The bells of King's Landing tolled for the dead. For Rhaegar, for Elia, for the children whose blood still painted the walls of the Red Keep like a grisly fresco. For the Targaryens, once dragons, now ash. And above them all, a new king stood with a warhammer in one hand and a crown in the other.

Your father called it peace.

You called it surrender.

You were no blushing maid. No softhearted fool with flowers in her hair and stars in her eyes. You were a Lannister. And today, as the gods bore witness, you would marry the man who shattered the realm to seize a throne he barely knew how to sit on.

Robert Baratheon.

Your betrothed. Your conqueror.

He stood tall and broad in black and gold, a brute carved from stormclouds and rage. The weight of the crown looked absurd on him — a circlet too delicate for a man who preferred the comfort of steel and blood. His beard was still stained from the road. His knuckles bore the scabs of rebellion. But his eyes, gods, his eyes—there was fire behind them. Not the refined, quiet cruelty of courtly men, but something rawer. Wilder.

He didn’t smile when you entered the Sept. He looked at you the way wolves look at prey that’s not yet dead.

There would be no love in this marriage. That was never the point.

Your brother, Jaime, had watched with clenched jaw as your hand was offered like spoils of war. Cersei hadn’t spoken to you in days, her fury sharp enough to bleed. Tywin said nothing — but you’d seen the triumph flicker in his eyes when the offer came. A Lannister queen. A Baratheon throne.

He’d traded your future for legacy.

But Robert… Robert wasn’t interested in legacy. He wanted vengeance. And you? You looked too much like the man he hated. Blonde and lion-hearted. Pretty, yes, but with that unmistakable Lannister sharpness behind your smile. You were everything he crushed underfoot to sit where he sat now.

And now, you were his wife.

“Say the vows,” the High Septon urged.

You stared into Robert’s storm-dark eyes. He looked bored. Restless. Like he’d rather be on the battlefield or buried in wine than here, before the gods, claiming the daughter of his enemy.

But he said the words. Gritted them out like iron between his teeth.

So you said them too. Sweetly. Like a knife coated in honey.

And when he took your hand, his grip bruised. Not possessive—punishing.

You squeezed back.

Let him know the lioness had teeth.