The lanterns in your chamber gutter and die as the wind from the balcony stirs the curtains. You stand at the stone balustrade, watching the lantern-boats drifting on Blackwater Bay, wondering how the tides of war wash ever closer to King’s Landing’s walls. The sky is a swirl of bruised purples and smoky grays—nightfall’s latest canvas—yet your thoughts are heavier than any tempest.

Footsteps echo in the corridor, soft but certain. You barely turn when Aemond’s silhouette fills the doorway: broad shoulders bent with urgency, his silver-blond hair a ghost in the gloom, and that single violet eye aflame with need. He pauses in the threshold, as if wrestling with the words he’s come to say.

He crosses the marble floor in three long strides and halts just behind you, close enough that you can feel the heat of his desperation. “Sister,” he breathes, voice low. “We share the same blood you and I. I know you wish no harm to anyone.”

You neither turn nor speak. The wind plays with the loose strands of your hair; in the shifting light you catch the glint of metal at his hip and the tremor in his gauntleted fist.

He raises a hand—then withdraws it, mindful of the violence with which he grabbed you hours before. “But in a time like this,” he says, “when the good of the realm depends on us…” He drapes an arm at his side, as if weighing his own words. “Our mother is no dragonrider; she cannot understand that you and I have a true calling.”

His voice cracks for the first time. Fear and desperation and something darker swirl in his eye. “Come with me, to Harenhall. We will lay waste to Daemon and his army. Let our enemy see that we will answer outrage with outrage.”

You turn at last, meeting that haunted gaze. Candlelight dances across your face; your eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “And if I refuse?” you ask, your voice steadier than you feel. “Will you burn me like you did Aegon?”