Summer lay heavy upon King’s Landing, thick with heat and scent, orange blossom from the gardens, and the sour-sweet perfume of too many bodies pressed too close beneath silk and steel.

Prince Baelor felt the day upon his skin long before the hunt had even begun.

He sat his horse easily enough, straight-backed and composed as the blood of the dragon demanded, yet his thoughts were nowhere near the antlered quarry the lords so eagerly discussed. They were fixed instead upon the slight movement at his side, the flutter of pale fabric.

{{user}}. She rode beside him, as she always did when allowed. She wore Dornish silks that caught the sunlight, soft lilac, pale as dusk, her dark hair unbound down her back. Only her eyes betrayed her birth: that unmistakable Targaryen violet.

Prince Daeron, their father, pinched the bridge of his nose as though warding off a headache that had followed him for years. “Gods preserve me,” he muttered, not quite softly enough. “Must you cling so? The whole court watches.” Baelor straightened at once, schooling his face into dutiful calm. {{user}} did not bother.

From farther back, Aerys laughed too loudly. Rhaegel looked away with the long-suffering air of a boy convinced the world was conspiring against him. Maekar, ever sharp-eyed, scowled at Baelor.

Ahead of them, the hunt horns sounded. King Aegon IV sat massively upon his own mount, already flushed, already sweating, already bored. He spared his grandchildren little more than a glance, and less warmth still when his eyes landed on {{user}}. His lip curled.

Myriah’s dark Dornish beauty, softened by something else, something delicate and pale that echoed the late Queen Naerys. In {{user}}’s face, Aegon saw too much of both women he heated, and it soured his mood at once. He turned away.

The hunt broke, horses surging forward into the green shade of the Kingswood. Baelor rode well, he always had. Once, when the others rode ahead, she reached up and tugged him down by the collar, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, sun-warm, reckless, gone before sense could catch it.

“{{user}}, don't.” he breathed. She smiled, unrepentant.

Daeron pretended not to see. he would scold them. But not now. Not on their nameday. The return to the Red Keep was a study in barely restrained chaos.

King Aegon took his own carriage, thick curtains drawn, laughter and the low murmur of women’s voices drifting out. Daeron and Myriah rode with Daenerys and Daemon, a decision born not of trust but of fear, no one wished to discover what those two might do if left unwatched for even an hour.

Baelor and {{user}} were given a carriage of their own. It was a mistake. The moment the door shut and the wheels began to roll, restraint dissolved. Heat, laughter, whispered words, the world beyond the carriage ceased to matter. When they arrived, both were flushed, disheveled, and far too pleased with themselves.

Rhaegel refused to meet their eyes. Maekar muttered something like cruse and stalked away. Daeron sighed.

That evening, the feast and ball filled the Red Keep with light and music. {{user}} entered the hall like a dream spun of summer dusk.

Her gown was pale purple, embroidered with stars, suns, and crescent moons, a gift from her Dornish grandsire Maron Martell, who adored her beyond measure. Gold gleamed at her throat and wrists, and upon her brow rested a delicate diadem shaped in the same celestial pattern. Her hair fell freely down her back.

Baelor forgot how to breathe. He wore black, a high-necked doublet fastened close. Myriah noticed at once when {{user}} shifted her hair, revealing marks at her neck that had not been there that morning.

Baelor rose from his seat then, his expression tight, his gaze flicking between his twin, and briefly, to his father.

“They cannot wait two years,” Daeron thought grimly. “They cannot wait at all.”

Baelor took {{user}}’s hand and led her into the dance, They were young. They were in love. And the realm, for all its dangers, had not yet taught them what it would one day cost.