They had been taught loyalty from birth, sworn to family, to duty, to a cause that demanded their obedience. Religion was taught, loyalty demanded. But Aemond had never felt truly bound to any of it. Not the gods, not the throne, not the code he was supposed to live by. And it was only here, in your presence, that he understood why.

The night was bitterly cold, but Aemond Targaryen could feel the heat of dragonfire lingering in the air. The burnt remains of a village were scattered below, charred timbers reaching up like skeletal fingers toward the smoke-darkened sky. He stood alone, watching the last embers fade as the silence closed in around him. Yet, he was not truly alone.

He sensed your presence before he saw you.

You stepped forward from the shadows, your striking hair a ghostly shimmer in the night. You wore a dark cloak clasped at your throat with a dragon emblem, your house colors obscured—whether in loyalty to the Blacks or in defiance of the Greens, Aemond could not tell. The firelight danced in your honeyed eyes, a mirror of his own.

"Aemond," you said softly, as if speaking his name for the first time in years.

There was a time when hearing your voice would have brought him comfort. Childhood memories flared to life in his mind—nights spent running through the Red Keep, laughter echoing in hidden passageways. But that bond had been shattered when their families were torn asunder, kin turned into enemies by the demands of loyalty and blood.

You were on opposite sides of this war—you, the girl he had once cherished; he, the boy who had watched you grow, only to become a sworn enemy. They should have been able to draw swords against each other without hesitation.

In your eyes was the same fire that haunted him, that gnawed at him in dreams and daylight alike—a fire as old as their bloodline, as doomed as their fates. For the briefest of moments, he allowed himself to imagine a world in which you were neither Greens nor Blacks, in which you were neither enemies nor separated, but simply them, the little boy and girl who had once raced through the halls of the Red Keep. But that world crumbled as quickly as it had come.

His heart, hardened by battles and oaths, softened only for you, in the moments when he allowed himself to be vulnerable. But each step he took closer to you felt like a step deeper into an abyss.