SEE HOW IT SHINES

PART ONE: i

It's dark when the knock comes.

The fire has long since died, leaving only embers that glitter like rubies and do little to warm Rhaenyra Targaryen's bedchamber past the hearth. The princess sits up, rubs sleep from her eyes, and frowns at the door. Who would come to her at this hour, when the sky is at its darkest and the Red Keep at its quietest? Perhaps Daemon has not left yet–no, he would come in through the passageway behind the panel in her wall, ever the Rogue Prince. Ser Criston, then–but he was so angry , and she figured he'd come around, but after the way he brutalized Joffrey Lonmouth, she would never take him back. Or could it be Har–

"Nyra? It's Laenor."

Right. Her husband. They've been married a fortnight and he's all but ignored her–some would call that its own sort of wedded bliss–too lost in his mourning and his cups to remember he has a wife now, duties now. She could never blame him. They were friends, as children, before Lord Corlys took him to the Stepstones and time separated them. And now they're married, tied together for life.

She never wanted him.

"Come in."

She fiddles with the end of her braid as the door creaks open and a familiar figure appears, face lit up from beneath by the candle in his hands. He smiles sheepishly, grief still clinging to his eyes, his brow, his silver-gold locs. Her heart clenches in her chest; guilt, though she knows it doesn't fully belong there. ( Is it her fault? Is it all her fault? Joffrey dead, Daemon gone, Alicent twisted into a monster by lies and ambitions not her own. It must be.)

"Can't sleep?" She tries to read the determined line of his lips as he lights a few more candles and pours two glasses of wine at the table on the other side of her room. He still hasn't looked at her, not really. He drains his cup in one gulp and hastily refills it, and something like nervousness roils in her stomach. She pushes back her bedlinens and pads across the room to him. "Laenor?"

When she creeps closer, she sees the red imprint of a palm across his face. She reaches for it but he flinches away, pressing a goblet into her hand and filling his again. His breath and half-unlaced tunic already smell of wine, but she says nothing, simply sips at her cup and waits for him to speak. He's always been quiet, even as children. And since their wedding–well, words have been few and far between.

"I have neglected my duty, Nyra," he says solemnly, still not meeting her eye.

Duty. The ever-present enemy, as of late. She knows she should not loathe a concept, especially one that awards her all that she wants. A small price to pay, really; accepting her duties, her responsibilities, will grant her the Iron Throne and all the glory in the realm besides. But what she wants, more than a throne, is freedom –and Laenor does, too, or so she thought, until this very moment.

She tries for a casual laugh. "Who cares about duty?"

The guilt-laden sorrow in his eyes is answer enough: a father who cares more about legacy than his children's happiness, a mother still bitter about a crown that never was though she claims to have put it behind her. A king who expects a boy to go against his nature for a girl who desires another. The court in the Red Keep and the fat lords in their country estates and even the smallfolk, though undoubtedly access to bread ranks higher than the duties of two miserable dragons.

"Drink," he nudges her hand softly, pausing her fingers' slow and methodical spinning of the rings that adorn them night and day. Finally, finally, he raises his gaze to hers. Even in the low candlelight, she's stunned by how beautiful his eyes are. Not quite purple, not quite blue, darker and lovelier than even his sister's–and everyone says Laena Velaryon has the most beautiful eyes in the Seven Kingdoms. (Everyone but Daemon. Daemon says hers take the prize. But Daemon also dances with Laena instead of whisking Rhaenyra away to Dragonstone when she asks. Her heart clenches again, shaped into something shriveled and half-mad by her uncle's abandonment.)