You had ridden through cold and distance and silence, bearing the weight of snow and vow alike.

From Winterfell to Dragonstone, your return was cloaked in stormlight — the wind still clung to you as you stepped into the Queen’s solar. Rhaenyra stood by the fire, her eyes like twin coals, warming nothing. Around her, the room flickered with uneasy light.

You knelt.

The North had bent the knee.

Lord Cregan Stark, grim and grave, had pledged his sword to her cause. You had returned to tell her this.

Behind you, courtiers watched from the shadows, murmuring already — of your journey, of your success, of the way the Wolf of Winterfell had looked at you. How long you'd stayed.

And Rhaenyra, your sister, your queen, watched you rise.

She tilted her head, eyes trailing over your Northern leathers, over the faint red mark at your throat no collar could quite hide.

Then she smiled —a tired, knowing thing — and gestures for the others to leave. Once alone she asked:

“Tell me, sister… was it your silver tongue that won him, or something far more tender?”