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Condal, Hess, I fucking hate you. Now Baela has to marry a predator. When she never got the chance to on-screen kiss her betrothed, a young man who truly loved her.
Baela and Alyn are couple in F&B but Alyn is Addam's younger brother and Baela's age. He also sort of serves as her escape from Regents marrying her off to an old dude.
Not sure why the show decided to make him like 30 and then have them randomly kiss when they didn't let Jace and Baela share a single romantic moment even before the big battle they went to fight together.
I literally have to run laps between each update because it riles me up so much. If the last chapter made me swoon, this one made me faint!!!! What can we expect for the next chapter? Will they head back to the castle? How is Jace going to react? Does Jace know Aemond went out to search for her? Why didn’t he? Forgive me, I’m just so in love with them!
Yes they will head back to the royal camp and it will be the last Kingswood ch! After that it's basically Vaemond and then war.
I am debating with myself about one huge thing for the next chapter regarding Arianne. It's a thing that was planned as her character progresses and there were little hints about her true nature scattered through the chapters, but I am uncertain now whether it's too much too soon. Maybe I'll toss a coin?
Jace is going to be jealous haha not gonna hide it.
To answer your last question, basically everyone was looking for her including Jace.
Thank you so much for the ask dear anon and for following my writings ❤️❤️
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Read on ao3 (I recommend reading on ao3 because I fix typos and mistakes more diligently over there. Tumblr is difficult to scroll where I want to.)
Summary: Arianne and Aemond discover several things.
Previous: A song of Swan and Dragons I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., IX.-partII, X., XI., XII., XII.-part II, XIII, XIV
tw: they are idiots?, I had time to re-read Twoiaf, and so you get a little lore dumped about Sarnor and whatnot. Aemond is democracyphobic.
XV. Tōma ampā
Because it was he; because it was I.
(Michel de Montaigne)
Aemond gathered the reins into one hand and pressed his heels lightly against the courser's flanks. The stallion picked his way along the narrow woodland path, illuminated only by scant torches and pale moon.
His men had found two other captives besides Arianne, frightened commoners who seemed to have trouble remembering they possessed the ability to speak. One outlaw managed to avoid death, and Aemond barked explicit instructions to keep the wretch alive for questioning. He intended to do it himself until the foul creature prayed that the Stranger hasten his passage.
Arianne shifted slightly against him, producing some kind of sound too quiet to be comprehensible. Aemond felt her shallow breaths vibrate through the arm he kept secured around her waist.
His fingers continued their faint, inexplicable trembling despite every effort made to still them.
He flexed them again a few times.
Yet, the prickling sensation remained as a leftover from the earlier fight.
It had been real, not a carefully curated practice in the yard. It had been a chaotic, lawless clash, and he… He had won. He had gutted someone open.
He had taken lives.
The resistance of flesh and bones as the steel travelled through it was not how Aemond had imagined it. The ugly, wet crunch of the blade finding its place deep in the first man’s throat. Back when it happened, when he did it, his thoughts were preoccupied with Arianne’s almost limp body and the vermin’s hand pulling her skirts up.
After hearing what that reprobate mongrel intended to inflict upon her, what else was Aemond to do but ensure the offending throat never again formed another sound. He only disliked that in the moment he didn’t think to pry him off Arianne first so that all that filthy blood did not end up splattered over her bodice.
The second one he had opened from hip to navel, though by then, enough seconds had accumulated for him to become cognizant of the fact that he had effectively killed someone. The third had been exterminated with a clean, swift plunge between ribs.
It made sense, in a way. One’s performance on certain tasks improved only through repetition.
Aemond always envisioned his first kill would be different. A great battle beneath dragonfire, the fate of the Realm balanced upon the edge of his blade. Something the minstrels could sing about for centuries to come.
Instead, it had been a rather meager skirmish against a bunch of thieves, outlaws, rapists, and slavers without a thimble of honor between them.
Somehow, his heart still refused to settle into its ordered rhythm, continuing the relentless assault upon his breastbone as though the battle had not yet ended. The scent of blood lingered, coating the back of his throat.
The One-eyed Prince knew these would not be the last lives he took.
But they were first, and they were for her.
He stretched the hand holding the reins, ignoring the sting that flashed across the dorsum. His sleeve gaped open where the blade had touched him during the initial scuffle. There hadn't been time for him to don proper armor, so the injury was partially his own fault.
Truthfully, if the wound left a scar, he could hold Arianne accountable because it had been her screaming that distracted him.
She stirred for a moment before exhaustion had her head lolling back down, settling into the plain between his neck and shoulder.
Lady Arianne sighed.
Her breath sifted through the long strands of pale silver hair that fell down his chest. Aemond lowered his gaze for a few moments, despite himself. She resembled a wounded cygnet, in a way. Her lower lip was slightly swollen and embellished with streaks of dried blood.
He suspected a discoloration spreading under her left cheekbone had been of similar origin.
Aemond wished he hadn’t killed any of the men they fought so quickly, so that he might scourge and flay them as those savage northerners did.
Arianne’s abundant hair was disordered beyond recognition, several leaves still held prisoner amongst the unruly tresses. Perhaps not a cygnet then, but some woodland sprite.
Flecks of blood and dirt marred her collarbones and the creamy curve of her right breast where the neckline had been torn and now hung lower than it was proper.
Visibly annoyed, mostly with himself for looking, the One-eyed Prince focused back on the path ahead. The last thing he needed was to tumble off a horse with her.
She had barely protested when he placed her on the saddle and mounted behind her, one arm firmly around her back.
The silence had been rather…strange as Arianne Swann’s chief occupation in his presence seemed to consist of objecting, and loudly, to everything he did.
His thoughts kept returning to her expression as they watched the outlaw draw his last wheezing, rattling breath. A gurgle of blood, nothing more.
It had been rather composed, sangfroid, and devoid of any signs of imminent vomiting.
All his life he’d been taught that maidens of noble birth possessed stomachs delicate enough to turn at the mere mention of butchery.
With Arianne, he supposed he understood for some time now that underneath her prim veneer, there lived steel. Mayhap, she truly would foul that river to win. A Queen ought not be meek of heart.
Not that her ridiculous aspirations would ever come true. The Strong bastard could never be allowed to sit on the Iron Throne.
Aemond glanced down at the hands she kept curled against him. Her sleeves were wide and half-torn, offering him a view of the bruises encircling her wrists like ink, like morbid bracelets made of dark carmine. The moonlight did little to soften them.
The muscles underneath his jaw clenched.
He would inquire later precisely who had bound her so, and if it happened to be the one man they left alive for questioning, the One-eyed Prince intended to remedy that oversight by granting him prolonged, excruciating delivery to the Stranger’s eager arms.
Arianne stirred again, lifting her head so slowly it appeared she required all her remaining strength to do so. Her long lashes fluttered thrice before she looked at him.
Not truly at him, Aemond thought, but through him more like. Her gaze lingered on his face, wide from exhaustion and terror swirling in it, mixing with an uncertain sort of wonder that had his cheeks involuntarily tingle.
"We raised a camp half a league west," he mentioned, keeping his voice deliberately even and staring straight ahead.
"’Tis not safe to ride far during the night. We shall return to the royal party on the morrow."
She continued staring for another heartbeat before her eyes wandered upward, following the black latticework of branches gliding slowly above their heads.
“Right...that is perfectly sensical.” Arianne nodded after considering it for a while.
Aemond frowned. She sounded so strange he feared they struck her head hard enough to leave her a simpleton. Somehow, that seemed even worse than all the other things combined.
He cleared his throat.
Her attention left the canopies in favor of his face. Aemond waited for her to say something, but when she did not, the awareness of being observed became downright disquieting.
"What is it?" He labored to sound insouciant rather than demanding, lest it startle either her or the horse.
“Those torches I saw. That was you…” Arianne muttered.
Aemond’s pale brow creased. If she saw them, then…
That repugnant lowlife nearly forced himself on her! If her screams hadn’t been loud enough to reach the clearing, if Aemond had been too late… She could’ve been strangled or butchered or raped while he was too occupied with disemboweling some nameless men.
“You saw us?” He asked, sensing the scaled creature from the depths clawing up his spine and clicking its teeth at his remaining patience.
“Why in the Seven Hells were you fleeing in the opposite direction then?!”
Arianne flinched.
"I did not know!" She protested, tone colored with the spark of indignation that survived her ordeal.
"I thought no one would come, and I had finally managed to cut the ropes, so I..." Her words dissolved between the hiccups. "I...We ran."
Something bright bolted across her face.
"The girl!" Arianne exclaimed, as loudly as her bruised throat permitted.
She twisted suddenly, attempting to look behind them.
"The girl. And the boy. They escaped with me. Where are they? Did they—"
In her haste, she leaned dangerously sideways.
Aemond caught her before she could slip, drawing her back against him, one arm locking around her waist tightly.
"For once in your life, sit still and don’t vex me.”
"But—"
“Ser Tibbald rides behind us with them.” The One-eyed Prince sighed, wondering why she cared about two commoners enough to invigorate herself. He was relieved, though. The docile woodland sprite now resembled his nettlesome Albitsos much more.
"They shall survive the night." He added to placate her, though without particular warmth. The fate of two frightened smallfolk scarcely mattered to him.
It did to her, because Bess had turned back to help, and that was not something one could forget.
Arianne exhaled a drawn-out breath. It fogged in the chilly air, and she resisted the urge to solder herself to Aemond’s warmth at her side.
The forest opened before them as the small party pressed onward through the darkness, each torch moving like a wandering star.
Her eyes flicked back to the Targaryen Prince. She was still not entirely certain that he was real, of mortal flesh and blood. The austere lines making his face, the argent tresses reflecting the moon’s pale light, the strength of his arm all seemed familiar enough, but what if she was merely slumbering still tied to the tree and would soon wake to find him gone?
She chewed at her tongue.
There lingered a faint weariness underneath his good eye, and his ordinarily impeccable hair was slightly disheveled. Dried blood stained the leather vambrace and his gloves. It glinted almost like specks of obsidian. The arm around her waist tightened ever so often to prevent her from slipping backward.
She concluded that those were proof enough that he was human.
“When I saw you earlier…” Her voice sounded barely recognizable to her own ears. “I wondered whether I had died.”
Aemond glanced down, a crooked grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“So unpleasant I remind you of a Stranger, am I?” He asked.
Arianne pouted. Not Stranger, no. Not a half-human face cloaked in shadows. The Stranger had never been described as an arrestingly beautiful man (or a man at all) whose hair snatched the moon’s silvery light for itself.
A seraph of the Mother more like, or the Warrior himself.
Or Ser Galladon.
“You don’t, I just…” She shrugged before her mouth could do something disastrous, like making him aware of what she truly thought.
“- was not certain I remained amongst the living. So, it would be illogical that you were human. You had to be…something more than mortal man. So...perhaps a Stranger simply because it collects souls, or...a Warrior, maybe.” Her cheeks heated terribly.
“I…I hit my head.”
Aemond snorted.
“That would explain the compliment.”
Arianne stilled, following the way his lips moved.
“I paid you no compliment.” She corrected.
“You compared me to a celestial apparition. An aspect of the Seven.”
Aemond afforded her another glance, but this time it had something impish in it. If she had any doubt about his identity, this proved beyond certainty it had been him.
Aggravating and horrid as he was.
“Dragonlords are indeed closer to Gods than men, but no one has ever named me a God so directly-“
“I did not, you vain…you!” She hissed and immediately regretted it. Her throat burned, the air scraping against the vocal cords.
Arianne touched her neck tentatively before giving the mottled skin a few experimental kneads. Gods, it... will heal, won’t it?
The weight crushing her windpipe no longer existed, but ghostly remnants remained.
Whatever solert retort Aemond had intended to give, it dispersed once he witnessed her pained grimace.
He was, however, pleased that she quarreled - contradictory, pointless, and entirely unnecessary though it was.
The obstinacy suited his lady much more than the dreadful stillness she had been possessed of ever since he found her.
His gaze lingered for the briefest instant upon the bruise forming beneath her jaw before he looked away.
“Rest, we are almost there.”
Arianne hesitated, eyes narrowing at Aemond. She fully expected him to furnish her with some tart rejoinder, and her mouth opened on principle alone.
How horrid she must sound that even someone as devoid of compassion as the One-eyed Prince decided to spare her from any more words?
She pressed her lips tightly together and rested her temple against his shoulder once more.
He would object, no doubt.
Complain about her brazenness.
Inform her that ladies of good breeding did not use a prince as a head cushion. Mention that she was dangerously close to committing some variety of treason.
Instead, Aemond remained focused on the road as the courser picked its careful way across a shallow brook. No scathing repartee reached her ears, only the purling of water and the clanking of hooves over stones.
Emboldened by his silence, Arianne nestled against him and shut her eyes.
She was so exhausted that any sort of argument hardly mattered.
He possessed considerably broader shoulders than she. It was only sensible to conserve what little strength remained to her. It was practical, to put it simply.
The Kingswood responded to their voyage with its own nocturnal music. Owls, katydids, and soft winds drifted around her until they ceased to be sounds at all, melting into her shallow dreams. Her thoughts meandered, rudderless and untethered.
She was alive.
Alive!
She would see the Court again. Dragonstone. Perhaps even her own home. She would feel her mother’s soft hands and hear her father’s voice. She could play tiles with Rhaena for an entire afternoon, read with Jace, and sneak into the Citadel’s library. She could learn and improve so that one day she might wear Alysanne’s golden crown.
One thing was certain.
She would never be so guileless again. If some nameless adversary thought her a threat, enough to have her killed, then she ought to become one.
Err…Somehow. She would leave those plans for when her head ceased to pain her with every move.
The undeniability of her own life settled over Arianne so absolutely that, for the first time since the guard held a dagger to her carotid, she felt no need to be afraid, to weep while being dragged behind a stolen mare, stumbling over roots and jagged rocks until her feet bled. No need to imagine the underbelly of a slaver ship and whether death was preferable to such fate.
Because of Aemond. He’d given her back her future.
Saved her as if the Maiden herself sent him to do so. Her champion, crowned with laurel and hawthorn blossoms.
Arianne’s eyebrows pinched.
In every manuscript, tome, or illustrated children’s tale, Ser Galladon was depicted with dark hair. She knew because she had pored through them all, as it had been one of her favorite stories. Even Maester Hubert, who in his Kin of the Stag argued that Galladon lived much closer to her time, described him as such.
Perhaps some scribes have gotten it wrong, and he could have had hair as opaline as Prince Aemond’s.
(Though there was a perfectly rational explanation why he did not, she knew. If Ser Galladon had lived thousands of years ago, it was before any Valyrian had set foot in these lands.)
Arianne drew her lower lip between her teeth and tested the uneven ridge with her tongue. It pained her, tasting salty and coppery.
He saved her life, and she had spoken so unforgivably to him. Named him every horrid thing under the sun, and declared war upon him.
Declared…that she never wished to suffer the sight of him again.
Her lungs became heavier to expand.
Gods, what if he had actually listened to her? She’d…
Arianne grimaced, remembering how grandiosely she proclaimed he would be banished into the desolate Mossovy the moment power rested in her hands.
How could she do so after he had saved her life? It would be unjust and a sin against the Seven. How could she wish him illness and misfortune ever again, when he bloodied his hands for her?
She couldn’t.
She would have to apologize for her horrible conduct, though.
Arianne's palms dampened.
How does one even offer an apology to Prince Aemond without suffering ridicule or a fresh altercation? She had tried to eat humble pie once before, which somehow ended with him accusing her of attempted murder via earrings. He invited her to dance, only to deem her as graceless as a tavern wench.
Gods, how did it even come to this? Him, her savior.
After mulling it over for a while, Arianne had an idea regarding her apology.
Mayhap, she need not apologize or thank him directly.
She could ask Father to bestow on him some worthy reward. A magnificent destrier from Stormlands, or a finely crafted sword with a matching shield. Gold, and rubies, and sapphires, though Aemond probably possessed those in large quantities. A rare book on siegecraft, then!
Arianne pursed her lips.
None of those seemed remotely equal to the debt of life.
She could...make him aware of danger to his own life once King Viserys died? Jace told her as much, and she could act on it. Find out exactly when and how they intended to slay Aemond and... Help him avoid such a fate. If she could at least warn him, he might escape to distant lands before Prince Daemon...
Her heart clenched so tightly that all the blood gushed out of it.
No, you witless girl.
The flagitious notion was fueled by her lack of sleep and the nightmare she had just gone through.
Aemond Targaryen was still -
He was still -
The Queen's son, a political problem, Rhaenyra held no love for him, and Jace considered him a foe.
But she could not just let Aemond die, because if he died, then she'd never see him again, or speak to him, or...dance with him, even though she hated, hated, hated all courtly dances.
Arianne tilted her face up, feeling the embroidery on his cloak scrape against her cheek.
She could not. She could not betray something Jace told her in confidence.
And besides, her mind was not working properly, so this was a matter best left alone until she could examine the whole thing rationally.
.
.
.
The temporary camp amounted to little more than two or three soldiers' tents and a few bedrolls. An iron pot was suspended above one of the fires, as low voices broke through the night. It possessed none of the comforts of the royal encampment, yet it was the most agreeable sight Arianne had seen since she followed Will into the night.
Her eyes travelled up to Aemond. His angular profile slowly became luminous as they neared the light, pale and perfect like porcelain.
Maybe the camp was the second most agreeable sight.
"My prince!" One of the men clad in the guard's simple armor rushed to take the horse. Aemond swung down from the saddle and acknowledged him with a curt nod.
He then turned and extended both hands up towards her.
Arianne noticed his left sleeve was torn open, a thin crimson line marring his forearm. Still, she placed her hands within his gloved ones.
Agony slid through the sole of her foot as it found a stirrup, but she was determined to ignore it for the sake of her remaining dignity. Only once she was firmly planted upon the ground did she notice the state of her dress. The stitching had nearly ripped, leaving one of her shoulders bare and the once-modest neckline hanging overly low.
The blood in her vessels turned into an icy slush.
Had it been that way the entire time?
Oh, Mother!
Arianne spun away from the camp to hide her discomfiture, fingers clutching at the mangled seamline to fix it back into decency. Her shift was still in place, which provided small comfort should she be forced to argue her innocence.
Gods! Aemond had seen her in such a horrible state! Had he...?
Suddenly, her face was burning as hot as a campfire, humiliation laving her neck.
Had anyone else? How was she going to sit there with those guards? They were men! What if -
Sweat now coated her palms.
What if they concluded that she had been...compromised? It would be over, all of it, and then, she'd have to wed some, some...old country lord, and her mother would chastise her for having any expectations at all because who else would want her in that state or -
She'd be compelled to become a Septa, or even a Silent Sister.
Or they'd have her marry some rich commoner merchant to be rid of her. A commoner! Gods above!
Arianne swayed on her feet.
She needed to find that stream and throw herself in it to drown like some unfortunate woman from tales. That way, she would at least be tragic, rather than just ruined.
Aemond observed her with mounting irritation.
She was flurrying like a mad goose that had forgotten it had escaped the jaws of death not an hour earlier. He was aware that the image she projected was less than ideal, and that a lady was forever burdened with the mercy of idle tongues, but he had also been fairly certain he'd arrived in time.
Bar the ruined hem of her bodice, she had been entirely dressed. Caked with mud and riddled with verdure that had taken root in her ringlets, but dressed.
Perhaps Arianne Swann had truly become a nitwit. One of those little branches stuck in her hair had grown straight through her thick skull and was now eating away at her brain matter.
How fortunate for her, she could now fit right in with the rest of the courtly sycophants.
With an impatient huff, Aemond unclasped his cloak.
Did she not know that to doubt her honor, now also meant questioning his word?
To do so was an act of treason. He was Prince of the Realm.
Aemond moved to drape the heavy fabric over her shoulders, resolved not to waste another minute on such absurdity.
Arianne startled violently at the touch, every nerve winding through her muscles screaming that something terrible found her again. Her mind caught up sluggishly, and terror ebbed in favor of relief when she saw it had been him.
"Your Grace-"
Aemond’s hands lingered awkwardly in the air for several moments before he moved again, slower this time.
"Be still." He ordered, gathering the cloak about her before fastening the silver three-headed dragon clasp beneath her throat. Garnets glittered along its three necks and tail, while three rubies made its eyes.
"There. I've had enough of your shivering." Aemond's dry baritone lowered. Frankly, he found he cared little whether she believed the excuse.
Not to mention, this way another's gaze couldn't stray where his own already had.
Arianne surveyed him, mouth half open.
What? She hadn't been...shivering at all!
It took her a split second to realize he understood perfectly that he had lied, and another to discern why he would utter such a blatant, preposterous falsehood.
How could he read her so effortlessly?
Her pulse began thumping in her ears, and fearfully, Arianne imagined that she had somehow turned entirely transparent, her skin fading and fading until it was see-through, like glass. That Aemond could plainly observe what was happening inside her head, well, because he was practicing blood magic, that much was beyond doubt now - but also that he could follow every breath taken into her lungs, every movement of her heart, that he could dissect her entirely and would use it against her.
But he hadn't...He came to her aid.
For some reason, he kept helping her tonight.
She would have to get to the bottom of that, but not now. Instead, she allowed the warm breeze of gratitude and relief to swirl through her ribs and, following in their wake, something gentler still, too elusive to name. It settled quietly into the hollow places between bones and cartilage.
"The winter will be soon upon us, I...I think." She swallowed, fidgeting with the hem, embroidered to resemble dragonhide.
"So...um, thank you, my Prince."
"Indeed. Come." Aemond said nothing else to comfort her, no empty assurances to calm her fears as he led her to sit near the fire. His sole eye watched her while he wore that indecipherable, inscrutable expression that made her wish he had been made into a book so she could learn what transpired inside his mind.
Arianne averted her gaze, listening to steel rasp against the whetstone. One of the men was cleaning the blades.
Aemond began mouthing clipped and precise commands to the knight she assumed was Ser Tibbald Hayford, as she burrowed deeper into the warm wool.
House Hayford, green fretty over gold.
She found that the cloak carried a certain scent, that blend of cedar, soapwort, and something tantalizingly warm and masculine. Arianne resisted the urge to sink her nose into the material and inhale. It ought to worry her that she instantly knew the redolence belonged to him, and even more, that she couldn't deny anymore how delectable it was to her.
It made her feel safe and jittery at the same time.
Another guard brought forth simple victuals, and she accepted the wineskin with both hands, drinking greedily. It soothed the bruises that were somehow inside her throat.
"So..." She began, peering over at him. Aemond tilted his head, his eye moving from the bread in her hands to her face.
"So?"
Arianne cleared her throat.
"I wanted to ask how exactly you found me?"
Her fingers tore at the crust, twirling the small piece.
Aemond leaned forward and let his forearms rest against his knees.
"Lord Larys questioned the night guards who saw you leave east." He said.
Arianne almost dropped the bread.
Larys? But...
Her nose scrunched suspiciously.
"I thought that he..." The words stuck to her vocal cords once she remembered Larys Strong was the Queen's creature, and the Queen was Prince Aemond's mother.
"You thought he was involved?" The prince in question snorted. Arianne's lower lip jutted out. Why was he mocking her when she had informed him that Lord of Harrenhal meant to blackmail her over what happened during the Maiden Day's ball? Was it not plausible that this whole ordeal she suffered had been an elaborate revenge after Jace had thwarted him?
"I do not make a habit of excluding suspects." She lifted her chin. "As I told you, he -"
"- Is many things, yes. A slimy, grasping rat." Aemond grabbed the wineskin that one of the knights offered and took only the smallest sip before setting it aside.
His icy eye returned to her.
"Someone fond of death is not amongst them."
Arianne squinted.
"How can you be so certain?" She inquired, concealing the tremble of fear in her voice. Larys! How close to dying she had stood! If it had been Larys, he could've just lied, and Aemond wouldn't have found her.
To her astonishment, the One-eyed Prince almost appeared insulted.
"Because only days ago, I made it abundantly clear that should any harm befall you through his machinations, he would become a dead man walking. If that applied to slandering your name, it certainly encompassed selling you into slavery as well!” He ended his tirade with a disbelieving shake of his head, as if she were somehow stupid for making him explain anything at all.
Arianne stilled, the carefully turning wheels of her mind coming to an abrupt halt.
"W-what?"
What in the Seven Hells was he talking about?
She stared at him, wide-eyed and confused.
If Aemond had been insulted before, he was positively, thoroughly, tangibly offended now.
"What what?" He snapped.
"I told you I would deal with him. Do you imagine I speak merely to hear my own voice? The moment we return to the main camp, I will have Maester examine your head. You clearly suffered some kind of..."
Arianne was no longer listening to him.
But Jace had...
She had concluded that it had been Jace who dealt with Larys, even though it somehow didn't fit, because Jace himself had told her that they spoke in the morning, and Larys apologized the evening before.
If she considered it carefully, Aemond did, technically, say that he would resolve it. She just hadn't — she hadn't truly believed him. Because he was despicable, and vainglorious, and unkind.
"A-and if Lord Larys tells..."
"He will not, you have my word. Larys is but a snivelling, crippled toad. Now, will you stop weeping?"
"My head is fine," Arianne muttered absently because she could not —
She could not think at all.
Whether he replied, she could not discern.
Arianne pressed both hands together so tightly her knuckles paled and ached. A sickly sort of warmth suffused her face.
It had been him. All along, he had been protecting her.
She had been so entirely, grotesquely wrong about everything.
How could she have not noticed? It had been Aemond who threatened Jorlan and Larys both, who gifted her Alysanne's parure as if he knew her, who saved her, who killed Mudge, who gave her his cloak, and she still judged him unfairly.
One act of kindness might have been a fluke. Two, perhaps, obligations due to their courtship. But there have been so many now that they formed a pattern she could no longer explain rationally or deny.
Since when? How many times had she been mistaken? The guilt she felt earlier now swelled, and swelled until it threatened to burst through her skin. When it no longer had the space, it proliferated into a dozen regrets for every time she had named him a varmint, a wyrm, a Stygian demon from the chasm where Seven Hells resided.
Each time he attempted to bridge their early animosity, she imagined some nefarious plot and deemed him guilty of it without ever considering that he hadn't acted from a place of an adversary to be taken down.
That he hadn't considered her an enemy at all.
Arianne lifted her head, thankful that one of the sentries came to report on the camp's perimeter, so that she could look at Aemond without his shrewd eye looking back.
The chilly air had tinged the highest point of his cheekbones pinkish, and her gaze kept being drawn to it. The flames reflected in his deep blue iris, painting flecks of ochre and gold on it. His skin was pale marble, unblemished like a fresh parchment.
Oh, she loved fine parchment.
Something resonated within her heart, as if the key piece to some confounding, intricate puzzle had finally fit quite right.
He was beautiful, of course, captivating and powerful as dragons were, but it was what lay beneath the exterior that had her so hopelessly, inconveniently enraptured.
Arianne watched his large, gloved hand reach for a twig lying near the fire, thinking about all the qualities he possessed that she simply had been refusing to acknowledge.
Aemond nudged one of the logs farther into the flames.
He was so thoughtful, so astute, as diligent as the Old King.
"Have I acquired a second head?" His face turned her way so abruptly she had no time to pretend she had been scrutinizing something else.
Arianne blinked before glancing at the ground.
"No."
"Then I presume there is some reason you have been staring at me these past minutes."
She decidedly stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth. She was hungry, and a lady could not speak while chewing, so the risk of her uttering something stupid diminished.
"Finding a new fault you hadn't yet informed me of?" The One-eyed prince asked wryly.
She swallowed.
"I, no... I think I informed you of all of them already, which wasn't...very seemly of me. If I might offer you an apology..."
Arianne bit her tongue because her heart was galloping and walloping so loudly inside her chest, distracting her. Gods, she sounded like a witless hen, truly.
Quickly, she chewed another piece and drank more watered wine because her throat was so terribly dry.
Aemond studied her over the dancing firelight.
"You are behaving strangely, cygnet."
The skepticism poured through his voice.
She peered at him.
"I am merely tired."
Oh, why couldn't he have been as terrible as she presumed? It would have been easier, infinitely easier. She could have gone on pretending that their arguments occupied her thoughts for purely scholarly reasons, that her unreasonable desire to throttle Lady Redwyne was political, that she sought his gaze because of an illness, that she adored the timbre and cadence of his voice simply because it was objectively pleasant, not because it belonged to him.
"Mm." Aemond did not sound the least bit convinced. He peeled his riding gloves away, exposing long fingers and calloused palms.
What was she going to do now?
His left sleeve gaped open, the light glissading over his pale forearm. It brought to her attention the shallow gash still lightly bleeding. She had pretended not to notice while they rode, but now...
“You are injured.” Arianne gasped, leaning forward onto her knees. Aemond inspected the wound.
“It is nothing.” He noted flatly and lowered his arm before she could pry further. Yet, she wished to examine it, to see whether any dirt had found its way inside. Filthy wounds were dangerous, that much everyone knew.
Arianne curled her fingers into her palms and relented. It was hardly her place to tend to him.
"You at least ought to let Maester look at it on the morrow." She grumbled.
Aemond's mouth morphed into an idle grin.
"Only because my lady frets so, and after her head has been checked for injuries." He drawled.
"My head is fine! And I do not - I do not fret!"
At least she knew her faculties remained intact because the supercilious way he tilted his lips still infuriated her.
"Hmm, well then, I shall defer to your expertise concerning your own head." His eye clambered upward. "Your hair is another matter entirely."
Her what?
Arianne frowned, hand flying into the riotous mass tumbling over her shoulders. To her growing horror, her fingers encountered something brittle. It crunched underneath her touch, and she pulled out a part of a small leaf.
"Oh," was all that could leave her lips as she stared at it.
Another sweep of her hand yielded a tiny, thin twig.
Mortification wiggled up Arianne's spine. She flung the dry branchlet into the flame.
Her eyes spied something that might've been a fern, and Arianne realized the whole thing was probably a bona fide disaster, unsalvageable until she had a proper bath and a lady's maid brushed through the mess.
It dawned on her that she must've looked entirely terrible, torn hemline aside, and what was somehow even worse, she looked entirely terrible in front of Aemond.
"You missed a few. Dozens, in fact." He leaned his cheekbone onto his knuckles, watching her with what she suspected was mockery.
"You are laughing at me!" Arianne hissed, compulsively combing her fingers through her hair.
"I am not."
"Well, you want to!"
Aemond hummed in agreement.
"I want many things." He shrugged.
She shot him a peeved look and tucked a lock behind her ear.
"That is what vanquished your homeland, you know."
A small frown graced his imperious face.
"Another one of your farcical theories like some story knight slaying a dragon with a sword?"
Arianne narrowed her eyes.
"No, in fact. And what do you mean a sword? It was the sword, bestowed by the Maiden herself!" She bristled. " But no, it is our Septon back home. He claims it was Valyria's godlessness and greed. They brought it upon themselves because they forced slaves to dig too deep underneath the Fourteen Flames, so one day everything came tumbling down when the Seven had enough."
Aemond snorted so unprincely that she didn't think she'd ever heard such a sound from him before.
"How very wise of him. Did he forget to mention their unchecked hunger for wealth, land, and glory?"
Her mouth widened into a tight-lipped smile.
"He named it ceaseless hunger, in fact." Arianne supplied, pleased that her hair was no longer part of the discussion.
"That it was in your blood. I suppose you could tell me if he had been wrong?"
Aemond blinked, regarding her for a moment. Flames tinted her features in amber and auburn, and enlivened streaks of carmine embroidery on his cloak.
Her question seemed neither accusatory nor entirely innocent in its curiosity, but he could not discern what it was she contrived.
What a hypocritical creature her Septon was, as his brethren hungered too. They yearned for followers to preach to, and for guileless sheep to fill their coffers. They simply named their desires virtues and everyone else’s sins.
Besides, hadn’t the Gods hungered for devotion?
His gaze drifted to the fire. It was much easier to think without laboring to ignore how lovely she looked while wrapped in his sigil, his colors.
Aemond had been hungry all his life.
For a dragon of his own, when all his siblings and his bastard nephews already had theirs. For recognition in a world that had measured Targaryen princes by dragons first.
For Vhagar, because when he saw those wings blotting out the firmament above the Driftmark, there existed not another dragon or a hatchling that could compare. Something called out to him when he found her alone, because he had been alone too. Had he been afraid? He could not remember, only that he wanted to climb and fly so much he thought of little else.
Hungry for mastery, for every lesson that had been put before him, determined never again to be found wanting.
If he had been as pious as his mother, perhaps he would've denied the other hungers.
For power.
What sensible man did not desire it?
To bend the world away from folly and toward the proper order of things. The Iron Throne...
Aemond rested his gaze upon the restless, fluttering fire.
How often had he imagined it beneath him? His fingers would fit just right between the jagged blades.
She knew him, in a very strange, perturbing way, so why had she asked?
Aemond glanced at Arianne obliquely, following her hands as they futilely smoothed her hair down.
There she was, another cumbersome hunger.
Though that ought to solve itself once she became his mistress.
"You said Aegon's crown would suit me better than my Father's, so why don't you tell me, my lady?" He asked, shattering the long silence at last.
Arianne arched her brows as though the answer were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Naturally, you are as godless and greedy as your forebears."
Aemond permitted himself an unabashed smirk, stretching one leg toward the campfire. He then tilted his head.
"Tell me, Ñuha Albis. Why are you asking?"(My swan.) His tone was curious rather than indignant.
Arianne met his eye and gave him a sly, little smile that had his stomach react in a strange and deeply unpleasant manner. As if he had swallowed dragon eggs that were now hatching inside of it, their immature wings flapping about.
"I merely sought to distract you, so you would cease mocking the state of my hair."
What?
Aemond blinked a few times before his mind acquired the ability to process her words.
Truly the most ridiculous woman.
When he found a leaf still tangled right next to her left temple, the corner of his mouth betrayed him despite his great efforts to command it still. Arianne smiled back (no, not back; she just smiled, because certainly he would not have been smiling over something so uncontestedly stupid) before coyly averting her eyes to the ground.
"As if you aren't," He found his own voice lacking its usual bite. "-godless and greedy. Such qualities are considerably less becoming in a woman."
Arianne rolled her eyes.
"Avarice is a sin against Mother, so I do not hunger for anything." She announced with such lofty conviction that it almost passed for truth.
Green-eyed liar.
Aemond hummed, pretending to contemplate her assertion.
"Not even for happiness? How...virtuous of you, Albitsos." He noted, trailing after her fingers as they absently poked at the silver clasp fastening his cloak beneath her throat.
"I confess I find that difficult to believe after what you told me on the Maiden's Day."
She cast a furtive glance toward the men moving about the camp, relieved to find them occupied with various tasks. The One-eyed Prince found it both amusing and something else that she only revealed her genuine thoughts to him, and kept her carefully assembled mien of a dutiful, demure lady for the rest.
"I do not merely wish to be happy." She confessed, peering up at the sempiternal heavens where uncountable stars burned brightly.
"I do not think I should know what to do with it... I want - I want to matter."
Arianne's gaze found his once more.
Fire shimmered in her emerald eyes, her pupils swallowing the flames, the forest, and him alike.
Aemond couldn't look away. He was rooted, shackled, tethered to her words, her heart-shaped lips as they formed them.
"I want to be Queen one day, yes. I want to win." She stated.
For a while, neither compromised the silence. They simply lingered in the likeness of another.
"Why does it bother you so much?" Arianne asked quietly, glancing away and pretending to smooth an imaginary crease from the cloak.
"You needn't fear exile any longer. I cannot very well banish the man who saved my life."
She hesitated before continuing.
"In fact… You ought to seek that I become Lady of Dragonstone rather than Baela. I owe you a debt far too large to ignore." Arianne pointed out, realizing that she had no choice but to somehow save him from the fate Prince Daemon intended.
Her heart refused the mere idea of Aemond's absence.
Maiden, help me.
What was she to do? She could not have him either close or far from her. It was evident now that she had never felt anything like this before. Not even...
Jace. She loved him, did she not? She gave him her word, did she not? She was not false, was she? She would not...sin with Aemond, the way her grandfather sinned with a Princess, would she?
Besides, hadn't she promised the Gods that she would be good just hours ago? If she truly loved Jace, then the crown would merely be... a fortunate coincidence.
The Gods couldn't condemn her for it.
Arianne feared her heart might not be true anymore, because...
She met Aemond's gaze again.
Her heart stumbled and fell against her sternum.
She diverted her attention to the ground, suddenly panicked and longing to flee in all directions at once.
"We found the guard's body several hours before." The One-eyed Prince mentioned stiffly. He tucked his lips into his mouth and cleared his throat, fingers finding the sword resting near his leg to drum against its pommel.
"Will," Arianne interjected, eager to return to some semblance of normalcy between them. The name caused an involuntary shudder to percolate straight through her spine. She would forever be looking over her shoulder from now on, as castle guards clearly couldn't be trusted. Mayhap, she ought to ask Father to assign her a personal guard from their household.
"I heard one of them call him that." She added upon noticing that Aemond's eye narrowed.
"He asked for too much gold, so they...well, they killed him. Opened his throat."
Arianne surveyed the camp, finding Bess and the boy huddled near the other fire. Someone had given them cloaks.
"They appeared well organized, connected to slave ships. We should investigate if more such groups are terrorizing the villages."
Aemond picked up a plain cloth to clean the blood off the blade.
"Doubtful they are terrorizing the villages so close to the capital. The Crown would have been informed and dealt with it."
Arianne glowered.
"So they," She inclined her head toward Bess and the boy. "- do not matter? The Crown's protection extends to all in the Realm."
Aemond lifted his eye from the sword.
"That isn't the issue. I wager they are orphans, and no one bothered to report the crime. How is the King's Justice to be dispensed if it doesn't know the crime happened?"
She crossed her arms, pouting. That made sense.
"Still..."
Mayhap, they could begin to write down births and count children. So they cannot just...
Arianne followed Aemond's movement as he methodically wiped the last dark traces of blood.
"Then there remains one thing I cannot explain, my Lady." He mused, lifting the blade to inspect it.
"How did he convince you to leave the camp?"
The question was innocuous enough, yet it had her heart promptly stopping. Arianne blinked a few times, her mouth opening instinctively before she sealed it shut.
"It hardly matters. It was... foolish." She drew her knees closer underneath the cloak.
Hours earlier, she might have confessed it without shame, but beneath the Kingswood boughs, something had shifted and she no longer could. Arianne concluded that his courtship had never been some elaborate jest at her expense, and telling him now that she had meant to meet another man felt peculiarly disgraceful. She did not wish him to think...
To think of her as poorly as he did when they met. To view her as her grandmother's replica with darker hair.
To add to the horror, she could not bear to be considered a simpleton either.
Unfortunately, the rhythmic motion of his fingers halted, and Aemond looked at her, the corner of his eye slightly crinkled.
"I shall determine that." He asserted bluntly.
Her palms were sweating profusely.
"It was..." She began, her gaze settling on everything but him.
"A misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding." He repeated, testing the shape and value of the word and finding it wanting.
She nodded entirely too quickly.
Aemond scowled.
"What did he tell you?" He demanded.
Arianne could sense his canny gaze scrutinizing her, and her pulse wavered, imagining that he already somehow intuited the truth.
"I... I had drunk several cups of wine, so I did not question- he wore the sigil of House Targaryen! How was I to know-"
"Lady Arianne."
Her name was little more than a hiss. Arianne felt her shoulders drop along with her face. There was no use, because he would ram through every excuse she fashioned. Aemond was frustratingly, obnoxiously observant, and she loathed him for it.
And admired him for it.
"He said that Jace had to meet me urgently."
She muttered at last, shame searing her cheeks.
A log thudded into the second campfire.
For a moment, Aemond thought he had misheard her. Had...misunderstood her. Alas, he was not quite the universe's favorite for reality to bend to his wishes.
The bastard. She had gone, endangered her life for...the fucking bastard.
The raw wrath found him first, bubbling forth from every dark nook and cranny of his heart. Yet, beneath it, deeper than belligerence, something else began to pour out, searing and desperate.
"And you went," he spat coldly, keeping himself still through sheer force of will. "-because meeting him alone, past the curfew, is a...normal thing for you?"
Her verdant eyes widened.
"No! I - No..." She shook her head. "I didn't...The guard said it was urgent and...Jace - I mean Jacaerys is - he is… well, a Prince."
"He is… a Prince," Aemond repeated tonelessly.
Did that ever stop her from ignoring his invitations? From disrespecting him with words and gestures alike?
The resentment licked at his throat.
No, she could hoodwink him, the prince who rode the largest dragon in the world, but the bastard was sacred in her eyes, of course.
How faithfully she followed Jacaerys Strong. How readily she smiled at him. How earnestly she defended him.
Her singular aim was to become that baseborn's wife.
Aemond could not fault her for the consistency. The fault was his own, believing, even for a moment, that she regarded him with anything but contempt.
His mother had been right; it was incredibly thoughtless of him to join the search. If she knew that he had kept riding past the twilight, it would be within her rights to strike him for the sheer stupidity.
Or, to tell Criston to lecture him about familial virtues.
Arianne seemed at a loss for words, only watching him with those absurdly long-lashed eyes.
He killed for her.
What an extraordinary fool he had made of himself.
Aemond released her from his glare and fixed it upon the flames near his boots.
Fire behaved according to its nature. It consumed what was within grasp and pretended at no virtue while doing so.
Women, he was rapidly discovering, possessed no such admirable simplicity.
"I confess, Lady Arianne, I had credited you with far better judgement than to venture into the woods at night for a tryst." He sneered, though the voice did not feel like it was his own. He wanted to strike something while simultaneously his skin cooled to an unnatural degree.
"It wasn't a tryst!"
"You need not trouble yourself with denials." He interposed icily. "You have made your preference abundantly clear. What astounds me is that any part of this surprised me."
“But –”
"You informed me, not two days ago, that the very sight of me offended you." Aemond refused to look at her lest he find her mocking him. Instead, he lifted himself off the ground and sheathed the now almost clean sword before adjusting the scabbard.
Arianne stood up as well, almost tripping over the edge of his cloak.
He forgot about that.
No, he was not twice the fool. He was thrice one.
"I was upset! I did not mean it!" She stressed.
Aemond glared at her. How dare she lie to him now? How dare she bat those lashes at him, imagining he would just...let her trick him into being her willing patsy?
How dare she send him notes and charm him so shamelessly when she had been meeting bastard Strong in secrecy for who knew how long? No wonder that moron stormed into the pavilion yesterday demanding her. Clearly he had been cunt-struck, because she had let him into her bed and -
The One-eyed Prince exhaled through his nose.
He had already resolved to ignore her existence, and so he shall. Arianne Swann would no longer command his thoughts, nor anything of his. Distance was necessary.
He would never seek her out again or concern himself with her well-being. No notes, or gifts, or whatever else he had done while trapped by his own concupiscence.
"I have reconsidered the wisdom of your suggestion," Aemond remarked, pretending he could not notice her lower lip quivering, her eyes glistening as if she were somehow entitled to anguish.
"We truly need not speak ever again."
Arianne took a step back, dismayed.
"You cannot mean that! Y-your Grace."
Aemond craned his neck backward.
"I seldom say what I do not mean." He proclaimed adamantly and turned to leave lest he did something categorically idiotic, like grasping her upper arms and claiming her plush lips, until she understood that she was never to entertain another man again. That if she ever did something so insolent, so sordidly vile again, he would sit her down to watch as he killed him and fed his corpse to Vhagar.
But no –
He was above this matter, and she was no longer a nuisance he would give attention to.
Something warm brushed against the back of his hand.
The One-eyed Prince went rigid before slowly turning his head down.
Her fingers grazed him so lightly he could have convinced himself it had been the wind, had he not felt the hesitant curl of them around his own.
She had approached him of her own volition before, but she hadn't ever touched him first. It made him feel strangely warm, the tender cage around his knuckles.
“My Prince, you…you do not understand, I…” Arianne’s face was still fixed upon the ground between them, yet her cheeks were aflame. There was a wild earnestness to her voice that struck him somewhere beneath the skin, calling for him to turn his hand beneath hers and lock their fingers together.
“I did not realize it before…and, I…My preference, and regard, and…affection-“ She struggled to explain herself, and during those chokingly long seconds his rational sense returned.
Of course.
The bitterness ate at his mouth. Did she think she would lessen the humiliation if she told him her foolishness had sprouted from…from love…from affection for the bastard? Seven Hells take her! She was truly the most singularly brazen, wicked woman –
Aemond tore his hand away.
“Should you require anything before dawn,” he spoke each syllable slowly, tinged with detachment borne of formality. “inform one of the men. They will see to it.”
He did not turn again.
.
.
.
Arianne listened to the soft hiss of resin as the firewood burned and the voices of men talking between themselves. Some of them had kept watch, and a few had retired to tiny, tiny tents that covered only their upper body, which told her that the hour had grown late.
The boy, who still hadn’t spoken except for a few disjointed words, slept on a bedroll near Bess. Arianne hadn’t wanted to be alone, so when Aemond decided he could not tolerate her existence for a moment longer, she sat with others.
She caught herself studying him despite every earnest intention not to. He sat near one of the fires, using the light to inspect a map, speaking to one knight or the other.
Twat!
To think that she almost told him, almost –
Admitted that her regard, her affection, he already had them.
Even though she could not quite comprehend what it was that she felt. If she loved Jace, then what was this?
Arianne tightened her lips until the cut on the lower one opened, and she ran her tongue over it, wincing.
Vain, stodgy, insufferable man!
Still, she wrapped her arms around herself and buried her face into her knees, into the folds of his cloak just so she could inhale his scent. What if he just left, and then she’d be alone with guards and some knights, and Will had been a guard too –
He could not have meant it. They had to…talk eventually. Surely at Court, if not here. How was she to inform him that he was an utter arse otherwise?
Arianne glanced at the returned jewelry that she had spread on the bedroll. Her mother’s Seven-pointed Star pendant, her waist chain, her barrettes, both of them.
Earlier, she had been shocked to see Myles Mooton standing before her and asking her to look for her valuables before they delivered the rest to the Crown. They had found her barrette somewhere halfway, used it to confirm that she had truly gone in the direction Lord Larys pointed.
“When I heard that Lady Arianne was in grave danger, I had to ensure that you were found and extricated from it!” His doe, brown eyes practically glinted.
“Thank you, Ser Myles.” She nodded automatically, moving subtly away from him.
He scratched at his hair.
“I am…a squire.”
Oh.
Right.
“Forgive me, I coul-“
“There is nothing to forgive!” He waved his hands wildly. “Lady is most kind to honor me as a knight in her heart.”
Arianne stared at him, or rather, through him.
She had named Aemond her silver-haired Galladon. How obtuse of her! Aemond wasn’t even a knight, let alone a gallant one.
Ser Galladon would never get all sullen and spiteful and venomous with Myrielle before expeditiously deciding to abandon her.
“What I wanted to say, I could tell my Father about your bravery, and he could…knight you, if you wish.”
Myles gasped.
“My Lady! You are truly wonderful and generous! I have been working so hard…” He continued blabbering for several minutes. Arianne used them to check on Bess, who was still awake and listening to the young Mooton with large, terrified eyes.
“I am…good, now.” The girl switched between glancing at Arianne and her torn shoes. “Just…”
“Oh, and Prince Aemond ordered me to inform you that you may take his tent, since you are a Lady.” Myles Mooton ended his soliloquy.
Arianne frowned. His was the only one that looked remotely decent for anyone to sleep in.
“He could not inform me himself?” She asked, peering at the man in question. He was still bent over the map. Some treasonous part of her wished to reassure itself that he remained exactly where she had last seen him.
Just do not let me wake up still tied to that tree. Please, Mother.
Myles shrugged.
“He…eh, hadn’t elaborated.”
Arianne found her hands trembling from vexation.
“Tell his Grace that I shall rather sleep on the bedroll, here, if he cannot find the decency to speak to me! I shall freeze for his poor manners!”
The young man wiped the sudden sweat off his brow.
“He will kill me if I tell him he had poor manners. Please, my Lady. You are too illustrious to sleep on the forest floor.”
With that, Myles excused himself, since it had been his turn to check the perimeter.
Arianne secured her necklace before turning to Bess. She was a slight thing, younger than Arianne herself, her hair thin and unevenly cut. It was a very pretty shade of yellow daisies, though.
“What were you saying earlier?”
“I…” Her words dissolved into a sob, narrow shoulders quaking beneath the coarse wool cloak one of the soldiers had draped over her.
"I have no one."
Arianne felt as though something hollowed her chest. She wiped her palms over the cloak and inched closer, slightly panicked.
“What…Don’t, don’t cry. You are safe now.”
Bess shook her head.
“I have nowhere to go. M-my parents and my sister died of fever and…Oh, please, milady, take me with you!”
Arianne stared at her, her lashes fluttering in disbelief a few times.
“T-take you?”
The girl rubbed at her blotched cheeks.
"I'll earn my keep. I swear it before the Seven." The words tumbled over one another in desperation. "I'll learn to attend a milady proper if that's what you need. I'll not steal, nor answer back. You saved my life. I’ll never let you down.”
Arianne sighed, reaching for the girl’s hand.
“I would if I could. My household is my Father’s, I don’t…I am not yet a Lady of anything, I do not have anything.”
Nor would she ever, if they give her over to the Silent Sisters for causing a scandal during the King’s Name Day.
Bess's face crumpled.
"I don't need wages."
"You do." Arianne insisted.
"I don't. I just need bread and I can…I can sleep on the floor. Just, just don’t let them beat me and…use me no more, milady.”
She seized Arianne’s hand with surprising vigor. “I'll make myself useful. I'll never shame you, milady.”
Arianne shut her eyes, unable to bear it.
“Alright.” She relented, though she had no idea how she was going to do this. Bess was no handmaiden. What was she to do with her? She could pay her from her own purse, well, the one her Father allowed her, but where was she going to keep her in employment?
Miriam is going to smother me with a pillow before Mother gets to me.
When Arianne opened her eyes, Bess was crying anew, this time from relief.
“Thank you, milady. You will not regret it.”
She just hoped she would not be punished too severely for it.
“Here.” She picked up the twin barrettes. “I am giving you these as your payment until I have my coin.”
“I couldn’t-”
“You said you would not talk back.”
Arianne canted her head to look for Aemond. He had abandoned his map in favor of speaking to Ser Tibbald, his back turned to her. His hair gleamed in the dark, reaching down to his shoulder blades.
“He looks at you when you aren’t looking, milady. I saw.” Bess smiled through her tears. She examined the pearl and onyx swans in her hands with almost childlike wonder.
Arianne grimaced.
“You do not have to lie to me just because you work for me.” She grumbled, ignoring the way her stomach leapt.
This whole thing was ridiculous. She had been abducted, nearly been sold, nearly died.
And somehow Aemond Targaryen had found this precise occasion to become aggrieved.
Besides, when she had been the one to bid him to leave her alone, he just pretended as if she hadn’t spoken at all and continued to exist in her orbit as her own personal Stygian demon.
Why would she respect his decision to keep her at arm’s length? Arianne had the worst idea ever, and she missed his company too much to argue against it.
Why should he get to dismiss her? She could pester him too, see how he likes it, then!
Because you are a lady, and not a dragon incapable of common courtesy.
She could still be courteous, though.
Arianne slowly crouched and then stood up. She had to hold the cloak because it was too long for her.
“Milady, what are you doing?” Bess asked her from her bedroll.
“I am being treated most unfairly, and I should like to remedy that.” She replied shortly. Steeling her resolve, head held high, Arianne swept toward him.
“Lady Swann.” Ser Tibbald was the first to greet her. Arianne plastered on a smile.
“Ser,” Her voice slightly lilted. “My prince.”
Aemond turned, a very strange expression gracing his lineaments. His tongue rolled over his incisors.
“Lady Swann. Are you in need of something?”
Arianne curtsied with every bit of grace she possessed before straightening.
“I wished to speak to you about…certain issues, my Prince.”
Aemond stared at her, and stared, and did naught but stare until her palms were capable of watering nearby plants.
Gods, just…
“Hm,” The corner of his mouth curved, all princely disdain. “Ser Tibbald, if Lady Swann wishes to converse, do indulge her. I have far more important matters to attend to.”
Arianne opened her mouth to protest, but he was agile as a dragon, storming past her before she could do so much as blink.
He…
Her eyes were glued to the empty space he left behind, and she could feel tears of utter humiliation prickle at her lower lash line.
Ser Tibbald cleared his throat.
“Lady Swann, I…well, it is quite cold, is it not? Next winter is upon us soon.”
Arianne sniffled behind the back of her hand.
“Certainly.” She responded, taking note of the sigils adorning his breastplate. His own, and the one of the House he had been serving, Targaryen. As the royal guard, Will had an identical crimson dragon etched into his doublet.
Quickly, Arianne excused herself and went back to Bess.
That silver-haired arse! Arse!
She needed to think.
.
.
.
Arianne had already coaxed a little iron pot of boiled wine and a bundle of clean linen from the thoroughly perplexed Myles Mooton, who, after several attempts to ascertain whether she had been injured, had given up on questioning her.
Now, armed with her weapons, Arianne regarded the One-eyed Prince across the camp with simmering resolve. He appeared to be twirling a dagger absentmindedly while watching the fire. The map and a plate of bread and meat lay near his bedroll, abandoned.
She had been warring with her own prudence whether to approach him again.
Of course not, for his distance was the most favorable outcome of this whole affair. It was what you had wanted all along, was it not?
But…
She inhaled deeply before forcing air out of her lungs, watching it mist against the cold.
You are to wed Jace, you absolute dolt!
What business have you fraternizing with the uncle he so thoroughly loathes? Who despises Jace and Luke and Rhaena in turn, with even greater zeal? Do you wish to ruin everything you’ve been aspiring to, and end up in a Motherhouse? Or, worse…and for what? Him?
Arianne chewed on her lower lip.
But what if she truly died without ever…
Without ever –
Without ever what? There was nothing between them.
For years now, she had lived beneath the comfortable illusion that tomorrow belonged to her. That she would wed Jace, her perfect dragon prince – her dream, and ten years from now rule Dragonstone as its Lady, and Queen Rhaenyra would name her to the council. She would be the first Mistress of Laws, or Coin… Perhaps not coin, as her allowance was perpetually running dry from this scheme or that, but –
Somehow, her reveries about her future had begun to include him. Not as anything close or illicit, but a fixture nonetheless, as certain as the land, wind, or sea.
Exiled into the Far Mossovy, or Cannibal Sands, yet reachable. Writing her pompous treatises on Essosi politics that she would never answer publicly. Refusing the Crown’s summons to celebrate Jace’s coronation one day and witnessing her win. Aemond of those daydreams would have been impressed by how far she went, how “lord's spoiled daughter with a sly mouth and too many ideas above her station” outwitted him and got everything she wanted.
Arianne supposed there would always be another day feast. Another argument. Another chance to wound him and prove him…something.
Yet now she had been forced to realize that the future she so confidently arranged within her mind had been no more substantial than a gust of wind or a morning dew. What if Aemond had not found her?
Would she have died without ever…
Without ever examining, dissecting, categorizing what it was – this never-before-felt thing, this impossible sweetness that hurt as much as it delighted.
She needed to know. She had to know.
Her legs objected as she briskly crossed the distance.
“What is it now?” Aemond snapped before lifting his eye and realizing it was her. She could sense his foul temper, it was undulating all around him, turning the air thin.
“If this concerns our quarrel, my decisions cannot be swayed by whatever feminine wiles you intended to use.” His tone remained glacial.
Arianne halted.
Feminine…wiles?
Aemond’s gaze bore into hers, dark and molten.
“I…I should like to clean your wound.” She stuttered.
“You should like to… what?”
Placing the iron pot onto the ground, she inclined her head toward his right arm.
“Your cut, it should be cleaned sooner rather than later, should it not? And you won’t find the Maester before tomorrow. I have boiled wine and linen-“
“No.” Aemond scoffed.
Arianne shifted her weight. Every instinct informed her that the conversation had reached its ignominious conclusion.
“It will fester.”
“It will not.” He dismissed her.
“…It might?”
“I’ve blood of the dragon, we are less susceptible to your mundane maladies.”
Arianne wrestled with the urge to mention that if that were true, how did then Princess Daenerys die of mundane shivers, or his grandfather from a burst belly.
“It could.” She said instead, absently smoothing down the heavy fabric of the cloak. Aemond’s sole eye honed in on her, and it felt like a knife upon her skin.
“It could not!” He hissed.
Arianne stared at him, stricken. Why was he so tediously determined to rebuke her?! The conversation was not going the way she wanted it. Never with Aemond. All of a sudden, she felt as if she were participating in a duel, and losing it.
Her mind blanked, already exhausting almost all pretenses it had prepared. She searched his face for a clue that the refusal concealed a weakness she might exploit, but Aemond was always so inconveniently difficult to decipher.
Arianne sighed and gathered the cloak to sit, at an appropriate distance, of course, but still close enough that he could not bypass her company, the small of her back leaning against the same log as his.
She folded her hands primly in her lap as every well-bred lady ought to, and pretended to observe the campfire.
“What exactly are you doing?” Aemond’s dry baritone came from her left.
She shrugged.
“Waiting, mostly.”
His alabaster brow furrowed.
“For what?”
“For Your Grace to come to your senses and quit avoiding me,” Arianne explained, fixing him with a bemused look. If he had thought the way she played cyvasse was boringly slow, he would learn she possessed the patience to sit and wear him down a plenty. Either he would change his mind, or her body would simply topple over from exhaustion, because she was determined to beleaguer him until dawn if she had to.
It would be like that time Robb and her practiced the art of siegecraft. Maester Clegg remarked that she possessed the temperament for it. Any impetous man could storm a fortress with enough strength at their disposal, but to build a circumvallation, settle in, and let time serve as an ally required forbearance.
“You are to retire into that tent, Lady Swann, and cease… pestering me!” Aemond gave her a scathing look.
Arianne leaned her cheek against the back of her hand, deciding the same principles of poliorcetics ought to be applied to him, no matter how tightly he bolted his gates.
“What if I refuse? Will you carry me there?” She wondered idly. “And then kiss my hand? As Ser Galladon carried Lady Myrielle after the drawbridge proved unsafe to cross. You know, The Maiden of Mistwood is my favorite –“
She halted because the spectacle unfolding across Aemond’s face was astonishing. The color fled from it, leaving an ashen, pallid sort of moonstone behind, only to return, climbing from his throat to the hollows beneath his cheekbones, leaving them peculiarly rosy.
“You-“ He spat, as the smattering of pale pink slowly deepened until even the tips of his ears appeared to have gone scarlet. Tics propagated along the sharp line of his jaw while he stared blankly at her.
“You - Have you gone utterly mad?”
Arianne settled her mouth into the tiny pout in lieu of an answer.
The dagger he had been rolling between his fingers almost slipped. Aemond averted his eye, the high ridge of his nose crinkling as he seethed.
What in the Seven Hells was she attempting to achieve?
He leaned backward with considerable force, half-hoping to move the log so she’d lose balance and topple over like a defeated cyvasse king.
She was ruining everything! He had decided to disregard her very existence for at least a sennight. To make her observe as he blessed another lady with his attentions until she realized the gravity of her insult and sought him as a penitent does Father himself.
He wanted the distance because she had somehow gained the upper hand, and he needed to reassess, regroup, and restrategize how to deal with her.
How dare she beset him now of all times, after behaving like the wary swan gliding beyond his reach for weeks?! Was she not aware of his considerable displeasure, or did she merely imagine it another obstacle to be overcome by some vile coquetry?
The truly heinous fact was that some treacherous alcove of his mind found her performance agreeable. Arianne had come to him of her own accord, and it would have been a lie to pretend the escapade did not please him.
But he would not be swayed, because, unlike lesser men and women, he was ruled by mind alone even if her current manner was downright shameless! To practically invite him into her tent like some…some slattern!
He wondered if she ever invited Jacaerys Strong between her thighs much the same way, and his teeth ground together so tightly his jaw began to ache.
Aemond stared at his torn sleeve and the slashed skin peeking beneath it. It hardly pained him, and he had survived far more grievous injuries, though.
It only pleased him because she had at last begun to conduct herself as a woman under his courtship ought to!
Perhaps, if he allowed her to fuss over the cut, she’d find her conscience satisfied and leave him in peace. He could even mention how much he disdained her and how her disheveled state offended his senses.
Aemond rolled his torn sleeve and extended his forearm as if he were bestowing a great blessing upon the undeserving.
He could resume ignoring her afterward. Certainly.
“If you are going to nettle me,” He drawled. “You might as well do something useful, Lady Arianne.”
She perked up at that.
Before he could reconsider, Arianne gathered her skirts along with the cloak and slipped closer. She settled upon the earth beside him, tucking her legs neatly beneath herself. Her eyes scrutinized the linen and the iron pot as it sent wisps of warmth into the cold air.
Well…the Maester back home sort of just…
The unexpected weight of Aemond’s arm almost startled her. His skin was rather cold and very pale, and if it weren’t for the alacritous thumping of his pulse, she could have mistaken it for marble.
Her hand seemed absurdly small beneath his. Arianne found herself adjusting his forearm until it rested across the soft cradle of her lap.
The thick coat proved barrier enough, yet the simple intimacy of their positions had her cheeks sizzle.
As her hands reached for the linen, it dawned on her that she hadn’t quite the idea where to begin. Healing never held her interest, and there hadn’t been many books on the subject in Stonehelm anyway.
Arianne knew Aemond was appraising her because she could feel his gaze prickle upon her face.
“Have you ever done this before?” He barked, his fingers twitching against her.
“Of course I have!” She parried, punctuating every word. Aemond’s eye narrowed into a slit.
“Hm.”
She did not care for that condescending hm.
“I have done it a hundred times at least.” Arianne lied and quickly dipped the linen into the still scalding wine.
She had never done it.
Though surely one began with the wound itself. Or, mayhap, the dried streaks of vermilion around it.
He hadn’t protested when she pressed the cloth against his skin, at least. Arianne dared a glance and found him focused on the flames.
“So…Have you read anything interesting lately?” She began, her voice a bit hoarse. Aemond blinked, tilting his face to gift her with a blank, acerbic sort of glare.
The two parabolic curves forming his upper lip remained unmoving.
Right.
Arianne cleared her throat and took the clean linen to wrap it around his wrist as she’d seen it done a few times.
“I’ve been reading Elysar’s original writings. They are quite detailed, though he insults just about everyone except Jaehaerys and Alysanne. My grandfather won a tourney in Princess Saera’s honor, did you know that? I never met him-“ She paused, squalling internally at her own blabbering.
The linen slipped through her fingers more than once.
“What I intended to say… uhm, I remember you’ve been reading those Journals about Horonno…” She plummeted into a lengthy monologue on Volantis and its elections of three triarchs, noticing, with a hearty dose of delight, that slowly the glaciers and seracs of his face melted and collapsed until the muscle twitches and quiet hums proved he had been listening to her.
“And you prefer elephants, I’d wager. You’d vote for the peaceful fools.” He interrupted her, just as she opened her mouth to ask him if he had an opinion on their strange form of governance.
Arianne pursed her lips in indignation. He was dissecting her mind again, which she did not quite appreciate. Aunt Johanna wrote to her once that a woman ought to be a thing of mystery to men.
“And you like the other ones, of course.” She huffed, watching as her breath misted.
“I like neither.” Aemond scoffed. “Imagine staking the fate of the realm upon the whims of illiterate rabble. A ruler ought to be obeyed because he is fit to rule, not because enough fishmongers, merchants and coinless drunkards happened to raise their hands for him.”
“I suppose… They always end up choosing someone persuasive, not necessarily competent.” Arianne shrugged, glancing at the arm in her lap. After she finished wrapping the linen, which unfortunately appeared slightly crooked and too loose, her fingertips accidentally grazed the raised line beginning at the root of his thumb. The scar was smooth beneath her touch.
Only then did she notice the peppering of pale lines all over his knuckles and forearm.
“You have so many.” She commented softly. His hands were beautiful, fingers lean and elegant, with every knuckle clearly defined. The tracery of blue veins only emphasized the tendons beneath the alabaster skin.
“A natural consequence of steel.”
Arianne lifted her eyes. The largest one cleaved his left cheek in two, like a dark, deep riverbed. Yet, the more she was permitted to glance upon it, the less it unnerved her.
“Surely not every one came from a blade?” She questioned skeptically, wondering if he would ever allow her to see it in full. Aemond cocked his silvery eyebrow.
“From what else?”
A hesitant smile found her lips.
“Have you never…simply stumbled over your own feet?”
The outer corner of his eyelid twitched.
“I beg your pardon?” The disbelief coating his words almost had her laughing.
“You know – Tripped. Fell. Walked into a tree.”
The One-eyed Prince did not deign to respond. Instead, he turned up her palm. His forefinger traced a thin mark running beside her little finger.
“You fence?” He asked scampishly.
Arianne rolled her eyes.
“I fell off a horse.”
“I am unsurprised.”
She made a face at him. “It was a singularly contrary horse!”
Aemond snorted.
“I rather suspect the contrary element sat upon it.” His drawl warmed her cheeks, and she nudged at his arm as if her dignity were greatly offended.
His thumb found the abrasions circling her wrist. Arianne regarded the circular movement near the rhagades - it was so light that it hadn’t hurt.
“I should not have given them the mercy of quick death,” Aemond commented coldly before withdrawing his arm. Once he raised it for scrutiny, the linen slid down the corded muscles in a sad roll.
She blanched.
The stupid thing!
Aemond stared at the shallow slash, blinking ever so often. Chillingly slow, his attention shifted to her.
Arianne smiled nervously.
“…It is important to let the wound breathe.” She attempted, her voice warbling.
He said nothing, only watched her with that inscrutable countenance.
Her jittery nerves launched the words from her throat before she could temper them.
“Fine! I haven’t done it a hundred times.” She shrilled. “I haven’t done it ever, but it is – it is honestly your own fault for believing that! I am a lady! Why would I know how to do Maester’s work?”
Arianne sighed and pressed her fingertips against her brow. Great, now he will ignore her for all of eternity…
Aemond’s lips flattened into a thin line.
“Has anything even remotely resembling the truth ever left your pretty mouth, my lady?”
Well…of course she would not lie about something important, only the small inconveniences that the Gods forgive…
Arianne puffed her cheeks before deflating.
“I only wished to speak to you. That is why…” She drew an unsteady breath, refusing to meet his eye.
“And…I had not meant what I said during the King’s name day. I mean, I do loathe you sometimes, but not for the reasons you think."
His nostrils flared.
“What reasons?” Aemond demanded.
Arianne grimaced. She did not want to tell him, not that, or grant him further access to her thoughts, because he could still use all of it against her in theory. Yet, his disdain was somehow worse.
“Just…that you make me want to speak to you.” She swallowed. “When I read something, I wonder if you might find it interesting, if you might talk about it with me…and I have more important things to do than waste time thinking about y-…that!”
The silence had never been so utterly dreadful, nor so endless.
Arianne covered her eyes with her hands, resolving to never look at him again as long as she lived. Fuchsias bloomed all over neck and ears.
“I likely would.” Aemond offered eventually. “Find it interesting, that is.”
He shifted and placed his forearm onto her cloaked lap once more.
“Is this shoddy work how you tend to the Prince of the blood, though? One might even call it treason.”
Arianne peeked through her fingers.
“What-“
“Fix it.” He commanded, inclining his head toward the wound. It had ceased to bleed at least.
Her eyes narrowed at the task.
“It might be easier to wrap if I could just have another cloth to press against it.” She mused. “You don’t happen to have a clean sleeve to cut off a piece or a handkerchief, do you? They took all mine…”
By the movement of his jaw, Aemond seemed to consider her request for several moments before he pulled the clean, little cloth from his doublet.
“Here. Use that one.”
Arianne unfolded it and moved it around the cut to find how to position it before she realized the pattern on it was very familiar to her. Vines coiling around daisies and vibrant blue thread forming chicory, a white swan perched between the weeds.
Huh? Why did he have this? She had given it to Princess Jaehaera.
She turned it over before asking sternly: “Where did you get this?”
It was honestly insulting that the Princess appreciated her help so little she had passed the handkerchief along.
Or, mayhap, Aemond stole it? But why would he?
Arianne knew her embroidery was mediocre at best.
“Lady Redwyne gave it to me.” Came the lofty drawl as Aemond leaned back against the log.
A terrible rush of blood suffused her cheeks at such blatant perfidy.
Not only was he a thief, but a liar! Liar! Did he know and was mocking her?
Arianne halted when her mouth had been halfway open already. Aemond was speaking to her again, and she did not wish to jeopardize this fragile peace they brokered with accusations of theft.
She could always ask Jaehaera about it.
“How kind of her…” Arianne snorted unladylike while her hands worked to wrap the damned linen over it and secure his wound.
“Ah, I suppose the vines represent Arbor. Did she forget the grapes?”
Aemond tilted his head, observing her with an entirely unabashed grin that reeked of amusement at her expense.
“Mhm.” He crooned, and Arianne grew a sudden urge to smother him. She tied the linen tightly this time, too tightly, her face distinctly sour and dour.
Aemond flexed his fingers, adjusting the binding.
“Half the flowers have poor stitching.” She remarked, imitating Septa Meria’s haranguing. Not like Lady Redwyne could take offense, considering she hadn’t made the damned thing.
The One-eyed Prince actually appeared to revel in her barbs.
“I have not realized you cared so much for embroidery, my lady. What must you think of that unfortunate pigeon, then?” He tilted his head back, lips stretching over his teeth.
Arianne balked. Pigeon? Pigeon? That was a swan!
“You are welcome to offer me your favor, though.” Aemond commended idly, unaware that she contemplated setting him on fire.
“I shall not ever.” She snapped and shifted to sit against the log, untucking her legs. His coat was so wonderfully warm that it made her sleepy.
Aemond now observed her with brazen ease. Having concluded that he had won this skirmish, he decided to let the matter rest and turned entirely toward Arianne.
He had no desire to drive her away from him again.
Also, he could always ignore her tomorrow. That was a given.
“What have you been reading? That I might find interesting?” His voice lowered. “Except Elysar.” He added dryly.
Arianne sent him a sidelong glance.
“Nothing much since I’ve been barred from the library.” She sighed, realizing she would simply have to reconcile that Aemond had been the cause of that, while simultaneously becoming her silver-haired Galladon.
“What about you, my prince?”
“Battles and Sieges of the Century of Blood.”
Arianne forgot to glower.
“I haven’t read that. Is it good?” She inquired curiously.
Aemond inclined his head and began recounting the fall of Sarnor, how its kings engaged in petty rivalries until the horselords only needed to pick one gleaming city after another. Even though the thrum of his voice kept its restrained edge, Arianne found it entirely too pleasant to listen to. He could have been a lecturing Maester in another life, she supposed.
Except his vanity needed no nourishment, so she would keep that observation to herself.
“They torched the Palace with Thousand Rooms that Lomas Longstrider mentions was built in Sarnath!” She grabbed her hair. “Those awful illiterate savages! They should be dealt with!”
Aemond leaned his head against his knuckles.
“I thought you’d mourn Sallosh more. The City of Scholars with its vast library. Joseth mentions it was almost as large as the one in Tyria. Who knows the true amount of ancient knowledge that perished with it?”
Melancholy clouded her features. There was the fabled Waterfall City too, burned to ash and rubble by Khal Mengo, and then Kasath and Gornath, and many more. Arianne found out Aemond had a theory on how Sarnor endured for more than two millennia before eventually collapsing.
“There are surviving fragments that suggest the High Kings had little say in naming their heir.” His fingers idly twirled a twig before he tossed it into the fire.
“All those in line were required to prove themselves, perhaps through trial by arms. They had to demonstrate why they should be the one to inherit or rule. The most suited would naturally be chosen.”
Arianne snickered, realizing his tone turned wistful. She could not believe it took her as long as it did to comprehend how keenly Aemond wanted the throne and everything that came with it.
“You are the least impartial scholar I have ever met. Believing a fragment because it vindicates your ambitions.” She laughed openly now, the sound airy and light.
He glared at her with one scorching, lethal eye that promised retribution.
Arianne waved her hand at him.
“Thank the Seven our customs differ from those long-gone Sarnori,” She told him with false solemnity before her shoulders began to shake from guffawing.
“You would have been even more insufferable with the crown on you.”
Aemond’s hand halted above another twig, and his head snapped back to her. He blinked, her words having robbed him of the ability to speak.
He had spent half his life imagining what those words might feel like.
She only meant it as a jest.
The crown would be on HIS head, if only…
He leaned forward, crowding her space.
“You think I am best suited.” He uttered half in disbelief. No, not disbelief, because he should be King, he knew he should, but to hear her say the very thing – the acknowledgment he had been craving since as long as he could remember was downright exhilarating.
The naked euphoria of it swashed along his spine.
Not just the better swordsman, the quicker study, the more diligent prince, the adequate spare.
But the worthier King.
Arianne arched away from him, watching him beneath lowered lashes. With those eyes that were unapologetically verdant even against the low light of the campfire.
His throat moved in a parched swallow.
“That is…” She muttered, unmoored. “I hadn’t really…I meant that you could be picked, not that you would – this is all purely theoretical – because it is treasonous to imply… So I would never say it or think it!”
Arianne stood up so abruptly her the space around her spun.
It was true enough that in the ocean of common ineptitude, Aemond was possessed of rare efficiency and cogency that she could not help but commend and possibly venerate, but –
But –
She could not think that… It was not to her benefit at all to imagine Aemond with a crown.
Arianne needed Rhaenyra to become a ruling Queen. Only then would Jace inherit Dragonstone, and then, through logical succession of events, eventually, when he is King…she would be his Queen.
“I think, I think I have errands-“
Aemond caught her hand by the fingers before she could abscond. The corner of his mouth lifted as if he found such a stupid, overt lie infinitely amusing.
“I haven’t dismissed you, my lady.” He declared. “Sit.”
Arianne wanted to invent some elaborate explanation as to why she could not possibly have meant it, but the peaks and valleys of his face arranged themselves so strangely open and content that she could not.
“Do not mention that to anyone because I will deny it.” She said with a sigh and settled back to his right. Aemond sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, working it in and out for several moments.
“Ūī hae ñurho kārillo rāelinna” (I shall keep it as my treasure.) He promised in tones as soft as a pillow.
Her brows knitted together. She hadn’t the slightest idea how to translate that.
He…keeps?
“Could we speak of something else?” Arianne suggested sheepishly, studying her hand that was still in his.
Aemond mercifully indulged her, and they talked about Gawen, whom he considered the chief authority on the Conquerors’ later lives, before she drifted to Septon Barth, and Thyrne, and Walgram – and something curled and writhed inside her stomach when he said he had read him too – and then to Old Ghis, and the five wars they waged against Valyria.
Aemond hadn’t ever read Selyssa Morane’s tractate about the roots of human suffering, and it made Arianne positively giddy – she enjoyed knowing more than him in the same manner as she enjoyed winning.
Not nearly as much as listening to him speak, low and lilting, about his interests. He knew an astonishing number of things.
Or noticing the minuscule smiles tugging at the side of his mouth that had blood swish hotly through her veins.
By the time they reached Westeros and he mentioned how the oldest tales of Garth Greenhand painted him as a significantly more malignant deity – demanding blood sacrifice (a sin condemned by the Seven, she interjected) to ensure a plentiful harvest, their knees almost touched.
They sat inclined towards one another like two conspirators beneath the shroud of the night sky.
It occurred to Arianne, somewhere between Chroyane and the Second Spice War, that conversing with the One-eyed Prince required no effort at all once she ceased rehearsing objections to everything he had to say.
“No one knows who built Yeen.” She yawned, feeling her upper lids grow heavier by a minute. “The plants don’t grow inside of it.”
“Tis just a desolate ruin, and the tales likely exaggerate it.” Aemond ran his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles before gazing at the east.
“You should sleep, cygnet.” He added. “It’s almost dawn.”
Arianne rubbed at her eyes, forcing her head up.
Already?
Not to mention…
“I do not want to…” She hesitated, avoiding his gaze. The tent seemed too far, and she did not want to be alone. Perhaps she could ask Bess to sleep with her? Except, it wasn’t Bess she disliked parting from in this damned forest, and Aemond was, very inconveniently at the moment, a man.
“What if this is just…not real, and I wake tied to that tree?”
Aemond’s eye widened, and the pads of his fingers halted their repetitive movement across the skin of her hand.
He was silent for a while, as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what to say to her. She doubted anyone ever asked him to offer comfort, or that he was capable of it. He seemed more prone to ridiculing everything he considered to be a weakness.
“Even if you do,” his voice was barely audible, but it had her glancing back at him. “You untied yourself once, did you not? You can do so again.”
Despite her misery, her cheek ticked, dragging the side of her lips to smile. Aemond turned to stare at the dying embers.
“More importantly, I would still be looking for you.”
He stated plainly.
Arianne thought her heart had shimmied into her throat. Her vision blurred until everything swam in her tears. They were warm against her cheeks.
“Have I said something amiss?” His voice carried none of its regular acuity. She shook her head and wiped the droplets with the heel of her hands.
“No, my prince.” Arianne searched vainly for the words that could convey the strange feeling between her ribs was now proliferating rapidly. Her limbs had grown languorous, while her thoughts drifted, aimless like blown dandelion seeds.
“I… I misjudged you so terribly.”
Aemond regarded her until she could no longer endure the brunt of the attention. Arianne faced the fire and leaned back against the broad log until her shoulder almost brushed against his. She took care to keep the small space, lest one of the men later confabulate how the lady Swann behaved inappropriately.
She yawned once more and drew her knees close beneath her chin to rest her head.
“I meant that you go sleep in the tent I so graciously surrendered to your ladyship, not upon my bedroll,” Aemond noted dryly from her left, still maintaining occupancy of her hand. Or it had been her who refused to relinquish his from her hold. She could not tell anymore.
“Why did you lie earlier?” Arianne closed her weary eyes and switched the subject. “About Lady Redwyne?”
He was going to insist on the stupid tent, wasn’t he? At least here everyone could see that she hadn’t done anything morally reprehensible with him.
“Lied?” Aemond hissed, suddenly turning briary. “I am a Prince of the Realm, a dragonlord – just because you, a yokel from the Red Mountains, do so find me nefast, other ladies think it honor that I would even-“
Arianne groaned against her knees, too tired to open her eyes and gift him a baleful glare.
“Oh, do stop. I know you lied because it is mine and I gave it to the little Princess for her knee.” She muttered.
“Gave her what?” He rasped.
“The handkerchief. She fell and scraped her knee-“ Another small yawn interrupted her answer. “So I…to help her with the ouchie…and I always embroider the same pattern that I practiced with my Septa…”
Her voice dissolved into a drowsy, unintelligible murmur before her fingers, twined with his, slackened at last.
.
.
.
Aemond remained seated against the fallen log long after the sleep had claimed her. Somehow, Lady Arianne had seized both his cloak and his bedroll without so much as requesting either, and he found, to his immense irritation, that he did not mind ceding them to her.
Her.
It could not have been her.
It was her.
His sharp gaze wandered from the delicate cloth resting across his palm to her and back again. Her bruised face appeared almost serene while she curled beneath the thick, black wool with a shameless sort of contentment for someone robbing a prince of his own encampment.
His grip tightened around the handkerchief – his one, the one he had for years.
She knew, the contriver that she was. She had to have known all along, and it made sense now, all of it, her disdain – she had seen him weep, she had witnessed his pitiful attempts to re-learn how to fight before his wound hadn’t even properly healed, she –
She did not know. He had been so small a thing to her that she forgot entirely about it.
Aemond could not even decide which of the two was worse.
He stared at the small cloth, pressing his thumb against the white bird that was likely supposed to represent a swan, then.
What an atrocious seamstress she was.
But he had believed her little favor had brought him luck. Perhaps it truly had.
To think that he had been speaking to her for weeks, and more, he had kissed her and courted her, and to think that it had been her all along – his girl of fortune.
His stomach flipped on itself, his chest pulsating in time with his tumultuous heartbeat.
Aemond lifted his gaze towards the heavens. The star-bedecked dark was slowly giving way to deep indigo as bands of yellow, peach, and orange began to protrude from the east.
His mother would have called it the will of the Seven, and dragonlords something older. Perhaps older than Valyria itself, as old as the known world. Aemond simply thought this reclaimed luck a sign that he could – would – one day somehow, someday seize all his objectives.
He cared little what name men bestowed upon it. Arianne fit within the order he recognized.
Before she had ever become Rhaenyra’s lady companion, before she had been their friend and Strong bastard’s future bride, she had been his. His lady fortune, his kismet. The girl he had named a toad and never told anyone about. She had given him her favor, and he kept it for years. He killed for her.
Arianne had proven beneficial, so long ago, and if he had her, on his side…
Why else would the Gods see it fit to return her to him?
And she thought him most suited for the crown.
He would sit between the blackened swords that rose from the stone dais like the branches of a monstrous thorn tree, and it would have been his solitary reward for striking down all his enemies.
The idea that solitude was no longer a foregone conclusion crept upon him so subtly that he neither questioned it nor resisted it. Arianne wasn’t meant to pass her days as some hidden mistress he discreetly tucked between the walls of the Keep. She possessed an altogether uncommon mind, her wit sharpened his own, her natural curiosity refused complacency, and she…she understood him and was godless and greedy, and she wanted to win just as he did. There glimmered the same brazen, abyssal hunger in her eyes.
Aemond concluded that she had no place anywhere save where all the Realm might see her.
The new chapter was so good and juicy. Is it fair to say Arianne had a tendency to be sanctimonious? No doubt a circumstance of her upbringing, but I think this chapter and the last were important for the way she views Aemond as an individual and as a love interest. He really is a viable contender as a suitor next to Jace for a number of reasons despite being a second son. My heart broke a little for her when Aemond thought she was sneaking out for a late night rendezvous with Jace. I was happy that she was persistent in her scheme to make Aemond listen to her by "tending to his wound." Listen, our girl is not a maester nor a great liar 😅 I was kind of scared at the beginning of the chapter that Arianne and Aemond were going five steps back, so I was glad to see that Arianne apologized to Aemond for passing judgement especially because Aemond himself is someone who is always judged as an aristocrat/spare (by the court) and an outsider (by his brother/nephews). We call that growth! And he finally discovered who gave him the handkerchief all those years ago! His good luck charm! 🤩
Finally these two can get over themselves and realize how much they are into the other 🤣
🫶🫶🫶
Thank you ❤️❤️
Arianne is definitely sanctimonious and hypocritical at times! She lies a lot actually but it's usually something only mentioned (seneschal, bribery, to Rhaena and then Mathilda about Aemond, to Rhaenyra a few times....) so maybe in this chapter it's noticeable for the first time. She also thinks the Gods forgive her everything because she's has "good reasons" for scheming and those are only a little lies. There's definitely some superiority complex there even if she's never mean about it.
She really is a poor Maester 🥲😂. Girl has no caretaking bone in her but she tried for him🥹.
I think Aemond deserved an apology since she completely misinterpreted several things he did! Even though he comes off as a jerk so often 😅.
Soft Arianne is such a gift🥹 they’re so cute my heart can’t take it!! For once, he’s the one cross with her and she’s pursuing him so much more openly! And now he finally has put two and two together and knows she’s the same girl from before!!!! AHHHHHH
Thank you 🥰🥰.
This chapter was very important to me as Aemond and Arianne finally talk without pretenses and Arianne realizes her perception of him wasn't quite fair. I was nervous about it! It's one thing to have fun banter as enemies but other to have something tangible when walls crack a bit...
And yes, writing Arianne as the pursuer in this one was very enjoyable!
Read on ao3 (I recommend reading on ao3 because I fix typos and mistakes more diligently over there. Tumblr is difficult to scroll where I want to.)
Summary: Arianne and Aemond discover several things.
Previous: A song of Swan and Dragons I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., IX.-partII, X., XI., XII., XII.-part II, XIII, XIV
tw: they are idiots?, I had time to re-read Twoiaf, and so you get a little lore dumped about Sarnor and whatnot. Aemond is democracyphobic.
XV. Tōma ampā
Because it was he; because it was I.
(Michel de Montaigne)
Aemond gathered the reins into one hand and pressed his heels lightly against the courser's flanks. The stallion picked his way along the narrow woodland path, illuminated only by scant torches and pale moon.
His men had found two other captives besides Arianne, frightened commoners who seemed to have trouble remembering they possessed the ability to speak. One outlaw managed to avoid death, and Aemond barked explicit instructions to keep the wretch alive for questioning. He intended to do it himself until the foul creature prayed that the Stranger hasten his passage.
Arianne shifted slightly against him, producing some kind of sound too quiet to be comprehensible. Aemond felt her shallow breaths vibrate through the arm he kept secured around her waist.
His fingers continued their faint, inexplicable trembling despite every effort made to still them.
He flexed them again a few times.
Yet, the prickling sensation remained as a leftover from the earlier fight.
It had been real, not a carefully curated practice in the yard. It had been a chaotic, lawless clash, and he… He had won. He had gutted someone open.
He had taken lives.
The resistance of flesh and bones as the steel travelled through it was not how Aemond had imagined it. The ugly, wet crunch of the blade finding its place deep in the first man’s throat. Back when it happened, when he did it, his thoughts were preoccupied with Arianne’s almost limp body and the vermin’s hand pulling her skirts up.
After hearing what that reprobate mongrel intended to inflict upon her, what else was Aemond to do but ensure the offending throat never again formed another sound. He only disliked that in the moment he didn’t think to pry him off Arianne first so that all that filthy blood did not end up splattered over her bodice.
The second one he had opened from hip to navel, though by then, enough seconds had accumulated for him to become cognizant of the fact that he had effectively killed someone. The third had been exterminated with a clean, swift plunge between ribs.
It made sense, in a way. One’s performance on certain tasks improved only through repetition.
Aemond always envisioned his first kill would be different. A great battle beneath dragonfire, the fate of the Realm balanced upon the edge of his blade. Something the minstrels could sing about for centuries to come.
Instead, it had been a rather meager skirmish against a bunch of thieves, outlaws, rapists, and slavers without a thimble of honor between them.
Somehow, his heart still refused to settle into its ordered rhythm, continuing the relentless assault upon his breastbone as though the battle had not yet ended. The scent of blood lingered, coating the back of his throat.
The One-eyed Prince knew these would not be the last lives he took.
But they were first, and they were for her.
He stretched the hand holding the reins, ignoring the sting that flashed across the dorsum. His sleeve gaped open where the blade had touched him during the initial scuffle. There hadn't been time for him to don proper armor, so the injury was partially his own fault.
Truthfully, if the wound left a scar, he could hold Arianne accountable because it had been her screaming that distracted him.
She stirred for a moment before exhaustion had her head lolling back down, settling into the plain between his neck and shoulder.
Lady Arianne sighed.
Her breath sifted through the long strands of pale silver hair that fell down his chest. Aemond lowered his gaze for a few moments, despite himself. She resembled a wounded cygnet, in a way. Her lower lip was slightly swollen and embellished with streaks of dried blood.
He suspected a discoloration spreading under her left cheekbone had been of similar origin.
Aemond wished he hadn’t killed any of the men they fought so quickly, so that he might scourge and flay them as those savage northerners did.
Arianne’s abundant hair was disordered beyond recognition, several leaves still held prisoner amongst the unruly tresses. Perhaps not a cygnet then, but some woodland sprite.
Flecks of blood and dirt marred her collarbones and the creamy curve of her right breast where the neckline had been torn and now hung lower than it was proper.
Visibly annoyed, mostly with himself for looking, the One-eyed Prince focused back on the path ahead. The last thing he needed was to tumble off a horse with her.
She had barely protested when he placed her on the saddle and mounted behind her, one arm firmly around her back.
The silence had been rather…strange as Arianne Swann’s chief occupation in his presence seemed to consist of objecting, and loudly, to everything he did.
His thoughts kept returning to her expression as they watched the outlaw draw his last wheezing, rattling breath. A gurgle of blood, nothing more.
It had been rather composed, sangfroid, and devoid of any signs of imminent vomiting.
All his life he’d been taught that maidens of noble birth possessed stomachs delicate enough to turn at the mere mention of butchery.
With Arianne, he supposed he understood for some time now that underneath her prim veneer, there lived steel. Mayhap, she truly would foul that river to win. A Queen ought not be meek of heart.
Not that her ridiculous aspirations would ever come true. The Strong bastard could never be allowed to sit on the Iron Throne.
Aemond glanced down at the hands she kept curled against him. Her sleeves were wide and half-torn, offering him a view of the bruises encircling her wrists like ink, like morbid bracelets made of dark carmine. The moonlight did little to soften them.
The muscles underneath his jaw clenched.
He would inquire later precisely who had bound her so, and if it happened to be the one man they left alive for questioning, the One-eyed Prince intended to remedy that oversight by granting him prolonged, excruciating delivery to the Stranger’s eager arms.
Arianne stirred again, lifting her head so slowly it appeared she required all her remaining strength to do so. Her long lashes fluttered thrice before she looked at him.
Not truly at him, Aemond thought, but through him more like. Her gaze lingered on his face, wide from exhaustion and terror swirling in it, mixing with an uncertain sort of wonder that had his cheeks involuntarily tingle.
"We raised a camp half a league west," he mentioned, keeping his voice deliberately even and staring straight ahead.
"’Tis not safe to ride far during the night. We shall return to the royal party on the morrow."
She continued staring for another heartbeat before her eyes wandered upward, following the black latticework of branches gliding slowly above their heads.
“Right...that is perfectly sensical.” Arianne nodded after considering it for a while.
Aemond frowned. She sounded so strange he feared they struck her head hard enough to leave her a simpleton. Somehow, that seemed even worse than all the other things combined.
He cleared his throat.
Her attention left the canopies in favor of his face. Aemond waited for her to say something, but when she did not, the awareness of being observed became downright disquieting.
"What is it?" He labored to sound insouciant rather than demanding, lest it startle either her or the horse.
“Those torches I saw. That was you…” Arianne muttered.
Aemond’s pale brow creased. If she saw them, then…
That repugnant lowlife nearly forced himself on her! If her screams hadn’t been loud enough to reach the clearing, if Aemond had been too late… She could’ve been strangled or butchered or raped while he was too occupied with disemboweling some nameless men.
“You saw us?” He asked, sensing the scaled creature from the depths clawing up his spine and clicking its teeth at his remaining patience.
“Why in the Seven Hells were you fleeing in the opposite direction then?!”
Arianne flinched.
"I did not know!" She protested, tone colored with the spark of indignation that survived her ordeal.
"I thought no one would come, and I had finally managed to cut the ropes, so I..." Her words dissolved between the hiccups. "I...We ran."
Something bright bolted across her face.
"The girl!" Arianne exclaimed, as loudly as her bruised throat permitted.
She twisted suddenly, attempting to look behind them.
"The girl. And the boy. They escaped with me. Where are they? Did they—"
In her haste, she leaned dangerously sideways.
Aemond caught her before she could slip, drawing her back against him, one arm locking around her waist tightly.
"For once in your life, sit still and don’t vex me.”
"But—"
“Ser Tibbald rides behind us with them.” The One-eyed Prince sighed, wondering why she cared about two commoners enough to invigorate herself. He was relieved, though. The docile woodland sprite now resembled his nettlesome Albitsos much more.
"They shall survive the night." He added to placate her, though without particular warmth. The fate of two frightened smallfolk scarcely mattered to him.
It did to her, because Bess had turned back to help, and that was not something one could forget.
Arianne exhaled a drawn-out breath. It fogged in the chilly air, and she resisted the urge to solder herself to Aemond’s warmth at her side.
The forest opened before them as the small party pressed onward through the darkness, each torch moving like a wandering star.
Her eyes flicked back to the Targaryen Prince. She was still not entirely certain that he was real, of mortal flesh and blood. The austere lines making his face, the argent tresses reflecting the moon’s pale light, the strength of his arm all seemed familiar enough, but what if she was merely slumbering still tied to the tree and would soon wake to find him gone?
She chewed at her tongue.
There lingered a faint weariness underneath his good eye, and his ordinarily impeccable hair was slightly disheveled. Dried blood stained the leather vambrace and his gloves. It glinted almost like specks of obsidian. The arm around her waist tightened ever so often to prevent her from slipping backward.
She concluded that those were proof enough that he was human.
“When I saw you earlier…” Her voice sounded barely recognizable to her own ears. “I wondered whether I had died.”
Aemond glanced down, a crooked grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“So unpleasant I remind you of a Stranger, am I?” He asked.
Arianne pouted. Not Stranger, no. Not a half-human face cloaked in shadows. The Stranger had never been described as an arrestingly beautiful man (or a man at all) whose hair snatched the moon’s silvery light for itself.
A seraph of the Mother more like, or the Warrior himself.
Or Ser Galladon.
“You don’t, I just…” She shrugged before her mouth could do something disastrous, like making him aware of what she truly thought.
“- was not certain I remained amongst the living. So, it would be illogical that you were human. You had to be…something more than mortal man. So...perhaps a Stranger simply because it collects souls, or...a Warrior, maybe.” Her cheeks heated terribly.
“I…I hit my head.”
Aemond snorted.
“That would explain the compliment.”
Arianne stilled, following the way his lips moved.
“I paid you no compliment.” She corrected.
“You compared me to a celestial apparition. An aspect of the Seven.”
Aemond afforded her another glance, but this time it had something impish in it. If she had any doubt about his identity, this proved beyond certainty it had been him.
Aggravating and horrid as he was.
“Dragonlords are indeed closer to Gods than men, but no one has ever named me a God so directly-“
“I did not, you vain…you!” She hissed and immediately regretted it. Her throat burned, the air scraping against the vocal cords.
Arianne touched her neck tentatively before giving the mottled skin a few experimental kneads. Gods, it... will heal, won’t it?
The weight crushing her windpipe no longer existed, but ghostly remnants remained.
Whatever solert retort Aemond had intended to give, it dispersed once he witnessed her pained grimace.
He was, however, pleased that she quarreled - contradictory, pointless, and entirely unnecessary though it was.
The obstinacy suited his lady much more than the dreadful stillness she had been possessed of ever since he found her.
His gaze lingered for the briefest instant upon the bruise forming beneath her jaw before he looked away.
“Rest, we are almost there.”
Arianne hesitated, eyes narrowing at Aemond. She fully expected him to furnish her with some tart rejoinder, and her mouth opened on principle alone.
How horrid she must sound that even someone as devoid of compassion as the One-eyed Prince decided to spare her from any more words?
She pressed her lips tightly together and rested her temple against his shoulder once more.
He would object, no doubt.
Complain about her brazenness.
Inform her that ladies of good breeding did not use a prince as a head cushion. Mention that she was dangerously close to committing some variety of treason.
Instead, Aemond remained focused on the road as the courser picked its careful way across a shallow brook. No scathing repartee reached her ears, only the purling of water and the clanking of hooves over stones.
Emboldened by his silence, Arianne nestled against him and shut her eyes.
She was so exhausted that any sort of argument hardly mattered.
He possessed considerably broader shoulders than she. It was only sensible to conserve what little strength remained to her. It was practical, to put it simply.
The Kingswood responded to their voyage with its own nocturnal music. Owls, katydids, and soft winds drifted around her until they ceased to be sounds at all, melting into her shallow dreams. Her thoughts meandered, rudderless and untethered.
She was alive.
Alive!
She would see the Court again. Dragonstone. Perhaps even her own home. She would feel her mother’s soft hands and hear her father’s voice. She could play tiles with Rhaena for an entire afternoon, read with Jace, and sneak into the Citadel’s library. She could learn and improve so that one day she might wear Alysanne’s golden crown.
One thing was certain.
She would never be so guileless again. If some nameless adversary thought her a threat, enough to have her killed, then she ought to become one.
Err…Somehow. She would leave those plans for when her head ceased to pain her with every move.
The undeniability of her own life settled over Arianne so absolutely that, for the first time since the guard held a dagger to her carotid, she felt no need to be afraid, to weep while being dragged behind a stolen mare, stumbling over roots and jagged rocks until her feet bled. No need to imagine the underbelly of a slaver ship and whether death was preferable to such fate.
Because of Aemond. He’d given her back her future.
Saved her as if the Maiden herself sent him to do so. Her champion, crowned with laurel and hawthorn blossoms.
Arianne’s eyebrows pinched.
In every manuscript, tome, or illustrated children’s tale, Ser Galladon was depicted with dark hair. She knew because she had pored through them all, as it had been one of her favorite stories. Even Maester Hubert, who in his Kin of the Stag argued that Galladon lived much closer to her time, described him as such.
Perhaps some scribes have gotten it wrong, and he could have had hair as opaline as Prince Aemond’s.
(Though there was a perfectly rational explanation why he did not, she knew. If Ser Galladon had lived thousands of years ago, it was before any Valyrian had set foot in these lands.)
Arianne drew her lower lip between her teeth and tested the uneven ridge with her tongue. It pained her, tasting salty and coppery.
He saved her life, and she had spoken so unforgivably to him. Named him every horrid thing under the sun, and declared war upon him.
Declared…that she never wished to suffer the sight of him again.
Her lungs became heavier to expand.
Gods, what if he had actually listened to her? She’d…
Arianne grimaced, remembering how grandiosely she proclaimed he would be banished into the desolate Mossovy the moment power rested in her hands.
How could she do so after he had saved her life? It would be unjust and a sin against the Seven. How could she wish him illness and misfortune ever again, when he bloodied his hands for her?
She couldn’t.
She would have to apologize for her horrible conduct, though.
Arianne's palms dampened.
How does one even offer an apology to Prince Aemond without suffering ridicule or a fresh altercation? She had tried to eat humble pie once before, which somehow ended with him accusing her of attempted murder via earrings. He invited her to dance, only to deem her as graceless as a tavern wench.
Gods, how did it even come to this? Him, her savior.
After mulling it over for a while, Arianne had an idea regarding her apology.
Mayhap, she need not apologize or thank him directly.
She could ask Father to bestow on him some worthy reward. A magnificent destrier from Stormlands, or a finely crafted sword with a matching shield. Gold, and rubies, and sapphires, though Aemond probably possessed those in large quantities. A rare book on siegecraft, then!
Arianne pursed her lips.
None of those seemed remotely equal to the debt of life.
She could...make him aware of danger to his own life once King Viserys died? Jace told her as much, and she could act on it. Find out exactly when and how they intended to slay Aemond and... Help him avoid such a fate. If she could at least warn him, he might escape to distant lands before Prince Daemon...
Her heart clenched so tightly that all the blood gushed out of it.
No, you witless girl.
The flagitious notion was fueled by her lack of sleep and the nightmare she had just gone through.
Aemond Targaryen was still -
He was still -
The Queen's son, a political problem, Rhaenyra held no love for him, and Jace considered him a foe.
But she could not just let Aemond die, because if he died, then she'd never see him again, or speak to him, or...dance with him, even though she hated, hated, hated all courtly dances.
Arianne tilted her face up, feeling the embroidery on his cloak scrape against her cheek.
She could not. She could not betray something Jace told her in confidence.
And besides, her mind was not working properly, so this was a matter best left alone until she could examine the whole thing rationally.
.
.
.
The temporary camp amounted to little more than two or three soldiers' tents and a few bedrolls. An iron pot was suspended above one of the fires, as low voices broke through the night. It possessed none of the comforts of the royal encampment, yet it was the most agreeable sight Arianne had seen since she followed Will into the night.
Her eyes travelled up to Aemond. His angular profile slowly became luminous as they neared the light, pale and perfect like porcelain.
Maybe the camp was the second most agreeable sight.
"My prince!" One of the men clad in the guard's simple armor rushed to take the horse. Aemond swung down from the saddle and acknowledged him with a curt nod.
He then turned and extended both hands up towards her.
Arianne noticed his left sleeve was torn open, a thin crimson line marring his forearm. Still, she placed her hands within his gloved ones.
Agony slid through the sole of her foot as it found a stirrup, but she was determined to ignore it for the sake of her remaining dignity. Only once she was firmly planted upon the ground did she notice the state of her dress. The stitching had nearly ripped, leaving one of her shoulders bare and the once-modest neckline hanging overly low.
The blood in her vessels turned into an icy slush.
Had it been that way the entire time?
Oh, Mother!
Arianne spun away from the camp to hide her discomfiture, fingers clutching at the mangled seamline to fix it back into decency. Her shift was still in place, which provided small comfort should she be forced to argue her innocence.
Gods! Aemond had seen her in such a horrible state! Had he...?
Suddenly, her face was burning as hot as a campfire, humiliation laving her neck.
Had anyone else? How was she going to sit there with those guards? They were men! What if -
Sweat now coated her palms.
What if they concluded that she had been...compromised? It would be over, all of it, and then, she'd have to wed some, some...old country lord, and her mother would chastise her for having any expectations at all because who else would want her in that state or -
She'd be compelled to become a Septa, or even a Silent Sister.
Or they'd have her marry some rich commoner merchant to be rid of her. A commoner! Gods above!
Arianne swayed on her feet.
She needed to find that stream and throw herself in it to drown like some unfortunate woman from tales. That way, she would at least be tragic, rather than just ruined.
Aemond observed her with mounting irritation.
She was flurrying like a mad goose that had forgotten it had escaped the jaws of death not an hour earlier. He was aware that the image she projected was less than ideal, and that a lady was forever burdened with the mercy of idle tongues, but he had also been fairly certain he'd arrived in time.
Bar the ruined hem of her bodice, she had been entirely dressed. Caked with mud and riddled with verdure that had taken root in her ringlets, but dressed.
Perhaps Arianne Swann had truly become a nitwit. One of those little branches stuck in her hair had grown straight through her thick skull and was now eating away at her brain matter.
How fortunate for her, she could now fit right in with the rest of the courtly sycophants.
With an impatient huff, Aemond unclasped his cloak.
Did she not know that to doubt her honor, now also meant questioning his word?
To do so was an act of treason. He was Prince of the Realm.
Aemond moved to drape the heavy fabric over her shoulders, resolved not to waste another minute on such absurdity.
Arianne startled violently at the touch, every nerve winding through her muscles screaming that something terrible found her again. Her mind caught up sluggishly, and terror ebbed in favor of relief when she saw it had been him.
"Your Grace-"
Aemond’s hands lingered awkwardly in the air for several moments before he moved again, slower this time.
"Be still." He ordered, gathering the cloak about her before fastening the silver three-headed dragon clasp beneath her throat. Garnets glittered along its three necks and tail, while three rubies made its eyes.
"There. I've had enough of your shivering." Aemond's dry baritone lowered. Frankly, he found he cared little whether she believed the excuse.
Not to mention, this way another's gaze couldn't stray where his own already had.
Arianne surveyed him, mouth half open.
What? She hadn't been...shivering at all!
It took her a split second to realize he understood perfectly that he had lied, and another to discern why he would utter such a blatant, preposterous falsehood.
How could he read her so effortlessly?
Her pulse began thumping in her ears, and fearfully, Arianne imagined that she had somehow turned entirely transparent, her skin fading and fading until it was see-through, like glass. That Aemond could plainly observe what was happening inside her head, well, because he was practicing blood magic, that much was beyond doubt now - but also that he could follow every breath taken into her lungs, every movement of her heart, that he could dissect her entirely and would use it against her.
But he hadn't...He came to her aid.
For some reason, he kept helping her tonight.
She would have to get to the bottom of that, but not now. Instead, she allowed the warm breeze of gratitude and relief to swirl through her ribs and, following in their wake, something gentler still, too elusive to name. It settled quietly into the hollow places between bones and cartilage.
"The winter will be soon upon us, I...I think." She swallowed, fidgeting with the hem, embroidered to resemble dragonhide.
"So...um, thank you, my Prince."
"Indeed. Come." Aemond said nothing else to comfort her, no empty assurances to calm her fears as he led her to sit near the fire. His sole eye watched her while he wore that indecipherable, inscrutable expression that made her wish he had been made into a book so she could learn what transpired inside his mind.
Arianne averted her gaze, listening to steel rasp against the whetstone. One of the men was cleaning the blades.
Aemond began mouthing clipped and precise commands to the knight she assumed was Ser Tibbald Hayford, as she burrowed deeper into the warm wool.
House Hayford, green fretty over gold.
She found that the cloak carried a certain scent, that blend of cedar, soapwort, and something tantalizingly warm and masculine. Arianne resisted the urge to sink her nose into the material and inhale. It ought to worry her that she instantly knew the redolence belonged to him, and even more, that she couldn't deny anymore how delectable it was to her.
It made her feel safe and jittery at the same time.
Another guard brought forth simple victuals, and she accepted the wineskin with both hands, drinking greedily. It soothed the bruises that were somehow inside her throat.
"So..." She began, peering over at him. Aemond tilted his head, his eye moving from the bread in her hands to her face.
"So?"
Arianne cleared her throat.
"I wanted to ask how exactly you found me?"
Her fingers tore at the crust, twirling the small piece.
Aemond leaned forward and let his forearms rest against his knees.
"Lord Larys questioned the night guards who saw you leave east." He said.
Arianne almost dropped the bread.
Larys? But...
Her nose scrunched suspiciously.
"I thought that he..." The words stuck to her vocal cords once she remembered Larys Strong was the Queen's creature, and the Queen was Prince Aemond's mother.
"You thought he was involved?" The prince in question snorted. Arianne's lower lip jutted out. Why was he mocking her when she had informed him that Lord of Harrenhal meant to blackmail her over what happened during the Maiden Day's ball? Was it not plausible that this whole ordeal she suffered had been an elaborate revenge after Jace had thwarted him?
"I do not make a habit of excluding suspects." She lifted her chin. "As I told you, he -"
"- Is many things, yes. A slimy, grasping rat." Aemond grabbed the wineskin that one of the knights offered and took only the smallest sip before setting it aside.
His icy eye returned to her.
"Someone fond of death is not amongst them."
Arianne squinted.
"How can you be so certain?" She inquired, concealing the tremble of fear in her voice. Larys! How close to dying she had stood! If it had been Larys, he could've just lied, and Aemond wouldn't have found her.
To her astonishment, the One-eyed Prince almost appeared insulted.
"Because only days ago, I made it abundantly clear that should any harm befall you through his machinations, he would become a dead man walking. If that applied to slandering your name, it certainly encompassed selling you into slavery as well!” He ended his tirade with a disbelieving shake of his head, as if she were somehow stupid for making him explain anything at all.
Arianne stilled, the carefully turning wheels of her mind coming to an abrupt halt.
"W-what?"
What in the Seven Hells was he talking about?
She stared at him, wide-eyed and confused.
If Aemond had been insulted before, he was positively, thoroughly, tangibly offended now.
"What what?" He snapped.
"I told you I would deal with him. Do you imagine I speak merely to hear my own voice? The moment we return to the main camp, I will have Maester examine your head. You clearly suffered some kind of..."
Arianne was no longer listening to him.
But Jace had...
She had concluded that it had been Jace who dealt with Larys, even though it somehow didn't fit, because Jace himself had told her that they spoke in the morning, and Larys apologized the evening before.
If she considered it carefully, Aemond did, technically, say that he would resolve it. She just hadn't — she hadn't truly believed him. Because he was despicable, and vainglorious, and unkind.
"A-and if Lord Larys tells..."
"He will not, you have my word. Larys is but a snivelling, crippled toad. Now, will you stop weeping?"
"My head is fine," Arianne muttered absently because she could not —
She could not think at all.
Whether he replied, she could not discern.
Arianne pressed both hands together so tightly her knuckles paled and ached. A sickly sort of warmth suffused her face.
It had been him. All along, he had been protecting her.
She had been so entirely, grotesquely wrong about everything.
How could she have not noticed? It had been Aemond who threatened Jorlan and Larys both, who gifted her Alysanne's parure as if he knew her, who saved her, who killed Mudge, who gave her his cloak, and she still judged him unfairly.
One act of kindness might have been a fluke. Two, perhaps, obligations due to their courtship. But there have been so many now that they formed a pattern she could no longer explain rationally or deny.
Since when? How many times had she been mistaken? The guilt she felt earlier now swelled, and swelled until it threatened to burst through her skin. When it no longer had the space, it proliferated into a dozen regrets for every time she had named him a varmint, a wyrm, a Stygian demon from the chasm where Seven Hells resided.
Each time he attempted to bridge their early animosity, she imagined some nefarious plot and deemed him guilty of it without ever considering that he hadn't acted from a place of an adversary to be taken down.
That he hadn't considered her an enemy at all.
Arianne lifted her head, thankful that one of the sentries came to report on the camp's perimeter, so that she could look at Aemond without his shrewd eye looking back.
The chilly air had tinged the highest point of his cheekbones pinkish, and her gaze kept being drawn to it. The flames reflected in his deep blue iris, painting flecks of ochre and gold on it. His skin was pale marble, unblemished like a fresh parchment.
Oh, she loved fine parchment.
Something resonated within her heart, as if the key piece to some confounding, intricate puzzle had finally fit quite right.
He was beautiful, of course, captivating and powerful as dragons were, but it was what lay beneath the exterior that had her so hopelessly, inconveniently enraptured.
Arianne watched his large, gloved hand reach for a twig lying near the fire, thinking about all the qualities he possessed that she simply had been refusing to acknowledge.
Aemond nudged one of the logs farther into the flames.
He was so thoughtful, so astute, as diligent as the Old King.
"Have I acquired a second head?" His face turned her way so abruptly she had no time to pretend she had been scrutinizing something else.
Arianne blinked before glancing at the ground.
"No."
"Then I presume there is some reason you have been staring at me these past minutes."
She decidedly stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth. She was hungry, and a lady could not speak while chewing, so the risk of her uttering something stupid diminished.
"Finding a new fault you hadn't yet informed me of?" The One-eyed prince asked wryly.
She swallowed.
"I, no... I think I informed you of all of them already, which wasn't...very seemly of me. If I might offer you an apology..."
Arianne bit her tongue because her heart was galloping and walloping so loudly inside her chest, distracting her. Gods, she sounded like a witless hen, truly.
Quickly, she chewed another piece and drank more watered wine because her throat was so terribly dry.
Aemond studied her over the dancing firelight.
"You are behaving strangely, cygnet."
The skepticism poured through his voice.
She peered at him.
"I am merely tired."
Oh, why couldn't he have been as terrible as she presumed? It would have been easier, infinitely easier. She could have gone on pretending that their arguments occupied her thoughts for purely scholarly reasons, that her unreasonable desire to throttle Lady Redwyne was political, that she sought his gaze because of an illness, that she adored the timbre and cadence of his voice simply because it was objectively pleasant, not because it belonged to him.
"Mm." Aemond did not sound the least bit convinced. He peeled his riding gloves away, exposing long fingers and calloused palms.
What was she going to do now?
His left sleeve gaped open, the light glissading over his pale forearm. It brought to her attention the shallow gash still lightly bleeding. She had pretended not to notice while they rode, but now...
“You are injured.” Arianne gasped, leaning forward onto her knees. Aemond inspected the wound.
“It is nothing.” He noted flatly and lowered his arm before she could pry further. Yet, she wished to examine it, to see whether any dirt had found its way inside. Filthy wounds were dangerous, that much everyone knew.
Arianne curled her fingers into her palms and relented. It was hardly her place to tend to him.
"You at least ought to let Maester look at it on the morrow." She grumbled.
Aemond's mouth morphed into an idle grin.
"Only because my lady frets so, and after her head has been checked for injuries." He drawled.
"My head is fine! And I do not - I do not fret!"
At least she knew her faculties remained intact because the supercilious way he tilted his lips still infuriated her.
"Hmm, well then, I shall defer to your expertise concerning your own head." His eye clambered upward. "Your hair is another matter entirely."
Her what?
Arianne frowned, hand flying into the riotous mass tumbling over her shoulders. To her growing horror, her fingers encountered something brittle. It crunched underneath her touch, and she pulled out a part of a small leaf.
"Oh," was all that could leave her lips as she stared at it.
Another sweep of her hand yielded a tiny, thin twig.
Mortification wiggled up Arianne's spine. She flung the dry branchlet into the flame.
Her eyes spied something that might've been a fern, and Arianne realized the whole thing was probably a bona fide disaster, unsalvageable until she had a proper bath and a lady's maid brushed through the mess.
It dawned on her that she must've looked entirely terrible, torn hemline aside, and what was somehow even worse, she looked entirely terrible in front of Aemond.
"You missed a few. Dozens, in fact." He leaned his cheekbone onto his knuckles, watching her with what she suspected was mockery.
"You are laughing at me!" Arianne hissed, compulsively combing her fingers through her hair.
"I am not."
"Well, you want to!"
Aemond hummed in agreement.
"I want many things." He shrugged.
She shot him a peeved look and tucked a lock behind her ear.
"That is what vanquished your homeland, you know."
A small frown graced his imperious face.
"Another one of your farcical theories like some story knight slaying a dragon with a sword?"
Arianne narrowed her eyes.
"No, in fact. And what do you mean a sword? It was the sword, bestowed by the Maiden herself!" She bristled. " But no, it is our Septon back home. He claims it was Valyria's godlessness and greed. They brought it upon themselves because they forced slaves to dig too deep underneath the Fourteen Flames, so one day everything came tumbling down when the Seven had enough."
Aemond snorted so unprincely that she didn't think she'd ever heard such a sound from him before.
"How very wise of him. Did he forget to mention their unchecked hunger for wealth, land, and glory?"
Her mouth widened into a tight-lipped smile.
"He named it ceaseless hunger, in fact." Arianne supplied, pleased that her hair was no longer part of the discussion.
"That it was in your blood. I suppose you could tell me if he had been wrong?"
Aemond blinked, regarding her for a moment. Flames tinted her features in amber and auburn, and enlivened streaks of carmine embroidery on his cloak.
Her question seemed neither accusatory nor entirely innocent in its curiosity, but he could not discern what it was she contrived.
What a hypocritical creature her Septon was, as his brethren hungered too. They yearned for followers to preach to, and for guileless sheep to fill their coffers. They simply named their desires virtues and everyone else’s sins.
Besides, hadn’t the Gods hungered for devotion?
His gaze drifted to the fire. It was much easier to think without laboring to ignore how lovely she looked while wrapped in his sigil, his colors.
Aemond had been hungry all his life.
For a dragon of his own, when all his siblings and his bastard nephews already had theirs. For recognition in a world that had measured Targaryen princes by dragons first.
For Vhagar, because when he saw those wings blotting out the firmament above the Driftmark, there existed not another dragon or a hatchling that could compare. Something called out to him when he found her alone, because he had been alone too. Had he been afraid? He could not remember, only that he wanted to climb and fly so much he thought of little else.
Hungry for mastery, for every lesson that had been put before him, determined never again to be found wanting.
If he had been as pious as his mother, perhaps he would've denied the other hungers.
For power.
What sensible man did not desire it?
To bend the world away from folly and toward the proper order of things. The Iron Throne...
Aemond rested his gaze upon the restless, fluttering fire.
How often had he imagined it beneath him? His fingers would fit just right between the jagged blades.
She knew him, in a very strange, perturbing way, so why had she asked?
Aemond glanced at Arianne obliquely, following her hands as they futilely smoothed her hair down.
There she was, another cumbersome hunger.
Though that ought to solve itself once she became his mistress.
"You said Aegon's crown would suit me better than my Father's, so why don't you tell me, my lady?" He asked, shattering the long silence at last.
Arianne arched her brows as though the answer were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Naturally, you are as godless and greedy as your forebears."
Aemond permitted himself an unabashed smirk, stretching one leg toward the campfire. He then tilted his head.
"Tell me, Ñuha Albis. Why are you asking?"(My swan.) His tone was curious rather than indignant.
Arianne met his eye and gave him a sly, little smile that had his stomach react in a strange and deeply unpleasant manner. As if he had swallowed dragon eggs that were now hatching inside of it, their immature wings flapping about.
"I merely sought to distract you, so you would cease mocking the state of my hair."
What?
Aemond blinked a few times before his mind acquired the ability to process her words.
Truly the most ridiculous woman.
When he found a leaf still tangled right next to her left temple, the corner of his mouth betrayed him despite his great efforts to command it still. Arianne smiled back (no, not back; she just smiled, because certainly he would not have been smiling over something so uncontestedly stupid) before coyly averting her eyes to the ground.
"As if you aren't," He found his own voice lacking its usual bite. "-godless and greedy. Such qualities are considerably less becoming in a woman."
Arianne rolled her eyes.
"Avarice is a sin against Mother, so I do not hunger for anything." She announced with such lofty conviction that it almost passed for truth.
Green-eyed liar.
Aemond hummed, pretending to contemplate her assertion.
"Not even for happiness? How...virtuous of you, Albitsos." He noted, trailing after her fingers as they absently poked at the silver clasp fastening his cloak beneath her throat.
"I confess I find that difficult to believe after what you told me on the Maiden's Day."
She cast a furtive glance toward the men moving about the camp, relieved to find them occupied with various tasks. The One-eyed Prince found it both amusing and something else that she only revealed her genuine thoughts to him, and kept her carefully assembled mien of a dutiful, demure lady for the rest.
"I do not merely wish to be happy." She confessed, peering up at the sempiternal heavens where uncountable stars burned brightly.
"I do not think I should know what to do with it... I want - I want to matter."
Arianne's gaze found his once more.
Fire shimmered in her emerald eyes, her pupils swallowing the flames, the forest, and him alike.
Aemond couldn't look away. He was rooted, shackled, tethered to her words, her heart-shaped lips as they formed them.
"I want to be Queen one day, yes. I want to win." She stated.
For a while, neither compromised the silence. They simply lingered in the likeness of another.
"Why does it bother you so much?" Arianne asked quietly, glancing away and pretending to smooth an imaginary crease from the cloak.
"You needn't fear exile any longer. I cannot very well banish the man who saved my life."
She hesitated before continuing.
"In fact… You ought to seek that I become Lady of Dragonstone rather than Baela. I owe you a debt far too large to ignore." Arianne pointed out, realizing that she had no choice but to somehow save him from the fate Prince Daemon intended.
Her heart refused the mere idea of Aemond's absence.
Maiden, help me.
What was she to do? She could not have him either close or far from her. It was evident now that she had never felt anything like this before. Not even...
Jace. She loved him, did she not? She gave him her word, did she not? She was not false, was she? She would not...sin with Aemond, the way her grandfather sinned with a Princess, would she?
Besides, hadn't she promised the Gods that she would be good just hours ago? If she truly loved Jace, then the crown would merely be... a fortunate coincidence.
The Gods couldn't condemn her for it.
Arianne feared her heart might not be true anymore, because...
She met Aemond's gaze again.
Her heart stumbled and fell against her sternum.
She diverted her attention to the ground, suddenly panicked and longing to flee in all directions at once.
"We found the guard's body several hours before." The One-eyed Prince mentioned stiffly. He tucked his lips into his mouth and cleared his throat, fingers finding the sword resting near his leg to drum against its pommel.
"Will," Arianne interjected, eager to return to some semblance of normalcy between them. The name caused an involuntary shudder to percolate straight through her spine. She would forever be looking over her shoulder from now on, as castle guards clearly couldn't be trusted. Mayhap, she ought to ask Father to assign her a personal guard from their household.
"I heard one of them call him that." She added upon noticing that Aemond's eye narrowed.
"He asked for too much gold, so they...well, they killed him. Opened his throat."
Arianne surveyed the camp, finding Bess and the boy huddled near the other fire. Someone had given them cloaks.
"They appeared well organized, connected to slave ships. We should investigate if more such groups are terrorizing the villages."
Aemond picked up a plain cloth to clean the blood off the blade.
"Doubtful they are terrorizing the villages so close to the capital. The Crown would have been informed and dealt with it."
Arianne glowered.
"So they," She inclined her head toward Bess and the boy. "- do not matter? The Crown's protection extends to all in the Realm."
Aemond lifted his eye from the sword.
"That isn't the issue. I wager they are orphans, and no one bothered to report the crime. How is the King's Justice to be dispensed if it doesn't know the crime happened?"
She crossed her arms, pouting. That made sense.
"Still..."
Mayhap, they could begin to write down births and count children. So they cannot just...
Arianne followed Aemond's movement as he methodically wiped the last dark traces of blood.
"Then there remains one thing I cannot explain, my Lady." He mused, lifting the blade to inspect it.
"How did he convince you to leave the camp?"
The question was innocuous enough, yet it had her heart promptly stopping. Arianne blinked a few times, her mouth opening instinctively before she sealed it shut.
"It hardly matters. It was... foolish." She drew her knees closer underneath the cloak.
Hours earlier, she might have confessed it without shame, but beneath the Kingswood boughs, something had shifted and she no longer could. Arianne concluded that his courtship had never been some elaborate jest at her expense, and telling him now that she had meant to meet another man felt peculiarly disgraceful. She did not wish him to think...
To think of her as poorly as he did when they met. To view her as her grandmother's replica with darker hair.
To add to the horror, she could not bear to be considered a simpleton either.
Unfortunately, the rhythmic motion of his fingers halted, and Aemond looked at her, the corner of his eye slightly crinkled.
"I shall determine that." He asserted bluntly.
Her palms were sweating profusely.
"It was..." She began, her gaze settling on everything but him.
"A misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding." He repeated, testing the shape and value of the word and finding it wanting.
She nodded entirely too quickly.
Aemond scowled.
"What did he tell you?" He demanded.
Arianne could sense his canny gaze scrutinizing her, and her pulse wavered, imagining that he already somehow intuited the truth.
"I... I had drunk several cups of wine, so I did not question- he wore the sigil of House Targaryen! How was I to know-"
"Lady Arianne."
Her name was little more than a hiss. Arianne felt her shoulders drop along with her face. There was no use, because he would ram through every excuse she fashioned. Aemond was frustratingly, obnoxiously observant, and she loathed him for it.
And admired him for it.
"He said that Jace had to meet me urgently."
She muttered at last, shame searing her cheeks.
A log thudded into the second campfire.
For a moment, Aemond thought he had misheard her. Had...misunderstood her. Alas, he was not quite the universe's favorite for reality to bend to his wishes.
The bastard. She had gone, endangered her life for...the fucking bastard.
The raw wrath found him first, bubbling forth from every dark nook and cranny of his heart. Yet, beneath it, deeper than belligerence, something else began to pour out, searing and desperate.
"And you went," he spat coldly, keeping himself still through sheer force of will. "-because meeting him alone, past the curfew, is a...normal thing for you?"
Her verdant eyes widened.
"No! I - No..." She shook her head. "I didn't...The guard said it was urgent and...Jace - I mean Jacaerys is - he is… well, a Prince."
"He is… a Prince," Aemond repeated tonelessly.
Did that ever stop her from ignoring his invitations? From disrespecting him with words and gestures alike?
The resentment licked at his throat.
No, she could hoodwink him, the prince who rode the largest dragon in the world, but the bastard was sacred in her eyes, of course.
How faithfully she followed Jacaerys Strong. How readily she smiled at him. How earnestly she defended him.
Her singular aim was to become that baseborn's wife.
Aemond could not fault her for the consistency. The fault was his own, believing, even for a moment, that she regarded him with anything but contempt.
His mother had been right; it was incredibly thoughtless of him to join the search. If she knew that he had kept riding past the twilight, it would be within her rights to strike him for the sheer stupidity.
Or, to tell Criston to lecture him about familial virtues.
Arianne seemed at a loss for words, only watching him with those absurdly long-lashed eyes.
He killed for her.
What an extraordinary fool he had made of himself.
Aemond released her from his glare and fixed it upon the flames near his boots.
Fire behaved according to its nature. It consumed what was within grasp and pretended at no virtue while doing so.
Women, he was rapidly discovering, possessed no such admirable simplicity.
"I confess, Lady Arianne, I had credited you with far better judgement than to venture into the woods at night for a tryst." He sneered, though the voice did not feel like it was his own. He wanted to strike something while simultaneously his skin cooled to an unnatural degree.
"It wasn't a tryst!"
"You need not trouble yourself with denials." He interposed icily. "You have made your preference abundantly clear. What astounds me is that any part of this surprised me."
“But –”
"You informed me, not two days ago, that the very sight of me offended you." Aemond refused to look at her lest he find her mocking him. Instead, he lifted himself off the ground and sheathed the now almost clean sword before adjusting the scabbard.
Arianne stood up as well, almost tripping over the edge of his cloak.
He forgot about that.
No, he was not twice the fool. He was thrice one.
"I was upset! I did not mean it!" She stressed.
Aemond glared at her. How dare she lie to him now? How dare she bat those lashes at him, imagining he would just...let her trick him into being her willing patsy?
How dare she send him notes and charm him so shamelessly when she had been meeting bastard Strong in secrecy for who knew how long? No wonder that moron stormed into the pavilion yesterday demanding her. Clearly he had been cunt-struck, because she had let him into her bed and -
The One-eyed Prince exhaled through his nose.
He had already resolved to ignore her existence, and so he shall. Arianne Swann would no longer command his thoughts, nor anything of his. Distance was necessary.
He would never seek her out again or concern himself with her well-being. No notes, or gifts, or whatever else he had done while trapped by his own concupiscence.
"I have reconsidered the wisdom of your suggestion," Aemond remarked, pretending he could not notice her lower lip quivering, her eyes glistening as if she were somehow entitled to anguish.
"We truly need not speak ever again."
Arianne took a step back, dismayed.
"You cannot mean that! Y-your Grace."
Aemond craned his neck backward.
"I seldom say what I do not mean." He proclaimed adamantly and turned to leave lest he did something categorically idiotic, like grasping her upper arms and claiming her plush lips, until she understood that she was never to entertain another man again. That if she ever did something so insolent, so sordidly vile again, he would sit her down to watch as he killed him and fed his corpse to Vhagar.
But no –
He was above this matter, and she was no longer a nuisance he would give attention to.
Something warm brushed against the back of his hand.
The One-eyed Prince went rigid before slowly turning his head down.
Her fingers grazed him so lightly he could have convinced himself it had been the wind, had he not felt the hesitant curl of them around his own.
She had approached him of her own volition before, but she hadn't ever touched him first. It made him feel strangely warm, the tender cage around his knuckles.
“My Prince, you…you do not understand, I…” Arianne’s face was still fixed upon the ground between them, yet her cheeks were aflame. There was a wild earnestness to her voice that struck him somewhere beneath the skin, calling for him to turn his hand beneath hers and lock their fingers together.
“I did not realize it before…and, I…My preference, and regard, and…affection-“ She struggled to explain herself, and during those chokingly long seconds his rational sense returned.
Of course.
The bitterness ate at his mouth. Did she think she would lessen the humiliation if she told him her foolishness had sprouted from…from love…from affection for the bastard? Seven Hells take her! She was truly the most singularly brazen, wicked woman –
Aemond tore his hand away.
“Should you require anything before dawn,” he spoke each syllable slowly, tinged with detachment borne of formality. “inform one of the men. They will see to it.”
He did not turn again.
.
.
.
Arianne listened to the soft hiss of resin as the firewood burned and the voices of men talking between themselves. Some of them had kept watch, and a few had retired to tiny, tiny tents that covered only their upper body, which told her that the hour had grown late.
The boy, who still hadn’t spoken except for a few disjointed words, slept on a bedroll near Bess. Arianne hadn’t wanted to be alone, so when Aemond decided he could not tolerate her existence for a moment longer, she sat with others.
She caught herself studying him despite every earnest intention not to. He sat near one of the fires, using the light to inspect a map, speaking to one knight or the other.
Twat!
To think that she almost told him, almost –
Admitted that her regard, her affection, he already had them.
Even though she could not quite comprehend what it was that she felt. If she loved Jace, then what was this?
Arianne tightened her lips until the cut on the lower one opened, and she ran her tongue over it, wincing.
Vain, stodgy, insufferable man!
Still, she wrapped her arms around herself and buried her face into her knees, into the folds of his cloak just so she could inhale his scent. What if he just left, and then she’d be alone with guards and some knights, and Will had been a guard too –
He could not have meant it. They had to…talk eventually. Surely at Court, if not here. How was she to inform him that he was an utter arse otherwise?
Arianne glanced at the returned jewelry that she had spread on the bedroll. Her mother’s Seven-pointed Star pendant, her waist chain, her barrettes, both of them.
Earlier, she had been shocked to see Myles Mooton standing before her and asking her to look for her valuables before they delivered the rest to the Crown. They had found her barrette somewhere halfway, used it to confirm that she had truly gone in the direction Lord Larys pointed.
“When I heard that Lady Arianne was in grave danger, I had to ensure that you were found and extricated from it!” His doe, brown eyes practically glinted.
“Thank you, Ser Myles.” She nodded automatically, moving subtly away from him.
He scratched at his hair.
“I am…a squire.”
Oh.
Right.
“Forgive me, I coul-“
“There is nothing to forgive!” He waved his hands wildly. “Lady is most kind to honor me as a knight in her heart.”
Arianne stared at him, or rather, through him.
She had named Aemond her silver-haired Galladon. How obtuse of her! Aemond wasn’t even a knight, let alone a gallant one.
Ser Galladon would never get all sullen and spiteful and venomous with Myrielle before expeditiously deciding to abandon her.
“What I wanted to say, I could tell my Father about your bravery, and he could…knight you, if you wish.”
Myles gasped.
“My Lady! You are truly wonderful and generous! I have been working so hard…” He continued blabbering for several minutes. Arianne used them to check on Bess, who was still awake and listening to the young Mooton with large, terrified eyes.
“I am…good, now.” The girl switched between glancing at Arianne and her torn shoes. “Just…”
“Oh, and Prince Aemond ordered me to inform you that you may take his tent, since you are a Lady.” Myles Mooton ended his soliloquy.
Arianne frowned. His was the only one that looked remotely decent for anyone to sleep in.
“He could not inform me himself?” She asked, peering at the man in question. He was still bent over the map. Some treasonous part of her wished to reassure itself that he remained exactly where she had last seen him.
Just do not let me wake up still tied to that tree. Please, Mother.
Myles shrugged.
“He…eh, hadn’t elaborated.”
Arianne found her hands trembling from vexation.
“Tell his Grace that I shall rather sleep on the bedroll, here, if he cannot find the decency to speak to me! I shall freeze for his poor manners!”
The young man wiped the sudden sweat off his brow.
“He will kill me if I tell him he had poor manners. Please, my Lady. You are too illustrious to sleep on the forest floor.”
With that, Myles excused himself, since it had been his turn to check the perimeter.
Arianne secured her necklace before turning to Bess. She was a slight thing, younger than Arianne herself, her hair thin and unevenly cut. It was a very pretty shade of yellow daisies, though.
“What were you saying earlier?”
“I…” Her words dissolved into a sob, narrow shoulders quaking beneath the coarse wool cloak one of the soldiers had draped over her.
"I have no one."
Arianne felt as though something hollowed her chest. She wiped her palms over the cloak and inched closer, slightly panicked.
“What…Don’t, don’t cry. You are safe now.”
Bess shook her head.
“I have nowhere to go. M-my parents and my sister died of fever and…Oh, please, milady, take me with you!”
Arianne stared at her, her lashes fluttering in disbelief a few times.
“T-take you?”
The girl rubbed at her blotched cheeks.
"I'll earn my keep. I swear it before the Seven." The words tumbled over one another in desperation. "I'll learn to attend a milady proper if that's what you need. I'll not steal, nor answer back. You saved my life. I’ll never let you down.”
Arianne sighed, reaching for the girl’s hand.
“I would if I could. My household is my Father’s, I don’t…I am not yet a Lady of anything, I do not have anything.”
Nor would she ever, if they give her over to the Silent Sisters for causing a scandal during the King’s Name Day.
Bess's face crumpled.
"I don't need wages."
"You do." Arianne insisted.
"I don't. I just need bread and I can…I can sleep on the floor. Just, just don’t let them beat me and…use me no more, milady.”
She seized Arianne’s hand with surprising vigor. “I'll make myself useful. I'll never shame you, milady.”
Arianne shut her eyes, unable to bear it.
“Alright.” She relented, though she had no idea how she was going to do this. Bess was no handmaiden. What was she to do with her? She could pay her from her own purse, well, the one her Father allowed her, but where was she going to keep her in employment?
Miriam is going to smother me with a pillow before Mother gets to me.
When Arianne opened her eyes, Bess was crying anew, this time from relief.
“Thank you, milady. You will not regret it.”
She just hoped she would not be punished too severely for it.
“Here.” She picked up the twin barrettes. “I am giving you these as your payment until I have my coin.”
“I couldn’t-”
“You said you would not talk back.”
Arianne canted her head to look for Aemond. He had abandoned his map in favor of speaking to Ser Tibbald, his back turned to her. His hair gleamed in the dark, reaching down to his shoulder blades.
“He looks at you when you aren’t looking, milady. I saw.” Bess smiled through her tears. She examined the pearl and onyx swans in her hands with almost childlike wonder.
Arianne grimaced.
“You do not have to lie to me just because you work for me.” She grumbled, ignoring the way her stomach leapt.
This whole thing was ridiculous. She had been abducted, nearly been sold, nearly died.
And somehow Aemond Targaryen had found this precise occasion to become aggrieved.
Besides, when she had been the one to bid him to leave her alone, he just pretended as if she hadn’t spoken at all and continued to exist in her orbit as her own personal Stygian demon.
Why would she respect his decision to keep her at arm’s length? Arianne had the worst idea ever, and she missed his company too much to argue against it.
Why should he get to dismiss her? She could pester him too, see how he likes it, then!
Because you are a lady, and not a dragon incapable of common courtesy.
She could still be courteous, though.
Arianne slowly crouched and then stood up. She had to hold the cloak because it was too long for her.
“Milady, what are you doing?” Bess asked her from her bedroll.
“I am being treated most unfairly, and I should like to remedy that.” She replied shortly. Steeling her resolve, head held high, Arianne swept toward him.
“Lady Swann.” Ser Tibbald was the first to greet her. Arianne plastered on a smile.
“Ser,” Her voice slightly lilted. “My prince.”
Aemond turned, a very strange expression gracing his lineaments. His tongue rolled over his incisors.
“Lady Swann. Are you in need of something?”
Arianne curtsied with every bit of grace she possessed before straightening.
“I wished to speak to you about…certain issues, my Prince.”
Aemond stared at her, and stared, and did naught but stare until her palms were capable of watering nearby plants.
Gods, just…
“Hm,” The corner of his mouth curved, all princely disdain. “Ser Tibbald, if Lady Swann wishes to converse, do indulge her. I have far more important matters to attend to.”
Arianne opened her mouth to protest, but he was agile as a dragon, storming past her before she could do so much as blink.
He…
Her eyes were glued to the empty space he left behind, and she could feel tears of utter humiliation prickle at her lower lash line.
Ser Tibbald cleared his throat.
“Lady Swann, I…well, it is quite cold, is it not? Next winter is upon us soon.”
Arianne sniffled behind the back of her hand.
“Certainly.” She responded, taking note of the sigils adorning his breastplate. His own, and the one of the House he had been serving, Targaryen. As the royal guard, Will had an identical crimson dragon etched into his doublet.
Quickly, Arianne excused herself and went back to Bess.
That silver-haired arse! Arse!
She needed to think.
.
.
.
Arianne had already coaxed a little iron pot of boiled wine and a bundle of clean linen from the thoroughly perplexed Myles Mooton, who, after several attempts to ascertain whether she had been injured, had given up on questioning her.
Now, armed with her weapons, Arianne regarded the One-eyed Prince across the camp with simmering resolve. He appeared to be twirling a dagger absentmindedly while watching the fire. The map and a plate of bread and meat lay near his bedroll, abandoned.
She had been warring with her own prudence whether to approach him again.
Of course not, for his distance was the most favorable outcome of this whole affair. It was what you had wanted all along, was it not?
But…
She inhaled deeply before forcing air out of her lungs, watching it mist against the cold.
You are to wed Jace, you absolute dolt!
What business have you fraternizing with the uncle he so thoroughly loathes? Who despises Jace and Luke and Rhaena in turn, with even greater zeal? Do you wish to ruin everything you’ve been aspiring to, and end up in a Motherhouse? Or, worse…and for what? Him?
Arianne chewed on her lower lip.
But what if she truly died without ever…
Without ever –
Without ever what? There was nothing between them.
For years now, she had lived beneath the comfortable illusion that tomorrow belonged to her. That she would wed Jace, her perfect dragon prince – her dream, and ten years from now rule Dragonstone as its Lady, and Queen Rhaenyra would name her to the council. She would be the first Mistress of Laws, or Coin… Perhaps not coin, as her allowance was perpetually running dry from this scheme or that, but –
Somehow, her reveries about her future had begun to include him. Not as anything close or illicit, but a fixture nonetheless, as certain as the land, wind, or sea.
Exiled into the Far Mossovy, or Cannibal Sands, yet reachable. Writing her pompous treatises on Essosi politics that she would never answer publicly. Refusing the Crown’s summons to celebrate Jace’s coronation one day and witnessing her win. Aemond of those daydreams would have been impressed by how far she went, how “lord's spoiled daughter with a sly mouth and too many ideas above her station” outwitted him and got everything she wanted.
Arianne supposed there would always be another day feast. Another argument. Another chance to wound him and prove him…something.
Yet now she had been forced to realize that the future she so confidently arranged within her mind had been no more substantial than a gust of wind or a morning dew. What if Aemond had not found her?
Would she have died without ever…
Without ever examining, dissecting, categorizing what it was – this never-before-felt thing, this impossible sweetness that hurt as much as it delighted.
She needed to know. She had to know.
Her legs objected as she briskly crossed the distance.
“What is it now?” Aemond snapped before lifting his eye and realizing it was her. She could sense his foul temper, it was undulating all around him, turning the air thin.
“If this concerns our quarrel, my decisions cannot be swayed by whatever feminine wiles you intended to use.” His tone remained glacial.
Arianne halted.
Feminine…wiles?
Aemond’s gaze bore into hers, dark and molten.
“I…I should like to clean your wound.” She stuttered.
“You should like to… what?”
Placing the iron pot onto the ground, she inclined her head toward his right arm.
“Your cut, it should be cleaned sooner rather than later, should it not? And you won’t find the Maester before tomorrow. I have boiled wine and linen-“
“No.” Aemond scoffed.
Arianne shifted her weight. Every instinct informed her that the conversation had reached its ignominious conclusion.
“It will fester.”
“It will not.” He dismissed her.
“…It might?”
“I’ve blood of the dragon, we are less susceptible to your mundane maladies.”
Arianne wrestled with the urge to mention that if that were true, how did then Princess Daenerys die of mundane shivers, or his grandfather from a burst belly.
“It could.” She said instead, absently smoothing down the heavy fabric of the cloak. Aemond’s sole eye honed in on her, and it felt like a knife upon her skin.
“It could not!” He hissed.
Arianne stared at him, stricken. Why was he so tediously determined to rebuke her?! The conversation was not going the way she wanted it. Never with Aemond. All of a sudden, she felt as if she were participating in a duel, and losing it.
Her mind blanked, already exhausting almost all pretenses it had prepared. She searched his face for a clue that the refusal concealed a weakness she might exploit, but Aemond was always so inconveniently difficult to decipher.
Arianne sighed and gathered the cloak to sit, at an appropriate distance, of course, but still close enough that he could not bypass her company, the small of her back leaning against the same log as his.
She folded her hands primly in her lap as every well-bred lady ought to, and pretended to observe the campfire.
“What exactly are you doing?” Aemond’s dry baritone came from her left.
She shrugged.
“Waiting, mostly.”
His alabaster brow furrowed.
“For what?”
“For Your Grace to come to your senses and quit avoiding me,” Arianne explained, fixing him with a bemused look. If he had thought the way she played cyvasse was boringly slow, he would learn she possessed the patience to sit and wear him down a plenty. Either he would change his mind, or her body would simply topple over from exhaustion, because she was determined to beleaguer him until dawn if she had to.
It would be like that time Robb and her practiced the art of siegecraft. Maester Clegg remarked that she possessed the temperament for it. Any impetous man could storm a fortress with enough strength at their disposal, but to build a circumvallation, settle in, and let time serve as an ally required forbearance.
“You are to retire into that tent, Lady Swann, and cease… pestering me!” Aemond gave her a scathing look.
Arianne leaned her cheek against the back of her hand, deciding the same principles of poliorcetics ought to be applied to him, no matter how tightly he bolted his gates.
“What if I refuse? Will you carry me there?” She wondered idly. “And then kiss my hand? As Ser Galladon carried Lady Myrielle after the drawbridge proved unsafe to cross. You know, The Maiden of Mistwood is my favorite –“
She halted because the spectacle unfolding across Aemond’s face was astonishing. The color fled from it, leaving an ashen, pallid sort of moonstone behind, only to return, climbing from his throat to the hollows beneath his cheekbones, leaving them peculiarly rosy.
“You-“ He spat, as the smattering of pale pink slowly deepened until even the tips of his ears appeared to have gone scarlet. Tics propagated along the sharp line of his jaw while he stared blankly at her.
“You - Have you gone utterly mad?”
Arianne settled her mouth into the tiny pout in lieu of an answer.
The dagger he had been rolling between his fingers almost slipped. Aemond averted his eye, the high ridge of his nose crinkling as he seethed.
What in the Seven Hells was she attempting to achieve?
He leaned backward with considerable force, half-hoping to move the log so she’d lose balance and topple over like a defeated cyvasse king.
She was ruining everything! He had decided to disregard her very existence for at least a sennight. To make her observe as he blessed another lady with his attentions until she realized the gravity of her insult and sought him as a penitent does Father himself.
He wanted the distance because she had somehow gained the upper hand, and he needed to reassess, regroup, and restrategize how to deal with her.
How dare she beset him now of all times, after behaving like the wary swan gliding beyond his reach for weeks?! Was she not aware of his considerable displeasure, or did she merely imagine it another obstacle to be overcome by some vile coquetry?
The truly heinous fact was that some treacherous alcove of his mind found her performance agreeable. Arianne had come to him of her own accord, and it would have been a lie to pretend the escapade did not please him.
But he would not be swayed, because, unlike lesser men and women, he was ruled by mind alone even if her current manner was downright shameless! To practically invite him into her tent like some…some slattern!
He wondered if she ever invited Jacaerys Strong between her thighs much the same way, and his teeth ground together so tightly his jaw began to ache.
Aemond stared at his torn sleeve and the slashed skin peeking beneath it. It hardly pained him, and he had survived far more grievous injuries, though.
It only pleased him because she had at last begun to conduct herself as a woman under his courtship ought to!
Perhaps, if he allowed her to fuss over the cut, she’d find her conscience satisfied and leave him in peace. He could even mention how much he disdained her and how her disheveled state offended his senses.
Aemond rolled his torn sleeve and extended his forearm as if he were bestowing a great blessing upon the undeserving.
He could resume ignoring her afterward. Certainly.
“If you are going to nettle me,” He drawled. “You might as well do something useful, Lady Arianne.”
She perked up at that.
Before he could reconsider, Arianne gathered her skirts along with the cloak and slipped closer. She settled upon the earth beside him, tucking her legs neatly beneath herself. Her eyes scrutinized the linen and the iron pot as it sent wisps of warmth into the cold air.
Well…the Maester back home sort of just…
The unexpected weight of Aemond’s arm almost startled her. His skin was rather cold and very pale, and if it weren’t for the alacritous thumping of his pulse, she could have mistaken it for marble.
Her hand seemed absurdly small beneath his. Arianne found herself adjusting his forearm until it rested across the soft cradle of her lap.
The thick coat proved barrier enough, yet the simple intimacy of their positions had her cheeks sizzle.
As her hands reached for the linen, it dawned on her that she hadn’t quite the idea where to begin. Healing never held her interest, and there hadn’t been many books on the subject in Stonehelm anyway.
Arianne knew Aemond was appraising her because she could feel his gaze prickle upon her face.
“Have you ever done this before?” He barked, his fingers twitching against her.
“Of course I have!” She parried, punctuating every word. Aemond’s eye narrowed into a slit.
“Hm.”
She did not care for that condescending hm.
“I have done it a hundred times at least.” Arianne lied and quickly dipped the linen into the still scalding wine.
She had never done it.
Though surely one began with the wound itself. Or, mayhap, the dried streaks of vermilion around it.
He hadn’t protested when she pressed the cloth against his skin, at least. Arianne dared a glance and found him focused on the flames.
“So…Have you read anything interesting lately?” She began, her voice a bit hoarse. Aemond blinked, tilting his face to gift her with a blank, acerbic sort of glare.
The two parabolic curves forming his upper lip remained unmoving.
Right.
Arianne cleared her throat and took the clean linen to wrap it around his wrist as she’d seen it done a few times.
“I’ve been reading Elysar’s original writings. They are quite detailed, though he insults just about everyone except Jaehaerys and Alysanne. My grandfather won a tourney in Princess Saera’s honor, did you know that? I never met him-“ She paused, squalling internally at her own blabbering.
The linen slipped through her fingers more than once.
“What I intended to say… uhm, I remember you’ve been reading those Journals about Horonno…” She plummeted into a lengthy monologue on Volantis and its elections of three triarchs, noticing, with a hearty dose of delight, that slowly the glaciers and seracs of his face melted and collapsed until the muscle twitches and quiet hums proved he had been listening to her.
“And you prefer elephants, I’d wager. You’d vote for the peaceful fools.” He interrupted her, just as she opened her mouth to ask him if he had an opinion on their strange form of governance.
Arianne pursed her lips in indignation. He was dissecting her mind again, which she did not quite appreciate. Aunt Johanna wrote to her once that a woman ought to be a thing of mystery to men.
“And you like the other ones, of course.” She huffed, watching as her breath misted.
“I like neither.” Aemond scoffed. “Imagine staking the fate of the realm upon the whims of illiterate rabble. A ruler ought to be obeyed because he is fit to rule, not because enough fishmongers, merchants and coinless drunkards happened to raise their hands for him.”
“I suppose… They always end up choosing someone persuasive, not necessarily competent.” Arianne shrugged, glancing at the arm in her lap. After she finished wrapping the linen, which unfortunately appeared slightly crooked and too loose, her fingertips accidentally grazed the raised line beginning at the root of his thumb. The scar was smooth beneath her touch.
Only then did she notice the peppering of pale lines all over his knuckles and forearm.
“You have so many.” She commented softly. His hands were beautiful, fingers lean and elegant, with every knuckle clearly defined. The tracery of blue veins only emphasized the tendons beneath the alabaster skin.
“A natural consequence of steel.”
Arianne lifted her eyes. The largest one cleaved his left cheek in two, like a dark, deep riverbed. Yet, the more she was permitted to glance upon it, the less it unnerved her.
“Surely not every one came from a blade?” She questioned skeptically, wondering if he would ever allow her to see it in full. Aemond cocked his silvery eyebrow.
“From what else?”
A hesitant smile found her lips.
“Have you never…simply stumbled over your own feet?”
The outer corner of his eyelid twitched.
“I beg your pardon?” The disbelief coating his words almost had her laughing.
“You know – Tripped. Fell. Walked into a tree.”
The One-eyed Prince did not deign to respond. Instead, he turned up her palm. His forefinger traced a thin mark running beside her little finger.
“You fence?” He asked scampishly.
Arianne rolled her eyes.
“I fell off a horse.”
“I am unsurprised.”
She made a face at him. “It was a singularly contrary horse!”
Aemond snorted.
“I rather suspect the contrary element sat upon it.” His drawl warmed her cheeks, and she nudged at his arm as if her dignity were greatly offended.
His thumb found the abrasions circling her wrist. Arianne regarded the circular movement near the rhagades - it was so light that it hadn’t hurt.
“I should not have given them the mercy of quick death,” Aemond commented coldly before withdrawing his arm. Once he raised it for scrutiny, the linen slid down the corded muscles in a sad roll.
She blanched.
The stupid thing!
Aemond stared at the shallow slash, blinking ever so often. Chillingly slow, his attention shifted to her.
Arianne smiled nervously.
“…It is important to let the wound breathe.” She attempted, her voice warbling.
He said nothing, only watched her with that inscrutable countenance.
Her jittery nerves launched the words from her throat before she could temper them.
“Fine! I haven’t done it a hundred times.” She shrilled. “I haven’t done it ever, but it is – it is honestly your own fault for believing that! I am a lady! Why would I know how to do Maester’s work?”
Arianne sighed and pressed her fingertips against her brow. Great, now he will ignore her for all of eternity…
Aemond’s lips flattened into a thin line.
“Has anything even remotely resembling the truth ever left your pretty mouth, my lady?”
Well…of course she would not lie about something important, only the small inconveniences that the Gods forgive…
Arianne puffed her cheeks before deflating.
“I only wished to speak to you. That is why…” She drew an unsteady breath, refusing to meet his eye.
“And…I had not meant what I said during the King’s name day. I mean, I do loathe you sometimes, but not for the reasons you think."
His nostrils flared.
“What reasons?” Aemond demanded.
Arianne grimaced. She did not want to tell him, not that, or grant him further access to her thoughts, because he could still use all of it against her in theory. Yet, his disdain was somehow worse.
“Just…that you make me want to speak to you.” She swallowed. “When I read something, I wonder if you might find it interesting, if you might talk about it with me…and I have more important things to do than waste time thinking about y-…that!”
The silence had never been so utterly dreadful, nor so endless.
Arianne covered her eyes with her hands, resolving to never look at him again as long as she lived. Fuchsias bloomed all over neck and ears.
“I likely would.” Aemond offered eventually. “Find it interesting, that is.”
He shifted and placed his forearm onto her cloaked lap once more.
“Is this shoddy work how you tend to the Prince of the blood, though? One might even call it treason.”
Arianne peeked through her fingers.
“What-“
“Fix it.” He commanded, inclining his head toward the wound. It had ceased to bleed at least.
Her eyes narrowed at the task.
“It might be easier to wrap if I could just have another cloth to press against it.” She mused. “You don’t happen to have a clean sleeve to cut off a piece or a handkerchief, do you? They took all mine…”
By the movement of his jaw, Aemond seemed to consider her request for several moments before he pulled the clean, little cloth from his doublet.
“Here. Use that one.”
Arianne unfolded it and moved it around the cut to find how to position it before she realized the pattern on it was very familiar to her. Vines coiling around daisies and vibrant blue thread forming chicory, a white swan perched between the weeds.
Huh? Why did he have this? She had given it to Princess Jaehaera.
She turned it over before asking sternly: “Where did you get this?”
It was honestly insulting that the Princess appreciated her help so little she had passed the handkerchief along.
Or, mayhap, Aemond stole it? But why would he?
Arianne knew her embroidery was mediocre at best.
“Lady Redwyne gave it to me.” Came the lofty drawl as Aemond leaned back against the log.
A terrible rush of blood suffused her cheeks at such blatant perfidy.
Not only was he a thief, but a liar! Liar! Did he know and was mocking her?
Arianne halted when her mouth had been halfway open already. Aemond was speaking to her again, and she did not wish to jeopardize this fragile peace they brokered with accusations of theft.
She could always ask Jaehaera about it.
“How kind of her…” Arianne snorted unladylike while her hands worked to wrap the damned linen over it and secure his wound.
“Ah, I suppose the vines represent Arbor. Did she forget the grapes?”
Aemond tilted his head, observing her with an entirely unabashed grin that reeked of amusement at her expense.
“Mhm.” He crooned, and Arianne grew a sudden urge to smother him. She tied the linen tightly this time, too tightly, her face distinctly sour and dour.
Aemond flexed his fingers, adjusting the binding.
“Half the flowers have poor stitching.” She remarked, imitating Septa Meria’s haranguing. Not like Lady Redwyne could take offense, considering she hadn’t made the damned thing.
The One-eyed Prince actually appeared to revel in her barbs.
“I have not realized you cared so much for embroidery, my lady. What must you think of that unfortunate pigeon, then?” He tilted his head back, lips stretching over his teeth.
Arianne balked. Pigeon? Pigeon? That was a swan!
“You are welcome to offer me your favor, though.” Aemond commended idly, unaware that she contemplated setting him on fire.
“I shall not ever.” She snapped and shifted to sit against the log, untucking her legs. His coat was so wonderfully warm that it made her sleepy.
Aemond now observed her with brazen ease. Having concluded that he had won this skirmish, he decided to let the matter rest and turned entirely toward Arianne.
He had no desire to drive her away from him again.
Also, he could always ignore her tomorrow. That was a given.
“What have you been reading? That I might find interesting?” His voice lowered. “Except Elysar.” He added dryly.
Arianne sent him a sidelong glance.
“Nothing much since I’ve been barred from the library.” She sighed, realizing she would simply have to reconcile that Aemond had been the cause of that, while simultaneously becoming her silver-haired Galladon.
“What about you, my prince?”
“Battles and Sieges of the Century of Blood.”
Arianne forgot to glower.
“I haven’t read that. Is it good?” She inquired curiously.
Aemond inclined his head and began recounting the fall of Sarnor, how its kings engaged in petty rivalries until the horselords only needed to pick one gleaming city after another. Even though the thrum of his voice kept its restrained edge, Arianne found it entirely too pleasant to listen to. He could have been a lecturing Maester in another life, she supposed.
Except his vanity needed no nourishment, so she would keep that observation to herself.
“They torched the Palace with Thousand Rooms that Lomas Longstrider mentions was built in Sarnath!” She grabbed her hair. “Those awful illiterate savages! They should be dealt with!”
Aemond leaned his head against his knuckles.
“I thought you’d mourn Sallosh more. The City of Scholars with its vast library. Joseth mentions it was almost as large as the one in Tyria. Who knows the true amount of ancient knowledge that perished with it?”
Melancholy clouded her features. There was the fabled Waterfall City too, burned to ash and rubble by Khal Mengo, and then Kasath and Gornath, and many more. Arianne found out Aemond had a theory on how Sarnor endured for more than two millennia before eventually collapsing.
“There are surviving fragments that suggest the High Kings had little say in naming their heir.” His fingers idly twirled a twig before he tossed it into the fire.
“All those in line were required to prove themselves, perhaps through trial by arms. They had to demonstrate why they should be the one to inherit or rule. The most suited would naturally be chosen.”
Arianne snickered, realizing his tone turned wistful. She could not believe it took her as long as it did to comprehend how keenly Aemond wanted the throne and everything that came with it.
“You are the least impartial scholar I have ever met. Believing a fragment because it vindicates your ambitions.” She laughed openly now, the sound airy and light.
He glared at her with one scorching, lethal eye that promised retribution.
Arianne waved her hand at him.
“Thank the Seven our customs differ from those long-gone Sarnori,” She told him with false solemnity before her shoulders began to shake from guffawing.
“You would have been even more insufferable with the crown on you.”
Aemond’s hand halted above another twig, and his head snapped back to her. He blinked, her words having robbed him of the ability to speak.
He had spent half his life imagining what those words might feel like.
She only meant it as a jest.
The crown would be on HIS head, if only…
He leaned forward, crowding her space.
“You think I am best suited.” He uttered half in disbelief. No, not disbelief, because he should be King, he knew he should, but to hear her say the very thing – the acknowledgment he had been craving since as long as he could remember was downright exhilarating.
The naked euphoria of it swashed along his spine.
Not just the better swordsman, the quicker study, the more diligent prince, the adequate spare.
But the worthier King.
Arianne arched away from him, watching him beneath lowered lashes. With those eyes that were unapologetically verdant even against the low light of the campfire.
His throat moved in a parched swallow.
“That is…” She muttered, unmoored. “I hadn’t really…I meant that you could be picked, not that you would – this is all purely theoretical – because it is treasonous to imply… So I would never say it or think it!”
Arianne stood up so abruptly her the space around her spun.
It was true enough that in the ocean of common ineptitude, Aemond was possessed of rare efficiency and cogency that she could not help but commend and possibly venerate, but –
But –
She could not think that… It was not to her benefit at all to imagine Aemond with a crown.
Arianne needed Rhaenyra to become a ruling Queen. Only then would Jace inherit Dragonstone, and then, through logical succession of events, eventually, when he is King…she would be his Queen.
“I think, I think I have errands-“
Aemond caught her hand by the fingers before she could abscond. The corner of his mouth lifted as if he found such a stupid, overt lie infinitely amusing.
“I haven’t dismissed you, my lady.” He declared. “Sit.”
Arianne wanted to invent some elaborate explanation as to why she could not possibly have meant it, but the peaks and valleys of his face arranged themselves so strangely open and content that she could not.
“Do not mention that to anyone because I will deny it.” She said with a sigh and settled back to his right. Aemond sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, working it in and out for several moments.
“Ūī hae ñurho kārillo rāelinna” (I shall keep it as my treasure.) He promised in tones as soft as a pillow.
Her brows knitted together. She hadn’t the slightest idea how to translate that.
He…keeps?
“Could we speak of something else?” Arianne suggested sheepishly, studying her hand that was still in his.
Aemond mercifully indulged her, and they talked about Gawen, whom he considered the chief authority on the Conquerors’ later lives, before she drifted to Septon Barth, and Thyrne, and Walgram – and something curled and writhed inside her stomach when he said he had read him too – and then to Old Ghis, and the five wars they waged against Valyria.
Aemond hadn’t ever read Selyssa Morane’s tractate about the roots of human suffering, and it made Arianne positively giddy – she enjoyed knowing more than him in the same manner as she enjoyed winning.
Not nearly as much as listening to him speak, low and lilting, about his interests. He knew an astonishing number of things.
Or noticing the minuscule smiles tugging at the side of his mouth that had blood swish hotly through her veins.
By the time they reached Westeros and he mentioned how the oldest tales of Garth Greenhand painted him as a significantly more malignant deity – demanding blood sacrifice (a sin condemned by the Seven, she interjected) to ensure a plentiful harvest, their knees almost touched.
They sat inclined towards one another like two conspirators beneath the shroud of the night sky.
It occurred to Arianne, somewhere between Chroyane and the Second Spice War, that conversing with the One-eyed Prince required no effort at all once she ceased rehearsing objections to everything he had to say.
“No one knows who built Yeen.” She yawned, feeling her upper lids grow heavier by a minute. “The plants don’t grow inside of it.”
“Tis just a desolate ruin, and the tales likely exaggerate it.” Aemond ran his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles before gazing at the east.
“You should sleep, cygnet.” He added. “It’s almost dawn.”
Arianne rubbed at her eyes, forcing her head up.
Already?
Not to mention…
“I do not want to…” She hesitated, avoiding his gaze. The tent seemed too far, and she did not want to be alone. Perhaps she could ask Bess to sleep with her? Except, it wasn’t Bess she disliked parting from in this damned forest, and Aemond was, very inconveniently at the moment, a man.
“What if this is just…not real, and I wake tied to that tree?”
Aemond’s eye widened, and the pads of his fingers halted their repetitive movement across the skin of her hand.
He was silent for a while, as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what to say to her. She doubted anyone ever asked him to offer comfort, or that he was capable of it. He seemed more prone to ridiculing everything he considered to be a weakness.
“Even if you do,” his voice was barely audible, but it had her glancing back at him. “You untied yourself once, did you not? You can do so again.”
Despite her misery, her cheek ticked, dragging the side of her lips to smile. Aemond turned to stare at the dying embers.
“More importantly, I would still be looking for you.”
He stated plainly.
Arianne thought her heart had shimmied into her throat. Her vision blurred until everything swam in her tears. They were warm against her cheeks.
“Have I said something amiss?” His voice carried none of its regular acuity. She shook her head and wiped the droplets with the heel of her hands.
“No, my prince.” Arianne searched vainly for the words that could convey the strange feeling between her ribs was now proliferating rapidly. Her limbs had grown languorous, while her thoughts drifted, aimless like blown dandelion seeds.
“I… I misjudged you so terribly.”
Aemond regarded her until she could no longer endure the brunt of the attention. Arianne faced the fire and leaned back against the broad log until her shoulder almost brushed against his. She took care to keep the small space, lest one of the men later confabulate how the lady Swann behaved inappropriately.
She yawned once more and drew her knees close beneath her chin to rest her head.
“I meant that you go sleep in the tent I so graciously surrendered to your ladyship, not upon my bedroll,” Aemond noted dryly from her left, still maintaining occupancy of her hand. Or it had been her who refused to relinquish his from her hold. She could not tell anymore.
“Why did you lie earlier?” Arianne closed her weary eyes and switched the subject. “About Lady Redwyne?”
He was going to insist on the stupid tent, wasn’t he? At least here everyone could see that she hadn’t done anything morally reprehensible with him.
“Lied?” Aemond hissed, suddenly turning briary. “I am a Prince of the Realm, a dragonlord – just because you, a yokel from the Red Mountains, do so find me nefast, other ladies think it honor that I would even-“
Arianne groaned against her knees, too tired to open her eyes and gift him a baleful glare.
“Oh, do stop. I know you lied because it is mine and I gave it to the little Princess for her knee.” She muttered.
“Gave her what?” He rasped.
“The handkerchief. She fell and scraped her knee-“ Another small yawn interrupted her answer. “So I…to help her with the ouchie…and I always embroider the same pattern that I practiced with my Septa…”
Her voice dissolved into a drowsy, unintelligible murmur before her fingers, twined with his, slackened at last.
.
.
.
Aemond remained seated against the fallen log long after the sleep had claimed her. Somehow, Lady Arianne had seized both his cloak and his bedroll without so much as requesting either, and he found, to his immense irritation, that he did not mind ceding them to her.
Her.
It could not have been her.
It was her.
His sharp gaze wandered from the delicate cloth resting across his palm to her and back again. Her bruised face appeared almost serene while she curled beneath the thick, black wool with a shameless sort of contentment for someone robbing a prince of his own encampment.
His grip tightened around the handkerchief – his one, the one he had for years.
She knew, the contriver that she was. She had to have known all along, and it made sense now, all of it, her disdain – she had seen him weep, she had witnessed his pitiful attempts to re-learn how to fight before his wound hadn’t even properly healed, she –
She did not know. He had been so small a thing to her that she forgot entirely about it.
Aemond could not even decide which of the two was worse.
He stared at the small cloth, pressing his thumb against the white bird that was likely supposed to represent a swan, then.
What an atrocious seamstress she was.
But he had believed her little favor had brought him luck. Perhaps it truly had.
To think that he had been speaking to her for weeks, and more, he had kissed her and courted her, and to think that it had been her all along – his girl of fortune.
His stomach flipped on itself, his chest pulsating in time with his tumultuous heartbeat.
Aemond lifted his gaze towards the heavens. The star-bedecked dark was slowly giving way to deep indigo as bands of yellow, peach, and orange began to protrude from the east.
His mother would have called it the will of the Seven, and dragonlords something older. Perhaps older than Valyria itself, as old as the known world. Aemond simply thought this reclaimed luck a sign that he could – would – one day somehow, someday seize all his objectives.
He cared little what name men bestowed upon it. Arianne fit within the order he recognized.
Before she had ever become Rhaenyra’s lady companion, before she had been their friend and Strong bastard’s future bride, she had been his. His lady fortune, his kismet. The girl he had named a toad and never told anyone about. She had given him her favor, and he kept it for years. He killed for her.
Arianne had proven beneficial, so long ago, and if he had her, on his side…
Why else would the Gods see it fit to return her to him?
And she thought him most suited for the crown.
He would sit between the blackened swords that rose from the stone dais like the branches of a monstrous thorn tree, and it would have been his solitary reward for striking down all his enemies.
The idea that solitude was no longer a foregone conclusion crept upon him so subtly that he neither questioned it nor resisted it. Arianne wasn’t meant to pass her days as some hidden mistress he discreetly tucked between the walls of the Keep. She possessed an altogether uncommon mind, her wit sharpened his own, her natural curiosity refused complacency, and she…she understood him and was godless and greedy, and she wanted to win just as he did. There glimmered the same brazen, abyssal hunger in her eyes.
Aemond concluded that she had no place anywhere save where all the Realm might see her.
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Has anyone else seen the leaks for the Mad King play? Cancel the whole show right now this is horrible writing 😭
Lyanna being more prophecy obsessed than Rhaegar? Rhaella abusing Viserys? Aerys protecting Viserys from Rhaella? Elia being okay with Rhaegar marrying Lyanna? Elia being okay with public disrespect but somehow is still 'politically shrewd'? Elia being double cucked by Rhaegar and Ashara? Making Daenerys share TPTWP title with Jon? The Red Comet happening? Mad Daenerys foreshadowing? Lyanna being friendly with Robert?
People shitting on Kat for not just leaving with Hugh and being angry at him really watch the show while scrolling tiktok.
She asked him to leave with her to Tumbleton but he refused due to his pride ("you'd make me a beggar"). We now learn she was likely raped on the road because she was a lone woman.
Their daughter died because he believed Aegon would pay him and wouldn't leave KL.
She never wanted him to risk his life to become a dragonlord. She wanted a husband.
Her freaking NIECE AND SISTER IN LAW are in Tumbleton, and I am frankly convinced you are 14 if you cannot see why someone would not just abandon family, especially since they took her in and her SIL has a broken arm now because she defended Kat from being raped again.
Like, HotD has plenty of shitty and nonsensical writing, Kat's reaction isn't one of them. Boo hoo human beings aren't rational AI machines, they have feelings and familial bonds.
Accidentally scrolling tumblr and seeing Aemond gifs from Harrenhall while listening to Džanum by Teya Dora, and now I can't unconnect it, the song is very him 😭😭😭😭😭😭.
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okay so hear me out, but i think that every scene aemond and alys have shared since him saving her has been a hallucination, and here's why.
for starters, aemond looks fully healed, which is highly improbable given that he was septic and unable to stand HOURS ago. meanwhile, this is the shot from the week ahead:
bandaged, with blood poisoning having spread TO HIS FACE.
and sepsis, when advanced enough, induces delirium and psychosis.
further proof is that here, aemond is dressed in his usual clothing from king's landing, a dark green doublet, breeches and dagger by his side, except aemond came to harrenhal in armor.
add to that the sudden discovery of dragon eggs, that too dreamfyre's, who currently belongs to helaena, someone he believes he has grievously harmed.
aemond is going delirious with sepsis, and the dragon eggs are part of that delirium. he wants to be seen as someone worthy of his family, of acceptance, someone who has atoned for his sins. dragon eggs that have fossilised CANNOT just turn warm. not without a dragon’s heat.
but that isn't even the biggest red herring. that, my friends, is the eyepatch.
YES THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I AM THINKING TOO. I will make a separate post of my own on this theory but something has felt OFF with this entire storyline. I think he has been hallucinating this entire time.
