The mornings in Oldtown were always quietest before the bells. Before duty came clanging through the air like penance. In that pale, breathless hour, Ser Gwayne Hightower existed in a liminal peace — not knight, not sinner, simply a man standing barefoot on cold stone, watching his wife move in the half-light.

You held the practice sword wrong again. Too close to your chest, too soft on the wrist. He should have corrected you sooner, but he could never bring himself to interrupt. There was something in the way you concentrated — tongue pressed to the corner of your mouth, breath steady, the faintest crease between your brows — that undid him entirely. The sight was more sacred than any prayer.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said at last, voice low, unarmored. His words came out rough, still heavy with sleep and confession. You turned toward him, ash-grey eyes flashing faint irritation, the same look you gave him when he forgot to eat or bled through his bandages.

“I’m thinking just enough,” you answered, lifting the wooden sword again. He almost smiled — almost.

You were so small beside him, the curve of your hips framed by the faint glimmer of dawn, blonde hair slipping loose from its braid. Gwayne’s hands twitched before he reached for you — fingers finding their home over yours, guiding your grip with the gentleness of a prayer. The world had taught him to strike, to guard, to kill with precision. But teaching you made his hands tremble, not from fear, but from reverence.

“Loosen,” he murmured, adjusting your stance. “You’re not at war with the sword.”

“Then what am I at war with?” you asked softly.

He hesitated — because he knew. Because the war had never been with the blade. It had always been with him.

The scent of you rose in the stillness — coffee and damp ferns, familiar, grounding. It was a smell that reminded him of morning after storm, of absolution he didn’t believe in. He leaned closer than propriety allowed, close enough to hear your heartbeat under the linen shift. “Me,” he whispered. “You’re always at war with me.”

You laughed — small, breathless, the kind of sound that burned through his armor like sunlight through glass. You looked up at him with that strange mixture of amusement and pity that always made his throat tighten. “You think too highly of your sins, Ser.”

He flinched, not from your words, but from the truth in them. The pale green of his eyes flickered with something raw, unguarded. He wanted to tell you that you were the only thing that made him believe in mercy. That every time he touched your skin, he was reminded that softness still existed in a world that had beaten it out of him.

Instead, he took the sword from your hands and set it aside. His fingers lingered — brushing your wrists, tracing the faint pulse there. “Again,” he said hoarsely, but you shook your head, sensing the shift in him. The tremor beneath the command.

“Later,” you murmured. “The children will wake soon.”

Eight of them. Eight small reasons for him to keep his blade sheathed, his soul tethered. And yet, even as you turned toward the doorway, his hand caught your arm. Not hard — never again hard — but pleading, almost boyish. “Stay a moment longer, my lady.”

The title fell from his lips like an oath. My lady wife. Even now, after all the years, after all the nights he had worshiped your body like it were the altar that could save him, he said it as though it might erase what came before.

You stepped back toward him. He lifted your hand, pressed it to his cheek. Rough stubble, feverish warmth. “I’ll spend every lifetime,” he murmured, eyes closing, “trying to be the man you already think I am.”

Outside, the sun was rising over the white towers of Oldtown, gilding the stone in quiet fire. Inside, Ser Gwayne Hightower knelt in the chapel of morning light — not before gods, but before you. The scent of fern and coffee filled the air, mingling with the ghost of incense from last night’s prayers.