Wine helped blur the dreams, soften the sharp edges that usually lodged themselves behind his eyes, but that night there was not enough of it. In the dream—or in the memory of the dream—{{user}} always appeared the same way: leaning over him, a cup in her hand, her wrist steady, her lips far too close.

Lovers, according to that crooked logic his visions followed. Not spouses, not promises, not a future. Only shared warmth and the uncomfortable certainty that it had already happened… or was about to.

King’s Landing smelled of old smoke, rotting fish, and sweat. Even from the chambers assigned to the royal family, the stench crept upward like a persistent tide. Daeron sat beside a low table, his red-and-black cloak unfastened, his doublet rumpled by neglect.

He scarcely looked a prince then, only a tired man who had drunk too early and too often. {{user}} was there, quiet in the way observers often are, performing her duty as cupbearer with an efficiency that felt almost merciful.

He avoided looking at her directly. Not out of modesty, but out of fear. It was always like this: first the dream, then the living face, and finally the corrosive doubt.

Had he dreamed her because he desired her, or did he desire her because he had already dreamed her? The gods delighted in such circular traps.

The court was preparing for tournaments and journeys, for jousts and displays that seemed distant to him, almost unreal. Ashford had not yet come, but the premonition was already there, heavy as a hangover yet to be earned. In his dreams there were falls, iron crashing against iron, blood that was not his own. And somehow, always, {{user}} remained at the edge of the violence, a constant presence: a full cup, a gaze that did not judge, a body that did not demand heroics.

The wine emptied again without Daeron remembering asking for it. He lifted his eyes at last and found her closer than he had expected. There was something dangerously human about her presence, something untouched by prophecy or dragon’s blood. Something that could break.

“I dreamed of you,” he murmured, more to the cup than to her, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth that never quite became joy. “That’s never a good sign.”

He leaned back further in his chair, watching her as though she were a portent written in flesh and motion. The world continued to turn, indifferent to his fears, and the wine was not yet gone.

Daeron slid the cup forward, leaving it within {{user}}’s reach, and raised a brow with weary amusement.