TO LOVE A KING || Maegor II Targaryen [SLOW UPDATES]

065▪️SHE DARES TO DEFY

The Red Keep was a fortress of flame-kissed stone and sharp corners, every hallway whispering with secrets

Alicent Hightower walked with purpose, though each step felt like wading through mist. The stone corridors of the Red Keep loomed around her, carved with dragons and bloodied history.

The vaulted ceilings arched high above her head, letting in slivers of late-afternoon sun through narrow stained-glass windows.

The smell of oiled iron and burning tallow clung to the air, muffled by velvet tapestries that could not drown out the distant clatter of armor and the quiet murmurs of servants exchanging secrets in passing.

Her slippers soundless against the cool marble floors. Her silk skirts barely brushed the ground as she took the western passage toward the Royal Art Gallery, each archway casting fractured shadows from the stained glass above.

The court was alive with whispers and politics, but for Alicent, it felt hollow. The gruesome spectacle from court still haunted her the blood, the heads, the stifled screams. Her stomach still turned.

But worse than that was the isolation it revealed. The laughter she once heard echoing through the halls was gone. Queen Mellario had walked these corridors not long ago, full of mystery, her presence soft,and foreign grace.

Now her body lay beneath stone and soil, cold and forgotten. Her younger sister Naomi once a shy thing barely able to lift her chin when spoken to had blossomed like a serpent flower in the sun since arriving in King’s Landing.

She had bloomed into a sharp-tongued court beauty, got married, feted by lords who once sneered at her quiet tongue.

Servants passed her, heads bowed, nobles spoke in hushed tones, and guards stood at attention, but none truly saw her.

She sighed, pausing at the base of a carved stair. Her chest tightened. Despite the opulence, despite the music, the tapestries, the court’s performative pageantry, she was alone.

No friend she could whisper her truths to, no shoulder to cry on. She had no friend to confide in, no one to share the heavy silence behind her smile.

And the man she liked no, the man she desired treated her like a fleeting breeze. He pulled her in and pushed her away as though her feelings were a game, nothing more. the man whose eyes lingered too long played her like a song he never intended to finish. And worse still, she let him.

She took the last steps to the gallery, placing her palm gently on the door. The Royal Art Gallery had always been her refuge a place where paint and silence were enough. She pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside, prepared for solitude.

But she stopped cold.

Her breath hitched softly as her eyes widened.

There, before the tall arched windows, stood King Maegor Targaryen, his red eyes sharp with thought, his presence magnetic even in stillness. Beside him, the ever-bowing Lord Pycelle, speaking animatedly, hands gesturing toward a series of canvases propped against the far wall.