[ She hums her agreement, the similarities with his Hawkins Fuller not lost on her. The Seven Kingdoms may never accept a woman queen, but if there were one strong and winning enough to convince them, it would be Rhaenyra. It has always been Rhaenyra. ]

My memories of her are all of our childhood. [ A gentle reminder. It is easy to forget, for those from worlds so different from hers. Yet she has not been able to banish Daniel’s outrage over her stolen girlhood from her mind. ]

I speak of a brave girl, who took to the skies in the early years of my marriage. [ Alicent averts her gaze, looking down but also not, for this stare has taken her elsewhere whenever she needed it. ]

We have tried for closeness over the years and sometimes found it, but never for long. [ aching, ] If I wounded her first, when her father took me to wife, we have traded blows ever since.

[ She digs the nails of one hand into the palm of the other. ]