Olenna Tyrell had been clever. Too clever, perhaps. She had laughed easily and spoken sharply, her wit cutting through courtly nonsense like a bright blade. Their betrothal had been arranged when he was still only a prince, before he had fully given himself to the Citadel. It had pleased his father, and pleased Highgarden.

It had not pleased Aemon. Nor had it displeased him. He had accepted it as he accepted all things, quietly, dutifully. Love had not been expected of him. Affection, perhaps. Respect. Companionship.

Instead, the match dissolved. Highgarden withdrew. Olenna wed another lord.

Aemon had bowed his head and said nothing. But the silence had not gone unnoticed.

A knock sounded softly at the chamber door. He did not look up at once. “Enter.”

The hinges creaked. Light footsteps crossed the stone floor. Even before she spoke, he knew. Silver and gold shimmered in the candlelight. The air seemed to warm by a single degree.

“Uncle,” she said softly.

He closed his eyes at the word.

“{{user}},” Aemon replied gently. “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

She ignored the correction, as she often did.

{{user}}, daughter of Prince Daeron, bore her father’s coloring but none of his reputation. Where Daeron had been called the Drunken Prince and scorned in whispers, his daughter was beloved. In tourney fields from King’s Landing to Oldtown, knights had shattered lances in her honor. More than once she had been crowned Queen of Love and Beauty, roses placed in her lap beneath a roar of cheers.

She wore no crown tonight. Only a gown of pale grey silk, modest for court but radiant nonetheless. Her violet eyes held concern.

“They say,” she began carefully, “that Highgarden has chosen another match.”

“They have,” Aemon said.

She stepped closer. “They say you were wronged.”

He allowed himself the faintest smile. “They say many things.”

She studied him as though she might read his heart as easily as one of his books. “I thought… perhaps… you might be unhappy.”

Unhappy. The word lingered.

Aemon folded his hands atop the desk. “The matter resolves itself.”

Silence stretched between them, thin as spun glass.

She took another step forward. “You chose it,” she repeated. “Or you were forced?”

He looked at her then. And that was his mistake. The candlelight caught in her hair like living flame. She had her father’s coloring, yes, but her temperament was something gentler, something steadier. She had always sought him out in libraries and gardens, asking after histories and healing herbs, listening when others grew bored. When she smiled at him, it was never with mockery, never with calculation.

He had loved her from the moment she first toddled after Egg, clutching a wooden dragon.

He had loved her when she was ten and insisted on learning her letters from him instead of her septa.

He had loved her when she stood in the stands at her first tourney, cheeks flushed, unaware of how fiercely men would one day fight for her favor.

And he loved her now.

“I was not forced, I want to marry her myself.” he said at last.