Queen Aemma Arryn did not often walk the godswood.
The Red Keep had its septs and solar balconies, its airy chambers and long halls filled with voices, yet the godswood belonged to an older silence—one that made courtiers uneasy and queens thoughtful. Still, that afternoon she came, attended only by the soft rustle of her skirts and the ache that never quite left her belly.
She found Daemion where she half expected him to be, seated beneath the weirwood with a book open in his lap, though his eyes were elsewhere. He did not notice her at first.
"You'll ruin your eyes if you stare at pages without reading them," Aemma said gently.
Daemion startled, scrambling to his feet at once. "Your Grace." He bowed, awkward and too deep, as if afraid of offending her.
She smiled at that, though it was a sad thing. "There's no need for that," she told him. "Not with me."
He hesitated, then straightened. "Yes, Your Grace."
Aemma studied him for a long moment. He had his father's height already, the lean build of Old Valyria rather than the softness of the Reach or the Vale. The purple eyes were unmistakable. No matter what name he bore, no one with sense could deny his blood.
"You favor Viserys," she said at last.
Daemion stiffened, as if unsure whether that was praise or danger. "I do?"
"You do," Aemma replied. "When he was a boy."
She gestured for him to sit, and after a heartbeat's pause he obeyed. She settled beside him, carefully, as if the stone might break her.
They sat in silence awhile.
"You've been kind to Rhaenyra," Aemma said. "She speaks of you often."
"I'd die for her," Daemion said at once, too quickly.
Aemma turned her head then, really looking at him. There was no calculation in his voice, no rehearsed courtesy. Only certainty.
"I know," she said softly.
The words hung between them, heavy with meanings neither of them named.
At last Daemion spoke again, quieter now. "I'm sorry."
She frowned faintly. "For what?"
"For… existing," he said, eyes fixed on the grass.
The pain struck sharper than she expected.
Aemma reached out before she could stop herself, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. He flinched, then went still.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," she said. "Nothing at all."
He swallowed. "Some people think—"
"Some people think far too much of themselves," Aemma cut in, her voice suddenly firm. "You did not choose how you were born. No child does."
Daemion dared to look at her then. "You don't hate me?"
The question was so small it broke something in her.
"Hate you?" she echoed. "Gods, no."
She drew her hand back slowly, as if afraid of overstepping, though the impulse remained. "You are not a sin, Daemion. You are a boy. And you are my husband's son."
She did not say and my daughter's brother, but the truth of it lay plain between them.
Daemion nodded, once. He did not smile, but some tension eased from his shoulders.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For seeing me."
Aemma looked away then, toward the pale trunk of the heart tree and its bleeding eyes. She thought of all the children she had lost, of all the pain her body had borne in silence for the sake of the realm.
"I see you," she said again. "And I always will."
When she rose to leave, Daemion stood with her, bowing once more—but this time, not quite so deeply.
As she walked back toward the castle, Queen Aemma Arryn felt the strange, aching certainty that the boy beneath the weirwood would one day be at the center of more than whispered conversations.
And she prayed, quietly, that the realm would be kinder to him than it had ever been to her.