The last time Jaime had seen Princess {{user}} ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ, she had been standing behind her mother in the ʀᴇᴅ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ’s great hall, her violet eyes cold as ice water. She had not wept when her father fell, nor when her brothers were cut down. She had only watched. And she remembers.

Now, she was to be his wife.

Tywin called it a necessity—an olive branch to the few ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ loyalists who still lingered in the realm, a way to bind dragon and lion into something that would not burn nor roar against Robert’s rule. Jaime had learned long ago that what his father called necessity often felt more like a cage.

They met again in the gardens of the ʀᴇᴅ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ, both bound by duty neither had chosen. She wore black, not mourning—pride. Her hair caught the sun like molten silver, but her gaze was all shadow.

“Ser Jaime,” she said, the title precise, deliberate. “Or must I call you my lord now ?”

“Whichever makes you less likely to spit in my wine,” he said lightly, though her expression did not shift.

She did not hate him, he could tell. Not truly. It was the lion’s head on his doublet, the gold in his hair, the name in his mouth that she loathed. ᴄᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ ʀᴏᴄᴋ was as guilty to her as the men who had sacked her home.

I’m marrying a ghost of a kingdom my father helped burn, Jaime thought.

The weeks before the wedding passed in tense courtesy. She was polite, but not warm. Clever in her words, but sparing them. And yet, he began to notice the smallest cracks—the way her eyes softened when she spoke of the sea, the faint smile when he caught her by surprise with some jest.

On the day they rode from ᴋɪɴɢ’s ʟᴀɴᴅɪɴɢ to begin their journey west, he offered her his hand to mount her horse. She hesitated, then took it. Her fingers were cool in his, but they did not pull away too quickly.

He told himself it was nothing.

But when she glanced at him later, the wind teasing silver strands across her face, he wondered if it might be the start of something else entirely.