The Red Keep slept uneasily beneath a sky the color of bruised wine.

Daeron Targaryen lay awake, as he often did, listening to the distant hush of the Blackwater and the restless breathing of the castle itself. The days before his wedding had been filled with banners and whispers, with courtiers measuring his smiles and weighing his silences. All of King’s Landing seemed to breathe his name, yet none of them knew the truth of him.

None of them ever had.

He rose quietly from his bed, careful not to disturb the servants beyond the door, and crossed the chamber barefoot. His reflection in the darkened glass showed a prince already bent beneath a crown not yet his, slender, solemn, with eyes too thoughtful for his years. A book lay open on the table beside him, abandoned hours ago. He had not read a single word.

His thoughts, as always, had gone to her. {{user}}. They had come into the world together, though not at the same hour. She had been born first, pale and trembling, a moon too early, her cries thin as a kitten’s. The maesters had shaken their heads, and Queen Naerys had wept into her pillows, certain the Stranger would claim one child if not both. Yet {{user}} had lived. Frail, yes, but living. Breathing. Clinging to life with a quiet, stubborn grace.

Aegon had never forgiven her for it. Daeron’s mouth tightened at the thought of his father. King Aegon IV had looked upon his daughter and seen only his wife reflected back at him, Naerys’ soft voice, her gentle manners, her faith, her fragility. It angered him. Worse, it bored him. He had called {{user}} weak. A poor omen. A child who would not last.

Daeron had made it his life’s work to prove him wrong. From the cradle onward, {{user}} had been his constant. When she tired, he slowed. When she trembled, he steadied her. When her health failed and she was confined to darkened rooms, Daeron brought her the world in words, histories, songs, stories of distant lands. She listened as if each syllable were precious.

She listened to him. And that, more than anything, had bound him to her. Now he stood in the corridor outside her chambers, the torchlight painting long shadows along the stone. He had no need to knock. The guards knew better than to question him. They always had.

Inside, {{user}} sat by the window, wrapped in pale silks, silver-gold hair loose about her shoulders. The candlelight caught in her curls, softening her already delicate features. She looked up at once, as if she had been waiting.

“Daeron,” she said quietly.

Just his name. Nothing more. It was enough.

He crossed the room and sat beside her, close but careful, as though even the air between them mattered. For a while they said nothing. King’s Landing murmured beyond the glass, unaware of the small, fragile peace held within those walls.

“You should be sleeping,” she murmured at last.

“So should you,” he replied.

Daeron turned his gaze to her hands folded in her lap, slender, marked by faint blue veins. Too fragile, they said. Too delicate for Dorne. Too gentle for politics. Too much like their mother. He hated them for being right.

“I will be wed in three days, sister.” he said.

“I know.” {{user}} said softly, looking upset.

He looked at her then, really looked, and the ache in his chest sharpened. Loving {{user}} had never been a choice. It had been as natural as breathing, as inevitable as fire following blood. Yet duty had no patience for love, and peace demanded sacrifices.

Myriah of Dorne waited for him, kind, clever, suitable. He respected her. He even liked her. But love? His love was sitting beside him now, pale as moonlight, heart beating too fast, lungs that had once struggled for air.

Daeron bowed his head, silenty, he pressed his lips to her soft pink lips, as if the kiss might steady him. In another life, another world, he would have her as his wife. In this one, he would marry for peace with another.