness.

You were nothing like the silk-clad daughters of the realm. Your voice was sharp, your gait ungraceful. You wore leather when others wore lace. Your accent, still tinged with the gutters of King’s Landing, cut through courtly airs like a blade.

Baelon often watched you in silence — practicing rituals no maester could name, commanding blood and iron with hands calloused by more than embroidery. His brother Aemon laughed, his sister Alyssa winked. “Courting the bloodwitch?” they teased. Baelon always scoffed.

Once, though, his curiosity betrayed him.

“When will you marry?” he asked, voice low, eyes unreadable. “Into the line of the dragon?”

You turned, face lit by the glow of strange runes burning into steel. “I was not made for bedsheets and bloodlines,” you said. “Let others birth heirs and bind themselves to names. I was born to master blood — not be mastered by men.”

He said nothing. But the next day, he returned to watch again.