She didn’t belong in that place. Not in the halls of the Red Keep, not among diplomatic circles, and least of all among the neatly arranged ladies-in-waiting that his daughter now cultivated as symbols of a softer — more acceptable — kind of power in the wake of successive royal tragedies. She was young, Dornish, and made no effort to hide her discomfort. From the start, she walked as though surveying ruins. And that unsettled him.

He saw her for the first time during a trivial audience, a meeting about taxes and provisions she had no reason to attend. But she was there, seated behind his daughter, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the tapestries. It was a detail: the straight posture, the lifted chin, the eyes that sought no favor. She did not lower her gaze when he met it — and yet she looked past him as if there were nothing there at all.

In the days that followed, she appeared in places where she had no business. Or perhaps it was he who had begun to notice her too much. And that bothered him. Desire was a symptom of youth, of weakness, of uncertainty. He had long since moved past all that. He had once had a wife — a good wife — who died giving birth to the creature he never accepted. Since then, everything had become calculation. Cersei defied him, blind with pride and ambition. Jaime had squandered everything on a golden vow. And the other… the other was a burden, a living reminder of disgrace. The family name was fractured. His bloodline diluted in failure.

But that woman — she represented something outside the natural order. A risk. An affront. A growing fissure that began to occupy him silently, almost bureaucratically: first in sleepless thoughts, then in indirect decisions, until he began to shape the board to claim her. With the authority he still held as Hand, he crafted a political justification for an impossible union. Her house needed redemption, a path back to central power. And he needed… something he could not name.

It was a lie, of course. He wanted to have her. Not as a mistress, not as a captive — but as a wife. Within the bloodline. Within the house. Within the name.

She resisted, with the silent pride typical of the burning land she came from. But resistance was useless. He was the law. He was the name that decided the fate of kingdoms. The families bent. The wedding was arranged.

On the wedding night, the chamber was prepared like a proclamation. Candles lit, fine fabrics, a hearth burning despite the heat. He entered slowly, eyes fixed on her. She stood before the mirror, still dressed. She didn’t turn. And that struck him more deeply than any insult might have.

He knew what she thought. That he was old. That he stood for everything she hated. And perhaps he did. But she did not understand what he carried: the memory of the woman he had lost, the disappointment of children who had failed, the name bleeding at the edges. Perhaps, with her — with her body — he could still father the heir he never had. A child who would not be a monster, nor weak, nor female. A name, strong, legitimate, renewed.

“You are my wife now.”

The words fell like a sentence — not an offer. But he knew that to her, it sounded like a punishment. Still, he desired her. He desired to see her swollen with his child. He desired her fear, and also her respect. He desired, above all, that she might one day look at him and see more than a tyrant. That she might see the man no one had ever seen.

For now, she simply stood there, made of heated stone. And he, hand still firm on his swordbelt, drew a long breath. She hated him. And still, he wanted her as he had never wanted anything.