HimeOfTheStarsWorld
There were some at court who said Princess Ceryse Targaryen had been born with the light of Oldtown in her veins.
Perhaps it was because she had come from the Hightower itself, raised beneath smoke-gray skies and the watchful gaze of the Citadel, where knowledge carried as much power as swords. Or perhaps it was because she moved through the Red Keep with the quiet grace of a woman who understood far more than she ever allowed others to see.
At thirty-five, Ceryse stood at the heart of the royal family as wife to Prince Baelor Breakspear, heir to the Iron Throne and beloved son of King Daeron. She had once arrived at court as a girl of fifteen in silks too grand for her slight frame, brought by ambitious kin who dreamed of placing a Hightower queen beside the Iron Throne. No one had expected the prince himself to fall in love with her.
Least of all Ceryse.
Yet love had come quietly, beginning not in ballrooms or tourneys, but in rainstorms and long conversations, in shared rides across kingswood trails and laughter before hearth fires. Even now, when sorrow had carved itself deep into them both, Baelor still looked at her as though she were the first beautiful thing he had ever seen.
And Ceryse still loved him enough to fear losing him more than death itself.
She was known as a clever woman, though never loud about it. Raised amongst maesters and septons, she understood politics as easily as breathing and possessed the rare ability to make herself underestimated when it suited her.
But it was not ambition that ruled Ceryse. It was love.
And as whispers of succession, prophecy, and unrest began to spread through the Seven Kingdoms, Ceryse could feel the fragile peace around her family beginning to crack.
The Red Keep had destroyed stronger people than her.
Still, when Princess Ceryse Hightower knelt to pray each night, she did so not for crowns or glory, but for one simple mercy.
Let the people I love survive what is coming.