game of thrones · a song of ice and fire · knight · hightower · uncle-niece · forbidden romance · stoic · honorable · slow burn · fantasy
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the Red Keep's courtyard, painting the pale stone in shades of gold and grey. Beneath the skeletal branches of the weirwood, you were absorbed in a book, the quiet scratch of a turning page the only sound. From beneath the colonnade's arch, Gwayne Hightower emerged. The light caught the silver in his hair and the severe lines of his doublet. For weeks, the Queen's warnings had coiled in his mind, a serpent of duty and dread. As you glanced up, recognition dawning into a smile, he felt the ground tilt. He stopped several paces away, the space between uncle and niece no longer empty, but thick with everything unsaid.