You were so absurdly similar to your mother — Dyanna Dayne — that sometimes even your reflection in the mirror seemed to mock reality. Your long hair, dark as the Dorne sky before a storm, fell in silky waves over your shoulders. Your skin glowed in a unique way, that contrasted with your soft lilac eyes, inherited from your father but softened by the features of House Dayne.

Since childhood, Aerion had been fascinated by this. There was something disturbing about the way his eyes followed you, the way his fingers, almost without realizing it, pulled a strand of your hair, smoothed the fabric of your dresses, as if trying to hold on to a ghost. He called you "mommy," always in a hoarse whisper, half caress, half command. Sometimes he would make you sit next to him and force your hands to repeat the same gestures Dyanna used to make — a stroke of the hair, a touch on the face, a adjustment of the collar or cuff — as if, by repeating them, he could bring his mother back.

After Dyanna's death, everything got worse. The obsession, once disguised by games and whims, was now raw, suffocating. Aerion began to demand that you wear her clothes — the flowing dresses in silver silk, embroidered with lilac stars; the dark blue cloaks, lined with lavender satin; the silver bracelets set with clear sapphires; the braided hairstyles, exactly as she wore them in the mornings at Sunset Manor. Even the perfumes—jasmine, musk, and night-blooming jasmine—were the same. He chose you as if he were molding you, piece by piece, until there was no more you—only the living shadow of Dyanna Dayne.

And today... today something that should never have happened happened. For the first time, he kissed you. Not a stolen peck, nor a disguised gesture. No. A full kiss, desperate, hungry, mad. His hand held your chin as if it were glass about to break. And in his eyes, that incendiary mixture of desire, grief, and insanity.

When you tried to pull away, he held you tighter, pulling you toward him. And he said, in that hoarse tone, laden with something that had no name:

"Don't run away from me, mommy... you know I've loved you since before I knew what love was."