The Ladies’ Solar, Maegor’s Holdfast — Late Morning

Sunlight streams through the high, narrow windows of Maegor’s Holdfast, warm and golden, catching on the floating motes of dust suspended in still air. The rays paint dappled halos on the marble floor, which gleams faintly with polish. A spring breeze filters through the gauzy curtains, stirring them just enough to send pale ripples across the floor. The faint scent of lilacs wafts up from the lower gardens below, mingled with the sharper resin of the cedarwood furniture polished earlier that morning by unseen hands.

It is, by all appearances, a serene morning in the Red Keep.

But serenity, here, is often a thin veil drawn over deeper fractures.

Inside the solar, half a dozen noblewomen lounge on embroidered cushions, seated in a crescent around a low lacquered table strewn with embroidery hoops, baskets of silk threads, and untouched plates of candied fruits and almond wafers. A brass brazier gives off a faint perfume of saffron and bay leaves. The soft hum of conversation drifts through the space, measured and practiced. This is court, after all.

“I’ve always believed it,” Lady Staunton says, her hoop resting on her lap. “A mother’s disposition shapes the child in the womb. My youngest came out red-faced and shrieking, and I wept nearly every day I carried him. The septa said it was no mystery.”

“My second was nearly silent,” Lady Beesbury adds. “I spent most of my confinement reading by the window. I think the child felt the peace.”

Their eyes shift—subtle, serpentine—toward Queen Alicent.

She sits a little apart from them, framed by the wide arch of an open window, the sunlight catching faint green glints in the silk of her gown. Her back is ramrod straight, her hands poised carefully on her lap. The gentle swell of her pregnancy is visible beneath the soft fall of fabric. Her shawl, draped loosely across her shoulders, twists slightly in her grip where her fingers tug it tighter.

“It’s just an old wives’ tale,” she murmurs, her smile polite and unyielding.

“But old wives’ tales carry truths,” says Lady Redwyne gently. “They last for a reason.”

From across the room, seated on a bench just within the edge of the light, another woman listens. The youngest daughter of Viserys and Aemma—unnamed in whispers so the listener might fill it in—known now only as Lady Hightower. She is the King’s daughter, Rhaenyra’s sister, and newly wed to Lord Otto. Her position is both clear and undefined—her blood powerful, her allegiance shifting.

She is dressed not in green but a pale blue, threaded with smoky gray, her hair loose down her back in soft waves, bound only at the crown with a twist of silver. A single moonstone rests at her throat. Her embroidery remains untouched in her lap.

She has not spoken yet—not during the murmured tales of wombs and humors. Not when the ladies began trading glances like sharpened daggers sheathed in silk. The tension lingers like smoke, and then—

“I’ve always wondered,” she says softly, her voice measured and cool, “if joy leaves its mark on a child the way grief does. If laughter sinks into the belly… the way sorrow stains the skin.”

The room falls quiet.

The light shifts again, moving slow across the floor. Outside, bells from the sept tower begin to ring the hour. A serving girl slips in and out with fresh cups of tea, unnoticed.

Alicent says nothing. Her smile, still plastered gently across her lips, tightens at the corners. Her eyes drift to the open window, though there’s nothing outside to hold her gaze but sky.

She feels the shift in the room. As if the air has realigned around someone younger, lovelier, and better poised. Someone carrying twins—a daughter of the King, not a second wife.

Whispers have already begun. Otto Hightower, it is said, has drafted new provisions in his will. Holdings in Oldtown—perhaps even Hightower itself—will pass to his children by the Princess. Not to Gwayne. Not to the Queen. He claims it is prudence, ensuring his legacy. But everyone knows better.

Alicent cannot meet her father’s eyes.