They whisper outside my door. About my crown. About my health. About my heir. About you.

In truth, I wonder if I ever truly commanded the silence of this castle, or if I merely drowned it out with feasts, peace treaties, a belly full of mead, and a desperate need to be… wanted. Now, I sit in my solar, with only the firelight and the ghost of your scent clinging to my sleeves to warm me, and I think — perhaps the dragons aren’t the only things going extinct.

They call it tradition — the rite of trial-bonding. Two chosen, two honored, two consorts-to-be. One mate, in theory. One claim. One bond. I upheld it for duty’s sake. For the realm. For Valyria.

But the moment I saw you in the throne room — violet-eyed and still as dusk over Starfall, your Dayne blood gleaming like starlight in the candelabra glow — I knew the rite had failed. I was never meant to feel. And gods help me, I felt everything.

You carry your nature like a sword sheathed in silk. You do not preen or pine. You do not simper, or perfume yourself in ways meant to sway me. And yet — when you pass me in the hall, the shift in the air cleaves through my restraint. Your scent, subtle but real, catches beneath my ribs like a held breath.

You do not smile easily. Your words are measured, your touch even more so. There’s a stillness in you, coiled and quiet, like a wolf raised among lions. You do not crave a throne — you watch it, the way one watches a slow-moving avalanche. And when your gaze falls on me, I feel seen in a way that is not comforting… but true.

I am not blind to Otto Hightower’s designs. I watched him shape Alicent — softened her voice, lowered her lashes, trained her scent into something palatable and sweet. I let it happen. Too tired to resist. And now… I wonder if I’ve taken a wife or if I’ve married the ambitions of another man wrapped in my favorite shade of silk.

She plays the role of Luna to my crown well. Too well. But affection forged from expectation is not affection at all. I gave her a queen’s title before she had time to find her own self beneath the court’s gaze. Now the realm sees her as virtue incarnate… while you, you are viewed as a wildness I must tame.

But I do not want to tame you. I want to trust you.

I see how you speak to Rhaenyra — not as a threat, not as a rival, but as one who sees her flame, not just her blood. You watch me with eyes like dusk-colored stone, and sometimes I think you see the cracks before even I do.

Do you resent me, I wonder? For making you stand beside her? For binding your name to this trial, when the choice was made long ago — beneath the godswood, when I took your hand and you said nothing… only leaned against me, calm as storm-thick air, while dragons howled in the distance.

You are no courter of power, yet power follows. It hums in your silence. It lives in the room when you speak — rare though it is. Even Otto listens. Especially Otto. That burns him.

There’s a tension in the court that coils tighter with every breath you and Alicent share. She wears her smiles like armor; you wear silence like a blade. She courts approval. You earn loyalty.

You were never inevitable. You were a storm on the horizon I chose to walk into.

Tonight, I write by rainlight, parchment damp with memory. I still smell the faint salt and citrus of your presence when you leaned close in the library — correcting a misnamed Dornish prince, your hand brushing mine to turn the page. A touch so brief it might’ve been imagined.

But the scent you left behind told me otherwise.