Aemond had been taught to show mercy.

His mother, ever devout, had reminded him that bastards were still children of the Seven. That they were innocent — blameless in their birth. He’d nodded as a boy, repeated the lessons. But none of those gentle teachings mattered once Lucerys Velaryon carved out his eye.

Since that night, all he’d seen in bastards was threat. Shame. Unpunished sin.

He hadn’t expected love to find him. Certainly not in the form of her — soft-spoken, golden-eyed, and far too lovely for the filth-stained streets of Flea Bottom. She called herself Aelora, though he doubted that was the name she was born with. Too bold. Too regal. Too perfect.

But it fit her all the same.

There was something sacred about the way she moved, the way her fingers worked dough into bread or stirred broth into something warm. Aemond found himself watching her in silence, hungry not for food but for the ordinary peace she carried. When she laughed — quiet and sudden — he felt it echo in the space his eye had once been.

He visited her every night, like a sinner returning to the altar. He told himself it was temporary. That he’d find a way to stop. That he’d never dishonor her with his bastards.

Then he saw where she lived. Alone. A handful of alleys from the Street of Silk.

That same night, she was moved to Old Gate.

He never asked. He simply told her to pack her things. She didn’t question it — only looked at him with that same warm trust that gutted him more than a sword ever could.

For a time, they lived like ghosts playing at domesticity. He’d come to her chambers bruised and bloodied from training, and she’d patch him up with tea and kisses and those terrible lemon cakes she swore would be better next time.

He tried to resist her fully. Swore to himself he wouldn’t give her a child — wouldn’t curse her with the weight of his name, his legacy, his war.

But she was his, and the gods saw fit to punish his weakness.

She told him with trembling hands, voice barely a whisper. That she was with child. That if he wanted her to, she would take the tea and make it go away.

Aemond couldn’t speak at first. Just stared at her — his precious, sacred girl — and then said in a voice low and raw, “Don’t you ever say that again.”

Now, with her belly round beneath her gown and the sound of their son’s cries echoing through the halls, Aemond felt something ancient loosen in his chest. A violence turned soft. A sword laid down.

He had the woman he loved. A child made not of shame but of choice.

And for the first time in his life, he began to believe he could be something more than a weapon.