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The night was clear, not a cloud to be seen, nothing but the lights of the city and the stars, and yet you felt as though the sky was coming down on you. Waving through the narrow alleyways of the capital, the air was thick and cloying, nearly suffocating you—or perhaps it was your heart, swelling and beating wildly in your chest, fright and hope alike coursing in your veins.
Never before had you imagined that the streets of King’s Landing would be so alive at such a dark time of night, but in this instance, it would be your saving grace,as you were racing against time, and desperate not to be noticed.
You had first enlisted your maid’s help in getting out of the Red Keep, which wasn’t an easy feat, as you were kept under strict guard since assassins had come into the night with the purpose of murdering your husband, and likely, taking you back to your mother. They had failed on both accounts, and as a result, an innocent child had died, and you remained a prisoner in what had once been a peaceful marriage.
It had never been a happy one, as neither you nor Aemond had chosen it, and you had never grown to love one another. However it satisfied the king, giving him the false illusion that the divide between his eldest daughter, your mother, and her half-siblings had been mended. In public, Aemond and you acted as duty demanded, but in private, there was no warmth nor affection.
However, what could have been a solitary existence was instead bettered with the steadfastness and solace the constant presence of your sworn shield, Ser Gwayne Hightower, brought you. While he had at first been sworn to you with the queen’s hope to keep a trusted eye on you, you had over the years formed a bond of trust, and dared you say, tentative affection.
Ser Gwayne was a devoted, grounding presence at your side, and you found in him a kindred spirit. The white cloak hid a wittier spirit than was expected of a knight, with a sharp tongue and at times, rather cutting sense of humor. When it was needed, he was kind and attentive, seeing to you in a manner that went beyond his role as a guard.
Some nights when you stared at the ceiling, unable to find sleep, contemplating a life you would never live, you thought you would have liked to meet him under other circumstances—such thoughts were foolish and would only bring you pain, you knew, but the way his green eyes glinted sometimes made you think perhaps, you were not the only one entertaining them.
Now, you had left him behind, having formed a plan to escape and return to your mother as soon as you had suspected where his true loyalties lied, with his nephew the usurper.
The marriage would easily be annulled, you hoped, as you had not borne any children to Aemond, and once Rhaenyra would have ascended to her rightful throne, perhaps a true love match could be found for you, and you would forget this grim time in your life.
Perhaps that other life you sometimes prayed for was waiting for you.
Down the hill near the docks, you were hoping to catch a merchant ship, assured by your maid that for a handsome sum, a fisherman whose name she knew would take you nearer to Driftmark, where you could then find your way back to Dragonstone.
As dawn was slowly creeping on the edge of the horizon, you hid behind a stack of crates, then, hearing commotion further up the street, the familiar footsteps of the Gold Cloaks, you rushed down the narrow passageway, heart in your throat.
It opened to the last rampart before the docks, and you were so preoccupied by the City Watch at your back that you did not notice the man approaching you, grabbing you by the arm and dragging you back into the alley. “Unhand me, ser!” you cried out, ripping your arm away.
“Princess,” came the hushed response, a frantic call. The man stepped into the light of the moon, and under his hood, you recognized your sworn shield’s angelic face. He was dressed in commoner’s clothes, much as yourself, who was dressed as a boy, your hair hidden by a cloak.
“Ser Gwayne,” you replied, comforted that it was not a stranger in the night, coming to take your life or your dignity, but you weren’t reassured as to why he had come after you. You took a few steps back until your back met the wall, your eyes darting for the docks, but you knew there was no way for you to escape him, and hot tears came to your eyes.
Never before would have you thought that the man you trusted with your life would one day be what stood between yourself and your freedom. “Please, ser,” you begged in a whisper.
“I have been charged to bring you back to the Red Keep,” he said, rather regretfully.
“Please, ser, I cannot go back there,” you pleaded again, and you could see the anguish of your own heart painted on his handsome face.
“Come with me at once and it shall be forgotten,” he pressed, not unkindly. “While the queen dowager is aware, your husband does not, and we might keep it that way. He needs not know. I will keep your secret, as I have always had.”
“Then please keep my secret once more and let me go,” you replied, harsher than Gwayne had ever heard you speak. “I cannot remain here, I am not safe!”
“I shall watch over you as I have always done,” he promised, nearly crowding you against the wall in his effort to make you see reason.
In less than two hours the castle would be awake, and his nephew might be looking for his wife—he would not react kindly if he realized Gwayne had failed his charge. Only sister Queen Alicent had been informed, through her own maid, that the young princess was not in her room, and had sent for him immediately, charging him to bring her back before the alarm was rung.
“You cannot keep me safe from him!” you cried out, your voice breaking. “Besides, my loyalties are with my mother. Please, if you've ever had any love for me…”
“I cannot,” he replied.
He was sworn to serve the crown, and the rightful king. He had abandoned who he used to be on the day he had been cloaked in white, and there was no higher purpose to him than this. Now he would serve his king and his nephew for they were the same person, and it filled him with pride to see his blood reign righteously.
“Come with me, then,” you offered as one last act of desperation, and Gwayne thought it would have been easier to stab his own heart than it was to refuse you.
For a moment the love he bore for you took over his very soul, and he contemplated the path you could lead him on—one where his oath would be broken, but he would stand by you, and perhaps in time, you would be grateful enough that you would regard him as more than your sworn sword. However it was not his mind singing this enticing tune, but his heart, selfish and sinful.
“I cannot betray my oath, and my family,” he answered, in the end, the words ripping his heart as they came out of his chest.
While he understood the agony it must have been for you, and that it was natural for a daughter to support her mother in this way, he could not allow you to turn to the wrong path and risk your life. This war would be bloody, he feared, and he would rather see you on the side of the victorious.
“But you expect me to betray mine,” you replied tearfully, your eyes rimmed with red, glimmering with regret and sorrow alike. “Let me go, then. No one needs to know you ever found me.”
For a moment, hope beat a steady rhythm in your heart, the comforting shadow of relief creeping on the bright, burning sun of your fear. In the end, Gwayne’s answer came in the form of his hand on your wrist, tender and cruel all at once. “Come with me, princess, the queen dowager awaits,” he said, sealing your fate, and perhaps his with it.
Since Gwayne had brought you back to the Red Keep on that fateful night, the world only seemed grayer. While the men of his house fought in the fields, his cousin Ormund gathering the Hightower banners and marching into the Riverlands, he was a prisoner guarding another, only his bars were made of his own guilt, and his own devastation as seeing you so defeated.
Gone was the light in your eyes and he was painfully aware that he was responsible for it. He prayed on his knees every night that you would find it in your heart to understand, that he could never break his oath, never forsake his white cloak, even for you.
Now he wondered whether he had made the right choice, whether there ever was an instance where duty was wrong, and to follow one’s heart was the righteous path. The Gods were awfully silent on the matter, and day after day, no sign came to show him reassurance or blame, apart from his charge’s demeanor.
As a princess, a lady of good breeding and education, you remained polite and composed, in his presence at least, and it was perhaps what pained him the most. He would have taken your blame and your anger, but instead you acted as though he was simply a shadow on the wall, silent and insignificant.
One night as he saw you to your chambers, which were now colder than ever—the windows had been barred and the room stripped of books, parchment and ink, cutting you off from the world—he could not hold his tongue any longer.
“I am at the door, shall you need anything, as always,” he said gently, but then remained, looking at you until you glanced up, no doubt to bid him leave. “No matter your hatred for me, I am still devoted to your protection.”
For a moment the two of you existed in silence, him standing near the door, you at the window, looking out through the rare gap in the wood, no doubt searching for the light of the city. “There was a time when you were my protector,” you replied coldly, almost startling him as he had thought you would ignore him, but perhaps it would have been better. “The man I trusted and admired.”
Gwayne took a tentative step forward, emboldened by the fact that you were addressing him. “Have I lost your trust then, as well as your affection?” he inquired.
“You have not lost my trust,” you replied, but it sounded nearly like a threat, like a dagger being twisted in his heart. “I trust you to do exactly what your oath bids you to.”
“My oath is to shield you, to protect you with my life,” he replied helplessly, knowing his answer was no more than a dagger to the back to you, as torturous as your own answers were to him.
With a detached sort of pain in your eyes, you looked him up and down, considering him as though you had never noticed his armor before, the white cloak that hung at his back. He loathed and cursed the Gods for having brought the two of you to this stalemate, forced to stand on either side of a war and yet stuck together by an oath he was not sure of the meaning anymore.
“I was mistaken once, thinking you were sworn to me,” you explained tearfully. “But you are sworn to the crown first and foremost, and your loyalties lie with my enemies.”
“Am I your enemy now as well?” he asked, his voice strangled. You stood then, approaching him with care, as one approached an enemy disguised as a friend.
“That is a question for you to answer,” you said, and it was perhaps the most devastating reply you could have given him. “I am a prisoner here, how can you stand to be my jailor?”
Twin tears rolling down your face, which you were quick to swipe away. His hands burned to reach out to you, all the more when he thought he had never touched your bare skin with his, and may never. It had been his only fault all these years, the one he had prayed for in his solitary nights—where there should have been only pure, pious devotion, another sort of covetous love had rooted itself in his chest, unyielding. The sort that came with shameful desires and at times, a dark envy directed towards his nephew, who so carelessly ignored you.
Guilt twisted his stomach, but it was nothing compared to the sorrow that washed over him when you spoke next. “I used to think that perhaps you loved me, not as a knight loves his charge but as a man loves a woman,” you whispered, low enough that even the Gods would not hear you, and Gwayne fell to his knees on the stone floors, looking up at you in submission.
“I did,” he replied earnestly. “I do. Against my oath, I do love you.”
Your voice died for a moment, your chest shuddering. “So did I,” you replied, watching as agony spread over his face, widening his eyes, draining the color from his cheeks. “However you have made your choice, and now we must both live with it.”
“Honor is the bane of love, some knights say,” he mused out loud, unsure what he was trying to convey, to himself or to you. Closing your eyes, you set your hand atop his head, carding your fingers through his copper mane, and you thought right then and there, that were you a wicked soul, you could have forced him to submit, and gained your freedom through his demise.