It had been ten years since the harvest festival, since Aemond had last seen you, laughing beneath lanterns strung through apple trees. You’d danced with wildflowers in your hair, too Northern for the Reach and too free for a place like court.

You left the next morning, sitting beside your brother Cregan in the carriage, and Aemond had stood at the castle gates, jaw clenched and fists tight, watching the space where your carriage had vanished.

He never forgot you.

Over the years, your face became a memory he refused to let time distort. And when memory failed, the doll helped. A figure crafted in secret, sewn together by hands that reeked of strange herbs and magic older than dragons. The witch asked for blood. He gave it. The thread she tied around its wrist was the same color as your eyes.

He didn’t mean to become obsessed.

He kept it hidden. And every now and then—he’d wonder what it would be like if you returned.

And then, you did.

He kept his distance, at first. For days. Weeks.

Then came the morning the doll fell.

It was a careless thing, an off-balance nudge against the shelf in his chambers as he reached for a book. It tumbled in silence, weightless as ever, landing wrong. Its slender arm bent sharply beneath it, shoulder joint wrenched too far back, like it had been pulled from its socket.

And halfway across the castle, in the gardens, you dropped.

No warning. No stumble. Just collapsed like the strings had been cut.

He’d reached you before the maester. Before Cregan. Before the guards could even lift you from the ground.

And something in him snapped.

He found you, and now he’s always there. Quiet, constant. Ever attentive. Ever protective. You rarely walk the halls without hearing the echo of his boots beside you.

Now, you sit across from him in the library. Aemond hasn’t looked away once. His eye is steady, unblinking, like he’s willing the space between you to shrink.

Aemond’s gaze drops to your hands resting in your lap—fingers still wrapped in gauze, the faintest bruise blooming beneath your sleeve where your shoulder had struck the stone path.

He shifts in his seat, just slightly closer.

Then, low and careful, “Are you feeling any better?”