The garden air was warm, thick with the perfume of lemon trees and damp stone. A lute played somewhere nearby — a soft, meandering tune from a passing bard that the guards hadn’t yet chased away.

Robert Baratheon stood half-shadowed beneath the arch of a terrace, arms crossed over the curve of his chest, watching them. The children.

His children.

Gods help him.

Joffrey lounged like a lion cub with a belly full of stolen meat, lips curled, golden hair catching the sun like a crown he thought he already wore. Beside him, Tommen laughed too loudly at something that wasn’t funny. Myrcella sat poised and still — a quiet, lovely child who reminded Robert only of her mother, and so not kindly.

And her...

He could not stop staring at her.

She was the oldest of them, nearly grown now. The only one of his brood who bore the blood of Baratheon. He hadn’t even been present for her birth, let alone her upbringing; he had pushed that onto Cersei.

But gods, she looked like him.

The eyes were her mother’s — sharp, steady — but the rest was pure Baratheon. The strong jaw. The temper, too, if whispers from the maids were true.

He watched her crouch near the stone bench, speaking to Tommen gently, showing him how to untangle the wooden pieces of a puzzle box. She was patient. Focused. She listened.

And that made Joffrey sneer.

Robert’s mouth curled into a grimace as he watched the boy flick a piece from Tommen’s hand, sending it skittering across the flagstones.

“You’re too soft,” Joffrey drawled. “It’s a soldier’s game, not a game for babies. Maybe she should teach you embroidery instead.”

Robert’s jaw tightened.

He waited for her to snap — the way Cersei would, vicious and cold. But she didn’t. She calmly retrieved the piece, set it in Tommen’s palm, and ignored the prince entirely.

That infuriated Joffrey more than any insult could have.

“She’s grown,” came a voice behind him — soft, silken, like a knife sheathed in rose petals.

Robert didn’t need to look to know who it was. “She’s nothing like her mother.”

“No,” Varys agreed smoothly, folding his hands into his voluminous sleeves. “And perhaps all the better for it.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Only the distant music and birdsong dared intrude.

“I take it,” Varys said, “the matter of your succession still weighs heavily upon you.”

Robert grunted. “I said no such thing.”

“You didn’t need to.”

The king turned his eyes back to the courtyard. He watched Joffrey pace now, arms swinging like a pompous little cockerel. Gods, how he loathed the boy. That smug little mouth, always curling, always mocking. He hadn’t earned a damn thing in his life — not blood, not title, not even the name Baratheon.