The chamber was grand, of course. All Targ things were—red silk draped over dark stone, golden candlelight bleeding like spilled wine down the walls. It smelled of oils and roses, though neither lingered here naturally. No, this place had been prepared.

You sat on the edge of the marriage bed, back stiff, hands folded too tightly in your lap. They’d dressed you in silk so thin it might as well have been air, your skin prickling in the cold that no fire dared chase away.

They’d all whispered he was beautiful. “Wait until you see him, the Prince of Dragonstone—Rhaegar the Silver. Looks like a poem come to life.”

And maybe he did. But poems could be tragedies, too.

The door opened.

He was there—Rhaegar, the prince, the heir, the stranger you’d been tied to with vows you hadn’t spoken loud enough to remember. So pale, you thought. Like moonlight on a corpse. Hair like woven silver, eyes the color of old bruises. Beautiful in the way winter was—distant, fatal.

He looked at you as one might look at a marble statue—crafted, placed there for him, not quite real.

“You’re nervous.” His voice was quiet, unbothered. Not a question. A fact.

A ghost of something flickered across his mouth—somewhere between a smirk and a wince.

“You think yourself clever.” He didn’t sit. Didn’t cross the room. Simply stood there, watching you the way men watched a fire too large to warm them—dangerous, beautiful, useless.

You swallowed. Confused.

Rhaegar’s gaze lingered on you then, dragging slow as molasses, but there was no hunger in it. No curiosity. Just… calculation.

“I won’t touch you,” he said at last. “You needn’t play the trembling virgin. I have no desire for this—any of it.”

Your throat tightened. “Then why come?”

A beat. The faintest twitch of his mouth—humorless, cruel. “Courtesy.”

He turned then—just like that. No blessing, no apology, no promise of tomorrow. Only the rustle of his black cloak as he moved toward the door.

And then you were alone—married, untouched, unwanted.