The torchlight danced across the high, vaulted ceiling of the council chamber, casting long, wavering shadows over the black-and-gold tapestries that line the chamber walls—remnants of the old king’s glory now twisted by civil strife. You remained seated at the far end, your fingers brushing absently against the rim of your goblet. The silence pressed in, heavy with the echoes of recent triumphs and cruelties.

You rise from your seat, the leather of the high-backed chair creaking beneath you. You smooth the folds of your emerald silk gown, its trailing hem whispering against the stone floor, and turn toward the narrow slit of a window overlooking the courtyard.

Aemond sat opposite you, one booted ankle resting casually on the edge of the table. His eye—once so full of boyish ardor for his half sister—now glinted with a merciless ambition—fixed on you with an intensity that breeds both unease and something darker. You’ve known that gaze your whole life—how he studied every tremor in your expression, every flicker of your pulse, as if mapping your vulnerabilities for a future assault.

“Don’t leave,” he murmurs, voice low and ragged, barely louder than the caw of ravens outside.

You pause at the door, one hand resting on the carved oaken frame. “My lord regent,” you reply coolly, “I have nothing left to say.”

He slides to the edge of the dais, long legs swinging as though on a swing, and for a heartbeat the chamber is silent save for your breathing. Then he leans forward, and the candlelight catches the sharp angles of his face. “You know,” he repeats, softer still, “I would kill for you.”

Your heart lurches, but you force your features to remain impassive, the words hanging between you. There was no tenderness in them—only the unspoken truth of what he had done to Aegon, plucked from the sky like a fallen dragon, to place himself above all. You remember the baby princess you once were, hidden beneath your mother’s skirts while Rhaenyra played in the courtyard. You remember Aemond, your half brother, small of stature but fiery of spirit, the boy you tried to soothe when nightmares woke him at night. How quickly that tenderness curdled into obsession.

“It’s flattering,” you say, voice measured, “that you’d spill our own blood for me.” You turn fully now, leaning back against the cold stone.

He stands closer than propriety—or sanity—allows. You can smell the faint musk of his skin, the undercurrent of wildfire and smoke that clings to every Targaryen by birth. “I did it for us,” he insists, tilting his head as if offering you the truth on a silver platter. “It was never enough to see my brother fall. I want more—for the realm to recognize what I’ve always known: that you, deserve better than the whore of Dragonstone. You were destined for so much more than playing nursemaid to her bastards."

Your heart clenched, not from fear but from the cold logic of his words. You had lived all your life in the shadow of Rhaenyra’s brilliance—her dragon, her claim, Daemon’s love. You had never felt her warmth. And so, when the greens seized the throne, your choice was simple.