Aegon liked to watch them in silence. Seated in the low armchair by the hearth, a forgotten cup of wine in his hand, he watched the boy playing on the floor — hair pale as freshly fallen snow, wide, curious eyes — while she, ever serene, sat by the window, sewing something. The light filtered softly through the heavy curtains, gilding everything in a warm, almost dreamlike haze. Sometimes he thought nothing beyond that room existed: no throne, no Helaena, no war. Only this. A home he had ripped from the world by force.

It was a lie, of course. He knew it.

She did not love him. She did not smile unless told to. She never touched him unless he touched her first. Yet still, whenever he crossed those doors and breathed in the scent of warm bread and her body, he believed — for an instant — in the illusion he had built: a king coming home to a modest house, kissing the woman who waited for him, lifting his son into his arms. Nothing else mattered.

That was how Aegon learned to invent happiness.

The boy crawled toward him, tugging at his boot with tiny hands. Aegon lifted him, laughing, feeling that laugh burn in his chest like hot iron. “My son,” he murmured, as if it were a secret. He had never said that of the others — the pale-haired children Helaena bore him. Those belonged to the realm, to the dynasty, to duty. This one did not. This one was his alone.

And hers.

He looked at her. Always at her. Her dark hair fell loose over her shoulders, unadorned. She was nothing like the painted ladies of the court, and that was what bewitched him: the rawness, the unvarnished beauty that seemed to ask for nothing. Even now, when she avoided him, he felt the urge to cross the room and take her into his arms, just as he had the first night.

Ah, that first night.

He still remembered. The streets of King’s Landing, the stench of cheap wine and sweat. He remembered her serving tables in the brothel, carrying jugs as if they weighed nothing. And most of all, he remembered what had infuriated him: the way she didn’t look at him. Not the way one looks at a king, at least. That was what ensnared him. A foreign serving girl who pretended not to understand him, who refused his coins, his jewels, even his command.

No one said “no” to him. Not for long.

He bought her. Not her body — but everything around her. He had this house prepared, far from prying windows. He brought guards, servants, silks, perfumes. He shut the doors. He locked her inside a world of gold and keys. She never left again.

Sometimes he dreamed of the day she would yield for real. That she would stop staring past him as if waiting for a ship that would never come. But when it didn’t happen — when she only obeyed, without love, without rage, without anything — Aegon clung to the boy.

That was what kept him alive.

In that windowless house, among fine furniture and the trained silence of servants, he had found the only crown he ever wanted to wear. A kingdom made of lies, where he could pretend to be just a man, not a monster, not a king. And even knowing it was all staged — a captivity dressed up as a home — he would never let it go.

Not her. Not the boy.

Never.