#highgarden

The carriage ride feels longer than the voyage that first took you to Highgarden, but this time there is no veil, no lavender perfume, no bridal nerves tucked into your gloves. You wear your riding leathers beneath a heavy velvet cloak, the color too rich for a woman with no husband and no name. Your hands are bare. Your hair unadorned. Your mouth still set in that same quiet line, the one you learned to hold when the Reach looked at you like a storm they couldn’t contain.

The Red Keep has not changed since you left it. It rises above the city like a red god, towering and unyielding, its shadow spreading from the spiked towers to the streets below. The stones still glisten like blood when the sun hits them, casting an amber glow before dusk. The air still smells of oil and fire, a familiar tang of smoke and iron and promises burnt to ash. The guards still stiffen when you pass, their eyes bright with curiosity, unsure whether they should bow or look away and pretend they’ve not seen you. You catch your reflection in a shield as you walk through the gate, beneath the portcullis where you last saw the glint of sunlight on Aemond’s hair. You look like someone they thought was gone. A hush spreads in your wake, rippling through the corridors, a sweet echo of scandal that follows you like a shadow. Maids pause with linens half-folded. Courtiers shift and whisper as you pass, their conversations frozen. Your mother’s ladies offer faint, artificial smiles, the tilt of their heads betraying their impatience to be the first to tell her. You can hear the murmur before it reaches your ears. She’s back. She’s failed. She’s still childless. She was too proud, they say. Too cold. They say it in whispers, in glances, in silence that is more damning than words. They say the same things in King’s Landing that they said in Highgarden. Like a song passed from one musician to the next, they keep playing the same refrain. You recognize it all.

They know the match was political, a symbol more than a promise, a show of good faith as useless as a gilded parchment. That your wedding was a masterpiece of civility and nothing more. That Ser Lyonel Tyrell—gentle, golden, delicate—never once reached for you in the dark. That the garden never bloomed. That the Tyrells petitioned for annulment with grace and urgency, their letters riddled with concern for your soul. No heir. No bedding. No shame, only regret, tendered with the precision of an accountant’s ledger or a merchant’s bill of sale. And underneath it all, the unspoken truth: you were never meant to be someone’s wife. You were meant to be their burden. Their lesson. Their problem to solve.

When you left King’s Landing, you were Alicent’s daughter. Now you are something less and something more. The one who failed. The one who came back. The one who belongs nowhere except where others don’t want her.

You enter the throne room alone. No handmaid, no brother at your side, no welcoming line of lords eager to claim your favor. You walk with your spine straight, your chin lifted, each step purposeful. You expect to be ignored. Perhaps tolerated. Perhaps pitied.

You are not prepared for Aemond. Not for the way he commands the room like a lord, like a dragon, like something both regal and dangerous. The years have sculpted him into a stranger, one who stands just below the dais and a little apart from the others, his body angled toward the Iron Throne as if it belongs to him. His eye catches yours the moment you appear. You feel it—a burning and intrusive stare, hot and direct and deeply unfamiliar, as if he’s picking you apart, inspecting each piece polished or flawed. He is taller, much taller, than you remember. His shoulders broader, his stance lethal and still. The sapphire gleams cold and pitiless where his eye once was, a bright gem that seems to see everything, to miss nothing. His jaw is sharp now. His mouth cruel and knowing.

He wears the black of the court like armor, as if the velvet and silk could shield him from insurgents and assassins, and the longsword at his hip is heavy, solid, not for show. He watches you like a man appraising a threat, ready to draw blood, and when his lips curl, it is not in welcome.

You pause at the edge of the hall, and the years pause with you. Your gloves remain on. Your expression does not falter. But something inside you stills, freezes, like a river in winter.

Aemond doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t acknowledge you before others can see. He lets the others gather near, shields himself with their presence. Lord Beesbury greets you with a thin, perfunctory smile, obscured by his drooping white mustache. Ser Harrold offers a nod, polite and stiff as his back. The queen smiles and, with effort, makes it convincing. No one mentions the annulment. Not yet. Not in front of Aemond, who watches it all with quiet, simmering amusement.

Then, slowly, with intention and certainty, Aemond steps forward.

He does not bow. He does not smile. “Lady Maidenflower,” he says, just soft enough that only you hear it, enough that it stings.

You turn your head just slightly, exactly enough to make him feel the weight of your reply. “Still clever, I see.”

His eye sweeps over you like a blade. He is not hiding the weight of it, the roughness of the cut. “You returned untouched, then. I’d wondered.”

“Lyonel Tyrell was a poet,” you reply, because you have sharpened your own edges. “Not a fool.”

“Poets rarely have the stomach for conquest.”

You meet his gaze without blinking, without flinching, though your heart still remembers how to race. “And you’ve always had too much of it.”

“I was twelve when you left.”

You tilt your head, and the movement is easy, graceful, scornful. “You still are, most days.”

That earns you a smirk, slow and deliberate, a lord’s smirk. A dragon’s. “Not anymore.”

He takes a single step closer. You don’t move. You let him come.

The pause between you stretches, heavy and hot and alive with unspoken challenges and renegotiated terms. His eye dips to your mouth, and it is not quickly, not politely, not as a brother should. When it rises again, it lingers.

You turn before he can speak again, before he can make you doubt or remember. You offer him no parting glance, no farewell. But you feel it as you walk away—his stare on your back, weighty and hungry. Not a boy’s gaze. Not a brother’s.

Let him look. Let them all.

You did not come back for their sympathy or to stand around, shrinking, while they trample your pride. The thought of wilted and drooping pity is almost amusing, withered and limp like Highgarden’s banner when the wind dies, and you refuse to let it gather at your feet like a folder of discarded marriage contracts. You returned because the summons meant something. Because they wanted you here. Because the annulment meant nothing. Because they are beginning to remember who you are and what you are worth. The realm has no place for a woman like you—a woman with no husband and no duty and no shame to parade—except when it needs one. You are still a dragon’s daughter, flames running molten where other women leave room for fear, and it seems they’re starting to recall the heat of their own blood. They thought a marriage would change you. That the Reach would wear you smooth and pliable. That seven years of silence would make you weak, complacent, eager to return with their leash around your neck. They were fools. You have not softened. You have stripped away everything unnecessary. You have become what you always should have been: scaled, certain, and dangerous. Aemond would be a fool, too, if he still believes he knows the girl who left. If he thinks the same breathless, reckless fool of a girl stands before him, he is welcome to try and find her, to search and search and find nothing at all. He will not.

It’s a few days before you see him again. Long enough that the ache dulls, the whispers shift, the court forgets to look twice. You don’t. You feel him in every corridor. His stare in the back of your skull. The words he didn’t say sitting heavier than the ones he did. You don’t seek him out. Not really. But when the sound of clashing steel drifts through the windows one morning, sharp and furious, your feet carry you there before you can stop them.

The yard is already thick with the sound of clashing steel and barked commands by the time you arrive, drawn not by curiosity but by the unmistakable pitch of Aemond’s voice, rising above the rest. You round the corner and find him standing over a boy barely older than twelve, sword in hand, patience worn thin. The boy is sweating and panting, bleeding lightly from the lip. Aemond says something low enough you can’t catch, but the tone carries and your stomach knots.

"Enough."

Aemond doesn't turn right away. The boy does, blinking at you like he's been thrown a lifeline, desperate and unsure. You step down into the yard without pausing, hands still gloved, shoulders squared, a defiance in each step. You know Aemond sees you, but he remains fixed over the boy, as if your presence is a small interruption. As if you are the one who should wait. As if waiting for the exact moment when his controlled apathy strikes deepest. He finally shifts, looking over his shoulder with slow, deliberate disinterest.

"You are not his commander," you say, your voice sharp and unyielding.

"I am his prince."

You take another step. "And you're still picking fights with boys too small to fight back."

That gets his attention. His eye catches yours and holds. The cut is deep, unrelenting, meant to wound. A quiet breath passes through the onlookers. No one moves. The boy backs away quickly, too smart to stay where the lightning is about to strike. Aemond sheathes his sword, but only halfway. His smirk is faint but not amused, a taunt that is both familiar and new.

"Would you like to teach him, then?"

You tilt your head. "I'd rather teach you."

His smile sharpens. "Then show me."

The court knows you well enough not to question it when you shrug off your cloak and take the spare sword from the rack. Your tunic is laced tight, boots steady, sleeves rolled. You are ready before they realize it, before you realize it yourself. You know the forms, the weight of the steel, the cadence of Aemond's skill. But you don't know the way the court watches now, not with surprise but with certainty, as if expecting exactly this. As if you haven't been gone seven years. Aemond stretches his neck as you step to the center. He doesn't offer the usual salutation. You don't bow.

When you strike, it's without warning. It feels right. Quick. Merciless. He parries fast, steel hissing, and the first clash draws a ripple from the men watching. You dance around him, light on your feet, quicker than he expects. It is a dance you thought you'd forgotten. The rhythm is familiar but off. He's faster now. Stronger. You are sharper. Angry. His blade grazes your shoulder. Yours slices along his side. He doesn't flinch. You don't, either. The heat builds quickly, sweat blooming beneath your collar. He presses harder, with more force, more insistence, more precision than the boy you thought you remembered. You give ground only to take it again. You used to beat him with speed, with patience, with quick, calculated precision. Now he meets you at every turn, matching blow for blow, circling like a predator who knows exactly where to bite.

How much he’s changed. How much he hasn’t.

How much you have.

When he finally gets you on your back, it's not clean. You stumble on loose gravel. He takes advantage, a fierce flicker of triumph in his eye. Your sword hits the dirt. Everything that’s happened since you left King’s Landing—the whispers, the annulment, the letters filled with false concern, the look on his face when you returned—everything that should have made this easy pinches sharp inside your lungs, more painful than his grip. His boot lands between your legs, arm braced against your throat. Not choking. Just holding.

Too close. An echo you can’t outrun.

You expect him to move. He doesn't.

His breathing is rough. So is yours. You can feel the sweat on his wrist, the heat of his body over yours. You look up. His hair is wild. His eye is burning.

"Still think I'm just a boy?"

You don't answer. His grip tightens just slightly. His fingers brush your jaw. He leans in, slow and sure, gaze locked to your mouth like it means something.

You shove him. Hard. He stumbles back, laughter spilling from his chest, not loud but knowing, as if you just gave him the answer he wanted. You roll to your feet before anyone can help you. Your chest is heaving, cheeks flushed, skin hot. You don't look at anyone else as you retrieve your sword and your pride.

"Lesson over?" he calls.

The pause stretches between you. You don’t let it hold. You shrug on your cloak with deliberate ease, the same ease you’ve cultivated since you returned. The hush follows you back into the keep. You feel his eyes like fingers pressing into your skin, a touch that lingers and burns and doesn’t fade when you reach the corridor.

It’s still there at supper. Fresh, insistent. No one else notices the bread you don’t eat, the soup that cools in your bowl, the wine you drink without tasting. You’re the only one who hears the hollow ring of his boot against your sword, echoing through the hall with every half-heard whisper. It doesn’t soften when your mother asks if you’re well, when the maids bring the third course, when the candles burn low. When your mother tells you it was wise to come home, you nod, polite and unconvincing. You take your leave, and the walls feel closer, the halls longer, the air colder.

You don’t think of him. You don’t think of the weight of his body, the feel of his fingers on your jaw. You’re only thinking of the cold when you tighten your laces, only thinking of the chill when you pace the length of your room. The scratch of the quill in the chamber next to yours is louder than you’d like, and the letters on your desk are too frantic and familiar to answer. You are not restless. You are thoughtful.

You think so hard you don’t realize you’ve left your chambers until you find yourself walking without thinking, past the solar, up the stairs, down the hall to the wing where he sleeps. You don't plan it. You don't knock.

You push the door open without a plan, breath quick and shallow from the unguarded walk. He’s there, not surprised, not even questioning your intrusion. Shirtless, lounging in a chair by the hearth, legs spread, as comfortable and confident as if he owned the place. He might as well. The heat of the fire licks the dampness from his hair. A goblet of wine sits comfortably in his hand; his sword rests close by, in easy reach. He looks up at you with an expression that feels both new and old, the same practiced disregard you once swore would never cut you again. Like he expected this. Like he’s been waiting. 

"Come to finish what we started?" 

Your throat tightens. Something in your chest does, too. The echo of it ricochets in your bones, and you shut the door with more force than you mean to. The sound is too loud, too final, but not enough to break the smile on his face. 

"You embarrassed me in the yard," you say. There's a catch in your voice you hope he doesn't hear. You step closer. He hums, not quite a laugh. Almost. 

"You embarrassed yourself." 

You bite back a retort. He watches you try, waiting for the hollow bite of it, waiting for something deeper. 

"You put your hand on me." The words taste more bitter than you expect, and he hears it. You know he does. He shrugs, the carelessness deliberate, and finishes the rest of the wine in a single, slow swallow. 

"You didn't tell me to stop."

Anger and something else lances through you, sharp and unmistakable. A flower blooming violent beneath your skin. "You're not a child anymore," you say. "Fine. But you are still beneath me." There's satisfaction in that. A small thrill. He sets the goblet down with a thin click, the faint trace of red staining the rim. His smile returns, slow and sharp, more a weapon than a jest. 

"Not where it counts."

You don't think, just move, a breathless reckless fool, too sure and too hurt to stop yourself. Your palm cracks across his face and his head turns with the force of it. The wine sloshes in his goblet when you strike him, but he does not drop it. He sets it down on the table carefully, eyes glittering with something you don’t recognize. He looks back at you with a hunger you've never seen before. A hunger that burns like dragon’s blood, searing and inscrutable. Not in him. Not from anyone. 

"Again," he says.

Your breath catches. There's no air in this room, this keep, this entire place. You stare at him. His smile flickers wider when you don't answer. You don’t have to. He knows. He knows. You step closer, and he rises from the chair as you do, caught on the same pull. The distance vanishes faster than you mean it to. Faster than you can stop. Fury frays and threads you together. The space between you disappears quick and final and damning.

"You think you've won something?"

He shrugs, every inch of his body unwound and lithe. "You came here."

"To remind you of your place."

"Remind me, then."

He moves too quickly. Or maybe you move too slow. His hands catch your waist and your spine hits the door hard enough to steal your breath. The night explodes in stars behind your eyes. He doesn't press. Doesn't hurt. Just holds you there with his body, chest against yours, breath hot on your cheek, the heat of him impossible to escape. You grab his wrist, digging in, nails biting soft skin. He holds the wince behind his teeth, gaze fixed on you like he'd die before looking away. 

"Let go of me."

The words are hard. 

"Lyonel never touched you, did he?"

Your hand tightens on his wrist, so hard it shakes. You slap him again, harder this time, and the crack of it splits in the air between you, a current setting stone to fracture. 

He laughs.

"Again," he says. 

You don't. But gods, you want to. You want to and you hate it and you hate him and you turn and leave before you remember how to breathe.

You leave him there with the taste of your own fury still on your tongue. Your hand aches. So does your chest. You don’t look back. You don’t sleep. Not really. You lie awake and stare at the ceiling, the canopy of your bed a cage you can’t escape, can’t untangle. His voice plays over and over in your mind. Lyonel never touched you, did he. The worst part is how softly he said it. Like a secret. Like a truth. Like he knew exactly where to cut, exactly where to let the worst of it bleed.

The candles burn low in your chambers. The chill nips at your windowpanes. You don’t feel it. You feel the ghost of Aemond’s fingers on your hips, his breath on your cheek, the tremor beneath his skin. Everything you thought you buried comes rushing back, rushing through you, rushing until it cleaves the air from your lungs. Why did you return? Why did you think you could stay away? You are not restless. You are not impatient. You are thoughtful, but that thought is wrapped around him like a noose. Like a bruise. Like a bright, sharp hope.

You came to win. You’ve already lost.

By morning, the bruises are already forming beneath the surface of your skin. The memory of Aemond's touch blooms purple and dark, echoes of his fingertips wrought in flesh. You wish the sensation of him would fade as fast. It doesn't. The court is louder now. You feel it in every corridor, every room, every shift in posture when you enter. It clings to you, an invisible murmur that grows teeth. No one says your name, but they don’t need to. You returned without a husband. Without a child. Without a claim worth anything except shame. You were sent to the Reach to secure the realm and came back with nothing but silence. So now they whisper.

She must have refused him.

She must have failed.

She must have been too difficult to want.

The echoes are just as loud as the words. Each clever jab works its way beneath your skin, seeds of doubt taking root and sprouting vines you can't cut through. Even your mother looks at you differently. Her voice is soft, but her eyes are measuring. The warmth she once kept for you has cooled into caution, as if your return might stain her skirts if you stand too close. Her questions come dressed as concern, but you know the shape of judgment. And the ladies at court, the ones who used to play cyvasse and braid your hair, now look through you like you’re made of smoke. They weave tales you can’t quite hear, tales that bleed from one mouth to another, tales whose edges are sharp and cutting.

They don’t ask, but their silence does. What did she do wrong? Was he kind? Did she cry? Did he ever touch her at all? Or did she come back just as she left, proud and unspoiled and completely alone?

You do not answer them. You do not give them the truth they seek, the truth that tugs too close to the center of you. You walk through the halls like nothing has changed, like you are still the same creature you were before. You are not. Aemond says nothing to you in court. He does not look your way unless others are watching, and even then, it is brief. Quick enough to pass as something else. But you can feel it. He lets the rumors curl around you like smoke, never once bothering to stop them. He could silence it. One word from him and the court would fall quiet. But he doesn't. He listens. He watches. He waits.

You find him in the yard again, a few days after the incident in his chambers. He's alone this time. No one dares train with him lately, not since the last sparring match left a knight concussed. He moves with that same quiet precision, that same lethal grace. The sun catches the sweat at his temple, his shirt already discarded and thrown to the side. Your skin prickles at the sight, at the memory of him even more unguarded, even more certain. You should leave. You don't.

You don’t know what you mean to say when you see him there, when you watch him move and remember the way he looked at you, the way he still looks at you. You don’t know what you mean to do when you feel the full weight of his indifference, of the stories he lets the court tell. But you are moving before you can talk yourself out of it. Before the bruises fade, before this second return becomes as hollow as the first. You are moving and it feels like a mistake, but you’ve already made that mistake before, already seen what comes of it. There's no going back. This time, you mean to win.

He sees you before you speak. Of course he does. He always does.

“You following me now?” he says without looking up.

“I could say the same.”

His blade drops slightly. “You never used to lurk.”

“You never used to be worth watching.”

He turns at that, slow and smooth. “Didn’t stop you before.”

You ignore the heat crawling up your neck. “I gave the orders. You followed them.”

“You think that’s still true?”

“You think it’s not?”

“You dragged me through the mud. Screamed at me in front of knights twice my size.”

“And you listened.”

He steps in close. “Try it now. See if I still do.”

Your breath catches. His voice drops, soft and deliberate.

“They say no man ever wanted you. That Tyrell barely looked at you. That you came back untouched because no one could stand the thought.”

You don’t answer. You don’t move.

He tilts his head, close enough to touch. “Is that why you hate me looking?”

“Because you’re not supposed to.”

He smiles, slow and awful. “I can’t stop.”

He steps closer, closing the gap with a slow, sure determination. You don’t move. You don’t even flinch. His face is inches from yours now, and everything about him pulls you in and splits you apart. You can smell the leather of his gloves, the salt on his skin, the faint scent of iron and heat. His hand lifts slowly. You feel the brush of his fingers at your jaw, soft, testing, like he’s taking measure of the space between breath and need and wanting. You could slap him again. You could turn and walk away. You don’t. Your breath is shallow. He watches your mouth. 

You step back. You leave. You don’t speak. You don’t run. You walk away with your back straight and your heart hammering in your ribs like it’s trying to claw out. 

That night, you dream of him. Of course you do. You dream of his mouth, the cut of his lips, the press of his body hot and unrelenting against yours. You dream of his hands, the rough drag of his fingers on your cheek, your skin, your throat. The way his voice dropped low, soft and deliberate. The way his voice dragged low when he said your name. You wake tangled in your sheets, flushed and furious and aching, and you cannot tell whether you want to kill him or keep him. 

It starts with silence. It starts with rooms you pretend not to linger in, corridors you just happen to walk through, doors you pass more slowly than you should. It starts with you lying to yourself—small, careful lies you don’t quite believe. You don’t mean to look for him. That’s what you tell yourself. You don’t mean to, not at first. Not at first, but you find him anyway. 

He’s in the yard. He’s in the hall. He’s at the table, two seats down, eating grapes one by one like they mean something. Every time you look up, he’s already watching. 

You tell yourself it’s nothing. That you are only keeping an eye on him. That someone has to. That it might as well be you. But the lie doesn’t last. Not when the heat flares again behind your ribs every time he speaks. Not when you walk past the training yard and stop to watch. Not when your name comes from his mouth and you have to swallow hard before answering.

You avoid him. Until you don’t.

You find him at the edge of the godswood, on a day when the sun beats down like a curse and the wind is too warm, your thoughts too loud and insistent. He’s leaning against the old heart tree like it belongs to him, as if it's only there to hold him, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His head is tilted up to the canopy, eyes closed, jaw sharp. He hears you long before you mean to speak. Even from a distance, you feel the weight of his awareness. As you move closer, he turns slowly, the light catching on the scar beneath his eye, the gleam of the sapphire where it settles. He watches you like he’s been waiting.

"You’ve been restless," he says. "I can tell."

"You don’t know anything about me."

He pushes off the tree and takes a step forward. "I know you come looking for me and pretend you don’t."

You set your jaw. "You think too highly of yourself."

"No," he says, a crooked grin on his lips, closer now. "I think exactly enough."

You take a step back. He follows.

"What do you want?" he asks, voice low.

You hate the question. You hate that he asks it like he knows you don’t have the answer.

"Nothing from you."

He circles you now, slow and deliberate. "You used to look at me like I was a boy. Now you look at me like I might bite."

"Maybe I think you should be put down."

He laughs, a soft huff that barely leaves his throat.

"Do you know what it did to me?" he says. "You left. Married some wilted flower. Let him look at you like a prize he’d never unwrap."

You flinch. He sees it.

"He didn’t even try, did he?"

You snap before you can stop yourself. "No. He didn’t. He was afraid. They all are."

The words hang between you like smoke, pulled from the center of you, unplanned and brutal. You breathe them in and try not to choke. Aemond steps closer. His voice goes quiet.

"I’m not."

You shake your head. You want to run. You don’t. He lifts his hand, not touching you yet, just hovering near your cheek.

"Say the word," he says, "and I’ll make you forget every man who ever disappointed you."

You slap him. His head snaps to the side, but he doesn’t recoil. He lets out a sound that freezes you in place. A moan. A real one. Low and ragged like it was dragged from his chest. When he turns back to you, there’s a flush high on his cheekbone. His lips are parted. His eye burns.

"I knew you liked it rough," he murmurs. "I remember how you used to throw me down."

You stare at him, breath caught halfway between a curse and a gasp. He leans in closer, slow, measured. You don’t move.

"You used to knock the wind out of me. You’d say I was too soft. That I’d never survive the yard unless I learned to take a hit."

"You never did learn."

"That’s not true," he says. "I learned to like it."

You shake your head again, but your fists stay at your sides. Your feet don’t move.

"You think this is a game."

"No," he says. "I think this is exactly what we’ve both been waiting for."

Your pulse roars in your ears. The godswood is quiet, but everything feels too loud. Too close. His breath brushes your cheek.

"Tell me to stop."

You leave him standing in the godswood, breath shallow, palms hot, the trees watching like they know what you almost said. You don’t speak. You don’t run. But you can’t quite breathe either. You walk back through the Keep like you’re sleepwalking, like you might burn through the floor if you stay still.

Night sinks in around you. The walls feel tighter. The fire in your chamber roars too hot. You pace. You pour wine you don’t drink. You open the window and shut it again. You think about sleeping. You think about forgetting. You think about how he looked at you when he said I’m not.

You tell yourself not to go. And then you do.

The hall outside his door is empty. The candlelight flickers low. The door isn’t fully shut. As if he left it waiting.

You don’t knock. You don’t speak. You step inside, and he’s already there. Shirtless, again. Hair damp. Leaning against the table like he hadn’t moved since the godswood. His eye finds yours and doesn’t flinch. You close the door behind you. You don’t lock it. He watches you cross the room without saying a word. He doesn’t ask why you’re here. He knows.

“I didn’t come for this,” you say.

He nods, slow. “Then say no.”

You don’t. He pushes off the table and walks toward you like he already knows how this ends. Like he’s dreamed it a hundred times and every version ends the same. He doesn’t reach for you. Not yet. He waits.

You’re the one who moves. Your hand fists in the collar of his shirt and drags him closer. Your mouth hovers near his, your breath unsteady, your body already too warm. You don’t kiss him. Not yet.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

“I know.”

And then you break. You kiss him like you’re furious. Like he’s the only thing that’s ever made you feel anything and you’d rather drown in it than say it out loud. His hands are everywhere. Yours are worse. There’s nothing careful about it. Nothing sweet. You don’t want sweet. You want to be ruined.

You want to ruin him back. The table knocks over. His back hits the wall. Your boots scatter across the floor. You don’t stop. You don’t think. You don’t ask. When he lifts you up and carries you to the bed, you let him. When he lays you down and looks at you like you’re the first real thing he’s ever wanted, you don’t speak.

He peels back your clothes with a precision that makes you ache, each layer a secret he's uncovering. Your shift falls away, and he stares at you like you're sacred. Like you're something he shouldn't touch but will anyway. His hands are rough, calloused from years of swordplay, but they move across your skin with a reverence that makes your breath catch. You don't want reverence. You want him to hurt. You want to hurt him back.

You flip him beneath you, straddling his hips, hands pinning his wrists above his head. His eye widens, pupils blown, a smile curling at the edge of his mouth. You lean down, hair falling around your face like a curtain, and bite his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste of copper fills your mouth. He moans, hips bucking up against yours.

"Is this what you wanted?" you ask, voice barely above a whisper. "To ruin me?"

His fingers dig into your hips, bruising and possessive. "I wanted to be the one who touched you first."

You laugh, bitter and sharp. "Not everything is yours to claim."

"No," he says, flipping you beneath him with a strength that makes your breath catch. His weight settles between your thighs, delicious and heavy. "But you are."

You should fight. You should push him away. But your body arches into his touch, craving the heat of him, the burn of his skin against yours. His mouth finds your throat, teeth scraping over your pulse, and you gasp, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. He hisses against your skin, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Tell me to stop," he says again, but this time it's different. It's not a challenge. It's a plea. You can hear the need beneath it, raw and desperate. It would be so easy to tell him no. To walk away. To leave him as broken as you've been. Instead, you pull him closer.

"Don't stop," you whisper against his mouth. "Don't you dare stop."

He trails kisses of fire down your body, spreading your thighs open and bringing his face close to your core. His breath is hot, his mouth everything you expected and nothing like you imagined. You choke on a sound that might be a sob, that might be his name, that might be something you’ve never said to anyone. There is a feeling of novelty between your legs. You don’t know what to do with it, what to call it. You don’t know how to stop it. His tongue traces a path that makes you gasp, your body shuddering beneath him, and every scrape of his teeth sends a shock to places you forgot you had. He pins your hips with his hands. Holds you there until you think you might scream, might call him something you’ll regret. You writhe, helpless and hungry, his mouth pushing you toward something you can't recognize but can't resist. It's new and wild and terrifying. It's more than you were ready for. You feel it building beyond your control, burning through you, breaking you down, and he's relentless. You’ve never been this close to shattering. You’ve never wanted to.

When it crests, it's like wildfire—unstoppable, consuming, spreading through your limbs until you're arching off the bed, his name torn from your throat. He holds you through it, mouth still working, drinking in every tremor until you push him away, too sensitive to bear it.

He moves up your body like he's been waiting his entire life for this moment. He's like a predator, but one who is starving, respectful, already intoxicated by your essence. His mouth is slick, his eyes are wild, and his hair is tousled from your touch. When he kisses you, you taste yourself on his lips, and it sends a wave of heat through you. It makes you want to hide. It makes you want to be consumed.

He pulls back just enough to truly see you, and something raw and broken flickers across his face. You watch it shatter within him. You feel it cracking beneath your ribs.

His hands tremble as they explore your body. They're not hurried now, not greedy. Just desperately seeking. He wants to discover what makes you gasp, what makes you tremble, what makes you wrap your legs around his waist and dig your nails into his shoulders, calling his name like a curse.

Both of you are frantic, lost in something that has been building since the moment you returned. Since before that. Since before you left. Since forever.

When he finally sinks into you, the sound that tears from your throat is something between a sob and a moan. It hurts. Of course it hurts. But it's the kind of pain that feels like salvation, like something breaking open inside you that's been locked too long. He watches your face as he moves, drinking in every reaction, every gasp, every flicker of pleasure that crosses your features. His pace is relentless, punishing, exactly what you need and nothing like you imagined.

"Look at me," he growls, and you do. You meet his gaze and don't look away, even when it feels too intimate, too raw. His eye burns into yours, the sapphire gleaming in the firelight like a second witness to your surrender. "Say my name."

You bite your lip, refusing at first. His hand slides between your bodies, finding the place where you're most sensitive, and your resolve crumbles.

"Aemond," you gasp, the syllables breaking on your tongue like a prayer. "Aemond," you breathe again, and again, like a confession you can't keep hidden anymore.

His rhythm stutters at the sound of it, his name on your lips like a spell he never thought you’d cast. It tears through him, wild and fierce and reckless, like it can’t be contained. His pulse surges with the rush of possession, with a pride that borders on madness. The moment is electric, charged, impossibly taut. He crushes his mouth to yours, swallowing every moan, every gasp, as if your voice alone could undo him, as if all your protests only fuel him further. The pace is dizzying, the edge razor-sharp, and you’re close, so close to something you've never let yourself feel before. Not like this. Not this blinding. Your body arches into him, desperate and unguarded, and you cry out, nails scoring down his back, leaving trails that scream of violence, of passion, of the pain you both need and the pleasure you can’t tell apart. He hisses at the sting, but the sound is nothing like surrender.

"You're mine," he growls, branding you with his words, his teeth grazing your throat, the promise lethal and soft and everything you’ve ever wanted to deny. "Say it."

You choke out the word, shaking your head as you do, still defiant even as your body says otherwise. Even as it betrays you, traitorous and unrelenting, your resistance splintering like ash before a torch. "No." It's barely a whisper, a last stand against the fire, but even you don’t believe it. You clench around him, pulling him deeper, binding him to you with every shuddering breath. He tightens his grip in your hair, and the pull arches your back, exposing your neck, your pulse, the truth you're trying to hide.

"Lie to me again," he says, his voice fractured with desire, the edges rough, unsteady. "And see what happens."

His eye is locked on yours, shining full of hunger and something else. Something that makes you want to give in just to see what it would do to him. You meet his gaze with a challenge, despite the tremor in your voice, despite the pleasure that is slowly unraveling you. "I am not yours."

His lips curl into a smile that is nothing but teeth and intent. He slows his movements with devastating precision, pulling out so slowly it feels like a loss, thrusting back in to make you pay for every lie, for every second you didn’t admit you were his. The impact shatters your defenses, touching something deep inside that makes you want to come apart. Makes you want to break just so he can put you back together.

"Liar," he breathes, but the word is tangled with awe, with worship, with disbelief that he ever let you go. His hands are brands on your skin, holding you in place as he moves, marking you with fingers as determined as his heart, as his claim, as his promise.

You’re losing. You’re lost. Your resolve crumbles, rushing out of you so quickly you feel dizzy with it. The pleasure winds tight, impossibly tight, spreading through your body faster than you can stop it, faster than you can pretend you don’t want it. You’re on the brink, teetering at the edge, and you can’t pull back. Can’t stop it. Can’t stop any of it.

"Say it," he demands, pushing you to the point of no return, his rhythm pushed to the breaking point as his control slips. As he starts to fall apart with you. "Tell me who you belong to."

You want to fight him. You want him to bleed the way you did. You want to be empty of him. You want him to lose the same way you did. You want to give him nothing. You want to watch him break. You want him to hurt the way you did. You want to give him everything. You want him to know it. You want to ruin him as he's ruined you. And suddenly, you are. The word leaves your throat like it’s tearing you apart, like it’s putting you back together. The admission is pain and salvation. The confession is agony and release. "You." The silence shatters. Your resolve shatters. Something wild and desperate between you shatters. You come undone with it, unable to hold anything back. Your voice, your control, the last of your resistance. "You," you whisper, the sound already gone. "You, Aemond."

It breaks something in both of you. He kisses you then, deep and consuming, and you fall apart beneath him, waves of pleasure wracking through you, your release a storm breaking against the shore. He follows you over the edge, his own release a fierce, primal claim, his body tensing above you, inside you, around you. The sound he makes is raw, unguarded, nothing like the prince who holds his emotions in check. His forehead presses against yours as he shudders, as he spills himself inside you, marking you in the most primitive way. You think he might have forgotten how to breathe, how to hold back, how to be a dragon and not a man. You think you might have forgotten the same.

It leaves you both unmoored, wild and vulnerable, unable to hold anything back. Every moment is a fracture, a split-second proof of his soul laid bare. Every tremor a piece of you given in ways you never thought you could. Never thought you would. The heat of him, the weight of him, it should feel like too much. It should feel like surrender. You should feel conquered, defeated. But for the first time, it feels like exactly what you’ve been wanting. Exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

It takes an eternity for the storm to pass, for the world to settle around you, but you hold fast through it, to him, to each other. You feel it long after the shakes subside, after your bodies run out of breath and fury and will. The truth of it so potent you can’t suppress it. Can’t deny it. Not even to save yourself. For a moment, neither of you move. His breath mingles with yours, ragged and spent. His weight is heavy, but you don't push him away. You can't. Your fingers trace the scars on his back, mapping the history of a boy who became a man you didn't recognize. Who became a man you couldn't resist.

When he finally rolls to the side, you feel the chill of the room rush back, reminding you of where you are. Who you are. What you've done. You lie there, staring at the ceiling, your body humming with remnants of pleasure and something heavier. You should leave. You should get up, gather your clothes, and slip away before the castle wakes. Before reality returns. Before the weight of this settles fully on your shoulders. Instead, you stay.

His fingers trace lazy patterns on your skin, following the curve of your hip, the dip of your waist, like he's memorizing the map of you. Neither of you speak. The silence isn't uncomfortable, but it's heavy with things unsaid. With questions neither of you are ready to answer.

"They’ll know," you whisper, voice ragged from crying out his name.

He doesn’t flinch. Just looks at you—calm, unreadable—as if the words mean nothing at all.

"And?"

You swallow. "You don’t understand what they’ll say."

"I do." His voice is flat, unbothered. "They’ll say what they always do. It changes nothing."

You push his hand away, sitting up fast. "I’m not yours to claim."

His eye flicks to you, sharp and steady. "I never said you were."

That catches you off guard—but before you can speak, he adds, quieter this time:

"You chose this. Just like I did."