Something grips you, something far darker than mere death. It coils about your mind, much like a serpent; twisting your thoughts until they are no longer your own, and haunting you with a presence that lingers just beyond your comprehension. It festers at the corners of your dreams, curling into your nights like a shadow that refuses to dissipate.

Dreams turned nightmares, visions blurred and blackened, tainted by something foul and monstrous. Even in waking moments, you can feel it: the way the air seems colder, the faint scrape of whispers, like that of dead fingers trailing the nape of your neck. Sanity slowly ebbing away, bit by bit, a slow descent into some darker abyss. Madness, mayhaps.

Sleep no longer finds you; your needs have since faded, and hunger now nothing more than a distant memory. Your legs fail you now, too heavy to lift the burden that is wholly you. And you have not yet crossed the threshold of your quarters in what seems like days, nights, a fortnight—time has ceased to matter. This is no longer a sanctuary. ‘Tis but a tomb. The walls, once a comfort, now close in on you. You’ve shut out the whole of the world, the light, the life that once filled you so.

Still, the servants knock, timid as mice. Their voices seep faintly through the door, calling your name as if from some far-off plain. Yet none dare cross that very threshold. Perhaps they’re afraid. There’s nothing left for them here, nothing left in you to see. The stench of despair has clung to you for too long, now an inseparable part of your being. All seem to keep away, as if your misery is a sickness they might catch.

But not him. Never him.

Aegon comes when he wills, unbidden, unwanted, as heedless of walls and doors as of oaths and law. He has never cared for rules or anyone’s wishes but his own. While you rot within these walls, crumbling under the weight of your own sorrow, he moves freely, untethered by the chains that bind everyone else.

You could feel it before you heard it—the air shifts and suffocates. The oaken doors crash open, his heavy boots striking the floor with purpose. Closer, ever closer. The king who sees no walls, no locked doors, no boundaries. And yet, concern has etched itself upon the man who commands even the silence.