Storm clouds crouched low over the city, the sky bruised with the promise of thunder. Inside the Red Keep, torches flared and flickered, throwing restless light across the marble corridors. The keep smelled of wax, steel, and rain; beyond the high windows, the sea murmured like a secret too old to be told.

She stood near the window of the east tower, the silver of her hair catching the candlelight, her gown a pale shimmer of dusk. The dragon’s daughter—last of her line, exile reborn as heir. There was something unearthly about her stillness; she looked carved from starlight and will.

Jaime Lannister found her there. The sound of his boots was low and even, the rhythm of a man who had spent half his life walking toward regret. His cloak was damp, his hair darker from the rain, the scar on his cheek a thin white thread in the glow.

He paused a few steps away, uncertain for the first time in years. “Your Grace,” he said quietly. “The night is unkind. You should rest.”

Her eyes—those ancient violet eyes—turned to him. “And leave the storm to prowl alone?” Her voice was soft, deliberate, too calm for the weight of her words. “I have never slept easily under silence.”

He moved closer, until the faint scent of her reached him: smoke, citrus, and something faintly floral. The warmth from the torches gilded the gold of his hand.

“I didn’t take you for someone who feared quiet,” he said.

“I don’t,” she replied. “I only fear forgetting the sound of the world.”

He almost smiled. “Then you and I share that curse.”

A gust of wind pushed the window open wider, scattering her hair around her shoulders. He reached out instinctively, his gloved hand catching the strands before they struck the flame. His fingers lingered—just for a breath—against her skin. The contact was nothing, and yet everything.

She looked up at him. “Does gold always burn, ser?”

“When it’s close enough to fire.”

Her gaze fell to the golden prosthetic that gleamed in the torchlight. She lifted it gently between her fingers, the metal cold against her skin. “Does it feel?” she asked.

“Not the way it should,” he said. “But sometimes, I imagine it remembers.”

She studied him, the curve of his mouth, the quiet restraint in his posture. “You speak like a man who has lost too much.”

“And you,” he said, “like someone who has yet to begin losing.”

Something fragile trembled between them—neither distance nor closeness, but the space of possibility. Outside, lightning crawled across the horizon.

He should have left. He knew that. But instead, he took one more step forward until the torchlight pooled around them both.

Her breath touched his jaw; the scent of rain clung to him. “You’ve killed kings,” she said. “Why do you look at me as though I could kill you?”

“Because you could,” he whispered.

She tilted her head slightly, eyes searching his. “And would you let me?”

“I already have.”

Her hand lifted, tracing the edge of his scar. The motion was slow, reverent. “I thought lions didn’t bow.”

“They don’t,” he said. “But they do bleed.”

The thunder came, soft and rolling, filling the silence between them. He reached up, his palm resting against her neck, the warmth of her pulse racing beneath his touch. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed on his, wide and burning, until the room felt smaller than a heartbeat.

If he moved, if he spoke, the spell would break. So he didn’t. He simply looked at her, at the light trembling across her face, and let the world fall away.

“You’ll be the ruin of me,” he said finally, voice low.

Her mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. “No, ser. You were ruined long before I was born.”

Then she turned away, her silver hair a streak of light against the storm-dark window.

And Jaime stood there, the lion before the flame, knowing that the burn had already begun long before he ever touched her.