The night King Viserys ordered the palace healers to bring his daughter a cup of moon tea, the room was bathed in flickering candlelight. Rhaenyra took the cup in her hand, but her lips did not slide over the rim. She set the cup down slowly on the bedside table. Perhaps it was a decision of stubbornness.

Princess {{user}} Velaryon had been the first cry to echo through the birthing chambers, the long-awaited daughter of Rhaenyra and, as all believed, Laenor. Her hair was pale silver, a crown of silk that glowed in the firelight, and her eyes were a stormy violet, deep with Valyrian fire. None had doubted then. She was the image of House Targaryen’s blood, and her grandsire, King Viserys, had called her a blessing.

But as the moons passed and years began to weigh, whispers stirred.

For while her hair was Valyrian, her skin carried a warmth darker than that of Laenor’s pale complexion. There was a golden undertone, a shade more often seen in the Dornish marches than in the blood of Old Valyria. When Rhaenyra bore her second child, Jacerys, then Lucerys, then Joffrey, each one with strong features, brown curls, and the unmistakable stamp of Harwin Strong, eyes turned back to {{user}}.

At first, they had placed her among her brothers without question. A child of Harwin too, no doubt, born before the resemblance had fully blossomed in the others. Yet to Ser Criston Cole, something gnawed.

He had watched her grow, watched her laugh beneath the torches in the Red Keep, watched her stand between her brothers with a grace and poise that seemed not entirely Velaryon, nor wholly Targaryen. And slowly, a thought began to coil around his mind like a snake. The timing. The night in question.

And when Criston looked upon {{user}}, he saw his own reflection staring back, shadows of his own Dornish blood in the line of her jaw, the curl of her hair, the dusk-kissed shade of her skin. The realization came to him with the quiet force of a sword sliding from its scabbard. She was his. His daughter. Rhaenyra’s bastard, yes, but his bastard nonetheless.

And yet, even as the truth seared itself into his bones, Criston’s heart curdled with loathing. For Rhaenyra. For the way she had made a fool of him. For the way she flaunted her sons as princes while the court whispered "Strong" behind her back. He despised her. He despised them. He despised himself for ever yielding to her in the first place.

But {{user}}…

Against his will, his eyes would find her.

When she sat among the royal children, he would catch her smile, bright as spring. When she trailed after Jacaerys with that stubborn, fiery resolve, Criston would hear echoes of his own training, his own temper. He told himself he hated her too. That she was nothing but proof of his weakness, a reminder of his disgrace.

At the training yard, Steel rings out against steel, though the blades are dulled, Criston Cole drives Aegon and Aemond as if he means to break them. “Harder!” he barks, his voice sharp as the crack of a whip. “Is this what the sons of kings are worth? You swing like bastards fighting over scraps. But you're not one of Strong's bastards, are you?”

Aegon laughs, careless as ever, but it is Aemond who catches the words and twists them with venom. Aegon's eyes gleams as he glances toward the steps where {{user}} sits with her book. Criston’s voice lashes out once more, silk over iron. “Strike harder, Aegon, or you’ll be cut down like bastards on the field.”

Fury surges through her chest like fire. Before she can think, she’s already on her feet, her skirts snapping around her ankles as she storms across the yard. She doesn’t wait. Doesn’t hesitate. Her fist flies, knuckles striking his nose with a crack so sharp it silences the whole yard. Blood blossoms instantly, red against his skin, running down over his lip and reaches his jawline.

Criston staggers a step back, he wiped away the thin trail of blood with the back of his hand. "Was that all the strength you had, Princess?" he said sarcastically.