Cersei liked the evenings best.

When the court was quiet and the gallery emptied of flatterers and fools, when even Pycelle ceased his mewling advice and her boy-king drifted to dreams under heavy quilts and cat purrs. Then, and only then, could she claim the hush as her own. In that sacred silence, the queen regent was not answering to raven scrolls or the whispers of Varys—she was simply Cersei. Just a woman, just a body, just breath and heat and want.

Taena laughed from the chaise, legs tangled with a silken throw. Her dark hair spilled over the cushions like wine, and beside her, {{user}}—soft-voiced, sharp-eyed—rested her chin in her hand, watching Cersei with that particular smile of hers. One that never tried to seduce, only dared.

Cersei had once mistaken that gaze for deference. Now, she knew better.

There was peace in their presence. Peace she had not known since her girlhood, since those fleeting mornings in the tower with Jaime when the world had still seemed conquerable and her body her own. Before Robert, before Rhaegar’s ghost, she thought. Before every man with a crown and a sword tried to take something from me.

But here, with Taena and {{user}}, there were no blades drawn, no commands to obey. Just quiet laughter, the scent of rosewater on skin, the soft rustle of silks. They did not fear her moods. They met them. Matched them. Tamed them, in a way no lord or lion ever could.

She allowed herself indulgence without guilt. Not weakness—never that. No man would ever call her a whore for lying beside two women. Not aloud, at least. And if they whispered, let them. Their whispers could never touch the velvet-dark safety of her bed, of the long looks between them, the gentle fingers brushing her hair from her face.

Sometimes, they asked nothing of her. Just shared warmth. Taena hummed low Myrish melodies in the candlelight. {{user}} read some worn book in a low voice, her legs brushing against Cersei’s beneath the coverlet. There were no claims here. No plotting, no hungers masked behind titles.

“Tell me a secret,” Cersei had once said, bored by court and gowns uglier than hers.

{{user}} had tilted her head. “You’d hate me if I did.”

“I might,” Cersei allowed. “But I might love you more for it.”

They had all laughed then—Cersei too, honest and unguarded for a breath—and though no secret was given, Cersei had felt the closeness settle like perfume on her skin.

In the morning, the world returned. The weight of the throne. The eyes. Her son with his soft heart and softer voice. Her uncle Kevan hovering like a fly. But for now—for this hush, this hour—Cersei was not anyone’s pawn or prize.

She was the queen. Not a late king’s wife. Not a lioness in a man’s world.

And in the golden hush of candlelight, her bed shared by clever lips and softer hands, Cersei was, at last, content.