wrap me in your skin and bones

Torch in hand, he could hardly raise his arm to light the pyres, and where a word from him would have been expected, he could not summon his words. Instead the Maester recited a prayer in High Valyrian that he did not hear over the rush of his own blood in his ears. 

“All eyes are on you, my king,” Cregan murmured once silence had returned to the assembly, not as a stern reminder, but as encouragement. 

With a reassuring glance over his shoulder, to the nobles that had gathered, along with the Rivermen and the Northerners, as well as the Dragonkeepers, Jacaerys finally took the step forward. As he lit the pyres one by one, he prayed that wherever she was, his mother forgave him for his perceived sins. 

Despite his reason knowing it was the order of things, there was no escaping the feeling that he had stolen the crown from her. It was unfair, against the very laws of nature, he would argue, that he would be king when she never had the chance to reign.

The assembly watched the pyres go up in flame, the smoke adding to the heavy sky above their heads.

“She would be proud of you,” Baela said in a whisper, meant only for him and Cregan to hear, but he could not accept the praise.

Instead he walked away without a word, dismissing the Kingsguard that offered to open the door to the litter for him. He mounted his horse, choosing the path that would lead him through the city unguarded, but he refused to be scared of his own people. Cregan and Baela followed on their own horses, flanking him as they had done all day, two pillars holding him up. 

Once he would have crossed the gates of the Red Keep, he would have to disappear once more, instead replaced by the crown, the monarch, and there would be no time to mourn. 

“All day long I am plagued by demands and advice that often contradict one another, how am I to know which decision is right?” he lamented as the party made their way back to the city's gate. “They all expect me to guide them, but how might I know that I am not leading this realm into war, once again?”

“Surround yourself with counselors you trust, who look out for the interests of this realm and not their own,” Baela advised, and he regretted that she could not stay, but he understood her reasons for returning to Driftmark. He knew that before long, the matter of the succession to the Driftwood throne would arise.

“I should dismiss Unwin Peake, then,” he spat, then once the vitriol had been spoken, came to a wiser, more useful conclusion. “I shall write to my mother's cousin, Jeyne Arryn. I will need a trusted Hand once you have gone back to the North,” he said, glancing at Cregan.

The young man frowned, but gave a nod of agreement. “I hope you do not see this as disloyalty,” he said.

Jacaerys almost laughed, a mirthless exhale pushing past his lips again. “There hasn’t lived a man as loyal as you, Cregan.”

“I shall stay and serve as your justice until it is done,” his friend promised, and he was grateful for such a strong presence at his side—it also comforted him in his decision that Jeyne would be an apt replacement. She was kind to her kin, in her own way, but stern and unyielding towards other matters, and that was what he needed.

“And I shall answer any call,” Baela reminded him firmly. “I am only across the Bay.”

Jacaerys looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, taking in her kind smile and earnest eyes, the strength he knew she carried in her body and spirit. In another life, perhaps, she would have made a good queen.

For a fortnight you remained a distant spectator to the start of Jacaerys’ reign, and as he had promised, no harm came to you while you waited to know whether your blood would come, or you would be burdened with Aegon’s child. The prospect of carrying a contender for the throne was one you feared, and even though you knew many were still loyal to your bloodline, the truth of the matter was that you remained a woman, and would only gather support in a son’s name.

Were you to bear Aegon’s son, you would be raising him to be at war with his own family, while Jacaerys had offered you a crown and a promise of peace.

The trials saw many men executed or sentenced to the Wall, when Cregan Stark seemingly judged there still remained enough strength and honor in them. In some ways you wondered whether the Northerner was ruling as he pleased, instead of acting on the orders of his king.

In a gesture of good will and mercy, Jacaerys had allowed you to visit your mother for a half hour, and while you were escorted to a small chamber deep inside Maegor’s Holdfast, you felt as though you were being led to the jails. The chamber was plunged into darkness even though it was afternoon, heavy curtains drawn against the sun, and the whole room smelled of prayer incense. The stones were cold under your feet, even through your slippers and the carpet.

When you had first crossed the threshold, Alicent had held you long and tight. She was dressed almost as a Septa, in black clothes that made her look thinner and more frail than she was. Gone was the woman who had welcomed you to the capital nearly three months prior, dressed as was proper for the Queen Dowager, and confident the war was being won.

Since then Aegon had died, poisoned by those he kept close, and so had Rhaenyra, her wounds festering until a fever took her, and a boy now sat the throne. “What is happening out there?” she asked, leading you further into her room. “I am not allowed to know any of it. Are we to stand trial as well?”

“I do not know, mother,” you said. “Many men have been put to the sword, or sent North, but it seems even Jacaerys isn’t certain of our fate.”

Something dark crossed your mother’s face then. “My son should be sitting the throne, not this—” Alicent nearly whimpered, clutching the rosary she carried everywhere these days, the points of the star digging into her palm. 

She cut herself off, but you knew what words lurked beneath the surface. “All things considered, he has been merciful, mother,” you protested weakly, knowing full well you could have suffered terrible consequences for your confession. 

“He might be merciful, but that doesn’t make him true. If there is a rightful king it should be Daemon’s son, the little Aegon,” she accused, the name sounding awful in her mouth.

You said nothing for a while as Alicent sat in an armchair, the weight of their downfall visible on her shoulders and in the lines of her face. You poured the bitter tea your mother preferred into two cups, watching the fragrant steam rise. “On advice of his council, he has offered me his hand in marriage,” you finally said, setting the strainer aside and putting the lid back on the pot.

“Oh, my daughter, you would be queen?” Alicent asked, rising once more and rushing to you. “In those circumstances, it would be well to use this to your advantage. Men are easily swayed by beauty, if you know how to work your charms,” she explained in a hushed tone, taking your hands into hers.

“Do you mean for me to seduce him?” you asked.

Alicent shook her head. “He is young and still malleable. He has just acceded to the throne, and his council and courtiers hold the power now, but you may influence him as well. Be agreeable to him and he will come to trust you, and listen to you, eventually.”

“I understand,” you nodded—it all seemed logical to you, in a sense.

Alicent looked nearly mad in the low light of the candles, her eyes blown wide and her hands trembling where she was clutching you. “And when the time comes, he will bare his back, and we will have our revenge,” she whispered. “You may still light the way for us.”

Alicent’s words ringing in your head, you made your way back to your chambers once the half hour had come to an end, wondering what path would be yours to take, muttering prayers as you climbed the stairs, pleading for a sign of what was right. 

The Gods seemed to hear your desperate pleas, and as you reached the top of the staircase, a sudden ache in your core speared you into place. Gasping, you rushed to your chambers, heart in your throat, and slamming the door behind you, took a handkerchief that you wiped between your thighs. 

The white linen came wet with a bright red smear.

You did not know whether to be relieved or devastated—one way or another,your fate was nearly sealed.

Late at night was the only moment in the day Jace was able to have some solace—or perhaps in the early seconds of the morning before he fully woke, still on the edge of slumber, when the whole world was at peace and he was not king yet, just a young man clinging to his dreams. 

He spent most of his evenings at his desk, answering his private correspondence or writing in his journals, reading the diaries of former Maesters and lords, educating himself on the preceding reigns. He had taken to learn everything he could about his great-grandsire, Jaehaerys—the way he had built a strong, powerful reign, and the way his legacy had collapsed within the next three decades following his passing. 

Jace was eager to learn from the past, and not repeat its mistakes. 

To his relief, his mother’s cousin Jeyne Arryn had acceded to his request, and was now on her way to the capital, leaving her young nephew behind to regent the Vale. She had already proven herself, ruling the Vale for the last decade and a half while bearing the burden of being a woman, and such was the sort of advice he needed.

A sharp knock at the door came to interrupt him—he pressed the seal into the freshly poured wax, waiting until it hardened before peeling it back, and then called the visitor in. Ser Adrian Redfort, a white cloak personally chosen by the Lord Commander to protect Rhaenyra, stepped into the room. 

“My king,” the man greeted. “The princess is requesting an audience.”

Jacaerys discarded his letter and waved for him to let you in, suddenly wary that an unfortunate news was to come. He remained seated as you entered, crossing his trembling hands at his lap, partially hidden by the tabletop. The look on your face was grave, but you did not waste any time before you spoke, putting an end to his torment.

“My blood has come,” you said, almost too quiet to hear, and he had never been so relieved to hear of blood. “I am not with child.”

Seated behind his desk, the young king seemed relieved, though he attempted to hide it, but you could see the way his frown smoothed over, and the corners of his mouth eased slightly. “Very well,” he replied.

“I have thought of your proposal,” you said. “I will marry you for the sake of the realm.” 

“Before you agree, there are terms you should be aware of,” Jacaerys immediately answered, his gaze lowering to the desk in front of him where various letters were scattered over a map of the Reach.

“I am listening,” you said, your own eyes lingering to the coast where Oldtown sat, heart aching at the memory of your youth in the sun, far from the schemings of the capital.

“Lord Lyonel, your cousin’s son and heir, now rules House Hightower,” Jacaerys said, allowing you time to respond.

“I know him well, we were children together,” you replied, crossing your wrists at your belly, trying to gather some composure at the terms you would next be offered—all the while knowing you had no choice in the matter, and those would be orders instead of proposals.

“He is on his way to King’s Landing to treat with me,” Jacaerys explained, rising slowly until you were face to face, the large mahogany tabletop standing between the two of you . “He could treat with us together instead, if you could guarantee to think of the good of the realm instead of pride.”

Closing your eyes for a moment, you dropped your chin to your chest, reminding yourself of your mother’s words. “The realm has too long been at war,” you murmured. 

“Neither of us will ever convince the other of their good right, but together we have a chance to put an end to this,” he said, so earnestly you raised your gaze to him again. You understood then that he truly believed it, and you wanted to laugh in the face of such blatant optimism.

“While the overwhelming advice is that I wed you for the common good, I would not bring an enemy into my bed,” he continued, and the menacing glint in his eyes made you shiver.

“No matter my thoughts on your legitimacy, you now hold the power,” you admitted bitterly.

“As queen, you would have power as well,” Jacaerys assured you, slowly walking the desk until he was standing so close you could see the flickering candles reflecting in his dark eyes. “Convince Lyonel to stand down and bend the knee, and I will grant you my trust. I don’t intend to keep my queen in chains.”

While you had never been an outward romantic, and you had always known you would marry for political gain or alliance, you had never thought you would one day be a pawn to bridge the chasm left by war. It was unfair, in many ways, on both you and Jacaerys, to be sacrificing yourselves for the good of the realm, but you supposed it was the role of both king and queen.

It did not feel right to be called queen when that title belonged to your mother and your departed sister, but Alicent had been right. This was the only way you could take back some authority, yield some political influence and perhaps, restore what had been stolen. You were the way to put Hightower blood back on the throne—Gods willing you would have a son, and then perhaps honor would be restored.

A royal wedding should have been a cause for celebration and rejoicing, instead it was a solemn ceremony held under the eyes of all in the city, nobles and commoners alike, a show of unity and reconciliation. Soon word would spread in the realm and all would know that the two lineages born of Viserys were one, and the conflict was well and truly over, or so Jacaerys seemed to hope.

Tradition was to be upheld, insisted both the Council and the Faith, but Jacaerys asserted that there would be no bedding ceremony of any kind. “I will not have anyone in this room. The Maester may come in once it is done,” he admonished, closing the doors to the king’s quarters in the court’s face once you had been escorted to his chambers. 

“Thank you for that,” you whispered once the two of you were alone. 

“I did it for my sake as well,” he confessed, looking nervous. 

You did not answer and instead walked to the bed, ready to once again lay on your back and allow your husband to claim you as was his right. It would be the second time you would look at the moldings on the ceiling and forget about your own body until a man was done with it.

However, Jacaerys stopped your endeavor. “No,” he called, and you tilted your head in a silent question, confused as to what he expected from you. “I would not share your bed by force. I would not touch you until you wanted me to.”

“It is your right as husband and king,” you reminded him, a mirthless laugh on your lips.

Jacaerys went to his desk where a pitcher and cups sat, and swallowed a mouthful of wine, desperate for composure, loath to be in such a vulnerable position. “I have never been with a woman, and I would not have the first night I am to be a forceful occasion,” he confessed, and you could hardly understand how it was relevant. 

“I am your wife, to do with as you see fit, you cannot force yourself upon me,” you replied, and it made him nauseous.

“We shall disagree on this, then,” he said, setting the wine aside, the sweet taste of grape turning sour in his mouth. “It will not be our last disagreement.”

Fear struck you then, as you remembered your mother’s words vividly. Your position would not be safe until you truly were the wife to the king, the rightful queen. The future of your blood rested in your hands, and no matter how honorable he was, you could not allow him to compromise your position. 

Without a word you came to him and reached for the clasps of his doublet, undoing them swiftly, but he stopped you once more, grabbing both your wrists gently. “Please, your hands are shaking,” he said gently. “Is this what you truly want?”

You hated to admit it, but he had been honest towards you since the beginning, and thus you could not find it in yourself to lie. “No,” you said quietly, your eyes still fixed on the dragon brooch at his shoulder.

“Then you shall not lay a hand on me nor I on you,” he said firmly, letting go of you. 

Your arms fell to your sides, defeated. “The Maester will know and our marriage will be invalid,” you protested. 

“Leave that with me,” he said, gesturing to the armchairs in front of the fire. Uneasy, you still complied and sat where he wished, staring at the flames and wondering what other foolish ideas he had, if you had put yourself in danger by complying, if instead you should be the one to force his hand—he seemed unsure of himself at times, perhaps you could convince him.

You heard the sounds of a belt coming undone, then the ruffle of fabric and a sharp intake of breath. For a moment too long you sat there, listening to the rhythmic ruffles and short breaths, and it took you a minute to realize what was occurring, and when you did, you felt yourself flush in embarrassment.

Time stretched and his panting grew more frantic, until Jacaerys cursed under his breath. “Should I help?” you asked, biting your lip.

“No,” came the sharp answer. Finally, after a minute more, another sharp intake of breath pierced the air, a bitten groan that reminded you too well of your first wedding night. 

You heard him undress, then wash his hands in the basin. “It is done,” he said. When you rose again, his doublet was discarded and his shirt as well. He had put on a robe over his bare chest—he looked flushed, his high cheekbones tainted with red. His hair looked as though he had raked his fingers through his curls, giving them an unruly look.

Jacaerys felt your eyes on him as he picked up a small knife from his desk, a seal opener, and cut the inside of his arm near the crease of his elbow. It would be easily hidden by a sleeve, and none would be the wiser. He smeared some of the blood on his palm, then wiped it on the mattress where the evidence of his solitary act laid. 

“What is it?” you asked when he went back to staring at you. 

“Your hair,” he answered, almost embarrassed. “It is too… tidy.”

“Oh,” you breathed, then reached for the braid and undid it, raking a hand through your mane. You were obviously embarrassed as well, and he thought it served him well.

As Jacaerys opened the doors to his chambers once more, and both the Septon and the Maester came into the room, you were reminded of the night of your first marriage. For the second time your humiliation was to be witnessed, your virtue publicly claimed by a man you did not love ; tears came to your eyes and you wished that Jacaerys would send you away soon, to pray for guidance and plan your revenge.

Now you had been queen twice, and yet you felt as powerless as you ever had without the crown.

Author's Note ✢ Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Thank you so much for the amazing feedback on the first chapter, it went straight to my heart. Chapter three will be posted next Saturday, July 18th.

Series taglist ✢ @chaotichereticcavern @galactict3a @qtmoonies @multyfangirl @obsidian-gold1239

@thegirlwithoutaname87 @harryssattelitestomper @rtyuy1346 @kplatzman @neenieweenie

@cinnamoonfairy @g0oshtt @orchidsinthesun @darling-darling3 @pookynknowntranger

@cloudyzip @softlittlevigil @at-a-rax-ia @noneedtosearch @darkrion

@tappyj @tojisprincess @strangersunghoon @devil-on-acid @minaridior

Prince Aemond Targaryen wakes with a start, confusion and a flicker of fear clouding his thoughts as he finds himself lying naked in a bed that is not his own, in a room far removed from the familiar confines of the Red Keep. For a moment, he feels the rare vulnerability of being unarmed and exposed, his usual certainty stripped away.

The smell of damp stone fills his nostrils, while the slow, irregular drips of water echo off the unseen floor. When he tries to raise himself, a sharp pain lances through his lower back, forcing him still. His hand trembles as it finds rough cloth wrapped tightly around his trim waist.

The prince claws at his memories, desperate to recall how he came to be here, but his mind offers only fog and silence.

Wanting his clothes and sword, he is about to rise again when shadows move in the hall beneath the heavy chamber door. The door opens slowly, and by the light of a single flickering candle, Aemond makes out a woman entering the room.

Recognition flashes through him. He recalls seeing her as he collapsed to the floor.

He watches silently as the woman, clad in a long white nightdress and barefoot, slips into the room and shuts the door behind her.

“Where am I? Who are you?” He demands.

She tilts her head. “Don’t you remember, my prince?”

“This is Harrenhal.”

His brow furrows as he fights to recall. He and Vhagar easily dispatched the guards. He killed the Strongs. Then he saw a woman standing there, watching him. Then weakness, blood, falling to the floor, and pleading for her help. He hums in frustration when he cannot recall any more.

He watches the woman set the candle holder on a table by the door and walk toward his bedside.

“Who are you?”

“Didn’t your uncle tell you?” She smiles as she poses her question.

“Tell me who you are,” he commands, confusion and growing impatience evident in his voice as he manages to sit up slightly, wincing in pain. He cannot quell the frustration that swells within him, driven by a need to regain control of this unfamiliar situation.

“I’m a witch,” she replies airily, unfazed by his annoyance.

“Speak plainly, woman, and tell me your name,” Aemond demands, his anger rising. He will not be left guessing.

With a humorous lilt in her voice, she says, “I’m no woman at all. I’m a barn owl cursed to live in human form.”

“You’ll learn my name in time,” she tells him as she stands beside the bed. “But we have no need tonight.”

She places her knee on the bed, looming above him, and peels the blanket away. Her fingers trace the bandage at his waist—gentle, assured, claiming. The heat of her skin sparks along his side, and he holds his breath, nerves raw, utterly captive to her touch.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He demands, now annoyed with her silly talk and impertinence.

“I’m checking to make sure you haven’t opened your wound with your fussing,” she replies, her tone calm and practical.

“Stop that,” Aemond orders. “Go and fetch the maester to tend me.”

The strange woman chuckles. “There is no maester here,” she informs him. “Who do you think has been tending to you?”

“I cleaned and dressed your wound,” she continues. “I’ve spoon-fed broth into your mouth, bathed you, and changed your sheets these past days.”

There is no anger or annoyance in her voice; she is simply stating a fact, and Aemond feels somewhat sheepish for his sternness.

Finished checking his bandages, she sits on the bed beside him. She examines his face for a moment before placing her palm on his forehead.

“Good, you have no fever,” she remarks.

She leans forward, inching closer to his face, the air thick with a longing he cannot name. The weak candlelight barely touches her features, illuminating the haunting depths of her gaze. Her eyes glint, sharp and unblinking, impossible to read, and yet they seem to strip him bare, seeing him in ways no one ever has. He cannot guess her age. Her breath is warm against his cheek, and he is suddenly aware of the wild, uncertain tension that crackles in the space between them.

Her gaze pierces him as if she sees not only his face but every secret he thought was safely hidden. Beneath her stare, he feels a chill crawl along his spine, as if his entire being has been laid bare before her silent judgment.

“You should never wear an eyepatch,” she says, gazing down at him. “Your sapphire eye is too pretty to hide.”

Aemond lies still under her stare as she brushes loose blond hair from his forehead. He offers no complaint as her fingertips graze his skin, tracing his jawline, then the scar on his cheek. Each touch lingers, and he wonders if she can sense the way his pulse quickens beneath her fingers.

He cannot help but press his face into her palm when she cups his cheek.

What little he can make out of her in the darkness seems beautiful to him. His eye lingers on the softness of her lips, and he wonders what it would be like to kiss her.

As if she read his mind, the mystery woman closes the distance, her gaze locking with his for a heartbeat longer, just enough to make his anticipation almost unbearable. She finally presses her lips to his in the lightest of kisses. He closes his eyes and delights in the suppleness of her lips as she glides across his regal features, barely grazing his warm skin.

His cheek still rests in her palm when she finds his scar in the dimly lit chamber, and he can’t hold back a sigh as her lips brush his old wound. The pain from the wound in his back absent with her touch.

When she rests her forehead against his, his trembling hand grasps her wrist, fearing she will pull away or, worse, leave him.

For a breathless moment, he allows himself to whisper, "Don’t go." The words surprise even him, but she only smiles, her eyes softening.

A low, soft laugh vibrates against his skin before she kisses his forehead like his mother would. Now cradling his face in both hands, she softly caresses his face with her thumbs.

“You’re safe here,” she tells him, her voice pleasing to his ear. “I will not leave you unless you tell me to go.”

A barely murmured “Stay” falls from his lips without thought, laden with a rawness he cannot hide.

Aemond feels her lips on his again, and what begins as gentle gradually deepens with growing hunger. He’s enthralled by her shift from motherly to a lover’s kiss. His cock twitches with a growing ache for this strange woman who annoyed him only moments before.

As their tongues dance and delve, her hand slides down to his bare chest and over the finely muscled planes of his torso.

His arm glides around her waist, determined to pull her closer, needing to hold her to him. He grabs hold of the rougher fabric of a lowborn woman’s nightdress, trying to reclaim some measure of dominance, but she is quicker. With effortless confidence, she twists free, reminding him who is truly in control tonight.

His mystery woman tugs her wrist from his grasp as her mouth glides down his neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses along the way. Her hair tickles his skin as her mouth finds his breast, her tongue swirling around his pebbled skin.

Aemond can’t suppress a sharp intake of breath as she palms his growing bulge beneath the blanket covering his lower body. He thinks he sees a smile spread across her face as she flings back the covers, then spits into the palm of her hand and takes his soft shaft in her gentle grip.

A low whimper escapes him as she begins to work her hand up and down the growing length of his cock.

She sits on her heels beside him on the bed with her nightdress bunched up near her waist.

“Give me your hand,” she tells him.

He complies, willing to do anything she tells him so long as she does not remove her hand from his hardening shaft.

She guides his calloused hand, worn from years of sword practice and gripping Vhagar’s reins, beneath her nightdress and between her spread thighs as she kneels beside him. Soon, his fingers find the warm, wet place between her legs. She grinds her hips on his hand, stimulating herself as she strokes his manhood.

“You have such a lovely cock, my prince,” she tells him as she leisurely rubs her thumb over the leaking tip of his fully hardened shaft.    

She gives a low, throaty laugh as Aemond begins to thrust his hips upward, desperate to chase the pleasure she so expertly doles out and denies. She pins him with a knowing, almost wicked smile, her eyes glinting with amusement.

“Tsk, tsk.” Her voice is velvet and steel, the soft admonishment sending a shiver through him. She slows her hand, letting his need crest and fall, reminding him that it is she who decides the rhythm, the reward.

“Not yet.”

Aemond’s groan is pure frustration, raw and needy. When she removes her hand from his cock, the loss is almost unbearable—a sharp ache of yearning that leaves him trembling.

She leans down, claiming his mouth in a kiss that is all hunger and domination, her lips devouring his, her tongue tangling with his own. He arches up, straining to reciprocate, but she keeps control easily, grinding her hips against his hand, letting him feel the heat of her arousal, without giving him what he wants.

She pulls back just enough to let their breaths mingle, her eyes locked on his. “Do you wish me to continue?” she teases, the question rhetorical. Her power over him is absolute, and they both know it.

“Please, yes,” he murmurs, his voice stripped of all princely command, reduced to pleading. “Do not stop.”

The witch rewards him with a slow, deliberate movement, lifting herself and swinging a leg over his pelvis. She settles her wet heat over his engorged shaft, but instead of granting him entry, she torments him with slow, slick strokes, sliding his cock through her folds, coating him, but never taking him in. Each pass is a promise and a denial, feeding the ache that grows inside him.

Aemond breathes in sharply, his body rigid with anticipation. The heat of her, the torturous slowness of her movements, drives him to the edge of madness. He clutches the sheet, every muscle taut, his need mounting with every teasing grind of her hips.

“I saw you in the flames,” she murmurs to him. “I saw you come to Harrenhal long before you flew here on your dragon.”

He barely hears her, so intent on chasing his release.

Her nightdress is bunched around her hips, spilling over the place where their bodies almost, but do not truly, join. She plants her hands on either side of his torso, pinning him beneath her, moving with infuriating patience, drawing out his need until it is almost agony.

He tries to slide his hand under her nightdress, wanting to seize her hips and force her to give him what he craves, wanting her to move faster. But she catches his wrists, her grip iron and inescapable, and pins them on either side of his head. Her face hovers over his, eyes bright and unreadable.

“Not yet,” she chides him, the way a mother would a child. She stills her hips, letting him feel her heat, her weight, her unwavering control. His pulse hammers in his throat; the loss of agency is dizzying and more arousing than he could have imagined.

He whimpers, the sound shameful and unguarded, pride dissolving beneath the relentless tide of want. The loss of control terrifies him, and yet, he cannot help but crave it, cannot help but crave her.

She leans down, her mouth finding his chest, kissing and licking the sweat-slick skin. Her teeth graze his pebbled flesh, making him gasp.

“Please,” he begs, his whiny voice desperate. “Please, let me touch you.”

She ignores his plea at first, continuing to mark his skin with her mouth, staking her claim. When she finally sits up, her weight settling atop his cock, he groans, every nerve in his body straining for more.

With deliberate slowness, she gathers her nightdress in her hands, lifting it over her head and baring herself to him. The garment falls away, and for a moment, she sits astride him, regal and commanding in the candlelight.

“Since you’re being so good for me,” she says, the threat of denial still in her tone, “you can touch me.”

His hands, released from her grip, find their way to her thighs, trembling with anticipation. He moves them reverently to her waist, then up her torso to her breasts, cupping and caressing, desperate to please her, desperate for more.

She resumes her slow, sensual movements, guiding his hands where she wants them, keeping the pace excruciatingly slow, making him yield to her every whim. He rolls her pebbled peaks between his fingers, drawing a shiver and a satisfied moan from her.

"Umm, I like that," she whispers, rewarding his obedience with a brief quickening of her hips, but just as swiftly returning to her torturous rhythm—reminding him, again, who truly commands this night.      

Ameond feels his release building, and he tries to grasp her hips to increase her pace.  But his attempts are only rewarded with the stilling of her hips and a wicked laugh.

“No, I'm not ready yet,” she tells him. “You have to wait for me.”

He whimpers again, biting his lip to keep from begging her.

She leans down over him, her tits dangling over his mouth. He greedily captures a firm peak with his lips and begins to suckle like a child, lost in the need to please her.

Pride surges through him as she moans with pleasure.

He lavishes his attention on one breast, then the other, lips and tongue working to please her. His need to please her nearly rivals the ache building inside him.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes, do it,” he begs. “Please…”

The witch lifts herself up enough to guide the tip of his engorged shaft to her entrance.

Aemond shamelessly whimpers as her wet heat envelops his cock.

She sinks down on his length with agonizing slowness until their bodies are truly joined.

She grabs hold of Aemond’s wrist and guides it back between her legs until his fingers are on her stimulated pearl.

“Rub here while I ride your cock,” she instructs him.

She rides him with wild abandon at last, granting him the pace he’s craved.

One hand grips her hip, his fingers digging into her flesh while he continues to work between her legs.

The sounds of their fucking fill the room's dark void, drowning out the drips of water from the leaking ceiling.

Now she welcomes each thrust of his hips as she rides her dragon prince.

“Wait for me,” she tells him, breathily, panting from her exertion.

Aemond tries desperately to hold back his peak, not wanting to disappoint her.

“Give me your seed, dragon prince,” she says between pants for breath. She reaches behind her and finds Aemond’s heavy stones. She cups them in her hand, gently fondling them as the heat building deep in her belly snaps, sending bolts of pleasure through her body and making her cry out in the darkness.

The combination of her hot cunt squeezing his cock and her hand teasing his stones is too much for him, finally triggering the explosion of euphoria that he’s been chasing.

His shaft begins to twitch inside her, and he cannot hold back the loud moan in his throat, and his cock shoots his seed towards her womb.

“Yes, yes, my prince,” she cries out. “Fill me with your seed.”

When both are spent, she collapses atop his chest, their bodies slick with sweat and need, both panting heavily, his length still nestled within her. For a long moment, neither speaks. Their heartbeats thunder in sync, filling the silence with something raw and secret. In the darkness, he dares to believe she might be the only soul to truly see him, to hold him as he is, not as a prince, but as a man laid bare.

They lie like this, with one long arm around her, holding her to him until he softens and slips out of her.

“You did so well, my dragon prince,” she praises him. “I knew you would.”

After a few moments, she pushes herself up and rolls off of him to lie at his side. She gently cradles his head to her breast and murmurs, “Your dragon seed will take in my womb.

“I will carry your child,” she tells him.

As some semblance of reason begins to return, he briefly questions how she could know this. But the solace and comfort he feels in her arms push any rational thoughts away.

Eventually, she reaches around him for her nightdress and holds it in her grasp.

Aemond tries to hold onto her, not wanting her to dress and leave him.

“Stay,” he whines, desperate for her to lie with him longer.

The witch cups his chin in her hand, her face mere inches from his, and says, “You should leave this place and never return.”

Confused, his eye searches her face. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll die here.”

Giving him a tender kiss on his forehead, she says, “You should rest now.”

Prince Regent Aemond Targaryen bolts upright in bed, a sharp, stabbing pain lancing through his lower back makes him hiss.

Panting hard and utterly spent, Aemond finds himself covered in a sheen of sweat and naked in a bed that is not his own, in a room far from the Red Keep's confines.

His hand trembles as it finds rough cloth wrapped tightly around his trim waist.

Just then, the heavy door to the damp chamber begins to open, and a woman in a purple gown enters, balancing a tray in her hand.

“You’re awake,” she says in a familiar voice with a pleasing lilt.

His eye widens in disbelief at how she could be in the doorway, fully dressed, when she had been lying beside him only moments ago.

He winces when he tries to move.

“Now don’t fuss, my prince,” she chides him gently. “You’ll reopen your wound.”

Monty arrives from the buffet and drops his metal tray on the table loud enough to startle you. You are yanked back into the present, bleak and diminishing, only six days until the Games.

“You good?” he asks you as he sits down. His plates are piled high with exotic sandwiches from the midday lunch spread: lobster rolls, tuna melts, grilled pimento cheeses, pastrami on ryes, Cubans, capreses, muffulettas, cheesesteaks, Reubens. His tall glass is full of pineapple juice, good for reducing inflammation, people keep insisting. You haven’t noticed. Your muscles still ache from a morning in the gymnasium, getting lapped by Brookie and Roosevelt on the obstacle course, getting bruised in hand-to-hand combat with the trainers as Aemond frowns from his bench and makes his pitch-black notes.

You look around the table, curious, slightly bashful. “Have you guys ever liked someone so much you can’t stop thinking about them?”

“Yeah,” Monty says morosely.

“Yeah,” Pluto agrees, then starts coughing until his chest rattles. “Sorry,” he says. “Coal dust.” Almost everyone else at the table—Brookie, Isla, Monty, you—gives him a sympathetic glance. He has the height and the muscles to go far in the arena, but not the lungs. Roosevelt smirks to himself as he sips his pineapple juice, beads of condensation snaking down the glass. Then he resumes gnawing on his beef jerky.

“Aww, you have a crush,” Isla says, beaming at you. This is a pleasant distraction from the impending carnage.

“No, I mean, I’ve had crushes before. But I didn’t think about them, like…all the time.”

Isla chuckles, nibbling on some bizarre yellow fruit called a pawpaw. “Then it wasn’t a real crush.”

“Who’s the guy?” Brookie asks.

“It’s me,” Roosevelt jokes.

Isla says: “She only likes humans.”

“Guys, come on, you know who it is.” Monty flicks his thumb towards where Aemond is lurking by the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, grim scarred face, mint green suit with faint seashells stitched into the jacket with silvery thread. He is talking to Mags and Beetee, low voices, kind conspiracies, trying to figure out how to make these kids forget they’re about to be butchered, beaten, baked, broken, bound, burned, bullet-ridden. What a way to spend two weeks each year.

And that’s the reward for winning the Games. You get to paint your hands with blood all over again, you get to become yet another lethal instrument of the machine, a gear that turns, a hammer that smashes.

You haven’t been alone with Aemond since he came to you in the pod. You can feel the blood in your face beginning to scald; you redirect your attention to your sandwich, a perplexing invention called a tuna melt, flakes of fish made rich and creamy somehow, sharp cheddar, buttery toast. It’s good, and your appetite is awake like a shark’s, primal, bottomless.

Isla, Monty, and Pluto stare at Aemond and then glance at each other uneasily. It’s scandalous. “Is that even allowed?” Brookie says. Her blonde hair is arranged in two small, tight buns. The District 1 sweatsuits are maroon with gold trim.

Isla shrugs. “Who knows. It probably doesn’t happen that often.”

“If it makes for a better show, they’ll tolerate it,” Roosevelt says, still gazing at Aemond, chewing meditatively on his strip of beef jerky, his sneakers up on the table. He flips his shaggy red hair off his forehead, his dark eyes glinting, watchful, cunning. “It won’t matter in a week anyway.”

When the Games have begun. When I’m dead.

There is an awkward pause as people try to think of what to say next. At other cafeteria tables, tributes are eating with their own factions. The girls from Districts 7, 8, and 9—Oakellen, Calico, and Gotha—are taking turns braiding each other’s hair into styles that remind you of Misty’s knot tying. Kista and Tendo from District 3 are playing a game that involves sorting and re-sorting cherry pits into small piles. Hawk, Saratoga, and Commodore are getting some kind of pep talk from Jackline Humboldt; he makes stabbing motions with a fork, and they nod along attentively. The littlest kids—Babylon from District 5, Marble from District 10, and Jet from District 12—are grimacing as they try to pick all the red pepper pieces out of their grilled pimento cheeses. Jet is a waifish rough-and-tumble girl who looks like Pluto in miniature, not just a passing resemblance but the exact same brown hair, the same almond-shaped eyes, the same ailing complexion. Roosevelt seems to catch what you’re thinking. He mouths to you: Inbreeding.

“You know, Sara doesn’t even want to be here,” Brookie says, meaning Saratoga from District 2: short dark curls, ponytail, a black sweatsuit just like Roosevelt’s. She is presently asking Jack a question at their table across the cafeteria.

You are surprised. “Isn’t she a Career?”

“Yeah, but she’s only sixteen. Her name got picked and some other girl was supposed to volunteer and go instead this year, but she chickened out at the last second and now Sara is stuck in the Games. She’s trying not to let on so the sponsors don’t abandon her, but she’s terrified.”

“Damn,” Monty says soberly. Roosevelt just smiles, still chewing on his beef jerky.

Not even all the tributes from the Career Districts want to fight, you think dismally. Hawk only volunteered so the Capitol will get him new kidneys if he wins. Sara didn’t volunteer at all. And I never would have, not in a million years.

But once, a decade ago, Aemond volunteered when he was only fifteen.

Why?

“How do you know all that?” Isla asks Brookie.

“Sara’s mentor told my mentor. Sherman is a drunk, he yaps too much.”

“He’s useless,” Roosevelt agrees.

Isla and Monty share an anxious look. Maybe their mentor drinks a lot too; it seems to be a common affliction. Maybe whoever wins this year—Commodore, if the odds remain as they are now, or Roosevelt, or Brookie—will learn to do the same, and burn out the memories and the guilt with clear scorching poison, and try to scrub the blood from their palms until they realize it’s red all the way down, and if you keep up you’ll just find yourself scouring bones.

“Well I guess Sara’s smarter than I thought,” Pluto says. “Only an idiot would sign up for this.” Then he laughs when Brookie hurls a fatty pink piece of pastrami at him, which makes him start coughing again.

“My mom cried when I volunteered,” Roosevelt says.

Brookie wrinkles her nose, like this is a weakness, a humiliation. “Really?”

“She knew I was in training to be a Career, obviously, but she never thought I’d actually go through with it. She was screaming and begging for me to take it back, as if that was an option. Once you volunteer, there’s no rescinding it.”

“Wish I had a choice in the matter,” Monty murmurs, swigging his pineapple juice. Briefly, Isla rests her head on his shoulder, and he smiles.

Roosevelt starts whistling a song, the one about a train called The City of New Orleans, chugging across the land as the red sun sets and the rail lines rust away. You exclaim: “You guys have that song in District 2?!”

“We have it in 12 too,” Pluto says.

“And 11,” Isla adds. “My grandma taught it to me. We sing it if we’re still out in the fields when dusk falls.” Then she amends, soft and wistful: “We used to, I mean.”

“That’s wild,” Brookie marvels. “My sister sings it to get her twins to sleep.”

“What’s New Orleans, anyway?” you say. “Does anyone know?”

“It’s a place, but it doesn’t really exist,” Roosevelt says. “It’s made up, like Atlantis or Detroit.”

“No, it’s real,” Monty says.

“Yeah right.”

“Seriously. It’s in District 11. Or it would be, I guess it’s underwater now. But every once in a while someone digs up an old green road sign and it’ll say fifty miles to New Orleans, or a hundred miles to New Orleans, or whatever.”

“Huh.” Roosevelt is gnawing on his beef jerky thoughtfully. “Montgomery is a place too, isn’t it?”

Monty nods. “It was important, but no one can remember why.”

Roosevelt turns to Pluto. “Is Pluto a place?”

“No, not that I’m aware of.”

“So your parents just hated you?”

Pluto chuckles placidly. “A lot of guys are named Pluto where I come from. Not sure what it means, though.”

“He’s the god of the dead,” Aemond says, and everyone startles and whirls to see that he’s standing behind you, his arms still crossed over his chest, his silver hair braided, his sapphire glinting under the harsh artificial light, the eye he has left steely. Tributes are ogling from other tables. No one speaks, so Aemond elaborates: “Pluto was the caretaker of souls and lived in the underworld. Coal miners work long hours down in the darkness and the dust. It’s not difficult to see where the association might have originated.”

Pluto gazes up at him, still thunderstruck. “Right,” he says eventually.

“God of the dead,” Roosevelt snickers. “Big shoes to fill, Pluto my man.”

Pluto titters nervously and coughs into his elbow. They all wait for Aemond to leave: another district’s mentor, an ill-wisher, a killer, a threat. But he doesn’t. He looks down at your plate, as if to make sure you’re eating. He is pleased to observe the toast crumbs that litter the white bone china. You smile up at him, and Aemond—although he doesn’t seem to have intended to—thaws a bit and smiles back.

“I’m…going to go get another pawpaw,” Isla says, rising from her chair.

“Yeah, totally, me too,” Brookie says as she hurries after her. Pluto and Monty mutter some pretexts and escape as well. Now only you and Roosevelt are left, and he shows no signs of retreat. He still has his shoes up on the table; he has at last finished his leathery strip of beef jerky and is licking his fingertips as he ponders Aemond. Aemond glares at him. Roosevelt blows him a kiss.

“Everything’s fine,” you assure Aemond.

Still, he doesn’t leave for a while, and when he finally does he does he stalks to the wall and glowers at Roosevelt from there. The mentor from District 10, Kerry, tries to strike up a conversation and Aemond ignores her. From the buffet, Isla, Brookie, Monty, and Pluto peer over at him like skittish deer, wondering whether it’s safe to return to the table.

“It’s not fair, you know,” Roosevelt says, although he doesn’t sound serious. “My mentor doesn’t want to fuck me, so he won’t try as hard.”

You hide your face behind a gulp of pineapple juice. “We haven’t done anything.”

“Of course you haven’t. Aemond is cold, and weird, and inanimate. Can you imagine him out of a suit? I bet he has another one on underneath. And another one after that.”

He’s more corporeal than you’d imagine, you think, recalling his red phone and feeling sick. “Do you remember his Games?”

“Definitely. You don’t?”

Vague echoing recollections: panes of glass, rippling blue light. “Most people in District 4 try to ignore the broadcasts as much as we can. If I saw anything from his year, I’ve since forgotten it.”

“The arena was incredible,” Roosevelt says, hushed, reverent. “They’ve been playing reruns of it on the news here, it was one of the best Games ever. They made this huge aquarium, maybe ten stories tall, with a walkway that spiraled down to the ground. So tributes claimed different parts of the path and then tried to defend their territory. But every once in a while a section of the floor would drop out from under a kid’s feet and they’d get dunked in a tank. Sometimes it was just sea turtles or fish, and they’d be able to claw their way back up onto the main walkway. But then in other tanks there were sharks or electric eels or barracudas. Once a floor panel fell away, it was never replaced, so the livable space gradually got smaller and smaller, with tributes scrapping over the islands. By the end of the Games, the tanks were so full of blood that the water was red instead of blue.”

You picture it, even though you don’t want to: Aemond at fifteen and bathed in scarlet light, dripping with saltwater, tacky with blood, stalking and savage.

Roosevelt plucks his butter knife off the table and starts twirling it absentmindedly. He’s a little slower than you are with a blade, you notice; but he’s quicker everywhere else. How could I kill him? How could I want to? “Aemond was a good swimmer, so that helped.”

“What weapon did he use?”

“He had a spear, but he ended up losing it in a shark tank. It sank to the bottom and he couldn’t get it back. He snapped a spine off a lionfish, and that’s what he used to stab that girl Sapphire to death.”

You flinch, a palpable and mortifying weakness. Why can’t I go home?

Roosevelt grins; it stretches slowly across his face until it is broad and toothy. “He wanted to live. That’s a big part of what makes someone a victor. You can’t cling to honor or decency. You can’t get tired, you can’t get soft. You have to want to live more than you want anything else.”

You watch him as he spins the butter knife: between his fingers, over his knuckles, back into his palm. “Roosevelt, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What?”

“That means go ahead. Ask your question.”

“Why did you volunteer?”

You expect him to laugh or to smirk, but he does neither. Instead he puts down the butter knife and glances to the buffet to make sure your friends are still at a distance. “Promise you won’t tell anybody?”

“Sure,” you say, puzzled.

He sighs and looks at you, dark eyes, constellations of freckles. “I like guys.”

At first you don’t know what he means. “Okay…?”

Roosevelt smiles. “No, I like guys the way you like guys.”

“Oh.” You stare at him, abruptly grateful that for all your hardships, that isn’t one of them.

“I mean, I like girls too. But I like guys more.”

“I get it,” you say, keeping your voice low so no one will overhear.

“Do you have people like me in District 4?”

“A few. They can’t get married or live together, but as long as they’re discrete they usually get left alone.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“No, it isn’t, I guess.”

“In District 2…we’re a military district, you know? We make weapons, we train Peacekeepers, we have more Careers than all the rest of Panem put together. There’s a very specific expectation of what it means to be a man, and if you deviate from that, there’s nothing for you there. But it’s different in the Capitol.” His dark eyes are suddenly alight, not with mischief or subterfuge but something so much worse: hope. “Nobody cares about who you sleep with or who you love. There are people like me who are generals and architects and Gamemakers and stylists and advisors to President Snow, even. I could have stayed where I was, but I’d be settling for only ever experiencing a tiny sliver of what the world has to offer. When I win, I can do anything.”

That’s not true, you think with despair. The Capitol won’t give you many choices. No victor has ever truly won. But what’s the point in telling him that now? It’s not as if he can go back and un-volunteer. And you don’t want to hurt him. You have no stomach at all for hurting people, which is inauspicious given the circumstances.

“I do miss my mom, though,” Roosevelt says, gazing down at the table, and for a second you think he might actually cry. Then he rakes his red hair back with his fingers and is dauntless again. “But I’ll see her soon. During my Victory Tour.”

“If you don’t want anyone to know why you volunteered, why did you tell me?”

“I figured you wouldn’t judge. And I don’t really expect you to last that long. No offense.”

“None taken. I think a lot of people agree.”

“I’m sorry you got mixed up in all this. You seem nice, you seem normal. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Thanks.” What is it like to have that sort of confidence? What is it like to look at these other kids and know in your bones that you can kill them? “Do you really think you’re going to win?”

“Process of elimination,” Roosevelt says brightly, then begins pointing around the cafeteria. “Hawk has bum kidneys. Sara is petrified. Brookie is good, but not as good as she thinks she is. You know your way around a knife, but you can’t fight, and as much as he’d like to Aemond can’t fix that in the next six days. I just had to figure out what to do about that monster from your district.”

You steal a glimpse of him: broad shoulders, shorn flaxen hair, bent across his table to listen closely to Jack’s lethal counsel. His royal blue sweatsuit matches yours, but you can’t call yourself teammates. You rarely speak at all. “How are you going to beat Commodore?”

“I’m going to let the arena kill him,” Roosevelt says. “He’s slow, but I can’t risk getting close. If he ever got a grip on me, he could break my arm or my leg or my neck, and then I’d be out of luck. But whatever the Gamemakers have cooked up will have traps. Weather, wildlife, terrain. He’s a big stupid ogre, I’ll just stay out of his way until he gets sucked into quicksand or skewered on pikes. Commodore-kebab.” He cackles, but you don’t get the reference.

“No one has any idea what the arena could be this year?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are some hints floating around. But I haven’t heard them. Anybody with an inkling knows that if the Capitol catches them sharing it, they’ll never do any talking again. If they get to live at all, they’ll be an Avox, tongue cut out and spending the rest of their life scrubbing floors and toilets.”

One of the trainers comes into the cafeteria and blows a whistle, and it’s time to go back to the gymnasium for the afternoon session. You expect Aemond to direct you to one of the stations like he usually does, throwing axes, turning potatoes into batteries, starting fires, making shelters, lifting weights, swinging swords. But he leads you to a treadmill instead.

“Because you’ve given up on me learning how to do anything else?”

“So that when the time comes, you can run,” he says, and then goes to take notes from his usual metal bench.

When the work for the day is done, Charm arrives to fetch Commodore. She’s made an appointment for him with his Prep Team, she insists he needs his skin exfoliated and moisturized again, that the arid climate here doesn’t agree with him. Charm is wearing a short red dress covered in tassels that resemble the tentacles of a sea anemone and crimson heels to match. Her earrings are fishhooks, and from each hangs a live bloodworm, wriggling and writhing, raining blood drops down onto her collarbones until tiny red lagoons form in the dips there. Charm and Commodore depart while you’re still saying goodbye to your friends, leaving you and Aemond to take the elevator back up to your suite alone.

In the metallic box that rises swiftly, Aemond stands as far away from you as he can. He gazes straight ahead at the closed doors as you keep glancing over at him, his hands in his suit pockets, his face stoic. You think of what he did for you yesterday—unexpected, unasked for, spectacular, selfless—and you can’t stop, even if he’s not touching you now, even if he won’t even look at you, even if the only sound is the mechanical hum of the elevator.

Are we really never going to talk about it? you think, deflated, dejected. Did I do something wrong? Did I repulse him, does he regret it?

Suddenly, Aemond reaches out and hits the red Emergency Stop! button on the panel, and the elevator lurches to a halt. Your eyes skate across Aemond’s left hand. A faint bruise still inks his ring finger, blood trapped by the pressure of your teeth. Now you’re remembering what it felt like, and your face and throat are ablaze beneath paper-thin skin, and your muscles are shifting as if he’s already offered to do it again, but that’s not what he does. “You can figure it out for yourself from now on, I assume,” Aemond says.

“You knew exactly what to do.”

“It’s a skill I’ve had to learn.” He taps his suit jacket, where you know there is a hidden pocket sewn into the lining for his red phone.

You are instantly nauseous, you sink like an anchor. “Now I feel terrible.”

“No, I didn’t mean...” At last, Aemond looks at you, and now his eye is not icy but kind, and familiar, and wanting to be understood. “I did that for you because I wanted to. It didn’t feel forced. It’s the only time I’ve ever had the luxury of choosing what would happen next.”

“That’s a relief,” you say softly, still wondering if you can touch him, if he would let you take his hand or if he would pull away, if it was only a gift or an act of mercy, or if it was a desire too.

“You said you’d never experienced it before, and I thought I could help.”

“Thank you, Aemond.”

“I’m sorry there’s not much I can do about the rest.”

Never getting married, never having children, never having… “That’s alright. I don’t think I’m ready for the…the whole thing.” It seems pretty impossible to fathom, actually; it’s not something you’ve been anywhere close to. You recall pushing in tampons before swimming and tentative probing in the dark of night, neither of which were ever even remotely pleasurable. Would it be different with a man? Depends on the man, probably, you think gloomily. If you live to find out, you won’t get to choose. “I really appreciate your…thoughtfulness.”

“I did it because I wanted to,” Aemond says again.

You peek at his left hand, no ring except for the bruise you left on him. He notices and hides both hands in his pockets once more. “Aemond, you aren’t married, are you?”

“No.”

“No girlfriend or anything?”

“I don’t think it’s easy for someone like me to maintain a genuine relationship. Who could love me and sit at home knowing I’m fucking other people? Who could be kind and gentle and understand what I did in the arena, what I do every single year when the Games come back around again?”

“It does sound difficult,” you admit feebly. You twist the knife that hangs from your neck, skim the whirls of your fingerprints over the silver sheath Aemond had made. He’s always helping me. Is that because it’s his job, or because he cares more than a mentor should?

“Some victors have families of their own. Mags does, Beetee does, and they do a decent job of keeping that part of their lives separate from the Games. It’s different for me.”

Because the Capitol wants him in a different way. The way they wanted Sirena, the way they already want me.

Aemond pivots. “Have you ever butchered a goliath grouper before?”

You raise your eyebrows. They’re enormous, they’re beasts. They’re like the dinosaurs kids in District 12 don’t learn about. “Once, a long time ago. Not alone. I helped Daddy.”

“Could you do it by yourself now?”

“I think so.” You reconsider. “Yes, I could do it. If you want me to.”

“Great. I’m going to get you one for your private training session where the Gamemakers will assign you a score. I want you to break down the carcass as fast as you can.” He smacks the Emergency Stop! button and the elevator resumes its ascent.

“Okay. I will.”

“And throw in a little something extra too.”

“Like what?”

“I trust you,” Aemond says. “You have good instincts.”

At first you don’t know what he means. What have you done so far besides prove hopeless at combat and wrath? You’ve smiled and waved to the crowds, you’ve blown kisses, you’ve sparkled when they were watching. But maybe that’s what the Capitol wants most from you.

So two days later, you are expecting it when you enter the gymnasium to find an eight-hundred pound goliath grouper suspended on a hook. As the Gamemakers observe from behind glass, you unsheathe your blade and cut with inborn speed, with innate surety. You dismantle the beast that’s bigger than a man: trimming the fins, gutting the cavity, following the lines of the ribs and the spine to slice away neat fillets until only the head and the skeleton remain, and then you decapitate the creature, sawing between the vertebrae until the bones clatter to the floor and the discorporate head gawps lifelessly, the hook impaled through its lower jaw.

Aemond has already drawn halfmoons of silver glitter beneath your eyes as you were coming down in the elevator. You remember Charm’s bloodworms and the gloss of crimson on her skin, and you wet your fingers with the grouper’s gore and paint your mouth with it, eyes that shine, lips that bleed.

Still clutching the mother of pearl handle of your knife, you flash a smile, blow a red kiss, sweep a low bow to the Gamemakers. They stand from their seats and applaud.

Charm is dressed for comfort, or at least as comfortable as she ever gets. She is curled up on the couch beside Commodore, her short golden hair secured in a silk scarf patterned with frothy turquoise waves, her dainty feet tucked into matching slippers. She is wearing a very fuzzy housecoat and her face slathered with a thick layer of transluscent green gel that smells like mint. In her lap is a large bowl of popcorn and little multicolored chocolate candies called Mars Morsels.

“Here, sea monster,” Charm says, and tosses a black Mars Morsel at Commodore. He catches it in his mouth and she claps in delight.

You and Aemond are on the other side of the couch, very quiet, very rigid, trying not to touch each other. You tell yourself not to think about him as you breathe his cologne and feel his warmth creeping towards you through the darkness, the only luminance coming from the television screen. Aemond accidentally relaxes for a moment and his knee bumps into yours; he promptly snatches it away and lights himself a cigarette with his cylindrical crystal lighter.

“Aemond, stop,” Charm scolds him, waving the smoke away with a hand that shimmers with rings. “You’ll give me wrinkles.”

The new hour arrives, and coverage on the television shifts from weather to the announcement of the training scores. All four of you sit up straighter, gazing into the pixelated glow. There is a panel arranged around a semicircular table: Caesar Flickerman, the host of the Games, and two victors to act as commentators, a very glamorous middle-aged woman from District 1 named Ruby Cervelt and the notorious Jackline Humboldt from District 4. Commodore perks up when he sees Jack; Aemond only frowns. He puts out his cigarette in an ashtray built into the armrest of the couch.

Caesar is making brief introductory small talk with his colleagues. “With only four days left until the 47th Hunger Games officially begin, do you think we’re getting a feel for this particular group of tributes?”

“Oh, it’s a great group, a great group!” Ruby trills with a frozen, plastic smile.

Jack grins, white teeth, flat reptilian eyes. “Yeah Caesar, you know, every year there are different personalities and a different chemistry, but I think this is shaping up to be a really interesting Games. We have some obvious favorites, but I think there will be more than a few surprises too.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Ruby coos banally. “You’re so right, Jack.”

“Is she drugged or what?” Charm says to Aemond.

He murmurs back: “You’d know.”

Caesar chuckles, holding a sealed red envelope aloft. “Speaking of surprises, should we see if there are any tonight?” Both Jack and Ruby cheer as he dramatically rips open the envelope. “We’ll go in numerical order as always, beginning with District 1.”

“And ladies first!” Ruby says.

“Yes, of course, we aren’t barbarians, are we? Ladies must always go first.” More laughter from the panel. You think morosely: If it had been ladies first on Reaping Day in District 4, I wouldn’t be here. Some other girl would have volunteered, and she wouldn’t have known she’d be traveling to the Capitol with Commodore until it was too late. “And our exceptionally lovely lady from District 1 this year is Brookite Barker…”

Each tribute is scored by the Gamemakers on a scale of 1 to 12, in honor of the number of districts that serve the Capitol. The only way to get a 1 is to be just north of a corpse. The only way to get a 12 is to be perfect. Functionally, an 11 is considered the highest score one can aspire to, and it is rarely bestowed upon a tribute, sometimes less than once per year. A lofty score can help attract sponsors, but it can also put a target on your back; if other tributes and their mentors think you’re the one to beat, they’ll often conspire to take you out of the running before turning against each other.

Brookie receives a score of 9, which you know she’ll be annoyed about. Ruby waxes on at great length about how beautiful Brookie is, and at last Caesar manages to corral her back on track. Hawk gets a 7, you assume because although he’s a Career, the Gamemakers know about the fact that his genetically condemned kidneys could decide to quit at any minute. Jack speaks highly of him and says he’s a nice guy.

But nice doesn’t win the Games, you think, watching the screen. Wanting to live does. Wanting to live more than being a good person, or being truthful, or being in possession of your own future and body and soul.

Next up is District 2. Sara gets an 8. Roosevelt gets a 10. Brookie is fuming for sure.

The girl from District 3, Kista, receives a score of 6. Tendo gets a 5. Jack cautions the audience not to overlook the technological prowess of District 3 tributes, and reminds them that Beetee won the 34th Games not so long ago.

Now it’s your turn, and there is a brief diversion as Caesar makes a comment about how brightly you sparkled during the Tribute Parade and the party hosted at Aemond’s house of glass. Ruby oohs and aahs as a few clips are shown. Jack just smiles tightly; if he has a favorite this year, it must be Commodore. Then Caesar reads your score from the Gamemakers: a 7.

Aemond exhales in relief; only now do you realize he’d been holding his breath. “That’s fine,” he tells you. “Top half. We can make it work.”

Charm agrees as she chomps on popcorn: “Not low enough to be hopeless, not high enough to attract negative attention. Well done.”

Caesar Flickerman continues: “And for the male tribute from District 4, Commodore, we have…oh my, what a development, the strapping lad Commodore has scored an 11!”

Charm yelps with joy and leaps up from the couch. “Fantastic! Incredible! Wonderful job, you whale shark of a boy!”

“Congratulations, Commodore,” Aemond says, but it sounds hollow.

Charm asks Aemond: “When was the last time District 4 had an 11?!”

“I don’t know.” He’s staring vacantly at the television screen, blue-white light on his scarred face, reflections strobing in his sapphire. “Not my year.”

“No, everyone underestimated you, didn’t they?” Charm grins. “And Jack only got a 10.”

On the screen, the aforementioned Jack is saying: “Now Caesar, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I must confess that this Commodore is a truly singular specimen. I’ve spent a lot of time training with him over the past week, and I think he’s the best tribute we’ve seen in years from any district. I think he’s more impressive than Aemond ever was. I think he might even have a brighter future than me.”

Beside you, Aemond makes a noise, halfway between a scoff and a sigh.

“You think you’re better than Jack?” Commodore says, glaring at Aemond from across the length of the couch. “You’re both victors, you’ve both killed people.”

Charm pats his arm, a mild reprimand. “Commodore, please—”

“I never enjoyed it,” Aemond says.

“What does it matter?” Commodore’s dark, deep-set eyes shine with clandestine intelligence, with needle-sharp betrayal. “If he can help me win, why would I care what his motivations are or if he’s a good person? Do you think I have the luxury of the moral high ground? I know you’d like to see me lying dead in that arena in four days, but I don’t plan to go out that way.”

Aemond stands and says to you: “Tell me about the rest of the scores tomorrow.” Then he crosses the ocean of shadows to his bedroom and slams the door as he disappears inside.

“You had to do that?” Charm says to Commodore, exasperated. “He’s been fair to you. He still has the power to help you. Don’t rattle him, he’s stressed enough!” She groans and then goes after Aemond, muttering about scores and arenas. She vanishes into the bedroom too and you can hear them talking in there, muffled voices, Aemond forceful and Charm accommodating.

You and Commodore watch the television in awkward silence. The rest of the scores are announced, with few noteworthy revelations. No one else gets above a 7 except Isla, who receives an 8, and you wonder what talents she’s been hiding. The lowest score goes to little Babylon from District 5, only twelve years old. You hope he’s not watching right now. You hope his mentor and escort are keeping him distracted, and he will sleep easily tonight, and he will dream of home, and he will wake believing it is possible to return there.

“Commodore,” you say softly, not knowing if he’ll answer. “Why did you volunteer?”

He stares straight ahead at the television and doesn’t speak for so long that you assume he never will. Then he looks at you and says: “I’ve always been big. I’ve always been ugly. People have always assumed that because I’m quiet, I’m stupid. I figured that if I’m going to be a freak anyway, I should have something to show for it. I can take the place of some other District 4 boy who would have gotten slaughtered in the arena. And I can have a life where people appreciate what I am.”

Oh God, you think, horrified, heartbroken. None of them know what winning really means.

“I don’t hate you or anything,” Commodore says. “I don’t really know you. I just…only one of us can win, right? And a lot of these other tributes…I could kill them if I had to, I think. But you’re from home. It just seems wrong. It seems like something people from our district would have a hard time forgiving. So when I keep my distance, that’s why.”

“I completely understand. No worries.”

Commodore offers you his hand, like you’re making a deal. When you shake it, he’s gentle, but your flesh and bones are eclipsed by his.

There are three days left until the Games.

The revelry is spiking like a fever here in the Capitol, and one last party is being held before the death march to the final hours: physical inspections to ensure all tributes are in the best possible condition, rest to make them fresh for the massacre in the arena, televised interviews with Caesar Flickerman.

When the car stops in front of President Snow’s mansion—rambling and white and surrounded by an extravagant garden illuminated by fairy lights, cold and colorless like stars—Charm and Commodore get out first. You stay in your seat thinking of home, your family, your house, your boat, your shoreline that you can never revisit. You reflexively twirl the knife that hangs from your throat by a long silver chain.

Aemond notices and says: “Are you doing that on purpose?”

You jolt back to reality and your hand goes still. “What? No, I’m just nervous.”

“Well don’t stop.” He gives you a smile and then climbs out of the car. You follow, out of the metal cage, into cool night air and clamoring crowds of Capitol elites with their faces powered white like ghosts, their claws long and polished, their hair arranged in impractical designs and dyed impossible colors.

You are immediately encircled by journalists, photographers, bright-eyed manic party guests. You beam and wave, because you need them to love you so they won’t let you get butchered in the arena. You are wearing a black ballgown, voluminous and difficult to walk in. Your exposed skin—blessedly, not too exposed tonight—is misted with silver glitter, your neck, your shoulders, your collarbones, your arms. The last step is always the same: Aemond draws glistening semicircles under your eyes with his thumbs, and you could do it yourself but you like that he does it. It makes you feel like you aren’t alone in this. It reminds you that to survive here, you must camouflage who you truly are and keep it secret, sacred.

“Oh, look how you sparkle!” a woman is sighing romantically, and then she reaches out to touch you, to scratch at the shimmering metallic flecks on your shoulder to see if she can dislodge them. You try to keep smiling as you flee from her. Through the crowd, you can see Commodore being manhandled as well, his colossal arms pinched and squeezed. He wears a roomy suit patterned with sequined orcas. Charm is beside him attempting to divert the assailants; she is dressed like a sea urchin, long dark spines stabbing in every direction, false eyelashes like black daggers.

“Aren’t you lovely?” grinning men keep saying as you try to pass by them, fumbling with the skirt of your gown and your high heels, always smiling, always sparkling. “Aren’t you lovely? Aren’t you lovely?”

Then you catch them hissing to each other: “The fruit is already ripe, no need to wait for this one.”

“There’s just something about a District 4 girl, I don’t know if it’s the sun or the ocean air or what…”

“Isn’t she perfect? Dangerous enough to keep things interesting. Fragile enough to still be a damsel in distress.”

“Always smiling like that and blowing kisses, she’s a total tease.”

“Every time they show her on the tv, I get hard as a fucking rock…”

You think to yourself as loudly as possible as you stumble across the cobblestones and towards the grand entranceway: They aren’t looking at me. They’re looking at the sparkles. They don’t know me, they can’t see me, they can’t touch me—

Except that they can, and people are raking their fingernails through your hair, and laughing as they try to scour the glitter from your skin, and grabbing your waist, and even though you know you can’t you’re about to break your composure when Aemond finds you in the tumultuous sea and replaces their hungry hands, presses a palm into the small of your back, smiles and nods diplomatically to the hoard as he gradually leads you away.

Aemond takes you not up the front steps into the mansion but across the yard towards the garden, and by the halfway point your lungs and heart are beginning to slow from a frenzy to a murmur. Sprinklers are watering the lawn, fine mist and kaleidoscopic fogbows, light in dark places. Aemond is wearing a black suit, simple but precisely tailored. Half of his moonshine hair is pulled back from his face while the rest flows freely; his sapphire glints under the twinkle lights.

A woman in a magenta dress approaches, and Aemond stops and removes his hand from you. You stand there on the lush damp grass, mystified, as the woman cups his face and strokes his scar, her clawlike pink fingernails lustrous.

She grins and says: “I remember watching you get this.”

Aemond’s voice is like you’ve never heard it before, purring and servile. “It was worth it, if it led me to you.”

“Call me.”

“I will. I’ve wanted to. I’ve been so busy, you know, this time of year…”

Now the woman turns to you, no jealousy, only curiosity…and maybe a dash of pity too. “You really want to save this one.”

“She’s too kind,” Aemond says, and he sounds like himself again. He sounds like he’s telling the truth. “She shouldn’t be here. Still eligible for the Games by less than twenty-four hours, terrible luck. It feels intolerably cruel.”

“I can help.”

“I knew you would. You’re a saint.”

She chuckles, genuine fondness glowing in her eyes. “Oh, Aemond. You and your saints and your gods and your ruins.” Then she sashays away and into the mansion, pausing twice to glance back at Aemond before she is gone, and each time he waves. But as soon as she’s out of sight his whole demeanor changes, his shoulders collapse and his face falls, and he trudges onwards until you reach a towering marble fountain at the edge of the garden.

Aemond sits on the rim and lights a cigarette, smoke drifting skyward to vanish into the indigo and the stars. You join him, and it’s hard to see the plants that surround you in the darkness, thorny knots of roses and vast unfurled orchids. You gaze up at the statue in the center of the fountain, a naked man wielding a trident and encircled by horses.

“Who is that?” you ask.

“Neptune. The god of the sea.”

“How many gods are there?”

He smiles tiredly. “Depends on who you ask, I guess.”

You don’t want to know. You have to know. “Aemond, what happens if I win?”

“Right afterwards?” he says, taking a drag. “They’ll take a few days to scrub you clean and treat any injuries, let you eat, let you sleep. They’ll put you under constant surveillance to make sure you don’t do anything to damage the merchandise. Then there will be an auction.”

“What?” You gape at him, certain you’ve misheard. “An auction? People bidding on me?”

Aemond gazes down into the dark rippling water, unable to look at you. “Just for the first time. You aren’t involved, it takes place over the phone and brokers handle it. You just show up once it’s over.”

“Once someone has paid to sleep with me.”

Softly, like it pains him: “Yes.”

“And…this person…are they…?” The very first time? With some stranger, with someone like those men who paw and leer? “Will they be gentle?”

Aemond flicks ashes away and says nothing.

“Aemond?”

He hesitates. “There’s an adage. ‘Victor’s blood.’ The sort of men who participate in those auctions, they say that, and there’s…a measure of pride associated with it.”

“Blood, like, my blood?” That can’t be right. At some point, the nightmare has to end. “They’re going to try to hurt me on purpose so they can tell people they made a killer bleed?”

Aemond nods, still not looking at you, rubbing his scarred forehead as embers burn at the end of his cigarette. “But it’s only the first time. Then you’re given a red phone like mine, and you settle into a routine, and it gets a little easier.”

“And these men who buy me…will I have to have their children?”

“You might. If you conceive, then yes.”

“Do you have children?”

He flinches, exhales a low moan. “Why would you want to talk about this?”

“Because I thought you wanted me to know what winning means, I thought we didn’t have any secrets, so I’m just trying to understand!”

“Yes, I have children,” Aemond confesses, like extracting a molar with deep gory roots.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve seen them playing at parks and walking to school, little kids who look like me, and I’ve recognized their mothers, and I…”

You start sobbing, not just from misery, not just from fear, but from the inescapable horror of everything here, even worse than people think it is, even worse than you could have imagined, and there is no other world for you, you have to make the best of this one, but what is the best you can hope for? To die swiftly and painlessly in the arena? To survive to be bought and violated and forced to train tributes to torture each other year after year?

“Don’t,” Aemond whispers, and turns your face so he can whisk your tears away. “You can’t let them see you upset.”

“I’m sorry,” you sob, unable to stop.

“You’re going to fuck up your makeup.”

“I’m sorry,” you repeat helplessly.

“I would do anything to change the way all of this works,” Aemond says, and his words are desperate, and his pale blue eye is begging you to forgive him for something he didn’t do. “But I can’t. I can’t change the Games, and I can’t change what happens afterwards. But I swear that I will stay with you through all of it, and I will help you as much as I can. I know you want to live. I want you to live too. So please let me help, and don’t forget how badly you wanted a chance to survive when I met you.”

“Okay,” you whimper. “Can we go to your house?”

“What?”

“I just want to go there for a while. Someplace quiet. Someplace safe.” Someplace that’s yours.

“We can go there,” Aemond says, a bit bewildered. “But we have to talk to the people here first, alright?”

“Alright.”

Aemond offers you his cigarette, and at first you don’t understand why. He smiles. “Give it a try. Can’t hurt at this point.”

He’s just trying to distract you, but it works. You grab the cigarette, burned nearly all the way down, and take an uncertain drag with a shaking hand. It’s awful, dark and bitter, and you cough and gasp for air, but it makes you start laughing. Aemond laughs too.

“You looked very cool there for about two seconds,” he says.

You toss the end of the cigarette into the churning water of the fountain. “How the hell do you smoke those?”

“You get used to it.” He stands and holds out a hand, his left, still discolored by the bruise on his ring finger. “You can get used to just about anything.” You take his hand and walk with him into the mansion.

Aemond stays with you like a shadow, and now the party guests don’t touch you quite so much, and they don’t just comment on the training score you received from the Gamemakers or the knife swinging at your breastbone or how brightly you sparkle. They also keep saying how good you and Aemond look together, and like wolves their eyes gleam and their incisors drip with saliva, men fantasizing about taking you from him, women scheming to drag him away from you, journalists scribbling notes and cameras flashing. You see the other tributes enduring their own trials—Brookie suffering the caresses of old men, Roosevelt being commanded to do tricks like an animal—but it isn’t so bad for them, because they believe that once they win the Games they’ll be free.

When you and Aemond get in a car to leave, he gives the driver an address that isn’t the Tribute Center where you’ve been living since you arrived in the Capitol, every day full of new hopes and new terrors. His house is just as you remember it, empty and echoing, transparent walls; only the bathrooms and bedrooms have misted glass so they can’t be so easily spied into.

Is that to discourage people from touching him? you think as you wander from room to room, clicking along in your heels, going slowly so you won’t trip on your gown. Aemond follows you, his hands in his suit pockets, not entirely sure what you’re doing here. His strange skinny dogs pad alongside him. So guests won’t try to undress him in the kitchen or the dining room or in front of his case of treasures?

You enter a room that is bare except for a single pink couch. You settle into the cushions as the dogs gaze up at you, long solemn faces and scrutinizing eyes. “Sit with me,” you say.

Aemond does, mystified but intrigued. He’s close enough that he’s touching the voluminous skirt of your black gown.

“Why are your dogs so weird looking?”

He laughs, and you think: Why couldn’t we have met in District 4? “They’re Salukis, they’re one of the oldest dog breeds in the world.”

“Did they live in Ancient Egypt?” you say, remembering what he told you about mummies and pharaohs and pyramids.

“They very well might have, yes.”

“Tell me more about this place Ancient Egypt.”

So he does, but you don’t listen as much as you watch him, the way he smiles like the Games don’t exist, the way his eye is blue like the desert sky, or the Nile River, or turquoise mined from the Sinai Peninsula. Why did we have to meet here? Why must we both be trapped in our own tombs?

“Aemond, why did you volunteer?”

“You’ll know soon. You’ll meet him.”

Him? “I’ll meet who?”

But Aemond doesn’t respond. He pets one of his skeletal dogs instead, scratching the silky fur of its ears. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

You look around the sparse room, the barren house. “You could make this homey, you know.”

Aemond smiles, just a phantom of one. “What would you do with it?”

“Well…my sister Misty ties sailing knots, and she arranges them into all these marvelous shapes. Dolphins, manta rays, sea horses, lobsters. So I’d hang some on the walls. Misty makes rugs too, you could use a few of those. And we could get vases and fill them with seashells from District 4, and make windchimes for the front porch and the backyard. And we could go fishing on Daddy’s boat and keep our best catches, sailfish and sharks, have them preserved and mounted. And I would go to the market, or…whatever you have here in the Capitol.”

“A Megamart. You’d love it, a hundred different kinds of fish.”

“Right. I’d try out all sorts of recipes and I’d learn what your favorites are. And we’d have dinner together every night, just like my family does. And when you had to leave…” When the red phone rings, and you have to answer. “I’d never ask about where you’d been. I’d just tell you, whenever you came back, that I’m glad you’re home.”

Aemond shakes his head, and his eye is slick and horrorstruck as the mirage shines so vividly and then dissolves away, and his voice is only a whisper. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

You cross the empty air to him, drape your arms around his neck, and as you fold into his chest he catches you, thunderous heartbeat, careful hands. “Aemond, do you want me to win because I’m from your district?”

“No.”

“Or because I remind you of Sirena?”

“No.”

“I guess we should go back to the Tribute Center soon.”