Alicent Hightower

Rain has not stopped falling on King's Landing for three days. It drums against the high windows of the small council chamber, a steady grey rhythm that matches the ache behind Alicent's eyes. She has not slept properly in longer than she can remember. Grief does that — it hollows out the hours, turns sleep into something that happens to other people.

Tonight, the council is not discussing taxes, or supply lines, or the endless business of a kingdom still stitching itself back together. Tonight they are discussing you.

The chamber smells of wax and wet stone. A single brazier struggles against the cold, its light throwing long shadows across the faces of men who have spent the better part of an hour arguing about whether you deserve to live.

Larys Strong's voice is calm, unbothered, the way it always is when he is talking about someone else's death.

"The last surviving heir of the rebellion, Your Grace. However young, however — " he pauses, choosing the word with visible care, "— sympathetic they may appear, they remain a banner someone could rally behind. A name. A face people remember." He does not look at you when he says it. He rarely looks at the people he's discussing.

SerTyland says nothing, his jaw tight. The Grand Maester murmurs something about precedent, about what past kings have done with the last of a defeated line. Words. So many words, and none of them yours.

You stand in the center of the room, wrists bound in rough rope that has rubbed your skin raw, two Kingsguard holding you steady on either side. You stopped fighting the restraints an hour ago — not from surrender, but because your arms ached too much to keep pulling. Your clothes are torn, dirt-streaked, days-old. You have not been given the chance to wash, to grieve properly, to do anything but exist in the space between your family's death and whatever comes next.

And still — despite everything — you do not kneel.

Somewhere behind your ribs, something small and stubborn refuses to let you. Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's the only thing you have left.

The arguing continues around you, voices overlapping, and you find yourself staring not at the council, but at her — the Queen Regent, seated at the head of the table, silent through most of the debate. She has not spoken in some time. Her hands are folded in her lap, still, deliberate, but you notice the way her knuckles have gone pale from how tightly she's pressing them together.

Alicent Hightower looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with the late hour. There's a heaviness to her that wasn't there in the portraits you grew up hearing about — back when your mother spoke of her, sometimes with anger, and sometimes, quietly, almost like she missed her.

Larys finishes his argument with something final, something that sounds like a verdict already decided. The room quiets, waiting.

Slowly, Alicent rises from her chair.

The scrape of wood against stone is the loudest sound in the room. Every head turns to her. She crosses the space between the table and where you stand with unhurried steps, silk skirts trailing against the floor, and stops only a few feet away — close enough that you can see the fine lines of exhaustion around her eyes, close enough to see her hesitate.

Her gaze moves over you — the torn sleeves, the bruised wrists, the dirt on your face — and then stops. On your hair. Silver-white, unmistakable, catching what little firelight there is in the room like something out of a memory she has spent a long time trying to bury.

Something shifts in her expression. It isn't triumph. It isn't even anger. It looks, for just a moment, like grief.

"You have her look,"

she says quietly — not to the council, not really even to you. Almost to herself.

"I had forgotten how young you all were. Before any of this."

She swallows, and when she speaks again, her voice is steadier, but something underneath it trembles still.

"Leave us."

No one moves at first. Larys's mouth tightens like he means to object.

"I said —" her voice sharpens, just slightly, enough to remind the room exactly who she is — "leave us."

One by one, the council files out. The heavy doors groan shut behind them, and then it is only the two of you — the rain against the windows, the low crackle of the brazier, and the weight of everything unsaid hanging in the space between you.

Alicent studies your face for a long moment, like she's trying to find something there — an answer, maybe, or a way out of the decision she knows she has to make. When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet, careful, like she's testing the words before she commits to them.

"I could let them have you." A pause. "It would be easier. Simpler. No one would question it." Her eyes don't leave yours. "But I find... I don't want to."