Westerosi Vices

You felt his presence in the sept before seeing him. 

It prickled the back of your neck, trailing down your back in a heated thrum. There was no way to explain how you knew it was him, even after all this time, but your intuition was never wrong, at least not when it came to this. You turned your neck backward from where you lit candles at the altar, a slow smile spreading on your face. 

“You’re tall now,” was the first thing you said. 

Gone was the lanky pole of a lad you’d left six years ago. In his place, a young man had sprouted, with confidence melded into his rigid spine and his arms strong and defined from years of intense sword practice. Here he stood, towering above you when the last time you’d seen him, he barely reached your shoulder. His bone-white hair grew past his shoulders and fell artfully into straight, silky tresses which no doubt sent the young women into enchanted frenzies. The scar on his eye was covered by a black eye patch, and the visible section on his cheek withered into knotted flesh but did nothing to detract from that captivating Targaryen beauty. You’d expected nothing less. 

A single violet eye beheld you with mild intensity. 

“Lady Velaryon,” he greeted, face in a stony facade. Anyone else might assume coldness from his demeanor, but you knew better. His scar was distorted with a subtle twitch of his cheek, but it didn’t make your chest flutter any less. “When I heard your ship had arrived in the city, I knew I would find you here.” 

Indeed, he knew you well. “Prince Aemond,” you muttered with a cursory bow. “It has been a few years.”

“Indeed,” he replied, the word heavy on his tongue. He said your name and there was a pause. It was a test to gauge your reaction. Then hesitation, as well as warmth, guided his next words. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

His sword-callused hands clasped yours. You remarked in silence on how big they were now. 

“How you’ve grown, Aemond,” you couldn’t help but remark with a chuckle, eyes scanning his form. 

His reserved fondness grew into a full smile as ease settled over him. “You say that as if it is a bad thing.” 

“Just an observation.” Your fingers brushed his wrist. “You’re a young man now.” 

“I’m a man now,” he interjected swiftly. It wasn’t harsh but firm; you perceived it was a point he needed acknowledged. You understood. As any young person who’d reached crossed that tumultuous bridge between childhood and blooming adulthood, he was eager to see it acknowledged. 

 At twenty years, many would consider him at the cusp of manhood. Despite the drastic change in his appearance, you still saw a version of him through the lenses of that boy of fifteen who ate honey cakes with you in the garden and let you sword-fight him with wooden props despite being over nine years his senior. None of Queen Alicent’s other ladies understood why you indulged him, but their opinions meant little to you.

You nodded, gracing him with an indulgent look. “Of course, My Prince. That’s a fact one cannot help but notice.” 

“If we are speaking of facts, Lady Velaryon, you’re as beautiful as ever.” 

You brushed off the compliment with an eye roll, but warmth flooded your face. “I see you’ve also gained the sweetened tongue of a man as well.”

“I speak the truth and nothing else.” He lifted your hands and kissed your knuckles cordially. But his lips hovered for a moment longer than required. You marked the observation, then discarded it as an intrusive thought and nothing more. 

The voyage from Driftmark had turned and twisted your belly, the discomfort being a mixture of seasickness and nerves you didn’t want to admit. But ever since you stepped foot in King’s Landing, this is the most you’ve been at ease. 

“I’m sorry to hear of your husband’s death.”

Your smile turned stiff, and you gently removed your hand from his. The pleasant embrace of nostalgia made it easy to forget your return to King’s Landing wasn’t a leisurely affair. You’d left this city a meek bride and now returned as a young widow, but the hounds that licked your heels then now lie in wait at your presence. 

“Thank you,” you mumbled. 

It had been a hard year. Your husband, Grover Tully, perished during a voyage to the Iron Islands when a storm took his entire ship. Your marriage to the Lord of the Riverlands was a match considered worthy at the time of its brokerage. As the youngest daughter of Rhaenys Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon, many thought it would foster ties with the Riverlands who felt their association with the Crown was taut. As Lord Paramount of the Trident, it was a coveted match for any woman in your place.   

But the result hadn’t been what everyone expected. 

“How long are you staying in King’s Landing?” he inquired.

You shrugged. “I’m uncertain.”

King Viserys was the one who had summoned you from Driftmark, along with his daughter Rhaenyra and her family from Dragonstone. At the tail end of his long life, you assumed the old man wanted to congregate every part of his family to his side once more. But other forces had an interest in your presence. Your father was a sickly husk and your mother expressed no interest in anything but remaining at his side, so you were summoned in their stead. As the heir to Driftmark, there were bonds between your houses that needed renewal. 

“I heard my mother invited you to stay here in the royal wing.”

“It was magnanimous of her,” you said evenly. 

Even a babe born yesterday knew why Alicent extended this gesture of courtesy to you, but you had no energy to contemplate political machinations at the moment. The intimidating, tortuous crimson walls of the Red Keep made your skin shiver in fright when you were a child. As an adult, you learned to hide your dislike better, but the feeling of imprisonment, even at the seat of power, never left.   

Aemond extended his right arm for you to take. “I would ask you to visit the training grounds with me, but I doubt you’ve kept the skills I taught you. I know that Tully swordsmen wield their swords like cooking knives and flail like helpless chickens.”

 You snorted, looping your arm into his without thinking. The action was as seamless as breathing. “That is a terrible thing to say about a house so loyal to the throne. And what makes you think I was allowed anything sharper than a knitting needle?”

“I would still fear a knitting needle in your hand than a sword in any other man’s,” he smirked, leading you out of the sept. A cool breeze greeted you like an old friend. You exhaled. 

“Now you insult me. We both know I was terrible.”

“I’m certain you’ve improved with time,” Aemond said. 

“It’s not as if I had any sword practice in Riverrun,” you pointed out.

“Those swamp bastards were too afraid of your skill?”

“You seem to forget that highborn ladies have few activities to take our time, my prince,” you stated, vaguely conscious of the kingsguard who lingered in sight. “It’s knitting, praying, garden courts, and child-rearing.” the latter you’d failed at. “No time for sword fighting, unfortunately.”

“Then we shall remedy that,” he declared.  

“I doubt there will be time for anything of the sort.”

Aemond fell silent and his face shifted into practiced blankness. Perhaps he was not enthused by a reminder of the reunion to come. You couldn’t blame him because you felt the same way. The threads of power and ambition strung all around you and navigating through them was a tiresome task. 

Rhaenyra wanted your mother’s support and tried to convince her that the circumstances of your brother’s death were not engineered by her hand. You didn’t doubt that, but it was difficult to remain near her and Daemon basking in their long-sought wedded bliss after your siblings, their previous spouses, were no more.    

Alicent’s courting was no less subtle but perfumed with entitlement because she simply assumed everyone should carry the grudge she felt towards Rheanyra. 

All you wanted was to return home and live in whatever peace the Seven allowed you to have. 

“Will you remarry?” Aemond’s sudden question made you stutter in surprise. 

“What?”

“Now that your husband is dead, it makes sense you should remarry.” He spoke as if it was an indisputable fact, a logical action. You knew this, but it didn’t mean you liked it. 

“I am newly widowed. It’s too early to think about that,” you deflected. 

Aemond pursed his lips. “There are many at court who will seek your hand now.”

You snorted. “A barren widow must send tongues wagging, I’m sure.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” he immediately stated, nose flared for emphasis.

Your smile was still hollow, but his quick defense touched you. “My Prince, I’m only saying what everyone else has said, both to my hearing and behind my back.” Six years of marriage and you’d not borne your husband one child. Grover Tully was an old man, but that didn’t stop the invisible finger of blame from falling on you in the eyes of everyone else. Old men still fathered children with the right women, and the Tullys were known for their fertility, among many things. 

His oldest son was grateful for the lack of challenge to his father’s chair, but the melancholic union had marked you as useless in the eye of any prospective suitor. 

“If anyone wants me, it will be for my inheritance and nothing more,” you added bluntly. 

“You speak as though you forget dragon’s blood runs through your veins,” Aemond said in a raspy tone. “I would not have you speak about yourself in that manner. There’s no man in Westeros who would deserve you as you are, and I speak this truth as a man.”

You blinked, taken aback by the vehemence in his voice. The prism that made him appear as that young, troublesome boy distorted itself to allow you to take in this vision of a man. Yes, you’d known he had changed, but it was at this moment you realized how much. 

You swallowed, your hands stiff against his biceps. “I am grateful for your passionate defense, Aemond, but I am still just a woman. Not the ethereal creature you seem to think I am.” 

“You surpass all the women I know.”

“Even your mother?” you teased, hoping to inject lightness into the serious conversation. 

He was silent but interlocked his fingers into yours. There was a moment of silence that battered your ears with its intensity. “Sometimes, I believe so.”

The incident with Vaemond left you too somber for food and you wanted to retreat to your rooms after playing with the piece of roasted boar on your plate throughout dinner. You understood why Daemon had done it and even you saw the foolishness of your uncle’s words, but it still cut at the part of you, resentful that it further withered your family at the seams. You lost almost everyone who mattered to you. Part of you was tempted to secure your nieces and nephews in the safe walls of Driftmark, far away from whatever would befall them because of their parent’s actions but that signaled action worthy of recourse. As farcical as it seemed, you were determined to remain neutral for as long as you could. 

“Are you alright?” Aemond inquired in a low tone. He was seated beside you, so his words went unheard by anyone else. 

You nodded slowly. “I will be. I just need to be alone.”

His hand fell on yours, gripping it comfortingly. You were shaken enough to lean into it. “Anything you fear will go through me first.”

The corners of your mouth twitched. “That’s reassuring, coming from the second-best warrior in the realm.”

“Second-best?”

Your eyes wandered to where Daemon was seated with his usual air of aristocratic disdain permeating around him. Aemond followed your line of sight and grimaced, mouth spread into a thin line. “He’s a pale imitation and nothing more.”

“Some might say that about you.”

“And what do you say?” The question came too sharply for you to dismiss it as jest. 

You risked a direct glance at him, taking the sight of his angular features bathed in the flickering firelight. “You will be a legend in your own right, My Prince.”

He ducked his head away as if embarrassed by your statement. A dusting of pink covered his cheeks. “Ser Criston tells me that often. Somehow, I believe it coming from your lips.”

“Well, I am grateful my opinion matters to someone,” you smiled.

“Your opinion matters to me very much.” Severity clouds his eye. 

It’s a little too much to behold, so you took a sip of your wine for distraction. “That’s too much pressure, My Prince.”  

After the feast, Otto Hightower approached you, towering and calculating as always, encompassing everything you wanted to avoid. His daughter performed the practiced civil demeanor better than he did. He lumbered like a stiff oak draped in fine linen, armed with a carved smile that reminded you of how maesters described the sculpted faces on Northern weirwood trees. 

“It saddened me to hear of your husband’s passing,” he said. 

You bowed stiffly in response. “I appreciate your sympathies, my lord.”

“I admire your tenacity, Lady Velaryon, but I am sure myself and many others are of the mind that a woman like you, still ripe in years, should not be alone.” he was clever in framing his suggestion as a mere concern.

You smiled, hoping it came off more polite than burdened. “It is too soon to think of such, Lord Hightower. I am barely finished with mourning.”

“Lord Grover was a man unmatched in honor and temperance, but the dead cannot dictate the actions of the living. It would be unfair for you to remain untethered out of a misguided duty that has already been fulfilled.”

In other words, you were too valuable to remain unmarried, and depending on who you married, it would tilt for or against his interests. Sudden fatigue enveloped you. This entire farce tired you. 

“I must take my leave now, Lord Hightower. Do have a good night,” you said stiffly, bucking all convention and leaving without waiting for his reaction. He pressed his stiff gaze against your back as you retreated, but you didn't care about maintaining proprietary.

You hated it all. You hated this demon of a castle and its imposing walls, you hated the people within it playing their games and weaving webs to tangle even innocents who sought no part in it. Your chest tightened in response to the ferocity of your thoughts and you had to stop and catch your breath, hands clenched tight enough to stop blood flow. 

You just wanted to go home. 

The next day, Rhaenyra approached you with the same topic of marriage in mind, but at least she had some tact. 

“I have no plan to take another husband,” you said coldly, keeping your eyes over the lush garden below where you both stood on a balcony. “Not everyone can remarry barely one summer after their husband dies.”

Her face maintained its impenetrable coolness, but you’d known her long enough to see her hurt reveal itself in flushed cheeks. Some regret stabbed you. Your brother had peculiarities that other wives would have reviled him for. Rhaenyra wasn’t the visage of a devout wife, but their marriage was filled with more joy than many others. Yours included. 

She was silent, overlooking the balcony. “I loved Laenor as he was and I will always love him, even if he’s not with us any longer.”

You sighed, curving your bottom lip inward. “I know.”

Her violet eyes regarded you thoughtfully. “No matter how much you may try, the tides of fate will move you. You cannot remain a willful observer forever. Eventually, you shall be forced to make a move. I advise you do it of your own free will rather than because of someone else’s actions.”

If only she wasn’t correct. You could keep steadfast in your denial, but even that had become tiresome. 

“Where on that spectrum do you fall, dear cousin?” you muttered. 

Her elegant hand draped over her curved belly. “The side that will win.”

You were both silent for a moment. 

“I do not wish to remarry,” you said finally. 

“Good,” Rhaenyra said with a hint of a smile. It was not for her benefit, but you didn’t say it out loud. It was wise to limit things to everyone’s hearing. “I understand your reasoning, but there are others who aren’t as enlightened as I.”

“My mother supports me.”

“And what of Alicent and her son?”

“The queen has no say in my matters.” you shoot down but your heart skipped a beat. Her son? What did that have to do with anything? Aegon was married and a laughable prospect. Was she talking about Aemond? “And I cannot understand what her son has to do with this.”

“The two of you spent all of dinner last night whispering.”

You pursed your lips, feeling defensive. “I have fond memories of him, despite the bad blood yourself and your children may harbor. But it would be laughable to suggest anything else beyond that. We are friendly, and that is all there is to it.”

She rewarded you with a contemplative glance. “I still hold you in regard as my good sister, which is why I say this without deceptive dressing; there are no mere observers in this game. In due time, your role will come. Let it be of your own choosing, but I fear someone has already chosen for you.”

“I doubt it,” you dismissed, but the truth of her words rang over you both. 

When you returned to your rooms that evening, it was no surprise to see Aemond there.

After the talk with your former good sister, you expected it on some level. Still, it took you a few moments to collect yourself after the identity of the intruder registered. 

“Aemond,” you stated. “What are you doing here?”

His tall frame created a hulking silhouette in the pale moonlight. It made him look unnatural, like a figure of myth from the chronicles of some centuries dead maester. 

“You spoke with my sister this afternoon.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

You picked your words with care, cautious of his unreadable mood. “She was married to my brother. We had some catching up to do. Do you now have spies following my whereabouts?”

He didn’t answer your question and opted to take a step toward you instead. This close, the moonlight made him look ethereal. Your chest clenched with a previously unknown emotion and your breath quickened when he was a hair’s breadth from you. 

“I was worried,” he finally answered. “That her poison would reach your ears and discourage our association.”  

You blinked. “Why would you think that?”

“My sister,” he said the words with unconcealed disdain. “Has a way of doing that, of making people believe the worst of my mother and siblings. There is a reason my father favors her above all his children.”

You placed a hand on his cheek without thinking. It was as if your hand moved of its own accord, but the feeling of his skin beneath your fingertips soothed something raging within you. Aemond was surprised by the gesture, judging by how he tensed at first but then leaned into your touch. 

“Aemond,” you said. “You are not perfect, and neither am I, but no one could ever poison you against me. To me, you’ll always be that boy who shared honeycakes with me in the Godswood.”

“That’s not how I want you to see me!” he growled with such vehemence you snatched your hand back as though it were burned. “I want you to see me as the man I am now.”

You swallowed, chest pounding. “Yes, yes are. I see you as you are, My Prince.”

“I am a man and I know what I want,” he said with unflinching authority. 

“And what do you want?” your voice fell into a whisper. 

He didn’t answer for a moment, taking a good while to trail your entire being with his eye. It made you feel more exposed than you’d ever been in your life. No verbal answer came.

Aemond placed both hands on your arms and tilted his head down until his lips were mere inches from yours. The silence in the room was deafening. His lips found yours in a hesitant peck, which transformed into a consuming kiss. He tasted of sour wine, tart and heavy, clouding your senses with every essence of him. 

 “Aemond,” you breathed. “This is a mistake.”

“I’ve wanted you since I saw you in that sept.” he replied. “How you looked kneeling before the altar, so beautiful and broken.” His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth. “Just like I remembered.”

“If we do this, we will open ourselves to forces we cannot control,” you reasoned, trying to convince yourself and him. 

“I said I would protect you from anyone, and I will. From my mother, my sister and the entire fucking kingdom if I have to.” His other hand curled on your hip, moving your body closer to his. He leaned over and nipped your jaw, making you gasp out. “But for once, I wish to have something for myself, just this once. Let everyone else burn for all I care.”

An involuntary gasp escaped you. Your chest heaved, and you panted against his lips as his hard chest pressed against yours. “I-I want you too.” The admission burned your tongue burdened by the shame and fear you felt for desiring this. 

“Then have me.” he groaned, lifting you up by your thighs and leading you to the bed. 

What followed was a ride too pleasurable to describe. 

Aemond buried his face between your thighs, stroking you to bliss with his tongue. Your back arched and moans poured from your mouth like water from a pond. Heat burned through you, aching for release beneath the flimsy underclothes. The tight cord within you snapped and white pleasure clouded your vision. It was the first you’d ever experienced such. 

After that, Aemond undressed and laid between your legs, soaking the sensation of his bare skin on yours. All he’d dreamed of had come to fruition. You kissed until your lips were swollen, then he flipped you over so you sank on his length, eyes never leaving his, little whimpers coming from your lips. 

His large hands held your hips, guiding you up and down until a pleasurable rhythm was reached. Curses left him with every thrust and roll. His white hair fanned behind him like a silver halo in the darkness. He babbled nonsense; a mix of praise and profanity egged on by the sound of skin slapping together. 

“I will give you anything you desire,” Aemond gasped, fingers gripping your hips tight enough to bruise. “I would die for you. I would kill for you.”

His passionate declaration was enough to increase your pace. Your fingers dug into his chest as you got closer to your peak and judging by his heavy shudder, he welcomed the pain. He whispered your name as your face twisted in pleasure and sat up so he could press his face into your neck. No part of your visible skin was safe from his frantic kisses. 

You cried out when your climax bubbled in your pelvis. Your toes curled. One more thrust was enough to send your body into a shuddering ecstasy. Aemond gripped your jaw without mercy and resumed his powerful thrusts until he spent himself inside you. 

Satisfied, he went onto his back and you went with him, your head tucked into his neck. Aemond pressed your forehead together, granting you a soft, indulgent kiss. 

“Where do we go from here?” you asked, afraid and hopeful for his reply. 

“Tomorrow, we will take Vhagar and find a sept in some remote village where neither of our families can interfere and marry there,” he sounded so certain of this. All your protests and assertions laid ready on the tip of your tongue but kissed them away as if he knew. 

He’d made up his mind and, by extension, yours. 

Hours later, you lay on your back, chest heavy and mind plagued with the result of what you’d just done. If it was a onetime affair, then perhaps you could maneuver this painlessly. But from the way Aemond grips you close, you know he has no intention of letting this end. 

Rhaenyra’s words come back in a taunting float.

Make a choice or someone will make it for you. 

Well, for good or bad, you’ve just done that. 

Laughter and cheers fill the Great Hall. The gathered lords and ladies clap for the circus performers, their faces red from the overindulgence in the Dornish wine flowing from golden goblets. It would be unsurprising if the clamor of your wedding celebrations echoed far past the stone walls of Dragonstone.

Your Lord Husband spared no expenses. Jesters, jugglers, fire-eaters. An entire company of circus performers plucked from the Free Cities. A flock of white doves released from the highest tower at the end of the ceremony. A lavish banquet fit for a king…well, future king. Roasted swans, glazed wild boar, spiced deer pies, pears dipped in wine and so forth.

The spread alone makes your head spin.

Your gaze glides over to him. Baelor Breakspear Targaryen, your Lord Husband. At eight and thirty, twenty summers more than you, he remains an astounding warrior and sharp-witted hand to the king. Or so your father told you. You know not the man you wedded at evenfall.

No more than a handful of words were traded between you and him before the ceremony. The bargain struck with your father was swift, your consent immaterial, your obedience expected.

All decided before you even crossed the Narrow Seas.

Even as you both uttered your wedding vows, him swearing to protect you and you swearing to obey, he said no more than what custom demanded.

Your eyes trail the sharp angle of his bearded jaw, his noble profile, his steely stare.

Targaryen majesty radiates from his being, lighting the very air around him ablaze.

As a keen mismatched gaze finds yours, your stomach clenches.

You nervously pick up your wine goblet and swallow another sip. A sip of courage. Tonight is your wedding night. The septa who prepared you beforehand had but scant knowledge to share. She said your lord husband will know what to do and your only task is to obey. It did little to soothe your unease.

Wives are vessels for heirs, instruments to further bloodlines. That is what you are now. A vessel. Your fears, your hopes, your dreams…they’re now as inconsequential and forgotten as yesterday’s rainfall. A proper lady must be soft, quiet. Seen but not heard. It is what mother used to say.

Prince Baelor’s eyes tumble to your uneaten plate.

“You have not had a bite,” he says, concern clouding his unflinching gaze.

You swallow the lump in your throat, nudging a gentle smile on your lips.

“I fear my travels have soured my appetite, your grace.”

Your husband studies you a long while, his pointed scrutiny needling your skin. Your eyes widen as he rises, offering his hand.

“Mayhaps that is enough revelry for the evening,” he states. You understand the unspoken command and slip your fingers in his open palm. His hold on you is firm, steady. That hand around yours is the only thing keeping your quaking legs from collapsing on the ground. You are thankful that the wine has gone to your head, begun to haze your senses. Perhaps it will make the entire ordeal more bearable.

As Prince Baelor escorts you away, the back of your neck tingles. You turn to glance behind you. Discomfort stirs your insides as a fiery mismatched gaze that eerily resembles your husband’s collides with yours.

Prince Valarr.

From the moment you got off the ship bringing you to Dragonstone, the princeling has made his disfavor of you a plain fact to all. He has not spoken a word to you. In fact, he has stormed off every single time you have tried to greet him. Unlike the young Prince Matarys who instantly clung to your skirts after the wedding and called you his new mother, Prince Valarr displayed no such warmth. You fail to understand what you have done to offend the princeling. You have endeavored to be kind, sweet, pleasant…everything your mother bid you to be. Yet the princeling appears to find your mere presence a curse upon House Targaryen.

The frightful ballad of your heart swells in your ears as you walk through the dim hallways of Dragonstone besides your new husband.

You reach Prince Baelor’s bedchambers. He shuts the door. Sweat blooms on your palms, your insides knotting with dread.

The soft glow of the candles paints the walls, the moon’s silver hues seeping through the curtains. Fear sings in your blood. You will it to not show.

As your lord husband turns, clasping your hands in his, his forehead creases.

“You’re trembling,” he notes.

Your stomach plummets. Have you already failed at your wifely duties?

“Apologies, your grace,” you mumble, guilt searing your chest.

Prince Baelor lifts your chin, assessing your expression. Your breath hangs still beneath his studious scrutiny.

“You are scared,” he says.

Panic clutches your heart. You give a frantic shake of your head.

“I am well, your grace. I am…delighted.” The lie wobbles off your tongue uneasily, its falsity scorching your throat.

His thumb sweeps over your bottom lip, his expression solemn.

“You need never lie to me.” He pauses, his mismatched stare corralling yours. “I swore an oath to protect, cherish and honor you. I aim to honor that oath.”

He brings your hand to his lips, brushing a gentle kiss on your skin. Heat floods your cheeks.

His deep voice is as gentle as a ripple over the sea, washing over your overwrought senses.

“I know how far from familiar shores you are, my lady. But I dare hope that, one day, you will call Dragonstone home.”

This draws a curtain of tears over your sight. Memories of your childhood home invade your mind, longing crushing your heart in its unforgiving fist.

“I harbor the same hope, your grace,” you croak.

Prince Baelor cradles your face, plucking your tears. Your chest heaves, unsightly sobs escaping the confines of your throat. Your armor shatters. To your astonishment, your lord husband collects the broken pieces, leading your quivering form to the bed’s edge.

He swaddles you in a thick blanket. For the first time since arriving at Dragonstone, a rush of warmth fills your chest.

Tremulous sobs swell in the room. Lord Baelor sits besides you. At first, his hand hovers, hesitant, searching. A silent inquiry. As your eyes swing to his, he seems to find the answer he sought. His firm hand settles on your back and you unleash a heavy breath.

You sag against him. He is unbothered by the flood of tears soaking his doublet, the steady press of his fingers your anchor amidst the rushing tide of emotions you throttled into silence. Now they refuse to be shackled.

When your tears subside, the weight of failure settles in your chest like lead. You were instructed to be meek, obedient, agreeable. Instead, you made a pathetic spectacle of yourself in front of your husband. Father would be furious. Mother would be disheartened.

Your gaze lingers on the floor, a blanket of defeat draping over your shoulders.

“Speak to me, wife,” Prince Baelor says.

Your heart leaps. Your husband speaks with the poised confidence of a man who has never needed to raise his voice to be heard, a mere whisper enough to inspire respect and compliance. Meanwhile you wager that you could scream until your throat bleeds and your words would still fall into unlistening ears. Such is the fate of a woman in this world.

His gentle yet firm command tears the words from your throat.

“I fear my melancholy ruined our wedding night, your grace,” you confess.

The shadow of a smile sways on his lips. His focus shifts to the window.

“Ruined? The moon and stars still hang in the sky.”

A bashful smile tugs your lips.

“They do,” you say.

When your eyes find Lord Baelor's this time, a heat is nestled there. Your stomach tightens. Your nerves flare again. Not from fear this time. Mayhaps a strange anticipation. One that sears your stomach and dampens your palms. Your attention falls to your lap, your fingers twiddling with the linen beneath you.

A firm hand slides under your chin, angles it up, keeping you from evading sizzling, mismatched orbs.

Your throat knots.

“My lord-”

The words are seized from your lips as Prince Baelor’s mouth slams into yours. Your cry of surprise shrivels on your tongue. Steady fingers cradle your face, your husband's mouth gliding over yours with purpose. The path of his tongue is languid, fevered as it explores your mouth. Your body grows feeble against his, your mind going hazy.

Your hands tighten on his doublet as you get lost in your first genuine kiss.

His passion knocks the breath from your lungs, a startling contrast to the composed, regal lord you had come to know.

His hand drifts to the back of your head, twisting in your hair. You gasp as Prince Baelor tilts your head back, giving him complete dominion over the expanse of your neck. He abandons your mouth, leaving it swollen, tingling. He scatters a trail of fiery pecks with his lips. His teeth dance on your skin and a broken whine slips from your throat. Your Lord Husband relishes every sound, embers of desire sizzling in his stern gaze.

His hands travel down your throat and your breath stills in your lungs. His callused palms sweep over you until they find your hips. His fingers clench on the embroidered silk. Your heart bounces in your chest.

Darkness clouds your husband’s gaze as it traces your face, the motion of your throat, your heaving chest. His throat bobs, his lids sagging.

When he peers at you, still clutching the fabric of your dress, a question hangs in the sweltering air of the room.

A dull trepidation remains but the rising heat in your blood silences it.

You give a tremulous nod.

Prince Baelor peels the dress off you and it falls to the floor with a soft thud. Your husband’s eyes darken as they sweep over your bare, goosebumped flesh. You sit on the bed, watching him remove his royal attire. A dragon shedding its scales, letting you see what lay beneath.

So this is what a man looks like. You soak in every line of corded muscle, every pale scar and… the blatant evidence of his desire for you. Heat settles in your cheeks.

Your heart sings a clamorous, chaotic ballad in your ears as he approaches.

He presses his thumb over your parted lips. Despite the hunger etched in his mismatched gaze, you feel his silent inquiry again. It lingers in the hesitant graze of his fingertips along your arm.

You give another nod. The fear, the apprehension…they have shifted into a heated curiosity for what comes next, what husbands and wives do on their wedding night.

He nudges you backwards until your back lies flat on the plush covers.

You wait, your stomach clenched so tight it seems it might soon burst.

He rubs his swollen tip against your entrance. Your breath stumbles. Heat gathers between your thighs. The friction is maddening. You clutch at the linen, a whine spilling from your mouth.

He clutches your hip, lining himself with your folds. He enters you, and the world turns red. Despite bracing yourself for the discomfort, tears spill down your cheeks.

“My Lord,” you mumble, your voice hardly more than a husky breath.

“My Lady,” he replies, cupping your face.

He freezes, wiping your tears as he looms above you. His eyes never leave yours.

When he drags himself out and sinks into you at a sluggish pace, you tense.

“The pain will not last, sweet girl,” he whispers in your ear.

Your voice is distorted by your sobs.

“Do you swear it?”

He takes your hand and drops a gentle kiss on your knuckles.

“A knight never breaks a vow to his lady,” he says softly, his fingers twining with yours.

He moves his hips and you cling to his shoulders, his tender words anchoring you amidst the painful tide. The symphony of flesh against flesh swells in the room.

Your husband speaks truth.

The pain is ephemeral. Soon, delightful tingles bloom over your flesh; fire consumes you.

You melt against him, stars flooding your vision.

In his arms, you forget how far from home you are. Every gentle whisper and careful touch makes you feel safe, desired, cared for.

In Prince Baelor’s arms, you are no longer adrift. You are found. Again and again.

As your husband shifts you, making you straddle him, it’s when it begins.

Cool tingles along your spine that do not relent. They start down your back and bloom outwards. Persistent shards of glass embedded into your skin. Your head turns, your eyes landing on the wall. A feeling of dread settles in the pit of your stomach as you stare at the tapestry and wardrobe.

Your husband grips your chin, swaying your focus back to him.

“What is it, sweet girl?”

Your chest clenches. It is just you and your husband in this room. Dragonstone is brimming with dark corners and old statues that play tricks on the mind. You force a smile on your lips.

“Nothing. It is nothing, your grace.”

It is enough for Prince Baelor’s hip to start moving again, yanking a broken moan from your lips.

You dismiss the peculiar sensation along your back, yet it lingers even as you ride your lord husband with abandon.

Your days are filled with peace and joy. More fulfillment than you could have fathomed. You had worried your husband’s famed fondness of his first wife Lady Jane would be an unassailable opponent, that you would struggle to carve a place in a heart already claimed. But no such thing occurs. Prince Baelor seeks you out whenever his duties for the days are done. He takes you to bed almost every night, showing you countless paths to pleasure.

You even overhear the maids say that they haven’t seen their lord look so merry in years, which brings a smile to your face.

Little Matarys accepts your presence with ease, clinging to your skirts and allowing you to tell him stories from your home.

Soon, every fear you held close to your chest when you first set foot on Dragonstone dissipates. You settle into your life as Prince Baelor's wife and Lady of Dragonstone.

Still, the shadow of Prince Valarr’s hostility looms large over you.

Your stepson makes his distaste for you a truth known to all, skipping every dinner or feast when he’s made aware you will be in attendance. Every attempt at breaching the ice walls the prince erected around himself are met with crushing defeat. Your stepson won’t even look at you. And the rare times he does, your blood chills from the searing hatred burning in his mismatched gaze. The prince stares at you like he wished to tear you limb from limb or have your head mounted on a pike above the castle walls for all to see. Mayhaps both.

You cannot deny that this blatant rejection hurts, a fact you do not conceal from your lord husband.

“He is a child. He will grow to adore you as I do, sweet girl,” Prince Baelor mumbles, planting a tender kiss atop your head. Your chest warms with his words but the doubts nestled there remain.

You ache to argue that Prince Valarr is no more a child than you are, as only a few months set you apart from him. You have never been allowed such fickle whims. From a young age, you were taught a proper lady is to be ever pleasant, ever agreeable. But your stepson’s chilly glares and icy words leave a taste of failure on your tongue. As if every teaching and lesson was for naught. As if you will never be good enough, worthy enough. Everyday you try to engineer new ways to make the sullen prince despise you a little less. Everyday you find your attempts thwarted.

You lean back against your husband’s chest, your eyes falling shut. You soak in the smell of fresh cranberries and pine trees. It soothes your frazzled mind. Sitting in Aegon’s Garden always casts a blanket of serenity over your worries and fears, quiets your woes.

“It has been four moon turns, your grace,” you say, resigned.

“My son loved his mother dearly. So did I. Her kindness and sweetness knew no equal…until I met you,” he says with a smile, bringing your hand to his lips.

“I’m sorry he lost her so young.”

A shadow of grief flickers in Prince Baelor’s gaze.

“Me too.” He squeezes your hand. “Give him time. He is a good lad.”

“I know,” you reply, your heart sinking. It is the very reason that rejection aches so deeply. You’ve witnessed how gentle Valarr is, with his family, little Matarys, even the servants. You’ve seen him help an elderly servant to her feet when she apologized for spilling his food. He is kind to everyone. Everyone but you, his own stepmother.

Your husband plucks you from the depths of your forlorn thoughts by pressing you against a nearby pine tree, his hands firm on your hips.

“Enough about my son…especially when I have my lovely wife all to myself.”

You smile, your heart fluttering.

His lips tug upwards against the column of your neck, his fingers creeping below your dress. Your eyes swing to the nearby turret, the windows thankfully absent of any spectator.

An airy giggle soars from your lips as he trails languid kisses along your throat, his hand traveling to your inner thigh.

“My lord…we are out in the open. Someone could see…” you scold him though there is no real heat laced in your words.

“See me attend to my wife as a true husband should?” he says, drawing a gasp from you as his beringed finger sinks between your folds. Your back arches against the pine tree, your lips parting around a lustful whimper. The heat in your lower belly grows as your husband’s steel ring drags along your slick walls.

You bite your lower lip, riding his finger, seeking more of the delightful friction.

As you tilt your head back, your focus lands on a figure at a distance. A disturbingly familiar figure standing at the tower’s window. You shove Baelor away, your heart leaping.

“Wait…your grace!”

Prince Baelor scowls, confused by the expression on your face.

“What is it?” he inquires, following your gaze.

You blink, your eyes rounding when you realize the window is now empty.

“I…Apologies. I thought I saw-”

Prince Valarr.

But you dare not speak the thought aloud. Because it sounds ludicrous, unfathomable.

Why would Prince Valarr stand at a window watching you and his father in the throes of…passion?

Your husband cradles your face, concern wrinkling his stern features.

“Saw what, sweet girl?”

You shake your head.

“Exhaustion must be wearing my senses,” you mumble, ignoring your thundering heart.

Prince Baelor takes your hand.

“You shall rest then.”

You ignore the itch to glance back as he leads you away, that peculiar chill settling over your spine once more. The very same sensation that has plagued every intimate moment you’ve shared with your husband for several moons. In your chambers, his chambers, the gardens, the great hall…everywhere. Like a shadow tracing your every step.

Ever watching.

For the next few days, you are in hell, your own mind becoming a cage assailing you with doubts and inquiries. Did you truly see him? Were your overwrought senses conjuring false apparitions? Perhaps you are so far away from home, so desperate to be liked, that you are growing slightly mad.

There is no reason he would be there, staring. After all he cannot stand the sight of you, a fact he has made astoundingly clear.

You should go pray, light a candle to clear your mind of the unthinkable. The Septa says proper ladies must offer a prayer to The Seven at least twice a day. You have faltered in your duties to the gods. Perhaps it is why your thoughts are so scattered, your mind so hazy. Your husband is a pious man after all. You should follow his example.

As you are lost in a spiral of daunting musings, your feet lead you near the throne room. The sound of incensed, familiar voices reaches you, causing you to halt your steps.

“I will not marry her, father. You cannot make me.”

Your heart skips a beat as you recognize Prince Valarr’s voice. He’s angry…no, he’s furious.

You cling to the wall, clutching your chest when your husband’s imperious inflection fills the throne room.

“It is your duty, son. Or have you forgotten what is at stake for House Targaryen? Our dragons made us gods amongst men. Without them, we must be wise in choosing every match. The girl from Tyrosh is-”

“You had the freedom to choose your own wife,” Valarr snaps, his words sharp as the strike of a whip. “Why can I not?”

You hear your husband’s heavy sigh.

“I have done my duty, son. Therein lies the difference.”

“Indeed,” Valarr sneers. “Now that you have heirs, you may bed any fresh, pretty cunt you desire. Is that not right, father?”

Your chest tightens. Prince Valarr may have been unwelcoming, but he has never tossed such crude terms to your face. Tears hover beneath your lashes. You suppress them, your lip wobbling.

“The boy I raised would not speak with such a wicked tongue,” your husband says, his voice bleeding with disappointment. “I will speak to you when you remember your duty to this house.”

The irate stomp of your husband’s boots rises and fades. Silence then falls in the hall.

You close your eyes, willing yourself not to weep right here.

You remind yourself that those words were not designed for your ears. Still, despair squeezes your heart in its unforgiving fist. What have you done for him to loathe you so? What grave offense would warrant-

“I should kill you where you stand. How dare you spy on my father and I?”

You gasp, your eyes snapping open as a blade is pressed against your throat. Prince Valarr’s dagger. Angry, mismatched irises pin you into place.

Your pulse quickens.

“Apologies,” you croak, your eyes watering. “I was just-” The words stumble in your throat as the blade is pushed against your skin. A lone tear slides down your cheek.

Valarr’s gaze narrows, suspicion laced in his tone.

“Is this what you are, a spy? Sent here by the Blackfyre traitors mayhaps…It would make quite a bit of sense.”

An anxious squeal escapes your lips.

“I’m not a spy, my lord."

You gulp in a large breath, gathering the nerve to ask the question that has sizzled your insides since you first met him.

“Why do you abhor me so much, my lord?” you blurt out.

Valarr freezes at that, his eyes widening.

“My lord, Valarr…” you stammer, acutely aware of your pulse singing under the tip of his blade. “I have tried so hard to be agreeable yet you seem to hate me for the mere fact that I draw breath.” Flames dance in his eyes as he gapes at you, silence stretching to the point of discomfort. You quell your fear and mumble, “Have I done anything to hurt or offend you?”

The prince’s gaze narrows.

“You do not get to interrogate me, or question me,” he hisses, his dagger traveling down your flesh, along your heaving chest.

“You are a plague upon my house. A curse.” His eyes follow the path of his blade, his breath growing more erratic. His voice deepens, hoarse and hateful. “Your very existence fills me with rage. A rage I cannot contain.” He removes his blade, instead wrapping his hand around your throat. His voice lowers to a gravelly whisper. “Every time I see you, I just…I do not feel as myself, and I hate it. I hate what the mere sight, the mere thought of you does to me.”

His heavy, chaotic breaths flow over your face, his fingers squeezing your neck. You whine at the pressure and he releases you, his eyes wide and panicked.

He slams his fist besides your head into the wall. You leap in fear. He narrowly missed your face.

“Begone, mother…before I do something I regret,” he snarls.

Not having to be told twice, you gather your dress and race back to your chambers.

After the events of the throne room, you are the one keeping your distance from Prince Valarr. Even if you were aware he wasn’t fond of you, you didn’t expect such venom spilling from his mouth. Every time you remember his cruel words, tears rush to your eyes. You did not think it possible for someone to harbor such deep-seated hatred for you.

At least, you find comfort in your husband’s arms.

While he notices your melancholy, Baelor doesn’t press you to confess what’s gnawing at you. Thankfully. You decide to keep Prince Valarr's words to yourself. It would break Baelor’s heart. And what purpose would that serve? There is enough misery in you already. You do not wish for that burden to be shared with your husband, not when so much already rests upon his shoulders.

“I have to leave Dragonstone for a few weeks,” he announces one night as you lie in bed together.

You sit up, tugging the sheet against your bare frame.

“What?”

Baelor cups your face, his thumb sweeping over your cheeks.

“There is a Blackfyre uprising in the south. We must crush it before it is too late.”

Your heart plummets. You know that men must sometimes head to war. Such is the way of things. But you don’t want yours on a battlefield, in harm’s way. So often men leave and never return.

Your brows thread into a worried frown.

“Cannot your brother Maekar settle it on his own?”

His expression softens as he strokes your hair.

“What kind of future king cower from a minor rebellion?”

Understanding fills you, though in that moment you hate Baelor for being so honorable, so dutiful. You wish he were more selfish, selfish enough to stay besides you. But you know if he were selfish, he wouldn’t be your Baelor. He wouldn't be the man who owns your heart, body and soul.

He lifts your chin, brushing a tender kiss on your forehead.

“Although duty calls my name, my heart calls yours always,” he utters softly.

Your heart swells and shrivels all at once.

“If I could stay, I would, sweet girl,” he says, studying your sombre expression.

Resignation laces your tone. “I know.”

“Valarr will protect you in my absence.”

You go still, a chill traveling down your spine.

“I know there have been…hurdles. But he is my son. He will do what honor demands. You are safe with him.”

You swallow your words. Your husband is about to go to war. His mind must be clear, free of worries or distractions. You cannot cost him his life with petty grievances.

You give a bright smile.

“Of course, my love. I will pray to the gods everyday for your safe return.”

Fondness glimmers in his mismatched gaze.

You pin him with a stern stare, lifting your finger.

“Do not make me a widow, Baelor…or I will hunt you down in the afterlife and kill you again myself.”

Baelor grabs you by the waist, pinning you under him as you both laugh.

The day Baelor leaves, you feel as if a piece of your heart tore from your chest and walked away. The day itself mirrors your gloom, angry clouds roaring above Dragonstone, rain pouring down in thick sheets over the castle. Your desperation hit such a nadir that you begged your husband to take you with him the night before, but he reminded you that a woman’s place isn’t on a battlefield. You argued that your place is wherever he is and he gave you a smile that shattered your heart.

You lie in bed the entire day. You do not eat. You do not sleep. You do nothing but stare at the cold, empty space in the bed where your husband used to be.

Of course, Baelor’s words echo in your head. A minor rebellion. But how often do men go away to settle a minor rebellion, a trivial skirmish or enter a meager tourney to lose their life when the gods flip a coin?

“You have not eaten today. Come.”

Prince Valarr’s sharp tone startles you. Your gaze lands on his form near the door.

You ignore him, burying yourself further in the bed.

“I do not wish to be disturbed,” you counter, injecting all the meager authority you can in your feeble voice.

A deep sigh ripples through the room.

“My father told me to keep you safe. I intend to keep that vow.”

A sad laugh bursts from your lips.

“Even if you despise me?” you mumble.

“Come down and eat.”

“I’ve no appetite.”

“I care not. You will eat.”

His tone is icier. When you refuse to move, Prince Valarr does. Quick as lightning, he picks up your limp form from the bed and strides out of the room.

Your protests are ignored, Valarr’s expression determined as he stomps to the Great Hall, cradling you in his arms.

The prince all but drops you in a chair at the dining table before finding his own seat. Your eyes drift to Baelor’s empty seat at the head of the table. Your chest tightens.

Valarr’s mismatched gaze follows yours and his jaw ticks.

“He will return,” he states as a servant places a steaming plate of stew in front of you. “There is no warrior more fierce and capable than my father. Now eat.”

Impatience twists his boyish features.

“In my father’s absence, I am the lord of this castle. I command you to eat, lest I find less…pleasant ways to make sure you do.”

You shudder. Fingers wobbling, you collect the spoon but your stomach lurches at the sight of food.

“Please eat, my lady,” a familiar voice erupts besides you.

You blink, dazed. Little Matarys. The young prince’s expression is etched with concern. You didn’t realize he was here. Your mind lingers in a fog you can’t find your way out of.

Valarr rises from his seat, makes his way to you. He looms over you, his scent coating your senses.

His heated whisper tickles your earshell.

“What will my father say when he comes home and finds a skeleton waiting for him instead of his wife?”

His blunt words stab at your bleeding heart. Hand shaking, you take a slow sip of the stew. With every bite, you think of Baelor. He would hate to see you like this. You are a dragon’s wife. You must be strong, resilient. Your grip tightens on the spoon.

Beneath Prince Valarr’s watchful eye, you finish your plate.

The days fly by, each harder than the last, your husband’s absence carving a deeper hole inside you. The days erode into weeks. During these desolate times, Prince Valarr cares for you the way he promised he would. To your surprise, your stepson is the one reminding you to sustain yourself each day, displaying a care you did not think was in him. You learn to stand tall in your agonizing wait. Little Matarys’ gentleness helps. The long walks on the beach and games of cyvasse by the fire you play with the little boy help ease his father’s absence. While Prince Valarr’s gaze never sways from you, he makes no attempts at warmth or kindness, always keeping a careful distance. You’ve grown so used to the prince’s hostility that it leaves you numb. You just long for your husband’s swift return.

Every day you light a candle for him in the Sept, begging the gods to return him to you whole.

Most days, you hold on. You cry yourself to sleep no longer.

But tonight is different. A storm breaks out near the shore, dusky thunderclouds raging over Dragonstone.

You sit against the wall near the wooden wardrobe, your huddled form shivering.

You’ve been terrified of storms since you were a little girl. Baelor knows that. Whenever the heavens raged, he would cradle you against him, his deep, tranquil voice lulling into a sense of calm. He would stroke your hair and kiss your forehead, and never let go until slumber found you. With Baelor’s soft touch, the storm fell away, becoming a distant rumble.

In his absence you cannot stop shaking. The sky seems as if it might split open and the roof appears on the brink of collapse. You rock yourself back and forth on the floor, hands covering your ears to muffle the noise.

“My Lady?”

You lift your head, startled when a mismatched gaze fills your vision.

Hope flares inside your chest, tears filling your eyes.

“Baelor…” you mumble, overwhelmed with emotion.

“I’m not him.”

Your eyes round as you are yanked back to reality, realizing you are looking into Valarr’s eyes. You forgot how eerily similar they are to your husband’s.

The prince's jaw clenches as he studies you, kneeling before you, a flickering candlelight in his hand. You note that he dons a simple loose shirt and breeches, a sharp contrast to the armor you are so used to seeing him in. The candlelight casts shifting shadows over his face.

“Why are you…what are you doing here, Valarr?” you ask, shuddering as a bolt of lightning appears behind the window, heavy rain slamming against the glass.

“You are scared of storms,” Valarr says, like it's obvious. “I wanted to ensure your well-being.”

Your brows knit.

“How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That I’m scared of storms.”

Silence lingers, the prince’s gaze drifting away from yours.

“My father told me.”

He clears his throat and offers his free hand, helping you to your feet.

He leads you to the bed and you sit on the edge, your fingers trembling in his, your attention glued to the window.

“It is alright. I’m with you,” Valarr assures, placing the candle on the night table.

He hesitates a few seconds before wrapping his arms around you, tugging you into his embrace.

At first you are stunned. You freeze, completely still in Valarr’s arms. But it’s been so long since you’ve been held like this, felt safe like this. You surrender, sagging in Prince Valarr’s arms.

Fingers sweep over your hair, a soft voice pouring into your ear.

“You need never be scared when I’m with you.”

For a moment, you forget you are in Valarr’s arms. You imagine yourself in Baelor’s. In your mind, your husband is home. He is whole and he holds you through the storm the way he always does. Your arms wrap around Valarr’s neck. His hand settles on your back, traveling up and down in a soothing motion.

“I hate this,” you say.

“I know. I know,” he replies softly.

Remembering yourself, you retreat.

“Apologies, your highness.”

Valarr doesn’t pull away. He cradles your face, sweeping away your tears with his thumbs.

“You need not apologize. You have done nothing wrong.”

The prince's gaze roams over your face, landing on your lips. Clouds mirroring the ones in the angry sky darken the prince’s gaze. He drags his thumb down your cheek, presses it against your mouth.

You girdle your breath.

“Truly…nothing.”

The prince’s mouth slams into yours. Your eyes go wide as his lips devour yours, his tongue slipping into your mouth. You bite his lip, groaning in protest. The metallic taste of blood coats your tongue, Prince Valarr’s kiss turning hungrier, feral.

He pushes you onto the bed, his mouth tracing awful, fiery trails on your neck. You push his face, his chest, whatever you can grab at. His iron grip fastens around your wrists, pinning them above your head.

Disbelief makes your head spin. You struggle beneath Valarr, fighting him harder as he spreads your legs, his hand creeping under your night shift.

“No…” Tears blurs your sight as his mouth travels down your chest, his lips latching around your nipple. His tongue swirls until your peak hardens. Your body shakes with sobs, your whimpers swallowed by the rumbling thunder above Dragonstone.

The prince grunts as he cups your cunt, his thumb pressing into your tangle of nerves.

You shake your head, jolting as his thumb swirls around your sensitive nub. It grows swollen and slick under his hand. Your face heats.

“Highness…Valarr, you can’t…”

He buries two fingers between your folds. You gasp, your thighs closing around his hand. He thrusts inside you as you weep beneath him, the wet squelching melting with the sounds of the storm.

His breathy whisper flows over your face.

“I can’t stop…” He buries his fingers further inside you and you cry out, your back arching against the sheets. Valarr forces your thighs open with his knees, his hard tip nudging against your folds.

His long lashes flutter, an entranced expression on his face as he licks your essence off his fingers. You gape at him, horrified.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stop…”

He sinks into you to the hilt, drawing an ear-splitting scream from you. His hips collide with yours, the bed rattling with his frantic pace.

His chest brushes against yours, trapping you between his body and the bed.

Beads of sweat drip down his brow, landing on your face as he grunts above you.

He brings your wrist to his lips, dropping tender kisses there that twist your stomach in knots.

As you clench around him, your body betraying you, tears stream down your face.

Whenever your face turns, Valarr grips your chin, forcing your gaze to hold his as he ruts into you with abandon.

“Forgive me. Please, forgive me…” he repeats as he keeps slamming his hips into yours.

You lose track of time, going limp under him. You don’t remember when he leaves, when the storm ends. You only know one moment Prince Valarr was burying his cock inside you and the next, the sun is spilling through the velvet curtains.

You are alone in the bed. It is morning, you realize. For a few moments, you wonder if all of it was just a horrible nightmare conjured by the storm. You are wearing your shift, the sheets are clean. But the soreness in your limbs, the ache between your thighs…it’s all too real for all of it to be a dream. Your body tells the truth of what happened. You bring your fingers to your throat, your breaths growing erratic. You can still feel him, feel Valarr inside you. You rush to the nearest chamber pot and empty the meager contents of your stomach.

A maid barges into your room.

“He has returned, my lady!” she chimes.

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, staggering to your feet.

“What?”

“Prince Baelor! He has returned from his travels.”

The blood rushes from your head to the bottom of your feet, the room tilting sideways around you.

“My lady! My lady!” the maid yells, catching you as you topple to the floor. The room darkens around you, pins and needles scattering on your arms.

As you lose consciousness, you hear the maid’s muffled scream.

“Get the maester! Now!”

When you awake, you are lying on a soft surface, Baelor’s tender expression crowding your vision. He looms over you, a smile tugging his lips as he strokes your hair.

“Well, it is far from the sort of reunion I had hoped for, but I suppose it will have to do,” he says. His teasing lilt summons tears in your eyes.

“Husband,” you exclaim, throwing your arms around his neck.

He chuckles, rubbing your back in that achingly familiar way. A quivering sob escapes your lips.

“Now, now, sweet girl…there is no need for tears. I am unharmed, am I not?” He lets you weep in his arms. You cannot stop the flow of tears. You cry for your husband’s safe return. You cry for what happened the night of the storm. You let yourself drown in a sea of emotions. The relief, the elation, the despair, the pain…and the sobering, aching realization you do not know how to tell Baelor the truth without ruining this fragile happiness.

He cradles your face, collecting your tears.

“We are both unharmed, both safe. Please, sweet girl, I loathe to see tears on that lovely face of yours.”

“Both unharmed, both safe...” you repeat, your stomach sinking.

“Valarr told me there was a chill with the storm yesterday.” The sound of your stepson’s name coming from his lips makes bile rise to your throat. Baelor's knuckles sweep over your cheek. “Mayhaps you have fallen ill.”

When you remain silent, Baelor gets to his feet.

“I shall leave you to rest.”

Your fingers clutch his, your expression pleading. You cannot bear to see your heart walk away. Not again. Not right now. You need him here, where you can see him, hear him, feel him.

“No, I beg of you, your Grace, stay.”

Baelor’s brow wrinkles in concern. His thumb rubs the inside of your palm. He sits beside you on the bed, pulling you into his arms. Unleashing a heavy breath, you curl against him.

“Of course, sweet girl. Of course. I will not leave your side,” he whispers, his chin settling atop your head. You close your eyes, soaking his scent, the press of his body on yours, the soothing motion of his fingers over your hair. Fresh tears flood your sight.

Your fist tightens on his doublet.

“Do not leave me ever again. Swear it.”

“Alright. I swear it, my love.”

His lips brush against your forehead. The familiar tickle of his beard makes your stomach flutter.

“I will not leave your side…ever again.”

As you stand before the funeral pyre, the only thought in your head is that your husband lied to you. Fury mingles with grief. Baelor was supposed to stay by your side, to never leave you again. Yet he did. For good this time. Without a warning. Without a goodbye. Without giving you one last chance to look into his eyes and tell him how much you loved him. Just one more time…you wish you could tell him.

The trip to Ashford was supposed to be a mere courtesy appearance. Your husband was not even supposed to enter the lists. He did not even bring his own armor. He wore Valarr’s. He died in Valarr’s. And a small, shameful part of you wishes it had been Valarr, not your beloved, who fell in the tourney.

Your gaze swings to him. It is impossible to guess what thoughts lurk in the prince's head. His eyes are dry, unlike yours, the flames of the pyre dancing in his mismatched eyes.

You drag yourself away from the pyre, needing to be away from the scent of smoke, away from the smell of your husband’s burning remains. Your entire future, your love, your dreams…all gone up in flames and smoke.

You find a secluded spot in the grass. You completely sag in your spot, your body too heavy to carry. The air itself feels heavy. The beautiful sunset is a mockery to your grief. The lush forests are an offense to your loss. How dare the world go round, the sun still rise and dip on the horizon, the moon and stars still hang in the sky…when Baelor is dead. How dare the birds not stop singing, the wind stop whistling, the waves not stop crashing against the rocky shores?

How dare the whole world not hold its breath when yours drew its last?

“We shall journey back to Dragonstone on the morrow.”

You are torn from your thoughts when Valarr’s voice shatters your peace.

Your voice rises, shaky but firm.

“Journey back to Dragonstone? My husband lies dead.” You hold Valarr’s gaze. “Lord Maekar arranged for me to board a ship so I may return home to my family.”

The prince’s jaw flares.

“I am your family, and Dragonstone is your home,” he says, his tone icy, resolute. “You were my father's responsibility and now, you are mine.”

Dread settles in your gut. After that awful stormy night, you avoided him. You never spoke a word of it to Baelor in the weeks that followed, burying the secret deep within your heart, so it may never hurt your husband. You are glad Baelor died thinking his son good and honorable, thinking him fit to carry his name and legacy. Still, you have no desire to be anywhere near Valarr ever again.

“I do not wish to return to Dragonstone with you, my lord. I have done my duty. It is only right for House Targaryen to release me.”

His gaze narrows.

“I do not care for what is right. I care that you stay where you belong.”

You lift your chin and get to your feet.

“I belong back home with my mother and father,” you say, starting to walk away from him.

His hand latches around your wrist. Your pulse quickens.

“No, you belong with me.” There is an edge of desperation to his words now. His fingers tighten on your wrist. “I will not lose both you and my father on the same day.”

“Apologies, my lord. It is done.”

You tug on your wrist but Valarr yanks harder, drawing a pained yelp from you. He drags you down to the grass, looming over you. His glistening eyes are brimming with emotions. Emotions that strangely mirror yours. Hatred, grief…utter despair. There's also that wicked glint of lust that chills your blood.

“I’m the one who ought to apologize, for not making myself more clear.”

Valarr pulls down his breeches and panic seizes you. You crawl to your feet but he's faster, shoving you onto the grass once more. His body traps yours, forcing you onto your stomach. You sob as he bunches your dress around your waist.

“You were my father’s…and now you are mine,” he mumbles against your ear, sinking himself completely into your dry entrance. Your nails break as you rake your fingers across the dirt, whimpering as he slams his hips into yours roughly. “And soon, you will be my lady wife, and I your lord husband.”

Valarr drapes his hand over your mouth, silencing your screams as his pelvis snaps into yours from behind. Tears blur your sight, your muffled pleas swallowed by the grass.

Prince Valarr’s warm breath tickles the back of your neck.

Prince Valarr’s fingers twine with yours under the table as you behold the Bravoosi dancers’ performance. They are dotting bright costumes and makeshift dragon masks, twirling and leaping while juggling daggers several feet in the air that somehow always land back in their hands.

The wondrous feat mesmerizes you. It ought to be sorcery, you conclude, which coaxes a tender chuckle from the prince when you suggest it to him.

“It is a dance,” he explains.

“A dance aiming to kill. How…peculiar.”

Yet the spectacle holds a beauty that cannot be dismissed. Ancient. Ethereal.

It is your first time attending a name day feast. One in the honor of King Daeron at that.

You had assumed you were to stay in the Maidenvault, where Valarr often bids you to remain when you are apart. It was a delightful surprise when he appeared in your bedchamber earlier today, with a splendid red dress for you to wear at the feast and a bright grin etched on his boyish features.

It requires great effort to maintain poise, feign disinterest like the other guests. But today is your first time seeing the Great Hall. Sizzling curiosity compels you to steal secret glances at the dragon skulls mounted on the walls, the vermillion dragon of the Targaryen house bleeding on black tapestries, the noble ladies draped in expensive Myrish lace and silk brocade, their unblemished necks sparkling with gold and expensive stones.

You wager one such dress could pay the yearly earnings of any of the girls back at the pleasure house. Perhaps even two.

While you share the same hall as those ladies from renowned houses, the chasm between you and them is as wide as the Shivering Sea. Instead of the accident of good birth and breeding, the gods saw fit to bestow you with a room in an orphanage and a childhood in a pleasure house.

“I long to slip away from this tedious pageantry so I may feast on you instead of these dull treats,” Valarr coos along your earshell, his grip on your hand loosening to engage on a dangerous journey below the hem of your dress and up your thigh. His mismatched irises are ablaze with mischief.

Tingles bloom across your skin below his daring touch.

A smile creeps upon your lips…One that vanishes as Lord Baelor’s gaze draws yours across the long table. He does not approve. He never has. Yet it was him who brought Valarr to you in the pillow house you used to reside in. You were untouched, a flower whose petals had yet to be plucked. The price of your maidenhead was steep but in Valarr’s eyes it had made you even more precious and invaluable. A name day gift befitting a Targaryen prince. A rare pearl as Prince Baelor put it that day. But courtesans, however comely, well dressed and poised, are meant to be a fleeting distraction. An ephemeral infatuation mayhaps.

Not a year-long…entanglement. And entangled to Prince Valarr you have become. His pleasure, his contentment, his fulfillment...they are the delicate thread upon which your life in the Red Keep hinges, a thread that could snap any day your gentle prince’s eyes wander. As men’s eyes tend to do. Your body is his temple, one he’d worship at the altar of every night if he could. But men are fickle with their faith.

Still, appearances matter, however thin the veil of pretense between you and the prince. Hence you nudge his fingers away with practiced gentleness.

“Not here. Your father is watching,” you whisper.

A war wages on your prince’s taut features. Between his unwavering sense of duty and his boundless devotion to you.

He brings your hand to his lips.

“My Lord Father may watch as he likes. It matters not, jorrāeliarzys.”

It does matter. You know from the way Valarr dodges his father’s scrutiny when you are near. His heart may be yours, but his allegiance is to his family first, his father, the throne. That truth remains embedded inside you like a dagger. One no feverish promise may dislodge.

You suck in a nervous breath.

“Valarr, I hear he has found a worthy match-”

“I will not hear of it.” His thumb traces your cheek, his touch reverent. “What need have I of some maiden I do not know when I have you?”

A fond smile tugs your lips.

“You are reckless.”

“No, I am in love,” he states, holding your eyes.

Eternity cradles this moment as the seconds stretch, seemingly infinite. Words clog your throat. While he calls you ‘beloved’ often, whether in Valyrian or the common tongue, that word has never left his lips before. That daunting, thrilling word. Love. To utter it here, at his grandsire’s feast, with so many eyes upon him, robs the very breath in your lungs.

Before you can craft an answer, a deep voice disrupts the storm of your thoughts.

“May I have this dance, my lady?”

You lift your head, your eyes growing wide. You get lost in a deep violet sea.

“Cousin,” Valarr greets. His stiff tone does not elude you.

“Do not fret, cousin. I simply wish to borrow your…guest for one dance.”

A pale hand remains outstretched before you. Cropped silver locks. Sharp, angular features. You had seen him from afar through your arched window in the Maidenvault. Even at a distance, he reeked an arrogance that was singular even for a Targaryen. An innate dislike for the silver-haired prince sparked within you at that moment.

“Prince Aerion Brightflame.” Word has reached your ears of Prince Valaar’s infamous cousin. His cruel, volatile nature is no secret. A dragon made flesh, or so the princeling believes himself to be. “It is an honor, my lord.”

You bow your head, your genteel manner belying your true feelings. You take the blond’s hand and Valarr’s hand squeezes around your fingers under the table, reluctant to yield.

Heart in your throat, your focus shifts between Valaar and Prince Aerion.

He gives a belated reply.

“You may have one dance,” Valarr relents, an animosity that startles you bleeding through his voice.

Though you cannot be sure in the dim candlelight, you catch a glimpse of mirth swaying in Prince Aerion’s violet gaze.

The blonde escorts you amidst the nobles, the merry hymn of the fiddle and harps marking their steps. His grip on your waist is firm as he takes the lead. You follow him with ease, having practiced the steps since you were young. The pillowhouse taught you everything. How to smile, how to laugh, how to dance, how to recite poetry and how to…please royalty.  

Aerion’s scrutiny never strays, a hot brand on your skin. Every inch of you is unpeeled by the prince’s violet gaze. Your motions, your attire, your very expression. You feel assessed though you’re uncertain for what purpose.

“I must say, it is more than I expected from my cousin’s whore.”

The abrupt words ignite flames in your cheeks.

“I’m not a whore,” you retort, despising how the crude word sinks under your flesh.

He spins you and when you face him again, he is closer. Close enough for his warm breath to flow over your cheek.

“You are no lady either.”

Indignation burns in your gut.

“From the tales I hear of you, my lord, I doubt you’d know the difference.”

His jaw clenches, his grip on your hand growing painful. You grind your teeth, holding his stare.

“Quite the mouth you have on you, wench.” His tone lowers, his tongue darting out briefly. “I wager it has many uses.”

You glare at the prince, your lips parting to respond. But before you can retaliate, Prince Valarr’s familiar timbre ripples at your back.

“I believe that dance has lasted long enough, cousin.”

Relief floods your chest.

Valarr tugs your hand, nudging you to his side. Aerion still holds your other hand in his steely grip. A tense, quiet skirmish ensues between the two princes, with you in the middle.

After a while, the silver-haired prince slackens his grip.

Valarr gives a curt nod to his cousin and stomps away, his fingers clasping yours. Your cheeks burn. The sizzling attention of the nobles in attendance needles your back. Tongues will wag. Prince Baelor will not be content. Neither will their grandsire King Daeron you presume.

Valarr takes hasty, long strides towards Maegor’s Holdfast, the furious thumping of his boots echoing against the stone walls. You attempt not to trip over your own feet as you’re forced to follow his brisk pace.

When he reaches his bedchambers, he drags you inside, slamming the door shut. Before you can open your mouth to speak, Valarr cradles your face, his lips colliding with yours. He devours your mouth, holding you as if afraid you might disappear. The ardent kiss is hardly more than a clash of teeth and tongue, his desperate longing coating the air. You moan, tugging on his doublet.

Once he’s had his fill of you, Valarr rests his forehead against yours. His rushed breaths mingle with yours.

Your focus bounces between his lilac eye and his brown one, finding the same bright embers of fury. The eyes of a dragon, you muse. He has seldom looked so very Targaryen.

He takes a deep breath.

“He aims to provoke me. Aerion has made a game of taunting me since we were boys.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, his hands pulling yours until you stand between his legs.

“He resents me for being second in line to the throne. He believes me…unworthy.” His jaw tenses.

“You are not unworthy,” you say, your tone firm.

His palms settle on your hips. The ire carved on his boyish features melts as his fingers trace an idle path along your sides.

You place your hand on his shoulder, stroking the snowy streak on the back of his head with your other.

The tension woven in his frame loosens further.

“Your father is heir and the seven kingdoms are better for it,” you say. Nibbling your lip, you weigh your words before uttering, “Your cousin is far too… impetuous, my prince.”

A soft smile lights his features.

“You are too kind.”

Kind, you ponder. Speaking ill of a prince is tantamount to treason. Even in the safety of Valarr’s arms, you cannot forget your station. Although at times you ache to do so. To shatter the shackles of rank and birth and allow that sense of certainty, of safety engulf you.

But the truth remains. Valarr is a prince, an heir. You’re a mere courtesan.

A heavy sigh escapes his lips.

“By the gods, I longed for peace the entire evening.” He presses his head against your belly, his eyes fluttering shut. “You are my peace.”

Warmth fills your chest. He basks in your touch, his arms clutching your waist. The quiet respite lingers. Valarr’s soft breaths flow through the silk of your dress. You stroke his brown strands, the tender silence comforting you both.

And if a glimpse of violet eyes invades your thoughts, you are swift to quell the pesky memory.

His poise now restored, the prince rises.

“I have a gift for you.”

You tilt your head sideways.

“A gift, my prince?”

A glint of excitement dances in his eyes.

“Turn around.”

You do as he commands, joining your hands in front of you. You face the full length gilded mirror. There’s a rustling noise at your back. Valarr’s warm breath tickles the nape of your neck as cool metal and stone kisses your skin. Amazed, your fingers trace the necklace he clasped around your neck. The gold and rubies match your dress, sparkling in the moonlight spilling inside the room.

You admire the sight of you and Valarr in the tall mirror.

For a brief moment, you conjure a chimeric fantasy. One where you are more than a girl from a pleasure house. One where you and the prince are bound by more than a clandestine affair.

You let the fantasy recess in a hidden corner of your heart. A place where you’ll find it if one day you need to dream again.

“How pretty,” you chime. “You spoil me, my lord. You shouldn’t-”

“Nonsense. I recall you pointing it to me at the market square.”

Heat creeps up your cheeks. The prince is overly generous. Mayhaps you had hoped for a new necklace, but not so soon.

“Thank you, your grace. I shall cherish it.”

His brows furrow.

“Valarr. You know I don’t want titles or rank to cast a shadow over us.” His knuckles sweep down your arm. “It will soon mark a year since I brought you to the Keep. You needn’t be so formal.”

“Forgive me…Valarr.” A knot loosens in your chest. He smiles at you in the mirror.

“You need not ask for forgiveness either. Nothing you do could ever sway my devotion.”

He kisses your shoulder and your gut sinks, the weight of your lies sitting heavy.

The aching truth is that one day Valarr will marry.

You’ve heard the maids whisper about it in the kitchens, some girl from Tyrosh his father wishes to arrange a match with. Or worse, another maiden will draw his eye.

Someone younger, prettier.

Each moon turn will paint deeper lines on your face.

He might even dismiss you on a mere whim.

As fond as you are of Valarr, you can never trust his tenuous promises. It’s why the fact that every piece of jewelry, every pearl, every gift he bestowed upon you has been kept in a safe in preparation for your inevitable departure from the Red Keep…is a secret you cradle close to your chest. The prince would be displeased.

It is mere precaution, for the day his favor will wane, his devotion waver. You do not wish to leave him. But you must keep your wits about you. You have witnessed countless girls at the pillow house fall for noblemen’s grand promises of a better life. Their hopes are always crushed. You cannot be so foolish.

There is enough in that safe to buy you safe passage across the Narrow Sea. Enough to buy your eventual freedom.

Valarr strokes the column of your throat.

“Henceforward, you are forbidden to say ‘your grace’...” His voice shifts into a low rasp. “Lest I bend you over my knee and remind you of my true name, again and again…”

Blood rushes to your lower parts.

“You are wicked, my prince, to say such filthy things with such a sweet face.”

His smile turns devious in the mirror.

“Remove your dress,” Valarr mumbles near your ear.

You oblige, squirming out of the red silk until it falls into a heap on the floor. His mismatched gaze darkens as he soaks your bare form in the mirror.

As you reach for the clasp of the necklace, he nudges your hands down.

“No. Keep it on. I want to remember you this way.”

“Which way, my prince?”

His hold on your hips tightens.

“Utterly and undeniably mine.”

His fingers make a slow journey along your navel, lingering on your exposed flesh. He scatters soft kisses along your throat, his other hand grasping your chest. He teases your breast and your peak pebbles beneath his touch. Your pulse quickens under his palm.

His chest presses against your back, the hand on your stomach traveling lower. He finds the swollen nub above your center. His deft fingers trace slow circles over the sensitive part, sending warm tingles down your legs.

Your eyes flutter, the sensation growing in your lower body. You arch your body, seeking more friction. But his fingers retreat before you can reach your pinnacle, pushing, teasing, but denying you release.

He is enthralled by the sight of your body's response to his touch in the mirror, every shift of your expression, every slight shiver.

He buries one finger inside your cunt. Your thighs clench, a muffled gasp leaving your lips.

“You are torturing me, my prince,” you mumble between jagged breaths.

“Yet we have just begun, beloved.”

He punctuates his words by sinking a second finger, pumping inside you at a maddening pace. Your back arches, your head falling back against his shoulder. His familiar scent and solid presence at your back fogs your senses. You lose yourself in the feeling, your hips undulating to meet his languid thrusts.

He grazes that special spot inside you, the one that makes your knees wobble and obscures your sight. Your breaths grow more laborious. You clench around him.

He plays with your nipple, his fingers continuing to drag in and out of you. You tense, feeble fingers grasping at his arm.

You are close. So close. Your chest heaves, the tide of pleasure mounting in your belly.

Then his fingers retreat, leaving you in sheer agony. Feverish. Breathless.

Valarr tuts his disapproval. “Not yet.”

He smiles at your little pout in the mirror, making a smug display of licking your essence off his fingers. A treacherous thrill shoots up your spine.

He seizes your hips, leading you to the edge of the bed. You plop down on the plush linens, peering up at him.

“Must you control everything, my prince?”

He parts your legs, plummeting to his knees between your thighs. A prince, kneeling before a courtesan. Before you. It is a singular sight. One you cannot help but relish.

“When it comes to you, jorrāeliarzys, I fear I must,” he says, his eyes ensnaring yours.

Without warning, he dives between your thighs. Your chest seizes. The prince’s wicked tongue explores you with abandon.

Your head tosses back, your fingers gripping onto his silky locks.

Once again, he gives and he takes, driving you to the brink of madness. You float along the delightful waves as long as he allows before he withdraws.

“You are cruel, your grace.”

He peels off his doublet and chainmail, baring his smooth, muscular chest. As he tugs on his belt and rises, pressing you down on the bed, he murmurs, “Valarr. ‘You are cruel, Valarr.’ Say it.”

He tugs down his breeches, discards his belt. His long, veiny length is freed, glistening at the tip. Your contemplation of the prince in all his glory is abridged when he sheathes himself inside you. A feeble moan climbs up your throat.

“You are…” He enters you to the hilt. “cruel..” His head falls against your chest. “…Valarr.”

Your cunt tightens around his cock and the prince unleashes a throaty whine.

He moves inside you, each thrust slow and deep. Desperation bleeds in the way his hands cling to you.

And as he claims you for the rest of the night, he makes sure his name spills from your lips every time you come apart.

The next few days are spent in near solitude. Per Prince Valarr’s request, you dwell in your chambers in the Maidenvault throughout the day. Meanwhile King Daeron’s name day celebrations continue. Knees tucked against your chest, you sit at your window. You watch dawn shift into evenfall, bright orange skies fade into purple hues. Day in and day out. You get a glimpse of the ladies draped in their best silks pour through the gates, the knights heading to the tourney. You hear the music, ballads and laughter from the Great Hall every night.

Around you, the Red Keep doesn’t just exist. It lives and breathes, while you’re withering away in your room.

You keep busy, of course. There is a vast library in the Maidenvault. Most of the books and parchments on the shelves were curated by Princess Elaena Targaryen herself during her imprisonment. Although your body is confined within these walls, your mind is free to wander. To imagine yourself far away, in the golden sands of Dorne or amidst the snowy mountains in the North. Each story offers an escape, albeit fleeting, from the Keep.

You also embroider, enterprising to stitch rose patterns on your worn dresses out of sheer boredom. You prick your fingertips so many times that you renounce the task altogether.

At night, Prince Valarr summons you. It somewhat eases the forlorn thoughts but you are restless.

You used to roam the King’s Landing as you pleased a few moons ago. It seems lifetimes away now.

By the eighth sunrise, the isolation grows maddening. Sombre thoughts creep inside your head, nightmares conquer your nights. Frustrated, you toss your blanket aside and get dressed with haste. You take a deep breath, settling on a decision. You will make a small journey to the kitchens today. It should do no harm, you surmise. You will grab some bread and cheese, make small talk with the maids and return to your room right away. It will be quick, unnoticed. The prince never has to know.

Still, guilt wrenches your bowels as you scurry through the halls, your gaze darting behind you as if the prince might appear from a dark corner. You fiddle with your ruby necklace, taking a long breath as you approach the kitchens.

But a commotion from inside the room halts your hasty stride. A frown wrinkles your brow. You shudder at the sound of broken dishes and irate shouts. Your breath hangs still in your lungs, your back flattening against the wall.

“You impertinent halfwit! Are you trying to poison me?”

“N-No, my lord. I swear. We made it as you requested.”

Careful to remain hidden, you steal a glance inside the kitchen.

Your heart leaps. Prince Aerion Brightflame.

The silver-haired prince looms over one of the cooks. The man is crouched on the floor, shivering. There are shattered pieces of a dish amidst what seemed to be a stew of some kind, spilled across the stone floor. Your mouth waters at the scent but it’s clear the prince holds a different opinion.

He kicks the cook in the stomach, causing the poor man to cough and crumple to the floor.

Your stomach lurches.

Putting your hand over your mouth, you recede further across the wall to remain unseen.

“Eat it then, since you’re so proud of it,” you hear Aerion bark. A wave of cold travels up your spine.

“My prince, I…there are broken shards on the floor,” the man stammers.

Another kicking sound reaches your ears. You freeze, your pulse quickening.

“I said eat it!”

“Y-Yes, my lord…”

Unshed tears fill your eyes. You decide you have heard enough and make a discreet exit, your steps quiet as you walk away from the kitchens.

Still aching for fresh air, you head to the gardens. At least there you will have peace. You will be far away from monstrous princes and unfortunate cooks.

You find a stone bench under a weirwood tree. As you sit, you realize your hands are shaking. You clasp them together in your lap, willing the tremors to cease. You focus on the birdsong in trees, the blue sky, the blinding sun, the blushing leaves and bone-white bark. You breathe the warm air, thankful for this respite, however ephemeral. Soon, you will be compelled to return to the Maidenvault. So you relish this moment while it lasts.

Yet, in spite of your efforts, your thoughts stray. Towards the poor cook…and the vicious prince. How could one be so wicked? Heartless?

You wonder if it was wrong to flee, if there is anything you could have done. No. You are as powerless as this man was. Mayhaps even more. It’s a sour realization. How justice and decency means little to one with a title. How vows of knighthood may be discarded if one’s rank is high enough. They are dragons and we are ants, waiting to be crushed under their feet.

“Hm, pretty necklace. A gift from my besotted cousin, I presume?”

The warm finger on your nape and eerily familiar voice have you bolting upright.

You spin, your heart bouncing to your throat.

The object of your dire musings stands before you, his violet stare pinned to your frame. You suck a deep breath, stiffen your spine.

You give a hasty, clumsy bow.

“Prince Aerion, my lord. Apologies. I-I did not hear you.” Your attempt to quell the quiver in your voice is for naught. A lump forms in your throat. You did not hear him somehow, too absorbed you were in your thoughts.

You give another bow and try to sidestep him.

“I shall leave you be. Good day, my lord.”

His imperious timbre impedes your escape.

“Have I done something to offend you?”

Ice scatters in your veins. You shake your head swiftly.

“N-No, my lord. Of course not.”

“Then stay. Sit with me awhile.”

He takes an idle seat on the bench.

“I believe I should…”

“Do not be silly, wench,” he says, impatience dripping in his tone. “Are you dismissing an order from your prince?”

As you hesitate, he clicks his tongue in rising annoyance.

“Dragons aren’t patient creatures.” He pats the empty space beside him. “Sit.”

You yield, tremulous steps leading you to the bench.

He leans back on the bench, his relaxed posture a clear contrast to the taut way you sit.

A few moments of heavy, uncomfortable silence fly by before he speaks.

“You were watching earlier weren’t you…” Your heart skips a beat. “when I was punishing that insolent dimwit?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, nudge a placid smile on your lips.

“I know not what you speak of, my prince.”

The weight of his violet gaze is as rocks on a thin thread. One in imminent state of snapping.

He hums, as if musing aloud, “You’re a clever one, aren't you?” He sniffs, his tone turning derisive. “I mean…as clever as a woman can be.”

You don’t flinch. You’ve heard worse insults hurled at the girls at the pillow house, worse insults whispered behind your back.

“You have my cousin eating every word out of your deceitful mouth like a starved bird.”

This creates a crack in the armor you’ve built around yourself.

Your eyes narrow.

“I’m not deceiving him.”

He sizes you up and scoffs, “You are a whore. Lies and deceit are your trade.”

Your chest flares, indignation mounting within you.

“I really must return to my chambers, my lord.”

“Your chambers…or my cousin’s?” he taunts.

You rise, your motions stilted and hasty.

“Good evening, my lord.”

But Aerion’s hand latches around your wrist. He gets to his feet without hurry, his proximity unnerving you.

“What is your fee?”

Your pulse soars. You blink, thinking perhaps you heard wrong. Surely the wind distorted his words.

The silver-haired princeling sighs, as if you were a dimwit he was losing patience for.

“Your wage, your price…how much?” he asks, his tone dismissive. “Fifty golden dragons? A hundred?”

You gape at him.

Aerion rolls his eyes, “Just give me your fee and I will meet it, wench.”

It takes you a while to retrieve your ability to speak.

“My fee…for what, my lord?”

His fingers dig into your wrist.

“To bury myself in your sweet cunny, of course.” Flames swallow your face. “You must be more than a pretty face for my sanctimonious cousin to act like such a lovestruck fool.”

Your hammering heart sings an uproar in your ears.

There is no thought, no intent, no plan. It is raw anger that causes your hand to fly right into Prince Aerion’s cheek. The harsh slap echoes across the garden.

Time stands still, the prince’s eyes widening.

His utter shock grants you precious seconds.

You gather your dress and race out of the gardens, losing a shoe in your haste. The icy stones burn the sole of your bare foot.

Your thoughts race. You struck a prince.

Your hurried escape is half a run, half a hobble across the Red Keep’s halls. You must return to the Maidenvault. It was a mistake to ever leave it. You were safe.

Your lungs are on fire but fear drives your feet forward.

When your head is slammed into a nearby wall, you cry out. The pain rings inside your head, blurring your vision.

Prince   Aerion’s haughty voice pierces through the haze.

“You impudent little harlot! How dare you lay a hand on me?”

His hand circles your throat, squeezing hard enough to crush your windpipe.

He bends close to your face, sneering, “You have fire, I concede, but fire cannot burn a dragon.”

The silk of your dress is bunched upwards. A palm creeps up your thigh. Panic seizes your chest and you reach for his face. He snatches your wrists before you can strike him again, shoving you against the wall. A groan of pain leaves your lips.

“Must you be so difficult?” he hisses.

Warm fingers slip under your dress. Dread wrenches your insides, your heart threatening to burst inside your chest.

Cruel digits bury inside your dry walls. A cry of pain tears from your throat. Tears collect in your eyes. You tug at your wrists, struggling to free yourself, desperation clawing at your chest.

His hot breath tickles your throat. His musky scent coats your senses as he presses his body against yours, trapping you against the wall.

“Please,” you say, loathing how pathetic you sound.

His crude exploration tears more broken wails from you.

He grunts. “You are so tight…like a maiden. Are you sure my cousin has properly bedded you?”

As you brace yourself for more discomfort, the weight of the prince vanishes. Air rushes back to your lunges all at once. You pat your bruised throat, staggering to your feet.

Your glassy eyes swing upwards.

Dazed, you soak the scene before you.

Valarr holding Prince Aerion by the collar of his doublet, rage twisting his boyish features. This is an uncanny sight. The prince is usually so even-tempered.

“How dare you touch her?” he roars.

Disbelief paints the silver-haired prince’s features.

“You would fight your own blood, cousin…over some whore?”

Valarr’s gaze narrows.

“She’s not a whore.”

Silence stretches between the two princes.

Aerion tilts his head, studying Valarr like a riddle he pained to solve.

“By the gods, you genuinely think you love her. Astounding.”

Valarr’s jaw ticks. He gives Aerion a harsh shove, causing the blond prince to stumble backwards.

“Leave her be, cousin. I shall not repeat myself.”

Leaving his slack-jawed cousin behind, the prince grabs your hand and leads you away. You are numb, your hand quivering in his.

Your heart hasn’t settled yet, fear still clutching you tight.

The haze engulfing you is so thick that you are startled to realize you are in the prince’s chambers, and not the Maidenvault, when you return to yourself.

Valarr bids you to sit on his bed. He seems to assess you for injuries. You flinch when his fingers graze the bruise on your neck.

His brows furrow.

“Are you well?” His voice is soft again, the ire he displayed earlier dulled.

You hug your frame. “I…do not know.”

A deep sigh ripples from his throat.

“Apologies for this…unpleasantness. It brings me shame that Aerion and I are kin.”

You cloister yourself in silence for a while. Thoughts storm in your head, each angrier and louder than the other. Words scald your tongue but you keep your lips sealed.

After some time, Prince Valarr unleashes a long exhale.

“Speak, I beseech you.”

“Is that all, my prince?”

Befuddlement creases his brow.

“All?”

You nibble on your lip, gulping your tears.

“Prince Aerion hurt me, tried to…” The word snags in your throat. “Is there to be no justice?”

His frown deepens.

“I am sorry that he touched you. It will never happen again.”

He attempts to cradle your cheek but you recoil, turning your head. Valarr’s jaw clenches but he doesn’t touch you again.

He retreats and lets out a frustrated groan.

“I have done all that I could.”

“Allow me to doubt that, my prince.”

Shadows flicker in his mismatched gaze.

He sinks to his knees in front of you.

“The Targaryens of Summerhall leave in a few days when my grandsire’s name day celebrations end. Remain in my chambers until then.”

“So I am to hide?”

He reaches for your hands, his fingers firm on yours. You tense at his touch but he doesn’t let go.

“Only for a few days, beloved. You shall be safe here.”

“I do not feel safe.”

His face shifts, as if the mere idea that you wouldn’t be safe besides him was ludicrous.

“You will in a few days. I swear it,” he says. He pauses before announcing, “I will call for a maester.”

“I have no need of a maester,” you retort.

The last thing you wish at the moment is to be poked and prodded by a man again.

“I insist upon it, my love. You are hurt.”

You open your mouth and close it, resigned as you note his resolute expression. Your objections mean nothing to the prince. His mind is made.

Valarr gets to his feet, stomps out of the room, locking it behind him.

You lie on your side, willing yourself to stop shaking. You stare at your tremulous hand. Stop shaking, hand. You focus on this single task, clenching and unclenching your quivering fingers. Hoping it will chase the violet gaze creeping at the edge of your thoughts.

A maester indeed comes. He examines you and gives you an ointment for your bruise. During the entire ordeal, you don’t utter a word. Not even when the maester asks about the cause of the injury and Valarr gives a blatant lie.

When evenfall comes, you curl on your side of the prince’s large bed.

“Please, just allow me to hold you,” he pleads behind you.

You shrink when his palm grazes your waist.

“I do not wish to be held.”

He sighs and retreats.

“As you wish then.”

His tossing and turning is impossible to ignore besides you, making it clear your stubbornness is robbing him of sleep. The prince’s frustration clogs the room, rousing a trickle of guilt in your chest.

You shift closer to him.

“You may hold me,” you relent.

The prince studies your face in the dark, his brows colliding.

“I fear that I'm forcing my will upon you.”

You ache to scream that he is, but smile instead.

“I want you to hold me, Valarr.” You reach for his hand, place it against your bosom. “Please.”

He doesn't hesitate to tug you into his embrace, nestling your back against his chest. The prince’s body sags, his breaths growing calm and steady. The air shrinks in your lungs. Your stomach tightens.

For the first time, the prince’s arms around you are like shackles.

As Valarr instructed, you stay in his chambers for the next few days. The first two nights, the prince simply holds you, allowing you space to recover. Though you are stiff at first, you grow to relax in his arms. On the third night, he makes his urges clear, his urgent need pressing against your rear.

“Valarr, I do not-”

He plants tender kisses in the crook of your neck. Your skin tingles beneath his lips but it’s less pleasant than usual. You curl over the linen sheets. His arms drape around your waist, his soft brown strands brushing against your neck.

“Please, I crave you.” Desperation and longing bleed through his voice. “I miss you.”

You hesitate, your insides knotting. The thought of being touched so soon after Aerion’s impropriety stirs your discomfort.

But the prince is unrelenting.

“Do you not miss me?” he asks, hurt tinging his soft inflection.

“I do. Of course I do.”

Valarr’s face brightens at your response.

The rest is a blur. The prince’s soft lips on your skin. His familiar hands gliding over your curves. His hips slamming into yours as you cry out against his shoulder.

He cradles you like he always does, whispering gentle promises of love and devotion. He isn’t careless or rough. He is slow, careful, handling you as if afraid you’ll shatter in his arms.

Yet you cannot dismiss that peculiar ache in your chest as you writhe beneath him.

The Targaryens of Summerhall’s departure the next day is a relief. Air returns to your lungs as you watch Prince Aerion, his father and his brothers cross the gates astride their horses. You lean your cheek against the window, the tension of the last few days leaking out of you. Finally. You may return to your own chambers. As soon as the gates shut, you are on your feet, ready to head back to the Maidenvault.

A bare-chested Valaar wraps his arms around you from behind. He kisses your shoulder.

“Must you leave so soon?”

“It is the morning. I must bathe and dress, my prince.”

His lips tug upwards against your skin.

“We can bathe together,” he says. His tone turns husky, “As for dressing, perhaps that can wait…”

Another trail of soft kisses is left on your neck.

“My prince,” you mumble, your skin tingling beneath his lips.

Words wither in your throat. The truth is you crave the isolation you ran from before, a few precious moments to yourself. Moments where you are not touched, held or craved. The prince’s eagerness to touch you hasn’t wavered in the last few days.

“Stay, I beg of you,” Valarr whispers into your hair.

“Is this an order, your grace?”

The moment the words spill from your mouth, you realize your mistake. The prince scowls, his hold loosening.

“It need not be one,” he says tonelessly.

You fiddle with your hands.

“I merely wish to go back to my chambers.”

Valarr cups your cheek, his voice sweet as honey.

“Is anything the matter, beloved?”

As you cloak yourself in silence, the prince heaves a deep sigh.

“You are wroth with me still.”

Your gaze strays, your fingernails digging into your palm.

He takes your hands in his.

“May you forgive me one day?”

“There is nothing to forgive.” Though the words echo false as they roll off your tongue.

His thumbs sweep over your cheeks, his expression mellowing.

“I have been excessively demanding.” He lets go of your face. “Apologies. I just ache for your presence, day and night.” His forehead creases. “The burden of my name, my father’s expectations…all of it vanishes when I’m with you.”

Warmth spreads in your chest.

You give a feeble smile. “I am simply in need of rest, my prince.”

Concern paints his features.

“Of course. You may have all the rest you require, jorrāeliarzys.”

Your eyes widen. “Truly?”

He chuckles, stroking your hair.

“Truly. You have been my comfort and my peace for so long.” He pauses, soaking your features. “It is the least you deserve.”

He drops a chivalrous kiss on the back of your hand.

“I will not call on you until you are fully rested.”

A knot loosens in your chest.

“Thank you, your grace.”

“Valarr,” he gently corrects.

You smile and bow. “Valarr,” you repeat.

There is a lightness to your steps as you head back to the Maidenvault. You grab a book from the shelves and settle on the window that has become your refuge. You pat the dust off the cover, lean against the window. You sink into the yellowed pages, basking in the first respite you have enjoyed in days. After countless hours, your eyes sting. Your gaze strays beyond the window. Stars are dotting the darkening hues of the sky. You rise and put the book on your night table. You light the torches on the walls and the room warms with a dim glow. Gulping a lungful of air, you kneel on the stone floor near your bed. You lift two stones, revealing your hiding space, You inspect the inside of the chest with all the jewelry you own. All the prince’s gifts. An errant, mad thought lurks inside your head. Mayhaps it is enough now. Enough to flee far from here. It could buy you the fare across the Narrow Sea, passage to the Free Cities, Lys, Dorne….wherever you wish.

For a few minutes, you dare to entertain it. A life outside the Red Keep. Away from Prince Valarr. Your heart wrenches. No. You slam the small chest shut and lock it. You place the stones back into place, return to your bed.

The prince is fond of you. He loves you. And, you believe, mayhaps you love him as well.

You claw at your chest. But this ache that bloomed since Prince Aerion…

You shudder as a sea of purple drowns your thoughts.

Will it ever fade?

You shake your head, tugging the blanket over yourself. You must cease these endless musings. You are hovering right over the brink of madness. You are safe now. Prince Valarr said so himself. The Targaryens of Summerhall are gone. It’s just you and your prince. And once you are rested and your mind cleansed, you will be back in his arms.

So you close your eyes and allow sleep to engulf you.

For the first time in days, you find a modicum of peace.

Your thoughts fall silent. Your heart settles. The tension woven through your body loosens.

For some time, your rest is sound and undisturbed.

Some hours later, a tingling in your lower body impedes your sleep. You groan and stir, groggily kicking your legs but you find your movements restrained.

The trail of warm tingles continues over your legs, spreading outwards. You tug but are once more shackled to the bed.

Confused, your eyes quake open. Your heart stumbles inside your chest.

The sight of silver hair and purple eyes crowd your sight. The blanket has been discarded, your night shift lifted, and Prince Aerion’s long fingers are hooked around your knees.

Horror twists your insides as you watch him kiss and bite his way up your legs, scattering marks on your skin. You open your mouth to scream.

But Prince Aerion is swifter.

The icy kiss of a sharp blade on your neck ensnares your voice. Your throat bobs and you feel the metal pierce your skin slightly. Unspilled tears swim in your eyes.

The silver-haired prince shushes you. He places one finger over his lips while his other hand holds the dagger to your throat. The knowledge that with one flick of his wrist the prince could end your life has your heart racing.

“Quiet. Why ruin our fun when it’s just begun?” he whispers.

He drags the tip of his knife down your neck, his violet gaze glued to the motion of your throat. A sadistic joy sways in his eyes when the tip of his weapon lands on your pulse.

Your breath freezes in your lungs.

“Please,” you croak.

He lets the blade travel along your collarbone, right over your breast, where your heart threatens to burst out of your chest. With a shallow pressure, he nicks you. You whine as blood pearls over your skin. A small crimson stain forms on your night shift. The prince’s pupils inflate at the sight.

Aerion lifts your chin with his dagger.

“Please what?” he asks, his tone imperious.

“P-Please, d-don’t kill me,” you say, your chest heaving rapidly.

He tilts his head, tracing the hollow of your cheek with his knife.

“I will consider it…if you do not bore me.” He sighs. “Starting with this wretched sniveling. Cease it.”

It’s a relief when he lowers his knife. Wiping your eyes, you force yourself to suppress your tears.

“Now…” He grips the top of your night shift, pulling until the fabric rips. The tattered pieces hang on your arms, baring your chest. Aerion’s leering gaze sweeps over you, his scrutiny heating your skin. He sneers, “No wonder my cousin keeps you to himself.”

Your breath hitches as he palms one of your breasts. He pinches your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tearing a whimper from you. Your cheeks heat as your peak hardens.

“Well, he will have to learn to share.”

His lips then collide with yours. The silver-haired prince swallows your moans, his teeth grazing your lip, his tongue tangling with yours. The press of his lips on yours is greedy, feverish. He rips more of the flimsy fabric of your shift, exposing more of you to his hungry gaze.

He reaches for an object besides the bed. You squint, struggling to see in the darkness. Your eyes widen when you catch the glint of a flask. The prince takes a large gulp, wiping the crimson trail on his chin. To your shock, he then holds it to your lips.

“Drink,” he orders.

When you hesitate, his patience snaps. He presses the rim against your lips, forcing you to swallow the wine. You cough as you struggle to swallow the alcohol. It’s a mess. A lot of it drips down your chin and chest.

Lust flares in Aerion’s eyes. He bends over your chest, licking the stray wine and sucking on your skin. Goosebumps bloom in the trail of his wicked tongue. He hums in pleasure and the sound goes straight to your core.

Aerion forces more wine down your throat, kissing you and licking the remnants coating your chin. Your head spins, the wine starting to wear on your senses.

He bunches your torn night shift around your hips, parting your thighs.

The room blurs around you.

A haze settles over your mind.

Faintly, you feel the bulge in Aerion’s pants. He rubs himself against you, his teeth grazing your neck. His weight is heavy between your legs, pushing you down against the soft bed.

You claw feebly at his face and he grips your wrists, clasping them above your head. Your bones are crushed in his steely grip. You squirm beneath him and his teeth pierce your neck. You cry out, tears rushing to your eyes. You catch a glimpse of the crimson staining his teeth. Your blood. A chill travels up your spine.

Aerion’s tongue darts out to lick the blood on his lip.

“You will learn to bow to your dragon,” he says. His warm breath ghosts over your ear. “To obey. To serve. To worship.”

A cool sensation creeps between your legs. The sensation drags across your inner thigh. You shiver. As it lands at the apex of your thighs, prodding your wet entrance, you whimper. It’s uncomfortable, foreign. You steal a glance downwards and your stomach clenches with dread as you realize what the prince is doing. He draws torturous circles with the handle of his dagger over your wet cunt. Shameful moans climb up your throat, treacherous tides of pleasure swelling in your belly.

A crooked smirk blooms on Aerion’s lips. You have never seen him smile before. It chills your blood. He gathers your arousal with the knife’s handle, rubbing your swollen tangle of nerves until you cry out over the linen sheets, the sensations hitting their peak. You collapse on the sheets, you face hot with an embarrassment you've never felt before. You pant, warmth prickling your skin.

When Aerion withdraws the knife, he makes a show of licking your essence off the handle, his violet gaze never straying from yours.

He unleashes a raspy moan. “Only a filthy whore would get this wet from a knife.” He sinks his finger inside your dripping cunt, tearing a ragged whimper from your throat. His finger drags along your walls and your legs tremble. He bends over you, his breath melding with yours.

You whine as he keeps dragging his finger inside you, adding a second one and stretching you even more. Your back arches on the sheets.

His taunting voice pours inside your ears. “And that is what you are. A filthy whore made for a prince’s cock. A perfect offering for a dragon.”

Your vision darkens as Aerion keeps thrusting his fingers inside you. He releases your wrists, his hand drifting to your chest. He pinches your pebbled nipple, drags his teeth down your neck. It’s clear the prince wishes to leave no part of you unmarked, unclaimed.

He twists his wrist while still inside you. You quiver around him.

His expression is smug as you shatter on his fingers. Self-loathing flares inside you.

The silver-haired prince yanks the pitiful remainder of your shift off your panting frame, tossing it on the floor. He shifts between your legs, pulling his breeches down.

As the head of his cock prods at your slick entrance, you wrestle your drunken fog. You poke at his face with desperation, nails scraping against his cheek. The prince wrenches your wrist off his face in a painful angle. Pain shoots up your arm and it falls limp.

“What a stubborn little thing you are,” he scoffs. He grabs a fistful of your hair and jerks your head back. Your scalp sears with agony. “So pretty yet so defiant.”

Aerion slams his cock inside you to the hilt. Your body jolts, the pain knocking the breath from your lungs.

He grunts as he begins to move, your hair still in his fist. His hips meet yours in a frantic rhythm. Beads of sweat pearl along his brow. The places inside you he touches make you spasm around him. Broken whimpers leave your throat.

“By the gods, you are tight,” he rasps. He pushes you further into the bed, his chest pressing against yours. Your eyes roll back. Your fingers dig into the linen sheets. A strangled moan climbs up his chest.

As your head lolls to the side, Aerion takes firm grasp of your jaw. His gaze dives into yours as each thrust turns more slow and pointed.

“Keep your eyes on me.” His hoarse timbre is imperious. You glare at him with hatred.

He hums, tracing your bottom lip with his thumb.

“I shall make you an obedient little whore, just as you ought to be.”

In the morning, sunlight sears your eyelids, stirring you awake. You sit up, clutching the sheet to your bare frame. You catch a glimpse of the bruises and bite marks Aerion left on your body. A shudder ripples through your frame.

Your eyes dart to the rumpled sheets nearby. Relief floods you. At least you are alone. As you inspect the room, you note there is no sign of the silver-haired prince. You rise from the bed, a feat on its own with how sore you are.

You peer at the window that used to be your refuge, your shelter amidst any storm. You doubt there is any place in the Red Keep where you’ll ever feel safe again. Even your window.

The brightness of the sky seems to mock you. For a few minutes, you are numb, unmoving. Then you keel over the edge of the bed, sobbing. For some time, you let yourself weep. How easily the prince shattered that illusion of safety you harbored.

The salty trails on your cheeks soak the sheets. Your despair clogs the room. When the crying subsides, you make a decision. You study the inside of the Maidenvault. The lavish canopy bed, the shelves brimming with books, the carved wardrobe. At times you have been happy here, other times you have been sad…but you were never free.

You wonder if you could be beyond these walls. If you could have a life that didn’t teeter on the blade-thin edge of a prince’s fickle moods.

You rush to your wardrobe. You rummage through the clothes until you find the plainest dress and cloak you own. Once you are dressed, you walk to the stones concealing your chest. You collect all the jewelry and stones and place them inside secret pockets sewn into your clothes. You asked a septa to help you do it some time after moving into the Keep.

Your heart wrenches.

Perhaps, somewhere deep within your soul, you always knew this day would come.

You pull the hood over your head and stroll to the stretch of wall besides the bookshelves. You pat the cool stones until you find what you are searching for. A small indent in the wall about a foot from the floor. You hook your fingers inside the indent and push. Hope flares inside you when the wall shifts with a quiet thud, revealing a pitch black path behind it.

A while ago, you found the passage Daena the Defiant used to sneak out of the Keep when she and her sisters were imprisoned. It was pure luck. One day you dropped a book near the wall… and there was that strange part of the wall, slightly darker than the rest. You never dared venture through it however. It felt forbidden. It felt like betrayal. But the secret passageway lingered in your mind since the day you discovered it. Your pulse hammers in your ears as you wade through the narrow tunnel, pushing away the cobwebs in your way.

Guilt gnaws at you. A stubborn piece of you wishes to turn back, tell Prince Valarr everything.

But then what? Princes are above the law. Any matter that would tarnish the Targaryen name would be swiftly quelled. Would he protect you from his own kin? After the way he handled Aerion’s first misdeed, your faith falters. What weight does the word of a courtesan carry in this world, particularly against a prince? You wrestle another surge of tears, blinking them back. You knew you’d have to leave the prince’s side one day. But you nurtured the naive hope that you'd have more time.

I shall make you an obedient little whore, just as you ought to be.

You shiver. Based on Aerion’s ominous promise, last night was just the beginning of his torment.

Time is scarce now. All you can do is run.

So you keep weaving your way through the darkness, hoping light awaits you at the end of the long tunnel.

Your feet ache. Your legs beg for mercy. You lean against the dusty wall, thoughts racing. What if you are caught by a kingsguard, noticed by a servant? Would you be mistaken for a spy, tossed into the dungeons? Certainly there can be no good intention behind someone skulking through the Red Keep in a frayed cloak. You stifle the fearsome musings.

It is too late to turn back now.

After what seems like an eternity, a dot of light peeks at the end of the tunnel. You wipe the sweat off your forehead, smiling. Victory pulses through your blood.

Your steps quicken. Your heart bursts with joy.

Finally, you reach the light.

…And your smile dies.

“My prince?”

Valarr and Aerion turn to you simultaneously, as if interrupted amidst a lively conversation.

Your gaze widens as you realize you are in Prince Valarr’s chambers. You want to deny it but, as this room is uniquely familiar to you, you cannot. There is no escape from the horrifying truth. Your knees tremble. You’re on the cusp of collapse. Sheer will alone is what keeps you upright.

The tunnel leads to…Prince Valarr’s room? How is that possible?

The prince’s voice seems far away, distorted by the blood rushing to your head.

You only hear the tail head of his sentence.

“...despite what my cousin said. I refused to think you would ever betray me.”

You blink, startled as you come back to yourself.

“I don’t understand…”

Valarr stalks towards you. The gaze he sweeps over you turns your blood to ice. He has never looked so furious. Even after Aerion touched you in the garden.

“I had this passage sealed after moving you into the Keep.” He unleashes a dry chuckle. “I did it to keep you safe and I thought…” He trails off, flames dancing in his violet eye. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

A scream threatens to unfurl from your throat. So your flimsy chance at escape never existed? The prince built your gilded cage all too well. He clipped your wings before you could fly away.

You approach him and put your hand over his arm.

“My prince, I simply wished to roam the village,” you stammer, clinging to the desperate lie. “It has been so long since I breathed fresh air.”

Valarr wrenches your hand off his arm, squeezing your wrist. You whimper, your bones grinding together in his unforgiving grip.

“Do you think me a fool?” he roars.

“My prince-”

“Silence,” he hisses, sounding more dragon than human.

You lips quiver.

He stares at your cloak for an unnerving stretch of time. He then rips it open, causing all the jewelry to clatter across the stone floor. Your chest seizes. Time seems to stretch into a thousand years. Valarr tilts his head, his gaze pinned to the floor. He stares at the stones with chilling impassiveness.

The prince’s jaw clenches.

“Aerion was right.”

Tears swell in your eyes, blurring your vision.

“My prince, it is not-” Your voice peters into a sob.

Aerion strolls to Valarr, his expression smug.

“Do you see now, cousin? A whore should be treated as such,” he whispers in the brown-haired prince’s ear.

The hand around your wrist twists, tearing a cry of pain from your throat.

“You intended to leave me,” he accuses.

“No, I…Valarr, please…”

“It's ‘Your Grace’,” he snaps, his tone like a whip. Your eyes go wide. You feel as if you were struck. In fact, you might have preferred it. Especially when Prince Valarr looks at you like he would a stranger. No. Like an enemy. His grip on your wrist slackens. You clutch your broken wrist against your chest.

“You used me. You lied to me. You pretended.”

Your cheeks come ablaze.

“Your Grace…Perhaps I have lied, but so did you.” His expression turns murderous. You shudder but continue, “You swore to protect me and you didn’t.”

The last shred of restraint dwelling in the prince seems to shrivel.

His hand clamps around your throat, his eyes glazing over with unshed tears.

“How dare you? I gave you everything.” He shakes you and you claw at his fingers, gasping for air. “Despite your low birth, your station…I loved you.” His voice shatters in the end.

A brief smirk hovers on Aerion’s lips before fading.

He hums, clasping Valarr’s shoulder.

“I believe you should teach her a lesson. We…should teach her a lesson about disobedience, cousin.”

You can practically see the gears turning in Prince Valarr's head, the moment your sweet prince becomes someone else entirely. Someone you do not know. Seeds of madness bloom in his eyes. His face goes taut.

He lets go of your neck and you sputter, sucking air back into your lungs.

Valarr's fingers creep under your chin, angling it upwards.

There’s a cruelty etched in his mismatched gaze now. One that matches Aerion’s. Dread settles deep in your bones.

He strokes your cheek. A perversion of his former tenderness.

Prince Valarr sighs.

“Perhaps, I have been far too lenient with you. I thought it a kindness but evidently not.” Goosebumps erupt at the base of your spine, spreading outwards.

His thumb sweeps over your cheek.

“I shall remind you of your station.”

The prince’s hand squeezes around his jaw, his face hardening.

With just one word, Prince Valarr shatters any flimsy hope for mercy you may have held.

Tessarion’s scales are a blue sheen like light on the ocean; the flapping of her wings is a deafening, roaring wind. She is nimble in the air, lethally quick, banking seamlessly when Daeron asks her to turn towards the Hogs Head, an inn from which torrents of men and women run shrieking. They do not run fast enough. Tessarion’s flames are an electrifying cobalt blue like lightning. Flesh melts away, bones are charred black, screams evaporate as lungs are singed, consumed, destroyed. Daeron’s own lungs work perfectly fine; he is cackling, almost loud enough to hear over the wings and inferno of his dragon. After the inn, Tessarion burns the sept, the marketplace, the castle that is the seat of the disloyal House Caswell. There is a stone bridge, after which the town is named, traversing the Mander River. People are fleeing across it. There are children on the bridge, but this does not stop Daeron. Maelor was a child when these traitors ripped him apart with their bare hands. Jaehaerys was a child, and so is Jaehaera, who may be alive in Storm’s End or may be dead but in any case has suffered the decimation of her family, her brothers and her mother and her grandsire. Daeron is burning Bitterbridge for the Greens, yes. But he is also doing it for himself. And in the wake of Tessarion’s fire, Lord Ormund Hightower’s forces pour into the rubble of the town to seize whatever treasures it has left.

In the Riverlands, Aemond and Vhagar are setting fields of wheat ablaze and incinerating cattle, pigs, sheep, forests that can no longer be used by the Blacks and their supporters for timber. In the Citadel, white ravens are being sent out to the great houses of Westeros to proclaim the end of summer. And on Dragonstone, the Beggar King heals.

He spars with guards that Larys found, is tended by maesters that Larys recruited from the turncoat houses of the Crownlands, rules over a microcosm kingdom that Larys built for him. Aegon tires quickly, sleeps often, aches and collapses and bleeds, gets sunburned when he is outside too long on those rare clear days. But he always rises again. “Perpetual Resurrection,” he says, grinning through the pain when you caution him to be patient, to be careful. “I’m not dying. I’m becoming brand new.”

You hunt for softshell crabs together on the rocky shoreline, fill a basket with them, bring them to the cooks to serve the skeleton crew of the castle for supper. You walk through the gardens, a pine-smelling woodland of towering coniferous trees, thorny rose bushes, blood-red cranberries, indelicate creatures that can thrive in the thin, inhospitable earth here. You study the books of the castle library—an impossibly vast, ancient collection, safeguarding texts from Old Valyria—while Aegon swims in the ocean with Sunfyre, laughing and diving as the dragon glides around him in large, lazy circles. Sunfyre can fly, but only a very short distance at a time; he is ungainly when he walks on land with his improperly-healed right wing. But in the water, he and Aegon are both unbroken again. Soon they will be ready for battle. Soon they will have to leave this island, this mist-and-smoke haven, to rejoin the war effort; soon they will have to leave you.

You crave Aegon like some people need wine, rum, gin, gold, power, violence, milk of the poppy. He is ecstasy, he is consolation, he is a spell. He is your home; and any place you’ve ever mistaken for home was only an echo of the truth that you would one day find him. Even on that very first night, as the storm raged outside, you whispered to Aegon when you both woke long before sunrise: “I want you again.”

“You’ll be sore,” he warned, a warm murmur against your forehead. “We can wait. I can wait.” But already his hands were moving, and your thighs were opening, and he followed your body and your words when they told him yes, now, and tomorrow, and the day after that, and the next day too.

You smile when Aegon calls you insatiable, but you know that’s not quite it.

You are acutely aware that nothing lasts forever, not even him, not even you.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Are the days getting shorter?” you ask, your bare feet ankle-deep in wet sand. Sunfyre is out in the waves eating dolphins; a slippery-looking grey tail hangs from his snaggletoothed jaw.

“I think you just want the nights to be longer.” Aegon winks up at you. His head is in your lap, his arms linked around your waist. You are weaving his little braid for him. His hair is just above shoulder-length and as choppy as ever. He periodically takes his dagger to it and hacks away haphazardly, determined to never look like Aemond, Daeron, Daemon, his father. He burrows into the softness of your belly and shuts his eyes. “Perhaps winter is coming.”

In more ways than one, you think bleakly, picturing Cregan Stark on the Kingsroad with snow in his long dark hair and dirt on his hands. “We should ask Lord Larys if he’s heard anything.” As the Citadel—and most of the rest of Westeros—believes Dragonstone to be unoccupied, they would not have sent a white raven here. But several times each week Larys receives visitors from Eagle Harbor, and they bring him rumors in exchange for gold coins and promises that when Aegon once again sits the Iron Throne, their faithfulness will be generously rewarded.

Aegon hums agreeably; he is dozing. After a moment he says: “I keep dreaming of her.”

“Who?”

“Helaena,” Aegon says, his voice lethargic and eyes still closed. “She brings me things. Butterflies, crabs, snakes. Things that are reborn. She puts them in my hands or in my bed and won’t take them away when I ask her to. She keeps telling me: Don’t fall, don’t fall.”

You finish Aegon’s braid and comb his unruly hair back with your fingers, soothing him, listening to him. You try not to think of the way Helaena died, crushed and hemorrhaging on golden sandstone. Instead, you picture her living: strange yet gentle, tragic but kind. You see her children as well, white-haired and beautiful and doted on not by their parents but by Alicent and Otto and you…and Aemond. You remember Aemond’s quiet resentment, his simmering and dangerous envy. You recall Aegon’s half-flippant accusation: You’re always developing attachments to things that are mine. Targaryens have wed brothers to sisters since long before the Conquest, but that doesn’t mean they always got the combination quite right. “Aegon, was Aemond…was he in love with Helaena? Did he desire her?”

“No. Not like that. He cared for her, but I don’t believe he had any lust for Helaena. He just thought he would have been a better husband to her than I was. That he would have caused her less misery. That he was more worthy of carrying on the bloodline, of being the children’s father. And he was right, of course.”

“What happened to Helaena is not your fault,” you say. “And neither is what happened to Jaehaerys or Maelor.”

“I’m glad Daeron burned them all,” Aegon says quietly, meaning the people of Bitterbridge, a tale ferried to Larys from one of his numerous, nameless informants.

“I know you are, Aegon.” You can’t bring yourself to agree with him. Does one dead child bring back another? Does each swatch of flesh burned away from a supporter of Rhaenyra replace one that was sheared off the bones of a Green? No, of course not, but the wheel goes around and around and around.

In the sky, another sort of wheel: a sun that burns cool and muted behind a thicket of iron-colored clouds. High above where you and Aegon are entwined on the beach, something crosses in front of the shrouded sun, casting an impossibly large shadow. You gasp; at the sound, Aegon bolts upright onto his palms and knees and follows your gaze. There is a profound, archaic rumbling, something old and intractable like thunder, earthquakes, floodwaters rising.

A dragon, you know immediately. You try frantically to determine whether you recognize its voice. Too large to be Tessarion or Syrax, too deep a roar to be Caraxes. Sheepstealer?? Vermithor?? But no, you have heard this beast before after all, it’s—

“Vhagar!” Aegon shouts, and scrambles to his feet. As the massive swamp-green dragon disappears behind the castle, soaring rather sluggishly, Aegon sprints as fast as he can up the stone steps towards the entranceway. You follow Aegon into Dragonstone and there the visitor meets you both, sailing down a staircase with eerie lightness, his boots hardly making a sound, his long silver hair secured in a single thick braid. Larys arrives as well and stands in the dreary, torchlit chamber, appearing as he always does: face servile and tactfully intrigued, hands laced together overtop the handle of his cane, back stooped as if to make himself smaller, less threatening, more invisible.

“I got to thinking you might be here,” Aemond tells Aegon. He sounds pleasantly surprised. “You look better.” Then he notices you. “Oh. Perhaps that accounts for some of it.”

“Where’s Criston?” Aegon asks. Meanderingly, so it is sufficiently subtle, he takes several steps until he has placed himself between you and Aemond.

“Somewhere near Saltpans.”

“You left him?” Aegon is incredulous, furious.

“Temporarily,” Aemond says. “It is not the first time. Between battles Vhagar and I raze the farms and villages of the Riverlands. Criston and his men are more than capable of fending for themselves. I’ll be back in a day.”

“You’re supposed to stay with Criston,” Aegon insists, speaking slowly and deliberately as if to a child who might have difficulty understanding. “You promised that you would. The war is on the battlefield, not on goddamn farms.”

“And what feeds Rhaenyra’s forces? Is it not grain and cattle? And so if I destroy their food supply—while our own soldiers are still receiving regular shipments from the Westerlands and the Reach—am I not inflicting catastrophic damage to the Blacks?”

“You’re burning…civilian property?” you say to Aemond. “You’re killing women and children and old people? You’re laying waste their homesteads?”

“It’s total war.” Aemond stares at you defiantly; there is no suggestion of self-doubt in his face. “It is a well-documented strategy employed across continents and centuries. We kill soldiers on the battlefield. We endanger their families back home. Many men will desert to return to their imperiled wives and children. Others will starve. All are broken. All are rendered ineffectual to our enemy’s cause. And thus we will triumph.”

You and Aegon gape at him, not knowing what to say, not knowing what is right or wrong in a world where children are slaughtered and grown men murder with impunity. When will this war be over? How can we end it? Will any of our souls survive the choices we’ve made with our backs to the wall?

“My prince, you chose an excellent time to pay us a visit,” Larys offers diplomatically. “I have just received news that may be of interest to you. And you can bring it back to Sir Criston and his men when you return to the Riverlands tomorrow.”

“What news?” Aegon asks.

“Wait,” Aemond says; and he smiles, dark and hungry like a wolf, like a dragon. “I want to see the place where my ancestors made their war plans. I want to sit in Rhaenyra’s chair.”

On the top floor of the Stone Drum, the main keep of Dragonstone that booms and growls during storms, servants light the candles beneath the Painted Table and bring wine, ale, bread, cheese, honeycomb, jam, candied walnuts, red cherries and violet grapes. The map of Westeros, older than the Conquest, is striped with snakes of fiery luminance like lava. Aegon twists the gold dragon ring on his finger, its jade eyes sparkling. You gave it back to him the day after you arrived on Dragonstone; he says that when he wins the war, he will have a matching piece made for you, but with a crab in place of a dragon.

Larys cautions before he begins: “I cannot tell you the perfect truth. I can only tell you what I’ve heard from the whispers that make their way to me.”

“And what have you heard?” Aemond says. Aegon glances petulantly at him, as if debating whether to remind his brother that a prince regent is not quite a king.

“The Dragonseeds known as Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White—and with them, Vermithor and Silverwing—have officially declared for the Greens.”

“Yes!” Aegon beams and raises his wine cup. He refuses milk of the poppy, even on his worst days; he does not want to be senseless, he does not want to leave you unprotected. But he drinks red wine often and grows ill if he is without it for long. Aemond is laughing victoriously. The brothers are momentarily united.

“There was a battle at Tumbleton in the Reach,” Larys continues. “Lord Ormund Hightower was slain by Roddy the Ruin who, allegedly, managed the feat after one of his arms was severed clean from his body. These Northmen are formidable beasts, to be sure.”

Aegon looks at you, a fleeting, fearful look.

“The people of Tumbleton believed the battle to be over, but then Vermithor and Silverwing joined Tessarion in torching the city. All the Blacks’ commanders were killed, along with most of their soldiers. And the city was sacked. There are reports of looting and…well, all manner of indecencies being committed against the civilians of Tumbleton, mostly women and children. Even septas and silent sisters.”

Now an awkward silence settles over the Painted Table. Ruin, heartbreak, agony, death; but somebody else’s. It could have been yours instead. Perhaps tomorrow it will be. Perhaps there is no end to suffering, only a reallocation of it to people who you do not know, do not love. Perhaps the debt can never be satisfied but only passed to another.

Larys goes on: “The people of King’s Landing are petrified that the Greens and their dragons will descend upon them and subject the capital to the same atrocities that Tumbleton experienced. Rhaenyra had to order the gold cloaks to seal the city gates to keep her supposedly loyal subjects inside.”

“The smallfolk’s support for her continues to weaken?” Aemond says.

“It does more than weaken. Many people there detest her. Bartimos Celtigar has imposed heavy taxes upon the city. The smallfolk fear that Daemon has abandoned Rhaenyra, and therefore that they cannot expect protection from Caraxes and Sheepstealer. And…” Larys peers around the Painted Table apologetically.

“…And?” Aegon presses.

“Rhaenyra’s youngest son…Viserys…” Larys sighs, an anemic, perfunctory breed of sympathy. “He is dead. Of illness, it seems. The luckless lad.”

“He was always sickly,” you say, remembering his unwaveringly watery eyes and dripping nose. And you almost say Poor Rhaenyra, but then you remember how the Blacks celebrated Maelor’s death with cheers and rare, bloody boar meat.

“Yes,” Larys concurs. “That is what the people believe, that he perished due to natural causes.”

Aemond is watching the Master of Whisperers closely. “What does Rhaenyra think caused it?”

“She suspects poison,” Larys tells him. “She is convinced of poison, I should say. She raved and she threatened and she spewed accusations. She executed a dozen people, none of whom could be connected to the death of the boy with any certainty. The smallfolk feel she has gone mad. And there is one more crime the people have branded her with.” Larys turns to you.

Your heard pounds wildly, hot blood thuds in your ears. “Has something happened to Everett—?”

“Not him. The Celtigars themselves are safe from her wrath. Bartimos is too near to the throne, and Rhaenyra trusts him. But the servant girl—Autumn, you called her—she went into labor a month early and was delivered of a boy.” Now Larys’ eyes flick to Aegon, whose face goes pale and panicked. “A boy with blue eyes and silver hair.”

Aemond rocks back in his chair and shakes his head.

“Oh,” Aegon moans. “Oh.” He clutches his chest with one hand and looks to you. He says weakly: “I’m so sorry, Angel. It didn’t mean anything. The child…it…it will never really be mine—”

“It won’t be anyone’s,” Larys says. “Rhaenyra had him run through with a sword.”

“What?!” Aemond exclaims. “A baby? An infant? In her own castle, in the Red Keep?”

You are horrified. “Did Autumn witness this?”

“I’m not certain, my lady,” Larys replies. “What I have heard is that Rhaenyra proclaimed it vengeance for agents of the Greens murdering her youngest son. She declared all bastards of the Usurper to be enemies of the realm and thus sentenced to death. She has offered rewards for anyone who brings a white-haired child to her for execution. And the smallfolk are absolutely, viciously appalled by her. The Street of Silk in particular is rife with people plotting the so-called queen’s downfall. She is surrounded by enemies. And she has only two male heirs left.”

“Two more than Aegon,” Aemond mutters.

“Is Autumn alright?” you ask Larys. “Did Rhaenyra harm her?”

“Your brother Everett attempted to advocate for Autumn and the child. He was ignored; your father and eldest brother were vehemently in support of the murder. Shortly after the baby was killed, Autumn disappeared from King’s Landing. I’m sure Everett facilitated this escape. No one knows her present whereabouts.”

“She’s just gone? No signs whatsoever?”

“Nobody ever knows anything.” Aemond waves at Aegon. “They think he’s in Dorne.”

“Seven hells,” Aegon whispers, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Rhaenyra is destroying herself,” you say. “She is doing the work for us. If you try to take King’s Landing with dragonfire raining down on Green supporters who are effectively held captive, there will be ill-will against you in the capital that will last for generations. But if they overthrow Rhaenyra on their own, you can reclaim the city bloodlessly.”

Larys taps his fingers meditatively against the Painted Table. “I do wonder if Daemon would intervene to support her. His present motivations are…somewhat nebulous. To Blacks and Greens alike. But he controls their most powerful assets.”

“You haven’t crossed paths with Caraxes and Sheepstealer in Riverlands, I assume?” Aegon asks Aemond.

“No. We are locked in a dance of sorts. I’m not certain that Vhagar can win against two dragons of that size; they must know that it is almost certain that at least one of them would be killed in the struggle even if they defeated me. This Nettles girl’s dragon riding skills are unclear. Perhaps Daemon is training her, perhaps he is now sufficiently attached that he does not want her in combat. So we avoid each other. But when the girl is gone—when Daemons tires of her, or when Rhaenyra sends assassins to murder her, or when she is removed from the board by some other means—I will meet Daemon in battle and end him.”

“Your priority is protecting Criston,” Aegon orders; but there is trepidation in his large, ocean-blue eyes, there is defenseless worry there. “Wherever Criston goes, you go with him. I’ll be ready to fight again soon. I’ll be able to help you.”

“Daemon is mine. I want to face him alone.”

“I am the king!” Aegon thunders, and you can see the strength leaving him like birds taking flight from cold, bare winter trees. “You will not behave recklessly. You will not abandon Criston. We are winning in the Reach, and we are winning in King’s Landing without even being there, and we will win in the Riverlands too if you don’t sabotage us with your relentless fucking pride.”

You and Larys study Aemond. He examines the flame-colored light of the Painted Table, tracing the etchings of rivers and mountains with his fingertips. “Fine,” he concedes, very quietly.

“And one more thing,” Aegon tells his brother.

With great reluctance, Aemond meets his gaze. “Yes?”

“If you have the opportunity to burn Cregan Stark, take it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When Aegon collapses into the bed you share, you curl up against his scarred chest, listen to his heartbeat, breathe in heat and rose oil and the salt of the ocean. He does not ask you what is wrong. He does not speak of Autumn or her child, his child, no matter how indifferent or remorseful he might have been. He holds you knowing that there is nothing he can say to make the world whole again. He can only rest until he is well enough to fly into battle, where he might be further maimed or taken captive or murdered. And what then? What was this all for?

“Somewhere there are people just living,” you marvel. “They’re reading books, they’re having supper, they’re getting married, they’re tending to their crops and their animals. And none of them are thinking about war or massacres or dragonfire.”

“Yes,” Aegon says simply, pulling you in closer, one palm pressed to the small of your back and the other brushing your hair away from your face so he can kiss you, soft and slow. “But they’re not us.”

When Aegon is on the edge of sleep, you tell him that you love him, as you do each day. He has not heard it enough in his life; you are trying to remedy that now. And as always, Aegon does not say it back. Instead, he murmurs something in High Valyrian that you cannot understand. Now you commit it to memory, repeating it silently to yourself again and again until Aegon is sleeping deeply and you can rise from the bed without disturbing him. You go to your writing desk and scribble it down on a small piece of parchment: the way this word sounds in the letters of the Common Tongue. You have no way to translate it. There are books written in High Valyrian in the castle library, but you do not know the alphabet of the language, and you have yet to find a text that can teach it to you. When you ask Aegon for lessons, he demurs and says that he doesn’t know High Valyrian well enough to teach you. You think he just wants a way to say things you won’t be able to comprehend. You squirrel the parchment away in the pocket of your gown and slip out of the bedchamber you share with Aegon.

It is far too early for your mind to stop racing, only sunset. You wander down halls of shifting shadows and iron dragons, fantastically high ceilings and narrow slits of windows. Questions fill your skull like rushing blood in the chambers of a heart: Where is Autumn? Is she alright? Is she safe? Is Everett, is Jaehaera, is Alicent? Are Criston and Daeron? Are any of us?

When you cross through the doorway and onto a balcony that overlooks the ocean, Aemond is to your left. He is nursing a cup of wine and leaning over the stone wall that separates you from a long, treacherous fall onto black rocks that jut out of the sea like the hilts of daggers from a corpse’s back. You whirl away from him and towards the craggy staircase that leads down to the beach.

“Now you’re going to pretend you didn’t see me?” Aemond calls out.

You halt mid-step, consider it, then return to him. “You’re just so undistinguished in appearance. So easy to miss.”

He gives you one of his enigmatic, teasing smirks. His hair blows in the breeze that tastes like salt and sulfur and mist. He wears a dark, lush green. Then he peers avoidantly down into his wine. “I…I don’t think I ever adequately apologized for what transpired regarding the brothel. The Pink Pearl.”

“You didn’t.”

“It is a place…” Aemond pauses. He chooses his words cautiously, like handling something that could easily break, a glass goblet, an egg, a butterfly in an open palm. “It is a place that I associate with great unpleasantness. I made assumptions about where your loyalties lied. I felt that you had hurt me, that you had caused me to suffer. And I wanted you to suffer in return.”

“It was a horrific thing to do,” you say pitilessly. “It was cruel. It was evil.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that now. That’s why I’m apologizing.”

“Then do it properly.”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond says. It takes some effort. “I was wrong.”

“You were.”

“And I’m glad Aegon was able to haul himself out of bed to rescue you. It’s not often that he gets to be the noble brother, the gallant one.”

“It happens more often than you’d think.”

Aemond raises his eyebrow. Beneath his eyepatch, you know, is a winter-cold sapphire in a bed of mangled flesh, a treasure steeped in corruption. “How long have you been here?”

“Two months.” No, more than that. “Two and a half, or thereabouts.”

“And I assume there has been no shortage of…horizontal activities with my brother.”

“Not exclusively horizontal,” you snap, to make him regret being so forward, to make him uncomfortable. “We are more inventive than that.”

It works; Aemond flushes a gory mottled pink. Still he manages: “And you have not yet conceived?”

You glare at him, ice and fire at once. “No.”

“Why do you think that is?”

You shrug, exasperated, dismissive. “Aegon has been through so much physical trauma, perhaps he is no longer capable of having children. Perhaps I never was. Perhaps it will happen in a month or six months or a year. Perhaps it is not meant for us. Only the gods know.”

“You aren’t at all concerned?”

In truth, no; you are so consumed by whether Aegon will survive the war with any vestige of humanity intact that anything beyond this seems hopelessly distant, a constellation, a shadow on the moon, the silvery gleam of a comet. “It’s not something I spend much time thinking about.”

“It should be,” Aemond insists. “If the Greens expect men to go to war for us, for women to give up their husbands and sons to us, we should have a stable succession to offer them in return. Jaehaerys and Maelor are gone. Jaehaera is a girl and cannot inherit even if she is alive and well in Storm’s End. Aegon needs an heir.”

“Aren’t you next in line for the throne, Aemond?” you say cuttingly. “And isn’t that the role you believe yourself best suited for? Being king? Proving how worthy you were all along?”

He is uneasy, perhaps ashamed, evading your eyes. “Regrettably, I cannot begin trying for my own sons until the war is over and I marry Borros Baratheon’s daughter, as I pledged to in return for his support for our side. Daeron will not be able to marry for several years. In the meantime, there is this…disquieting lack of certainty. To complicate matters, Aegon has bastards in King’s Landing, I’m sure. The red-haired girl was far from the first whore to lie with him. If he does not have a trueborn son, claimants will appear to challenge mine or Daeron’s for the throne.”

You search yourself—unspoken longing and ancient cobwebbed fears—for any desire for a child of your own. You cannot find it. You are fond of children, you find fulfillment in caring for them, but the need to carry and deliver one yourself? It is not something you can remember ever yearning for. It always felt like yet another way in which your body would be used to further some man’s legacy, to give him pleasure at your expense. “Can you tell me what this means?” you ask, handing Aemond the folded piece of parchment that you’d tucked into the pocket of your gown. He takes it with one long, lithe hand. “I’ve probably spelled it wrong. I’ve never seen it written, only heard it spoken aloud.”

Aemond opens the parchment. His river-blue eye narrows; thoughtful creases appear in his brow. “Aegon has said this? To you?”

“More than once.”

“What prompted it?”

“Does your translation depend upon the context?”

“Hm.” Aemond skates his thumbprint over the dried black ink. Then he looks at you. “It means: To your misfortune.”

The alarm must show on your face.

“Not like a threat,” Aemond clarifies. “It is a common expression. It suggests that someone has entrusted something of value to the undeserving. It implies naivety. Unwise benevolence. But it is certainly not malicious. It is usually said fondly, like a backhanded compliment.” He returns the parchment to you. You rip it over and over again until it is only scraps that vanish in the wind, Aegon’s voice speaking to you: I ruin causes. I ruin people.

“Why did you kill Luke?” you ask Aemond, not accusingly but with hushed, weary wonder. “There was very little strategic advantage in it. There was great peril as a result. Rhaenyra will never surrender, never negotiate. You will forever be known as a kinslayer. You could have taken him captive. You could have humiliated him, you could have shown the world how weak he was. Why did you have to kill him?”

Aemond says nothing for a long time. He stares out over the ocean where the sun is setting, dolphin fins cut in swift arcs through the surf, Sunfyre dozes on wet sand, the sky glows dream-lavender and blood orange. He sips his wine and contemplates things that are mysteries to you. Aemond keeps his thoughts like untrustworthy animals: in cages, in darkness, turning fierce and feral, snapping jaws and rattling chains. At last he says: “They’re all dead anyway. They were from the moment Aegon was born and my father refused to name him the heir. It’s all of them or all of us. You think there is any scenario in which Aegon reigns as king while Rhaenyra’s children survive? No, no. Someone will always be willing to fight and die for them. Just like Green loyalists would have been willing to fight for Jaehaerys and Maelor.” Something shifts in his face like the breaking of a wave, and for a second you can glimpse the deep well of dark, helpless misery inside him, filling up drop by drop since he was a boy. Then Aemond is steely again. “Luke had to die. So did Jace and Rhaenys and that eternally sniffling toddler Viserys. And all the other Blacks will follow. Unless you care to see Aegon’s blood spilled. And mine, and Daeron’s.”

“No,” you say softly, an agonized little whisper that understands, that surrenders. “No, that cannot happen.”

Aemond takes another swallow of his wine and drums his fingertips restlessly against the cup. “Any heir our side puts forth must have undisputed parentage and Valyrian features. Aegon’s wife is dead. He can marry you. You are a Celtigar, you share our blood, you carry the memories of silver hair and rare magic in the marrow of your bones. These attributes are dormant in you, yet could be passed on to a child. A son of yours could secure the succession and one day inherit the Iron Throne. But the father has to be a Targaryen.”

You turn to Aemond, perplexed and wary. His wording is strange. “Well, it has to be Aegon.”

Aemond is impatient, irritated. You have not been keeping up. He says, his eye on the darkening horizon: “There are other Targaryens.”

You stare at him. You don’t understand, you don’t understand, and then suddenly you do. “What?”

This is not the reaction Aemond had hoped for. He gulps down the last of his wine, leaves the cup on the stone wall, storms down the staircase to reunite with Vhagar and resume burning the noncombatants of the Riverlands to ash.

~~~~~~~~~~

He finds her at the shore of the Gods Eye, rippling blue like a vast mirror. The Isle of Faces—forbidden, undiscoverable—is a faint mirage in the distance. Moondancer is circling overhead. Baela is perched on a large rock by the water’s edge and fishing; she is intrigued by tales of the strange creatures that dwell here, the hungry currents, the way this corner of the world has only a translucent, threadbare veil between our world and the realm of spirits, ghosts, demons. She has always been curious and bold by nature. She has always been his most beloved child.

“You found your way out of Nettles’ bed,” Baela pitches, a jest but not a judgment. She is already developing an appetite of her own that renders monogamy woefully lacking. She mourns Jace, but not the woman she would have had to pretend to be for him. “I’m shocked.”

Daemon smirks, tilting his head to the side like a wolf does as it’s listening. “You know how sheets have a way of getting tangled. Around ankles, around wrists…sometimes it is difficult to free oneself.”

“You were fighting hard, I’m sure.”

“Yes, all morning.”

Baela chuckles, reels in her fishing line, recasts it. She cares deeply for Rhaenyra and is loyal to her still, but Baela shares her father’s pathological aversion to weakness. She feels that Rhaenyra has driven Daemon away with her moodiness, her melancholy, her unmooring from the fearless, ardent woman she once was. Daemon says that being with Nettles is like being with a young Rhaenyra again. It would not be just to condemn him for seeking out what Rhaenyra took from him and has no intention of returning.

Daemon says: “I want you to go to Dragonstone.”

Baela is aghast, betrayed. “You are getting rid of me?”

“I am entrusting you with a vital enterprise.”

Now she is intrigued. Now she is considering it.

“Moondancer is too small to fight Vhagar, Tessarion, Vermithor, or Silverwing,” Daemon says. “If Caraxes and Sheepstealer meet Vhagar in battle, you cannot go with us. Nor should we leave you here unprotected. And I know you have been impatient for an opportunity to play a more…consequential role in the war.”

“I long to be useful,” Baela agrees. “More than anything.”

“Go to Dragonstone,” Daemon says. “It is vacant, it is safe. But it must remain under the Blacks’ control. Patrol it and ensure the Greens do not try to take the island and find riders for Grey Ghost or the Cannibal. Rhaenyra will return to Dragonstone if she is ever forced out of King’s Landing. I have tasked you with making it ready for her.”

“And I have permission to execute any traitors who might appear there?”

“Yes. You may swing the sword yourself. Or feed them to Moondancer, whichever you prefer.”

“I look like your house’s sigil,” Aegon says as he massages rose oil onto his forearms, his palms moving in large sloppy circles over a patchwork of scar tissue; you would do a better job, but he says he wants to learn how to care for his wounds on his own. His dragon ring—gold wings, jade eyes—gleams in the cool, ghostly moonshine. His words are teasing, but his tone is dark, troubled, weary. “Some red, some white. All ugly.”

You smile. You aren’t agreeing, just playing along. “Our motto is better than our flag.”

“I might have been inebriated during that lesson.”

“Perpetual Resurrection.”

Aegon looks at you, confounded. “Quite the mouthful.”

“Crabs molt throughout their lifetime. They crack their own skins open and climb out. If they get stuck, they die. If they get attacked before their new shell hardens, they die. But if they live…they’re a brand new version of themselves. Larger, wiser, more powerful.”

“Spiders,” Aegon says. “You’re trying to placate me with some rousing metaphor about what are essentially aquatic spiders.”

“They’re tasty too,” you say, grinning. “Especially when their shells are still soft. The cooks would serve them fried and us kids would sit around the table ripping the legs free and throwing them at each other.”

“What, you can eat the crab whole?!”

“Yes. Once the faces are cut off and the organs scooped out.”

He pretends to be repulsed by you. “Harrowing. Revolting. This is why Targaryens have always refused to breed with your kind.”

It’s funny, but it isn’t, because it’s a little too close to what you’re both thinking. Under the moonlight, you watch Aegon with the words caged behind your teeth: What do you want most? Who are you in your bones? Where would we be if the world wasn’t crashing down around us?

He slathers rose oil on his scarred right cheek—carelessly, distractedly—and accidentally pokes himself in the eye. “Ow.”

You ask: “Why do you want to do that yourself now?”

“To prove I can. To feel ever so slightly less like an invalid.” He takes a swig of his wine and gazes out over the nightscape ocean, stars in the sky, stars reflected on waves. “I am a study in irony. I spent my whole life waiting for it to be over. I poisoned myself, wasted years, resisted any semblance of usefulness. And now I finally have things I want to accomplish, I finally have reasons to live…and I’m trapped in the flesh of some pathetic, deformed, calamitously weak stranger.” He shakes his head, despondent, still not looking at you. “I can have a body that works. I can have a soul. But I can’t have both at the same time. It’s so fucking unfair.”

“I like you exactly as you are. Body and soul.”

“Everything I own, everything I’m given…” He stares down at his palms, open and empty. “It is destroyed, gets killed, goes mad. I ruin causes. I ruin people. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“I think I’m going to be ruined either way. I’d rather you be the one responsible.”

“Angel,” he says, low and serious. And now his gaze comes back to meet yours. “Who are you supposed to marry?”

You don’t want to tell him. You don’t want it to be true. Your voice is a whisper, almost lost in the night wind. “Cregan Stark.”

His eyes shoot wide, not just startled but terrified. “Stark?!”

You nod miserably. “My father took me and my sisters to Winterfell as part of a trade mission. Cregan decided he wanted me. I never encouraged it, I never desired it, I swear I didn’t—”

“No, I believe you,” Aegon says. He swallows a gulp of wine noisily, his hand shaking. “You were right. I can’t touch him. I can’t stop it. Not unless I win.”

“You don’t want the Iron Throne,” you tell Aegon, already knowing it’s true.

He snorts, a harsh derisive sound. “Who would?”

“Lots of people, I think. But not you or Rhaenyra.”

This intrigues him. “She doesn’t want it either?”

“Not from what I’ve seen and heard. Or, at least, she didn’t until Luke was killed. It changed her. I’m still not convinced she wants to be the queen, but she wants vengeance. And absolute power is a sure path to it.” And so the suffering continues, it goes around and around like a wheel, it is a debt that is never satisfied but only spread like plague.

“I don’t understand why Aemond did that,” Aegon says. His words are hushed, like he’s never spoken them to anyone but you and never will. “When he returned from Storm’s End, I held a feast for him. I had to, someone had to, someone had to pretend it was a victory instead of a murder. But it didn’t make any sense. Arrax was an inconvenience, not a threat. Luke was far more valuable as a hostage than a corpse. Aemond has always been the disciplined brother, the strategic one. I won’t claim to be clever. But I can’t find any strategy in what happened there.”

“Aemond has a temper. He is haunted, I believe. He is not above reckless fury.”

“No, evidently not.” Aegon sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair; again, his dragon ring glints under the moonlight, silver reflected off gold. “I’ll try to win,” he says. “For my family. For you.” Then he smirks, a grim attempt at humor. “Though I pity Cregan Stark for the paradise I will deprive him of.”

You do not return Aegon’s smile. “Don’t have too much pity for him. I have no expertise and I’m scared to death of it. I’d probably end up hiding under his bed, gripping the legs for dear life. He’d have to drag me out and tie me down.”

Aegon is alarmed; his storm-blue eyes are now focused, seeking. He is aware that he has wandered into a quagmire. He treads carefully. “When you say no expertise, you mean…none at all?”

“None.”

“But what about all of those anatomically-correct cock illustrations in your medical books?”

Another joke you can’t bring yourself to laugh at. You drink your wine to stop your lips from quivering, smooth the silk of your gown with a trembling hand. You see it no matter where you look: the pool of red on Theodora’s bedsheets, the dawning and inescapable realization on her face. This is her life now. This will always be her life.

Aegon says gently: “You have no expectation of pleasure.”

“It seems…inherently violent. For the woman. Even if it isn’t meant to be. Being overpowered, being invaded. The man decides when and how it happens. The woman endures.”

Aegon stares at you—biting his full lower lip, deeply somber—but doesn’t speak. He gives you the impression of someone with so many thoughts swimming around in his skull he is struggling to choose just one.

You smile dimly. “I’m sorry. I’ve made you sad.”

“I’m, um…” Aegon pauses to collect himself; he drains his wine cup and sets it back on the table. He is uncharacteristically cautious, like he thinks one unwise word will break the spell of whatever exists between you, this temptation, this need. “I’m saddened by the fact that you think of it that way. Because it doesn’t have to be…distasteful. Frightening. Coerced. It shouldn’t be, in fact.”

“I suppose I’ll find out if the Blacks win this war and Cregan Stark comes to claim me.”

Again, Aegon is exceptionally circumspect. “You’ve never wanted any man?”

“No. Never. Not in that way. Until…” You look at him, willing him to understand. I want you, but I’m so goddamn afraid to. I’m afraid of this world, I’m afraid there’s no hope left in it.

Slowly, Aegon smiles, soft and warm. And without any grasping, animalistic greed, he reaches over to rest a palm on your thigh, night-dark silk draped over skin that doesn’t flinch away from him, doesn’t even have to fight the instinct to. You place a hand on his. Your fingertips trace the gold wings of the green-eyed dragon ring he never takes off. And it is sealed like a covenant under the stars, this allegiance that neither of you could begin to explain to anyone else.

Footsteps are coming through Aegon’s bedchamber, heavy and purposeful. Otto Hightower appears in the balcony doorway. He fills the space like storm clouds flood a clear sky, like blood saturates linen. “You’re getting fat,” he tells Aegon gruffly.

“You’re getting ever more wrinkly and close to the afterlife.”

Otto glances to where Aegon’s hand still rests on your thigh and snaps: “If you’re well enough for that, perhaps you would deign to join us in the council chamber. You could shock everyone by actually acting like a king.”

Then he’s gone, taking those last echoes of the moment with him.

~~~~~~~~~~

“They know she’s here,” Larys Strong says. His audience is gathered around the table: Otto, Criston, Daeron, Grand Maester Orwyle, Tyland Lannister, Jasper Wylde, the knights of the Kingsguard, Aegon slumped way down in his seat and you beside him feeling his forehead worriedly for fever. Because Aegon and Daeron are in attendance, the council chamber is one chair short. Aemond has elected to be the person to stand; he lurks, severe and silent, in a corner of the room half-lit by torchlight. Daeron is dressed in a vibrant teal, Aegon in black; Aemond wears green, dark and brooding like envy.

Criston Cole asks: “How is that possible?”

Otto sighs irritably, rubbing his forehead. “We have spies. I’m sure Rhaenyra does as well.”

“Someone apparently glimpsed the prince regent…um…” Larys searches for the diplomatic word. “Escorting her through the streets of King’s Landing.”

“Dragging is what he did,” Aegon says, glaring at Aemond. “Abducting. Attacking. Imprisoning.” Aemond, arms crossed over his chest, studies his boots and pretends not to have heard him.

Larys continues: “The Blacks don’t believe that she is here of her own volition.”

Otto’s eyes narrow. “What, they think we’ve detained her as some sort of…healer? Hostage?”

“No, my lord,” Larys says, hesitantly, awkwardly. “They don’t imagine the king’s motivations to be that honorable.”

Otto is losing his patience. “Meaning?”

Larys toys with his restless, rodentlike hands. “They think she is being…violated.”

A stilted, scandalized hush falls over the table. “Good,” Aegon says, invoking gasps and gapes. “If Green supporters believe her to be my captive, they won’t harm her. And if the Blacks think she is being held here against her will, she would be safe with them as well. No matter who wins, she is not in danger.”

“That is hardly beneficial for your own reputation, Your Grace,” Tyland Lannister says.

Aegon grins beneath cold eyes; he shows his teeth like a wolf, like a dragon. “Was my reputation so pristine to begin with, Lord Lannister?”

“No, perhaps not,” Tyland mumbles. Still, he should not have said it aloud. Otto huffs another sigh and rolls his eyes.

“So you intend to keep a Celtigar daughter in your service?” Otto says to Aegon.

“I have no doubts concerning her loyalty.”

Larys adds: “My lord, I must say, I cannot see a tactical advantage in her saving the king’s life if she retains any loyalty to Rhaenyra’s cause.”

“Then why save him at all? Why bother? He was lying there half-dead, soon to be properly dead, and she brought him back practically singlehandedly. Why?”

“Mercy,” Aemond says quietly from the corner, and everyone turns to look at him. “Many people have none of it. She perhaps has too much. And now they have grown…” He gestures vaguely, perhaps bashfully. “Attached to each other.”

Jasper Wylde is dismayed. “But the king has a wife.”

Daeron snickers. “Yes, and that has always proved to be such a deterrent in the past.”

“Daeron,” Aegon cautions mildly.

The youngest Targaryen brother obediently sobers and shows the palms of his hands in contrition. “My apologies.” He hides his face with a slurp of his wine cup.

“And what about Cregan Stark?!” Otto exclaims. “You’d encourage his outrage, his Northerner savagery? Seven hells, he thinks you’re spending your days raping his betrothed, do you imagine that will not invoke fiercer wrath, put all of us at greater risk?!”

“Lord Stark was never a reachable ally to our cause, in my estimation,” Larys says calmly.

“That’s not the point, Larys! The point is—!”

“I can offer you something in return for the heightened danger you have assumed,” you interrupt, and these men stare at you as if suddenly remembering that you are here in the room with them, not a phantom or a myth or a cautionary tale but someone real. Aegon glances over, one eyebrow raised on his drawn, perspiring face. He doesn’t know what you’re going to say either.

Otto peers menacingly across the table. “What could you possibly have to barter with? The king is well enough now. He will live with or without you.”

“I have information. I know the workings of Rhaenyra’s council in the leadup to Rook’s Rest.”

“You attended her council meetings?”

“No, but I spent evenings with my father and brothers as they discussed them.”

Otto sits back in his chair, pondering you. After a moment, he nods. “Go on then.”

“I want one concession before I reveal what I know.”

“Besides being permitted indefinite room and board in the Red Keep, which you are in no way entitled to?”

“Not negotiable,” Aegon says.

Otto chuckles, humorless, incredulous, shaking his head. “Fucking insane. Alright. What is it you want, girl?”

“If any member of House Celtigar is taken captive, I want them to be given the opportunity to swear fealty to King Aegon and receive a full pardon for their sins. If they refuse, they are to go to the Night’s Watch, not the scaffold.”

“That’s your price? That’s it?”

“Yes.”

Otto is amused. “Nothing for you? No gold, no land?”

“No.” The prospect hadn’t even occurred to you.

“Not very self-serving. So unlike a Celtigar.” Otto grins, not kindly at all. “Your terms are accepted.”

You begin. “The Greens possess great wealth, now split for safekeeping between Oldtown, Casterly Rock, and the Iron Bank of Braavos. But Rhaenyra’s funds are far more finite. My father has enriched her coffers in part with taxes placed upon houses of the Crownlands. You are always seeking new allies, people you can turn from her side to yours, Corlys Velaryon, the Dragonseeds. Thus far, you have been unsuccessful.” Otto frowns, but he is listening. “I know there are families who have compelling grievances concerning my father’s taxes. Families who have become disenchanted with Rhaenyra’s leadership…or lack thereof, they might say. Rosby, Stokeworth, Cave, Langward, Bourney, Boggs, Hardy, Chyttering. Probably others as well now. They occupy a tactically significant position, being so near to Dragonstone and Driftmark. And I believe if you wrote to them, they would answer.”

“I’ll send ravens,” Otto says. He marvels at you, like a puzzlingly strange creature, a luminescent fang-toothed fish from the depths of the ocean, a direwolf from beyond the Wall. “You don’t want your side to win this war?”

“I want the killing to stop. For both sides.”

“Well, you won’t get that. The bitch will never surrender. That hope died with little Luke Strong.” Otto glowers bitterly at where Aemond stands in the shadowy corner, but he addresses you. “That is your impression as well? She was entertaining the possibility of a truce before he died at Storm’s End?”

You steal a glimpse of Aemond, and you are struck by an unexpected stab of sympathy for him, compassion that feels like a betrayal of your knowledge of the torture he had planned for you. But what is there to say but the truth? “Rhaenyra was considering it very seriously. She and Daemon quarreled over the subject.”

“Of course they did.” Otto looks at Criston, then back to Aemond. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon,” Criston answers for the prince regent. “Very soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Otto spits like venom, and everyone else averts their eyes.

“My lord,” Larys intercedes. “There is one more matter to discuss, and I believe it will be of great interest to His Grace the king.”

Aegon is struggling to concentrate. He blinks groggily at the Master of Whisperers, his brow creased with pain. You smooth his damp, white-blond hair back from his face, threading his braid through your fingertips; you refill his wine cup and give it to him. When Aegon lifts it to his lips, his hands shake so badly he spills scarlet beads like blood down his chin. He wipes them away with his sleeve. Grand Maester Orwyle offers him a small glass bottle of milk of the poppy, but Aegon refuses it.

“Is he alright?” Daeron mutters to you.

“He’s fine. He’s tired, that’s all.”

“Waste no time, Lord Larys,” Aegon says. “I fear Grandsire’s ire has exhausted me. He’s more ferocious than a dragon. We should find a saddle that fits, perhaps Criston could ride him to the Riverlands.”

“Keep guzzling wine, I’m sure that will improve your condition,” Otto bites back.

Larys continues: “It concerns Rook’s Rest.”

Now he has everyone’s attention. “What about Rook’s Rest?” Aegon says. Instinctively, he’s begun twisting the golden dragon ring on his left hand.

“I received word one hour ago that the Blacks have retaken it.”

“What?!” Otto shouts; the rest of the table is in uproar. Criston stands and goes to conspire with Aemond in the corner of the council chamber, urgent indecipherable whispers.

“Sunfyre,” Aegon says frantically. “I have to go to him, I have to get him out—”

“He is already gone, Your Grace,” Larys replies.

“Gone…?”

“Lord Walys Mooton went down to the beach to slay the dragon once his men had taken the castle. He was burned alive.”

“Perfect,” Daeron says, beaming radiantly.

“Lord Mooton’s men fled for their lives, and when they returned, Sunfyre had disappeared. He could not be found anywhere in the vicinity of Rook’s Rest. Moreover, his footprints in the sand stopped abruptly. Which means he must have departed—”

“Into the water…?” Tyland Lannister says, perplexed.

“No,” Larys corrects him. “Into the sky.”

“Sunfyre is flying again?” Aegon asks, his face childlike, astonished.

“That’s impossible,” Criston says. “His wing was broken, I saw it.”

Larys drums his fingers on the tabletop. “I cannot conceive of any other explanation.”

“Then he’ll find me.” Aegon smiles. Sweat snakes down his temples; his face is white, bloodless, barren like the moon. “When Sunfyre is ready, he’ll find me and we’ll be together again.”

“Oh, thank the gods,” Otto exhales. “The Old, the New, that ghastly Drowned one…” He waves a hand at you. “And do you have any to add, Lady Celtigar? Some crab deity your traitorous people worship?”

“I regret to disappoint you, my lord. To my knowledge we have none.”

“Three useable dragons,” Otto says, mostly to himself. “Three is good. With three, we have a chance. And if I can recruit Vermithor or Silverwing…”

“I should go with you when you and Criston march north,” Daeron tells Aemond.

“No,” Aemond returns immediately.

“If you’re going after Daemon, you could use me,” Daeron insists. “Tessarion and I can help.”

“You are needed in the Reach with Lord Ormund Hightower.”

“You just want him all to yourself,” Daeron realizes, exasperated. “You want to be able to say that you were the person to neutralize the Blacks’ greatest asset, that you won the war—!”

Criston says: “He’s not going on some suicide mission chasing Daemon and Caraxes all over the Riverlands. He’s staying with me and the army. He’s using Vhagar logically, responsibly. Right, Aemond?”

“Of course,” Aemond answers, entirely toneless.

Otto whirls to Aegon. “And when will you be able to fight again? Soon, I hope. Surely the culmination of your existence is not one single instance of utility before lapsing back into being some drunken, idiot degenerate.”

In reply, Aegon moans and crumples to the floor. Grand Maester Orwyle and the men of the Kingsguard rush to him, but Criston gets there first; when you cannot rouse the king, Criston throws him over one shoulder—increasingly difficult with each pound Aegon gains, softness and health that you consider a great victory—and ferries him back to bed. As you follow after them, you hesitate in the doorway of the council chamber. Now that Criston is gone, Otto has crossed the room and pinned Aemond to the wall. His large hands, heavy with rings, are pressed to Aemond’s chest; his face is snarling, wicked, callous.

“You have to fix this. You have to end it.”

“I know,” Aemond replies softly.

“Everything that’s happened is your fault.”

“I know,” Aemond says again, then rips free from Otto’s grasp and flees the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two days later, Criston leads his army out of the city. They will meet reinforcements on the road between the capital and the Riverlands. There is infantry on foot and cavalry on horses; above them in a blue sky cluttered with vast, cottony clouds are Aemond and Vhagar. As they head north, Daeron and Tessarion fly south towards the Reach to rejoin Ormund Hightower and his men. In Winterfell, Cregan Stark is receiving word of where (and with whom) his betrothed currently resides. At Harrenhal, Daemon and Nettles are kindling rumors like dry wood in a fire. On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra is nursing her rage and paranoia like a hungry child, like a wounded man who has milk of the poppy poured down his throat. And you remain static here in King’s Landing, anchored, steadfast, something immoveable like the ocean or the shore it meets.

You can see Aegon’s bedchamber windows from the beach. You keep glancing up at them, though you know he won’t be there; the sunlight is too harsh today, the potential damage to his skin too great. In a month, he may be able to venture outside as he used to. In two or three, he might be able to fight again. He might be able to kill more than just one errant Norcross boy who dared to touch you.

“Helaena wouldn’t come down to join us?” you ask Autumn. You’re walking with her in the surf, the hems of your held aloft so the froth of the waves can wash over your ankles. Perhaps ten yards away and out of earshot, Alicent is kneeling in the sand and playing with Jaehaera and Maelor. They are her great comfort now; they are not the only purpose she has left, but they are the kindest. Their tiny hands are preoccupied with building a sandcastle and adorning it with seashells, pebbles, shards of driftwood, strings of seaweed like green ribbons. You’ve started to notice how much Jaehaera resembles Aegon, his murky blue eyes and his high cheekbones and his gentleness that no one else seems to recognize. You’ve started to see him everywhere you look.

Autumn shrugs, her face apologetic. Her hair is more than just copper in the afternoon daylight; it is fire, it is blood. “I really tried. You know how she is.”

“I’ll visit her afterwards.”

“She unnerves me,” Autumn says, stroking her round belly and shuddering. She earns her keep here by helping to look after Helaena, Jaehaera, and Maelor. Aegon treats Autumn the same way he treats his wife and children, which is to say he generally ignores her; on the rare occasion he is subjected to her presence for more than a fleeting moment, he becomes uneasy, irritable. Autumn does not appear to be offended. She says this is the best job she’s ever had. “She’s always muttering the strangest things. Caterpillars and crabs and dragons and only the gods know what else. Yesterday she told me not to dance with the half-year queen. What the fuck does that mean?”

“Helaena’s a bit different,” you admit.

“She’s inbred, that’s what she is. I can’t imagine what those kids are going to grow up to be like. A brother and sister for parents? It’s a wonder they don’t have feathers or tails.” Autumn taps the swell of her belly. “At least this one—if it’s a Targaryen after all—has had its bloodline thoroughly diluted.”

You watch her standing there in the fiery late-afternoon light, this body that has comforted, consoled, satisfied, suffered, known so many men. “What does it feel like?” you ask quietly.

“What? Being with child?”

“No, the…um…the act that led to it.”

“Oh, yes.” Autumn stretches with her hands on the small of her back and smiles vaguely, nostalgically. “That’s the strange thing. It can feel like heaven or hell or nothing at all. If the man knows what he’s doing, and cares enough to try, he can make it better for you.”

“Better how?”

She furrows her brow, shoots you a skeptical sideways glance. She is aware that you are inexperienced, but the extent of your blind spots continuously shock her. It occurs to you that perhaps naivety is a privilege; some cannot recall a time before they were acquainted with truths of the world that others consider forbidden. “You know. He’ll use his hands or his mouth to get you ready. Or better yet, both at once.”

“Ready,” you repeat, not understanding.

“Well, you see…” Autumn takes a moment to decide how best to explain. “Men change when they are aroused, yes? Women do the same. It takes longer, and it is not always so obvious. But it is vital. The more ready you are, the more comfortably he will fit inside you.”

“And what if he doesn’t get you ready? If he doesn’t have the skill, or he doesn’t believe it’s necessary, or he doesn’t even know that’s something women require?” Or he just wants to hurt you. He just wants to watch you bleed like something he goes into the woods to kill and gut and devour.

Autumn smirks cynically. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“The sizes involved. Some men are bigger than others, and women have different dimensions as well. Couples can be well-matched or not. Sometimes it isn’t too bad. Sometimes it feels like you’re being ripped apart. And that doesn’t necessarily stop after the first time either.”

“And you can’t say no.”

“You can say no all you want. But he doesn’t have to listen.”

You peer out over Blackwater Bay, sunbeams flashing on wave crests and gulls swooping in the reddening sky. But you don’t really see it. What you see are fingerprints of dirt or ash on your thighs, snow in your hair, books laden with dust, fur coats and evergreen trees, rust-stains of blood on bedsheets.

“I’ve heard that Lord Stark is a very large man,” Autumn nudges. She knows, everyone knows.

“He’s massive,” you say forlornly. “He’s taller than Aemond and twice as broad.”

“The king isn’t so big,” she says, pretending that the thought has just popped into her mind, as if she hasn’t noticed the way you and Aegon look at each other, speak to each other, find excuses to touch each other.

“No,” you agree in a whisper.

“And he’s not a brute. I can’t fairly speak to his skill, I never had him anywhere close to sober. But he has no appetite for women’s pain. That’s a valuable gem in a man, it’s like stumbling across a ruby or a pearl.”

You nod; but you don’t want to think about Autumn lying with Aegon. You don’t want to think about the child they might share. In a world so dark, it seems cruel to begrudge people creating life where none existed before. But when you picture Aegon touching someone else, that darkness seeps in through your skin like rain soaks the earth and can’t find its way out. “We’re going to the library together tomorrow, aren’t we?”

Autumn groans. “Did I agree to that? I don’t believe I did.”

She did not, this is true; you badgered, she deflected. “You’ll enjoy it.”

“I am illiterate.”

“I told you. I’ll teach you how to read.”

“Why would I want to stare at ink marks in a book all day when I could be outside in the sunshine listening to the ocean and herding inbred little freaks like sheep?”

“Because books can take you anywhere,” you say.

“I like where I am. I’ve never seen anyplace better.”

“Okay, Autumn,” you concede, smiling. “I’ll ask again tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll change your mind.”

“Say hello to Helaena for me,” she says, meandering back towards Alicent and the children. Her footprints in the sand are erased when the gurgling waves roll over them. “Maybe one of those fancy books can help you translate lunacy into the Common Tongue.”

Upstairs in her bedchamber, Helaena is standing in front of an open window. It doesn’t offer a view of the ocean; it is positioned over a courtyard of sandstone and chatting courtiers. Helaena does not seem to hear them. She gazes out into the sunset, celestial rage on her impassive face.

“He’s leaving soon,” she says, not turning to look at you.

“Who, Helaena? Aemond? He left days ago. He’s already gone, he’s on his way to the Riverlands. But he’ll be back soon.” You don’t know if that’s true—it probably isn’t, in fact—but you’re certain that Helaena misses him. Her children do too; he is more of a father to them than Aegon has ever been, not in body but in soul.

She only repeats: “He’s leaving soon.”

“Helaena, what—?”

“He’ll leave you. Then you’ll leave him. He’ll make you.”

At last, and very slowly, she revolves like the stripe of shadow across a sundial. In her cupped palms is a butterfly, shimmering gold wings and spiderlike black legs. It takes flight, flutters aimlessly through the vermillion air, escapes out the open window.

~~~~~~~~~~

A peculiar twist of fate: his palm on your forehead, his whispers through your hair. Now he is the one who has stolen into your bed when the moon and stars hang high in the darkness outside. There is a noise somewhere beyond him, disembodied and hazy, that reminds you of torrential rain: omnipresent, thunderous.

“Angel,” Aegon is saying. “Wake up. Please wake up. I have to go.”

Go? Go where? You murmur, still half-asleep: “You can’t leave.” He isn’t strong enough yet. He can’t fight, he can’t run.

“I have to. They’re here.”

“Who…?”

The answer comes from the sounds that you are only now awake enough to understand: screaming, pounding boots, slamming doors, the ravenous crackling of fire, the shrieking of dragons. You have learned all of their unearthly voices. That’s not Vhagar or Tessarion or Sunfyre or Dreamfyre… It flashes by your windows, a comet of gold and flames.

You bolt out of bed. “Rhaenyra—?!”

“Rhaenyra, Syrax, Daemon, Caraxes.”

Daemon shouldn’t be here. He should be losing battles to Aemond and Criston. “But he’s at Harrenhal!”

“Not anymore.” Aegon takes your hand and pulls you out into the hallway, the hem of your nightgown billowing around your legs, his short silver hair flying behind him. There are servants and guards rushing by you, weeping, shouting, searching for places to hide. Grand Maester Orwyle ambles towards the rookery to send out ravens. Several rooms away, you can hear Helaena wailing and Autumn trying to soothe her. Larys Strong intercepts Aegon and gives him a hooded cloak; Aegon yanks it over his bare, mutilated chest, whimpering as the rapid movement strains the red-and-ivory disarray of scar tissue that used to be his skin. “You have everything?” he asks Larys hoarsely. You notice now that the Master of Whisperers has a satchel slung over one shoulder.

“Yes, Your Grace. Milk of the poppy, rose oil, the crown.”

“Wine?”

Larys produces a bottle. Aegon gulps down half of it, then passes the rest to you. You hesitate before finishing the wine, red like the sigil of House Celtigar, like fire, like blood. “They are closing all roads out of the city,” Larys tells Aegon, speaking swiftly. “King’s Landing will be taken. We will surrender. We cannot fight a dragon, let alone two.”

“Aemond and Criston—?”

“Daemon must have outflanked them.”

Aegon grabs your hand again and does not let go as he trails Larys through corridors and down claustrophobically tight spiral staircases. “The roads are blocked,” Aegon explains to you breathlessly. “But there are secret passageways beneath the castle. I know them. Larys knows them. Daemon probably knows them too, but he has other places to be.”

And through a window of a staircase, you see him: Caraxes spiraled around the apex of the Tower of the Hand, screaming fire into the sky before descending the length of the tower towards the hoards of hysterical courtiers fleeing below, his claws jostling loose bricks that rain down on them.

The bottom of the stairwell opens up into a large, dusty, dirt-floored chamber with stone tunnels leading in every direction like spokes of a wheel. Alicent is there, sobbing wildly, and so is Otto. Otto is telling Jaehaera that she must be a brave little girl and go with Sir Willis Fell. Alicent is giving little Maelor over to Sir Rickard Thorne, your once-alleged-kinfolk. The child is panicked and crying, flushed face and white hair. Aegon glances at the scene and then keeps moving, towing you along with him.

“Princess Jaehaera will go to Storm’s End,” Larys says. “Prince Maelor will go to Oldtown. They face execution if they stay. We must risk smuggling them out of the city.”

“What about Aegon?” you ask as the three of you hasten into a corridor thick with cobwebs and illuminated by torchlight. The stone ceiling is arched and perhaps seven feet tall; faintly, you can still hear the muffled turmoil of King’s Landing falling to Rhaenyra and Daemon.

“I’m going Dragonstone.” And it does not elude you that he didn’t say we. “If Rhaenyra is here, that likely means Dragonstone is vacant. I will go to the Crownlands families that you believe to be willing to betray her and beg them for support. I will take Dragonstone and prepare a counterassault from there. Hopefully Sunfyre will find me. Hopefully I’m not killed on the way.”

“Okay,” you say. “I’m going too.”

“You’re staying in King’s Landing.”

“No.” You stop dead, wrenching your hand out of Aegon’s. “No, what if you get hurt, or sick, or what if you get really bad again—?!”

“Listen!” he shouts with dire intensity, his eyes wide and pleading in the torchlight. “I can’t protect you. I can’t even protect myself. There could be bandits on the road, there could be Black soldiers, there could be animals, there could be fucking anything. I can’t take you with me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to Dragonstone. But I know if I stay here Rhaenyra will murder me. I don’t have a choice. I have one option, and it’s not good. But you’ll be safe in King’s Landing.”

“Aegon, no—”

“The Blacks don’t think you’re here by choice. They think I’ve imprisoned you. Tell them that’s what happened and they will welcome you back. Your family will protect you.”

“Aegon, please don’t—”

His palm on your cheek, his braid coming unraveled in his hair. “You will wait out the war with them. And when it’s over I’ll find you.” Tears glistening in his eyes, his voice going soft and tender. “If I’m still alive, I’ll find you. I swear to all the gods I will.”

He’s leaving. He’s really leaving. “What can I do?” you ask, your words strangled; your throat is burning, your eyes wet. “What can I do to help you?”

And you expect him to say things you already know: Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone. Don’t tell anyone what you’ve heard in the Greens’ council meetings. Instead, Aegon grins as he says: “Try to get one of your three superfluous sisters to seduce Cregan Stark.”

You laugh, the sound echoing off ancient, filthy stones.

“My mother and Otto are waiting for you. You will be with them when they are taken to Rhaenyra. They are high-ranking prisoners of war, they will be spared the brutality of the Black soldiers and so will you. They will corroborate that you were my captive.”

“I understand.”

“I have to go now,” Aegon says like an apology, swiping tears from your face with his thumbs. He breaks away from you and follows Larys Strong down the tunnel. They are shadows under the torchlight, cloaks and whispers.

“Aegon,” you call after him, and he stops. I never told you what I wanted. I never told you what I feel for you. “What if I never see you again?”

You don’t know what you want him to do or say. There’s nothing that could make this right. But he soars back to you, takes you roughly and desperately, buries his hands in your hair and kisses you deeply, tasting like wine and heat and the smoke filling the world outside. He means for it to be quick, but he can’t stop. His tongue darts between your lips, his hips press to yours, you arch into him wanting more, infinitely more.

What was I so afraid of? you think dizzily. How could I be afraid of anything with him?

“Your Grace,” Larys appeals regretfully. “Please. We don’t have much time.”

“Stop, stop it, you’re hurting me!”

“Hurry up.”

“You’re going to break my wrist—!”

He wrenches you around to look you full in the face, and only now do you know who he is. A gasp hisses through your teeth; the acrid air in your lungs vanishes. Every muscle and tendon and ligament of you is taut with horror, tight enough to snap. It’s like meeting one of the Seven, the Warrior or Stranger or Smith, a shade you know only from myths and nightmares. It’s like being led to the executioner’s scaffold. His long silver braid hangs over one shoulder. His eyepatch conceals the childhood maiming that left him half-blind. There’s blood and ash on his scarred face, a ruthless breed of fear in his remaining eye, icy blue, creek-shallow, soulless. The man clasping your wrist is Prince Aemond Targaryen. “I’ll break your neck if you don’t come with me now.”

He does not wait for your protest or acquiescence. You couldn’t give it anyway. Your muddied boots move numbly as he tugs you forward, this man they call Aemond One-Eye, a monster, a murderer, a kinslayer. The earth is littered with carnage from the battle, charred ribcages and disemboweled horses, scattered armor and severed limbs. Ashes fall from the smoldering treetops like dark snow.

What does he want from me?

Rape seems unlikely; everyone knows Prince Aemond’s deviancies do not run in that direction. He is cold, hateful, dispassionate, made of stone. He does not lust for anything but power and retribution, fire and blood.

To kill me?

But why not do it here, now? There is a sword hanging from his belt, a dagger in one fist. There is no reason to wait.

To take me prisoner? To feed me to his dragon? To torture me for information?

Surely there are more knowledgeable people around to torture. What use could you be, a healer, a woman? Unless…

Unless he knows who my father is.

You glance down at the fabric band looped around the upper half of your right arm, the only mark you wear of your house, stark white banner, skittering red crabs. It is soaked through with blood. It is unreadable.

Someone is shrieking, but not like a dying man. He has too much fight in him for that, too much glass-clear agony, unwanted blistering consciousness. He screams like someone being flayed, gutted, burned alive. You’ve only ever heard this sound once before. You choke on the greasy, putrid, metallic sweetness of scorched human flesh as it sears down your throat, not knowing if it is real or remembered.

There is a tent in the midst of the pine trees, fluttering canvas that’s green like emeralds or jade. The wind is picking up; you will need to evacuate soon. The cinders will spread and the forest will blaze. Somewhere a dragon is roaring, wounded and mournful like the cry of a lost child. The screams of the man grow louder; they fill your skull like a fever, scalding and senseless and red. Aemond yanks the tent flap aside and pulls you in. And when you breathe it is nothing but the sickening miasma of burnt flesh, coppery blood, suffering, sweat, ruin.

He’s writhing on a wooden table, the man the Greens call king. It has to be him: white-blond hair down to his shoulders, blue eyes and fine aristocratic bones. Two ancient, shaky-handed maesters—hastily commandeered from the defeated House Staunton, you assume—confer nearby, clutching glass bottles of milk of the poppy. A man in armor is cutting tatters of clothing from the so-called king. When he lifts the fabric away, skin sloughs off with it. Aegon wails, struggles, begs him to stop. Aemond goes to his brother and carves away scraps of melted leather and charred cotton with the swift blade of his dagger.

“Shh, shh, don’t fight us, we’re trying to help—”

“Aemond, let me die,” the burned man rasps. He is trembling violently, he is half-mad with pain. Meleys’ flames claimed a swath of his right cheek, his neck and chest and back, his arms down to his wrists, his belly to the crests of his hip bones. “Please. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want it to hurt anymore. Don’t try to help me. Just let me die.”

Aemond looks back at you. “Can you treat this?”

He thinks I’m a Green, you realize with panic, with relief, with terror. And of course he would: you had wandered into the Greens’ side of the battlefield and therefore did not surrender or flee or die with the other Blacks, you were tending to a Green soldier when he found you. Aemond the Kinslayer would not comprehend the notion of service to humankind without a line drawn down the middle of it, of uncategorical compassion.

“Can you help him or not?!” Aemond shouts; and you know that he is not just afraid but shattering, spider-leg cracks inching across a window or a mirror. Perhaps the Greens have souls after all.

You shed your paralysis like daylight erases the stars and approach to examine the so-called king. You do not touch him; still, he whimpers, sobs, quakes like waves in a storm. “He needs more milk of the poppy. A lot more of it.”

“Yes,” Aegon agrees immediately. His streaming eyes—a bleak, murky blue like the sea off Claw Isle—list to you, agonized and grateful.

The maesters gape. “More could kill him,” one says. And they are petrified of being blamed for it. They are plagued by visions of Aemond hacking off their heads and displaying them on spikes above the stone walls of captured Rook’s Rest.

“No drawbacks at all then?” Aegon manages between moans.

“If his pain does not abate, he will die of shock,” you say. “He must be unconscious.”

“Knock me out,” Aegon pleads, pawing at Aemond. “Tell them, tell them.”

Aemond looks to the man in armor: dark-haired, olive-skinned, Dornish. Sir Criston Cole, you realize. The Hand of the King. The Kingmaker. After a moment, Criston nods. “Do it now,” Aemond orders the maesters.

Grimacing, grim, they pour the opalescent liquid into Aegon’s mouth. He gulps it down as quickly as he can. “Enough,” you tell the maesters. Instinctively, you reach out to comfort Aegon: a palm rested lightly on his forehead, fingers threaded through silvery hair that’s filthy with soot and blood. You should hate him, but you don’t. When you look at the Greens’ broken king, you cannot see a murderer, a usurper, a depraved hedonist, a consumer of innocence. You can only see a man worn threadbare by ill-advised bravery.

“Hello, angel,” Aegon murmurs as he gazes up at you, a ghost of a smile on his lips. His eyes really do remind you of home: ocean currents like iron, fog like flint. “Welcome to the end of the world.” And then he’s out, extinguished, eclipsed.

Servants bustle into the tent carrying heavy buckets. “What is that?” you ask.

“Pork lard,” one of the maesters says. “For his wounds.”

“No, no, no, some of these burns are nearly down to the muscle. They’re too deep, too fresh. Lard is for later, to help with scarring, although olive oil or rose oil would be better. He needs to be cleaned with vinegar diluted with water. Or red wine, if that’s all that can be found.”

“Vinegar?!” one of the maesters exclaims.

“It helps prevent infection. Nobody knows why.”

The same maester turns to Aemond, imploring him. “My prince, I can assure you, the Citadel recommends pork lard or cow dung as topical cures, or both used alternatingly. There are also reports of cases where frogs have been helpful, warmed in oil and then rubbed on the affected area.”

Criston blinks. “I’m sorry, you do what with the frogs…?!”

They’re going to kill him, you think. Not with malice, but with stupidity. A wasted life, a wasted death. You demand of the maester: “When was the last time you treated burns this severe?”

He glowers at you, sharp dark eyes like flecks of onyx in a nest of wrinkles. And you know you’ve won when he replies: “When have you?”

“My brother was burned in a housefire started by an upturned lantern. It was five years ago, but I remember the direness his injuries. And what was done to save him.”

Silence in this tent the color of summer: green grass, unsinged trees. Aemond waits for the maesters to produce some astute rebuttal. When they cannot, he orders the servants: “Vinegar, water, rags. Now.” They dash off to oblige him, wide-eyed and quivering like small dogs. Then Aemond looks to you. “What next?”

“His wounds should be treated with honey and then bandaged. The dressings must be changed frequently, at least once per day. He must be repositioned so the scar tissue does not immobilize his joints. He will suffer, it cannot be avoided, but he should suffer as little as possible. Listen to him when he says the pain is too much. Let him sleep. When he is awake, he must drink plenty of fluids. He is losing water through his burns, and it must be replaced. Milk is preferable. Tea and fruit juices are good as well. Some wine is acceptable if that’s what he likes best.”

“And it certainly is,” Criston mutters. You’ve heard the same: that the Greens’ king is a drunk, an adulterer, a coward, a ghoul. You cannot speak to any of this. You know him only as someone who is horrifically pained and sick to death of fighting. Again, without thinking, you comb your fingertips distractedly through his hair as he lies unconscious on the table, bleeding from everywhere. He’s so young, so breakable, so unlike the monster you’ve been led to believe he is.

“Get honey and bandages,” Aemond tells the maesters. They depart, casting each other incredulous glances: Are these our new overlords? Men who heed the wisdom of impetuous young women filthy with blood and earth?

“I’ve heard salt can be helpful for wounds,” Aemond says. “They used it on me when…” He gestures to his eyepatch, to his scar. Lucerys Velaryon took that part of him in self-defense; at least, that is what you have always been told. But you’ve read enough to know that for every event, there are at least two stories. Whatever the truth is, Luke paid for that eye. He paid, Rhaenyra paid, the world continues to pay the price over and over again.

“Because it dries. It absorbs moisture.” You skim your palm over Aegon’s forehead, without lines of fear or anguish as he sleeps. There is a ring on his left hand, a gold dragon with glinting dots of jade for eyes. You twist off the ring so it will not hinder circulation as his fingers swell and give it to Aemond. “But burns weep as they heal. They need to be wet. If they get too dry, they will crack open and fester.”

“Is that what happened to your brother?” Aemond asks.

“Where we did not pay enough attention. The backs of his knees, the soles of his feet.”

“But he survived.”

“Yes,” you tell Aemond; and you can see how desperately he is searching for hope in your face, your words. “He did.”

The servants return with buckets of water, handfuls of rags, glass bottles of vinegar that is cloudy and rust-colored.

“What’s it made from?” you say.

“Fermented a-a-apples, my lady,” one of the boys sputters. He watches Aemond out of the corner of his eye like sheep look for the shadows of wolves. He shivers, he sweats. This boy, who last night was fetching meat and mead for Lord Staunton, has heard the same stories you have: the degenerate king, his murderous brother.

“That’s fine then.” You haul over one of the water buckets and Criston helps you lift it up onto the table. You empty half a bottle of vinegar into the water, mix it by wobbling the bucket back and forth, and then soak a rag in the pungent liquid. “You can help,” you tell Aemond and Criston. “Dip a rag in the bucket, wring it out, then press it to his wounds. Remove any dirt or scraps of fabric. But don’t rub. Try not to damage the skin he has left.” You demonstrate: dabbing at flesh that is torn and bloody and blistered, a black-and-ruby wasteland that at best will leave him irreparably scarred and at worst will swallow his life like ships sink in storms.

Tentatively—with hands at ease with killing but not tenderness—Aemond and Criston join you, studying your movements and imitating them with great care. There is a sniffle, a teardrop that falls onto Aegon’s filthy but unburned left hand and glistens there like a splinter of glass; you are alarmed to see that the Kingmaker is weeping.

“Criston,” Aemond says gently. “We are doing everything we can for him.”

“Since the day he was born, I promised…”

“I know.”

“Your mother…”

“I know,” Aemond says again, and you think: The Greens aren’t demons, they aren’t savages. They’re just patchworks of memory and flesh and suffering, the same as any of us. “He will live. And his sacrifice won us a victory today.”

As you tended to wounded men caked with blood and pine needles, you saw them tangled above in the overcast sky, scales of scarlet and gold and an ancient muddy viridescence. There were flames and shouts, and then all three dragons hurdled towards the earth and out of view. “The Red Queen?” you ask Aemond, mindful to keep your voice perfectly level.

“Dead,” he says: dark satisfaction, fearsome pride. “And so is her rider.”

“The gods are good.” You are amazed at how easily it slips out, a reflex of self-preservation while your mind is elsewhere. Does my father know yet? Does Rhaenyra, does Daemon, does Corlys? People will be searching for you soon. If you do not appear from the smoke and chaos of the battlefield, your eldest brother Clement will come looking with his sword in hand. Everett, scarred and unagile but clever, will be pouring over maps to see where you might have ended up.

There is no suspicion in Aemond’s face when he glances over at you. He is gingerly cleaning soot and charred strips of ruined skin from Aegon’s chest, which rises and falls in deep, slow breaths. “Which family is yours?”

House Celtigar, but you can’t tell him that. You scramble for a noble family of the Crownlands whose accent you share, whose history you have been taught, whose men fight for the Greens but are not so distinguished that Aemond will know them well. “House Thorne.”

He nods. “Are you one of Sir Rickard’s sisters?”

You startle. Perhaps you have chosen the wrong disguise. “Far less illustrious than that. Just a cousin.”

The two maesters return, their archaic hands piled high with linen bandages and glass jars of honey, a fiery gold like sunset. “Set them down over there,” Aemond orders, pointing. He has a presence, it cannot be denied. He is tall, fierce, swift yet calculated. He moves like a man who has killed once, twice, again until it is no longer something that keeps him awake at night. It is something that has become a part of him like arteries or bones. “Prepare a room in the castle.”

“For Prince Aegon?” one of the maesters says, then quickly corrects himself. “I mean, for the king?”

“For until we decide what to do with him.” Aemond stares at Criston. Criston stares back, his dark eyes huge and shiny. There is a war to be waged, but Aegon will not be able to help them. Not for months, at least. Not ever, if he dies. The maesters disappear again, grumbling to each other. Unwelcome tasks, unwelcome guests.

Rhaenys is dead, you think as you work. It doesn’t feel real. Meleys is dead. Hundreds of Black soldiers are dead. Rook’s Rest is the Greens’ greatest victory yet, and one they desperately needed. This war is nowhere near over. And the betting odds keep changing.

You say to Aemond and Criston: “Help me turn him. We must clean the burns on his back as well.”

They listen, they obey, they help you because helping you means helping Aegon. When he is washed as well as he can be, you spread a thin sheen of shimmering honey over his wounds—an amber river that will trap moisture and discourage inflammation—and wrap him in bandages. The only burn you leave uncovered is the one on his right cheek. It creeps up over his pale face like red tentacles, curling and grasping, hungry, insatiable. They match now, you think. Two brothers, two scars.

Criston assembles a group of Green soldiers and Aegon is carried in a litter to the castle that serves as the seat of House Staunton, once allies of Rhaenyra, now traitors, now dead men walking. Outside rain has begun to fall, putting out flames born from dragonfire. The pine forest is saved; wounded men lie in the dirt with their mouths open hoping to quench their thirst. By the time Aegon is placed in an opulent bedroom with a view of Blackwater Bay, he has already bled through his bandages. You clean him again, bandage him, dribble milk of the poppy down his throat when he begins to stir and whimper. Aemond gives you command of a makeshift fleet of caretakers: the two requisitioned maesters, three maids, servants to bring food, drink, bandages, wood for the crackling fireplace.

My family is searching for me, you know as you battle to save their enemy’s life, this maybe-king with silver hair and eyes like deep water.And then: I cannot leave him. Not now, not yet.

In the night, as cool rain patters against the ocean and Aemond and Criston are slaughtering House Staunton men down in the castle courtyard, you dose Aegon with milk of the poppy every few hours. The maesters refuse to take responsibility for it; if the king is poisoned, it will be you who swings from a rope for it. You hold cloths dripping with cold water to his forehead. You feed him nibbles of bread and venison when he is conscious enough to eat, cinnamon tea, pomegranate juice, goat milk. You inspect him for any signs of infection. You braid a small lock of his hair before you’ve stopped to consider why you’re doing it.

And when no one else is watching, you untie the bloodstained armband of your own house and burn it to ashes in the fire.

~~~~~~~~~~

Someone is jostling you, grabbing at you. You fell into an exhausted, sporadic sleep in the next room long after midnight. It’s morning now; warm sunlight blooms like flowers on your face, yellow roses and buttercups and daffodils. When your eyes open, they are sore and unfocused. Aemond is a blur of white hair and black leather. He is tugging on you again, his lithe fingers like a vice around your forearm.

“Stop it, get off me!” You shove him away. He waits, bemused. “You can’t keep dragging me around like this!”

“Why not?”

Because my father is one of the wealthiest men in the Seven Kingdoms. Because I may not have silver hair or a dragon, but if you cut me open the blood of Old Valyria would spill out like red waves. Because the man I am pledged to marry is good at killing, very good at killing, maybe even better than you. “Because I’m a noblewoman. I’m a lady.”

“You don’t act like one,” Aemond counters. “Ladies flee from blood and gore. Ladies are nowhere to be found on battlefields.”

“I like being useful.”

“Then I have brought you a gift. You are needed now. Aegon is asking for you.” And then, when you hurry out of bed, finding your footing on chilly wood floors: “Well, that certainly got you moving quickly.”

“He’s in pain?”

“Not especially, from what I can tell. I think he just wants you.” Aemond glides out of the bedroom. You follow him to Aegon’s chamber. The Greens’ king is propped up in bed on a great mass of pillows, bandaged, limp, eyes glazed and barely open. There are men huddled around him. You recognize Criston, though not the other ones, some old and some young and all in armor. You hope that none of them are Sir Rickard Thorne.

You feel Aegon’s forehead for fever. To your relief, he is no more than modestly warm. He catches your hand, holds it tightly, doesn’t let go. After a moment’s hesitation, you sit down beside him on the edge of the bed. There is a curl of his lips, just a whisper of a smile, just a phantom of one. Aemond glances at you and Aegon with mild interest, then turns his attention to Criston.

“Aegon,” Criston informs the king, patiently, like a good father would. “We have to move you back to King’s Landing.”

“No,” Aegon says. His voice is so low and weak that he’s difficult to hear.

“Your recovery will be long and arduous,” Criston explains. “Aemond and I will be needed in combat. We cannot stay to guard you. The Blacks may try to retake Rook’s Rest. You staying here is not an option. King’s Landing is safer. It is well-supplied, it is protected. And we have our own maesters there who will help tend to you.”

“Can’t leave,” Aegon croaks. “Sunfyre.”

“Aegon—”

“I can’t leave without Sunfyre,” he forces out with immense effort. Then he gasps and moans, tears pooling in his eyes. You offer him milk of the poppy; he guzzles as much as you’ll allow him to have.

Criston sighs. “You can’t stay. And Sunfyre can’t leave. One of his wings was nearly ripped off, he’ll never fly again. We have no way to transport him, he’s too heavy.”

One of the armored men mutters: “And that’s assuming he wouldn’t incinerate anyone who ventured close enough to try.”

“Where is he now?” Aemond asks the man.

“Down on the beach, my prince. Eating dead soldiers.”

Criston shudders. Working in close proximity to dragons has not given him a liking for them.

“Can’t leave him here,” Aegon whispers, shaking his head.

“You must,” Aemond says.

“What if it was Vhagar?”

“I’d leave her. I’d have no choice.”

Aegon frowns, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s all too much for him. “Not the same.”

No, perhaps not; Aemond’s dragon may be the largest and most lethal in the world, but Aegon’s bond with Sunfyre is said to be what legends are built of, words written in ink and stone. You watch the agonized confliction on Aegon’s drawn face: can’t leave, can’t stay, can’t fight, can’t run. You say softly: “Could Sunfyre be assigned a detachment of guards?”

Aemond looks at you as if just remembering you’re here. “What?”

“Men could be tasked with ensuring the dragon is secure and fed. From a safe distance, of course. They could report on his health. Then perhaps when he is stronger, he can be reunited with the king.” The king. Again, it stuns you how easily the treason rolls out, like waves bubbling over rocks and sand.

Aemond turns to Criston. “Could it be done?”

“I don’t foresee many men volunteering for the task. But it could be done, yes. Sure.”

Aemond asks his brother: “Would that make a difference?”

Aegon’s eyes drift to you. They are churning with sluggish, clunky thoughts, heavy burdens to bear on raw shoulders. The braid that you wove absentmindedly into his hair is still there. “Alright,” Aegon agrees at last. “I’ll go.”

“Good,” Aemond says. “We leave at dawn tomorrow.” Then he looks to you. “You will come south with us.” His tone invites no argument. He doesn’t even conceive of it as a possibility. Why would you refuse? Why would you, a purportedly devout Green, shy away from the opportunity to nurse your king back to health? You bow your head in compliance. You wonder what is being discussed in the Black Council; you wonder what your father is thinking, what Everett believes happened to you.

“But I have to see him first,” Aegon says.

Aemond does not understand. “See who?”

“Sunfyre.”

“But you can’t walk to the beach,” Criston says. “You can’t walk anywhere.”

Aegon grins, showing his teeth. His dazed, deep blue eyes glitter mischieviously. His hand has not disentangled itself from yours. “Then carry me.”

The deal is struck, like a face minted onto a coin or a bolt of lightning meeting the earth. Soldiers transport Aegon down to the stony, mist-sopped shoreline. Blade-sharp agony is flooding back into his face, but he refuses more milk of the poppy. He wants to be awake when he gets there. He wants to be himself.

The soldiers cannot get too close to Sunfyre; no one besides Aegon can. He is helped off the litter and then tries to amble across the wet, grey sand. After a few steps he collapses. You rush to him, dodging Aemond and Criston’s grasps as they try to stop you.

“No,” Aegon says when you attempt to help him to his feet. He is panting from the pain, his face flushed with torment and exertion. His white-blond hair whips in the wind. “Do not follow me. Not even if I pass out, not even if I’m dead. I don’t know what Sunfyre would do to you.” And then he crawls forward alone on his hands and knees.

Waves crash, spraying saltwater into the air. Crabs scuttle over rocks. Gulls swoop low to claim mouthfuls of flesh from bloated corpses in worthless uniforms. The dragon known as Sunfyre the Golden is curled up on the beach. Many of his metallic scales are singed; the pink membranes of his wings are tattered like lace. His right wing hangs at a ruinously odd angle. You would know how to set that if he was a human. And you could do it without the threat of being reduced to ash and history.

Sunfyre unravels as Aegon nears him, long angular face rising, frayed wings settling by his sides. You have seen dragons before, of course—Syrax, Caraxes, Arrax, Vermax, Meleys—though never from this close. They horrify you. You cannot look at them without thinking of the devastation they sow like a plague, of how they so unmistakably no longer belong in this world.

Sunfyre’s head stretches out towards his rider, a half-dead man kneeling in wet sand and wearing only bandages and loose cotton trousers. Beside you, Sir Criston Cole sucks in a noisy, nervous breath. Aemond watches Aegon, his face like stone. His hair hangs in long, damp waves.

Aegon embraces Sunfyre, clinging to him, resting his face against the dragon’s. They stay like that for what feels like a very long time. Then Aegon crawls back to you, sobbing with pain by the time he is lifted into the litter. You give him milk of the poppy and he accepts it eagerly. He is unconscious again within seconds. Down the beach, Sunfyre looses a soft desolate cry like a plea: Don’t go. Don’t leave me. You might never come back.

~~~~~~~~~~

The drivers have been instructed to proceed slowly and with caution; still, the carriage pitches and jolts as you traverse the Rosby Road towards King’s Landing. In addition to the caravan’s most precious cargo—the Greens’ fragile and intermittently sentient king—it transports also two severed heads: Lord Simon Staunton’s in a basket, and Meleys’ in the bed of a mule-drawn wagon. High above in slate-grey clouds, Aemond and Vhagar are safeguarding your progress. Criston rides on a monstrous warhorse just outside the carriage. You are leafing through a book that you found in the castle library at Rook’s Rest: anatomy, surgery, sicknesses and cures. Aegon is bandaged and heavily medicated in the cushioned seat across from you. While servants flit in and out frequently, you are the only passengers in the carriage at the moment. You do not know that Aegon is awake until he speaks.

“Sinful,” he says. His voice is groggy, only half-here. He is gazing blearily at the illustration on the open pages of your book: a quite detailed naked man, his arteries and veins mapped like the roads of Westeros, his cock bare and sizeable.

“It’s informative,” you reply in your own defense, smiling.

“My father would have hit me for looking at something like that. If he’d noticed.” Aegon smirks, resting his head against the back of his velvet seat. His hair has been scrubbed and rinsed by servants, the braid you made for him undone. “He probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Mine has a great love for all books.” Bartimos Celtigar is eternally turning pages: computations, records, revenue. He does not just sit on Rhaenyra’s council. He is her Master of Coin. He funds her war effort, he fuels her like wood to a fire. “Besides, I have seen naked men in person. No book can scandalize me now.”

A little twitch of his silvery eyebrows: fascination, amusement. “He does not lose sleep over your spent innocence?”

“He has other things on his mind presently.”

“Like what?”

Like helping Rhaenyra win the war. You find a different truth to tell him. “Some men consider one daughter to be too many. My father has four. His attention is thoroughly divided.”

“He doesn’t like you?”

“He likes me plenty. He just doesn’t need me.”

Aegon nods. His eyes travel over you slowly and meditatively, not leering but learning, memorizing slopes and angles, taking you in like he’s never been able to before. He is in the brief lull between doses of milk of the poppy: lucid enough to speak but not so much that he can feel the full extent of his injuries. “Are you married?”

This is a bit of a fraught subject. “I am betrothed.”

“Oh,” he says, with what might be disappointment. “And he wouldn’t rather have you home right now? Putting all that knowledge of male anatomy to good use? That’s difficult to believe.”

You peer evasively down at your book. “He has a role to play in the war. I’ve been given permission to serve in my own way until it is over.”

“Permission,” Aegon echoes. He finds this interesting. He studies you for a while before he asks, his voice gentle: “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. He’s honorable, he’s brave. He’s marvelously formidable. He could carry you around like a sack of potatoes.”

Aegon chuckles, a slow reflective laugh, curiosity, intrigue, something to think about besides the fact that he’s missing half his skin. “Do you fear marriage?”

What is the answer to that question? Do you even know yourself? “I fear being possessed. And having no remedy if the circumstances are not to my liking.”

“You can’t get one of your three superfluous sisters to marry him instead?”

You smile faintly. “No, we’ve met. He chose me, he favored me. I’m not sure why.”

“Probably because you’ve read all there is to know about cocks.” Aegon grins, drowsy and crooked and playful. “Who is he?”

“Just a man,” you say. You can’t tell Aegon more than that. It would give your Black affiliations away.

When they were children it was simply envy he felt toward her. While his brother ran away from his Targaryen heritage, Aemond dove in head first. He learned everything he could about Old Valyria and their ancestors. Why they could ride dragons and sometimes have prophetic dreams. Despite all of this, he was still only half Targaryen by blood and his father never talked to him about what it meant. This made it easy to hate his nephews, as they were so clearly bastards. They walked around with the name Velaryon, claiming to be the blood of the dragon when they were nothing more than a product of an affair with no one special.

His niece was different, though. She outmatched them all with her Valyrian blood. She was a Targaryen and a Valyrian and had both her parents around to tell her what it meant to be the blood of the dragon. When they left for Dragonstone he tried not to think of her much but his thoughts always returned to her. At the funeral for Leana Valeryon, he had seen her once again. In the short time that she and the rest of her family had been gone he had learned that envy could border into desire. As they stood around outside chatting after the funeral rites he could only watch his niece. Watch her silver hair catch rays of the sun that were beating down on them. Watch as her lilac eyes trailed after the dragons that flew overhead.

He had every intention of going over and talking to her but was stopped when he saw the glare that her brother Jacerys was giving him. He must have seen how he looked at his niece. It was just another thing that the Strong bastard couldn’t understand. Targaryen's blood sang out to each other like a siren luring in prey. She was calling to him but he turned the other way when her brother went to her side.

It was that night that he had claimed Vaghar. He had proven that he didn’t need a dragon to hatch. Not when he could get the oldest living dragon to head his commands and his alone. When he had climbed off of Vaghar he only had one thing in mind and that was to talk to his niece. To prove to her that despite also having Hightower blood he was just as much of Old Valyria as she was as he had claimed a dragon finally. With this news perhaps he could persuade her to accept a betrothal with him despite their mother’s hatred towards each other. They were too young to be married now but as royals, they should have been betrothed to someone already, in fact, he was surprised it took so long for Aegon and Helaena to become betrothed.

He was not met with his niece when he returned inside, though. He was met by his nephews and cousins who were angry about what he had done. He hadn’t meant for things to go as far as they did but when his young nephew, Lucerys took his eye there was no going back. Not for anyone.

The girl he sought after would never want him now, not with an eye missing and a hideous scar marring his face. He turned to look at the Velaryon siblings two of who were bloodied and one who was awake but still blinking herself awake. He saw that she avoided looking at him. He saw how she took her brother’s side despite being the one who had caused permanent damage to him. When he looked at her an intense feeling washed over him, making blood rush in his ears and his eyes narrow in on her. He had no way of describing this feeling but before he could think to give it a name he was being yelled at by his father.

-*-

It had been years since that fateful day and he hadn’t seen his niece or nephews since. Well, he saw them in court the day his father died and at that last meal but it didn’t feel as though it mattered because he didn’t get to say anything to her. That was all he wanted and yet, he knew if given the chance, he wouldn’t know what to say.

That’s why when she arrived in Storm’s End with a message from her mother for Borros Baratheon he knew this was his chance. He knew Borros wouldn’t agree to honor his oath to his half-sister. He was not only a stupid man but he got a marriage pact out of pledging his allegiance to Aegon.

“The King has at least offered me something, girl,” Borros said to his niece whose lips curled in distaste at his words. “A marriage pact is most helpful in sealing houses together, tell me, which of your brothers will marry one of my daughters?”

Her chin lifted and her voice was strong, even over the roaring storm outside. “My brothers, Jacerys and Lucerys are already betrothed. My younger brothers are much too young to marry your daughters.”

“So, you can offer nothing.” The Baratheon said with fake pity in his voice and Aemond smirked. Despite the fact that he coveted his niece, he could help the joyous monster that rose up in him when he realized that with his father dead, there was no protection for Rhaenerya and her children. “Unless, of course, you have an offer you’d like to make? I have no sons but I have a brother.”

Aemond’s blood felt as though it has turned to ice. Not because the Baratheon lord was openly suggesting going against his agreement in front of him but because the woman in front of him could be betrothed in seconds. Torn from him before he had a chance to have her. He didn’t realize he was squeezing the hilt of his dagger as hard as he was until he heard a gentle cough from beside him. His own betrothed. Although, none of that mattered when he saw the proud smirk on his niece’s face.

“I, myself am already betrothed to the warden of the North, Cregan Stark.” When she spoke those words he could have sworn she glimpsed his way. “I would not rid myself of such a strong betrothal for a match with a Baratheon.”

She spat the name like it was rotten food in her mouth. Aemond would have been impressed with her attitude in the face of the large and proud man if he hadn’t stopped listening to her when she announced her betrothal.

“You may be a proud man but you have no honor. Not having your house's allegiance is probably for the best.” She spoke up again and then bowed her head to Borros Baratheon, “I shall take my leave, now.”

She had only turned around and taken two steps before Aemond called out, “wait!”

She froze and turned slowly. He couldn’t blame her for the hesitancy in the look she gave him but he didn’t care about that right now.

"You will not wed Cregan Stark."

There was a pause before she threw her head back and laughed. “Who, my uncle, are you to declare such a thing? The rightful ruler arranged the match and it will help my family greatly. Plus, no one else worthy enough has stepped up to try and take my hand.”

Aemond couldn’t help but feel like those last words were directed at him. They felt like a dig at him and yet he couldn’t be sure. Instead of responding to that he only pulled out his dagger and smirked at her.

“I will have you and that northern bastard won’t stand in my way.” He growled and pulled off his eyepatch to showcase his missing eye and the sapphire in its place at the same time. “Think of it as a payment for what your bastard brother took from me.”

“You tried to kill him that night.” Her mouth was in a thin line. Oh, she was angry at him for mentioning her little brother. He could have fun with this he decided.

“Would it really matter if one little bastard died?” He questioned rhetorically. He held the dagger up and looked at it before twirling it easily in his hand. “If you don’t come with me tonight then I will fly to Dragonstone tonight and not only pluck out that little shit's eyes but stab my dagger through his heart.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” The certainty that was previously in her voice had disappeared and he saw her eye up the exit.

Borros Baratheon attempted to speak but with a look from Aemond and a hand on the hilt of his sword, the lord rightly closed his mouth.

“Wouldn’t I, dear niece?”

She didn’t respond as she sprinted towards the doorway and outside. He had predicted she would do such a thing so he made after her. He didn’t run to Vaghar, he knew he would make no trip to Dragonstone tonight. His niece was fast but not faster than he was and before she could reach her dragon he wrapped his arm around her midsection tightly and knocked her unconscious. He threw her over his shoulder and walked to Vaghar.

Neither of them would be going to Dragonstone or King’s Landing tonight or for many nights to come.

-*-

The sun shining on her face woke her. She brought a hand up to shield her eyes as she looked around. She was on what appeared to be a large island. One she didn’t recognize and one that didn’t seem to have any other inhabitants. She saw that vegetation was growing on the far corner and she saw Vaghar’s large form behind the only cave on the island.

“You have no clue where we are do you?” A voice questioned behind her and she saw her uncle standing behind her. He was without his jacket but still had his sword and dagger hanging on his hips. Before she could respond he answered for her. “Of course, you don’t, I doubt many people know of this place. I found it one day when I was flying Vaghar and when I returned to the Red Keep to study the maps, hoping to learn of the place I had just found, it wasn’t on any map.”

“Why am I here uncle?” She asked, ignoring his little speech. She didn’t know how to feel. On one hand, she was trapped on an island that apparently wasn’t on any map, meaning no one would know where to look for her and she was without her beloved dragon. On the other, she didn’t feel as though Aemond wished to harm her. She wasn’t sure why she was brought here but it wasn’t for him to kill her. If he wanted to do that he would have already of done it.

He held out his waterskin for her to drink without responding to her. He only looked off at the horizon and she hesitantly grabbed it from him. When the first drops of water touch her tongue she gulped down what little was rest, not realizing how thirsty she was. She handed it back to him and stood there quietly waiting for him to speak again.

It only took a few minutes for his eyes to leave the horizon and look at her. “Are you truly betrothed to Cregan Stark?”

She wasn’t surprised by his question but by the way he asked it. He sounded almost… sad.

“Of course,” she replied automatically. She took a deep breath before reciting what she had been told over and over again after the match had been made, “I couldn’t ask for a better man to have as a husband. Not only will the Starks keep their word to my mother but Lord Stark will make a fine husband.”

Aemond chuckled without any humor, “It’s a funny thing you do. You speak and all I hear is your mother’s voice.”

She frowned at that. She didn’t want to dignify it with an answer so instead, she asked again, “what am I doing here, Uncle?”

He sighed and brushed away a piece of her hair that had tangled from the storm and said, “I told you I would have you as a repayment for what your brother did to my eye.”

When she didn’t say anything he continued. “It gets awfully cold here at night. I plan to make a fire in the cave and sleep there. You may join me but know this, if you do not come to me tonight, you will eventually.”

After he told her this he turned and walked away. She didn’t look after him but turned to the horizon as he had done.

When she was younger she liked Aemond. They were forced to live together in the Red Keep as children and she had even enjoyed his company occasionally. Before her mother had moved them to Dragonstone she had truly thought that perhaps she would be betrothed to Aemond but that thought had permanently turned to ash when he had stolen his cousin’s right to claim Vaghar and her younger brother had stolen his eye. She knew that Lucerys had never meant to permanently harm Aemond. From the retellings of that night, he was only trying to protect their brother and he panicked and pulled a knife to stop their uncle from further harming Jacerys.

It didn’t matter, though. They had not talked after that night. Neither even attempted a conversation at that last meal.

She sat down on the soft grass and looked into the ocean. Her family would eventually find her, perhaps even before nightfall. When she was returned to Dragonstone she would be reunited with not only her family but her dragon that had been left behind in Storm’s End. She smiled at the thought but couldn’t shake the feeling of what to do with her time whilst stuck on this Island. Aemond didn’t seem to want to force her to spend time with him but rather to let her have her peace.

Aemond, she thought with a sigh. She had thought about him almost every day and she would only truly be lying to herself if she said she didn’t find him attractive as he has grown and she had to admit, the sapphire in place of where his eye once was only made him more alluring.

She groaned as her thoughts strayed. How could she think of him like that after the harm he caused her family? She shook her head to rid herself of her thoughts and decided to spend her time counting all of the fish that swam by in the clear waters before her.

-*-

He hadn’t been lying when he told his niece that wave a of chill came over this Island at night. He had made sure to find some goats to leave for Vaghar for the night and then proceeded to build a fire in the cave. He knew she would come in and join him eventually, especially when she heard the crackling of the fire.

The entire day he thought over and over what he would do with his niece. He could kill her. After all, a war was coming even if so many wanted to pretend otherwise. He couldn’t bring himself to even truly consider that possibility, though. She may be killed one day in battle or she may die of old age, either way, he would have no hand in it. He could carve out her eye and send it to her family on Dragonstone but that thought was quickly tossed away as well because as much as he told himself and her that he had taken her as payment for his stolen eye, it wasn’t true. He couldn’t mutilate her. He soon realized that he couldn’t bring harm to her in any way at all. He never wanted to. All his violent thoughts were reserved for her brothers and his sister.

When he curled his jacket into a ball and laid down on the blanket that he had stored in a pack on Vaghar’s back, his niece finally entered the cave. Her arms wrapped around herself and she shook silently. She looked at the fire and then at him.

“I won’t harm you, come here so you don’t freeze to death.” His whisper carried through the cave to her ears. She eyed him wearily and in return, he only patted the spot on the blanket beside himself. She moved slowly but once she felt the heat from the fire and the warmth from his body she quickly curled into him while facing the flames.

They lay there quietly. Both waiting for the other to say something first. In their silence, he couldn’t help but let his hand wander up to her silver hair that was facing him. It was curly unlike his, probably as a result of Leanor being her father, and his sister also had straight hair. His niece stiffened when he wrapped a long strand around his finger. When he let go he moved the rest of her hair off of her neck so that it pooled between her back and his chest.

Finally, he spoke, “I was going to ask if you wanted to be my betrothed that night.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked quietly but he could hear it in the way she said it, she already knew what he was talking about.

“The night I claimed Vaghar. I finally thought myself worthy of you. Before I was stopped I was headed to find you, to ask if you would ever consider being my betrothed.” He wasn’t sure what made him finally say it out loud. Maybe it was the fact that he had held it in for so long or perhaps it was the knowledge that she was to wed Cregan Stark and his childhood fantasies were soon to truly be snuffed out.

An awkward silence enveloped them and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to say anything in return. When she did he thought his heart might have stopped at the words she spoke. “When we were children I thought we would one day be wed. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part or maybe it truly could have happened.”

She was quiet for a moment and maybe it was because it was only the two of them on the island that she felt she could actually speak the truth. “I don’t want to marry Cregan Stark.”

He almost didn’t catch her whispered truth but when he did he asked quietly against her back, “what about what you told Borros Baratheon? Cregan Stark is an honorable man.”

“He is a perfect match for an ally, but I have never met him.” She replied. She then chuckled and said, “plus, I doubt I would like Winterfell very much. I’m sure it’s much colder there than it is here and I already feel as though I have turned to ice.”

He smiled despite the fact that she couldn’t see him.

She turned over so she was staring at him. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see in her lilac eyes. Maybe anger or hatred for stealing her away but instead her eyes held a softness as she looked at him. Without saying a word she brought her hand up to his cheek, to the bottom of the scar. When he flinched, she stopped her hand and didn’t continue her movements until he finally met her eyes and nodded. She pulled his eyepatch off of his head and he watched as she took him in.

He wasn’t sure what she was doing or planning but when she leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips he made sure to meet her halfway. When she pulled back a fraction of an inch she breathed against his lips and whispered something that made his cock harden in his breeches, “just for tonight we could pretend that things went right that night. We could pretend to be husband and wife, no one would know other than us and the stars.”

He was too stunned to speak and decided to not even try when his niece took a hold of his hand a brought it to her hip. She leaned in to kiss him again and this time it was far from chaste. Aemond grabbed her by the nape of her neck and held her closer to him and when she squealed in response he licked into her mouth to taste her. Just the taste of her mouth was addicting and Aemond doubted he could leave this to just this one night.

He moved away from her now swollen lips and kissed her jaw and down her neck. He made sure to squeeze her hip harshly before rolling her onto her back. He pulled away for a moment to look down at her and with the way her eyes were blown with lust, her cheeks tinted pink and her silver hair fanned out around her on the ground, he was sure that he had a goddess of Old Valyria underneath him.

She reached to untie his breaches at the same time he pushed her dress up her thighs. She was not wearing a corset, shedding herself of it before entering the cave. It only made pulling her dress off all that much easier. Aemond brushed her hand away from his breeches and dove down to suck at one of her hard nipples. He brought one hand up to cup her breast and play with her other nipple as he sucked on the other. Her skin was so soft and despite the cold, she was warm. His other hand ghosted down her body until it reached the apex of her thighs. When he brought his middle finger down to run through her slit that was soaked she arched up into the air as she choked out a moan.

He watched her face closely as he delved his finger into her. She had her eyes closed and her mouth shaped into a perfect ‘O’. Aemond let go of her breast and moved to kiss her again. He pulled away slightly, his lips brushing hers as he said, “you’re so fucking wet. So ready to take my cock, just like you were always meant to.”

She nodded her head vigorously and whined, “Aemond, please.”

“Please what, My princess?” He teased with a smirked ask as he slid another finger into her warm cunt. He growled lowly at the way she gripped his fingers and could only imagine how her cunt would feel around his cock.

“Fuck me,” she said breathlessly as she wiggled against his fingers. “Please.”

He smiled and pulled his fingers from her. He brought them to her mouth for her to taste herself and she didn’t waste time in sucking them.

“In all due time, my dear niece,” Aemond said as he slid down her body. “First I plan on learning what you taste like.”

Aemond gave her no time to respond before he grabbed both of her thighs and held them open and brought his tongue to her soaking wet cunt and dove his tongue into her folds. He listened to the sounds she made and when she grasped onto his hair, he latched onto her clit and sucked. She was a babbling mess as she ground her cunt onto Aemond’s face. Aemond only sat still with mouth open and let her take her pleasure. He listened and her moans filled the cave and when she came with his name on her lips he hesitantly detached her hands from his hair and moved his mouth back up to her lips. She was still panting when she leaned down to kiss her.

She still had her eyes closed and was panting as he quickly finished untying his breeches. He pulled them far enough down to free his cock and no further. When she opened her eyes she looked at her uncle and saw him fisting his cock while looking at her. Since they started this, it was the first time she felt hesitant. She was still a maiden and looking at the size of her uncle she couldn’t help but wonder how the stretch of his thick cock would feel inside of her.

He leaned over her, holding himself up with one of his arms beside her head and he used his other hand to guide his cock in between her folds. Her whole body tightened at the intrusion and Aemond kissed her gently on her cheek and whispered reassuring words until he was buried into her to the hilt. He fought everything in him not to move and to let her adjust to him before he fucked her. He brought his other hand down to massage her thigh as she breathed deeply. As soon as she nodded Aemond pulled out slowly and thrust back in at the same speed, watching her the entire time. When the pinched look melted off of her face Aemond began to thrust harder into her. Whatever he had imagined she might feel like around his cock was nothing compared to how it really felt. He buried his face into her sweaty neck and groaned and he started to truly fuck her. He felt her breast bounce against his chest and the sounds of her moans and their skin slapping together filled the cave.

When he started to feel a coil in his stomach, letting him know he was close to cumming he brought his fingers down to her clit and rubbed at the same pace as his thrusts. His niece clenched hard around his cock as she came with a squeal.

He pulled back from her and continued to thrust, his arms caging her in. He lowered his mouth to hers and whispered hoarsely, “I’m going to fill you up. Just like I’ve been dreaming of doing for years. I’m going to fill you with my seed and I’m going to keep fucking you until my seed takes.”

The surprised look on her face made him groan and spill inside of her. He laid down on top of her, not removing himself from inside of her as they both caught their breath.

After a few minutes, Aemond pulled away and pulled off his breeches which only made his niece whine. His smile was similar to that of a dragon looking down at its prey when she whine at the loss of his body on hers.

“Don’t worry dear niece,” He said and he turned her around to lay on her stomach. She turned her head to look back at him with confusion when she saw his cock was hard again, “I’m going to fuck you several more times before the sun comes up.”

-*-

The two of them had stayed on the island longer than either of them planned. When his niece suggested that they stay for a few more days just so they don’t have to deal with the immediate headache of the succession of the throne and the problems it has caused Aemond agrees without thought. Because as much as he has always done his duty to his family, he now he’s to spend every night with his cock buried deep inside his niece and he’s almost certain there is no better feeling.

Eventually, they find themselves staying on the island, watching as the moon makes its way across the sky. They find peace with each other and not having to be in the middle of courtly politics all day every day. It isn’t until the moon passes for its third rotation. That his niece begins to act strange. When he asks her what’s wrong she tells him she has yet to bleed since Aemond has taken them to this island. It isn’t hard to guess what she’s saying. Aemond has spilled his seed into her every night and she has stopped bleeding. There really is no other explanation other than she must be carrying his child.

When a large smile spreads across his face, she lets out a sigh of relief. He suggests that they mount Vaghar and go to King’s Landing where she will receive care from the maesters for the remanding months. He rambles on about how they can be wed and have a family all while his niece thinks back to her own family on Dragonstone. They must believe her to be dead. Her dragon must have returned without her and they could have only assumed the worst, especially if the Baratheons tell anyone of how Aemond had stolen her away. Her hand finds its way to her stomach which has yet to swell. What would her mother think about her carrying Aemond’s child? She knows that her mother wouldn’t be happy but she wouldn’t turn her back on her. Would she?

When Aemond notices quickly that she has checked out of the conversation and is holding her stomach protectively. He whispers reassurances into her hair that when they get to King’s Landing that she can write to her mother about what has happened. That when the maesters are done checking over her she can even go back to Dragonstone and have their child there because as much as he loves her and would love to be a father to their child, he understands if when they leave this island she might not want to be his bride.

He only smiles softly and tells him that of course, she’ll marry him and when they mount Vaghar and finally leave the island behind, the first thing they do when they arrive in King’s Landing (after Aemond explains everything to his mother and grandsire) is marry.

His new wife writes a letter to her mother and explains what happened. They wait for a response only for a moon later to have her dragon arrive in King’s Landing with a note tied to its saddle. When she pulls the letter off and looks at it she freezes as she reads the words.

Her mother has declared war. Believing her daughter to have been kidnapped and assaulted by the brother of the usurper to have been a plan of the greens, she won’t let it slide. Not after her daughter has been impregnated and forced to carry the child of their enemy.

You felt his presence in the sept before seeing him. 

It prickled the back of your neck, trailing down your back in a heated thrum. There was no way to explain how you knew it was him, even after all this time, but your intuition was never wrong, at least not when it came to this. You turned your neck backward from where you lit candles at the altar, a slow smile spreading on your face. 

“You’re tall now,” was the first thing you said. 

Gone was the lanky pole of a lad you’d left six years ago. In his place, a young man had sprouted, with confidence melded into his rigid spine and his arms strong and defined from years of intense sword practice. Here he stood, towering above you when the last time you’d seen him, he barely reached your shoulder. His bone-white hair grew past his shoulders and fell artfully into straight, silky tresses which no doubt sent the young women into enchanted frenzies. The scar on his eye was covered by a black eye patch, and the visible section on his cheek withered into knotted flesh but did nothing to detract from that captivating Targaryen beauty. You’d expected nothing less. 

A single violet eye beheld you with mild intensity. 

“Lady Velaryon,” he greeted, face in a stony facade. Anyone else might assume coldness from his demeanor, but you knew better. His scar was distorted with a subtle twitch of his cheek, but it didn’t make your chest flutter any less. “When I heard your ship had arrived in the city, I knew I would find you here.” 

Indeed, he knew you well. “Prince Aemond,” you muttered with a cursory bow. “It has been a few years.”

“Indeed,” he replied, the word heavy on his tongue. He said your name and there was a pause. It was a test to gauge your reaction. Then hesitation, as well as warmth, guided his next words. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

His sword-callused hands clasped yours. You remarked in silence on how big they were now. 

“How you’ve grown, Aemond,” you couldn’t help but remark with a chuckle, eyes scanning his form. 

His reserved fondness grew into a full smile as ease settled over him. “You say that as if it is a bad thing.” 

“Just an observation.” Your fingers brushed his wrist. “You’re a young man now.” 

“I’m a man now,” he interjected swiftly. It wasn’t harsh but firm; you perceived it was a point he needed acknowledged. You understood. As any young person who’d reached crossed that tumultuous bridge between childhood and blooming adulthood, he was eager to see it acknowledged. 

 At twenty years, many would consider him at the cusp of manhood. Despite the drastic change in his appearance, you still saw a version of him through the lenses of that boy of fifteen who ate honey cakes with you in the garden and let you sword-fight him with wooden props despite being over nine years his senior. None of Queen Alicent’s other ladies understood why you indulged him, but their opinions meant little to you.

You nodded, gracing him with an indulgent look. “Of course, My Prince. That’s a fact one cannot help but notice.” 

“If we are speaking of facts, Lady Velaryon, you’re as beautiful as ever.” 

You brushed off the compliment with an eye roll, but warmth flooded your face. “I see you’ve also gained the sweetened tongue of a man as well.”

“I speak the truth and nothing else.” He lifted your hands and kissed your knuckles cordially. But his lips hovered for a moment longer than required. You marked the observation, then discarded it as an intrusive thought and nothing more. 

The voyage from Driftmark had turned and twisted your belly, the discomfort being a mixture of seasickness and nerves you didn’t want to admit. But ever since you stepped foot in King’s Landing, this is the most you’ve been at ease. 

“I’m sorry to hear of your husband’s death.”

Your smile turned stiff, and you gently removed your hand from his. The pleasant embrace of nostalgia made it easy to forget your return to King’s Landing wasn’t a leisurely affair. You’d left this city a meek bride and now returned as a young widow, but the hounds that licked your heels then now lie in wait at your presence. 

“Thank you,” you mumbled. 

It had been a hard year. Your husband, Grover Tully, perished during a voyage to the Iron Islands when a storm took his entire ship. Your marriage to the Lord of the Riverlands was a match considered worthy at the time of its brokerage. As the youngest daughter of Rhaenys Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon, many thought it would foster ties with the Riverlands who felt their association with the Crown was taut. As Lord Paramount of the Trident, it was a coveted match for any woman in your place.   

But the result hadn’t been what everyone expected. 

“How long are you staying in King’s Landing?” he inquired.

You shrugged. “I’m uncertain.”

King Viserys was the one who had summoned you from Driftmark, along with his daughter Rhaenyra and her family from Dragonstone. At the tail end of his long life, you assumed the old man wanted to congregate every part of his family to his side once more. But other forces had an interest in your presence. Your father was a sickly husk and your mother expressed no interest in anything but remaining at his side, so you were summoned in their stead. As the heir to Driftmark, there were bonds between your houses that needed renewal. 

“I heard my mother invited you to stay here in the royal wing.”

“It was magnanimous of her,” you said evenly. 

Even a babe born yesterday knew why Alicent extended this gesture of courtesy to you, but you had no energy to contemplate political machinations at the moment. The intimidating, tortuous crimson walls of the Red Keep made your skin shiver in fright when you were a child. As an adult, you learned to hide your dislike better, but the feeling of imprisonment, even at the seat of power, never left.   

Aemond extended his right arm for you to take. “I would ask you to visit the training grounds with me, but I doubt you’ve kept the skills I taught you. I know that Tully swordsmen wield their swords like cooking knives and flail like helpless chickens.”

 You snorted, looping your arm into his without thinking. The action was as seamless as breathing. “That is a terrible thing to say about a house so loyal to the throne. And what makes you think I was allowed anything sharper than a knitting needle?”

“I would still fear a knitting needle in your hand than a sword in any other man’s,” he smirked, leading you out of the sept. A cool breeze greeted you like an old friend. You exhaled. 

“Now you insult me. We both know I was terrible.”

“I’m certain you’ve improved with time,” Aemond said. 

“It’s not as if I had any sword practice in Riverrun,” you pointed out.

“Those swamp bastards were too afraid of your skill?”

“You seem to forget that highborn ladies have few activities to take our time, my prince,” you stated, vaguely conscious of the kingsguard who lingered in sight. “It’s knitting, praying, garden courts, and child-rearing.” the latter you’d failed at. “No time for sword fighting, unfortunately.”

“Then we shall remedy that,” he declared.  

“I doubt there will be time for anything of the sort.”

Aemond fell silent and his face shifted into practiced blankness. Perhaps he was not enthused by a reminder of the reunion to come. You couldn’t blame him because you felt the same way. The threads of power and ambition strung all around you and navigating through them was a tiresome task. 

Rhaenyra wanted your mother’s support and tried to convince her that the circumstances of your brother’s death were not engineered by her hand. You didn’t doubt that, but it was difficult to remain near her and Daemon basking in their long-sought wedded bliss after your siblings, their previous spouses, were no more.    

Alicent’s courting was no less subtle but perfumed with entitlement because she simply assumed everyone should carry the grudge she felt towards Rheanyra. 

All you wanted was to return home and live in whatever peace the Seven allowed you to have. 

“Will you remarry?” Aemond’s sudden question made you stutter in surprise. 

“What?”

“Now that your husband is dead, it makes sense you should remarry.” He spoke as if it was an indisputable fact, a logical action. You knew this, but it didn’t mean you liked it. 

“I am newly widowed. It’s too early to think about that,” you deflected. 

Aemond pursed his lips. “There are many at court who will seek your hand now.”

You snorted. “A barren widow must send tongues wagging, I’m sure.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” he immediately stated, nose flared for emphasis.

Your smile was still hollow, but his quick defense touched you. “My Prince, I’m only saying what everyone else has said, both to my hearing and behind my back.” Six years of marriage and you’d not borne your husband one child. Grover Tully was an old man, but that didn’t stop the invisible finger of blame from falling on you in the eyes of everyone else. Old men still fathered children with the right women, and the Tullys were known for their fertility, among many things. 

His oldest son was grateful for the lack of challenge to his father’s chair, but the melancholic union had marked you as useless in the eye of any prospective suitor. 

“If anyone wants me, it will be for my inheritance and nothing more,” you added bluntly. 

“You speak as though you forget dragon’s blood runs through your veins,” Aemond said in a raspy tone. “I would not have you speak about yourself in that manner. There’s no man in Westeros who would deserve you as you are, and I speak this truth as a man.”

You blinked, taken aback by the vehemence in his voice. The prism that made him appear as that young, troublesome boy distorted itself to allow you to take in this vision of a man. Yes, you’d known he had changed, but it was at this moment you realized how much. 

You swallowed, your hands stiff against his biceps. “I am grateful for your passionate defense, Aemond, but I am still just a woman. Not the ethereal creature you seem to think I am.” 

“You surpass all the women I know.”

“Even your mother?” you teased, hoping to inject lightness into the serious conversation. 

He was silent but interlocked his fingers into yours. There was a moment of silence that battered your ears with its intensity. “Sometimes, I believe so.”

The incident with Vaemond left you too somber for food and you wanted to retreat to your rooms after playing with the piece of roasted boar on your plate throughout dinner. You understood why Daemon had done it and even you saw the foolishness of your uncle’s words, but it still cut at the part of you, resentful that it further withered your family at the seams. You lost almost everyone who mattered to you. Part of you was tempted to secure your nieces and nephews in the safe walls of Driftmark, far away from whatever would befall them because of their parent’s actions but that signaled action worthy of recourse. As farcical as it seemed, you were determined to remain neutral for as long as you could. 

“Are you alright?” Aemond inquired in a low tone. He was seated beside you, so his words went unheard by anyone else. 

You nodded slowly. “I will be. I just need to be alone.”

His hand fell on yours, gripping it comfortingly. You were shaken enough to lean into it. “Anything you fear will go through me first.”

The corners of your mouth twitched. “That’s reassuring, coming from the second-best warrior in the realm.”

“Second-best?”

Your eyes wandered to where Daemon was seated with his usual air of aristocratic disdain permeating around him. Aemond followed your line of sight and grimaced, mouth spread into a thin line. “He’s a pale imitation and nothing more.”

“Some might say that about you.”

“And what do you say?” The question came too sharply for you to dismiss it as jest. 

You risked a direct glance at him, taking the sight of his angular features bathed in the flickering firelight. “You will be a legend in your own right, My Prince.”

He ducked his head away as if embarrassed by your statement. A dusting of pink covered his cheeks. “Ser Criston tells me that often. Somehow, I believe it coming from your lips.”

“Well, I am grateful my opinion matters to someone,” you smiled.

“Your opinion matters to me very much.” Severity clouds his eye. 

It’s a little too much to behold, so you took a sip of your wine for distraction. “That’s too much pressure, My Prince.”  

After the feast, Otto Hightower approached you, towering and calculating as always, encompassing everything you wanted to avoid. His daughter performed the practiced civil demeanor better than he did. He lumbered like a stiff oak draped in fine linen, armed with a carved smile that reminded you of how maesters described the sculpted faces on Northern weirwood trees. 

“It saddened me to hear of your husband’s passing,” he said. 

You bowed stiffly in response. “I appreciate your sympathies, my lord.”

“I admire your tenacity, Lady Velaryon, but I am sure myself and many others are of the mind that a woman like you, still ripe in years, should not be alone.” he was clever in framing his suggestion as a mere concern.

You smiled, hoping it came off more polite than burdened. “It is too soon to think of such, Lord Hightower. I am barely finished with mourning.”

“Lord Grover was a man unmatched in honor and temperance, but the dead cannot dictate the actions of the living. It would be unfair for you to remain untethered out of a misguided duty that has already been fulfilled.”

In other words, you were too valuable to remain unmarried, and depending on who you married, it would tilt for or against his interests. Sudden fatigue enveloped you. This entire farce tired you. 

“I must take my leave now, Lord Hightower. Do have a good night,” you said stiffly, bucking all convention and leaving without waiting for his reaction. He pressed his stiff gaze against your back as you retreated, but you didn't care about maintaining proprietary.

You hated it all. You hated this demon of a castle and its imposing walls, you hated the people within it playing their games and weaving webs to tangle even innocents who sought no part in it. Your chest tightened in response to the ferocity of your thoughts and you had to stop and catch your breath, hands clenched tight enough to stop blood flow. 

You just wanted to go home. 

The next day, Rhaenyra approached you with the same topic of marriage in mind, but at least she had some tact. 

“I have no plan to take another husband,” you said coldly, keeping your eyes over the lush garden below where you both stood on a balcony. “Not everyone can remarry barely one summer after their husband dies.”

Her face maintained its impenetrable coolness, but you’d known her long enough to see her hurt reveal itself in flushed cheeks. Some regret stabbed you. Your brother had peculiarities that other wives would have reviled him for. Rhaenyra wasn’t the visage of a devout wife, but their marriage was filled with more joy than many others. Yours included. 

She was silent, overlooking the balcony. “I loved Laenor as he was and I will always love him, even if he’s not with us any longer.”

You sighed, curving your bottom lip inward. “I know.”

Her violet eyes regarded you thoughtfully. “No matter how much you may try, the tides of fate will move you. You cannot remain a willful observer forever. Eventually, you shall be forced to make a move. I advise you do it of your own free will rather than because of someone else’s actions.”

If only she wasn’t correct. You could keep steadfast in your denial, but even that had become tiresome. 

“Where on that spectrum do you fall, dear cousin?” you muttered. 

Her elegant hand draped over her curved belly. “The side that will win.”

You were both silent for a moment. 

“I do not wish to remarry,” you said finally. 

“Good,” Rhaenyra said with a hint of a smile. It was not for her benefit, but you didn’t say it out loud. It was wise to limit things to everyone’s hearing. “I understand your reasoning, but there are others who aren’t as enlightened as I.”

“My mother supports me.”

“And what of Alicent and her son?”

“The queen has no say in my matters.” you shoot down but your heart skipped a beat. Her son? What did that have to do with anything? Aegon was married and a laughable prospect. Was she talking about Aemond? “And I cannot understand what her son has to do with this.”

“The two of you spent all of dinner last night whispering.”

You pursed your lips, feeling defensive. “I have fond memories of him, despite the bad blood yourself and your children may harbor. But it would be laughable to suggest anything else beyond that. We are friendly, and that is all there is to it.”

She rewarded you with a contemplative glance. “I still hold you in regard as my good sister, which is why I say this without deceptive dressing; there are no mere observers in this game. In due time, your role will come. Let it be of your own choosing, but I fear someone has already chosen for you.”

“I doubt it,” you dismissed, but the truth of her words rang over you both. 

When you returned to your rooms that evening, it was no surprise to see Aemond there.

After the talk with your former good sister, you expected it on some level. Still, it took you a few moments to collect yourself after the identity of the intruder registered. 

“Aemond,” you stated. “What are you doing here?”

His tall frame created a hulking silhouette in the pale moonlight. It made him look unnatural, like a figure of myth from the chronicles of some centuries dead maester. 

“You spoke with my sister this afternoon.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

You picked your words with care, cautious of his unreadable mood. “She was married to my brother. We had some catching up to do. Do you now have spies following my whereabouts?”

He didn’t answer your question and opted to take a step toward you instead. This close, the moonlight made him look ethereal. Your chest clenched with a previously unknown emotion and your breath quickened when he was a hair’s breadth from you. 

“I was worried,” he finally answered. “That her poison would reach your ears and discourage our association.”  

You blinked. “Why would you think that?”

“My sister,” he said the words with unconcealed disdain. “Has a way of doing that, of making people believe the worst of my mother and siblings. There is a reason my father favors her above all his children.”

You placed a hand on his cheek without thinking. It was as if your hand moved of its own accord, but the feeling of his skin beneath your fingertips soothed something raging within you. Aemond was surprised by the gesture, judging by how he tensed at first but then leaned into your touch. 

“Aemond,” you said. “You are not perfect, and neither am I, but no one could ever poison you against me. To me, you’ll always be that boy who shared honeycakes with me in the Godswood.”

“That’s not how I want you to see me!” he growled with such vehemence you snatched your hand back as though it were burned. “I want you to see me as the man I am now.”

You swallowed, chest pounding. “Yes, yes are. I see you as you are, My Prince.”

“I am a man and I know what I want,” he said with unflinching authority. 

“And what do you want?” your voice fell into a whisper. 

He didn’t answer for a moment, taking a good while to trail your entire being with his eye. It made you feel more exposed than you’d ever been in your life. No verbal answer came.

Aemond placed both hands on your arms and tilted his head down until his lips were mere inches from yours. The silence in the room was deafening. His lips found yours in a hesitant peck, which transformed into a consuming kiss. He tasted of sour wine, tart and heavy, clouding your senses with every essence of him. 

 “Aemond,” you breathed. “This is a mistake.”

“I’ve wanted you since I saw you in that sept.” he replied. “How you looked kneeling before the altar, so beautiful and broken.” His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth. “Just like I remembered.”

“If we do this, we will open ourselves to forces we cannot control,” you reasoned, trying to convince yourself and him. 

“I said I would protect you from anyone, and I will. From my mother, my sister and the entire fucking kingdom if I have to.” His other hand curled on your hip, moving your body closer to his. He leaned over and nipped your jaw, making you gasp out. “But for once, I wish to have something for myself, just this once. Let everyone else burn for all I care.”

An involuntary gasp escaped you. Your chest heaved, and you panted against his lips as his hard chest pressed against yours. “I-I want you too.” The admission burned your tongue burdened by the shame and fear you felt for desiring this. 

“Then have me.” he groaned, lifting you up by your thighs and leading you to the bed. 

What followed was a ride too pleasurable to describe. 

Aemond buried his face between your thighs, stroking you to bliss with his tongue. Your back arched and moans poured from your mouth like water from a pond. Heat burned through you, aching for release beneath the flimsy underclothes. The tight cord within you snapped and white pleasure clouded your vision. It was the first you’d ever experienced such. 

After that, Aemond undressed and laid between your legs, soaking the sensation of his bare skin on yours. All he’d dreamed of had come to fruition. You kissed until your lips were swollen, then he flipped you over so you sank on his length, eyes never leaving his, little whimpers coming from your lips. 

His large hands held your hips, guiding you up and down until a pleasurable rhythm was reached. Curses left him with every thrust and roll. His white hair fanned behind him like a silver halo in the darkness. He babbled nonsense; a mix of praise and profanity egged on by the sound of skin slapping together. 

“I will give you anything you desire,” Aemond gasped, fingers gripping your hips tight enough to bruise. “I would die for you. I would kill for you.”

His passionate declaration was enough to increase your pace. Your fingers dug into his chest as you got closer to your peak and judging by his heavy shudder, he welcomed the pain. He whispered your name as your face twisted in pleasure and sat up so he could press his face into your neck. No part of your visible skin was safe from his frantic kisses. 

You cried out when your climax bubbled in your pelvis. Your toes curled. One more thrust was enough to send your body into a shuddering ecstasy. Aemond gripped your jaw without mercy and resumed his powerful thrusts until he spent himself inside you. 

Satisfied, he went onto his back and you went with him, your head tucked into his neck. Aemond pressed your forehead together, granting you a soft, indulgent kiss. 

“Where do we go from here?” you asked, afraid and hopeful for his reply. 

“Tomorrow, we will take Vhagar and find a sept in some remote village where neither of our families can interfere and marry there,” he sounded so certain of this. All your protests and assertions laid ready on the tip of your tongue but kissed them away as if he knew. 

He’d made up his mind and, by extension, yours. 

Hours later, you lay on your back, chest heavy and mind plagued with the result of what you’d just done. If it was a onetime affair, then perhaps you could maneuver this painlessly. But from the way Aemond grips you close, you know he has no intention of letting this end. 

Rhaenyra’s words come back in a taunting float.

Make a choice or someone will make it for you. 

Well, for good or bad, you’ve just done that. 

The days had grown cold with the promise of autumn, but for some reason today the weather was lovely. The sun bathed the gardens in warmth, which led to everyone spending as much time in the sun as possible. 

Aemond doesn’t lay, he is seated on a bench nearby, and a book open across his lap as he listens to the conversation. Your cheeks flush at Aegon’s teasing. 

“That is not true-”

“It is true,” he says sitting up to face you, “you’ve been kept in the Keep your whole life. The second you leave this castle wicked men will corrupt you.”

Helaena opens her eyes then, turning her head toward her brother. 

“Come now Aeg, you shall frighten her,” she says, defending her lady-in-waiting. Aegon shrugs. 

“I speak only the truth, a lovely creature such as yourself is destined to ruin.”

Your mouth drops open, cheeks pink.

“What horrible things you say, Aegon,” you scold, “and anyhow it is not like I would go unarmed.”

Aegon cocks a brow at you. 

“And what access to the armory do you have, my lady?” he questions causing you to pout. 

“Ser Criston would allow me a weapon of my choosing, I am sure of it,” you tell him. Aegon chuckles. 

“That would be rather unwise of him,” Aemond chimes in, “considering you’ve never had a lesson with the blade in your life.”

Your frown deepens.

“How hard can it be?” you challenge, causing Aemond to close his book. 

“Hard enough,” Aemond tells you, causing you to roll your eyes. 

“Stay where it is safe, my lady,” he tells you, “I hope to not see you on my own adventures into the streets of King’s Landing.”

Your cheeks seem to darken at this, knowing Aegon is referring to his trips to the Streets of Silk. 

That night you decide you will go into town. You shall prove them wrong. 

Aemond was returning from a rather late night spent in the library. He has gotten into reading a new book and lost track of time, only stopping when his candle fizzled out. 

As he walked down the silent corridors he spotted you, a cape draped over your shoulders, as you pulled the hood over your head. Where on earth were you going? What were you doing?

Your movements were slow and calculated as you evaded several goldcloaks, as a small kitten would evade the crashing feet of passersby. Aemond found himself smirking, as he watched you. Grabbing a cloak of his own, he decided he would follow you. He could not let one of his sister’s ladies fall prey to the madness outside of these walls. It wouldn’t be right. 

Somehow, someway, he followed as you made your way through the gates unseen. 

He follows behind you, remaining unseen as you find your way to a tavern. Aemond enters several moments after you, planning to continue to guard you against afar. 

You sit at a table, removing your hood, eyes lit up with wonder. A tavern girl walks over to you. 

“What’ll it be?” she says, gruffly, with her hands on her hips. 

“Is there something you recommend?” you ask and the lady makes a face at you. 

“We have mead, and we have bread,” she tells you. 

“Sounds lovely,” you tell her and she walks away, perplexed. 

Aemond chuckles to himself, keeping his head low. He is terribly recognizable, let alone with just his Valyrian coloring. The eyepatch does not allow for anonymity. 

“Hello beautiful,” a voice says, causing you to turn. A man gazes down at you. 

“Good evening,” you say politely, feeling your heartbeat thumping against your chest. 

“Fancy a shag?” he asks, and your eyes widen.

“No,” you tell him, but he grabs your arm, pulling you from your seat.

“Come deary, let me show you what I can-”

The man never has the chance to finish his sentence as he is torn away from you. You fall back against the table, the corner biting into your hip. The man had been thrown to the floor and moaned in pain. 

You look toward your savior, a tall man hidden behind a cloak.

“The lady said no,” he says, voice caressing you like silk. Wait a minute. You know that voice.

Your savior turns to you, keeping his head low, but you spot the patch across his face. 

“Aem-” you begin before he brings a finger to his lips to silence you. 

“Come,” he says, taking your hand and leading you from the tavern into the streets. He brings you to a nearby alley, away from the bustling chatter of the nightlife. 

“Did you follow me?” you accuse.

“I only planned on watching, if only you needed assistance,” he tells you, “which you did.”

“I could have handled myself,” you argue.

“Oh could you?” he teases, but his eye widens as you reveal a small blade from the pockets of your skirts. 

“Yes,” you insist. 

Aemond lets out a laugh. 

“You planned to stab a man in the middle of a tavern?”

“I will do what needs to be done!” you tell him, “I am not a maiden in need of protection.”

You remind him yet again of a small kitten, claws out. Aemond finds himself grinning at your ferocity. 

“What if I enjoy protecting you?” he tells you. 

You scoff, cheeks reddening.

“You are making fun of me,” you accuse, bringing a hand up to push his chest.

Aemond grabs your hand, taking a step forward, forcing you backward until your back hits the wall. 

“What would you do?” he asks, as your breathing picks up, “if I was a madman, wanting to have his way with you right now, right here?”

You wet your lips at the implication. 

“Because that is what that man was thinking,” he tells you, his face serious, “stab me? The goldcloaks would throw you in a black cell. Or worse.” 

Your gaze flickers to his mouth before you turn your head away. 

“I just wanted to see,” you tell him, “I know, I know it is dangerous. I just do not wish to live life like a prisoner.”

Aemond watches you as your eyes become glassy with frustrated tears. 

“I can give you that,” Aemond tells you, placing a hand under your chin. You meet his gaze. 

“You need only ask,” Aemond continues, watching as your lips part. 

“Please,” you beg, and Aemond connects his lips to yours, kissing you with such ferocity you are sure you shall melt into the wall behind you. 

“I shall not be kept locked up in the Keep,” you breathe against his mouth. He hums before kissing you once more. 

“You do not need to be,” he murmurs, “Vhagar can take you anywhere you wish to go. As long as you take me with you.”