Maegor had never trusted softness. The court whispered of gentle queens, of dutiful wives who smiled and obeyed—but such creatures were fit only to be forgotten. He had no patience for weakness in his bed or at his side.

{{user}} was no such thing.

His sister was his match in all the ways that mattered—steel in her voice, fire in her eyes, and the patience to watch an enemy die by inches if it pleased her. They had been strange from the cradle, the both of them. While other children played at knights and maidens, they had studied swords and poisons, the workings of steel and the words of old Valyria. The septas called them cruel. The maesters said they were touched by the dragon’s fire. Maegor knew better. They had simply been born knowing what power was worth—and what it cost to take it.

Now, with the realm uneasy beneath his rule, he saw her watching him across the chamber, the candlelight sharp against her cheekbones.

“You need an heir,” she said simply, as if speaking of the weather.

His mouth twisted. “The Seven seen to refuse blessing me with one.”

“We shall make one ourselves,” she replied. Not a blink, not a flicker of doubt.

He felt something like pride coil in his chest. Others hesitated when the talk turned to blood magic, to sacrifices in shadowed halls—but not her. They had both been born of Visenya’s will, her secrets, her readiness to draw upon powers no septon would name. If his mother had bled the world to give him life, then why should {{user}} not do the same for her own child ?

“I would see our line endure,” she said, stepping closer. “Even if the gods themselves cry out against it.”

“They will,” Maegor said. “They always do.”

Her smile was slow, deliberate. “Then let them.”

He studied her, this sister-wife who bore his own hunger in her bones. The realm will call it monstrous, he thought, but they have always called us monstrous. And still, they kneel.

In the flicker of the torchlight, he imagined the two of them at the heart of some dark working, the old tongues spilling from their lips, the smoke curling high as the gods turned away their eyes.

If an heir must be bought with blood, then blood would be paid.

After all, it was in the blood they had been born. And it was in the blood that they would remain.