When Baelon laid Alyssa to rest, the court wept for a queen and welcomed a son.

Baelon was broken by it. Lost. And his father, Jaehaerys, ever practical even in grief, urged him to remarry. The realm needed heirs. His son needed guidance. And so you were chosen, young, noble, suitable, a match sealed not with love but with duty.

At first, Baelon barely looked at you. But time wore down grief, and in the quiet seasons that followed, something different took root. A companionship born of shared solitude. A slow, blooming loyalty that might one day have been called love.

From that bond came another son: Daemon.

You loved Baelon. But your son was something else entirely. He was yours in a way nothing else ever had been.

From the moment he could walk, Daemon was fire-willed and fierce, with a gaze too sharp for a child. He was everything Viserys was not. Where Viserys sat quietly with his books and tutors, Daemon ran, climbed, fought. He disobeyed rules he did not like and mocked those who enforced them. He was wild, uncontrollable but you never tried to rein him in.

You fed it instead.

“You were born of fire,” you would tell him, brushing the hair back from his brow as he sat with you. “Your brother was born of ash.”

At first, it was simple things—innocent comparisons. Viserys was kind, but Daemon was brave. Viserys studied, but Daemon acted. You would never call him better aloud. You let Daemon arrive at that conclusion on his own.

By the time he reached ten-and-seven, he no longer needed your words to know the truth. He was the stronger son. He was the worthy one.

But doubt lingered, a rare and unfamiliar thing for him.

You stepped into his chambers and found him seated by the hearth, the firelight dancing across his features, his gaze distant.

“Do you truly think I deserve it, Mother?” he asked quietly, eyes never leaving the flames.