Title: The Closing of Accounts

Title: The Closing of Accounts

Year and Month: 107 AC, 6th Moon

The wedding feast was the final, and perhaps most critical, stage of the public offering. The ceremonies had been a demonstration of power; the feast was a demonstration of wealth and control, a carefully managed environment where I could take the temperature of my shareholders, engage in informal negotiations, and solidify the narrative of my new regime. The Great Hall of the Red Keep had been transformed. Every banner of every noble house in attendance hung from the rafters, a riot of color that was, in itself, a testament to my unifying power. The tables groaned under the weight of a hundred courses, a culinary tour of the Seven Kingdoms, from roasted boar of the Stormlands to lemon cakes of the Reach. The wine flowed as freely as the rivers of the Trident.

I sat at the high table on a raised dais, my Queen, Lyanna, at my side. The Conqueror's crown rested on my brow, a cold, familiar weight. Lyanna was a study in fierce, contained composure. She had changed from her simple wool dress into a magnificent gown of deep grey velvet, the color of a winter storm, embroidered with the white direwolf of her house in silver thread. On her, the severe color did not seem drab; it seemed regal, a statement of her northern identity amidst the gaudy silks of the south. She watched the proceedings with the sharp, observant eyes of a wolf studying a herd of deer, her expression revealing nothing.

From my vantage point, I surveyed the hall. It was not a gathering of friends and family; it was a map of my kingdom, a living representation of its power structures. I saw Lord Tyland Lannister, his smile as bright as his gold, engaged in a smooth conversation with a Tyrell lord, no doubt discussing how this new northern alliance might affect trade. I saw Lord Boremund Baratheon, his mood somewhat improved by the copious amounts of strongwine, laughing loudly with his bannermen, though his eyes still darted nervously towards the High Septon, who sat at the end of the high table looking as though he had just swallowed a lemon. I saw the Dornish delegation, led by Prince Qoren Martell, keeping to themselves, observing everything with a quiet, reptilian intensity. They were not part of my kingdom, but they were here, at my table, a testament to the power of my new economic diplomacy.

My own family was a collection of carefully managed assets. My sister, Gael, sat beside my nephew Viserys, her gentle nature a calming influence on his own anxious one. Viserys was a good man, loyal and kind, but he lacked the spine for the games of power. He was a valuable, stable, but ultimately minor piece on the board.

The true power among my relatives, besides myself, sat to my left: my nephew Daemon, and my niece Rhaenys with her husband, Lord Corlys. Daemon was in his element, drinking deeply, trading jests with knights, his eyes glittering with a dangerous, restless energy. He was my attack dog, a weapon to be aimed carefully. Corlys and Rhaenys were the picture of a royal power couple, their expressions masks of polite celebration. But I knew that behind Lord Corlys's smile, his mind was ceaselessly calculating, weighing the new reality created by the Dragon's Clause.

My first conversation of the evening was with my new father-by-law. Lord Rickon Stark was a man of few words, and he looked profoundly uncomfortable amidst the noise and opulence.

"Your Grace," he said, his voice a low rumble. "This is… a grander affair than we are accustomed to in the North."

"The Crown must occasionally demonstrate its solvency, Lord Rickon," I replied, taking a sip of wine. "It reassures the investors." I used the term deliberately. I wanted him to understand the nature of our arrangement. "But do not mistake the glitter for the goal. The goal is the partnership between our houses. Your daughter has been well received?"

"She has been stared at like a prize sow at a country fair," he grunted, his dislike for the south palpable. "But she is a Stark. She has iron in her spine. She will not break."

"I did not choose her for her fragility," I said. "I chose her for her strength. The North's strength is now wed to the Throne's. Ensure your bannermen understand this. The roads I am building will carry more than just timber and iron south. They will carry my authority north. Unquestioned."

It was a polite but firm reminder. Our alliance was a two-way street, but it was a street I owned. Lord Rickon gave a curt nod, understanding my meaning completely.

Later, Daemon swaggered over, a wine flagon in his hand. "A fine party, Uncle," he said with a smirk. "Though your bride looks as though she's about to call her banners and start a rebellion. She has a fire in her."

"She has ice in her, nephew," I corrected him. "It is a valuable counterbalance."

"Ice, fire," he shrugged, taking a long drink. "She is a true beauty, in a wild sort of way. You chose well. Better than wedding some perfumed southern cow." His eyes flickered towards the Tyrell table with disdain. "Now that you are wed, you will need to produce an heir. If you require any instruction on the matter, I am famously proficient."

His jest was laced with the usual probing insolence. He was testing my reaction, as always.

"My proficiency in all matters of production is absolute, Daemon," I replied, my voice cold enough to freeze his wine. "You would do well to remember that. See to your Gold Cloaks. The city's security is your only concern tonight."

He laughed, but it was a clipped, slightly chastened sound. He bowed and moved on. Even my rogue prince understood there were lines he could not cross.

The feast wore on, a pageant of power and politics disguised as a celebration. As the night grew late, the traditional, bawdy calls for the bedding ceremony began to rise from the tables of the lesser lords. It was a crude, ancient custom, where the bride and groom were separated, stripped by the guests, and carried to their bedchamber. It was a ritual I had no intention of tolerating.

I stood up. A silence fell over the Great Hall.

"My lords," I announced, my voice cutting through the drunken din. "I thank you for your celebration. But my Queen is not a serving wench to be pawed at by drunken louts. She is a Stark of Winterfell, and the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She will be treated with the dignity that befits her station. There will be no bedding ceremony."

A stunned silence was followed by a few grumbles of disappointment from the more boorish corners of the hall.

"My wife and I will retire," I stated, leaving no room for argument. I turned to Lyanna, extending my hand. "My lady."

She looked at me, a flicker of surprise and something else—perhaps gratitude—in her stormy grey eyes. She took my hand, and together, we descended from the dais and walked from the Great Hall, leaving our guests to their wine and their whispers. The message was clear: the old, boorish traditions were dead. A new, more severe order was in place.

The royal bedchambers were a world away from the noise of the feast. A fire crackled in the hearth, and the room was filled with the scent of beeswax and clean linen. It was a large, luxurious space, but it felt… empty. It was the room my father and mother had shared for fifty years. Now it was mine.

Lyanna stood by the window, looking out at the city lights. She had dismissed her ladies, I mine. We were alone for the first time, two strangers bound by a contract of immense political and dynastic importance. The silence was thick with unspoken questions.

I am a man of logic, of systems, of predictable outcomes. For my entire second life, I had managed every interaction, every relationship, with a cold, detached purpose. Love, affection, passion… these were alien variables, messy human emotions that I had observed but never experienced. I understood the mechanics of what was expected of us this night, but the emotional context was a language I had never learned to speak. This was the one area of my life, of my kingdom, where I was not in complete control.

I approached her, my mind, for once, uncertain of the next strategic move.

"You are quiet," I said, my voice softer than I had intended.

"I am in a foreign land, married to a foreign king," she replied without turning. "Quiet is all I have left that is my own."

"This is your land now," I said. "And I am your king. But I do not have to be a foreigner to you."

She finally turned, her gaze direct and challenging. "And what are you, then? You are not like the southern lords. You are not like my father. They speak of you as if you are not a man, but a… a force. A machine that builds and calculates."

"Efficiency is often mistaken for a lack of feeling," I said, a partial truth. "I feel a great many things. A fierce dedication to the prosperity of this kingdom. A profound responsibility for its people. A ruthless intolerance for chaos and weakness."

"And what of your wife?" she asked, her voice a blade. "Is she an asset to be managed? A broodmare to secure your line?"

Her directness was refreshing. She was not afraid to challenge me, to demand an accounting.

"You are the Queen," I said, meeting her gaze. "That is the most vital position in the kingdom, next to my own. It is a position of immense power, and immense responsibility. I chose you because I believe you are strong enough to hold it. I chose you because I believe your counsel will be a valuable asset. And yes, I chose you to be the mother of my heirs. Heirs who will unite the ice and the fire, and whose strength will secure this dynasty for a thousand years. These are the terms of our partnership."

She searched my face, looking for something more, some flicker of the warmth and affection she had been raised to expect from a husband. She would not find it. Not in the way she understood it.

"A partnership," she repeated softly, a hint of disappointment in her voice. "A merger of two houses."

"The most important merger in the history of this continent," I confirmed.

I stepped closer to her. The scent of the northern pines seemed to cling to her, a wild, clean scent amidst the perfumes of the south. My own body, honed by the serum, was a finely tuned instrument, and for the first time, it was reacting to a variable I hadn't anticipated. A strange, unfamiliar heat, a pull that had nothing to do with strategy or logic. It was a base, chemical reaction, a human impulse I had long ago suppressed.

I raised my hand and gently brushed a stray strand of her dark hair from her face. Her skin was cool to the touch. She flinched, but did not pull away.

"But even in a partnership," I murmured, my voice a low rumble, my own surprise at my words echoing in my mind, "the partners must… close the accounts."

My calculating mind, my entire being which was dedicated to control and prediction, was suddenly faced with an unknown. The warmth of his new wife, the user had written. It was not a strategic objective. It was not on any ledger. It was a human element, a chaotic, unpredictable force. And as I looked at the fierce, proud, and undeniably beautiful she-wolf I had bound to my side, I felt a flicker of something I hadn't felt since my first life. Curiosity. A desire to explore this one variable that I could not quantify, could not predict.

I leaned in and kissed her. It was not a kiss of passion as the singers would describe it. It was a kiss of discovery, of claiming a new and unknown territory. It was firm, deliberate, a statement of ownership. But she did not yield. She met my kiss with her own fierce, defiant strength. It was not a surrender. It was a negotiation. A clash of wills, of ice and fire, in the silent chamber of a dead king.

And as the night deepened, the calculating man, the Iron Prince, the ruthless CEO, for the first time in his second life, allowed a single, unaccounted-for variable into his perfectly balanced equation. It was a risk. A departure from the plan. But as the warmth of her body met his, he found that some acquisitions yield returns that can never be recorded on any ledger.