There had been a time when {{user}} had imagined a life of snow. Of pale morning skies and quiet laughter, of leather gloves pressed to hers as she rode alongside a man she had chosen. Torrhen Stark had not been a dreamer, nor a poet, but he had been kind. And he would have let her be free.

Now the cold was gone. And in its place, fire and blood.

The hall was choked with celebration. Torches crackled in sconces, shadows thrown against the carved stone walls of Aegonfort like ghosts trying to escape. Minstrels played too loudly. Men laughed with mouths slick from blood-red wine. Her name was spoken again and again, dragged from feast to feast like a trophy on display. The day’s tourney had ended. Aegon had won. Her name day had been his glory.

Aegon had not always been a like that, she told herself. There had been a time, once, when he had smiled at her like she was something he had found, not conquered. But that was before he had shattered her betrothal. Before he had stood before the court and claimed her as his bride with the same ease he claimed land.

She had not gone to his chambers. Not once. She had refused him with trembling dignity, night after night. And when the whispers began, when Visenya’s patience snapped, she had tried to flee.

It should have worked. Her dragon had been waiting.

But Visenya had found her in the clouds. And Aegon had secured the beast to the earth.

Her dragon, her soul, her fire, her freedom, had roared in agony as thick iron links were fastened round its wings. And something in her had died with that roar. Something that had not come back since.

Now, {{user}} sat beside him. A queen not in her own right, but in the absence of choice. The feast wore on. And still, she did not speak.

And Aegon, crowned and conquering, victorious, adored, turned to her at last. He smelled of smoke and steel, and something darker beneath. His voice was low, though not tender. Controlled, though it frayed at the edges.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

As if he didn’t know.