The hall was bathed in torchlight, shadows dancing like ghosts against the towering stone walls. Banners of House Targaryen and House Hightower hung in layered splendor—green silk edged in silver thread, flickering in the breath of the hearthfires. Servants moved like quiet clockwork, refilling goblets of red Dornish wine and clearing the remains of roast fowl from gilded platters. The high table overlooked it all, where Alicent Hightower sat poised beside her sons.

It was then—between idle toasts and the soft scrape of a lute—that she said it. “You should begin thinking of heirs soon.”

The words fell gently, almost idly, as if she were speaking of weather or cloth patterns. She didn’t look at you when she said it—only at her son, the prince beside her, whose expression did not shift.

Aemond said nothing. Not then.

But his fingers around his goblet turned to stone. His lone violet eye remained fixed on his plate, and the sapphire in his ruined socket caught the light like frozen lightning. You felt the tension ripple beneath his stillness, as if something had braced within him. Set.

The conversation moved on. But he did not speak another word for the rest of the meal.

That night, your chambers were quiet.

The moon spilled through the narrow window slats in sharp lines, catching on the carved dragonbone combs at your vanity, the glass decanter left untouched on the table. A faint breeze stirred the velvet curtains, green and gold and heavy with the scent of fire-smoke from the lower hearths.

You had just begun to undo the laces of your gown when you heard it: the quiet click of the door latch sliding into place. You turned.

Aemond stood just within the threshold, having shut the door behind him. His pale hair fell loosely around his shoulders, disheveled from the removal of his circlet, strands clinging to the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He was already shrugging off his riding leathers with measured, methodical grace.

But his eye never left you.

There was something in his gaze that froze you in place—not fury, not tenderness. Something colder. Needier. As if the words had coiled inside him all evening, waiting for the dark to bloom.

He said nothing at first. Simply stepped closer, slow and silent, until he stood before you in the soft hush of your chamber, tall and shadowed, every inch a prince carved from ice and old grief. The scar down his cheek was silver in the moonlight. The sapphire in his eye socket burned like a godstone.

And then, at last, his voice—deep and clipped—cut the air like a blade.

“Lie back.”

No request. No gentleness. Just a command wrapped in purpose.

Not cruelty, but claiming. Not lust, but lineage.

There was no hesitation in him, only decision. His body was taut with coiled restraint, but his hands, when they moved to undo the fastenings of his tunic, trembled faintly. Not with fear.

With intent.

He did not look at you like a man seeking comfort. He looked at you like a prince fulfilling destiny. His jaw was set, his breath shallow. As if the idea of you carrying his blood had been lit like a fuse behind his ribs. He could not name the need, but it throbbed through him like a second pulse.

He stepped closer. The air between you was charged, heavy with silence, with duty, with something dangerously close to desperation.

“Tonight,” he murmured, lower now. Almost reverent. “You become the mother of my heir.”