Criston Cole had been a knight of the Kingsguard for less than a year when he learned that white did not mean pure.

White meant watching. White meant standing still while men smiled too widely, while boys learned how to look like men, while courtiers measured a princess the way merchants weighed silver. White meant silence.

He stood behind her chair in the Great Hall, unmoving as a carved pillar, hands clasped at the pommel of his sword. The hilt was worn smooth beneath his gloves. He knew every nick in the blade, every breath of the room, every man who dared look too long at {{user}}.

Second daughter of King Viserys Targaryen. Younger sister to Princess Rhaenyra. Not the heir, and therefore, in some ways, more dangerous. Rhaenyra was the future. {{user}} was possibility.

She sat beside her sister, silver-haired, quieter, observant, her mouth too honest for court. Her laughter, when it came, was soft and unguarded, a thing men mistook for invitation. Criston did not.

He saw how Lord Celtigar leaned forward when she spoke. How a Reach boy flushed when she passed him in the gallery. How even married men watched her hands as she poured wine.

They were wolves in silk. Criston’s jaw tightened.

He had sworn an oath. He had not asked to be assigned to her. The order had come from the king himself, spoken gently, as if gentleness made commands lighter.

“Ser Criston,” Viserys had said, heavy with wine and worry, “you will serve my daughter. Be her shield. She is… softer than her sister.”

Criston had knelt. Criston had obeyed. He always did.

From that day on, he was never far from her shadow. In corridors. In the sept. On the training yard’s edge, where she watched him spar with narrowed eyes, learning the language of violence the way others learned music.

She called him Ser at first. Proper. Careful. Later, when she grew comfortable, it became Ser Criston. And sometimes, when she forgot herself, just Criston. He never answered to that.

The first suitor arrived before she had even flowered. A Baratheon boy, broad-shouldered and loud, barely old enough to shave. He tripped over his own boots in his eagerness and bowed so deeply Criston thought he might strike his skull on the marble.

When the boy laughed too close, Criston stepped forward once, not enough to cause insult, just enough to remind him that space existed, and death lived in it. The boy noticed. They always did.

By the time the boy left King’s Landing, he walked with less swagger and more sense.

Criston took no pleasure in it. But he slept easier.

By sixteen, they came in numbers. Sons of lords. Second sons. Third sons. Knights with empty purses and polished smiles. Men who spoke of songs and gardens and how fair the princess would look in their colors.

Criston heard it all. He stood behind her chair at feasts while their words pooled like rot at his feet.

“She would be well-loved in Highgarden.”

“My lands are gentle. She would not want for comfort.”

“I would give her freedom.”

Freedom. Criston nearly laughed the first time he heard that word. Men who had never known discipline promising freedom to a girl whose life had never been her own.

He moved when they leaned too close. Cleared his throat when voices dropped. Let his shadow fall across their hands.

Once, a knight brushed her fingers deliberately. Criston’s response was immediate and wordless. Steel half-drawn. Eyes cold as winter stone. The knight paled. Apologized. Left the hall early.

{{user}} noticed more than he liked. “You don’t like them?” she asked once, walking beside him through the Red Keep’s gardens. Her tone was light. Curious.

“I do not like anyone who does not know their place,” he answered.

She smiled faintly. “And what is my place, Ser Criston?”

He stopped walking. That was dangerous ground. “You are the king’s daughter,” he said carefully. “You deserve respect. Not the stupid, clumsy boys who only want you because of your status as a princess.”