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Chapter Text

110 AC.

It’s dark when the knock comes.

The fire has long since died, leaving only embers that glitter like rubies and do little to warm Rhaenyra Targaryen’s bedchamber past the hearth. The princess sits up, rubs sleep from her eyes, and frowns at the door. Who would come to her at this hour, when the sky is at its darkest and the Red Keep at its quietest? Her beloved uncle is gone, her sworn sword is now her sworn enemy, and her new friend would never be so bold as to visit her chambers in the dead of night. So who—

“Nyra? It’s Laenor.”

Right. Her husband. They’ve been married for three moons— three moons , and he’s all but ignored her, lost to his mourning and his cups. She doesn’t blame him, truly; after the horror that abruptly ended their wedding, how could she? They were friends once, as children, before Lord Corlys took him to the Stepstones and time made them strangers. And now they’re married, tied together by more than just the dragon’s blood they share.

She never wanted him. She never wanted to be married. Or, at least, not to him. She closes her eyes and lets the memory wash over her: the late afternoon light streaming in through the windows of her father’s chamber, the gruff misery in his voice. I will do my duty as heir and wed Ser Laenor, she’d said, tears welling in her eyes. Duty. 

Another knock, softer than the first. The time for duty, it seems, has come at last. “Come in.”

She fiddles with the end of her braid as the door creaks open and a familiar figure appears, face lit up from beneath by the candle in his hands. He smiles sheepishly, grief still clinging to his eyes, his brow, his silver-gold locs. Her heart clenches in her chest; guilt, though she knows it doesn’t fully belong there. (Is it her fault? Is it all her fault? Joffrey dead, Daemon gone, Criston twisted into an unrecognizable monster. It must be.)

“Can’t sleep?” She tries to read the determined line of his lips as he lights a few more candles and pours two glasses of wine at the table on the other side of her room. He still hasn’t looked at her, not really. He drains his cup in one gulp and hastily refills it, and something like nervousness roils in her stomach. They both know what he has come to do. She pushes back her blankets and pads across the room to him. “Laenor?”

When she creeps closer, she sees the red imprint of a palm across his face. She reaches for it but he flinches away, pressing a goblet into her hand and filling his again. His breath and half-unlaced tunic already smell of wine, but she says nothing, simply sips at her cup and waits for him to speak. He’s always been quiet, even as children. And since their wedding—well, words have been few and far between.

“I have neglected my duty, Nyra.”

Duty. She knows she should not loathe a concept, especially one that awards her all that she wants. A small price to pay, really; accepting her duties, her responsibilities, will grant her the Iron Throne and all the glory in the realm besides. But what she wants, even more than any throne, is freedom—and Laenor does, too, or so she thought, until this very moment.

She tries for a casual laugh. “Who cares about duty?”

The guilt-laden sorrow in his eyes is answer enough: a father who cares more about legacy than his children’s happiness; a mother still bitter about a crown that never was, though she claims to have put it behind her. A king who expects a boy to go against his nature for a girl who desires another. The court in the Red Keep and the fat lords in their country estates and even the smallfolk on the streets of the city below them.

“Drink,” he nudges her hand softly, pausing her fingers’ slow and methodical spinning of the rings that adorn them night and day. Finally, finally, he raises his gaze to hers. Even in the low candlelight, she’s stunned by how beautiful his eyes are. Not quite purple, not quite blue, brighter and lovelier than even his sister’s—and everyone says Laena Velaryon has the most beautiful eyes in the Seven Kingdoms. (Everyone but Daemon. Daemon says hers take the prize. But Daemon also dances with Laena instead of whisking Rhaenyra away to Dragonstone when she asks. Her heart clenches again, shaped into something shriveled and half-mad by their abandonment.)

She obeys, knowing what is to come. The wine is sour on her lips but she downs it quickly anyway, wiping a stray drop from the corner of her mouth. She offers him a melancholy smile—I’m sorry you have to do this. I’m sorry for what will happen to us .

It’s over in an hour. They don’t speak at first. Laenor stares at the ceiling with tears brimming at his unfairly thick lashes. Rhaenyra brushes the end of her braid against her palm.

“Are you okay?” She asks quietly after what feels like forever.

With another man, she would worry that his ego has been bruised. Most men—according to her servants, who talk about things they shouldn’t when they think she can’t hear—would be mortified that it took so long to begin just to end so quickly. But he’s him, her friend more than her husband, and she cares for his heart more than his pride. Guilt gnaws at her again and she grabs it by its scruff and hauls it away.

“I’m okay,” he answers in a voice laden by sadness. “Are you?”

She doesn’t answer.

The price of duty doesn’t feel so small then—it’s the size of a dragon and twice as menacing as it sits in the bed between them, laughing with glee at their misfortune. She feels his spend against her thigh and prays for the first time in years, eyes squeezed shut and hands clasped together. Please , she begs whatever gods will listen, let it be the only time we have to do this. Let me give the realm a son. Let it be known that Rhaenyra Targaryen has done her duty. And then, once the boy is born, let Laenor and I do as we please.

The gods answer—but only some, it seems, or perhaps they all listened to only half of her prayer. Rhaenyra’s belly grows and the court rejoices, her father most of all. Viserys orders a separate wing of the nursery be decorated in Velaryon blues and filled with all that the babe could ever need. A room fit for our future king, he grins proudly when he reveals it to his daughter and her husband. He doesn’t see his wife’s face fall as she stands in the doorway, one hand stroking her own swollen stomach. Rhaenyra sees. But she will not feel guilty, not now, not when she’s done her duty—not when she’s two moons away from birthing the future king of the Seven Kingdoms. It’s not her fault that her father cares more for her than his second wife or the son and daughter she bore him. It’s not her fault that the babe in Alicent’s belly is due almost exactly when her own is expected, that her son will surely outshine the queen’s. Only one of them will sit the Iron Throne—and that’s not her fault, either.

(Laenor cares not for thrones and heirs. He knows he should. He knows he should pray that his wife births a son. A son would make their lives much easier. But if anything, he’d prefer a daughter. A little girl to take on Seasmoke’s back until her own dragon is large enough to ride, to teach sailors’ songs to and dance with whenever she asks, with wild curls like Laena’s and a brave heart like his mother’s. In truth, it doesn’t matter if his child is a boy or a girl, so long as the child is healthy. He’ll take care of them no matter what. And until they’re here, he merely enjoys sprawling out on the floor in front of the fire, head in Rhaenyra’s lap and ear to her belly, listing names for the babe who will be king—or queen.)

“What about Joffrey?” Laenor asks one evening, shyly avoiding Rhaenyra’s gaze as she pretends to ponder the option. She sighs. He must know what she’ll say—what they’d all say, were he to strut into the throne room with a boy named after his dead lover.

“Joffrey Targaryen, First of his Name,” she grabs his hand and presses it to her stomach, just as the babe delivers a firm kick. “I’m not so sure our fathers will agree, Lae.”

He grins at the feeling and she can’t help but smile back. They may not love one another as a man and wife should (if, indeed, anyone does) but they are a strong pair all the same. “Perhaps not. Aemond, then? A respectable Valyrian name.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Too similar to—” to Daemon, she thinks wistfully, “—to Vaemond. And your uncle—”

“If he thought we named the future king after him, his already enormous head would grow so large that it would burst in two,” he snorts. “What about…?”

“Jacaerys is a traditional name for your house, is it not?” She moves his hand across the surface of her belly, chasing another kick.

He hums thoughtfully. “I like it. Aerys for short?”

“Or Jace.”

“Jace,” he repeats, and for the first time, Rhaenyra allows herself to hope. She’s feared the birthing bed since she saw what it did to her mother. For the long moons of her pregnancy, she’s been terrified that she’d follow in Aemma Arryn’s footsteps, and perish on the women’s battlefield. Gods, but she’d hoped to be a knight like her husband, and risk her life on the true battlefield. But now, tasting the name like a sweet wine—Jace, Jace, Jace—she finally allows herself a sliver of hope that she may, in fact, deliver a hale and healthy son. That she may, in fact, survive the birthing bed and live long enough to hold her child, her sweet boy.

“Jacaerys Velaryon,” she smiles to herself. A duty done, a babe to soften her from the willful girl with too-big hopes into a woman, a mother, a queen. He would be her salvation. She’ll be a good mother, won’t she? Like Aemma. For Aemma.

“And what about girls’ names?” Laenor tries, tapping his fingers against the now fully visible imprint of their son’s foot against her nightshift. 

Rhaenyra shrugs. “Pick whatever name you want; we will not have a need for it.”

She truly thought the babe would be a son. She truly thought her duty would be accomplished easily. But on the hottest day on record in decades, with the sun at its peak searing through the windows and tracing golden light across the birthing bed, her child is born a daughter, and Rhaenyra realizes she was a fool to hope that anything in her life would be managed with ease.

“A girl, Princess,” the midwife announces over a cry like a dragon’s roar, wiping blood from pearl-colored curls and inspecting the babe’s ten fingers and ten toes and limbs the color of burnished gold. “A perfect girl. Do you have a name for her?”

Aemma. Visenya. Daenerys. Rhaena. It matters not. She falls back against her pillows and lets the wave of emotions swirling inside overcome her: pride in herself, for her victory in battle; disdain for the child, though she’s ashamed to admit it. 

In the end, it’s Laenor who names her, but—

Rhaenyra calls her darling girl. She’s no son, but she’s perfect in her own way, bathed in sun-fire and blood and practically glowing like a tendril of golden light brought down by the closely-watching sun itself. She’s no son, but she’ll be a queen after her mother—a mother exhausted by childbirth but already gathering the strength she’ll need to raise a queen in a world that has yet only knelt to kings.

Laenor calls her qeldlie. Golden. She’s half of his blood and all of his happiness, already the queen of his heart five minutes after her birth. He holds her with a tenderness he’s never known before and looks down at her eyes—somewhere in between blue and purple, like his own but lighter, flecked with gold that must have been gifted by the sun—and sees in them the daughter he’d secretly wished for all throughout his wife’s pregnancy, the daughter that would bring him new purpose.

Viserys calls her our queen to be. She’s brighter than the flames of the sun—brighter, even, than dragonfire—when she’s brought before the throne and presented to the court. He hardly notices his own son, born just hours before the new princess, half-cast in the shadows of the golden girl’s light. He merely laughs and pulls the babe onto his knee atop the Iron Throne, whispering his hopes for her fate and reign as she reaches for the sword tips on the throne that will one day be hers.

Helaena calls her vezītsos. Little sun. She’s followed by an odd light, one the little princess already knows at three years old that only she can see; like the flicker of a phantom fire or the dancing of sunlight on the sea. Strangely enough, she thinks there is a similar light that clings to the other new babe, her little brother—paler and colder and bloodier, but there all the same. The sight of the girl instills a soft melancholy in the elder’s heart, but still she runs in front of her mother and brother to greet her in the nursery, whispering a prayer against the bars of the child’s cradle.

The court calls her the Gold Flame. She’s their future, splendid and mesmerizing, and they fall into her thrall with ease in the first moons after her birth. Some disagree that one queen should be allowed to rule in her own right, much less two, but none can argue with the gentle spirit and bright loveliness of the sweet child. They watch her grow with pride, as though she’s their daughter, not just Rhaenyra’s—and isn’t she, in a way? The realm’s girl, the crown’s girl (never to be her own girl).

Alicent calls her rotten. She’s as spoiled and treacherous as her mother, even before she can walk. The queen resents the girl for stealing the king’s love away from the sons she bore him—especially the son born before her, on the very same day, relegated to second to her from his first breath. She could be their golden, precious, sun-bright princess, beloved by all, but her son would be hers and hers alone, with his silver hair and moon-kissed skin and the night sky in his violet eyes.

Lucerys calls her Vissy. She’s his world, from the moment he can recognize her and choose to love her. She’s perfect, golden and good and worthy of adoration—and he’s more than happy to be her shadow, with his dark curls and dark eyes and dark whispers that follow him wherever he goes. Wherever they go, really; he’s forever one year younger and two steps behind, born from a lapse of duty with a heart full of love for his sunlight sister. 

Aegon calls her hāedar. Little sister. She’s infuriatingly endearing, he discovers, when she clings to his leg and bats her thick lashes at him and begs for another sweet or story about dragons. He knows he’s not supposed to love the girl four years his younger and already more beloved by the court than him: Mother told him that Nyra and her children would only ever see him as a threat, never something worthy of love. But he cannot bring himself to hate the girl with gold in her eyes and her hand outstretched expectantly for more of her favorite honey cakes.

And Aemond—

Aemond doesn’t call her anything.

He was born bathed in blood and silver starlight just hours before her, on the first day of the first moon of 111 AC. The maesters call it fate, claiming the two were bound together from birth by something ordained by the gods, two halves of the same whole. Silver and gold, two sides of the same coin, the moon’s son and the sun’s daughter. Aemond loathes the constant pairing and comparing. They share nothing but blood, as far as he’s concerned, ruby-red and wretched, the blood of dragons and dragonlords and doomed empires lost to ash. He was born before her, but she comes first in all else: she has the heart of the king and the worship of the court while he sits forgotten in the shadows; she wins praise for her foolish, girlish interests while he spends his days between the library and training yard; her dragon egg hatches while he remains earthbound and wingless. He shares none of his father’s or siblings’ fondness for the girl he finds saccharine and insufferable. Aemond Targaryen is made of silver and hatred, cloaked in moonlight and envy and an unshakeable resentment. He was born to be a soldier, strong and dutiful to his last, a creature of war with no weaknesses or wants of his own. And he hates her for all the jewels and silks and riches and devotion that fall into her waiting palm, without her ever having to lift a finger.

Aemond doesn’t call her anything, choosing to ignore her for much of their lives—except when forced by his father or their mothers, or on their nameday, when they exchange gifts only to please the king. He will call her a great many things in the years to come (witch and snake and just once, soft and hopeful as a prayer, ābrazȳrys), when the hate of boyhood grows and shifts and dies screaming. But in the moment before her brother cuts out his eye, as he looks in horror between the blood pouring from her head and the red-stained rock still in his hand, for the first time in his life he simply calls her by her name.

“Forgive me, Viserra.”

☀

119 AC.

Viserra has strange dreams. 

She’s heard the stories, of course, about her ancestor Daenys; the brave, mad maiden who saw doom in her dreams and convinced her father to flee Valyria. She saved her family, and led her lineage to become kings—but she died miserable and alone, haunted by visions that no one else could understand. Viserra doesn’t want to die like Daenys. She doesn’t want to dream like Daenys, either. So she convinces herself that the things she witnesses when her head meets her pillow mean nothing, and wipes the blood from her nose when she wakes before anyone can see, and tells no one about the dreams.

Except for Kepa. Her father is an excellent listener, all slow nods and thoughtful hums and reassuring hands rubbing her back. They break their fast together on his sailboat every morning while her brothers train, sharing napkins full of fruit and bacon and honey cakes plucked from the kitchens on their way to the dock below the gardens, and she tells him about her dreams in as much detail as she can remember. Sometimes she sees a field of black fire, or dragons dancing, or twin hatchlings conjoined at the wing. Sometimes she sees things that terrify her, or things that make little and less sense. (More often than not, though, she dreams of the knight. Always half-hidden in shadow, she never sees his face in full, just a glimpse of a star’s twinkle in his eyes or the corner of a melancholy smile. But she knows him, as well as she knows the lines on her palms or the sailor’s songs her father sings to her. He is regal and kind, chivalrous and gentle, all that a true knight like the ones in her favorite stories should be. With a pristine cloak on his shoulders and a crown of light on his brow, she can’t help but love him.)

“I see,” Kepa says knowingly one pale morning, chewing on the inside of his lip as he considers the dream his daughter just shared—dragons again, ripping at each other above the clouds in a mess of fire and blood and shedded scales.

“I think it’s just because I saw a drawing in the maester’s books about King Maegor’s Battle Beneath the Gods Eye,” she explains it away rationally, never willing to dwell long on the possibility that her dreams are not shades of the past but fragments of a future yet to come. 

(Laenor wishes his daughter would not be so dismissive of her own mind. There is power in dreams, just as much as there is in dragonfire or seastorms. Did the Velaryons have dreamers, if not dragons? Is that why they escaped the Doom long before the Targaryens? Could it really be that his own daughter has been granted the gift of prophecy? No, no surely he would know...but there must be some explanation for the nosebleeds she tries to hide, some reason for the fear in her eyes when he wakes her that makes his fatherly heart so miserable.)

“Well, what colors were the dragons you saw?”

“Red and gold,” she answers quickly without looking up. “I think.”

“And what colors were the dragons in the drawing?”

She shrugs. “Black and silver. Why?”

“No reason,” her father finishes his food and brushes off his hands. She glances up and catches the tail end of his frown before it melts into a smile. “Come on, qeldlie. We should be on our way home now, else you’ll be late for your lessons, and Muña will be quite displeased with me.”

Viserra loves her Kepa. Adores him. He tells her that the sun shines through her, but she thinks the sun must shine through him, causing him to see her in such a gilded, gracious light. He looks at her and sees a daughter, a girl, a person, with a heart and mind and soul all of her own. Not just a princess. Not just an heir. When Laenor is with her, she’s just his, his little seahorse with the curls blown wild by the wind and the gold-flecked eyes grown wide and curious. He listens to her dreams every morning and joins her for her dancing lessons twice a week and brings her seashells and pearls from Driftmark whenever he visits his father. He loves her for her, not the crown she’ll one day wear or the blood in her veins.

(She cannot say the same about everyone else.)

Muña loves her, to be sure, but not quite so freely, so naturally. Not quite as whole-heartedly as she loves Lucerys and Joffrey. Viserra knows better, though, with all of her eight namedays, than to blame her mother; as a woman in line for the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra’s first priority must be to raise an heir. To raise a daughter with gentle affection is a distant second for her Muña.

Luke loves her—and Joff, as much as a babe of three years can love anything—but in the way a pup loves the leader of its pack; he would follow her from Dorne to the Wall and back again if she asked it of him, never questioning why. He will forever have a home in her heart and a seat at her table, but it’s more blind devotion than love, and she wishes she didn’t know there was a difference.

And Helaena and Aegon love her, as much as they’re allowed. But amongst the Greens, that is where any good will for her dies. Queen Alicent does nothing to hide her distaste for Rhaenyra and her children, and Ser Criston is even more overt in his self-righteous disdain for anything related to the crown princess. And Aemond…

For some reason, it’s the absence of Aemond’s affection that bothers Viserra more than anything else. Her grandsire has told her countless times that she and her uncle share something stronger than blood, something gifted by the gods. Vejes-idañi, he calls them; twins of fate. And she wants it to be true; it makes for such a lovely story, the moon-silver prince and sun-golden princess, different as night and day but bound together by a bond only the gods could understand. (Perhaps she has read far too many stories, and they’re starting to go to her head.) She tries, in whatever ways she can, to share her heart with him—the love she gives to everyone else, even the strangers and servants she’s met only once. On namedays and celebrations and feast days for gods she’s not quite sure exist, she tries.

But he hates her. He loathes her and Lucerys and even little Joffrey—but at least with Luke, Aemond actually speaks to him (even if only to insult him or shove him a little too hard in the training yard). He simply…ignores her. She asks him a question and he turns his back on her. She invites him to play with her and Helaena and he laughs before turning his back on her. It drives her mad how little he cares for her, and how much she cares that he cares so little. 

Viserra has everything she could ever want—gowns of Astapori silk and Myrish lace, jewels from Lys and Qarth, the adoration of her grandsire’s court, a dragon near as beautiful as Sunfyre and almost large enough to ride—but still she finds herself almost desperate for Aemond’s attention. She tells herself it’s pathetic. She tells herself Muña would be ashamed if she knew. And still she wants her uncle’s friendship.

“Do I have to go to my lessons? Septa Amarys smells funny,” she wrinkles her nose and watches Kepa steer them back towards the tall towers of the Red Keep atop Aegon’s High Hill. “Can’t you and I sit in the yard and watch Luke train again? I promise I’ll bring my books and study with you.”

Laenor tries to give her a stern look, but the twinkle in his eyes and twitch of his lips betrays him. “You know, if you want to train with Luke, instead of just watching…I’m sure Ser Harwin could make room for another little dragon amongst his students, or you could always let your old man—”

“Kepa,” she groans good-naturedly. “You aren’t old. But I just don’t care for swordplay. I’m not going to be a warrior like Queen Visenya.”

“True, you are more Queen Rhaenys. She was not fond of steel, either, but conquered Westeros on dragonback all the same. And if the histories are correct, she was quite the dancer, just like someone else I know. I just mean…you could at least try your hand at archery, or something.”

(In truth, Laenor sees much of the Conqueror-Queen in his daughter. Kind-hearted and trusting, happiest out of doors with only sea and sky for company, and more fond of flying and music than fighting, there are indeed shades of his mother’s namesake in his sun-bright girl. Shades of his sister, too; at certain angles, Viserra looks startlingly like Laena, with a familiar grace and spirited fire that glows through the specks of gold in her eyes. Perhaps she is more seahorse than dragon, more tender-souled than fire-breathing. Her ferocity is a quieter one, and her flames burn gentler than most Targaryens, but gods, do they burn.)

She considers it for a moment, but can’t warm to the idea of a sword or bow in her grasp. She’s content to dance, to sail, to read. Viserra watches her father man his boat in comfortable silence, then allows him to lead her back up from the dock to Maegor’s Holdfast, all the while wondering if she’d ever even need a sword when she has the knight in her dreams to protect her. She stops and smiles up at him when they reach the nursery wing, poking her tongue through the gap left by a lost tooth. “Later today I’m to learn a Volantene Ring. Can you come with me?”

“As my qeldlie-dāria commands,” he feigns a bow. “Go on, now. Go to your lessons, and I’ll see you later.”

Viserra loosens her hand from her father’s grasp and breaks into a run, sea-blue skirts swishing around her calves as she tears down the corridor. Her curls, the color of the palest sunlight, whip at her face when she turns to see if Kepa is still watching—he is, he always is, with his soft eyes that crinkle when he smiles. She lets out a breathless laugh as she presses her palms against the door to the nursery and pushes, hard, and—

“Oh! Aemond.”

☾

Aemond has strange dreams, too.

He doesn’t tell anyone about them. Who would he tell?

His father? King Viserys is king. He doesn’t have time to hear about the dreams of his second son—and even if he did, he wouldn’t care. The king has never much loved his second set of children; Aegon, spiteful and lazy and disinterested in anything that requires patience; Helaena, pious and melancholy and impossible to reach; and Aemond, small and silver and burdened with a rage that threatens to burn him from the inside out, hotter than any dragonfire. No, Viserys loves Rhaenyra with so much of his heart that there is little room for the rest of them—he loves Rhaenyra and her children, and especially her.

His mother? Queen Alicent is…complicated. She fusses and worries and prays, spending all of her time trying to pry open the people around her with her bare hands. On more than one occasion, Aemond has wondered if Mother has been cursed by the gods; why else would she pick at her fingers and her family until they bleed, then kneel in the sept with her head bowed and her mouth twisted in sullen prayer? She is either cursed or haunted, and she scares him more often than not, but Aemond respects her all the same—fiercely, almost ferally, like a hound called to heel waiting for the moment he’s let off his lead. He would do anything to defend her. It’s what he’s been trained to do since he first wrapped his hand around a sparring sword. What Mother says is law. And Mother hates Rhaenyra and her children, so he hates them, too.

His siblings? Aegon can be kind to him, on occasion, but only in the same way he feeds treats to his horse after a long ride. And Helaena can spare a bit of affection for him from time to time, in her misty-eyed manner, but only in the same way she inspects the bugs in her collection.

There is no one to listen. He is not so perfect and golden, like her, with a thousand loyal ears at her feet and a thousand adoring hearts in her hand. He has no doting father, no proud mother, no worshiping siblings. He has no dragon, no gifts from the Free Cities, no ships named after him in Driftmark’s harbor. He is second to her in all things (second to everyone in all things, it seems, second second second) though he was born first, and for that he hates her. He’s heard the stories: born at the midpoint of the longest, hottest summer in recent memory, him under an unusually close full moon and her under the unusually close peak of the sun, they must be tied by a fate the gods have yet to reveal. Silver and gold, moon and sun, on and on and on.

She has everything. He has nothing. Well—

He has Daeron.

Daeron, half his age and half his size (and perhaps half his heart, as well). Daeron, the only one who doesn’t see him as some angry, malformed shadow of the Gold Flame. Daeron, with his wide, toothy smiles and love of stories read to him by the only brother that acknowledges his existence. Already the youngest Targaryen is more charming than his elders (and for that, more beloved by the court), sweet and clever and mild-mannered. Perhaps Aemond should resent him; he has a dragon and the place of prominence in their mother’s heart, after all, two of the things he covets most in the world. But the fury that burns within him never extends to his valonqar.

So he tells Daeron about his dreams, in a way. Half-truths to soften the horrors he sees when he closes his eyes, stretched and strained and squeezed into tales like the legends from the Age of Heroes. It doesn’t matter that there were no dragons in Westeros before the coming of the Targaryens and Aemond’s dreams are full of the beasts, often tearing one another from the skies; Daeron loves to hear his older brother’s tales, no matter how fantastical or improbable they are. And Aemond feels a little less terrified by the things he sees when he shares them with his brother the following morning. It’s become a tradition, a necessary step to start his day: before he’s forced to interact with the Strong bastards during training and after he’s relegated to join Helaena and Mother in the sept, he spends a few quiet moments in the nursery with Daeron.

“And then,” he jumps to his feet, grinning wickedly as the younger prince’s eyes grow wide and awestruck, “the white knight slew the dragon—” he slashes through the air with an invisible sword, causing Daeron to gasp and flinch backwards “—and it vanished into thin air in a huge black fire, and the realm was saved from darkness.”

“Whoa,” Daeron’s eyes glaze over as he stares at the space between the princes, as though he can see the very same column of flame swallowing up the gold dragon that Aemond saw in his dream.

Aemond nods, self-satisfied, and breaks the magic by clapping his hands together to bring Daeron from his near-trance. “I have to go now, valonqar.”

“No!” The younger whines, grasping for his brother’s leg. “One more, please!”

(This, Aemond realizes, is all that he wants. A little love, a sliver of attention. To be needed, even if only in a small way, even if only for a handful of minutes each morning. Is that so wrong? He could fall back to the floor here and now, melt into a puddle in the middle of Daeron’s room in the nursery with his brother and a mind full of dreams-turned-stories, and never leave, warmed by the fire and attentions of a child barely older than a babe. It’s not wrong, but—

It’s pathetic. He steels himself before he melts, turns back into the marble statue of a boy. Angry and thick-skinned and sullen Aemond. Dutiful and loyal and soldier-in-training Aemond. Silver Aemond, faithful Aemond, good Aemond.)

“Tomorrow,” he offers Daeron a half-hearted smile and leaves his dreams behind with a ruffle of his brother’s soft white curls. “You have lessons anyway, and I can’t be late to meet Ser Criston for training. He says I’m to spar with Luke today.”

Daeron wrinkles his little nose at the mention of their nephew, which brings a spark of smug self-righteousness to Aemond’s heart and a genuine smirk to his lips. The younger nods in understanding and the elder pats him on his head before turning for the door, cloaking himself in his easy anger once more. In the main chamber of the nursery, where green and black bleed together without opposite sides of the hall to separate them, Aemond closes Daeron’s door behind him and hears the whines of the youngest Strong floating through the door across from him. He rolls his eyes and does nothing to stop the scowl that finds its way to his face. Joffrey. Gods, is his half-sister really so secure in her own arrogance that she would give her baseborn bastard a baseborn name? At least Lucerys was granted a traditional Velaryon name—a gift the Strong pup did not deserve, according to Mother. But Joffrey? Aemond heard whispers once, shortly after the birth of the babe, that he had been named after one of Ser Laenor’s friends, a knight killed by Ser Criston at Rhaenyra’s own wedding feast. It seems to him that his half-sister has cursed her son to a life of shame; Mother says that names hold great meaning, and to be named after someone means you will always carry their deeds with you, both good and bad.

Perhaps that was why Aegon was named Aegon: to elicit images of the Conqueror, to raise a petulant boy to the ranks of a king in the eyes of the realm. Helaena and Aemond and Daeron were not named after anyone of import, neither burdened with the expectation of rising to greatness or the shame of someone else’s sins and failures. But she shares the name of their great-aunt, a self-centered and slippery snake of a girl who died for her own willfulness. Mother said that Laenor named his daughter as a tribute to the king, but Aemond imagines that his niece is already well on her way to filling her true namesake’s footsteps. Perhaps she will perish in the same way. It would certainly make his own life easier, to finally be out from under her golden shadow. He hates her. Vain, awful Vi—

“Oh! Aemond.”

He’d hardly noticed the door to the nursery swinging open mere inches from him. He jolts back, startled to find himself face-to-face with the very girl he’d just been thinking about. He narrows his eyes at her as she smiles nervously at him. Stupid, selfish, sunlight girl. They stare at one another in silence for a moment, neither moving out of the other’s way. His lip curls back with familiar loathing.

“Good morning, qȳbor,” she tries, blinking her thick golden lashes against her freckled golden cheekbones and turning her wide golden eyes up to him. He considers striking the infuriating golden smile from her lips but hears footsteps behind her—and in a matter of seconds, her father is at her side, resting a richly-ringed hand on her shoulder. She glances up at Ser Laenor with soft admiration in her eyes before turning her gold-dotted gaze back to him.

(Laenor tries not to scowl at the boy in front of him. He knows he should not harbor any ill feelings for a child, much less one of his mother’s dragonblood, but he’s never been able to bring himself to like the children of Alicent Hightower. Helaena is alright, he supposes, quiet and whimsical, infatuated with insects and her mother’s prayer books. But Aegon and Aemond are the long-awaited sons of the king, boys that will stand as a challenge to his wife’s throne simply by existing, boys trained in swordplay by the man that killed his first love and trained in hatred by the woman that calls his sons bastards. He doesn’t hate Aemond, for how could any self-respecting adult hate a child of eight namedays? He’s not Alicent. But he certainly doesn’t like him, or the way his daughter always seems to desire his good opinion. He’s not half the person you are, he wants to tell Viserra as she nervously awaits her uncle’s unnecessary permission to see her own brother. Do not shrink yourself for him.)

The silence stretches and still Aemond refuses to move, glued to the floor by loathing and a half-faded memory of that dream from the night before, one that comes often, one he never dares to tell Daeron. The golden brat shifts uncomfortably under the heat of his glare, and he notices his good-brother’s grip tighten slightly on her blue silk shoulder. 

“I need to get my books. I have a lesson with Helaena and Septa Amarys. Do you…” she drops her gaze to the floor and her voice to little more than a whisper, “do you want to come with us?”

“No,” Aemond blurts immediately. 

He shoves past them, cheeks hot with a sudden flare of something less familiar to him than anger. How dare she? Why would he want to go to her stupid girl lessons with her, as though they’re all the greatest of friends, as though she doesn’t possess everything he desires—as though she didn’t laugh in his face with the others just days ago when the boys gifted him a pig?

(She didn’t mean to laugh. It was cruel and beneath them, and she’d chastised both Aegon and Luke afterwards; Aemond so desperately wanted a dragon, and it was unfair to mock him for something he couldn’t help. She didn’t mean to laugh, but it was funny, the fat pink belly and the soft white wings. A pig of conquest. The Pink Dread. She didn’t mean to laugh, didn’t mean for the sound to come out startled and guttural like a snort, didn’t mean to earn the fresh burn of Aemond’s white-hot loathing that he sent her way in the form of a withering stare. She didn’t mean to push him further away. Not when she’s spent all eight years of her life trying to pull him closer.)

He’s carried down to the training yard on a wave of hatred and takes out his frustration for the Velaryon princess on the “Velaryon” prince who is pitted against him in the day’s training exercise. 

“Second son against second-born,” Ser Criston calls out after Ser Harwin criticizes his methods, grabbing little Luke Strong by the collar of his vest and all but throwing the boy into Aemond’s warpath. “Blades up.”

Aemond relishes in the chance to smack Lucerys around, a poor substitute for his golden sister as the object of his present anger but a delightfully weak opponent all the same. This is easy, he thinks, grinning with satisfaction as his nephew falls to the ground yet again. This is good. This is right. He could never lay a finger on her in this manner—he may be an angry little beast, but he still knows the difference between right and wrong, and it would be an affront to the gods to hurt her like this (and an affront to his father to bring any harm, real or imagined, down upon his beloved Gold Flame). But he can do this. He’s a soldier, after all, or at least he’s meant to be; a great weapon for his brother’s armory, a knight with Maegor’s ferocity and Jaehaerys’ chivalry, the greatest sword that the Kingsguard has ever known. He obeys Ser Criston’s commands to not let him get up, and pushes at Luke harder and harder, retribution for the Pink Dread and his baseborn birth and—

“That’s enough,” Ser Harwin roars, pulling Aemond away from Lucerys with a gruff hand on the back of his shirt. 

He whirls on the knight indignantly, refusing to suffer an insult from his half-sister’s lover. “You dare put hands on me?” 

“Aemond,” he hears his father warn, and his anger falters ever so slightly.

“You forget yourself, Strong,” Criston warns, ever the Greens’ defender. “That is the prince.”

“Is this what you teach, Cole?” He counters. “Cruelty to the weaker opponent?”

Aemond smirks, his blood rushing past his ears. “Your interest in the princeling’s training is quite unusual, commander,” Criston says as Harwin kneels down to pick up the splintered wooden swords. “Most men would only have that kind of devotion toward a cousin, or a brother…”

Aemond can feel the air thicken and he holds his breath, glancing between the two knights. There is a very fine line, in their world, one that can be towed but never crossed. Mother forbids Aegon and Aemond from repeating certain words outside of her chambers, for fear that the wrong ears will overhear them. Criston is no stranger to those words or conversations—he was, after all, the first one to ever tell Aemond the truth of his nephews’ parentage, the truth of Rhaenyra’s sins—but he knows better than to break the rules, to step over the line. Knew better, at least.

“...Or a son.”

Harwin bursts into motion at once, spinning on his heel and punching Criston square across the face. Aemond gives Aegon an uncertain glance as the Strong knight pummels the other into the ground, hitting him again and again, but his brother’s eyes are glued to the scene playing out in front of them in sick fascination—this is the famed Breakbones in action, the terror of melees and contests across the Seven Kingdoms that they’ve only ever heard of before.

There is something almost…peaceful about the chaos. Aemond watches as his mentor laughs, as Harwin swings the fist that collides with his nose and cheekbone and mouth, as blood is spread and sprayed and smeared. This is the poetry his niece loves to hear read aloud by the bards that visit court; this is the prayer his sister loves to recite at the foot of the gods’ statues in the royal sept. The poorly-contained ferality inside him strains at his ribs and begs to be let free. If he were truly dutiful and good, like Mother has tried and tried to make him, he would resent the sight. But what is he if not a dog on a lead, only barely called to heel, gnashing his teeth and begging to be set loose on his master’s foes?

He shakes his head, as though the thoughts will be flung from his mind. He’s tried to rid himself of them a hundred times but they linger, linger, desperate and maddening and oddly comforting. Hit him again, Harwin, he thinks. Laugh a little louder, Criston. Bloodlust swirls in his veins and knocks at the door to his heart, a secret he keeps locked away even further behind the dreams that haunt his nights. 

Four knights appear and pull Ser Harwin from Ser Criston, and the king and his Hand retreat inside, and Lucerys is ushered away by one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting—one of Breakbones’ sisters, perhaps—and Aegon loses interest, and Aemond—

He stays in the yard for the rest of the day, watching the blood seep into the sand and swinging a sword of live steel against a straw dummy relentlessly once the spectators and would-be knights filter out. He’s still there when Criston returns, battered but unbothered, to tell him that Ser Harwin and his father will quit the capital in favor of their seat at Harrenhal.

“Good,” he says quietly, emboldened by the knight’s self-righteous grin.

That bold feeling grows within him a few days later once Rhaenyra takes her brood of snakes and bastards away to Dragonstone. Aemond, Helaena, and Aegon watch from Daeron’s window in the nursery as a ship with Velaryon blue sails coasts out of the Blackwater Bay with dragons overhead—to Aemond’s annoyance, both his elder brother and sister seem disappointed to see their half-sister and her children leave. He takes their departure as another small victory, and can’t help but hope that they never return, that without the overreaching tendrils of the sun, he will finally find a place for himself out of the shade and shadows.

In their absence, he fixates on claiming a dragon. His ninth nameday is fast approaching, and he refuses to see another new year without a dragon of his own. He’s dreamt of it, anyway, a hundred times or more, and something within him tells him that his dream will one day come true. There must be a beast for him to claim somewhere in the depths of the Dragonpit—a riderless creature one of his ancestors left behind, or an egg of his very own, one that will hatch this time instead of fossilizing on the mantle above his fireplace. 

He tries. He fails. He tries again. He narrowly escapes from Dreamfyre’s lair with his life. He tries. He tries.

After the fourth futile attempt, weeks after he spends his first enjoyable nameday without her, two guards of the City Watch find him running back to the Red Keep, the ends of his moonlight hair singed and smoked, and drag him to his mother’s quarters. She levels him with a disapproving look, one she typically reserves for Aegon or mentions of Rhaenyra. 

“Aemond,” she chides, pressing a cold compress to the slight burn on his hand, “you must give up on this foolishness. You do not need a dragon.”

“Yes I do. I’m a Tar—”

“You are a Targaryen, yes,” she draws a weary hand over her face. They’ve been here before. “No matter if you have a dragon or not. And you’re young yet, my son. If the gods see fit to make you a dragonrider, they will do so in your own time. Look at your sister. She has not mounted Dreamfyre, and she is still perfectly content.”

He huffs. “But she is bonded to Dreamfyre, as Aegon is to Sunfyre. Everyone has a dragon but me, Mother. It’s—” Humiliating. Even Rhaenyra’s bastards have dragons—little pearl-white Arrax, no larger than a horse but enamored of Lucerys, Joffrey’s deep copper hatchling Tyraxes, prone to flapping its tiny wings all around the nursery. And she has the impossibly beautiful Gaelithox, with shimmering indigo scales and golden eyes that glare at everyone but his rider like his next feast. 

“You will have a dragon one day. I swear it.”

That night, as he struggles through shifting and unsettling visions, Aemond dreams that he sits atop a dragon’s saddle, his eyes bleeding and unseeing, his hands pulling stars down from the sky to place in his wounds. He wakes more determined than ever of someday riding a beast larger, stronger, and more fearsome than all the rest combined, accepting that he may have to make a great sacrifice in order to achieve it. And after he tells Daeron about his dream and joins his mother to break his fast, he learns that his opportunity may come sooner than expected. 

Laena Velaryon is dead. And Vhagar is without a rider.

Oh. There are some dreams that have always felt different than others, more…powerful. Dreams that, one way or another, have played out in reality: storms, broken toys, scoldings from his mother—nothing of consequence, not like his ancestor foretold, but little shades of prophecy all the same. And now, if he succeeds in the task laid out by the gods for him, he’ll know it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt: if he can claim Vhagar, he must surely be a dreamer. 

On the ship that carries his family to Driftmark for the funeral of a woman he never met—but who, in death, has given him the greatest gift he could ever want—his lord father informs the children that Ser Harwin and Lord Lyonel perished just a day after Lady Laena in a fire that consumed much of the cursed Harrenhal. Aemond can barely contain the self-satisfied smirk that spreads across his face; he’ll claim the last dragon of conquest in the next day or two, and he’ll get to see his nephew and half-sister mourn their precious Breakbones? The gods do indeed provide. Perhaps Helaena and Mother are right to spend their days muttering prayers in the sept, choking on musky incense and weeping on seven-pointed stars. 

He finds it hard to feign grief or humility as Vaemond Velaryon prattles on about the Merling King and the waves and other Velaryon nonsense. He taps his foot impatiently against the stones. Vhagar is there, somewhere, waiting for him. I want my dragon, he thinks, head bowed to avoid eye contact with his sister’s brood across from him. I want—

What do you want, Aemond Targaryen? A voice cuts through the mess of his mind (dreams and desires and anger licking at one another like competing flames), clear and sharp and—familiar.

His head snaps up, bewilderment making his heart hammer against his ribs, and stares at the girl in the black gown, a veil drawn over pearl-white hair braided back from her face, gold earrings glinting in the weak sun against copper ears. He could have sworn it was her voice. But she stands at her father’s side with her brow knit together and eyes pressed shut, the picture of mourning, holding his arm in one hand and her brother’s in the other. His heartbeat slows ever so slightly and he chides himself for the brief consideration that his niece was somehow speaking to him through their minds—but the question remains.

What do you want? I want… Greatness. I want to be remembered for generations to come. I want to be the fiercest, most noble knight in all of the Seven Kingdoms. I want a white cloak and a gold crown. I want—

(To be loved. To be useful. To know that, if he is indeed a dreamer, he has something that no one else has, something that he does not have to share with any rotten golden girls or petulant older brothers. To know that, at least in one thing, he stands above the rest, unique and worthy of adoration.)

I want my dragon.

Vaemond calls a bastard a bastard, and Daemon laughs, and the funeral ends with a splash, and Aemond mumbles a few words of sympathy to Princess Rhaenys and the Sea Snake and disappears. He waits until long after nightfall to fasten a cloak over his shoulders, tired but kept awake by hope, and slips through the halls and tunnels beneath the castle. He hears the great dragon cry and it sounds like she’s calling to him. He breaks into a run.

Oddly enough, he’s not afraid when he faces her. She’s impossibly large up close, even larger than he’d imagined as he watched her sleep from a distance between beach grasses and worried thoughts (it’s not too late to turn back, no one has to know, no one would blame you, you’re only nine, Aegon would only tease you for a few moments, this is madness), all tattered wings and battered scales. She’s not exactly beautiful—not sleek like Gaelithox, dazzling like Sunfyre, lithe like Caraxes—but there is a certain beauty to her size and the memories that seem to cling to her, memories of conquest and Dornish impertinence and cruelty and loss. And she’s—well, for a moment, as he tiptoes through the sand with bated breath and a wild heartbeat, as her huge green eyes blink open, she seems almost sad .

His heart suddenly feels too tight inside his chest, as though it may burst at the seams from the pressure of two heartbeats inside it. Overtaken by a strange madness—this must be what my ancestors felt, he thinks. This must be what it is to be a true Targaryen—he reaches for the ropes of the harness left behind by Lady Laena, blood turned to racing flames inside his veins. She could kill me. The other dragons tried, Dreamfyre and Seasmoke and Arrax, and they are mere hatchlings compared to her—it would be as easy to her as roasting a goat.

But she lets him climb, eyeing him carefully, and Aemond thinks it’s possible that she admires his tenacity, his audacity. Here is a boy of nine daring to claim the mighty Vhagar, a beast of war and empire. His limbs feel numb with the shock that it’s actually happening, and he maneuvers up her side quickly, as though she’ll suddenly realize what’s occurring and shake him off and burn him alive. And then he’s—

Oh.

The view from her neck is a stunning thing. He looks down and the beach spread out before him, the waves reflecting the moonlight in the distance, the dragon beneath him, and does the only thing he knows to do, the thing that reverberates through his blood and his mind:

“Sōves.”

The first flight feels as hazy and wonderful as a dream, and when they land, he’s not entirely convinced that it really happened. But he presses his palm to his chest and feels that magical second heartbeat, and knows—it’s real. Vhagar is his. He is a dragonrider, and a dreamer, and no one can ever make him feel small again. Pride floods his body and he feels more god than man, more Targaryen than ever before.

And then they come. “It’s him!”

“It’s me,” he counters, still riding the high of claiming a dragon , emboldened by Vhagar’s strength. 

She’s there, behind her brother and cousins, clutching a robe around her shoulders and watching with wide, uncertain eyes as the rest descend upon him, hurling accusations that Aemond barely hears. Who are these mortals compared to him? A bastard and a pair of little girls?

“Maybe your cousins can find you a pig to ride,” he hears himself spit at the dragonless twin, blood hot and thick with the anger that never seems to leave him for long.

The other twin is the first to punch him, and he’s surprised by her strength—surprised enough to lose his momentum, surprised enough to allow the others to join her. He falls to the ground under the force of their strikes and only catches a brief glimpse of his niece still lingering behind them, never one to concern herself with her silver uncle. And then he lands a punch on Luke’s nose, and the bone crunches beneath his fist, and she cries out as though she were the one hit.

“You will die screaming in the flames just as your father did, bastard,” he snarls, catching Lucerys around the throat and squeezing. He feels his nephew’s blood pumping beneath his skin, heartbeat desperate to loosen his fingers from the boy’s soft little neck.

“No!” She sprints forward and shoves him, harder than he would’ve expected. He staggers back, half-falling once more, and she kicks him in the ribs, eyes bright with rage. “Leave him alone!”

She presses her slippered foot to his arm, pinning him to the sand. Behind her, Luke cries, “my father’s still alive.”

And for some reason, it’s this that breaks Aemond. He smirks, glancing between his niece and nephew, the differences between them more stark than ever. “He doesn’t know, does he?” He asks her, a nasty bloom of self-satisfaction unfurling in his chest. She knows, she has to know, but is it possible that he is still unaware? He grasps for a rock in the sand with his free hand and tightens his fist around it. “Poor little Prince Strong.”

At the sound of her brother’s startled gasp, the pressure from her foot weakens and she glances wildly over her shoulder at him. Aemond lurches forward, rock in hand, and shoves her backwards. She kicks at him again as she hits the sand but he’s already leering over her, the slow simmer of his anger now at a full boil. She’s not so perfect now, sprawled out on the ground and helpless, her golden glow nonexistent. The sun isn’t here to help you, princess. We are in the moon’s domain, and I am heir here.

“Stop it,” one of the twins wails, but the dragon in him is made of flesh now, not just dreams, and he needs them all to see just how powerful he is. He’s been second to her for all of his days, left in the shadows with only faint starlight to guide him, forever relegated to the role of the angry, bitter, festering wound of a boy. Fine. He’ll play his part, and play it well. But now they will see him shine just as bright as her. 

He doesn’t realize the rock has come down against her skull until he sees the blood. It glitters like rubies in the sand, torchlight reflecting in the stream of it that coasts down the side of her head and into her soft white curls. It’s almost mesmerizing, in truth; the world seems to slow, the edges of his vision blur, and only they remain: silver and gold, night and day, boy and girl, fated fated fated. This was always going to happen, one way or another. He could not spend all of his life resenting her without making her bleed eventually.

For a moment, it feels good. It feels right. The star-child finally, finally, triumphs over the sun-gold girl. It feels like justice for a life of misery and moonlight. Until—

He hears it again: What do you want, Aemond Targaryen? 

Not this. It’s not her he wants to see bleed, he realizes. It’s the rest of them—Aegon, Father, Mother (Warrior, Smith, Maiden, Crone, Stranger). Lannister, Hightower, Baratheon, Tully, Stark, Redfort, Celtigar, Wylde. It’s the world itself, the sky falling in rivulets of blood like pomegranate juice, with him on the beach below with his head tilted back and his mouth open to taste the sweetness of it. He stares at her blood and wonders if it tastes like pomegranates. Her. Vi—

“Viserra,” he breathes, watching the blood that flows and flows and flows. It tastes foreign on his tongue. Has he ever said her name before? Has he ever seen her look this beautiful before? “Forgive me, Viserra.”

Chapter Text

120 AC.

Viserra was having the loveliest dream. She was seated on the floor of a glass-walled garden, surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and leafy vines, with a dragon hatchling in her lap the color of sugar. She sang to the hatchling, an old lullaby of nonsense words, and the dragon nuzzled at her hand. It was a nice dream. And then—

Someone stole Vhagar, the twins whisper at the edge of her bed, shaking her awake. Luke’s eyes are wide in the darkness beside her, his head resting on her shoulder and fingers curled into her hair. He must’ve crawled in with her at some point during the night, as he often did as a babe. She doesn’t want to get up. She wants to dream a little longer. But she’s the eldest, and she has to go—she has to be brave, to calm the fears of motherless cousins and baby brothers. It matters not that fear fills her own heart and dread floods her senses. It matters not that she feels a weight of foreboding in her stomach, telling her something dark awaits them. She pulls a robe over her nightgown, wipes the blood from beneath her nose, and grabs a knife from the fruit plate on the table by the door, slipping it up her sleeve when Lucerys isn’t looking.

Why? Why, why? To fight Vhagar herself? To fight whoever dared to claim her? Surely whatever madman mounted the great war dragon would throw his head back and laugh at the sight of a little girl with a little blade, would brush her aside as easily as an eyelash fallen down a cheek. She wonders and wonders as to who it could be as she follows the twins and her brother down, the cool metal of the dagger burning into her flesh. And it’s—

It’s him. She should have known.

He fights back. She should have known.

He calls Lucerys a bastard. She should have known.

She should have known there was more of a dragon inside of her than she thought. The fire in her blood is cooled by the gentle waves of the sea, but…by the gods, it’s still there, brought to a raging blaze when she calls on it. And the sea may be soft, yes, but isn’t it also filled with storms and terrors and a fury of its own?

His hand is around her brother’s throat. A dragon rises from the depths of the sea. She lurches forward, and as she runs she feels the knife fall from her sleeve—for the better, she thinks. And then she’s shoving him, kicking him, pinning him down, her vision red and bloody. Leave him alone.

He turns his awful eyes to her, nearly black with an ancestral rage; he’s one with Vhagar now, she can see in his stare. He doesn’t know, does he? Poor little Prince Strong.

Of course he doesn’t know, she wants to scream. He’s a child, not yet eight, of course he thinks the father that raised him is the father that made him, just as he is to me, and why should I tell him any different? There will be time to unravel their little lives, but for now let him be a child, let him think the last man of House Strong was sent up in flames with the knight that served our mother. Let my brother be my brother, my mother’s son; what else matters? Sweet boy, sea-pearl, darling Lucerys, beloved prince—that’s all he needs to be.

Unlike him, with his angry blood and black heart. Silver, silver, silver. For a moment, she hates him as much as he hates her. She realizes her foot’s pressure on his arm has weakened and she wants to dig her toes into him and watch him crumble beneath her like sand for making her brother bleed—she turns ever so slightly to see the river streaming from Luke’s crooked nose and the wave rises in her again. And then she—

She doesn't see the rock. She should have known.

Strangely, it’s the sound of her name from his lips that strikes her more powerfully than the rock. Her vision is blurring and her head hurts to the point of bursting, but all she can think about is the way he said her name. Nine shared years they’ve lived together, tied by blood and birth—and she could swear that that was the first time she’d heard him say her name. Viserra. She likes the way it sounds almost like a whine, like his voice is thickened and weighed down by the same guilt that floods his eyes. The stress on the second syllable, the drag of the e , the way it settles on his tongue like sunlight. She blinks slowly, shadows closing in on the edges of her sight, and almost laughs; she should have known she’d liked the way he said her name after so many years of angry silence. Vi—

A flash of steel in the low light of the tunnel. A scream, bloody and not half as lovely as the sound of her name. A flip of a coin.

☀

The maester tends to Aemond first. Even above the shouts of her grandsire Viserys as he berates his Kingsguard, and the murmurs of the funeral guests gathered once more in the Hall of Nine, and the crackling of the fire, Viserra can hear it: the soft squelching of the needle stitching Aemond’s face together. It’s a horrible sound. But in her hazy, delirious state, with her arms wrapped around Lucerys and her head pounding in an awful rhythm, the sound of metal and silk passing through blood and skin is the only thing that manages to hold her focus.

She watches in sick fascination as Aemond whimpers and writhes on the chair by the fire. Luke trembles in her embrace, his dark eyes darting around the hall watching the scene unfold. The twins stand a few paces away, holding each other and glancing between Aemond and Luke in horror, as though they’re equally scared and proud of what her brother has done.

Viserra is not afraid of him, or what he did. Nor is she proud. She blames herself for bringing the knife, for letting it fall from her sleeve, for not defending her little brother better, for not protecting him from becoming a mutilator of his own kin at the age of seven. If there is anyone to blame for what befell the house of the dragon tonight, it’s her; she should have known better than to follow the twins down to the beach, should have stopped the fight, should have called for help. They’re children, not vengeful warriors—what did she think would happen?

She didn’t think. And now Aemond has lost an eye, and her brother has a broken nose, and she…

Her head hurts. Her mouth tastes metallic. She wants her father. Where is Kepa? Will he dry her tears and kiss her bloodied brow and tell her it’s not her fault? And what—what will Muña say? Her heart lurches into her throat in fire-hot trepidation; more than the king’s judgment, she fears her mother’s.

The doors burst open, making her flinch, and her grandparents race over to them. Rhaenys grabs the twins, inspecting them for injuries, and Corlys comes to stand protectively in front of her and Luke, surveying the scene gathered in his hall. He doesn’t seem to notice the blood dripping from her temple, or the unsteady sway of her body. She grips Luke tighter. He wraps an arm around her waist, clutching at her like he does in his sleep. 

Just then, Muña appears with Daemon at her heels. Her eyes are wide with shock when she sees the state of her children. “Vis? Luke,” she breathes, crouching before him, tenderly prying his hands away from his nose. Her gaze flicks over to Viserra and she brushes her hair out of her face, hissing when she sees the blood still leaking from her daughter’s head. The concern in her eyes gives way to anger and she whips around to face the gathered crowd. “Who did this?”

Viserra can hardly focus as her cousins and uncles and brother erupt, all blaming one another. The room is no longer solid around her. She feels like she’s swimming. It’s wrong, all wrong, and she should have known this would happen. Tears well in her eyes and Muña swipes them away with the pad of her thumb. Viserra wishes she were asleep again, dreaming again, far from so much noise and blood and anger. “It’s my fault,” she whispers to her mother. “He called Luke a…” she shakes her head and regrets it instantly, black spots dancing in her vision, “a bastard.”

She’s never said it aloud before. It tastes like ash and horror. She glances at her brother guiltily. You are still my brother, she wants to remind him, letting go of his hand. You are still a dragon, and nothing else matters.

Muña slowly rises as the room grows quiet. Viserra backs away, leaning against a nearby table for support, watching through a film of misery as her mother turns to face the king with a stiff spine. She thinks that in this light, Muña looks a bit like Syrax. 

“I will have the truth of what happened,” her grandsire demands. “Now.”

Viserra wavers, vision blurred and heartbeat thudding against her injured temple. She barely hears Queen Alicent blame her brother, or her mother defend him. She glances around the hall, begging to see her father rush in and scoop her up and carry her away. Please, Kepa , she silently pleads. I need you. We all do. The argument continues, but Viserra hardly hears it. She grips the table behind her, feeling herself growing weaker by the moment.

When the king thuds his cane against the floor, she flinches. “This interminable in-fighting must cease. All of you! We are family.” The words make her chest clench. They do not feel like a family anymore, if they ever did. They have been divided since before she drew her first breath. And now, with the injuries they’ve sustained and the words that have been spoken aloud in front of so many onlookers, she wonders if they can ever be whole again. King Viserys takes in a shuddering breath and looks at each of them in turn. “Now make your apologies and show good will to one another. Your father, your grandsire, your king demands it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers instantly, more to herself than anyone else. She is sorry. She never should have let her dream end. She misses the glass garden and the sugar-colored hatchling and the sweetly scented flowers. Now, all she smells is blood and fire.

Her grandsire Corlys puts a hand on her shoulder. When she peers up at him, she notices tears in his deep purple eyes. “You are not to blame, sweet girl,” he murmurs, pulling a kerchief from his pocket and pressing it to her head. She winces, becoming dizzy all over again at the contact, and inspects the slip of fabric: pale Velaryon blue with cloth-of-gold waves around the border, now stained a rusty near-black red. I’m sorry, she thinks again, for ruining this night and your handkerchief, for staining your daughter’s funeral with such violence. I am the oldest, but I was so desperate to prove myself a dragon and be brave that I forgot to be true to myself and keep the peace. I’m sorry. 

“There is a debt to be paid,” she hears the queen say, and she tries to swim back to the surface before drowning in her guilt. The room is silent as Alicent pauses, turning away from the king to face them. “I shall have one of her son’s eyes in return. Ser Criston, bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon.”

“No,” Viserra murmurs, pushing past her grandsire to clutch her brother’s hand once more. She can hardly stand, hardly focus on her surroundings, but she cannot think of anything but placing herself between her brother and the queen. Muña stands in front of them both, shielding them with her body. 

“You will do no such thing,” her mother spits, a dragon once again as she defends her hatchlings. For a moment, Viserra wonders if he’ll do it. He has never loved Princess Rhaenyra or her children, and she’s seen him push her brothers around the training yard, always harsher with them than her uncles. Once again, she pleads with the gods for her father to appear, and regrets that she has never once taken up a sword; she would be a sorry protector for her brother against the Kingsguard knight, but she would do it, since Kepa cannot.

Ser Criston denies the queen, and King Viserys announces that the matter is finished. She breathes a sigh of relief and nearly falls over, exhausted and pained and gripping her brother’s arms for support. She is supposed to be the fearless big sister, yet he is her strength. She kisses the top of his head and dares to believe that the king’s words—let it be known that anyone whose tongue questions the birth of Princess Rhaenyra’s children will have it removed—will be law. There, she thinks, it is done, and we can all go back to bed. But she is a fool, and the wounds are too deep, and grief and hatred has made this place godless and wrong, and—

The queen takes a dagger from the king’s belt. Lucerys screams as she rushes towards their mother. Grandsire Corlys pushes them behind his back to protect them, and their grandmother reaches for them both, but Viserra loses her footing in their haste and falls to the floor. Weakly, she tries to stand, but the exertion is too much for her. She feels the pounding in her skull reach a peak, and the spots swimming in her vision close in on one another. As her eyes flutter closed, she sees the glint of firelight reflected on a Valyrian steel blade.

☀

Viserra presses the shell of her ear against the keyhole, ignoring the pulsing pain in her head.

“Can you hear anything?” Luke asks, his wide brown doe’s eyes staring up at her.

“Shh!” She chides. “I’m trying.”

He slinks back, watching her intently as she strains to hear. Muña sent them away to bathe and behave when Kepa came in, but they only waited until the door closed behind them and knelt down next to it to listen to their parents’ conversation. Viserra had hoped to spend another moment with Kepa before Muña told them to leave; he promised to come find them after their conversation and pressed a feather-light kiss to her bandaged head and sent them on their way, clearly sensing the intensity in Muña’s words. Viserra’s parents rarely fight, and though they’ve both been much happier since moving to Dragonstone, she knows that last night will change everything.

We’ve all been happy on Dragonstone, she thinks wistfully. She had not been thrilled to hear that they’d be moving away from King’s Landing, in truth; although Dragonstone is the seat of her ancestors and she will one day be lady of the island after her mother, Viserra has never considered anything but King’s Landing to be her home. But her hesitations were proven wrong in a mere matter of days. She’s grown to love the misty, mystical island—the black beaches, the smoking Dragonmont, the maze-like castle, the Painted Table, the market towns and docks, the fishermen and farmers and traders. She loves it already, and it seems to love her back; the court there is free-spirited and kind, with a rotating menagerie of poets and lords from neighboring keeps that filter up the mountain to pay their respects and entertain the princess and liege lady of the island. They bring gifts and tell silly tales, and do not judge or gossip incessantly like the courtiers in the Red Keep. Even the dragons are happier there; Gaelithox finally let Viserra take her first flight a few weeks after arriving, gleefully chirping as they flew out over the Blackwater Bay. And, perhaps best of all, on Dragonstone, green is merely a color, not a faction.

The thought of green makes Viserra’s mood sour, and she focuses on her attempt to listen in on her parents. 

“I have failed you, Rhaenyra,” she hears her father say, and smashes the side of her head even closer to the door. “Our marriage…I tried. Our children…I love them, deeply.”

“I know,” Muña replies quietly.

Lucerys tugs on her sleeve. “What are they saying?”

She swats him away with a scowl. “I won’t be able to hear a thing if you keep talking.”

“But I want to know!”

“Kepa said he loves us,” she grants him with a sigh. “Happy?” Her brother nods, and she smiles at how easy he is to please. “Now shush!”

Viserra tries to make sense of the muffled words exchanged between their parents. Kepa’s love is not new information. She’s not sure what she expected to hear, but it wasn’t the same statement she’s heard every day of her life. 

“You are an honorable man with a good heart,” Muña says in a gentle tone. “It’s a rare thing.”

More of the same. Viserra almost backs away, content to know that her parents are not screaming or blaming one another, when she hears— “We made an arrangement, all those years ago, to do our duty and yet explore happiness.”

Her ears prick up at this, while simultaneously, her heart sinks. Her father’s words are proof of what she’s always known: Viserra was bred for duty; Lucerys and Joffrey were made from the lack of it, in the pursuit of happiness. Her mother laughs, and it feels like a stab to the gut. Muña loves her, she knows, just as Kepa does—but Viserra is different from her brothers, and it has nothing to do with who fathered them or how they look. They have never been quite the same, despite sharing a mother and a house name. Duty and happiness, duty and love, duty and desire…they are not the same, and neither are Rhaenyra’s three children.

“But there are times when I think these things cannot mutually exist.”

She wonders, not for the first time, if her father can read her mind. She gasps softly, then claps a hand over her mouth. Luke tugs on her sleeve again. “What is it? What did they say?”

She kicks him gently in the shin and returns to her post. Kepa’s voice has dropped to a murmur, and she can no longer make out any distinct words. After a few fruitless moments, she groans and backs away from the door. “They’re whispering,” she informs her brother. “I can’t hear anything else. Come on, let’s go before—”

Just as they’re scrambling to their feet, the door opens behind them. Kepa stands in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, attempting to wear a stern expression, though the gleam of amusement in his eyes gives him away. Lucerys scampers away, leaving Viserra to face their father sheepishly. “Hello, Kepa.”

His fatherly scowl melts into a grin and he pulls the door closed behind him so Muña doesn’t see that her children were shamelessly eavesdropping. “Walk with me, qeldlie.”

Neither of them speak until they’re outside, watching the king’s wheelhouse carry the Greens back to their waiting ship. The calls of dragons fills the air—three distinct voices now, with Vhagar’s unmistakable low tone loudest of all. She wonders vaguely what will happen to Aemond now, but the thought makes her taste blood again. Kepa holds Viserra’s hand and sinks to his knees before her. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you last night, my love. I was…sad, and missing my sister, and I’m not proud to say I spent the night in my cups, hoping to dull the edge of my grief.”

Viserra could’ve assumed as much, but she simply nods in response, her heart aching at the sight of her father’s eyes welling with tears. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not, but you are kind to say it,” he lets out a short, rueful laugh, and looks out at the waves where his sister’s coffin now rests with their ancestors’. “You have a generous heart. I pray that this world never takes that from you. It will make you a splendid queen. Ah, but that is not what I wished to tell you. Last night…”

Kepa trails off, a flash of anger replacing the melancholy in his eyes. He gingerly touches the bandage around her head, just above the place of her injury. “Aemond could have killed you. You are fortunate to walk away with only three stitches and a migraine. He could have taken you from me just as easily, all for a fucking dra—” he huffs and shakes his head before offering her a fleeting smile. “He could have killed you, and Lucerys could have killed him. This will not be forgotten, not by me or your mother, or by Queen Alicent. You’re very smart, qeldlie, and know the truth of things that have not been said aloud. But there are other things you do not know, things that cannot be kept from you much longer.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, growing more confused by the second. 

“We had hoped to wait a few more years to have this conversation, but…when we get home to Dragonstone, your mother and I must discuss something with you. Have no fear, my girl,” he says quickly, sensing her mounting concern. “All is well. But the events of last night have forced our hands. For now, all I will say is this: you are powerful, and strong—stronger than you know. I think you—”

(I think you may be a dragon dreamer , he almost says, but stops himself in time. She is too young for such a thing, too young to be certain, and who is he to add another responsibility to her back? Perhaps in time, if the gods see fit to allow him to watch his daughter ascend the throne, he will tell her what he believes to be true about her. Perhaps in time, she will come to the same conclusion herself. That would be better. For now, he must bite his tongue. And he has not even told Rhaenyra of his suspicions yet… No, this is not the conversation that needs to happen most imminently. There are bigger fish to catch, as his father always says.)

“Well,” he catches himself, leaving Viserra more uncertain than ever before. He smiles, and grunts softly as he stands. “You must be hungry. And I believe your mother told you to bathe, not listen at the door like some common spy.”

Viserra chooses not to push her father any further. It can wait, just as he said. She is only nine, but already she is accustomed to the taste of blood in her mouth from biting her tongue. And anyway, her head is starting to hurt again, and the mention of food made her realize just how hungry she is. She sets the dozens of questions forming in her mind aside and takes his hand once more, grinning up at him as he leads her inside. “We weren’t listening. I dropped my earring by the door, and Luke was helping me look.”

“Ah, is that right?” Kepa chuckles. “You know, it’s funny, but I think I see two earrings in your ears right now.”

She giggles. “It was, uh, my other earring. The one I keep in my pocket, for…good luck?”

They wind their way down through her grandsire’s castle, hand in hand, and for a moment, despite the events of the last few days, Viserra thinks that she’s never been happier.

It’s the last time she holds her father’s hand.

Late that night, she wakes in a sweat, the sky still blue-black and star-coated outside her window. She still feels an ache in her skull and a terrible unease in her stomach. She falls asleep once more. She wakes to the sound of screams and the smell of something awful, something raw and repugnant—fire, yes, but something sinister beneath it. She runs out of her rooms but tells Lucerys to remain in his when she passes him outside his door, bleary-eyed and worried. And—

Her Kepa is gone.

Another funeral, another casket sent down to the depths of the sea. Another Velaryon sent home. Viserra wonders if she is next, wonders if a piece of her heart has followed Kepa down. She doesn’t feel quite human without him. She doesn’t want to leave Driftmark, to leave Grandsire and Grandmother in their mourning and loathing, to leave the waves and winds that still carry her father’s laughter. It doesn’t feel fair. He was going to tell her something. How can he be gone? There is still so much left to say.

She wants to be here, she thinks decidedly as she digs her toes into the sand in the same place Kepa stood just days ago after his sister’s funeral—where she should be, amidst the pearls and the seafoam. Her heart is here. Should her body not be, too? She begs Muña to let her stay a little longer, to let her follow to Dragonstone in a few days’ time on dragonback.

“We have to go, Viserra,” Rhaenyra tries to pry her from the waves, but for once Viserra does not melt into her mother’s directive and obey. “Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys will surely allow you to visit soon, but for now, we must go.”

She knows they must. She knows she must. The ship is ready and waiting—she can see it from here, bobbing gently against the dock in the strong mid-afternoon sun—and though she is a Velaryon, she is a Targaryen heir besides, and her place is on Dragonstone. But just for a moment, can’t she be a girl and not a princess? Kepa would’ve let her stay. Kepa understood. She turns her wide, tear-filled eyes up to Muña in a silent plea, lower lip trembling and half-gnawed by grieving teeth. And—

(Rhaenyra almost breaks. Laenor and Laena were not twins, but may as well have been; born only a year apart and inseparable since their earliest days, they were almost identical when they were younger, to the point that Rhaenyra sometimes struggled to tell them apart when they’d visit King’s Landing. It was their eyes, she realizes now, looking down at her daughter, whose own eyes look so hauntingly like those of the Velaryon siblings that it steals the breath from her lungs. With tears in her eyes, lavender-blue and lovely, Viserra looks almost sickeningly similar to her father and aunt, and a horrible feeling of guilt floods Rhaenyra’s stomach. How could she deprive this child of her father? What sort of monster has she become?

In the early years of motherhood, when she was still hardly more than a girl herself, Rhaenyra did not think of Viserra as her daughter. A terrible thing to admit, even to herself, but a true one all the same. Viserra was a task—a duty done, but not one that she could send on its way into the world. No, Viserra was a girl, something that was not her fault but that Rhaenyra blamed the child for anyway, and a girl as her firstborn would require hard work to raise well. She spent so much of her energy on shaping the child like clay into the perfect heir that it was hard to remember to think of her as a babe, as a daughter, as a flesh-and-blood creature deserving and desiring of love. Laenor was much better at that.

Now, Rhaenyra realizes just what a grievous error she’d made. She loves her daughter, truly and fiercely, and always has. But perhaps she has not shown it quite as boldly as she feels it. Haven’t you known it all along? A nasty voice in the back of her mind whispers. You see the way she stiffens in your presence, desperate to please you. You see the way she does not curl into your touch half as fondly as Lucerys does. She knows you thought of her as a burden the moment she was born, no matter what gifts you gave her, no matter what love others showed her. She would rather stay here with her father’s empty coffin than come home with you, Nyra, and it is your fault. It’s all your fault.

“Please,” she tries, tears welling in her own eyes.

Her daughter loves a gone man better than she loves her. How can she ever reach her now?)

Please. 

And that’s all it takes, really. Every thought of following Kepa down to the seafloor graveyard evaporates in an instant. Muña has never asked anything of her—perfection, perfection, she’s asked the impossible of you for years—not like this, and there’s something desperate in her voice. For a brief moment, Viserra wonders if the ache in her head has addled her hearing, but then she sees the pleading in the violet blur of her mother’s eyes and knows it to be true.

Viserra sloshes through the shallows and wrings saltwater from her black skirts when she reaches dry sand, and offers a small, sad smile to Muña before taking her hand. They walk slowly in the direction of their ship, palms warm against one another, and she leans against her mother’s shoulder, tears sliding down her cheeks as she leaves her father behind.

But she doesn’t leave him, and he certainly doesn’t leave her. He haunts her those first moons after his death—when she turns her head a bit too fast and thinks she sees him lurking at the corners of her vision (she tells herself it’s still the lingering effects of her head injury, just like the maester told her); when she searches for seashells on the black beaches of Dragonstone and thinks she hears his voice in the echo of the ocean pressed to her ear (she tells herself it’s only because she misses him); when she dreams of him again and again, always surrounded by fog and flame that rise from the sea to consume him (she tells herself—well, she doesn’t have an explanation for that, and that frustrates her to no end). She takes the haunting happily.

Each morning, she takes breakfast from the kitchens down to the beach to sit with her father as she always did. Muña won’t allow her to sail on her own yet, so instead she acts out her and Kepa’s morning ritual from the shore, feet buried in the surf, honey cake crumbs on her fingers, the previous night’s dream on her tongue.

“What did you want to tell me?” She asks the waves, twirling the stem of an apple between her fingers. 

The waves give no answer other than a small nudge at her calves, and she weeps softly into her hands. She’d give anything for her father to sit with her one last time, to tell her about his adventures in the Stepstones or on the deck of the Sea Snake’s ships. For three moons, he haunts her relentlessly, and she welcomes his visits—real or imagined—like those of an old friend.

(But what friend does she have now? Lucerys is changed by what happened on Driftmark, sullen and sunken in on himself, grieving the loss of both his fathers and his innocence. Joffrey is too young to understand that anything has changed, and Muña hardly takes him out of the nursery wing. Aegon and Helaena were her friends once, along with a few other noble girls in the Red Keep, but she doubts that her aunt and uncle would call her a friend now, if they knew she was the one to bring the knife that blinded their brother. And Aemond… gone are the days of hoping that they would share more than blood and namedays. He’s left a scar on her temple and a lingering resentment in the pit of her stomach, one that burns in a way that she loathes herself for feeling. There is no repairing the fractured space between them now, even if she wanted to, no matter how she once wished for a bond to exist as the poets claimed it did.)

Viserra is, for perhaps the first time in her life, alone. She'd thought she liked Dragonstone, but it feels like a prison without Kepa. She wants her old life back. Evenings in the castle gardens chasing fireflies with Helaena, foot races in the Dragonpit with Aegon and Luke, sneaking into the kitchens for extra sweets and trips to the shops in the city and the excitement of it all, the brightness of it all. It’s so dark now, here, without Kepa. Where has the sun gone? Where has her life force gone? She wants—

She gets Daemon.

He’s not her father. The twins aren’t her sisters. But three moons after Laenor Velaryon is buried at sea (three moons shy of the proper end of the mourning period) a small ship with red-and-black sails arrives from Driftmark carrying their little family and all of their possessions—countless dresses in strange Pentoshi fashions, two full suits of armor, Myrish far-eyes and figurines made of aurochs’ tusks and a monkey in a cage of solid gold. Lucerys is vibrating with excitement as he drags Joff down to greet the Rogue Prince and his daughters in the great hall, enthralled by the belongings he watched carried up to the castle with his nose pressed to the nursery window. But Viserra is far less amused and far less welcoming.

“Did you invite them?” She asks accusingly, barely glancing up at her mother.

“I did,” Muña answers with a small and infuriating smile. Viserra watches Rhaenyra’s face soften, lips twitching and eyes glazing over with a rose-colored mist—ah. She loves him.  

She’s only ever looked at Ser Harwin Strong even half so fondly—but there’s something fiercer here, something that makes the rosy hue look more like blood. Viserra wonders then if Muña’s always loved Daemon (that would explain the way her expression would grow wistful then bitter whenever he was mentioned, and how she was withdrawn and teary-eyed when she returned from a visit to Laena and Daemon three years ago), if everything between them—years, spouses, lovers, children—has been filler until they found their way back together. And although she wants to be angry for the quick replacement of her father in her mother’s life, wants to stomp her feet and demand that the rest of them mourn Laenor as deeply as she does, her grieving little heart cannot ignore the pull of love. 

For all that she understands the importance of duty, for all that she respects the importance of duty, for all that she knows and knows and knows that her life will never be her own and her husband must be a royal consort for the throne more than a lover for her… she loves love. She desires it almost as much as the crown, wants it in her veins and bones and saliva. Perhaps she’s read too many stories, listened to too many poets. But she’s enamored of love, so much that she could almost weep for knowing that she may never have it—or, at least, never be able to keep it, unless it miraculously comes in the form of whatever husband she takes for political strength. And to see her mother gaze at Daemon Targaryen so adoringly, well… She cannot be angry. Muña is more dragon than her, and dragons cannot be chained by something as flimsy as duty. 

That night, she dreams of cut mouths and dripping wax, and wakes with blood beneath her nose. In the morning, when she returns from the beach, Maester Gerardys pulls her and the twins and Luke out to a part of the island Viserra has never seen before: a rocky alcove on the eastern side of the Dragonmont, where a candle-coated altar sits beneath mist and cloth banners. Something ancient in her blood leaps at the sight of it, and for the first time since returning to Dragonstone, she remembers that hers is the blood of Old Valyria, just as much as Muña’s and Daemon’s. A dragonglass blade breaks the skin of their lips, and it’s—

Beautiful. Achingly so. And Viserra realizes then that she wants a love like that; craves it with every fiber of her being, really, every millimeter of muscle and drop of blood and cloud of breath in her body. To love, to be loved, to be seen and known in a way words can never capture, to give yourself over to someone wholly—she closes her eyes, out there amongst the mist and flames on the side of the Dragonmont, and pictures herself in the very same Valyrian ceremony, drawing glyphs in blood on the brow of her knight, the stars in his eyes twinkling with reflected firelight. This is the first dream she truly wishes to become a reality.

She should have known then that her lovelusting dreams and wanting heart would damn her.

☾

“Your father, the king, wishes to see you.”

Aemond’s head snaps up. “Me?”

“Yes, my prince,” Ser Criston glances disdainfully at the papers and books strewn across the table in Aemond’s favorite corner of the library. It’s unusual to find the knight in a part of the castle that isn’t dominated by swords or the queen—almost as unusual as it is for King Viserys (Father , he reminds himself) to ask for him.

“Are you sure he didn’t ask for Aegon?”

“I believe that, after more than a decade in service to your family, I can tell the difference between two princes,” Criston grins.

Aemond fights the urge to roll his eyes—eye. Some things, he’s discovering, are proving difficult to unlearn. “Fair enough.”

He tucks the book he’d been attempting to read under his arm and follows the knight from the library, mind reeling with possible explanations for the king’s summons. In the four moons since the royal family returned from Driftmark (four moons since before ended and after began), Father has been even more distant than usual, locking himself away in his chambers or small council sessions and only taking meals with his wife and children on occasion. That frustrates Mother more than anything else—and, like all things, frustrates Aemond by extension; she only ever asks that they all have dinner together each night, regardless of how they spend their days. But of course it would be too much to ask for Father to give Mother even the smallest of delights. He can never just—

“Should you need me, my prince, I will be in the armory,” Ser Criston nods to the other Kingsguard knight posted at the door of the king’s apartments, casts a meaningful, almost concerned glance at Aemond, and disappears down the hall.

Aemond takes a deep breath. Criston knows all too well how Aemond’s mood sours after each interaction with his lord father—but in the past, before, the knight’s solution was to place a sword in the prince’s hand and spar with him until the last of his anger was forgotten in the dirt of the training yard. Now, he has no such release. He straightens his posture and steps through the door, hands fidgeting at his sides with the urge to smooth his hair over his eye patch.

King Viserys has his back to his son, half-hunched over the stone model of Old Valyria that takes up the majority of the room. As a younger boy, Aemond loved to sit amidst the ruined city, running his finger down the Valyrian roads and over the spires and roofs of buildings long since turned to ash. Before, when he didn’t realize yet that his father did not love him. He shifts awkwardly in the middle of the chamber, and gives in to the urge, fussing with the strap of his patch, the leather still stiff and foreign against his skin.

“Aemond,” the king calls, turning at the sound of his son’s shuffling footsteps on the stones. Viserys has never had the strongest health, yet another thing that causes Mother to fret and pray and pick and fuss in an endless cycle, but he appears to have recovered from the slight fever that has ailed him since they returned to King’s Landing. His cheeks carry color again, and the circles beneath his lilac eyes aren’t half as dark as they were.

“Good afternoon, Father,” he attempts a tone of familiarity, though there is nothing familiar about his current situation. “You asked for me?”

“Yes, yes. Take a seat, my boy,” he gestures at a small stool across from him.

My boy. Aemond’s heart clenches and unclenches like a fist. He obeys instantly, carefully lowering himself into the seat so as not to disturb any figurines that may lurk on his blind side. The king watches him with something almost like remorse in his eyes, and Aemond finds that he doesn’t mind it as much coming from him. Since the incident, everyone has looked at him with pity—nobles, squires, even servants, all feeling sorry for the boy who lost an eye. He loathes them all for it. Do not mourn me, Mother, he’d said after, but clearly the message has been lost on the rest of the court and castle. He doesn’t want their pity, but if Father, the one who did nothing to punish the rat that stole his son’s eye, feels guilty for his lack of action, well… Aemond will not hurry to absolve him.

“It has been some time since we last spoke, just us,” the king turns his attention back to the model in his hands, turning it over and over. “I wished to remedy that. You are my son, and I…” he sets the model down on the side of the table with a soft clatter, now staring at his empty hands. Anywhere but at the edges of the scar visible beneath the bandages and patch on Aemond’s face. “Tell me something.”

“Anything, Father.” He grimaces at how small, how pleading, his voice sounds. I will tell you anything, just to spend a moment longer in the light of your attention.

“Your mother tells me you wish to continue your training with Ser Criston Cole.”

Aemond blinks. “I…yes.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?” He watches his father’s fingers drum on the edge of the table, tapping out an ancient song. 

The king’s fingers stop, then start again. “I understand you are quite advanced with your studies, and you were always fond of our history lessons, when you’d help me piece together this model. And Maester Orwyle has informed me that you’ve dedicated yourself to your reading since—or, that your impaired vision has not slowed you down much.”

Aemond refused to take a break from his studies, even when the missing half of his vision gave him maddening headaches and drove him halfway to fury at every failed attempt to read more than a few words, then a few sentences, then a few paragraphs. He would not fall behind, not be left behind, not be the poor little sightless thing that had to be coddled and mourned by his siblings and mummy. Strange for Father to notice, though his point remains lost on Aemond. “Yes, Sire.”

“Well, I—I only wonder if perhaps you’d prefer to continue devoting your time to that, not swordfighting.”

There it is. Now that he’s not whole, he’s not worthy of warriorhood, of greatness, of his own dreams. He may as well say it plainly: you’re broken, Aemond. You cannot be Aegon’s soldier now. (But what else is there for him? What else could he be? Would the king have him shipped off to the Citadel to earn a maester’s chain? And who will read to Daeron if he’s sent away?) Sent away for what that bastard did to him… his stomach churns with a betrayal laced with rage.

Viserys seems to notice the darkening of Aemond’s remaining eye, and holds his hands up defensively. “I do not wish to tell you what to do, my son. I simply ask this of you: what do you want?”

What do you want, Aemond Targaryen?

He likes the question better coming from Viserra’s voice.

(Viserra, Viserra, Viserra… he’d never said her name before, not that he can remember, but now that it’s fallen from his lips once, he can’t seem to stop. Prettier than a song, sweeter than honey, brighter than sunlight. He finds it hard to hate her now, at least with the same vigor as before—not when remorse pollutes every thought of her, not when he cannot picture her without blood pouring from her head. My fault, he knows, and wears it heavily; is it all my fault?)

(Viserys notes the way his son flinches at the question. What a mess you’ve made, he thinks bitterly. You never should’ve married her—but it’s too late for that, isn’t it? She’s given you four children, and you’ve wasted precious years with them caught up in your guilt and grief. Look at your son, Viserys. Is it not your fault? Is it not high time that you try to salvage what remains of your bond with your children—all five of them? )

Aemond wonders for a moment what would happen if he spoke plainly. Perhaps the castle would crumble and fall around his feet. Perhaps the seas would turn to flame and engulf all of Westeros. Or perhaps not. Come now, bitter little boy, set down this angry burden. He opens his mouth, feels as though vomit may pour out, closes it. Opens it again—

“I want to be a knight. I want to be a knight of your Kingsguard, Father.”

A different kind of vomit, he supposes. Bile burns on his tongue all the same as he waits in silence, watches the king’s face morph, regrets even leaving the library with Ser Criston. It’s horrible, the pause that follows. And then it’s—

Not so bad. Viserys smiles softly, a small and melancholic thing that is surprisingly, blessedly, without pity. Aemond’s heart blooms, warm and wonderful. All he’s ever wanted—more than a dragon, more than a knight’s heroism and glory and chivalry, more than even Mother’s love—and it’s here, and all it cost was a brief moment of discomfort. Father grins at him earnestly, seeing him, truly seeing him, perhaps for the first time in his life. Gods, it feels good. It feels right. He’s earned this, after a lifetime of playing his part: silver boy in the silver shadows, second second second to the sun and the first son. 

“Well, then,” Father claps him on the shoulder, “you will have to train twice as hard as before. I believe you are in good hands with Ser Criston, but should you ever find his tutelage lacking, I shall bring you the finest swordsmen in the known world to train you.”

A grin breaks across Aemond’s face, sending his heart hammering against his chest. “Do you really mean it?”

“Of course, dear boy. I have always known you were destined for greatness. You and our Viserra. There was something special about the day of your birth, haven’t I always told you as much? Vējes-idañi, twins of fate. You will be the most formidable and loyal knight in the history of the Kingsguard, and, if the gods are kind, will serve your sister and your niece after me. Yes, I can see it already…”

His face falls, his heartbeat falters. The magic breaks. Of course, even in his moment of triumph, she must always play a part. He should have known. He tries to hide his disappointment (it’s still a small victory, for Father to allow him to continue his training. Mother will be displeased, but what does she know?) as his mind drifts to Viserra.

“...but don’t get me started on your sister. Oh, Rhaenyra, why must you disobey me? Marrying Daemon, so soon after dear Laenor’s death? They’ve always been so stubborn, both of them, sent by the gods to torment me…” 

Viserys prattles on, no longer truly talking to Aemond. At the mention of Daemon, the prince’s attention returns. Daemon Targaryen, for as long as he can remember, has been something of a personal hero to him. Fearsome and unpredictable, wild but utterly devoted to his house. Wielder of a Valyrian steel sword and unafraid to use it in defense of his family and his realm—or, simply, because he enjoys the feel of it in his hand. A second son more powerful in his own way than the brother that sits the throne. And now he’s married the so-called crown princess, adding his fire to her cause. Mother will surely be distraught at the news (she hates Daemon even more than Rhaenyra and her children, if at all possible), but Aemond feels a flicker of fondness for the uncle he’s never had the pleasure of knowing but admires all the same. 

What do you want? To be as feared as the Rogue Prince but twice as honorable. To make the realm kneel before him with a sword in his fist but with a cloak of white over his shoulder, not gold. He has no desire to marry, unlike Daemon—marriage, as far as Aemond can tell, based on his parents’ example, is a miserable trap. He would much rather spend his life in solitude, in service to his brother and the Targaryen dynasty, without the heart-wrenching burden of something as trivial as desire—but will model himself after his uncle in all else. 

“Aemond?”

He blinks again. “Sorry, Father, what?”

“I asked if you would like to go hunting with me. You, Aegon, Daeron… My father and grandsire took me and my brother hunting when we were boys, even kept a cabin in the Kingswood for longer trips. I should like to continue the tradition,” King Viserys says almost sheepishly, eyes searching Aemond’s face in boyish anticipation. “If you and your brothers would be interested.”

Never, in all his years, did Aemond expect to hear such an offer from his father’s lips. But today has proven full of surprises, and the hopeful little chamber of his heart that often sits unused and neglected is pumping gleefully this morning. “Y-yes, Sire, I would like that very much. I’m sure Aegon would, too. Daeron will simply be pleased to be included.”

(After Aemond leaves, Viserys sits back in his chair, impossibly pleased with himself. What a start! Perhaps there is still time to salvage what he’s left broken for far too long. He’s not a young man anymore, nor a particularly healthy one, but he’s not dead yet—and he can try, can’t he, with whatever time he has left? If only Rhaenyra were here, and Viserra and the boys… then he could put all the pieces back together, just like with his model. He looks down at all the buildings and roads and dragons, stone replicas of Great Valyria, the closest thing a Targaryen will ever have to their homeland, and his heart yearns for the strength of the old empire. Perhaps…

Aemond will be a great knight. The boy has always been fierce and determined, and good , despite the anger that plagues him. He’s a dragon, after all, and the fire in his blood burns hot; just like Daemon’s, and Father’s, and even old Jaehaerys’. Targaryens are no strangers to that anger, but they must learn to control it—in time, Aemond will do the same. He will make a wonderful addition to the Kingsguard, and the Queensguard that will follow it, and though he may not feel fondly for his sister and niece now, that will come with time, too. He meant what he said: he’s always known that Aemond and Viserra are bound for greatness. And now that Aemond wishes to be a knight of her Queensguard… a golden queen and her silver defender. Fate-twins, indeed.

But as soon as the thought comes to his mind, staring at the pieces of an empire destroyed by men who thought themselves greater than gods and dragons and dreams, Viserys’ blood chills.

Vējes means fate in High Valyrian, yes. But it also means doom.)

Chapter Text

126 AC.

The moon is still visible against the deep blue blanket of the sky as Viserra makes her way through the castle, though the first calls of morning birds are already drifting in through the windows in their strange harmony. The servants she passes on her way to the kitchen greet her with small nods, unsurprised to see her haunting the halls at such an hour. Princess Viserra Velaryon has always been an early riser, and in the seven years she’s lived on Dragonstone, they’ve grown accustomed to her morning routine. Cook has a folded cloth waiting for her in the kitchen, filled with honey cakes, bacon, and sliced apples, but the kindly older woman swats at her with her wooden spoon when she tries to take an extra piece of meat for her dog. Viserra may be welcome in Cook’s domain at any hour, no matter how busy the staff may be, but Sȳndor—near as large as a small pony and a shameless glutton, gifted to her a year ago from a visiting Norvoshi magister—is not. She grins, deftly sidestepping Cook’s weapon of choice, and darts out of the kitchen. She slips the choicest piece of her own bacon into the hound’s large black maw as they continue down the stone-and-obsidian halls of the castle.

By the time she reaches the small inlet by the Dragonmont’s sea-facing mouth where she and her brothers dock their boats, the sky has lightened to a hue reminiscent of the Velaryon sigil, tinged with faint oranges at the horizon. Sȳndor races away from her side to engage in his own morning routine: digging in the dark sand until his fur is caked with filth, and tormenting whatever crabs and critters he can find. Viserra unties her small skiff and lets a gust of wind fill its sail, shivering slightly despite the already-warm summer morning. She drifts out into the bay slowly, chewing happily on her breakfast. With the breeze in her hair and the smell of saltwater in her nose, the nervous roil of her stomach ceases almost immediately. The sea has always calmed her.

And between the dream she had last night and the chaos sure to come in the day ahead, she can use all the calm she can get.

She’d dreamt of him again, that black-hearted, unwelcome visitor. She hates when she dreams about him. Nearly seven years have passed since she last saw him, and she’s built a life blissfully, blessedly free of him—or, as free of him as possible. No matter how long they spend apart, they are still tied together…and as it always does at the turn of the year, their bond feels more inescapable than ever. Tomorrow is their nameday. She can never not think about him on their nameday.

She shakes her head as if to clear him from her thoughts, and leans back against the bench on her skiff, letting the salty spray of water wash over her. She’s determined to be at peace today, despite the madness that will descend on their little island in a matter of hours. New year celebrations are an old tradition on Dragonstone, brought from Valyria with her forebears, and Rhaenyra has taken to throwing lavish parties to mark both the turn of the year and her daughter’s nameday. No doubt her mother is already awake and fretting over preparations for the feast, and will soon send someone out looking for Viserra. A flash of irritation fills her veins, and she guides her skiff further out into the Blackwater Bay to buy herself a little more time.

She loves her mother. Truly, she does. She loves her entire family: she loves the twins—her cousins, no, sisters—and the two new brothers Rhaenyra birthed in quick succession after she remarried, Aegon and Maelor, and certainly Luke and Joff, and even Daemon. She loves them fiercely, loyally, deeply. It’s just that—

Sometimes, she hates their expectations of her. She hates that she is expected to take care of the children when her mother and Daemon are occupied, as if she’s not still half a child herself. She hates that she is expected to know better about everything, and can never make the same small and silly mistakes as her siblings. She hates that she is expected to lead, never follow, never falter. In lessons with Septa Amarys, or Maester Gerardys, or the Dragonkeepers, or the dancing instructor brought from Lys: Viserra must be first and best and brightest. She must be perfect. And although perfect is all she’s ever wanted to be, Viserra has grown to hate the concept.

But what else can she do? Who else can she be? She was bred for perfection, and has gone to it like a docile lamb to a sacrificial altar, rubbed her head against it like a cat to an owner’s leg. She has known it and loved it like another member of her family. She is nothing without it.

Fortunately for her, though, perfection has a slightly different meaning on Dragonstone than it does in King’s Landing. The people on the island are easy-going and without judgment, and do not look upon their Crown Princess and her family with the same wary eyes as those in the capital do. The court Rhaenyra and Daemon have created is just as spirited and free, too; filled with mummers and poets and fools, philosophers and traders and foreign nobility from the remote corners and great cities of Essos and Westeros alike. It is a far cry from the stiff and sanctimonious court of Alicent Hightower’s creation in King’s Landing, and although she’d been beloved of the courtiers and smallfolk in that city as a young girl, Viserra is more than glad to be away from it as she gets older. On Dragonstone, green is just a color, not a faction. On Dragonstone, Viserra can do whatever she pleases without fear of scrutiny. On Dragonstone, she is perfect simply for existing, and doesn’t have to chase perfection until her body is weary and her breath is gone.

Most of all, on Dragonstone, her mother is happier. Rhaenyra thrives under the open skies and fresher waters of the island, far away from the judging courtiers who greeted her in the Red Keep’s halls with pleasantries but spit venom behind her back. Viserra cannot discount how much of a role Daemon plays on her mother’s brighter spirits, either; though she’d been slow to accept him into their family—and can never bring herself to call him stepfather, only uncle—she’s grown to appreciate him for his devotion to Muña and to his children. He still doesn’t seem to accept that she will never be a warrior, however, and insists she come to his training sessions with her brothers and Baela, despite her being a bored and reluctant student. But that is how he shows his love, she quickly learned; at least, to everyone but Rhaenyra. Their love still brings Viserra the sort of painful longing that the stories of her youth once did. She wants it, almost more than she wants to be good and dutiful and sweet. Perhaps…

A familiar roar rouses her from her thoughts. Viserra knows to look up at the sound, waiting for the beast to become visible against the now-pale morning sky. And within a matter of seconds, Gaelithox bursts through the clouds, diving down towards the water to greet her. The dragon chirps excitedly when he gets closer, dipping his wings and claws in the seafoam and flicking it in her direction. 

“Rude,” she calls to him in High Valyrian with a smirk, attempting to splash him back before he takes off again in search of his own breakfast. 

Since the earliest days that his wings could support his body and take flight, Gaelithox loved to fly over the water, hunting for his food amongst the sea creatures that stayed close to the surface—small fish when he was young, though now his appetite has grown to include dolphins and sharks. On Dragonstone, he is less inhibited than he’d been in the Dragonpit of King’s Landing, able to come and go from the Dragonmont as he pleases without chains to keep him tied to his lair. In a matter of moments, two more dragons join him, chittering and crying out their greetings to her indigo mount: Arrax, Luke’s sweet, pretty beast; and Seasmoke, the dragon her father had loved so dearly. He is not a regular resident of their island, but comes and goes between Dragonstone and Driftmark—just as Kepa would’ve. A pang of longing stabs at her heart, but it’s bittersweet, not just bitter. To see their dragons play and hunt together is the closest thing she has left of the bond she and her brothers had with Kepa. 

Viserra sighs wistfully, knowing by the rising position of the sun that she’s already avoided her responsibilities too long. Muña will be looking for her, and it never serves to keep her mother waiting. She turns her skiff in the direction of the castle. Before she can reach her own small dock, however, she spies a familiar vessel on the waters, manned by a stoop-shouldered figure waving at her eagerly.

“Is that a mermaid I see?” The old fisherman calls, flashing her a toothy smile.

Viserra grins. The epithet given to her by the court of King’s Landing didn’t last long on Dragonstone, especially once she managed to befriend the farmers and merchants and fishwives that live in the villages below the castle. They too know her morning routine, and greet her like an old friend on the water most mornings, not their liege’s daughter and heir. To them, she’s not Princess Viserra, the Gold Flame, but little flame or sea dragon, or even fish princess or simply girl. “Good morrow, Clipper.”

“Is it ever!” He draws his shabby fishing boat closer to hers and gestures broadly to a cluster of overflowing buckets. “The gods have blessed my nets this morning with a great catch of salmon for your lady mother’s feast. Cook will be more than pleased.”

“I’m sure she will,” she nods approvingly. “Any news from the docks?”

The old man gives a small grunt. “A swan ship arrived in the blackest hour of night, come direct from Pentos. An old friend of Prince Daemon’s, with a hold full of gifts for you dragon ladies. Though, I’m sure you’ve been expecting him, eh? I’d say that by the time I make it up to the castle ‘round midday, there will be more news to share. Best be on my way, Lady Vis.”

“Same time tomorrow, Clip?” She guides her boat away, tossing another smile over her shoulder.

“Aye, my lady, wouldn’t miss it!”

To be a good king, one must be beloved of his people, great and small, she can hear her mother say. This is doubly true of queens. Enemies will be inevitable, but gain the love and respect of all your subjects, and a hundred foes will feel as insignificant as one. Viserra was only a small girl when she learned that, but she’s never forgotten it; she made it her mission to see that the smallfolk of this island would be beloved of her and by her, even when she was still cloaked in the early throes of grief after Kepa’s death. The fishermen and traders, shepherds and pages, of Dragonstone have been loyal to their Targaryen overlords for over two centuries, and will never turn against them—but Viserra does not want to be just a ruler, just a distant, formidable, white-haired dragonrider who sits on a throne and looks down her nose at her subjects. She wants to walk among them and know their woes and joys as intimately as though she is their sister or daughter, like Rhaenys and Alysanne once did. She wants to eat at their humble tables and know the names of their children, and dance with them on feast days and after weddings, and cry with them at funerals, too. She wants to be loved for her, not who she is.

Ah, but isn’t that the truth of it, that has haunted and hounded her for nearly sixteen years? She wants, she wants…she wants—

“There you are!” A voice interrupts her thoughts.

A figure in white with a dark braid over her shoulder waits on the dock, with her arms crossed over her chest and Sȳndor sitting patiently at her side. Even from a distance, Viserra can see the smile on her friend’s face. Her heart gives an involuntary flutter, as it often does when she sees Raya.

Raya Stark. There is no one quite so dear to Viserra in all the world, other than Lucerys on days when he doesn’t snore or steal her favorite desserts. Though she only came to Dragonstone at the behest of her brother two years ago, while the young Lord Cregan was fighting off an uncle’s attempted usurpation after coming of age, Raya has already made herself a permanent fixture on the island, and in the hearts of the Targaryen family. Bold, brave, and beautiful, she’s a year younger than Viserra but half a head taller than her, with slate-blue eyes and earth-brown hair and a thick accent that grows thicker when she’s tired. The she-wolf, as Daemon calls her, is fond of riding, hawking, and sparring with Luke under the Rogue Prince’s tutelage. She flirts shamelessly with kitchen boys and visiting nobles alike, and dances for hours at feasts like a dizzying tempest, only stopping to drink and gossip with Rhaenyra’s ladies. They share a bed most nights, and it’s those nights that Viserra never sees horrors in her dreams, never wakes with blood on her upper lip and shadows in her vision. Viserra loves her better than any friend she’s ever had. 

“Here I am,” she breathes as she pulls her boat up to the dock and begins tying it in place. She glances up at Raya and grins. “Did you miss me?”

“Always,” the Northern girl replies. She holds out a hand to help the princess out of the skiff, the warm, calloused skin of her palm a welcome feeling against Viserra’s soft flesh. Raya links her arm through Viserra’s once she’s standing, and rests her cheek against the top of her head. “You were gone when I woke up. I thought you’d been abducted by pirates, or carried off by that dragon of yours.”

As if on cue, Gaelithox roars from somewhere behind them, the sound echoing over the bay. Viserra laughs. “I’d never leave you, my lady. You know you could come with me on my morning excursions, if only you could ever manage to rouse yourself before dawn.”

Raya feigns a gasp of disgust. “Me? Up before dawn? Only if the realm is burning. No, I need my beauty sleep, you know this.”

“Well, I wouldn’t dare to interfere with your methods,” Viserra allows her friend to lead her back to the castle with Sȳndor at their heels. “Especially since they seem to be working. Now, tell me: how long has my lady mother been flitting about the castle hovering over the servants while they prepare for the feast?”

“Oh, only an hour or so,” Raya waves a hand in the air in front of them. “And she hasn’t asked for you yet.”

Viserra raises a brow, slightly impressed. “Really? Then what were you doing down here, waiting for me like a nervous septa?”

“I have news.”

“Oh?”

Raya nods, a smile playing at her lips that Viserra has come to recognize as the tell-tale sign of gossip waiting to be shared. She allows the younger girl a moment to draw out the suspense in silence, until—

“Aris Redfort is coming,” Raya gushes, “you remember, don’t you, Lord Grafton’s young widow? The one who skipped her own husband’s funeral to flee for a tour of the Free Cities?”

“Of course I remember,” Viserra picks up her pace, now more than a little eager to begin her day in earnest. They’ve followed the stories of the young Valewoman who became a bride and a widow in the same night, supposedly leaving all her worldly possessions behind and stowing herself away on a ship bound for Braavos the very next morning. At only seven-and-ten, she embarked on a series of adventures and misadventures—all on her own. Raya, Rhaena, and Viserra have spent the last two years unabashedly obsessed with the girl, trying to garner news of her travels whenever they can. And now, it seems, she’s returned to Westeros. “Oh, gods, what do you think she’ll wear? Myrish fashions, or Volantene—oh, or perhaps something from the Vale?”

Raya huffs. “I care not what she’s wearing, Vis! I want to know if she used black magic to kill her husband, or if it was just a simple poison.”

“Raya Stark, you are incorrigible.” She clicks her tongue in feigned disapproval. “Always looking for malevolence in the mundane! Lord Grafton was five decades her senior, and so fat he could hardly sit a horse. No doubt the excitement of his wedding night—his fourth wedding night, mind you—was too much for the old man.”

“Gods be good,” Raya laughs, a gravelly sound that Viserra thinks a sweeter sound than any harp or lute. “Never mind what she’s wearing, or if she killed the man or not. I personally cannot wait to see which of his daughters the magnificent Lord Rogare has brought with him this time.”

Viserra hums thoughtfully. “I hope it’s Marra. She always brings the best gifts.”

“Aye, but Lysara tells the best stories,” Raya counters. “Last time—”

“Ahem,” she interrupts quickly, elbowing her friend in the side. A duo of guards stand sentry at the doors to the castle, with a smattering of servants nearby placing floral arrangements in dragon-shaped vases in the corridor. A flush creeps over Viserra’s cheeks at the memory. Lysandro Rogare, the head of a wealthy banking family from Lys, has several daughters, each fine-featured and foul-mouthed. The eldest, Lysara, speaks so freely of matters of anatomy and coupling that her stories could kill a septa. Even Viserra, who is not entirely uneducated on such topics (at least, enough to know that the act of making babes is not always done in service of making babes) finds the Lysene girl’s tales shocking. She much prefers her younger sister, who always brings gifts of the latest cosmetics and hair oils; she swears that the products are crafted with Lysene love spells to enhance the wearer’s beauty, and although Viserra doesn’t wholly believe her, it doesn’t stop her from hoping that it’s true.

“Anyway,” Raya barrels on quickly, though she does make an effort to lower her voice as they begin their ascent to the Sea Dragon tower where Viserra and Rhaenyra keep their rooms. “That’s not all. Let’s see…who am I forgetting? Oh, of course! Lord Celtigar is feeling much better, and plans to attend with his wife and children.”

The flush returns to Viserra’s cheeks. She’s never told Raya—or anyone—about the last time old Lord Bartimos brought his son Clement to visit Dragonstone. Nor does she plan to. She clears her throat and tries for her most unaffected tone. “Ah, I’m glad to hear his lordship’s health has improved. His daughter Allerei is a curious girl—more of an age with Joff, I think, but she’ll surely ask you a thousand questions about the North. The last time I saw her, she asked if my grandsire Corlys would take her on his next voyage to the Jade Sea.”

Raya continues chattering about various guests as they enter Viserra’s rooms, where her handmaid Jessa has already drawn a bath for the princess. Viserra’s thoughts suddenly veer back to the boy she tries so desperately hard to pretend that she doesn’t still think about:

Aemond. She wonders what sort of person he’s become now, if he’s still the bitter, sullen little creature that stalked the halls of the Red Keep, if he wears his hair long or cropped, if that scar her brother gave him has left him disfigured and hideous for the rest of his life. She wonders if he’s happy, if he still thinks it was an even trade to give up his eye for a dragon—for Vhagar. She wonders if he ever thinks of her, ever dreams of her, like she sometimes does of him. She knows little and less of the boy, or man, her uncle has become now. Visitors bring gossip and tales from King’s Landing, to be sure, and Viserra and Helaena exchange dutiful monthly letters across the Blackwater Bay, but courtiers’ stories are unreliable, and Helaena’s letters are more about the habits of her insect collection and the contents of her prayers. 

Aemond has proven himself a skilled and capable swordsman, she’s heard, squiring for Lord Commander Cole and competing in hastiludes across the Crownlands. She’s heard that he’s tall and strong, and studies faithfully with the Grand Maester, but rarely speaks at court and has few friends. She’s heard that he flies with Vhagar constantly. She’s heard a dozen things about her uncle over the last seven years, but he’s as much a stranger to her as he could be. Once, she’d truly believed the stories of their birth bond: fate-twins, Grandsire Viserys called them. Vejes-idañi. But now…now, he could be anyone, with anyone’s spirit and dreams and silver anger. She resents that she still thinks about him, that she still wants to know him, the way that they were meant to do. 

Much has changed in the years Viserra Velaryon has spent on Dragonstone. She is one day shy of six-and-ten, with a woman’s body and a woman’s spirit. She dances at parties and flirts with her mother’s guests and entertains them by playing the harp or reciting poetry. She can discuss political theory and the history of the Valyrian Freehold and trade in the Free Cities. She is a skilled, graceful dragonrider and doesn’t fall on her face when she wields a dull blade in the training yard. She is not so different from the sweet girl that charmed the court of King’s Landing, that went sailing in the Blackwater with her Kepa and chasing butterflies in the gardens with Helaena and learned to train her dragon in the pit with Lucerys. Time and grief and expectations have hardened her heart ever so slightly, but she has held onto her goodness and duties with a dragon’s claw, gripping them until they bleed, all in the pursuit of perfection. Much has changed, but she is not so different. And the proof is in the fact that still, after everything, she wishes that Aemond Targaryen would be her friend, her shared soul, her twin. 

“What are you thinking about?”

Raya’s soft voice makes Viserra’s thoughts dissipate like fog over the Dragonmont. She blinks rapidly and comes back to herself, sitting in a copper tub of steaming water, with scented oils and flower petals floating around her. She glances over at her friend standing in front of her wardrobe, holding up two different gowns for her inspection. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” Viserra forces herself to smile, pushing Aemond back into the shadowy box of unknown dangers where he belongs, far from the forefront of her mind.

Raya lowers her arms with a huff. “You have hardly listened to a word I’ve said all morning. If I didn’t know better, I would worry that you hate me.”

Viserra laughs. “You have my attention now, my lady. If the choice is between a gown of blue and one of rose, you know I will always choose the blue. Did you really need to hear me say it?”

“No,” Raya confesses, putting the pink dress away and smoothing the dark teal one over the foot of Viserra’s bed. She turns to face her with a small, almost nervous smile. “No, there is something else. You know, of course, that my brother has been successful in overthrowing our uncle’s attempt to seize control of the North for himself.”

She nods, unsure why her friend looks so apprehensive. The good news arrived a fortnight ago, that Cregan Stark was now the uncontested Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, after a two-year battle with his own kin. Raya had been so overjoyed that she’d cried for a day straight. “Of course,” she agrees, urging the younger girl on.

“Well, I didn’t tell you the final line of his letter. He has asked—” Raya sucks in a sharp breath, and oh, there are tears in her blue-grey eyes, and it takes all of Viserra’s power not to leap out of the bath and wipe them away, “—no, insisted, that I come home as soon as possible.”

Viserra stares at her for a moment, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. She knew it. Of course he wants his sister to come home, to take her rightful place at his side in Winterfell. She’s a she-wolf, blood of the North, and though she’s made the dragon’s den her home these last two years, she belongs in the snows and winter winds of her true home. Viserra knew from the moment the raven came that it meant Raya would be leaving her. She’s had two weeks to figure out what to say when her friend eventually told her the truth of it, and yet…now that the moment has come, she’s speechless. “I see,” she mumbles.

“But I don’t—I don’t want to go,” Raya whispers, sinking down on the edge of Viserra’s bed. “I wish to stay here, with you. I love Cregan, and I know I must go back eventually, but…”

(Starks are a proud people, like all Northerners. They have pointedly made little mention of the Targaryen kings in their histories and annals, still sore at being made to kneel to the Conquerors. Raya was no different than her ancestors: her maester made sure she learned the names of the Targaryens and their families, of course, but none of them truly mattered to her, a girl in the distant north who thought dragons were mere legends and their riders unimportant. Until she came to Dragonstone, and saw a girl with snow-colored hair waiting to greet her. A girl who knew how it felt to lose a parent and be expected to be strong despite her grief. A girl who made her laugh on that first day, when she was terrified for her brother and half-convinced she’d never go home again—and has made her laugh every single day since. A girl who loves her, and sees her, and feels like all the home she’ll ever need.

How could Raya ever leave a girl like her?)

“But I want to stay,” she finishes quietly.

For a moment, Viserra feels much older than she is. She hears a voice in the back of her mind telling her that Raya is a fool to think she can escape her duties and live a make-belief life on Dragonstone. She’s a Stark, and Starks belong in their own lands, with their own people. Viserra almost scolds the younger girl for daring to hope that she could stay here a moment longer, when her liege and brother has summoned her home. She must go, and become a proper Northern woman, get married and have children and manage her husband’s household. Noble girls can never hide from their fate—not Raya, and certainly not Viserra.

But—

But there will be time for that, won’t there? Time for husbands and babes and food stores and accounts, time for duty and the mundane, time to grow old and bored. There will be time to do the good thing, the right thing. But for now, can’t they just be girls a little longer? Can’t they dress up for parties and gossip about handsome boys and chase their little siblings around the yard? Can’t they dream for another hour or so, hold each other’s hands and run another week or so? Can’t they just…savor the taste of one another’s company, be girls and friends and dear, dear, dearer to each other than all the rest of the world?

The Viserra who would be queen should tell the Raya who would be a high-born lady to go home. Instead, she—

“If you would be my lady-in-waiting, no one could ever take you away from me again. Not even Lord Cregan. Not even the king.”

“Alright,” Raya replies without a moment’s hesitation. Tears drip down her cheeks, but she makes no effort to dry them. She grins, the crooked, beautiful thing that Viserra has come to rely on more than sunlight or the sea. “You are burdened with me for life now, Princess.”

Viserra nods, only now realizing that she’s been crying, too. “I’ll wear that burden happily.”

☾

127 AC.

To Aemond, there is no castle or keep half as beautiful as the Kingswood cabin. It’s shabby and sloppy and halfway rundown, with great green vines climbing the pale stone walls and ugly woolen rugs overlapping on the floor in front of the hearth. It was not built as a monument to Targaryen greatness, like the Red Keep, or as a proud beacon on the Whispering Sound, like the Hightower; it was built as a distraction from courts and religions and politics, a destination away from power and duty and desire. Tucked into the forest between the Wendwater and Blackwater Bay, far from grasping nobles and obsequious septons, with its wildflower garden and overgrown path and half-painted wooden fence, its creaking stairs and plain linen-made beds and only a trio of servants to ready it for the king and his sons, Aemond finds it more grand than anywhere else in the world.

But the real beauty of the cabin is the view from the roof. Aemond discovered that he could scale the side of the trellis-and-vines wall outside his window on one of their first visits to the cabin, when the sound of his father’s wheezing snores prevented him from falling back asleep after a particularly unsettling dream. Now, nearly seven-and-ten and almost too large to fit on his favorite patch of the worn, sloping roof, he makes it a tradition to crawl up here when he can’t sleep. He spreads a blanket over the stained and chipped shingles and props himself up on his elbows in the still-warm summer night air, alone with only a few thousand stars to keep him company. 

Breathtaking, even all these years later. The constellations he recognizes from maesters’ books glimmer like diamonds against the blue-black drapery of the sky and his heart hitches. Ever since the night that before ended and after began, since half his world was darkened forever, the night sky has called to him and comforted him more than ever before. A sliver of moon watches over him as it did when he claimed Vhagar, and, safe in the silver light, he takes off his eyepatch.

He’d dreamt of it, the night before. That he’d be blinded in his attempt to claim a dragon, and put stars in the place of his ruined eyes. Or just the one, as it turned out. After the maesters stopped checking on the progress of his scars and left him with numbing creams that only half-helped with the pain, he’d pried a pale sapphire from one of Mother’s old necklaces without thinking and shoved it into his eye socket. It hurt almost as much as the cutting itself, but he endured it as he’d endured it all, as he’d surely endure more in the years to come. 

Symeon Star-Eyes did it, he’d told himself, thinking of Daeron’s favorite legend from the Age of Heroes. Completely blind and still a ferocious fighter. But where the knight supposedly wore his stars with pride, Aemond was quick to cover his with a plain black leather patch and hide it from the world. He studied herbalism and healing so that he could tend to his own injury and not rely on maesters to poke and prod at his scar any longer. No one needed to know that there was a thing of beauty hidden amidst his ugly scars and torn flesh.

No one needed to know, either, that he was a dreamer. 

He knew it instantly, in that first morning after, with a certainty that cut through the haze of milk of the poppy and pain and pride and guilt. How else could it be explained? Dragon dreamers were uncommon, to be sure, but they existed; the very survival of House Targaryen was proof enough of that. There was no doubt in his mind that he possessed some sliver of the thing that helped Daenys save her family from the Doom of Valyria, though he hadn’t achieved anything quite so miraculous as her. All he seemed to have as proof of his power were the nosebleeds that followed the visions. But he would never speak it aloud, never share with anyone that there were shards of prophecies in his dreams. Not Father or Mother, not Aegon or Helaena. Not Ser Criston or Grandsire. Not even Daeron.

Daeron. Aemond wonders if his brother even remembers the story of Symeon Star-Eyes, if he remembers anything before he was taken from King’s Landing. He’d been so young then, six and sobbing in the carriage headed for Oldtown; Aemond had cried, too, late that night, palm pressed to the stone in his eye as he wept. The only goodness in his world, the only thing that softened his anger and listened to him and kept him half-sane. He looks up at the stars blinking against the night sky and tries to picture Daeron now, halfway to adulthood and undoubtedly long since grown out of his love of his brother’s stories.

The whine of a window sliding open draws Aemond from his thoughts. He hastily pulls his eyepatch back over his face as Aegon’s head pops up over the edge of the roof. The eldest Green brother grins and awkwardly hoists himself up, gesturing for Aemond to make room on the blanket. “Thought I’d find you here,” he sighs as he flops down beside him.

“We can’t both fit up here,” Aemond shifts into a seated position dangerously close to the lip of the roof. “Haven’t been able to since—”

“I’ve said it a hundred times, but I’ll say it a hundred more, if I must: It was an accident, Aem, and you didn’t even get hurt. The bush broke your fall!”

He glares at his brother for a moment before his pursed lips soften into a half-smile. “Hm.”

Aegon’s eyes flit over Aemond, appraising his appearance: still wearing his dayclothes, eyepatch firmly in place, hair neatly braided back from his face. “Gods, but don’t you ever relax?”

No. “I am relaxed.”

“You’ve still got a knife in your belt,” the elder pokes the hilt of the blade strapped to his soft leather belt.

One of us has to keep our guard up, Aegon, he feels the flare of his temper and turns his eye back to the stars. We cannot all be so flippant and brazen in our disregard of our duties. But isn’t that the truth of it, so succinctly summarized? Aegon, with his tousled hair and lazy smile and unbuttoned shirt, barefoot and charming and drunk. And Aemond, in direct opposition at all times if only because he has to be. 

Good Aemond. Silver Aemond. Second Aemond. Guard dog Aemond.

He learned long ago that he and his brother both have roles to play in life; everyone does, really, but it is most true of kings and princes. Aegon has no interest in his, not yet—he gambles and drinks and sires a bastard on a Flea Bottom whore, but in time he’ll grow into his crown, or so Mother and Grandsire seem to think. He’s allowed to be the rake that he is because he’s young, because he has allies in the Queen and the Hand and the brother that will one day be his sworn shield. But Aemond cannot take such liberties, not when Aegon does as he pleases and flaunts the rules of polite society at every turn. 

Dutiful Aemond. Moonlit Aemond. Second, second, second. 

It would be easier, if he could resent Aegon. If he wanted the throne for himself and loathed his pathetic older brother and sought to undermine and overthrow him. But he wants to serve him, wants to do the noble thing, wants to be his brother’s man until his dying days. Wants to be useful. Wants to be wanted. Needed. Loved. 

“You look like Father,” Aegon continues, and Aemond can hear the grin in his voice, “carrying Blackfyre around the Kingswood when there’s no one but us to see.”

He smiles in spite of himself. The first time they went hunting, Father brought the Valyrian steel longsword to the cabin—to make himself look stronger and more impressive to his sons, no doubt. It had the opposite effect in reality; he looked ridiculously out of place in the woods with the Conqueror’s blade on his hip, with only three boys and a few knights of their household guard—and the birds and squirrels of the forest—to witness his might. But even Aegon knew then to bite back his giggles and fawn over the sword for Father’s benefit, and as a result, Viserys still brings the weapon on each of their trips.

“You’ll be grateful for my caution someday,” he holds out an expectant hand. Aegon slaps a small flask into his palm and Aemond brings it to his lips, grimacing slightly at the smell of the liquor before taking a long sip. “Seven hells. How do you drink this shit?”

“I don’t drink for the taste of it, valonqar, but for the effect. The world is so lovely and warm when you’re a bit drunk,” Aegon pats his thigh and moves back in the direction of the window, swinging his legs over the edge of the roof—and leaving his flask in his brother’s care. “Come down soon. Early morning, and all that.”

Aemond raises a brow. “What’s this? You, telling me to get a good night’s sleep so I don’t show up for a family event cloudy-eyed?”

“Trust that the irony isn’t lost on me,” the elder snorts. “I just…well, you’ll see. Goodnight.”

Once the window slides back into place, Aemond sighs and pulls off his eyepatch again. He takes another swig from the flask, trying not to taste the bitter brown liquor on its way down. Drinking has never held much appeal for him, not like it does for Aegon; a cup of wine or two at supper, perhaps a third on feast days or namedays, or whenever Father’s prattling on with news of Rhaenyra and her brood on Dragonstone grows insufferable. He hates the feeling of overindulgence—the dulling of his senses that has never resulted in anything good or honorable, only a miserable night on the Street of Silk three years past and a blistering headache the following morning. But Aegon has been acting strange since they left the capital two days ago, alluding to a conversation he wishes to have with Father and picking at the skin around his nails nervously like Mother. Reason enough to drink, if Aemond’s ever had one.

In the morning, Aegon’s nailbeds are freshly torn, dried blood like rust on his fingertips as they traipse through the woods. Aemond can’t tear his eye from the sight. Can Father really be so blind? Their relationship has improved over the years, somewhat. But Viserys is still distant and distracted, much like Aegon, and though the part of Aemond that’s always longed for a piece of his father’s heart has now been sated, he hasn’t fully been able to forgive him for his apathy before. Almost seven and a half years to the day, and he can still taste hints of bitter resentment in his mouth when he thinks of how Father stood by that night on Driftmark.

But for his own sake, for Mother’s sake, for Aegon’s and Helaena’s and Daeron’s, he’s done as he always has, and always will: the good thing, the right thing, the dutiful thing. He acts in forgiveness of an old and ailing man, sets aside his own pain for the health of the family. He bites his tongue and swallows the blood that fills his mouth, sweeter to him than any wine. He pretends that his heart doesn’t flood with malice at the mention of Rhaenyra or Lucerys.

(Or her. Her, bleeding and flush with rare rage, shielding her brother with her body in that brief moment before their mother stepped in front of them both. Mouth twitching with fear and eyes wide and disoriented, ruby-red stains in her pearl-white hair, hands balled into fists in her sea-blue robe. He wonders, more than he’d ever like to admit, what she looks like now; if there’s an ugly pink scar on her sanctimonious brow, if she no longer hides the snake within her, if she’s tall and lithe like her father or if she fills out her gowns like her mother. He wonders if she looks like the burned and flaming creature in his dreams that he’s never entirely been able to convince himself isn’t her.)

“Sire,” Aegon blurts suddenly, his voice too loud in the small clearing, and Aemond almost trips over a fallen branch. The vision of Viserra Velaryon fades in an instant, dissolving into the sunlight that bathes the forest in gold. Fitting. 

Viserys turns at the sound of his eldest son’s voice. In this light, the king doesn’t look quite so aged and weathered—he never does, not when they’re out here, away from the poison of the court and the crown. Blackfyre glints at his hip, and for a moment, Aemond remembers a fragment of a boyhood dream: the sword in his hand as he stands at the foot of the Iron Throne. “What is it, my boy?”

“I…I wish to speak to you about something.” Aegon flinches at the endearment, face pale and serious. Aemond narrows his eye; Aegon is very, very rarely serious. The elder glances awkwardly at the two knights and page that accompanied them on the hunt and shuffles his feet over the soft summer grass. “Leave us.”

Aemond watches the others trudge out of the clearing, unsure whether or not to follow them. Ser Harrold seems less than pleased to leave his king unattended, and Aemond shares his uncertainty. The hunting bow strapped over his shoulder presses against him uncomfortably as he eyes his brother and father in turn. “Ae—”

“And you, Aem. Please. Just give us a few moments, will you?” Aegon’s eyes are bright and beseeching, and the sincerity in them startles him. He nods, for what else can he do but what his brother asks of him?

With a final glance at Father, he leaves the two in the clearing, lingering on the edge just long enough to hear Aegon say, “it’s about Gaemon.”

He scoffs and walks east in the direction of a small stream, shaking his head to himself. A ridiculous thing, in his opinion, that the bastard was given a Valyrian name. He likes the boy, to be sure; since his birth, Aemond has grown to enjoy his occasional visits to court. But to be named for Gaemon the Glorious, brother-husband to Daenys the Dreamer, Lord of Dragonstone and survivor of the Doom… Gaemon is a name fit for a king, not a baseborn pup sired on a Crownlands whore. 

(Gaemon. Aegon never imagined that he’d actually be a father. Mother droned on for years about his duties and responsibilities, that he’d ascend the throne and take a noble girl to wife and make her a queen and fill the Red Keep with trueborn heirs. He never listened. That was an idea as far-off and fantastical as any child’s dream—not his dream, though, never his dream—and he wouldn’t trouble himself with the thought until it became a reality. If it became a reality. So he wasted countless days and nights spending his money in gaming houses and his seed in pleasure houses, unbothered by the possibility that one day he would have to pay for his thoughtlessness.

But when Essie placed his hand on the plane of her stomach and told him a babe was growing within her, he was excited, more than he thought possible. He loved her, or at least thought he did, as much as a prince can love a prostitute. He’d been visiting her and her alone for six moons before that, had paid her extra to ensure that she only shared her bed with him; there was no question that the child was his, if he could trust her—and he did trust her, in the hazy, lusting manner of a man enraptured. He brought the boy before Mother and Father just days after his birth, claimed him as his own, and gave him a strong Valyrian name to silence the mutterings of the court. He even gave the boy a room in the nursery so that he could share his time between his father and mother. Born out of wedlock or not, born to a whore or not, Gaemon is his, and will be seen as such by the realm.

And now Mother means to have him sent away.)

Aemond wanders deeper into the thicket, lost in thoughts of bastards and heirs. It crosses his mind, ever so briefly, how similar he is to Mother; she often loses herself on tangents about the very same subject, picking at her fingers or re-adjusting Helaena’s braid to occupy her hands in some unknown nervous compulsion. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, he thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth. He loves Mother. He does. But it strikes him as almost tragic to think that he may end up like her, trapped in a cage of duties she never would’ve chosen for herself. 

There is something eternal about suffering. It never really leaves a bloodline. Smallfolk and small lords alike have always whispered about Targaryen blood being cursed: madness, greatness, self-destructive tendencies. They call it a side effect of marrying brother and sister for so long, of centuries of magic and dragon-taming. But perhaps, if there is indeed a curse in Aemond’s veins, it was gifted to him by the Hightowers. They were kings once, long before the Andals came and dragons reigned, and perhaps they have never forgotten their supposed right to a throne. Grandsire certainly hasn’t. He is the architect of their glory and misery alike, the one who deserves all the credit—or the blame. He placed Mother in her cage.

But she locked the door behind herself, a nasty voice in the back of his mind whispers. He stops in his tracks at the thought, stares blankly into a small stream of pale blue water tumbling gently over rust-brown stones. Can he blame her? She’s made the best of her lot, and really, what else could she do? If he finds himself resigned to her fate, would he not do much of the same?

He, at least, will choose his duties, choose his shackles, choose if he wants the bars of his enclosure to be gold or silver or Valyrian steel. Gold, if I can ever train myself to stop associating the color with her. A crown of gold and a cloak of white, like he’s seen in his dreams. If he ever manages to prove himself worthy of either. He steps over the stream and continues east, surrounded by tall trees and tall dreams of glory and chivalry.

“Aem!”

The scream rings out like sept bells in the forest, sharp and scared, sending birds fluttering from branches and making the hair on the back of Aemond’s neck stand straight up. His blood turns to ice. “Aegon.”

He left Aegon and Father alone in the Kingswood; how could he have been so stupid? The grounds around the cabin are fairly remote, but not free of unsavory sorts of people, and he’s left the king and crown prince alone. He’s running in an instant, heart pounding in his ears, back over the stream and through the thicket and—

They’re not in the clearing. His heart drops to his stomach as he glances around wildly; no sign of either of them, or the others. He draws two blades from his belt, a long, curved hunting knife, and a short dagger, wrapping his fingers so tightly around their hilts that his bones threaten to burst through his skin.

“Ae—”

“Aegon!” He follows the sound of his brother’s voice north, running so fast that he nearly trips over the body.

Body. The page, a boy of no more than twelve namedays, sprawled on the grass between trees in a pool of his own blood. Aemond would’ve been shocked into stillness at the sight of so much blood pouring from a wound in the boy’s head, if not for the rest of it just beyond him.

Bound to a tree and gagged with a strip of his own shirtsleeve is Father, his head slumped forward and eyes foggy and disoriented. Past him, Ser Harrold, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, is curled in on himself, clutching a heavily-bleeding wound at his side. Dying. The other knight’s body lays on the other side of the clearing, a broken spear still lodged in his leg and a gash in his throat so deep he can see the white of his bones. Two other bodies that he doesn’t recognize also lay in the grass. And Aegon—held back by two men with cloth around their mouths to obscure their faces, writhing and jolting to free himself from their grasps. Another man paces in the space between king and prince while a fourth turns Blackfyre over in his hands. 

He doesn’t have time to mourn the loss of Ser Harrold, who he’s known his entire life, or Ser Bryse, who he’s sparred with more times than he can count. He hardly thinks before he lurches into action, his only concern for defending his father and brother.

Aemond hurls the dagger through the air at the man holding Blackfyre, thick red rage cloaking his vision. It lands in his throat with a squelch and a shower of blood (later, he’ll remember the sound of the man choking on his own blood more vividly than anything else; his first kill). He races towards the second assailant with a roar, burying the hunting knife hilt-deep in his belly before the man can even draw a weapon. His eyes grow wide as supper plates as life drains from him, blood-slick hands clawing at Aemond’s as he pulls the knife back out with a grunt.

Father groans in pain, his neck lolling lazily as he comes to, a trail of blood dripping into his greying beard. Aemond’s heart lurches but before he can run to him, one of the men holding Aegon drops his brother’s arm and moves towards him, drawing an ugly shortsword from his belt. Over his shoulder he sees Aegon break free and punch the fourth man square in the nose, the two falling to the ground with fists flying.

(Aegon wishes, in a moment of dread, that he’d listened to Aemond and Ser Criston and even Father. That he’d spent even an hour a week in the training yard instead of Flea Bottom taverns and court girls’ parties. That he’d cared, just a little, for the things he was told he should. That he’d brought a knife on a fucking hunting trip, instead of just relying on his brother to do everything for him. He lands another punch on the man’s face, hears the clash of swords behind him, and prays to Mother and Helaena’s beloved Warrior for strength for the first time in his life.)

Frantically, Aemond grasps for Blackfyre, sweat and terror dripping into his eye. He grabs the sword and whirls on his heel in time to parry a blow from the attacker. For a brief moment, madness grips the edges of his vision, and in the singing of steel on steel, he hears the Conqueror. This is why you’ve spent so many hours training. Do what you were made to do. Protect your brother and your king. 

But this is not the training yard; they’re deep in the Kingswood, with Ser Criston at home in the Red Keep and their other household guards left behind at the cabin. He’s fighting for his life now, not just little glory amongst knights and squires and nameless lords. The man opposite him won’t let him win because he’s a prince, like foolish lordlings do at home when they seek to win favor. He won’t back down, not for a second, even though his sword is no match for Blackfyre and his sheer size is no match for Aemond’s speed. He grits his teeth and spins, narrowly escaping a forceful slash of the other man’s blade—not much of an escape, he realizes vaguely, when he feels the tip of the sword slice through his vest and his skin—asks the Conqueror to strengthen him, cuts upward, and—

Through the heart. Aemond watches the man fall as though watching through a Myrish eye, disconnected from the scene even though the blade is still in his chest and his hand is still on the pommel. His heartbeat slows slightly, body alive with adrenaline, limbs tingling with fury. Hm. So that’s what it feels like. (Good. Right. He should have known. Is it wrong to enjoy the feeling? Would Mother drag Helaena into the sept to pray for days on end for his salvation if he confessed that he liked the feeling of victory, of killing, of an enemy’s blood on his cheek?)

A roar, more animal than human, and the sound of a fist cracking through bone. He looks up from the body before him to see Aegon on top of the other man, blood and brain matter coating his knuckles, a puddle of gore beneath him. He pants and pushes himself up, hair dripping with blood and sweat and the sort of visceral rage Aemond has only ever seen in himself. Aegon staggers to his feet, grabs the discarded hunting knife from the forest floor and makes his way over to Father. Aemond falls to his knees beside the two, unable to speak, pulling the king into his arms as Aegon cuts loose the rope that had been holding him to the tree trunk. 

“Oh, I…” Father mumbles wearily, clutching his brow and leaning his entire weight into Aemond’s chest. “My brave sons.”

They don’t speak of the incident on the ride back to King’s Landing. They don’t speak of it the following day, even when Mother picks and picks and begs for an explanation for the broken bones in Aegon’s hand, the stitches drawing together the wound on Aemond’s stomach, the cut above Viserys’ brow. If not for the dreams that plague Aemond’s nights for an entire week, he would think it entirely fabricated in the back of his mind. Until Father summons him to the throne room early in the morning.

He finds Mother, Grandsire, and Ser Criston already waiting at the base of the Iron Throne, Aegon and Helaena in the shadows behind them. His brother has a black eye and bruised lip, a bandaged hand slung protectively over their sister’s shoulder. Aemond winces at the sight, guilt creeping into his blood; he should never have left them alone.

(Guilt settled around Aegon’s heart from the moment they returned to the Red Keep. How selfish he was, how foolish, to press and berate and abandon Father. He’d merely wanted his approval and permission to move Gaemon into the castle, far from the manor house out in the Crownlands that Mother intended to send him and Essie off to, and acted like a petulant boy no older than his son when Father refused. If he hadn’t stormed away, perhaps he would have fought their attackers off like Aemond did. Instead he cried and whined for his baby brother like a girl. Shameful. And now perfect, honorable Aemond gets the great glory.

He deserves it. He always has. Obedient little fucker, bright as quicksilver in their mother’s eyes. He’ll be grateful for his caution one day, isn’t that what he said the night before, on the roof of the cabin? And now—)

“Aemond, my dear boy,” the king rasps from the throne, beckoning him forward with one crook of his bent finger. He glances up at Criston for approval, but the knight merely offers him a small, knowing smile. A small group of courtiers, septons, and servants scatter through the hall, all watching on curiously. He clasps his hands behind his back and steps forward as Father descends from the throne, pulling Blackfyre from its sheath when he reaches his son. Aemond can almost smell the blood still clinging to the sword, almost feel Aegon the Dragon’s strength seeping from the Valyrian steel into his veins. He looks up with a wide and questioning eye. “Kneel.”

“Your Grace…?”

Viserys knits his mottled hands together on top of the sword, panting slightly from the exertion but smiling nonetheless. “You saved my life one week ago. Mine and Prince Aegon’s. You demonstrated great strength and honor, and defended your family and your king courageously. Your heart is pure, my son, and you are a great credit to the house of the dragon. You have all the makings of a true knight. Kneel.”

Aemond can feel his blood rushing past his ears. A true knight. As though moving through water, watching through a dream, he lowers himself slowly to one knee. Septon Eustace, the queen’s private confessor, appears from behind him with a crystal dish in his hand. Aemond’s heart is in his throat as the septon brushes seven perfumed oils over his brow. Testing out his mother’s religion, he closes his eye and prays: please let this be real. Please, if the gods are indeed good, let this be real. All I’ve ever wanted, silver and moonstruck and lovely, now sits before me. Please—

He feels a cool weight and opens his eye to see Blackfyre resting gently atop his black-clad shoulder. Viserys nods, brow knit together and tears welling in his hazy purple eyes. Oh, seven hells. Father remembered their talk, all those years ago, in those first moons after he lost his eye. It must be real. 

“Prince Aemond of House Targaryen,” the king starts solemnly, voice thick with poorly-contained emotion. “In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent. In the name of the Maiden, I charge you to protect all women. In the name of the Smith, I charge you to be strong and faithful. In the name of the Crone, I charge you to be wise. And in the name of the Stranger, I charge you to be fearless in the face of death.”

His heart beats in time with the movement of the sword from right shoulder to left and back again, and he looks up at Father, pride glowing from his features. Mother, for the first time in years, watches with true admiration, stirring something righteous in Aemond’s core. 

“Do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to care for the weak and defenseless, to obey your captains and your king, to represent your house honorably and humbly, and to fight bravely no matter the danger?”

He opens his mouth, closes it again, fears that vomit may come forth instead of an oath. Suddenly he’s a boy of nine again, afraid to voice his greatest desire. But if little Aemond could see him now, see how he’s achieved half of his heart’s truest wish by the age of six-and-ten, wouldn’t he be proud? His chest swells and he opens his mouth again. “I swear, Your Grace.”

I swear it. I swear I’ll be a better man, chivalrous and devoted and good. All that a true knight should be.

“Arise, Ser Aemond Targaryen, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Chapter Text

128 AC.

Viserra is no stranger to dreams about her father. They come often, a sweet haunting, precious and painful all at once. She welcomes them even though they make her heart ache, because to have Kepa at all, even in this little way, is better than nothing. The dreams are often mere memories, glimpses of their past together: sailing, playing dice games with Lucerys, flying together on Seasmoke. She wishes she were a skilled artist like Rhaena, that she could draw them and keep them forever, so she wouldn’t have to be asleep to remember him so vividly. But for every fifty dreams like these, she has one that isn’t half so warm and lovely. 

The dream starts pleasant enough: Kepa, standing on his boat as she watches him from the shore, smiling and waving. But when she reaches for him or tries to wade through the shallows to climb aboard with him, he drifts further and further away. No matter how hard she swims, she can never catch him. And as soon as she gives up, resigned to losing him, the sea turns to fog and fire. Great billows of smoke and flame swallow him up, reducing him to ash and blackened bones. All she can do is watch, a scream caught in her throat. 

It’s this same dream that wakes her on a grey, warm morning, with Raya snoring softly beside her. But for the first time since his death, Viserra hears Kepa’s voice echoing in her mind, as clear as it was in life. He’s never spoken to her in dreams before, and she’s not sure whether she’s dreaming still or merely imagining it, but his gentle tone is unmistakable. 

“Home,” he says, over and over. “You must go home.”

Viserra wants to scream. Somehow, just the sound of his voice is more unsettling than the dream—-or any other she’s had over the years. It feels wrong, ominous, like when the sky feels heavy with rain but the skies are clear. If she were still a little girl, and Kepa were still alive, she’d throw her arms around his neck and tell him about the monsters and black flames that haunted her dreams. She doesn’t have him anymore. She has—-

Muña. For the first time in her life, it’s Muña she seeks for comfort now. She’s never told her mother about any of her dreams, never cried to her or clutched her skirts in fear. Why would she, when she had Kepa? But now, seventeen and more terrified than she has been in years, all because of the sound of her father’s voice, she wants her mother.

The stone floors of the corridor are cold beneath her bare feet as she makes her way to her mother’s rooms, still pulling a robe over her nightgown as she walks. She can’t bring herself to feel embarrassed that she’s a woman grown crying for her mummy; she just…needs to see her. To feel Rhaenyra’s warm hand pressed against her cheek, to breathe in the smoke-and-lavender scent of her hair. Tears cloud her vision, threatening to spill down over her cheeks, but she would know the way to the chambers at the top of the stairs blind. And when she arrives, barely pausing to lift her fist in a soft knock against the carved wood door, she finally lets the tears fall. 

Only half a second passes before the door swings open. Viserra lets out a shuddering sigh of relief at the sight of her mother. Rhaenyra’s face morphs from confusion to concern, and in silence she folds her daughter into her arms, clutching her against her chest.

“Oh, my darling girl,” she breathes, and Viserra feels her heart burst open and flood her chest.

She wraps her arms around her mother’s waist, nuzzling into the crook of her neck like she must’ve done as a babe. “I had a terrible dream.”

Rhaenyra nods, slowly pulling back to study Viserra’s face. She brushes a curl behind her ear with the sort of tenderness only a mother’s hand can carry. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I dreamt of Kepa,” she looks down at her bare feet, old grief rising in her throat. She wants to say more, to tell her mother the whole of it, but the words don’t come.

(Laenor liked to spend the mornings with their daughter. All of their children, really, but first and foremost Viserra. Even when he'd been out the night before until the hour of the owl and surely drank more than his weight in wines of questionable vintages. He’d wake her in the nursery and take her sailing, only returning her to Rhaenyra by mid-morning. They had their special routine, and Rhaenyra never wanted to interrupt; she had the evenings with the children, anyway, and delighted in reading to them before bed. But she’d heard Laenor mention once or twice that he was concerned Viserra often had nightmares—that on occasion, he’d find her already awake with dried tears on her cheeks and dried blood beneath her nose. In the end, though, they dismissed their concern, convinced themselves it was perfectly normal for a healthy, happy babe like their girl to have a strange or scary dream. But she’d always wondered…

Viserra never mentioned it to her, though, and she didn’t want to pry. Now, however, to see her sweet, strong girl reduced to tears in the early hours of the morning, with the shadow of something bloody beneath her nostrils and a dark look in her lovely eyes, Rhaenyra’s old questions return. Are her daughter’s dreams merely the rare terrors that all earthly beings have, when their imaginations run wild and infiltrate their sleeping thoughts? Or does she see things that are beyond the norm, visions and portents like their ancestor Daenys?

It matters not. Her daughter is distraught, and for the first time since she lost her father, she’s come to her mother for comfort. There will be time, Rhaenyra thinks, to ask the thousand questions that spring to her mind. Right now, she must simply hold her child, soothe her fears, and make her smile return again.)

“I see,” Muña says simply. “Come, sit, and tell me of something happier.”

Rhaenyra laces her fingers through her daughter’s, gently pulling her into her chambers. When the door clicks shut behind them, the light from the corridor’s torches disappears, leaving them in total darkness. Muña guides her slowly into her solar, divided from her bedchamber and Daemon’s shuddering snores by great iron screens. She lights a few candles near the fireplace and gestures for Viserra to sit in one of the plush chairs, their eyes adjusting to the low, flickering light.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Viserra whispers, watching the tiny flames dance.

Muña shakes her head. “I could not find sleep. My nights have been…restless of late.”

Viserra narrows her eyes as she watches her mother carefully, noticing the lack of color in her cheeks and tired purple circles beneath her eyes. She knows this look. “Are you—”

“It’s too soon to be certain,” a fledgling smile grows across Rhaenyra’s lips, “but I believe so, yes.”

“Oh, Muña, congratulations!” Viserra grins. Suddenly, her dream feels as far away as the Jade Sea. Her eyes flick over to her stepfather’s slumbering form. “Does Daemon know?”

Muña’s smile takes on a girlish, almost shy quality. “No. I have not even told my suspicions to Gerardys yet. Only you and Elinda know, and I’d keep it that way, for now. Your brothers…”

“Are horrific secret keepers, I know,” Viserra finishes with a small nod. Luke and Joff are just as bad as old court matrons, and can almost put Raya’s gossiping to shame. Joffrey has become increasingly determined to teach the younger boys his mischievous ways, turning little Aegon and Maelor into miniature versions of himself—which, considering he’s already a miniature version of Daemon, does not bode well for the future of Rhaenyra’s nerves. “But let Gerardys examine you, please. He is faithful to you above Daemon, and will not tell him until you’re ready.”

Before her mother can respond, a knock sounds at the chamber door. Viserra and Rhaenyra share a look of confusion, before the crown princess rises to answer it. Daemon stirs slightly in his sleep but doesn’t rise, and Viserra watches from her chair as the door swings open to reveal the very same maester she’d just mentioned. The older man bows to Rhaenyra, and gives a curt nod to Viserra when he notices her over her mother’s shoulder. His eyes are filled with something wary and unreadable as he slips a small scroll from his shoulder and presses it into Rhaenyra’s hand. Her gaze flicks across the page quickly, and she swears in Valyrian before nodding to the maester.

“What is it?” Viserra asks as her mother returns to her, still scanning the scroll. Something uneasy forms in the pit of her stomach with every second it takes for Rhaenyra to respond.

“Your grandsire, the Sea Snake. It appears he’s suffered an injury in the Stepstones, and—” she cuts herself off with a bitter scoff, shaking her head. “And Vaemond, that prick, is taking advantage of his own brother’s condition to petition the king that he should be heir to Driftmark.”

Viserra’s heart drops as she stands. “He—he means to call into question Luke’s legitimacy.”

Rhaenyra slaps the scroll into her daughter’s outstretched hand. “He will burn us all by extension. Your claim, mine…we will all be at risk now.”

She reads over the missive from her grandmother quickly, noticing the urgency in Rhaenys’ typically pristine handwriting. Her unease grows, turning to a nauseating roil. Her great-uncle is a proud and spiteful man, and has loathed Viserra and her brothers since their births, simply for standing between him and his brother’s throne. Insinuating the truth of her brothers’ parentage at Laena’s funeral was bad enough, but this—

“Vaemond cares only for Driftmark,” Daemon’s voice makes Viserra jump. Her stepfather stands leaning against the iron grate wall, shirtless and barefoot but brandishing Dark Sister. Slowly, on the silent feet of a soldier, he makes his way to them, the first rays of morning light behind him turning his hair to liquid starlight. “Not for our politics. Unless…has he made common cause with Otto Hightower yet?”

Rhaenyra tuts quietly. “This is what I fear.”

The air hangs heavily between them as their words sink in. Viserra passes Daemon the letter, biting her lip nervously. All accounts from King’s Landing in the past year have reported that with the slow decline of the king’s health, it is the queen and Hand who rule from the Iron Throne now more often than not. And if Viserys is not there to defend Luke’s claim, and Vaemond allies himself with the Hightowers, there is surely little hope that her sweet brother will remain the Sea Snake’s heir for more than a fortnight. Her chest aches for Lucerys, who is no doubt sleeping and dreaming peacefully at this very moment, while wicked men plot against him—and for what? Are men so greedy that they would disinherit an innocent child?

(But is he so innocent? A traitorous voice asks in the back of Viserra’s mind. Is he so sweet? She saw what he did to Aemond. True, it was in defense of his sister, but there is nothing guiltless or virtuous about taking a knife to another child’s eye. And it’s not just that. Since the accident, and the death of their father, Lucerys has become prone to periods of melancholy and foul moods; they are rare, to be sure, and never last more than a day or two, but the boy he is during those times is a far cry from the boy he is all other times, the boy she has loved and adored since the moment he entered the world. He is her brother. She will love and defend him until her final breath. But he is not a pure spirit—and neither is she, or any of the rest of them. All the same, it doesn’t make him deserving of whatever schemes their uncle may now hurl at him.)

“Rhaenys has flown to court,” Daemon states in mild surprise. “Surely she cannot be planning to back him.”

“No, no,” Rhaenyra begins to pace around the solar. “We have had our disagreements, but she is not cruel or stupid enough to do that.”

The Rogue Prince lets out an indignant scoff. “Disagreements? She thinks—”

“Daemon.”

Viserra looks up from her hands, where she’d begun to pick at a loose thread on her nightgown, and catches the end of a silent exchange between her mother and stepfather, their eyes flicking between one another and where she sits. A cloud of suspicion crosses her mind but she chooses to ignore it; there are a thousand secrets that Rhaenyra and Daemon keep from her, like all adults do, as though she doesn’t know most of what they think is unknowable. 

“What choice do I have? Those green vipers rule in my father’s name. I will not allow them to spread their venom any further,” Muña sighs, glancing between the two of them uneasily.

Daemon nods, seemingly understanding his wife’s meaning. “To King’s Landing, then.”

“I’ll speak to Luke this morning. Daemon, tell the others separately. Viserra?”

“Hmm?”

Rhaenyra toys with a ring on her finger. “We’ve been away long enough, and at peace here these last years, but…tomorrow, we must go home.”

Home. The word rings like a death knell in Viserra’s ears. She thinks of her father, standing on his boat, being devoured alive by flames and smoke but still managing to choke out the word. Home, home. You must go home. A thought crosses her mind, maddening and sudden. But—no, it’s impossible. She could not have dreamt such a thing as this. She’s never been Daenys, and though her dreams may be…curious from time to time, there is nothing to them. Nothing. 

And yet, as she makes her way back to her rooms to begin packing, she cannot shake the feeling that Kepa’s words were made of more than nothing.

☾

“There is something I need to discuss with you.”

Aemond nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of his mother’s voice. In the dark of his rooms on a rainy, grey afternoon, he could hardly see her when he entered his bedchamber. It doesn’t help that she has a habit of always falling into his blind spot, as though she does it on purpose just to torment him. He sighs, and unclasps his sword belt, resting Blackfyre gently atop a table and turning to face her. “What are you doing here, Mother?”

“This could not wait. I wanted to warn you—”

“Warn me?” He chuckles. “How ominous.”

She gives him a dark look, and he knows better than to push her any further. He’s not Aegon. “We are expecting visitors tomorrow. I need you to be on your best behavior. There can be no…bumps during their stay.”

Aemond bristles at this, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I am always on my best behavior.”

“Aemond,” Alicent lets out a miserable sigh, and in the flickering of the candles, he can just make out that her nailbeds are freshly torn. “You don’t understand.”

He is not the difficult son. He never has been, and never will be. He behaves better, knows better, is better than Aegon, in all things. Nearly a year ago, when he was knighted for what happened in the Kingswood, he thought he’d proven once and for all that he was the more responsible and noble of the two. Aegon may be king in time, but Aemond is the true power of the Green claim, and now, everyone seems to know it. Everyone but their mother.

He gives her a cold stare, waiting for her to explain. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, struggling to find the right words, then settles on, “it’s your half-sister. She and Daemon will be returning tomorrow, with their children, to stay with us for a few days. And the circumstances of this visit are sure to set them on edge, so you mustn’t rise to whatever challenges they set for us.”

Aemond blinks. He’s not sure what he expected her to say—a notable lord, perhaps, come to present his maiden daughter to one of the princes, or a wealthy merchant from across the Narrow Sea. They’ve certainly had their fair share of those, and it’s always fallen to Aemond to be the one set the best example for his siblings; Aegon is far more charming, and Helaena is the most amiable of the three by far, but they can both be off-putting in their own ways, when his brother drinks too much or his sister speaks only about her insects. But this… this, he wasn’t expecting. Rhaenyra, and Daemon, and their children. All beneath the Red Keep’s roof once more.

“Why?” He asks simply, vaguely aware of the growing clouds of anger at his center. 

“The Sea Snake has fallen ill. Ser Vaemond has written the crown to reconsider the succession of Driftmark, putting himself forth as the only worthy heir to the Driftwood Throne should his brother succumb to his ailment. He does not want to see his birthright fall into the hands of Rhaenyra’s bastards. Your grandsire and I will hear his petition tomorrow, as well as Lucerys’s. We had hoped to settle this matter without Rhaenyra’s involvement, but she has sailed from Dragonstone to argue the boy’s claim once more.”

Aemond nods slowly, familiar with the venomous tone in his mother’s voice as she mentions Rhaenyra’s baseborn sons. He doesn’t disagree with Vaemond’s assertion; a bastard is a vile thing, and cannot be trusted to rule over any house, much less one of the most powerful in the realm. Still, though, he thinks the old man is bold to discredit Luke’s claim, when the king himself has upheld it for nearly a decade, since the death of Ser Laenor. His mother is right: Rhaenyra and her brood will surely be ill-tempered and nauseatingly prideful on this visit, like to take anything as a slight. 

He has no love for any of them. He never has. But when little Luke Strong took out his eye some eight and a half years ago, Aemond burned away whatever familial good will he’d tried to maintain for his half-sister and her vicious son. He’s paid as little attention as possible to their lives on Dragonstone, tried desperately to pretend they no longer exist at all. The thought of their return should make him feel nothing but rage.

But—

But he can’t pretend that he doesn’t still think about her. And he cannot help the infuriating way his heart thumps a little faster against his chest at the prospect of seeing her again. The feeling is traitorous and sickening, but it’s there all the same. It’s not his fault. It’s his father’s, and the damned court, for always claiming they were bloodbound. He’s certain he wouldn’t think about her at all if not for that. Right? 

(It has nothing to do with the dreams, those dreams, that haunt and allure him from time to time. It cannot. Because those dreams are meaningless. He does not bleed, and he does not see a future within them. He cannot. He is a knight, a good and honorable man, who will take the vows of a Kingsguard brother when the gods see fit—not some weak and pitiful creature who is laid to waste by thoughts of flesh and fire.)

He clenches his jaw, trying to bring himself back from the edge of his thoughts. “Do my siblings know?” 

“No. I plan to tell them at supper,” his mother slowly approaches him, and lays a trembling, bleeding hand against his cheek—not the scarred one, never the scarred one. Even his own mother cannot bear to touch his mutilated skin. “But I will need your help, my son, to keep your brother in line these next days. He is not so…” she trails off, and Aemond fills in the space for her: well-trained. Dutiful. Virtuous. “...reliable as you.”

He softens slightly at her touch, though her words are knife-sharp. Reliable. Even the most…reliable dog could benefit from a little love from time to time, just a scrap from his masters’ table to satiate him for the year. But Alicent Hightower doesn’t offer her love freely, or at all, and Aemond has long since learned to survive without it. They feed him, command him, put a roof over his head; shouldn’t that be enough? Will any of it ever be enough? He wants, the greedy thing, no matter how he wishes he doesn’t. He wants deeply, painfully, desperately.

“Right,” he clears his throat. “As you say, Mother. Now, if you don’t mind, I must bathe so I do not reek of dragon at the table.”

Alicent hums quietly to herself. “Don’t be late.”

Aemond tries not to think about his half-sister or her children as he waits for a servant to draw him a bath. But as soon as he’s alone in his bedchamber, he removes his eyepatch and presses a finger to the scars where he once had a second eye. He winces, as though he can still feel Luke’s knife slashing through his skin, as though he can still hear the scream that Viserra let out when it happened, mingling with his in the night air in fearsome harmony. He wonders if she knows she cried out. He wonders if she cares. He wonders if she wishes she’d taken his eye herself.

He groans as he pries the sapphire loose from his socket. The pain is almost clarifying, just as it was years ago. Viserra… he’s not sure he knows how to hate her anymore, not like he once did. Once, he was sustained on resentment alone, buoyed along by it contentedly. But that was before. Now, after, he’s just not fulfilled by it the same way. He’d nearly killed her. Perhaps, when her blood was spilled, his hatred went with it. He has never been a soft creature, not like her; no, in that, they truly are night and day. But perhaps he should leave behind his loathing in the before. Perhaps he should try, as a man grown and a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, to let his righteousness and honor extend to her. Luke has wronged him gravely, and the little urchin Joffrey’s bastardy is an offense to Aemond’s pure blood. He can never forgive them, or be seen as anything less than a foe to them. But her —

Perhaps.

Later, at supper, he watches with a fist clenched around his knife as Alicent tells Aegon and Helaena the news. She glances often at her father for support, as though physically weakened by the act of speaking of the matter. His father is notably absent from the conversation—too fatigued, according to the Lord Hand, though Aemond wonders whether Otto has deigned to tell the king what will occur under his own roof tomorrow. Helaena furrows her brow together in concern and immediately begins a silent prayer, her greyish-purple eyes taking on the faraway quality they always do when she speaks to the gods. Aegon, always in contrast, lets out a braying laugh.

“Father will not tolerate this,” he slurs. “He loves the little bastard, and will not see Driftmark go to anyone but him.”

The unusually astute observation from his brother makes Aemond smirk. He’d thought the same thing himself, but didn’t dare to say it to their mother. Alicent’s mouth flattens into a small, angry line and her eyes dart to her father to answer for her.

“Your lord father is quite ill, Aegon,” Otto says with the condescending tone one might use for a child. “He will not be able to oversee the proceedings tomorrow. It is my duty as the king’s Hand to rule with his voice on this matter, and between your mother and I, who know Viserys and his wishes as well as anyone, we will make the right decision on his behalf.”

Aegon chuckles again. “The right decision for yourselves, perhaps. The very, very wrong decision for Rhaenyra. My half-sister and her feral husband will never forgive you if you do this.”

“Why would godly people need a whore’s forgiveness?” Alicent hisses under her breath, her eyes nearly black with sudden rage. “She insults us all by parading those common-faced boys around. Her children are bastards.”

“Alicent,” Otto warns in a low voice, glancing warily at the servants half-immersed by the walls of the chamber.

But Aegon barrels on, clearly in the mood to stir up chaos for no reason other than his own enjoyment. Aemond hates when his brother gets like this. “Not all of them. My niece is plainly Laenor Velaryon’s trueborn child, even if her brothers are not. Would you be happier if Driftmark passed to her instead? If bastardy is your only concern, then surely that should be a fair compromise. Or one of Daemon’s daughters—they are half Velaryons, too, are they not? Perhaps you should ask Rhaenyra if this is sufficient.”

“A girl cannot inherit a seat of such power,” their grandsire replies flatly, clearly bored with Aegon’s game. “The Sea Snake’s granddaughters cannot take the Driftwood Throne any more than Rhaenyra can ascend the Iron Throne. Now, enough of this. We will see it done that Vaemond Velaryon is the next Lord of the Tides, and you will say nothing else on the matter. Do you understand?”

Aegon rolls his eyes but remains silent, simply reaching across Helaena’s plate to steal her goblet of wine, downing it in two gulps. Their sister swats at his hand, coming back to herself with a small grin. She snatches the goblet back and gestures for a servant to refill both cups. “Gaomagon setessis iā qrinuntys hen īlva mirre bisa bantis, lēkia,” she warns in a playful tone. Do not make an enemy of us both tonight, brother.  

Aemond snorts with laughter in spite of himself. Though his sister is…odd, and would rather speak to the Seven or her insect collection than to her own family, she can be terribly funny, and skilled at diffusing the tension that so often arises between them all. Aegon looks between the two of them in obvious confusion, even glancing at Alicent and Otto for help, which only makes Aemond fight harder not to laugh aloud. Their brother’s understanding of the dragon’s tongue is rudimentary at best, near as nonexistent as their mother’s and grandsire’s. Only Helaena and Aemond can carry a conversation in Valyrian, while Aegon can hardly manage more than a few odd words and commands for Sunfyre. Helaena has a far kinder heart than Aemond, but even she can’t help but poke fun at their brother from time to time.

“Ao nārijon zirȳla,” Aemond replies. “Kessa īlon amivindigon tolie, iā arris tepilla?” You’ve shamed him. Shall we torture him further, or show mercy?

Helaena giggles and takes a long sip of her wine to abstain from a decision. Mother seems to recognize the word mercy, and gives her younger children a warning look. “I’ll say this, then let us all put the matter to rest for the night: I am counting on all three of you to rise above whatever petty taunts or insults Rhaenyra and her family may throw at you. We are all good and godly people, made pure by the light of the Seven, and we are better than them. Do not sink to their level. Be generous hosts while they are here, and treat them with the cordiality they are due. Rhaenyra is still a king’s daughter, and like it or not, her children are princes and princesses of the realm. And they are your…family.”

The final word seems to burn her tongue as she spits it out with disdain. Aemond looks down at his hands, suddenly pensive. Family is not an easy concept within the house of the dragon. Rhaenyra is his father’s daughter, but she is hardly his sister. Even Aegon is barely a brother to him. They share blood and names, but may as well be strangers. Oddly enough, Aemond thinks that if any of them ever spoke about meaningful things, ever sat down together and wept and bickered and held one another’s hands, then perhaps they’d find that they all have more in common than they’ve allowed themselves to believe. But that sort of fondness and frivolity is meant for smallfolk and small lords, not princes. Not dragons. 

Aegon disappears immediately after supper. Aemond walks Helaena back to her rooms in comfortable silence, his mind occupied with thoughts of what will transpire the next day. When they reach her door, she pauses, looking up at him curiously.

“Will you come to the sept with me tomorrow morning?”

Aemond tries not to frown. His sister is always trying to get him to pray with her. He is nowhere near the faithful child of the Seven that she is, though he’s tried many times to find comfort and guidance in her gods. But how can he say no? “Alright. Any particular reason?”

“I have a very bad feeling about tomorrow,” she says quietly, her eyes wide and darker than usual. “The gods are angry. I can sense it. Perhaps if you join your voice to mine, they will look down on us kindly.”

He nods, despite the sick feeling her words leave in the pit of his stomach. All he can manage to say is, “as you wish, sweet sister. I’ll come get you in the morning.” But as he walks away, he bites his tongue to fight back what he truly wants to say: I have a very bad feeling about tomorrow, too. 

☀

Viserra hardly recognizes the Red Keep. Queen Alicent’s influence is unavoidable, from the seven-pointed stars that adorn windows and banners where the three-headed dragon once sat proudly, to the green-and-grey hues in servants’ uniforms that have replaced the red-and-black. The Hightowers have taken over the Targaryen castle, made themselves at home in the dragons’ lair. Even Viserra, who has been known to favor the colors and elements of her father’s house over her mother’s, is distraught by the state of her old home. It was bad enough that no one but old Lord Caswell came to greet them upon their arrival, but with every step she takes deeper into the castle, she feels less and less welcome. If she didn’t know better, she would think that it was a Hightower who sat the throne, not a Targaryen. 

“It’s all wrong,” she mutters under her breath as she makes her way to her old rooms. At her side, Rhaena and Raya look around in awe; the younger dragon twin was merely a babe the last time her parents brought her to visit the Red Keep, and the she-wolf has never set foot in King’s Landing. The castle is a great wonder to them both, but to Viserra, it’s a horror.

“You won’t have to stay long,” Raya tries, looping her arm through the princess’s. “Your mother said we needs must only be here for a day or two, then we can return to Dragonstone.”

Her words bring Viserra little comfort. Even if they leave the moment Luke has been reaffirmed as Driftmark’s heir, they’ll have to come back eventually—it may be a year or ten, but King Viserys will die one day, and Rhaenyra cannot rule the Seven Kingdoms from a rock in the Narrow Sea. Sure, they can put Targaryen pennants back up in the corridors as easily as they were taken down, but the fact that they were taken down in the first place leaves a sour taste in Viserra’s mouth. The message is obvious: this is no longer their home. 

But why, then, did Kepa call it such? Why did he warn her that she’d come back if she isn’t welcome here? This place, this castle, this city…it was her first home, and it will be her last home, and it has been her true home all along. She loves Dragonstone dearly, and will spend a great many more years there as the island’s liege while her mother sits the Iron Throne, but King’s Landing is where she belongs. She can sense in her bones that their stay will not be a brief one. And she knows, in a way that she can’t quite put into words, that she will not return to Dragonstone as the same person she was when she left.

She pushes open the door to the bedchamber of her youth and pauses for a moment, taking in the sight of a room she’d nearly forgotten. Sȳndor runs in ahead of her, eagerly sniffing around at his new surroundings. Viserra notices that the furnishings have remained largely unchanged, and if not for the clean linens on the bed and windows, and the lack of her personal effects, she could almost pretend that she’d only left for a few hours to go sailing with Kepa. The thought makes tears well in her eyes, but she swipes them away before her friend or sister can see.

“I hope my rooms aren’t too far from yours,” Rhaena says, peering over Viserra’s shoulder into the bedchamber. “I fear I’ll lose myself in this maze of a castle.”

It’s hard to remember sometimes that Rhaena is Daemon’s daughter. She is all that the Rogue Prince is not: graceful, well-mannered, and soft-spoken, with a gentle heart and light humor. While her father—and her twin, who is the mirror image of Daemon in every way imaginable—is brash and restless, fond of making enemies and starting fights of the physical and philosophical variety, sweet Rhaena is a far more careful creature. But sometimes, when the light catches her eyes the right way, she looks so much like Daemon that it takes Viserra’s breath away; and through the eyes that she shares with her father, she can see the same glimmer of his spirit. Both are observant, calculating, and impossible to fool. Rhaena sees everything, and is already wiser than many battle-hardened men in the ways that truly matter, not just strategy and swordplay, at the tender age of five-and-ten. 

Viserra loves her cousin well, despite the rocky beginning to their relationship following Laena and Laenor’s deaths, when both girls were so sick with grief that they couldn’t see one another as anything but a vision of their dead parents. She grins, and pats Rhaena’s hand. “Don’t fret, sister. I won’t let you out of my sight. Come, let us count the steps from your rooms to mine.”

She leads Rhaena on a short tour of Maegor’s Holdfast, pointing out the other chambers they pass on the way: the king’s apartments, and the queen’s; Aegon’s rooms; Helaena’s; the nursery they all once inhabited; and—

“Aemond’s quarters,” Viserra lowers her voice as they draw nearer to her uncle’s door. She speeds up unintentionally, afraid that he may hear or sense her from within. But she can’t help but glance over her shoulder at his door after they pass it, almost hoping he’ll emerge.

Of all the worries that have clouded her mind over the last few days, as her family prepared for their journey and sailed for the capitol, it’s Aemond that has troubled her the most. What will he do when he sees them? Will he take Luke’s eye as vengeance for what he lost, like her brother has feared for the past eight years? Will he ignore her as he always did in their youth? Will he be changed by his knighthood and the years they’ve been apart? Will he—

“I hate him,” Rhaena whispers bitterly, and the flash of anger in her violet eyes reminds Viserra that she is, indeed, the Rogue Prince’s daughter.

She nods. “I know.”

I do, too, she’s supposed to say, but she can’t quite force the words out. She doesn’t hate him. She can’t. Gods, but it would be simpler if she could.

“Come on,” she tugs at her sister’s arm and leads her swiftly away.

Late that night, Viserra cannot find sleep. She turns around in her bed miserably, unable to get comfortable on the mattress she once called her own; the bed is narrow and stiff compared to the large, plush featherbed on Dragonstone. But more than her physical discomfort, Viserra is afraid. She’s afraid of what will happen on the morrow, afraid of what she might see in her dreams when she closes her eyes, afraid afraid afraid. Fear hasn’t left her heart from the moment she dreamt of her father four nights ago. She hates the feeling, but has no clue how to rid herself of it. Finally, her exhaustion wins over her fear, and she drifts off into a tumultuous sleep.

She dreams of a stone seahorse lying broken in a pool of blood, and when she wakes, she immediately vomits into a nearby wash basin. To her horror, when she wipes her mouth, she notices blood on her trembling hand. Please, she begs whatever gods will listen—the Seven, perhaps, or the Fourteen of Old Valyria, or even Raya’s old gods of the North—please let there be no meaning to that dream. Please let it be just the result of a silly girl’s silly mind, with her silly fears seeping into her sleeping state. And please, please do not let any harm befall my brother. 

She wants nothing more than to go out onto the water to clear her mind, but her skiff is back on Dragonstone, and she’s sure her father’s old boat has been lost or fallen into a state of disrepair. She’d go across the city to the Dragonpit, but she can sense that Gaelithox is in an equally distressed state, angry at being chained up again after so many years of freedom, and her dragon’s frustration would only make her apprehension worse. So she begins to get ready for the day ahead despite her unshakable fears, calling for Jessa to get the Red Keep’s servants to start a fire and a bath. She draws out the process for as long as she can, knowing that she has to look perfect today; all the eyes of the court will be on Rhaenyra and her family, returned from their island fortress at long last. They must look the part of the perfect royal family, even if Viserra feels more like a wilted flower than a proud and unimpeachable princess. She may not be skilled with a blade like her brothers or uncles, but her weapons of choice are of the womanly kind: beauty and charm, deadly in the right hands.

By the time she’s finally ready, after Raya has fussed and fidgeted with her hair and jewels and gowns for as long as Viserra can tolerate, some of her fear has passed. She tries to trick herself into feeling confident by staring at her reflection, and it almost—almost—works. She knows she looks beautiful: in a seafoam blue gown with deep red details on the sleeves and skirts, a gold-and-pearl hair net pinned carefully to her curls, and ruby stones in her ears and at her throat, she looks every bit the Velaryon-Targaryen princess, the daughter of sea and fire. She just wishes she felt half as powerful as either.

As she makes her way to the door of her chamber to meet her mother and siblings, she notices something sitting atop a pile of clothes in one of her chests. A dagger, gifted to her by Daemon a few namedays ago, with pearls and sapphires gleaming on the golden pommel. She doesn’t remember packing the blade. In fact, she could’ve sworn she left it behind. In a moment of madness, when she’s sure Raya isn’t looking, she grabs the dagger and slides it up the sleeve of her gown. 

The steel burns against her arm as they walk to the throne room. Why would she bring it? Foolish girl, don’t you remember what happened last time? A fist to a nose, a rock to a skull, a knife to an eye. A tear in the fabric of a house stretched and ripped beyond repair. And if she hadn’t brought that knife… No. No guilt, remember? You were children, it wasn’t your fault, you only pushed him in defense of your brother, your brother only cut him in defense of you. It would’ve ended more or less the same without the knife. (But even Viserra, with her mastery in the art of deceiving and deluding herself, cannot tell herself that much.)

Viserra slips her hand into Luke’s. Her brother is nearly at a height with Daemon now, and handsome as any Targaryen, with silver-white streaks in his dark brown ringlets, deep umber eyes, and dimples in his clean-shaven cheeks. The little shadow that once followed her around these halls adoringly is a man in his own right now, big and broad-shouldered and, well, strong. She’d do anything to shield him from whatever awaits them on the other side of the great hall’s doors. But this is his battle, one that she has never been able to wholly understand, simply by the fate of their different appearances. She squeezes his hand, trying to imbue some strength through their connected palms—strength she doesn’t feel for herself, but knows that he needs a thousand times more than her. 

“Ready?” Rhaenyra asks as they wait for the doors to open.

No, Viserra wants to scream. She wants to run across the city and jump on Gaelithox’s back and fly home to Dragonstone. She wants to take Luke and Joff with her and hide them away, so no one can look at their dark features and claim they aren’t Laenor Velaryon’s sons and attempt to steal their inheritances. She wants Kepa to hold his children in his arms once more, and make them feel safe and special in the way only he could do. But—

She nods, and pushes it all down. She cannot want, not now; wants are for times without concerns. She pushes her shoulders back and stares straight ahead, dropping her baby brother’s hand so that he doesn’t look like a little boy hiding behind his sister’s skirts. And when the doors swing open and a guard announces their arrival, she can almost convince herself that she’s never felt any fears at all.

All eyes turn to them immediately. Viserra tips her chin up and stares ahead at the Iron Throne, never one to shy away from attention. Figures swim on the edges of her vision, whispers floating through the air around her on invisible clouds, but she ignores them all, her eyes on the throne she’ll one day sit and her mind on the dagger in her sleeve. As they slow to a stop at the base of the steps leading up to the throne, Viserra finally unfocuses her gaze. And she sees them all, registers them in the back of her mind—Otto Hightower, seated where her grandsire belongs; Princess Rhaenys and Baela, dressed in shades of Targaryen black and Velaryon blue to show their allegiances; Vaemond, sneering at her brother as though his vendetta has already been won; Queen Alicent and Aegon and Helaena, each pretending that they’re not staring at Viserra and her family.

But only one of them truly captures her attention.

Aemond. Half a step behind his sister, half a head taller than his brother. Cheekbones high and proud, jaw sharp, lips pressed into a thin line. Hair neatly pulled back from his face and parted over his broad shoulders, long and starlight-silver. A patch of fine leather covering his left eye and the faded, lip-pink scar that tracks across his chiseled face. A simple black doublet with gleaming silver clasps and a sword belt looped around his narrow waist. And—Blackfyre, the Conqueror’s blade itself, strapped to his belt. Viserra’s footing nearly falters. She catalogs every detail of his appearance, engraves it into the walls of her memory. Saves it. Savors it. He’s grown into the moon itself—beautiful in an off-putting way, mystifying and distant and cold, lovelier and harsher than dragonglass.

She stares unabashedly for a moment that feels like an hour, silently daring him to meet her eye. Look at me, she wants to shout. She holds her head higher, shakes her curls away from her face, displaying the white-gold scar that he left the last time she saw him. Look at how I still carry you with me. And then—she watches his eye move, slow and scrutinizing, across the row of faces, and his gaze is growing closer to her, and her cheeks are growing warmer, and— She looks away just before his eye finds her, brown skin flushed pink with the fear—or is it excitement?—of nearly being caught. The corner of her lips dance up into a smile as she turns back to face the king’s Hand as he stands, slipping her hand into Rhaena’s beside her.

(He forces himself to paint the memory of her behind his eyelid, to frame it and hang it on the walls of his mind. To save and savor it, to never forget it.

She’s a vision in a pale blue gown, gemstones ripe and lovely as pomegranate seeds glinting on her fingers and against her ears. A gold V pendant rests between her collarbones on a string of pearls, to match the net sweeping her curls away from her face. Sheer gold paint glitters on her eyelids, her lashes impossibly long and dark. Paint on her lips, too, berry-red and full as rose petals. She’s slightly taller than her mother, with lithe limbs and just enough curve to her waist and hips to define her as a woman, not a girl.

His niece has grown into a creature of great beauty, as brilliant as sunlight, as golden as ever. With the haughty, self-serious upturn of her nose and her refusal to look at anyone or anything but the throne—her throne, if Rhaenyra gets her way—he sees that she’s as proud as ever, too. Vain and smug, making a spectacle of herself in Father’s court, drawing the attention of the whole hall. He can see Aegon’s open-mouthed, unapologetic stare from the corner of his vision, feel Helaena’s unearthly eyes pierce through the space between them. She is captivating, there is no doubt about it. She always was.

And all at once, he feels his old loathing rushing back to him with the ferocity of a thunderstorm. He hates her, viciously, vibrantly, and was a fool to think he could ever do anything but.)

“Though it is the great hope of this court that Lord Corlys Velaryon survive his wounds, we gather here with the grim task of dealing with the succession of Driftmark,” Otto announces. “As Hand, I speak with the King’s voice on this…and all other matters.”

Viserra scoffs quietly and she hears Daemon do the same. This is an outrage. Otto Hightower speaks for his own interests on this and all other matters, with little regard for what either of her grandsires truly want. She’d hoped that the reports over the past year of the king’s declining health were exaggerated, that he’d be able to preside over this mummer’s farce instead of his Hand, but after Muña visited him yesterday and confirmed his ill health, her hopes were dashed swiftly. She narrows her eyes and clasps her hands together behind her, her mind focusing when the knife’s tip digs slightly into her skin.

“The crown will now hear petitions. Ser Vaemond of House Velaryon.”

Viserra hardly registers her uncle’s self-serious speech. She’s heard him make similar comments before: the true, unimpeachable blood of House Velaryon runs through my veins. He’s overt in his suggestion, a statement only one step from treason. She finds herself biting on the inside of her cheek to stop from screaming, my brother is a dragon with the Sea Snake’s name—Driftmark should be so lucky to have him as their lord.

“As it does in my children,” Rhaenyra interjects, “the offspring of Laenor Velaryon. If you cared so much about your house’s blood, Ser Vaemond, you would not be so bold as to supplant its rightful heir. No, you only speak for yourself and your own ambition.”

“You will have the chance to make your own petition, Princess Rhaenyra. Do Ser Vaemond the courtesy of allowing his to be heard,” Alicent Hightower snaps, and she notices Aemond’s mouth curve into a slight smirk over his mother’s shoulder.

She fights the urge to rush across the aisle and slap the smirk from his lips, surprised by the ferocity with which it comes. Vaemond turns to face them with his teeth bared. “What do you know of Velaryon blood, Princess? I could cut my veins and show it to you, and—”

“As could I, uncle,” Viserra blurts. “We could both cut open our flesh here and now, but only I have dragonfire in my veins as well as salt and seafoam. My brothers and I are your kin, and dragons beside, and you have allowed ambition to rule your judgment. Rescind your petition now, Ser Vaemond.”

Her cheeks burn with mortification at her outburst. She holds her uncle’s ice-cold glare for as long as she can before turning her eyes to the floor. Daemon snorts with stifled laughter, but she finds nothing funny about her speech; she bites her cheek harder until she tastes blood mixed in with her shame. 

“My Queen, my Lord Hand… I humbly put myself before you as my brother’s successor, the Lord of Driftmark and Lord of the Tides.”

“Thank you, Ser Vaemond. Princess Rhaenyra, you may now speak for your son, Lucerys Velaryon,” Otto nods, and Viserra hazards a look up at the Hand, whose unctuous smile sends a wave of anger through her body. He would never speak so boldly in her grandsire’s presence. Her eyes track Rhaenyra as she steps to the center of the room. Past her, Aemond watches with something akin to sick fascination in their misery, and she realizes that though his physical appearance has changed into a thing of beauty, his heart is as cold and cruel as it ever was.

Rhaenyra lets out a short exhale before looking around the throne room. “If I am to grace this farce with some answer, I would start by reminding the court that nearly twenty, in this very—”

The sound of the great doors opening interrupts her mother’s speech, and Viserra whirls around for the source of the noise. When she sees her grandsire, bent in half over his cane and already half-wheezing from the effort, her heart soars. The court watches in stunned silence as the king makes his way to the front of the throne room at a painfully slow pace, shuddering with each breath and step he takes.

“I will sit the throne today,” the king breathes, forcing Otto Hightower to remember his place. 

Viserys almost falters, almost falls, as he takes his first steps up to the Iron Throne in—perhaps in years, given Otto’s comfort in the king’s seat. He heaves and staggers, and shoves off his guards, and when his crown falls Viserra feels her heart crack inside her chest. And then—

Daemon is there, and any lingering questions about his loyalties leave her at once. She suspected him, eight years ago, of marrying her mother solely to gain proximity to the throne; even wondered if the birth of his two sons would drive him to depose her own claim in favor of young Aegon. But as he helps his brother up the steps and places the crown back on the king’s head, she realizes she may have been wrong about Daemon. Ambition clouds his blood, as it does with every man, but he loves his family—he would kill for them, all of them, in an instant.

“I must admit my confusion,” Viserys begins, panting from exertion, “why petitions are being heard over a settled succession. I hereby reaffirm Prince Lucerys of House Velaryon as heir to Driftmark, the Driftwood Throne, and the next Lord of the Tides.”

There. Surely no more can be said on the matter. Viserra watches the faces of Alicent, Otto, and Vaemond contort, and flushes with pride. Their scrambled plot to steal her brother’s birthright has been squashed by the king himself, and none can argue with his word. None but—

“You break law and centuries of tradition to install your daughter as heir,” Vaemond spits, stepping forward to the base of the throne. “Yet you dare tell me who deserves to inherit the name Velaryon. No. I will not allow it.”

“Allow it? Do not forget yourself, Vaemond.”

Viserra senses the air thicken, the tension growing to an insurmountable level. Vaemond twitches in his rage and Luke sucks in a short breath. She reaches behind their mother to grasp his arm gently. Her heart aches for her baby brother, so blatantly targeted and attacked in front of so many people. It’s not his fault that he was born with too-pale skin and too-dark hair. “That—” their uncle surges forward “—is no true Velaryon, and certainly no nephew of mine.”

“Lucerys is my true-born grandson, and you are no more than the second son of Driftmark,” the king narrows his eyes. At this, Aemond almost imperceptibly flinches—clearly his own father’s words hit too close to home, Viserra notes with a hint of undignified self-satisfaction.

But Vaemond has started now in earnest, and cannot be stopped. “You may run your house as you see fit, but you will not decide the future of mine. My house survived the Doom and a thousand tribulations besides. And gods be damned, I will not see it ended on account of this…”

“Say it,” Daemon whispers, and Viserra feels her blood boil. Does Vaemond really dare disturb the universe? Anger lashes at her stomach in great red waves. She feels the knife at her arm almost begging to be revealed, the dragon at her core whining for freedom. Say it.

“Her sons… are bastards,” Vaemond hurls his venom into the open air. She reels backwards at the sound of his voice echoing through the chamber. “And she…is a whore.”

Her hand is at the sleeve of her gown before she realizes it, face flushed with fury and fingers gripped tightly around the hilt of the dagger. Her mind reels; does she really intend to use it? She’s a girl, good and golden, not a kinslayer. And yet—she would become an accursed sinner, for Lucerys, for Joffrey, for Muña. There is no grey matter on this subject, only black and white: those who spread slander and treason against the crown must pay the price. If it turns a girl of seven-and-ten into a killer, if it offends the gods, if it pits seahorses against one another, then that is the price she is willing to pay. She steps forward, resigned to her fate—and Vaemond’s.

The king stands, brandishing his own dagger—the very same one that Alicent used to demand her brother’s eye—and snarls, “I will have your tongue for that.”

But—

Vaemond falls to the ground in a heap—headless. Viserra’s mouth falls open at the sight of his head, cut in two, his tongue still twitching. The growing heat in her blood cools instantly and she clutches her mother’s wrist as her eyes trail upwards to the source. Daemon leers over Vaemond’s body, Dark Sister in hand and a satisfied smirk on his lips. 

“He can keep his tongue.”

Chapter Text

Supper is, as Aemond could’ve predicted, a tedious affair. The two halves of House Targaryen sit in pained silence as they wait for the king to enter the dining chamber, and the only sounds to be heard are the occasional slurp of wine and murmurs between Baela and Rhaena at the opposite end of the table. Even Aegon, who usually cannot tolerate an awkward moment of quiet, makes no effort to end their torture with a bawdy quip.

Aemond studies his mother’s pinched expression, her mouth pressed into a thin, angry line, her eyes darting over to Rhaenyra every so often then rolling in frustration. He’s not sure he’s seen her breathe since his half-sister sat down at the table, the king’s empty place between them seemingly suffocating her with its noxious tension. The entire realm knows that the queen and the princess have been at odds since the earliest days of Viserys and Alicent’s marriage, and that night on Driftmark made their loathing for one another all the more bitter. But right now, it looks as though Rhaenyra’s very presence may be enough to kill Alicent once and for all.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, Aemond feels like he finally understands his mother.

Each time he happens to glance in Viserra’s direction by mistake, he feels his heart stop. She’s utterly intolerable, sitting there with the same smug confidence as her mother, sipping daintily at her wine and sharing conspiratorial looks with her brothers. His blood burns with loathing, made a hundredfold stronger by their proximity. As a child, he’d always known his mother hated his half-sister, but never quite understood why . Now, it makes perfect sense. Alicent doesn’t need a reason to hate the spoiled, self-righteous princess, and neither does he. Beautiful, charming, spirited…and sent to this mortal life for the sole purpose of stirring an almost violent hatred within him—Viserra is truly her mother’s daughter, just as Aemond is his mother’s son.

Beautiful. He can’t deny her that. Only a few feet separate them now, and he can see her much clearer than he could earlier. Slender-necked and graceful in every small motion, her smooth copper skin and shiny star-colored hair make her unearthly eyes stand out like precious gemstones. There’s no doubt she’s the blood of Old Valyria; he can’t imagine anyone else could have such pristine features. But—no , she’s not entirely perfect, though the slight imperfections almost amplify her beauty instead of detracting from it: her full-lipped grin is lopsided, creating a dimple on only one cheek, and there’s a small smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. And, of course, the scar.

His scar, he thinks with a sudden flash of possessive pride, immediately followed by guilt. It was wrong to hurt her then, and it’s wrong to look at the mark he left and feel anything but remorse now. Is it wrong, though, to think that the little tendril of raised pink skin that creeps out from the line of her hair makes her face even prettier? That the shape of it could almost be described as a crescent mo—

The doors open with a noisy clatter, blessedly interrupting his thoughts. Aemond shoots to his feet instinctively at the entrance of the king, hobbling along at an agonizingly slow pace between two men of the Kingsguard. He lowers his eye out of respect, grateful to be forced to look away from his niece. As he waits for his father to be helped into his seat, a different sort of anger clouds Aemond’s thoughts.

Viserys insisted that his entire family join him for supper tonight, which would have been a miserable enough gathering on the best of days. But after the events in the throne room earlier, the meal carries an even more acute threat of torture. He scoffs to himself, remembering the sight of Vaemond Velaryon’s head cleaved in two. Daemon’s blade had been quick as a flash of lightning, and infinitely more lethal. It was impressive, if not gruesome, especially in the presence of so many people; but the Rogue Prince has never been one to shy away from brutal displays of his own prowess. Aemond admires him for defending his family, though he’d never admit it to his mother or grandsire. One could never say that Daemon Targaryen isn’t willing to do what it takes to secure the name and honor of the dragon. And it was an affront to all of House Targaryen, what Vaemond said earlier; Aemond may not have anything but venom in his heart for his half-sister, but the daughter of a king cannot be insulted so grievously in the king’s own hall for the whole of the realm to hear. A tongue, a life…the Sea Snake’s brother had to lose something for his outburst.

His thoughts slip back to Viserra before he can stop them. He’d been just as shocked by Daemon’s actions as he was to see another flash of steel in the space behind him—perhaps more so. It would be false to say the knife in her hand wasn’t at least a little intriguing. The girl that once lived in these halls alongside him would never carry a blade; she was much more like to be found with a book, a harp, a sewing needle. That girl would listen to poets’ stories of courtly love and star-crossed couples with a dumbstruck look on her little face, and could never stomach bloodshed. Dragonstone has changed her, it seems. Or perhaps it was watching Lucerys cut out Aemond’s eye that changed her.

A fresh storm of hatred ripples in Aemond’s stomach, and he looks away from his niece in disgust.

“How good it is to see you all tonight,” the king rasps as he settles into his chair. “Together.”

Together. There is no togetherness in this room.

“Prayer before we begin?” Alicent asks with a small, pained smile. Aemond bows his head dutifully, but keeps his eye open, glancing around the table to watch if the Blacks honor her request. To his surprise, only Viserra makes any display of reverence, though he doubts it’s a genuine one. “May the Mother smile down on this gathering with love. May the Smith mend the bonds that have been broken for far too long. And to Vaemond Velaryon, may the gods give him rest.”

Aemond hears a small scoff of incredulity come from Daemon’s end of the table. He can’t help but share his uncle’s shock at the queen’s words; it seems incendiary to mention the man now, so soon after his death, in front of the man who dealt the killing blow. Rhaenyra places her hand over her husband’s—and it is not lost on Aemond that she touches him with a hundredfold more affection than she ever touched Laenor Velaryon—and his cruel smirk fades. The Rogue Prince, cowed by the smallest gesture. It’s almost laughable. Aemond would never be so easily swayed by a woman.

“This is an occasion for celebration, it seems,” Viserys seems to notice the new tension set ablaze by his wife’s words and glances between the two sides of his family, green and black, silver and gold. “Let us toast to Prince Lucerys, future Lord of the Tides.”

“Hear, hear,” Rhaenyra says quickly, the pride in her son evident on her face. The king wears a similar expression, watching his grandson lift his cup in thanks as though the boy were his own son. Aemond bristles at the genuine warmth in his father’s eyes, anger and neglect mixing in his chest. Viserys has never looked at him that way, or Aegon, or even Helaena; not even when Aemond was knighted did his father wear even half so much pride on his weathered face. All for the bastard boy who took his eye. The boy who was never reprimanded, never punished, now given yet another boon from the king.

He seethes as the whole table cheers Luke Strong, glaring at him and wishing he could breathe fire like Vhagar and burn the boy where he sits. As Rhaena whispers something to her brother-cousin and Baela takes a long gulp of her wine, Aemond notices Aegon take advantage of the moment to lean closer to Viserra. A flash of something tears through Aemond, but he can’t quite name it; the feeling is not as clean and predictable as anger. He’s watched his brother leer at a thousand ladies and servant girls and whores in his lifetime, and never felt quite as shameful by proxy as he does now.

(Aegon has never shied away from the opportunity to speak to a beautiful woman. Speak to her, kiss her, ply her with wine and have his way with her… There is no denying that his niece, who was a pretty, bright thing as a girl, has grown into a woman of peerless beauty. Her fine features speak to the dragonblood in her veins, something that Aegon has always found himself attracted to, though such pure and powerful blood is diluted in the whores he frequents, like Essie. There was a period of time when he was fourteen that he’d think of the portrait of Rhaenyra that hangs in his father’s chambers whenever he’d touch himself at night, and spied on Helaena while she bathed; he’d even hoped his parents would force him to marry his sister so that he could bed her whenever he wanted, although the little septa’s company would have made a life in matrimony to her a miserable thing. Now, with his niece beside him, he wonders if he’s in the presence of a goddess—the Maiden made flesh, perhaps, or some old Valyrian deity he’s never been allowed to worship.

He cannot begin to fathom why his brother is so intent on not looking at Viserra. He’s noticed the furtive glances he casts her way when he thinks no one can see him, those searing, one-eyed stares that could burn through steel like dragonfire. His eye darts to their niece and away quick as lightning every half-minute, which Aegon finds utterly ridiculous; Aemond should just gawk like he himself is currently, and drink in the golden princess’s beauty like any normal man. It’s almost insulting to keep looking away. He knows that there is…sour blood between them, to put it mildly, but gods be good, Aemond doesn’t have to forget the hatred that sustains him! He can just appreciate her, like one might appreciate a fine vintage of Dornish gold. Speaking of wine—)

“You know, my lady,” Aegon murmurs against Viserra’s ear, far too close for common propriety. “It is ill luck to make a toast with an empty cup. Allow me to refill your glass.”

Viserra turns to him, with a practiced smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I did not take you for a gentleman, Aegon. By all means.” She holds the stem of her goblet between slender, ringed fingers, watching Aegon closely as he reaches for a decanter. Her gold-speckled eyes slowly drift up from the elder prince’s hands, long lashes blinking slowly, and land on Aemond with an unreadable expression. A silent threat, he thinks, though he can’t be sure. Caught, he glances away quickly, pretending to study with fascination the small beetle that sits on Helaena’s sleeve so still it could almost be mistaken for embroidery. His cheeks feel oddly warm, and he blames the golden snake for the sudden wave of embarrassment filling his chest.

“Oh, not to worry,” he hears Aegon continue, the smirk evident in his voice. “I am only a gentleman when I need to be. At supper with my mother, for example. But if you so desire, I can show you that I am far from chivalrous at other times. There are a great many things I can show you, sweet niece. Perhaps later, I can find you alone, and we can…catch up. You’ve been away far too long, and I should like to know you better now.”

Aemond nearly chokes on his tongue. He hears Viserra let out a demure hum but doesn’t dare to look up at her again. “You presume too much, dear uncle. I would not, if I were you, hold my breath in hopes of any chances of finding me alone. I will be gone again on the morrow, or soon enough, and plan to spend my remaining time in the capital with my sisters and aunt.”

“They are more than welcome to join us,” his brother shrugs, the faint slur of his words more than enough to hint at how much he’s had to drink tonight.

Abruptly, Viserys pushes himself up from his chair, breathing heavily. Aemond stiffens, both grateful for the interruption and incensed by Aegon’s vulgarity. “It both gladdens my heart and fills me with sorrow to see these faces around the table. The faces most dear to me in all the world, yet grown so distant from each other in the years past.” 

“My own face is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was,” he continues with a wry, wheezing chuckle. “But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am. Not just a king, but your father, your brother, your husband, and your grandsire. Who may not, it seems, walk for much longer among you.”

Aemond’s heart clenches behind his ribs. His father’s health has been disintegrating for years, and the attack in the Kingswood a year ago only sped up his decline. But he’s not dying, not yet. He can’t be. Aemond knows the details of his condition near as well as the maesters, and they’ve assured him a hundred times that the king will live a few years more. And this family, this realm, needs all the time with him that they can get.

“Let us no longer hold ill feelings in our hearts. The crown cannot stand strong if the house of the dragon remains divided. Set aside your grievances,” Viserys slams his cane into the floor, and Alicent closes her eyes, the expression of weary unhappiness Aemond had seen a thousand times in his youth, “if not for the sake of the crown, for the sake of this old man, who loves you all so dearly.”

A ripple passes across the table, all Targaryens looking uneasily at one another and trying to avoid the king’s eye. We all know the truth , Aemond thinks with a hint of sadness. He doesn’t love us. Not all of us, and not in equal measure. He wonders if Rhaenyra cares at all that their father has fondness only for her and her children, not his second family. He wonders if his half-sister simply thinks of it as her birthright. Viserys slumps back into his chair, seemingly unaware of the dark cloud forming over his table.

“I wish to raise my cup to Her Grace, the Queen,” Rhaenyra stands just as suddenly as their father had, surprising Aemond. She seems just as surprised herself, but the sincerity in her eyes rings true. “I love my father, but I must admit that no one has stood more loyally by his side than his good wife. She has tended to him with unfailing devotion, love, and honor.”

Honor. What does Rhaenyra—what do any of them—know of honor? Aemond wants to cling to his bitterness, but he finds it slipping through his fingers like water. She means it, he realizes with a foreign sense of melancholy. His eye flits over to his mother, whose large brown eyes fill with…sorrow? Gratitude? How odd. Just a moment ago, she’d been glaring at Rhaenyra like a demon from the depths of the Seven Hells. His half-sister bites her lip, fighting back a fledgling smile, as she finishes, “and for that she has my gratitude, and my apology.”

“Your graciousness moves me deeply, Princess,” Alicent manages, barely able to meet Rhaenyra’s eyes. “We are both mothers, and we love our children. We have more in common than we sometimes allow. I raise my cup to you, and to your house. You will make a fine queen.”

Aemond stares at his mother in utter shock. Never once has he heard her acknowledge his father’s declaration that Rhaenyra should be queen. Not even publicly, to appease other lords or council members. Usually she simply remains silent; and behind closed doors, of course, she is the most vocal of Aegon’s champions, constantly slamming the suggestion that the Realm’s Delight will ever manage to sit the throne. This day has been full of surprises, it seems. 

“I would like to toast to Baela, Rhaena, and Viserra,” Helaena blurts. “It warms my heart to see that you have all grown into such lovely young women. We will all be married soon enough, and I am certain that you will make wonderful wives. And you, Viserra, a wonderful queen, though not for a great many years, if the Father Above is just.”

“Well done, my girl,” the king says quietly, and the Hand and queen mutter their agreement. A strange toast, but then, Helaena has always been a bit strange, in her own endearing manner. “Let us have some music.”

The group of musicians on the side of the room who had been waiting patiently finally begin to play, and Aemond recognizes the first few notes immediately. Helaena and Viserra loved it when they were younger, always asking court bards to play the song over and over again. Now, they share an excited look at the fond memories brought on by the tune—and, before he realizes it, Viserra stands and approaches her aunt. She must be mad, he thinks, or perhaps had one too many cups of the king’s fine vintage. She holds out a hand to Helaena, who accepts it with a soft laugh and follows her to the open floor across the chamber.

For a few moments, all Aemond can do is watch them dance, twirling one another around and hopping gracefully in time with the music. He doesn’t care that he must be staring; he’d be willing to wager Blackfyre that the rest of the table is staring, too. Viserra dances with the same natural beauty of a tide, moving without thinking, her limbs liquid and long and lovely. Helaena smiles wider than he’s seen in years, her usual subdued, quiet piety lost in an instant as she dances with their niece. He relaxes slightly, sipping his wine with a small grin, pleased to see his sister so happy. Even if it’s at her hand.

The stiff, strained air that had suffocated the room for the better part of an hour dissipates as the music continues, and Aemond drags his gaze away from the dancers to look around the table. His grandsire and mother share a quiet conversation, devoid of their typical expressions of concern or scheming, and he notices Alicent even laughing at something her father says. The twins are engaged in a lively debate on riding horseback side-saddle or astride, talking loudly over Lucerys, who watches them like one might watch a jousting match. Aegon is content to drink and mutter to himself, no doubt already planning what trouble he’ll seek out once their father excuses him from the table. And Rhaenyra and Daemon have their heads bent together in a loving exchange he can’t hear, but by the movements of their lips he thinks they’re speaking the dragon’s tongue, not the Common.

They all look…happy. Whole. Content. They look like a family.

And Aemond sits alone, watching, wanting. He doesn’t know what else to do. 

☀

She doesn’t notice the pig.

They’d been having such a lovely time, her and Helaena, spinning around in each other’s arms and giggling like girls again, dancing to the song they’d loved so many years ago. For a few, blissful moments, Viserra could almost forget what she’d seen earlier. And after that, she needed to lose herself in a small moment of loveliness.

Vaemond Velaryon is gone. He called her mother a whore and her brothers bastards, and lost his life for it. Part of her felt sated, impossibly pleased, bloodlusting and righteous. Another part of her felt utterly disgusted, and inexplicably guilty. But more than anything, she had no idea what to make of what she’d seen before her great-uncle opened his miserable, treasonous mouth. A seahorse, broken and bleeding—dead. That scares her most of all, though she’ll certainly see Vaemond’s split skull and lolling tongue whenever she blinks for the next moon’s turn. But she’d—she’d seen it, before it happened, in a fashion. Not directly, not accurately, but…but almost. Almost like—

Like a prophecy.

(No. She can’t allow herself to think like that! She’s not Daenys, not a dreamer, not anything but human, dependable Viserra. She doesn’t dream like her ancestor, and won’t go mad and die like her ancestor. She cannot . She has a realm to rule one day. All the same…

She wonders, in a maddening moment as Helaena presses her palm to hers and they leap on graceful feet, if there are any books in the Red Keep’s library on dragon dreams and the prophecies of her ancestor. She’s heard Gerardys mention Signs and Portents, but no complete collection of Daenys’ dreams exists anywhere in Westeros or beyond; the dragonrider’s visions were stronger in her youth in Valyria and grew harder to understand after coming to Dragonstone, and by the end of her life, no one made an effort to find the shards of truth in what she claimed she saw. The maesters and mages let her die wild and misunderstood, her dreams forgotten and dismissed. Even on Dragonstone, the records of her dreams are poorly-maintained and hard to read. But perhaps there is something, anything, here in King’s Landing that she could find to help her make sense of what she’s starting to think she can no longer dismiss about herself. That she may, in fact, be—)

The king is escorted from the chamber, leaning heavily on the arms of his guards. Helaena and Viserra pause their dance and curtsy to Viserys, and a heavy lump of melancholy chases away the last of Viserra’s absurd thoughts. It saddens her greatly to see her grandsire in such a condition; they’ve been away too long, she knows now, and have missed valuable time with the sweet king who loves them so well. He has aged twenty years in seven. Whatever strength remained to him even just a year ago was stolen when he was attacked in the Kingswood, and now he is but a poor recreation of the man he once was. She watches him depart, then wipes the sorrow from her lungs and turns to smile at Helaena.

“You’re a brilliant dancer, dear aunt,” she nods approvingly. “You always have been.”

“Me?” Helaena lets out a small, breathy laugh. “You are incredible. You move as though the Maiden herself has slipped into your shoes. Such grace is a compliment to the Seven.”

Viserra isn’t sure whether her aunt expects her to thank the Seven or her for the kind words, so instead she merely ducks her head humbly and links their arms together, leading her back to the table for another drink. And that’s when she notices the pig.

She stops in her tracks when she hears her brother’s laugh, the sweet sound stained by something darker, crueler than usual. A fist slams on the table and she looks at the source in confusion, then notices that Aemond has risen to his feet, his lone eye burning a hole in the massive roasted pig that’s been placed on the table directly in front of him. His searing glare drifts up from the sizzling, golden pig to Lucerys, who laughs again.

Oh, gods. The Pink Dread has risen from his grave to haunt them. “Final tribute,” her uncle says, his voice almost hauntingly devoid of emotion. “To the health of my nephews and niece, Lucerys, Joffrey…and Viserra.”

She realizes then that she hasn’t heard him speak in eight years. Eight years, and the way his mouth moves around her name still sends a jolt like lightning through her body. She glances nervously between her brother, the pig, and Aemond. The sound of her snort echoes in her mind and she knows that Aemond must still hear it, too, given the miserable smirk on his face as his lilac eye bores into hers. “Each of them gracious, wise…” he turns to Lucerys, and Viserra finds herself wishing, much to her surprise, that she hadn’t left the dagger in her rooms when she changed for dinner. Don’t say it, she silently pleads. “Hm. Strong.”

“Aemond,” Alicent warns, but her son is too far gone now.

“Come. Let us drain our cups to these three…Strong Velaryons.”

She sucks in a short breath, sudden anger lapping at her bones. The brief magic and madness she’d felt dancing with Helaena—when she’d wondered, just for a moment, if coming home to King’s Landing could be a happy thing, not a punishment—is gone, gone forever. “I dare you to say that again.”

Aemond gives her a withering look, one she remembers well. “Why? It was only a compliment. Do you not think your brothers Strong? Perhaps you’re just as Strong as they are, Princess.”

“Don’t speak to her like that,” Lucerys spits, and from the corner of her eye she sees her brother round the table.

She steps forward at the same time as Aemond, and her heart flies into her throat as she realizes he’s stalking towards Luke, with a gleam in his eye that she hasn’t seen since he held a rock above her head. Fury rises like a tidal wave in her stomach. She won’t let him hurt her brother again, even if, at this moment, Luke may or may not deserve his ire for dredging up such black history. She has no blade, no power beyond her anger, but she will not allow any harm to befall Lucerys—or any of them.

Without thinking she takes another step towards him—and when he tries to shove past her, she slaps him.

The sound of her palm on his cheek echoes throughout the room for a split second before Luke launches forward, only to be held back by Aegon. Viserra watches with wide, disbelieving eyes as Aemond smirks and turns away from her. He almost looks…pleased that she’s hit him. Pleased that he’s drawn out the dragon beneath her skin once again. She wonders if he’s the only person on this earthly plane that can do this to her. Vejes-idañi. Her cheeks burn at the thought, and at the general mortification of slapping someone—anyone, but especially him. Her mother comes to stand between her and her brother, who writhes and struggles against Aegon’s firm hold.

“Why would you say such a thing before these people?” Alicent hisses. Before these people. No doubt she doesn’t correct him when he says it in private.

“I was merely expressing how proud of my family I am, Mother,” Aemond leers, turning back to face them. “Though it seems they aren’t quite as proud of theirs.”

Lucerys grunts and breaks free from Aegon, but before he can rush at Aemond, Daemon steps between them. Viserra feels her chest rise and fall heavily, face flush with anger, and she wants to rip her uncle’s throat out with her teeth for talking to her brother like that. Rage and guilt swirl inside of her in equal measures; she never thinks such things, never feels more dragon than human.

“Go to your quarters,” Rhaenyra seethes, a rare flash of disappointment in her eyes as she looks at her children. “All of you. Go, now.”

Viserra’s heartbeat slows and the adrenaline drains from her, leaving only remorse behind. She nods and turns to the door, pulling Luke by the hand and nodding for the twins to follow. She’s supposed to be the perfect, golden heir and gleaming example for her siblings—and here she is, striking her uncle like a common girl in a tavern brawl.

“Sorry,” she mumbles to Luke as they trail down the hall after Baela and Rhaena.

“For what?” He loops his arm through hers and grins. There’s a mildly mad gleam in his dark eyes that concerns her. “Gods, did you not see the look on his face? Ha! I would give a thousand gold dragons to see that again.”

Only her brother could make her laugh through her shame. She rests her head against his shoulder and sighs. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“Go on ahead of me, valonqar,” she presses a kiss to his cheek. “I need to apologize to Muña.”

He eyes her carefully but nods before turning and jogging after the twins. Viserra watches them disappear around a corner with a wistful sigh and rubs a hand over her face, trying to replay the last hour in her mind. Dinner had been going well, and for a moment, the chasm seemed to shrink ever so slightly. Perhaps she’d had a bit too much wine, but she’d enjoyed dancing with Helaena, and really thought she could see herself rebuilding her life in King’s Landing. Even when it seemed impossible, during those years apart on Dragonstone, she’d hoped for a time when they’d all be brought back together. 

And then the fucking pig came out, and all of their childhood resentments with it. The Pink Dread seems so small now, in comparison to the fight that followed it not three moons later, but clearly Aemond has yet to put it behind him. And Luke just had to laugh, to rub salt in the wound. Her brother is good-hearted, but Aemond has always had an uncanny ability to bring out the worst in him—in both of them, if her slap is any indication of her true feelings towards him. But she has never wanted them to be at odds, certainly not like this. They’re supposed to be two halves of the same whole, are they not? The sun and the moon, silver and gold; different, yes, but bound together. And yet—

“Viserra.” 

Viserra almost collides with another body as she rounds the corner of the corridor. When she looks up and finds Aemond, smirking down at her with insufferable pomposity, she reels back. Just moments ago, her name sounded like honey—now, it sounds like a curse. She throws one back. “Aemond.”

His eye is near-black as it burns into her, and she fights the urge to wither under its heat. “How is your hand? Not in too much pain, I hope.”

(A coin flips. 

Apologize, or stand your ground. Viserra watches it spin through the air, heart torn in two. Remain in the sunlight, or descend into the moon’s territory.

The coin lands.)

“How kind of you to ask. My hand is fine, though I can still see its imprint on your face,” she nods to the faint red mark on his cheek, just below his scar, and offers him her sweetest smile. “I do hope that…disfigurement heals quickly.”

Aemond’s lip curls. “I do believe I’ve underestimated you, niece. Drawing knives from unseen places in the throne room, striking your betters at dinner… Not exactly the behavior one would expect from a princess.”

“And you think you behaved in a manner befitting a prince?” Her nostrils flare. She didn’t think anyone had noticed she’d drawn her dagger. “I know you, Aemond. You are a cruel-hearted snake, and you are certainly not my better. Play-act as a noble little knight all you want, but remember your place. Good night.”

At that, she turns on her heel and all but runs in the opposite direction, heart hammering against her ribcage. She’ll apologize to her mother in the morning. Spending another second in Aemond’s presence may make her lose the contents of her stomach—or worse, slap the arrogant smirk from his face again.

Aemond. She turns and twists in her sheets well into the hour of the wolf, afraid her uncle will infiltrate her dreams. Her palm burns from where it met his skin and she presses it against her cheek (to cool down, she tells herself, certainly not to feel him again). She hates him. Hates him! And yet he’s eating her thoughts alive, more imposing in her mind than Vhagar herself.

Finally, when she can no longer fight sleep, she dreams of their hands wrapped together around the hilt of Blackfyre, King’s Landing and the realm beyond burning around them.

When she wakes, eyes still weighed down and clouded by restless sleep, there’s a figure sitting at the edge of her bed.

“Raya,” she mumbles, blinking slowly and reaching blindly.

“Not quite,” a voice responds. Viserra forces her eyes fully open and finds her mother perched on the mattress, smiling softly.

She sits up, and Muña’s smile falters. “What’s—”

“Your nose,” she frowns, brow knit together in concern. She reaches into the sleeve of her gown for a handkerchief. “It’s bleeding.”

Fuck. Viserra accepts the square of fabric and hastily wipes the blood from her nose, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “Ah. The air is quite dry here,” she tries.

“Indeed,” Muña nods. Her smile returns but doesn’t entirely reach her eyes. “Well, I know the hour is early, but I wanted to inform you that the king has asked us all to dine with him this morning. Again.”

Viserra gives a small hum of understanding. Her grandsire had looked so thrilled to see his family together last night that it comes as no surprise he’s eager to have them all together again. Especially if we still plan to set sail on the morrow, she thinks. And only the gods know how long it will be before we return… if we make it back while Grandsire is still alive. “I will be glad to spend more time with him.”

Not the rest of them, though. A flash of regret and embarrassment passes through her mind as she thinks of her actions last night. Striking Aemond was shameful. But none of the Greens, excluding sweet Helaena, were particularly kind and welcoming, either. Alicent and Otto spent most of supper glaring at Rhaenyra, Aegon only came up from his cups for air for long enough to flirt crassly with Viserra and her sisters, and Aemond…well, there aren’t enough words in the Common Tongue or High Valyrian to express his behavior. She was a fool to think that she and her family could pass more than a few days in the city happily; no, they are meant to return to Dragonstone, that much is certain.

“Yes, and he will no doubt be glad to spend time with his beloved granddaughter. But it is of the utmost importance that you make amends with my half-brother first.”

Viserra’s hand falls to her lap, the bloodied kerchief crumpling in her fist. She stares at her mother blankly. “Make…amends? With Aemond.”

Muña nods again. “I do not need to tell you that it was…unbecoming for you to strike him as you did last night. I know he was the one to provoke you, and you were only acting in Luke’s defense, but my father had the right of it: we must set aside our grievances, and try to be as one family once more.”

A disbelieving scoff falls from her lips before she can stop it. “And of course I must be the one to play nice, to roll over and show my belly in submission to that beast. He would have exacted his revenge on Lucerys had I not intervened, over a stupid pig on the supper table! Or have you forgotten what he and his wretched mother are capable of? Do we not both bear scars as proof of their devious nature?”

She’s not sure where the anger comes from. The scar on her temple throbs, like it can sense that she’s mentioned it. She thinks about the jagged line on her mother’s forearm that has never quite healed, the way Luke’s nose is still slightly crooked. They have done too much damage to one another for even the smallest of grievances to ever truly be set aside.

“I know,” Rhaenyra says with a bitter twist of her lips and a cold fire in her eyes. “Trust me, daughter, I know. But we cannot fall to their level. We are the true dragons, and we must remain above the fray of their insults and little treacheries. It will serve us better in the end that we held ourselves to a higher code of conduct.”

Have I not done that my entire life? She wants to scream. Have I not held my head cloud-high at all times, let Green disrespect against my family glide off of me like water from a duck’s back? And the one time I breathe fire, I am admonished for it, though Daemon can go around severing heads and Luke can laugh and take boys’ eyes with no reproach from you. Oh, how rewarding it is, to be a woman. She says none of it, though it begs to be spat out from behind her bit tongue. She understands why. But that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

“Fine. I’ll apologize to the one-eyed brute, but if he says anything—”

Muña gives a good-natured roll of her eyes. “Gods be good, are all of my children turning into small replicas of Daemon? You were meant to be the good one.”

The words sting, though they’re meant as a compliment. Viserra swallows the lump of emotion that rises in her throat and attempts to smile. “I was only going to say that I’d throw a honey cake at his head, not run him through with a sword.”

“I cannot argue with that. Come now, darling girl, and get dressed. I will meet you at the king’s table. And make sure that Lucerys is on his best behavior as well, won’t you?”

She allows her mother to press a kiss to her brow, and watches her depart until the heavy wood door clicks shut behind her. Then she turns and screams into her pillow.

☾

Aemond wants nothing more than to dunk himself in a freezing cold bath and scrub his skin raw. Unfortunately, his sister has other ideas.

Sleep evaded him last night, his thoughts polluted by a certain creature with no business taking up space in his mind. He’d finally given up the fruitless chase just before dawn, and went to the training yard to hit something as hard as he could. Still too early to demand Ser Criston as a sparring partner, he settled on Leron Hayford, an eager but only half-decent swordsman who always takes the prince’s beatings in stride. But pummelling poor Leron into the yard’s dirt only held Aemond’s interest for so long, and did nothing to help clear his mind from thoughts of her.

(Oh, Viserra, self-righteous and cruel. He’d always known there was a viper hiding beneath her golden mask. She hid it well as a girl, he can’t deny her that. Perhaps she no longer cares to play the part of the innocent, coy, honey-sweet little princess, and now wears her true nature with pride. She certainly has an abundance of pride. Rage flares in him anew at the thought of her words: remember your place. Gods, but she’s a spoiled thing. Mother was right.

And yet he can’t deny that part of him (a very, very small part) is…fascinated by her. She is no longer the girl that clapped like a stupid seal when musicians and mummers would put on shows for the children, nor the girl that shied away from the training yard when the boys would spar. She’s a woman now, hiding knives in her sleeves and slapping her uncles. There’s something almost wondrous about that, Aemond finds, much to his own dismay. Something both wrong and right. Something more reminiscent of a dragon, not a seahorse. Before, he would never have thought such a thing about her.

Now…No. He won’t start now.)

A bath will help. Instead, he gets Helaena.

She’s there when he enters his bedchamber, flipping aimlessly through the pages of the copy of The Seven-Pointed Star that sits mostly untouched on his bookshelf, murmuring to herself and smiling. He startles at the sight of her and hastily claps the eyepatch that he’d just removed back over his sapphire. “Sister—”

“No need to hide the stone from me, valonqar,” she says without looking up. “I don’t know why you hide it at all. It’s a beautiful thing, and a tribute to one of the gods’ beloved heroes. You should wear it with pride.”

Aemond stares at her, utterly at a loss for words. He doesn’t bother to ask how she knows; Helaena has an odd way of knowing more than she should about his habits and secrets. He’s always wondered how she learns what she does, for she spends most of her time in the castle sept or the gardens, and only has a small circle of friends. 

(Helaena sees her brother appraise her warily from the corner of her eye and tries not to smirk. He thinks himself something of a rogue, like their uncle Daemon, but Aemond is dreadfully predictable. The gods gave her the gift of sight, eyes with which to see and praise the world they’ve created, and in their honor she sees it all—sees, even, more than others would like. So she knows her brothers well, observes them dutifully, knows the contents of their days and hearts better than they’d like her to. 

Besides, every little boy in the Seven Kingdoms knows the story of Symeon Star-Eyes. Of course her sweet, valiant brother would want to be just like him.)

She sighs, and closes the book with gentle reverence, finally looking at her brother. Her pale eyes are almost translucent in the early morning light, like grey-purple crystal in sept windows. She’d like the comparison, he thinks. Then again, he’s not sure what Helaena likes. Bugs, Dreamfyre, the gods…and what else? Her stare seems to read all of him, skin and bones and veins, and he fights the urge to cover his sapphire again. “Wash up quickly. No time for a bath, I’m afraid; Mother wants us in Father’s chambers in ten minutes.”

At this, he frowns. He’s known a scolding from his mother was only a matter of when, not if; the look she gave him last night was sharp as Blackfyre. “Why?”

“Father has summoned us all for breakfast,” she explains, a small and knowing grin on her lips that makes him all the more curious.

Aemond suppresses a groan and moves to the washing basin in the corner of his room, peeling off his sweaty tunic. He hears the sound of pages turning again and knows that Helaena must be busying herself with the prayer book, too proper and pious to risk catching a glimpse of her brother’s bare torso. He cleans himself quickly, running a wet cloth over his chest, his face, the scar on his abdomen that still hurts if he rides a horse too fast. He squeezes his eye shut, loath to think about the day in the Kingswood for even a second too long. Then he finds a clean pair of black trousers and a deep green tunic, ties a black leather jerkin on top, and carefully replaces his eyepatch.

“Handsome,” Helaena muses once he’s finished. She approaches him on silent feet and instinctively moves to tie the laces of his shirt. His sister is a liar, but a kind one.

He holds his arm out to her and she takes it gently, steering him out of his chamber and down the halls like a dog on a lead. “How is Dreamfyre?” He asks as they walk, measuring his gait so as not to outpace her smaller steps. He has never been skilled at small talk, even with his siblings, but talk of dragons, unsurprisingly, always comes easily.

She sighs, and he can see her thoughts drift across the city to the Dragonpit. “Fine, but she hasn’t been eating much recently. The Dragonkeepers aren’t worried, but…” she bites her bottom lip. “I’m sure it’s nothing. And Vhagar?”

“She is… temperamental,” he smiles fondly to himself, thinking of their ride yesterday, when he pushed her to fly a bit too fast and she nearly threw him from her saddle in retaliation. Their blood bond is strong, but the beast is old, and does not bow to his will easily. She could be as grouchy as any crone, but he knows she loved him—she would not have let him mount her eight years ago if she hadn’t at least respected his temerity.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why Father has summoned us?” Helaena huffs, clearly tired already of small-talk.

He purses his lips and glances at her sideways. “Why has Father summoned us, Helaena?”

“How should I know?”

It’s a rare gift, to see his sister’s true humor shine. She bundles up so much of herself, hides her personality in her silk sept veils—but why, he’s never quite understood. For Mother? For Father? He closes his eye and lets the moment wash over him happily, without question. “You’re in a good mood today.”

“I suppose I am,” she grins, absentmindedly tracing the seven-pointed star on the cover of her book. “The Mother Above has granted us with a beautiful day, and I intend to make the most of it.”

They arrive at the doors to the King’s Apartments before he can reply, and he nods in greeting to Ser Willis Fell, the knight who took Ser Harrold’s place in the Kingsguard, at his post outside the door. They step into their father’s rooms, still arm-in-arm, and Aemond’s brief blossom of a mood matching his sister’s withers instantly. The table is set for sixteen places, not six. And each place, save for two, is occupied. Mother pushes to her feet when they enter, and the sparse, pained chatter across the table dies instantly.

“Finally,” she chides quietly, coming to meet her middle children halfway as they approach the table. They’re all there: Rhaenyra and Daemon and their ten thousand children, and Gaemon, too, nestled between the two boys his half-sister bore their uncle. She has her back to him, pointedly ignoring his presence, her white curls spilling over the back of her chair as she whispers something to his nephew that makes him giggle. Bastard-lover.

“Sorry, Mother,” Aemond tries, though the words sound hollow and not at all sincere. “I didn’t know we were joining Father for breakfast this morning.” He shoots his sister a glare that says, you didn’t tell me he summoned all of us. 

Helaena ignores his cold look and kisses their mother lightly on the cheek—to take her sharpness away from him, an old trick they’ve both used to spare Aegon for years. She flits over to the table with a cheerful greeting for everyone, even going so far as to kiss Viserra’s cheek as well. He bristles at the sight, the same strange, not-quite-anger feeling from last night filling his lungs.

Mother grabs his arm before he can move to follow his sister, her fingers digging into his flesh. She looks up at him with no feeling in her deep amber eyes. “Listen to me, my son. I will not have a repeat of last night. Your father has no idea of what transpired, and wanted to bring his family together again before Rhaenyra leaves this afternoon. Behave yourself.”

“Mother, I—”

“Do not give them any more reason to hate us,” she hisses. “And do not give your father any more worries than he already has.”

Aemond wants to spit something back, to shake her hand off and bellow in her face. Am I not always loyal and obedient? Why do you treat me like I’m Aegon or some other depraved, half-wild creature; I have always done what was asked of me, but the one time I falter, I’m punished and scorned thus. He bites his tongue. He nods. A firestorm brews at his center, but he finds the strength to smile tightly at his mother. “As you say, Your Grace.”

He feels her glare on his back as he pushes past her; she hates when he calls her that, when he distances himself from her by denying her maternity. A small win for him, one that tastes sour and hollow as he walks to the empty seat between Helaena and Aegon. Aegon, surprisingly, looks somewhat sober and put-together; their sister must’ve stopped at his rooms first. He nods in brief acknowledgement of his brother but turns his eyes back to Viserra and Gaemon, watching them laugh quietly about something unknown to the rest of the table. Aemond’s blood flares at the sight. Gaemon is theirs, not hers. But it comes as no surprise that she feels entitled to something of theirs, in addition to all that she has of her own. He fights the urge to snatch the boy away from her before she can sink her venom into him.

“Good morrow, Sire,” he nods his head to his father.

Viserys already appears a great deal better than he did the night before. He’d looked almost as weary last night as he did in the Kingswood a year ago. That day was a turning point for his father. The last of the king’s strength was extinguished in those moments he was tied to a tree, and since then his body has weakened greatly, as though it no longer wishes to house his mind and soul. Fortunately, he’s still sharp of mind—sharp enough, at least, between doses of poppy’s milk.

“Aemond, my boy! Good of you to join us, eh?” The old man smiles warmly, pleased with his jest. He waves for servants to bring more food, and looks around the table with clearer eyes than last night.

Aemond follows his eyes: Rhaenyra and Daemon, whispering in Valyrian; Joffrey, playing with small felt puppets for young Aegon and Maelor; Baela, Rhaena, and Luke, mocking one another good-naturedly; Viserra, creating a handshake with Gaemon; Helaena and Aegon arguing over him about a species of beetle; Alicent and Otto, heads bent together in discussion of a trade matter. And King Viserys across from him, still smiling to himself as he surveys his family. For a moment, Aemond can almost believe the mummer’s farce. For a moment, he almost wants to believe it. Wouldn’t it be nice, if they were truly one large, happy, normal family?

But we are dragons. He heaps food onto his plate, fried eggs and pomegranate seeds and grapes and berry tarts, ignoring the bacon carefully even though it’s been salted and seasoned the way he likes. He’s about to take a bite of his eggs when he sees her stand in the corner of his vision. His skin prickles; not another fucking toast. Viserra clears her throat, bringing all eyes around the table to her. She has no glass in her hand, and judging by the downturned corners of her lips, offers no toast. Indeed, whatever she’s about to say clearly is not a well-wish, and undoubtedly does not come of her own volition.

“I would like to offer my uncle an apology,” she bites out, not quite meeting his eye. She looks down her nose at him—at his hands, really—and he sees no sincerity in her gold-dusted eyes. “I conducted myself in a manner not befitting a young lady, much less a princess, last night, and I am sorry for my actions. I hope you will find it in your noble heart to forgive me, Aemond.”

He stares at her, half in shock, half in contempt. Forgive me, Viserra, he hears his own young voice say. He wants his loathing to be unyielding, but just like when he was a boy, he finds his heart—weak, not noble—disobeying him. For a moment, he thinks there is nothing for him to forgive. She struck him, yes, but he brought a rock down on her head when they were children, scarring her permanently. What was a slap compared to that? But—the disdain in the curve of her mouth, the haughty inability of her eyes to land on his. She’s not sorry at all. She’d do it again, of that much he’s certain, if she thought it to be the right thing. And if she’s not sorry, he won’t be either.

He looks away, finds Rhaenyra watching her daughter attentively, nodding slightly in approval. No doubt she is the one who put her up to this. He notices Father’s brow furrowed in confusion, notices Daemon pat his brother’s hand in silent instruction to not concern himself with the girl’s words. And he sees Mother—

Staring at him expectantly. No. Oh, it was a set-up, the whole thing. Alicent knew Viserra was instructed to apologize, and now she means for him to do the same. No. But she’s impossible to ignore, glaring at him across the table with Vhagar’s subtlety. Soon her eyes may bulge out of her head, and he’ll be made to apologize for that, too. Helaena pinches his elbow, their mother’s henchwoman in this scheme, and his anger grows restless. Fine.

“Thank you, Princess Viserra. I accept,” is the most he can muster, his gaze locked on his plate.

His sister stomps hard on his foot—and Aegon flicks his thigh under the table. Seven hells, they must’ve sold their souls to get Aegon in on it, too. He clamps his jaw shut, teeth grinding together, and forces his head to turn in the direction of his niece. Her eyes sparkle with poison and he feels smaller than he did eight years ago as he lowers himself for her once again. “I hope you will forgive me, as well, for any slights against you.” Mother’s still staring, and oh, he’s going to kill someone after this. “Hm. And you, Prince Lucerys,” he forces himself to say, knowing full well this is what Mother wanted—what they all wanted.

Viserra leans back in her chair, clearly well-satisfied with herself for drawing the words out of him. His lip threatens to curl back from his teeth and he watches her slender fingers tap the side of the table in time with the thundering of his heartbeat in his ears. His blood burns at him and he prays that no color rises in his cheeks to betray him. She returns an equally spiteful smile to him, and he’s aware of the eyes darting between the two of them, none fooled by their charade. 

“Most kind of you, uncle. It is my great hope that we can put this unpleasantness behind us.”

Gods, but she’s insufferable. And painfully intriguing. He feels as though her glare has cast a spell on him, his mind turning foggy and unsure of itself. No! He hates her, hates her, what uncertainty can there be in that? 

“Tyviros,” he mutters under his breath.

Her shoulders stiffen and her tapping stops. “What did you just say?” The gall of her, to act as though he’s called her any of the much worse things he’s currently considering.

The room falls deadly silent. Mother’s pleading eyes bore a hole in the side of his face—the blind side, but he can feel her wroth more than see it. Daemon inches forward in his seat, no doubt waiting for an excuse to lay him flat, damning whatever tentative peace Alicent and Rhaenyra have attempted to construct in this room. He presses his lips together, still refusing (but is it a refusal, or an inability?) to turn his eye away from her. To her credit, she doesn’t shrink away.

“Raqiros,” he says coolly. “It is a Valyrian word, meaning ‘friend.’ You said you hope that we can forget past unpleasantness, and I said I…hope that we can become friends.”

He wonders briefly if he should try his luck in a mummer’s troupe. Mother and the rest are easily convinced, saving Rhaenyra, who eyes him shrewdly. But it works, and Viserra is cowed, at least for a moment. Her cheeks flush a rosy pink and she turns away from him, embarrassed in her defeat. He returns to his eggs triumphantly.

“It makes me so happy to see what fine young people you’ve all become,” Father beams, “though I confess I did not know of any ill will between you, Aemond and Viserra.” Of course he didn’t. Foolish old man, with only blind love in his heart. “You have always been joined together in my esteem and my hopes for the future, and to see you talk of friendship now, well…”

He hazards a glance around the table and finds blank reactions on all faces. Figures. The king prattles on, oblivious to his disinterested audience. “This reconciliation of sorts, heh, gives me hope that what I am about to propose will be well-received.”

Aemond’s heart drops to his toes. Oh, please, he digs his nails into his palms and offers up a silent prayer to the gods, I know I have never been your most devout, but please, if you’re as real and merciful as my mother says you are, please don’t make me marry the golden witch. He awaits his fate with bated breath and a knot already lodged in his throat. He wouldn’t put it past his father to suggest—or command—a union between the two of them; he’s always called them fate-twins, has he not? But this would be beyond even him, and surely neither queen nor princess would agree to it…

“Rhaenyra, my dearest. You have kept your children away from us on Dragonstone for far too long. It is high time they become acquainted with King’s Landing once more—and my court, too, for one day, our lovely Viserra will be queen in these halls and the realm beyond, and should know more of this court and city. I would have you stay a little longer. This is your home, too.” His watery eyes are only on his eldest daughter—his only daughter, only child, Aemond thinks bitterly—and it strikes him as a madness for a king to practically beg like this.

Rhaenyra sucks in a sharp breath, her face already contorted as she searches for an excuse. “It is a good suggestion, Father, but—”

“Daemon,” Viserys tries instead, “I have too often sent you away from me, from the home of your birth. I regret it greatly, for the time we could have spent together. Stay now, if you can put the past in the past.”

The Rogue Prince’s face, much to Aemond’s surprise, softens where his wife’s hardens. He places his hand in Rhaenyra’s, his thumb gently spinning a ring on her finger. “Brother. Let us…let us think about it.”

“Very well,” the king waves a dismissive hand, his smile betraying him. “I have no desire for hostages. My only wish is to see you every day as I see you now: together, and happily so. Will you not grant me this?”

Rhaenyra opens her mouth to protest again, but even Aemond can see that she has no heart to disappoint their father. She nods, as though convincing herself most of all, and smiles. “Right you are, my king. We will consider it duly and have an answer for you on the morrow. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I do believe I promised two little dragons they could visit the training yards.”

Father smiles in earnest at this. “Good, very good. Go on, my delight. Perhaps dear Gaemon would like to join his cousins? Friendship blooms in abundance, it seems,” and at this he glances again at Aemond and Viserra. 

If she loathes the idea of being paired with him as much as he does, she says nothing, simply smiling sweetly and helping Gaemon down from his chair. Aegon stands as well, passing behind his brother to pat his son on the shoulder and push him in the direction of the other boys his age. He exchanges a brief word with Viserra, and in the space between seconds, the whole table is up and talking as though they really are all friends. Mother and Rhaenyra, Helaena and Rhaena. Even Otto Hightower’s contemptuous scowl is not as deep as usual. Only Aemond seems glued to his chair, unmoved by the frivolous promise of friendship.

He prays for the second time that morning that Rhaenyra doesn’t stay. That she takes her roost of clucking hatchlings and returns to Dragonstone immediately, never to grace his city again. He has found a semblance of happiness these past eight years, in the absence of those who would see him only miserable, and has no desire to share his life with them once more. Especially her . Her, with the curls that hang to her waist and carry a soft cloud of some indiscernible fragrance. Her, with the honeyed tongue and vicious words. Her—

Right behind him. Her, leaning over the back of his chair to murmur in his ear, her sudden closeness disarming him completely.

“It’s pronounced tyvaros,” he can hear the smirk on her petal lips, but doesn’t dare turn his head. “Another word for snake is peldio, should you seek to call me such again. I would hate for you to be without options…my friend.”

His blood rushes through his veins, burning something fierce. Her insolence knows no bounds, it seems, and it raises his rage from its typical, standing level to a much higher height in an instant. He whirls around in his seat, blood pooling in his fists, but she’s gone already, conversing quietly with her brother as they herd the younger boys out of the room behind their parents.

Gods be good. He's not sure he can survive even one more day.

Chapter Text

Viserra fights the urge to cover her nose as she enters the king’s chambers. The stench is worse than anything she’s smelled before, sulfuric and oppressive as it clings to the stale air. Beside her, Joffrey nearly gags.

“What is that?” Her brother whispers, his dark purple eyes watering at the smell.

Grandsire, she almost replies, but gives Joff a tiny shake of her head instead. She puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him forward, the Velaryon siblings and twins filing into the room behind Rhaenyra and Daemon. They’d all shared breakfast together this morning, where their parents announced their intention to remain in King’s Landing for another six weeks. To appease the king, Muña said, and to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his coronation with him. Viserra knows, though, that their decision was a strategic one as much as it was familial. She’d known from the moment the king asked yesterday morning that they’d stay. His Grace is dying, slowly but surely, and his beloved daughter and brother could hardly deny his request. But more than that, the Blacks cannot let the Greens reign unchallenged any longer.

They knew, of course, that Viserys had been ill and ailing for years. What they didn’t know was just how much control Alicent and Otto Hightower exerted over court and council. They keep His Grace addled on milk of the poppy and spread their green rot into every corner of the castle, winning favor with smallfolk and nobles alike, slowly diluting any love for the Realm’s Delight and Rogue Prince that remains. Now, Rhaenyra and Daemon have returned, and intend to remind the city and realm beyond that the Iron Throne belongs to House Targaryen, not House Hightower.

Viserra knows her part. She must be the model princess she always has been. She must stand tall as a testament to her mother: beautiful, charming, clever, and kind. The perfect daughter. The perfect heir. Dutiful. Graceful. Good. The sort of girl one cannot help but love. The sort of girl who will one day make a wonderful queen. Her brothers are trained to fight with swords and axes and morningstars, but she is trained to wield a woman’s weapons—and in this, wit is just as deadly as steel.

She’ll play her part, and play it well. She always does. And she’ll only resent that she has to play it at all when she’s alone, and hide away the tender flesh of her heart behind armor of silk and samite. She’ll befriend noblewomen and endear herself to lordlings and knights, give alms to the poor and patronage to the shopkeepers and artisans, flaunt her dragonriding and dancing skills for all the city to see. She’ll make them love her these next six weeks—for Muña’s sake, of course, not for the tiny corner of her spirit that thrives on praise and adoration. For if the people love the Crown Princess’s children, surely they will come to remember their love for her and forget whatever half-assed loyalty they’ve gained for the Hightowers in Rhaenyra’s absence.

Or something like that.

Right now, Viserra can hardly focus on anything but the smell emanating from her grandsire’s back. He sits hunched over in a chair while a trio of maesters tend to the open wounds on his flesh. The sight of the gaping, festering, pus-filled holes in his skin is enough to make Viserra’s breakfast rise in her throat again, but she swallows the nausea down forcefully and fixes a smile to her face.

“Father?” Rhaenyra calls out over the moans and groans the king makes each time a maester sets a compress on his back.

Viserys looks up, seemingly confused at first, but when his rheumy eyes find his daughter he smiles. “Rhaenyra. My girl.”

Viserra notices Daemon’s jaw twitch, and he lets go of his wife’s hand as she approaches her father. Two of the maesters back away bowing, but Grand Maester Orwyle continues his work after nodding in greeting to the princess. Rhaenyra bends to press a kiss to the king’s sallow cheek. “We can come back later, if we are interrupting your treatment.”

“I am almost finished, Your Grace,” Orwyle says softly, using large tweezers to lay another warm cloth over one of the wounds. “These are just to ease His Grace’s discomfort.”

Viserra takes another step closer and realizes that the smell of her grandsire’s blood and rot is only half of the stench; the cloths must be soaked in a myriad of foul-scented herbs, diminishing his pain but doubling the stink in the process. Baela makes a retching sound and turns away quickly, hiding behind her twin’s back. Rhaena, on the other hand, looks poised to ask Orwyle about the method of treatment, but bites back her questions as the king and his daughter converse.

“I wanted to tell you, Father, that we’ve decided to stay a few weeks longer,” Rhaenyra musters up a small smile, though from Viserra’s vantage point, it looks pained and melancholy. “Long enough to celebrate the anniversary of your ascension to the throne.”

“Oh, what wonderful news,” Viserys pushes himself up feebly, waving the grand maester away. His eyes seem to clear up in an instant, their lilac hue shining in the sunlight. Though he’d looked almost shockingly weak when they entered the room, he suddenly looks a decade younger. “What wonderful news! Well, then we must have a celebration for the ages. You know how I love a good feast, my dear.”

Muña’s smile grows. “I do. We shall have the finest revelries the city has ever seen then, to honor such a milestone properly. Jousts, hunts, feasts for a week…whatever you desire, Father.”

The king looks at the rest of them in turn, practically beaming with renewed energy. “I already have what I desire: my family, reunited at last. Daemon, I expect to see you enter the lists—unless, of course, you have grown too old and feeble in recent years.”

Daemon smirks, his hand flexing around Dark Sister’s pommel instinctively. “Just you wait, brother.”

As the three of them descend into the sort of easy chatter that belies the time they’ve spent apart, Lucerys turns to Viserra with a wide smile of his own. “Did you hear that? Jousts, Vissy.”

“Don’t you have to be a knight to ride in a tourney?” Baela raises a brow at him.

Luke waves a dismissive hand, and Viserra can tell his mind is already whirring with wild fantasies of unhorsing all his opponents and winning a champion’s purse. “Never mind that. I’m a prince. The knighthood is practically implied. Joff, you can be my squire.”

“Yes!” Joffrey thrums with pride, as though he’s been knighted himself.

Baela rolls her eyes. “I think I’ll enter the melee. Jousting is for pompous pricks, anyway.”

Beside her, Rhaena shakes her head fervently. “Oh, Baela, you can’t. What if you get hurt?”

“All warriors get hurt at some point. Father says scars won in battle are badges of honor.”

“Right, but is a melee at a tourney really a battle?” Luke teases, earning him a quick smack on the arm from the elder twin.

“I will be perfectly content with the feasts,” Rhaena decides. “Dancing, drinking, watching lords and ladies make absolute fools of themselves…far more entertaining than some sweaty, boisterous tourney.”

Viserra smirks to herself, tuning out her siblings’ overlapping conversation and listening instead to her mother and the king’s. His Grace has clearly taken Rhaenyra’s suggestions and expanded on them tenfold in a matter of moments; she hears him mention bear fights and mock sea battles and dragon races, the last of which causes a crease to form on Muña’s brow and a mischievous glint to form in Daemon’s eyes. It all sounds spectacularly grand, the sort of festivities that will be written about in history books and turned into legends to be marveled at in fifty years. Viserra, for one, is beside herself with excitement. Suddenly the prospect of maintaining perfection for six weeks doesn’t seem so daunting; not when she’ll be rewarded with a week of revelry at the end of it. She loves tourneys. They’re just so…romantic. She was raised on songs of gallant, heartsick knights and highborn ladies trapped in forbidden love affairs that can only be expressed through the granting of a favor, and loves them still. As ridiculous as they are, they fuel that little fire in her heart that longs for a love like that for herself.

“...I shall leave the planning to you and Alicent, of course,” the king’s voice drags Viserra back to the present. “But we must make sure to invite all the noteworthy houses, great and small.”

At the sound of the queen’s name, her head snaps up. She notices the quick fall of her mother’s smile and the sour curl of her lips that takes its place in the half-second before she puts a neutral expression back on for her father’s benefit. Planning something of this magnitude with Queen Alicent will no doubt be a form of torture for Muña, but she can’t exactly avoid it. If it were up to Viserra, they wouldn’t have to share this with any of the Greens.

(Vaguely she wonders if her uncles will compete in the lists. It’s hard to imagine Aegon atop a horse with lance and shield, if not just to make a jest. Aemond, however…She blinks and sees a flash of it so vividly it’s almost real: Aemond, silver hair streaming from below his helm, unhorsing an opponent without breaking a sweat, approaching the stands to ask for a favor from a pretty noble girl. Something flares in her stomach at the thought, not quite anger and not quite nausea.)

“Of course,” she repeats tersely. “Well, Father, we can discuss this in much more detail later. You must be tired.”

“Hm. Yes,” His Grace agrees quietly, though she can tell his mind is still preoccupied with plans for his celebration. Viserra feels a twinge in her heart at the sight of an old man made young again by the excitement of hosting a party, and she’s suddenly appreciative of her mother for suggesting the idea, although she likely had no clue it would spiral into something so grand.

“We’ll leave you, then,” Daemon adds, placing a hand on the small of Muña’s back.

Viserys nods absently, and Orwyle reappears to help him lower a tunic over his head. Viserra receives a small nod from her mother as indication that they should leave the king in peace, and nudges her brothers forward to bid their grandsire farewell. One by one, Luke, Joff, and the twins approach His Grace to kiss his cheek. Viserra follows, ignoring the smell still emanating from his back and smiling at the old man’s twinkling eyes.

“I look forward to spending more time with you these next weeks, Grandsire,” she says earnestly, pressing a featherlight kiss to the papery skin of his face. “Perhaps I might visit with you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow…” he muses, frowning slightly. “Oh! Yes, yes, darling, tomorrow would be nice. But—Rhaenyra?”

Muña is at Viserra’s side at once. “Yes, Father?”

“I nearly forgot. Tomorrow, I should like for you to join me at the small council meeting. Daemon, too.”

“As you wish,” Rhaenyra replies, shooting Daemon a knowing look.

“And Viserra,” he blinks up at his granddaughter with sudden clarity. “I should like you there, as well. I made your mother my cupbearer when she was younger than you, so that she might learn the inner workings of the council and be prepared to lead her own when she rules. You should have the same education.”

Viserra feels a flush rise to her cheeks. She looks to her mother for support, and Rhaenyra flashes her a proud smile in return that makes her heart feel full to bursting. “Uh, yes, Your Grace. I would be honored.”

“Good, very good,” Viserys pats her hand gently. “You will make a fine cupbearer, and in time, a fine queen. Until tomorrow, dear girl.”

She kisses her grandsire again and thanks him quietly, unable to fight the grin spreading across her face. The praise rings in her ears as she follows her family from the chamber. Tomorrow, she’ll be the king’s cupbearer. She’ll be as close to the most powerful table in the realm as she’s ever been, something she hadn’t dared to hope would be a reality until her mother took the throne. And Rhaenyra will once again remind the council that they need not blindly follow Otto Hightower’s grasping maneuvers, and Viserra will get to watch.

Perhaps these six weeks will not be so difficult after all.

☾

Aemond rarely visits the Dragonpit. He has no need, really; Vhagar hasn’t made her lair in the caverns since Baelon the Brave rode her, and must have grown accustomed to freedom and fresh air in Pentos. More often than not he finds the old dragon on a secluded thicket on the side of Rhaenys’ Hill, close enough to the pit that she can still converse with the younger dragons, but far enough that she can remain unbothered by them.

They’re much alike, the prince and his dragon. He, too, chooses solitude whenever he can.

He rarely has a reason to enter the Dragonpit, but late in the afternoon Helaena asks him to ride with her so that she can visit Dreamfyre, and he can’t refuse his sister’s request. They ride side by side in a comfortable silence, with Helaena occasionally slowing to give coins to beggars that approach as they make their way through the streets of the city. Aemond merely watches, scanning the crowd for anyone who might hide a dagger behind their begging bowl and harm his sweet sister.

He waits until Helaena is safely situated on Dreamfyre’s saddle before he leaves, watching the silvery blue beast take flight with a mighty roar and a graceful flap of her wings. Aemond decides to take the long way back to the Red Keep, to clear his mind in the late summer air. And there is certainly much that needs to be cleared away.

But before he can reach the exit of the Dragonpit, he hears two voices already in the middle of a heated argument just outside. Grimacing at the painfully familiar sound, he flattens himself behind the arched doorway to listen.

“I grow tired of this conversation, Aegon,” he hears his mother say, the exasperation evident in her tone.

Aegon lets out a bitter huff. “And you think I do not? Gods, if I had a gold dragon for each time you pestered me about this, I’d have—”

“Enough to piss away gambling in Flea Bottom, no doubt,” she scoffs, “or, worse yet, on your… whores.”

The word comes out mangled on her tongue, like it pains her to even say it. Aemond inches closer to hear his brother laugh. “Are you quite done? I promised my son I would take him flying, and the hour grows late.”

“No, I am not done. We have much to discuss, least of all your son.” This word seems to scandalize the queen just as much as whores. Aemond can’t help but find it slightly amusing, though he knows that whatever Mother means to say, she’s likely right.

Aegon groans, and Aemond dares to peek his head around the doorway. Their mother is standing on the steps of a wheelhouse, her arms crossed over her chest as she stares disapprovingly at Aegon, who looks entirely bored as he waits for her to continue. Behind him, Sunfyre waits for his rider, golden scales glimmering in the sunlight. Alicent glances warily at the dragon before fixing another glare at her son.

“I’ll say it again, Aegon, as I have a thousand times before: you have been allowed to shirk your responsibilities for far too long. And now, we are beginning to face the consequences of your lack of action.”

“What does that mean?” His brother moans impatiently, sounding every bit like the petulant child he has always been. Aemond feels an old tug of anger in his stomach.

“You are nearly two-and-twenty years old. In that time, you have never once shown interest in learning about the running of this kingdom from those who have much to teach you: myself, your grandsire, and your father.” She pauses, and Aemond can practically hear her resisting the urge to pick at her nails. “A kingdom that, sooner than late, you will rule. I have hoped for many years that you would one day grow up and dedicate yourself to becoming a worthy heir for your father. But I have waited too long, and allowed you too much freedom.”

A soft clattering noise follows as she descends from the wheelhouse. “Just today, the king has asked that his granddaughter serve at the small council table as his cupbearer.”

Silence stretches for one heartbeat, then two. Then: “And?”

Aemond suppresses a groan. Fucking idiot. Aegon has a remarkable talent for never saying the right thing. Yet another reason he’d make a terrible king, though that is of no consequence now.

“And?” Alicent repeats incredulously. “What is so hard to understand about that, Aegon? Your father has never invited you to even see the inside of the council chamber, much less be his cupbearer! He sees so little hope in you that he’s asked that…stupid girl to attend him, not his own son and heir. All because you have never managed to express the least bit of interest in governance.”

The flash of anger Aemond feels at the mention of his niece is expected, but unwelcome all the same. It’s not hard to picture her flitting about the council table, giving saccharine smiles to the lords as she fills their cups, spreading whatever rotten, entrancing nonsense that seems to pour out of her. Of course Viserys wants his precious little flame to serve him instead of his own sons; he never even seems to notice them when she’s in the room.

“What does it matter who pours his wine?” Aegon scoffs. “I would much rather pour my own, and drink it far from talk of trade laws and grain stores. If Viserra wants to be Father’s serving girl, let her.”

Their mother mutters something unintelligible beneath her breath. “You are a fool, but not a particularly funny one. It is an honor to serve at the king’s side, one that even your half-sister was granted as a child—and now, her own daughter receives it, too, accomplishing what you could not in three days! We had eight years without them, and you squandered them in taverns and brothels. How can you ever expect to prove yourself now, when he puts another in a place that should be yours?”

“You’re wrong, Mother.”

Aemond sucks in a sharp breath. He doesn’t need to see the queen’s face to know that it will turn ghostly white and cherry red in turn, and her hands will ball into fists at her sides. “Oh, no, my son. I have been wrong about many things, but not this. Inviting that girl to serve at his table is a dark indication of who he favors, and I cannot allow—”

“How many more indications do you need? He has always favored my sister and her children over us. One afternoon spent filling cups would not change the truth that we all know,” Aegon sighs, the slightest hint of something melancholy in his tone. “Father made up his mind before I was born, and has not changed it since.”

A long silence falls over them, and Aemond feels his heart racing. “You are his eldest son. By all the laws of gods and men, it is you—”

“It is her!” Aegon shouts. The sound seems to echo around him. “Rhaenyra is our father’s heir, named and anointed. What is the law of gods to the word of a king? He chose her, not me.”

“Enough! It is one thing to speak these lies aloud, but quite another to blaspheme,” Alicent bites back, her tone sharp. She heaves a sigh. “Now, listen to me carefully. It is not too late for you to sway the king’s opinion. He may yet be convinced to see the light of the righteous path, but that means that you must work hard to guide him, to show him you are the right one to succeed him.”

“But I don’t want to,” his brother counters. “Haven’t you ever thought to ask what I want?”

Aemond’s blood runs cold. What do you want, Aemond Targaryen? The sound of Viserra’s voice drifts through his mind just as it did so many years ago. For the briefest of moments, he dares to imagine that, if someone asked, he would answer honestly and receive it at once. He cannot want, but Aegon can. And why would he not want to be king, when all he needs to do is reach out and take it? Power, glory, wealth, fame…he is a firstborn son of a king, and all that he could ever want exists at his fingertips. It couldn’t be easier. Perhaps if Mother had ever taken just a few moments to explain this to Aegon, he wouldn’t be resisting her now; he would want it in earnest, desire it with his bones, and have it.

Aemond has never envied his brother for the order of their birth and the throne he’ll inherit, but right now, just for a moment, he envies him with red, blinding desperation. You are allowed to want. Want this, and it’s yours. Some of us will never know that privilege.

“Do you want to lose your head?” Their mother continues, her voice raising in volume and shrillness. “Is that what you want? Because if Rhaenyra takes the throne, she will take your head shortly thereafter. Yours, and all of ours.”

“No, she would never,” Aegon says with a surety that Aemond has never heard before. “She will welcome us with open arms if we promise to bend the knee.”

“Oh! Is that so? She must be a bigger fool than you, then.” A tired pause, and a bitter laugh. “Here we are, talking in circles again. I have warned you of your half-sister’s treachery since you were a child, and you have never wanted to listen. But you are a man now, Aegon. And it is high time you act like one.”

Aegon huffs. “I am a man. Is my son not proof enough of that, or should I explain to you how he was conceived?”

“Your son,” Alicent snaps, “is a bastard. It was shameful enough to sire him in the first place, but to claim him as your own…is an insult. To me, to your father, to the very name Targaryen. And to your future wife.”

“I have no intention of taking a wife.”

Aemond hazards another glance at the pair, and finds them nose to nose, wearing matching expressions of contempt. His mother looks as though she may strike Aegon, but her hand doesn’t move from her side. “There are some things in this life,” she seethes, with the sort of quiet composure that frightens Aemond more than her flares of anger, “that are decided for us, and we cannot fight against them. Your fate is one such thing. You will be married, and you will father trueborn children, and—”

“No, I—”

“—and you will. Be. King.” 

Aegon seems to know better, for once, than to push her any further. He looks down, and Aemond knows that this is his white flag of surrender; he’ll never admit that this battle is lost, and no doubt his mind has not been changed, but he won’t fight any longer. Won’t, or can’t. 

“You have no idea what has been sacrificed for you,” their mother says, her voice cracking slightly. “It cannot all have been in vain. Look at me, my son.”

Alicent grabs his chin with her thumb and forefinger, forcing his face up to meet hers once again. They stare at one another in silence for a moment, and Aemond is reminded just how much his brother looks like their mother; he is Alicent Hightower in Targaryen coloring, if she had a penchant for wine and unsavory company and never brushed her hair. Even now, with riding leathers on and his dragon waiting behind him, Aegon hardly looks like a man who might be a king. And yet—

“Grow up. Be the man I know you are capable of becoming. Listen to me, to your father and grandsire, and show the realm what sort of king you’ll be.”

Aemond looks away, suddenly ashamed of having eavesdropped for so long. He hears his brother mutter something in assent, and Mother ascends the steps to her wheelhouse once more. “I am going to speak to the king about what we discussed, and to make him reconsider his choice of cupbearer. You will not disappoint me, do you understand?”

The threat of Mother’s disappointment has hung over her children’s heads like storm clouds all their lives. They all manage to incur it one way or another, no matter how hard they try: Helaena is too quiet; Aemond is too angry; Aegon is too…Aegon. But you made us this way, he wants to argue. You raised Helaena to be an obedient, pious wife-in-training, but judge her now for spending more time at prayer than at court. You raised Aegon to be an affable, spoiled heir, but judge him now for seeking pleasures and avoiding responsibilities. And you raised me to—

(Did you raise me at all? Or did I—whatever I am—simply come into being as a result of my environment? Am I your son, or just a dog that has been trained and broken? Am I a dog, or am I just a rock that has been weathered and shaped? )

Aemond shakes his head, hard. It doesn’t serve him to think like that. With a quiet sigh and a mind more muddled than it was before, Aemond backs away.

He spends his trip back to the Red Keep deep in thought. Perhaps Aegon will truly listen this time. Unlikely, but possible. Perhaps the pressure of witnessing their father’s favoritism for Rhaenyra and her hatchlings will make him change, at least a little. And perhaps a wife and children will force him to grow up. Aemond tries not to laugh at the idea of his brother as a doting husband. He’s passably attentive with Gaemon when they’re together, and might be a decent father in earnest, but there is no world in which Aegon Targaryen makes a good husband. Neither of them would, in truth. They have only ever observed their parents’ marriage, a dreadful misery that was only made for political gain. It comes as no surprise to hear that Aegon doesn’t desire marriage, either; they have never seen an example of it that would tempt them into a similar fate.

But at least he has an excuse. To take the vows of the Kingsguard is an honorable thing; to be an unmarried king is impossible. Aegon has no say in the matter. Good thing, then, he thinks, that I told Father my intention when I did. Aegon may be forced to the altar, but I never will.

Yet another reason that he’s never envied his brother.

☆

The doors to the king’s bedchamber fling open, and Alicent bursts in, all red rage and green skirts. Viserys looks up from his model at his wife’s entrance. “Alicent? Is everything alright, my dear?”

“No, Viserys,” she huffs, collapsing into the chair next to him with a heavy sigh, “everything is not alright.”

“What troubles you, wife?”

She glares at him fiercely. In her youth, she was never so bold, so obvious in her disdain. He liked her better that way, even if she was hiding her true feelings for his benefit. “Your son. Aegon.”

He cannot remember a time when Aegon didn’t trouble his mother. She comes to him in a similar fit at least once a week, carrying on about how their eldest child still acts like a boy, not a man. In years past, he was quick to dismiss her concerns and tell her that he was only behaving as a young prince is entitled to do. Daemon and I were much the same when we were his age, he’d laughed when Alicent tried to warn him of their son’s “depravity.” 

But neither of them ever brought a bastard home, or went so far as to claim the child before the court and realm. That was poorly done on Aegon’s part. Viserys realized then, watching Aegon bounce Gaemon on his knee, that he had been too lenient with his son. But by that point, it was too late; the boy is a dragon to his core, and would not be shamed or beaten into submission. And the babe was sweet, giggling and smiling…so what was Viserys to do? Perhaps Jaehaerys would have sent the child away, but Viserys could not inflict the same tragedy on his children that his parents and their siblings faced.

He has never been under the impression that he holds a candle to the Old King. There has not been one day in his reign that he hasn’t lamented the loss of his lord father; Baelon the Brave would’ve been a tremendous king. He would’ve done more than just maintain the Conciliator’s peace. He would’ve made a name for himself in the annals of history. But Viserys is already little more than a footnote, his memory kept alive only by those who knew him personally—and in a century or two, Baelon and Viserys both will be mere sentences on a page, sandwiched between the lengthy chapters on Jaehaerys and Rhaenyra.

Oh, Rhaenyra… his most treasured possession, more dear to him than all the riches in the known world. He shakes his head, a fond smile creeping over his face, and turns back to his wife. The ever-present scowl on her lips as she rants about Aegon confirms to Viserys what he’s known for the boy’s entire life: he would never be half the ruler his sister could be.

“Alicent,” he sighs. All he’s heard is her complaints on their son’s insolent attitude. Nothing new. “Speak plainly. What exactly is the issue that bothers you so much?”

She folds her hands together in her lap and holds his gaze, steel on steel. “It has come to my attention that you’ve invited Rhaenyra and Daemon to attend the small council meeting tomorrow, and that you have asked Viserra to serve as your cupbearer.”

He blinks, not quite understanding. Viserys hates not understanding. It’s why he chooses not to take the milk of the poppy that his maesters always try to pour down his throat. Unless the pain is unbearable, he’d much rather suffer the discomfort of his condition than not be able to make sense of the world around him. “Yes, I have. They have been away eight long years, and should be involved once more in the governance of my realm.”

“Of course,” she says flatly, “but do you not think there is anyone else who should also be privy to what your council discusses?”

He gives her a blank stare, and she sighs in clear exasperation. “Aegon.”

“Oh! Well, I had no idea he wanted to join us. He’s never mentioned it to me…but of course he can come!”

Alicent shakes her head. “I meant that he should be your cupbearer, not Rhaenyra’s daughter. You should have appointed him years ago. He is your eldest son, and as such should be as close to you as possible. Did King Jaehaerys not keep Aemon at his elbow for most of his life?”

“Alicent,” Viserys chuckles, “he has never shown the least bit of interest in politics and ruling. If he wants to come, then by all means, he should. Helaena and Aemond, too.”

He watches his wife’s face morph, a series of emotions running clearly across her visage in a matter of seconds. Frustration, always; but a darker sort of anger, too, one he’s only seen on rare occasions. He waits for her to speak again, already knowing that, if he weren’t her king and husband, she’d slap him square across the cheek. Whatever it is that’s bothering her, he thinks, I’ll surely hear about from Otto soon.

“Your ignorance is willful and infuriating, and I am too tired to argue on this,” she says at last, causing him to frown. “That is not all. My father informed me that you intend to host a grand celebration to mark the thirtieth year of your reign.”

At this, Viserys perks up significantly. He’d much rather talk about this than anything else. “Indeed. It was Rhaenyra’s idea, and a splendid one at that. Seven days of feasting, hastiludes, perhaps even a hunt…it will be spectacular.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she sighs once more. “We will discuss it further tomorrow. But the timing is quite convenient, as Aegon’s nameday falls just a week later. He will be two-and-twenty, you know.”

“Ah, I suppose the boy is no longer a boy,” he smiles wistfully, remembering when his son was small enough to ride on his shoulders.

Alicent hums in agreement. “Precisely. He is a man now, and has been for some time. And yet, unlike other men his age, he remains unmarried. It’s time, Viserys.”

This is nothing new, either. For years, Alicent and Otto have been urging him to arrange marriages for their children—Aegon to a Lannister girl, Helaena to Aegon, Aemond to a Baratheon, on and on. They’ve kept detailed records of the ages and progressions of every highborn girl in the realm, and frequently try to force his hand on the matter. He refuses them each time. He was six-and-ten when he married Aemma, his sweet wife only eleven— eleven! They were both far too young to be wed, and he remembers feeling like a child’s doll at their wedding feast, not a real man. And they found love and comfort in one another’s arms eventually, but not for many years; theirs was intended to be a marriage of political convenience to strengthen the crown’s relations with the Vale, nothing more. Viserys swore then that he’d never force his children to marry solely for political gain when they were still children themselves. Of course, he wouldn’t allow any of them to run off with a commoner, like Gaemon’s mother; they were still Targaryens, after all, and would marry the sons and daughters of respectable noble houses. But he wished happiness on them all, and would only approve matches that satisfied both the throne and the heart, if indeed they could be found. And he’d kept his promise, or at least tried. He’d had to force dear Rhaenyra’s hand in the end, but she’d been happy enough with Ser Laenor, and she seems entirely pleased now with Daemon.

He says as much to his wife, feeling a bit like a broken wheel that squeaks whenever it turns. Doesn’t she tire of these same squabbles? She simply frowns at him in near-disgust. 

“Husband, it is a fool’s dream to think that love and duty can coexist in a marriage. But that is not the point. Three of our four children are of marrying age, and Daeron is not far behind. If they do not find spouses soon, the realm will begin to gossip.”

“Ha! What does the dragon care for gossip?” He waves her away. “Let them talk, Alicent. If words alone could bring down our house, it would have crumbled the same day it was built.”

She buries her face in her hands and mutters indistinctly. His hearing is not what it once was, but that matters not. He turns back to his model, but when he tries to focus his mind on the statue in his hand, it keeps drifting back to her words. Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond are all of an appropriate age to be married, and have been for many years. But it’s not just them.

Viserra, Lucerys, Baela, and Rhaena. Luke is six-and-ten, the twins a year behind, and Viserra will be a woman grown in the eyes of the law at the turn of the new year, just like Aemond. Seven royal children, and not one of them even betrothed…

“Hm.”

Alicent glances up at him warily. “What?”

An idea begins to form in Viserys’ mind, half-hatched and misshapen. “Just thinking.”

“Well, good. I want this matter settled soon. I would see Aegon wed by the year’s end, if you’re amenable to that, and this tourney presents a good opportunity for him to choose his wife himself, as you insisted he must.” She gives him no time to respond, bringing his hand to her mouth and kissing it briefly before departing in a flurry of disgruntled sighs and mumblings. He pays her no mind.

His wife was right: a royal feast is the perfect place to find a future spouse. Grand tourneys with valiant knights jousting for honor and glory and thirty-course feasts with wine-flushed dancers spinning in dizzying circles well into the morning…what better way to stir up one’s heart? With luck, matches made at one festivity will result in another, and the only thing Viserys loves more than a feast is a wedding feast.

Or seven. He taps his fingers on the stone Valyrian roads and grins. He could easily command his children to make a match and be wed by year’s end; that’s what Alicent and Otto would’ve done years ago, if he’d let them. But where is the fun in that? He wants them happy, not coerced. And happy weddings are always closely followed by happy babes for the happy couple, and Viserys loves children. What a blessing it would be, to see himself become a great-grandsire before the Stranger comes for him…

Chapter Text

It would be a lie to say he does not think of her.

How can he not? Viserra Velaryon is everywhere. In one week, she has managed to take complete and utter ownership of the Red Keep, and the home that Aemond once loved for its lack of her has been conquered, ransacked, and burned. Everywhere he turns, Viserra is already there: a flash of white curls and blue skirts on the edge of his vision; an echo of melodic laughter down an empty corridor; a cloud of foreign fragrance lingering in the middle of a room. He cannot escape her. He sees her and hears her and hears about her every waking moment of his days.

Everyone at court seems to have fallen ill, consumed with some airborne madness that makes them enamored of her. Lordlings lust after her openly, trading lewd comments about her figure with guards and knights. Ladies clamor to spend their afternoons with her, begging to host her for tea or gossip sessions over needlepoint. And now that she has weaseled her way into the small council meetings, it’s even worse: every power-hungry courtier in the castle wants to get closer to her, to have the ear of the girl who has the ear of the king. It’s nauseating to watch. He can’t remember ever seeing a woman fawned over thus, even the Realm’s Delight herself. How has all the world fallen to insanity over one girl?

He tries, desperately, to remain immune. But it proves much, much harder to accomplish than when they were children, which infuriates him to no end. She was charming then, or so every witless lickspittle in the Red Keep seemed to think—now, however, she has far surpassed charming, and is utterly enthralling. Or so they say. Aemond really does try not to slip into the same madness the rest of them suffer from. He ignores her as thoroughly as he can, keeps to himself as much as possible, and avoids the places she might be or the people who might be with her.

But he is just a man, and he is not foolish nor entirely blind. So it would be a lie to say he does not think of her, though he truly hates that he does.

He can see plainly that her looks are worthy of the praise they receive. He can hear clearly the clever conversations she carries with her adoring little court, and the fine tone of her voice when she sings and plays her harp. He can note objectively that she dances with surpassing grace, and flies with even more agility than she dances. He can admit all of this—to himself, at least; he’d never speak it aloud—but what he still doesn’t understand is why she must be so…present.

Could she not be beautiful elsewhere? On Dragonstone, or Driftmark, or beyond the fucking Wall? Could she not be witty and gregarious in Highgarden, or Tyrosh, or the farthest corners of Asshai? Why must she do it here, take his home out from under his feet? King’s Landing was his these last eight years, blissfully devoid of her after a lifetime of sharing, and now he’s not certain he can stomach to share it again. She takes everything, greedy and unapologetic, with no satisfaction in sight. Was it not enough to take his nameday and his father’s love? He hates her, that vain, grasping, vicious little bi—

Gods. Perhaps he has gone mad, after all. He draws a tired hand over his face and tries to steady his breathing, his heart racing and hot from the anger in his lungs whenever he thinks of her. With a gruff sigh, he snaps his book shut, finally giving up after reading the same page six times in a row. In his hateful delirium, he’d failed to notice that the morning’s rain had cleared, leaving a bright midday sun streaking in through the library’s tall windows. Now, he’s no longer limited to remaining inside the castle, where the likelihood of happening upon her is always higher. The maesters all believe that fresh air can improve almost any ailment, and Aemond hopes desperately that the same is true about whatever is plaguing him.

He stands, stretching his arms towards the vaulted ceiling, then gathers his books and strewn papers and makes his way to the library’s exit. He passes row after row of tall shelves lined with hundreds of tomes, the scent of old wood and leather and paper swimming around him. Normally, the library comforts him greatly, smells and privacy alike. Today, it seems to only make him nauseous and anger him further. He walks faster, suddenly desperate to be out of doors, weaving through the shelves and tables, passing maesters and courtiers without sparing them the slightest glances. Over his shoulder, he hears that damned, familiar laughter—but when he whips his head around to find the source, eye roaming wildly around the room, he sees only an empty chair.

“Prince Aemond,” someone calls from his blind spot. He whirls around again, reaching for the knife on his hip in a red daze, heart thumping in his throat.

He lets out a relieved huff when he sees the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. “Ser Criston. What brings you to this part of the castle?” He already knows the answer; the Dornishman is not the scholarly sort, and is only ever away from the queen’s side on rare occasions—to spar with Aemond, or to fetch him to his mother’s audience.

“Her Grace wishes to speak with you.”

“Hm,” he purses his lips together and gestures for the knight to lead the way. They walk in silence, with only the soft clinking of armor to fill the space between them. Aemond steals a glance at the other man as they ascend the steps to the queen’s apartments, and not for the first time, sees a glimpse of his future. Honorable, stoic, and chivalrous, Criston Cole is the model of what Aemond thinks a true knight should be. He’s learned at Cole’s side for his entire life, viewed him as a mentor and an almost fatherly figure—and, in time, will call him a brother in white. He’d hoped that, upon the death of Lord Commander Westerling and Aemond’s knighting, Cole might have advocated for the prince to take the white immediately; but it would have been too soon, he knows, and has told himself in consolation that next time, his mentor will bring him into the brotherhood without hesitation.

Some day, he thinks, be it in six moons or a decade, I’ll have my white cloak, and will never want for anything again.

When they arrive at the door to the queen’s chambers, Ser Criston gives a short nod and resumes his post in the hall, leaving Aemond to enter alone. He knocks but doesn’t wait for a response, and pushes open the heavy door.

“Mother,” he dips his head in a small bow instinctively, “you asked to see me?”

From the other side of her sitting room, Queen Alicent sets down a prayer book and looks up at her second son with a thin smile. “Aemond. Sit with me a moment.”

He obeys, taking a seat on the edge of her sofa and primly folding his hands over his books on his lap. His mother moves from her own chair to the space beside him, still smiling, her knee bumping against his as she smooths out her green velvet skirts. “Are you well, my son? We have not had a chance to speak these last few days.”

We have, he almost says. I dine with you nightly and come immediately at your call. You could speak to me whenever you like. They haven’t spent even a moment alone since his half-sister and her brood took up residence in the castle again, though when he looks at his mother now, he can’t help but think about the conversation he overheard between her and Aegon.

“I’m well,” he answers shortly.

“Good,” she replies, her brown eyes wide and earnest. “I wanted…well, the sudden intrusion of Rhaenyra and her family was not what any of us desired. And I’m sure you have heard by now that they will be here another several weeks, at the least, until your father’s celebration.”

Right. Aemond has heard, certainly, of the king’s great feast that already promises to be the social event of the century. The Red Keep has been buzzing with the news, with rumors of the feasts and hastiludes growing in magnitude every time they pass from one set of lips to the next. The tourney will be exciting, at the very least, but Aemond has little interest in the rest, and the guarantee of another six weeks with that gold plague under his roof is nauseating. He gives a noncommittal nod. “I hope the preparations are not troubling you too much,” he tries, unsure what she wants to hear.

Mother waves her hand in the air between them dismissively. “That is not what I wanted to speak about. I wanted to ask…to ensure, rather, that you are alright.”

“Why would I not be?” He says in a flat tone. What is it you want, Mother? He wants to say. Speak plainly, or do not speak at all. 

“I can imagine that it might be difficult for you,” she pauses, sighing as though the words trouble her to say aloud, “to live alongside Rhaenyra’s son once again, after what he did. I am only wondering, Aemond, if his presence here troubles you.”

Aemond stares at his mother, his scar tingling under her intense brown gaze. This may be the first time since the incident itself that she’s dared to mention what happened on Driftmark. He knows it must haunt her, perhaps more than it does him. It is easy to forget, at least for him, that the chasm between Green and Black was made deeper that night not just by Luke’s hand, but by her own. His fierce need to defend her only grew after she challenged and cut Rhaenyra and faced Father’s contempt for it, but in the years since, the memory of that second fight has faded. And perhaps he has not given enough consideration to how it must have hurt her to see her son maimed. Perhaps she is maternal, if not warm or particularly adept at proving it to her children.

For whatever reason, Aemond wants to laugh. There is nothing funny about the pained sincerity in her expression. But it’s …a waste, he thinks. Her concern comes a week too late and placed on the wrong shoulders. He has no love for his bastard nephew, of that there can never be any doubt, but Luke Strong is not the presence that troubles him. It’s the baseborn brat’s sister that makes Aemond wroth and restless, that has managed to drive him halfway to madness in only a week’s time, that will surely have undone him entirely by the time the last of his father’s guests leave.

But he cannot tell his mother this. It would be a shameful confession, one that might weaken him in her eyes. Thank you for your concern, Mother, but I actually have spared the boy that cut out my eye no thought, and instead am driven to fits of rage by his perfect, awful, sanctimonious sister. What Luke did was done eight years ago; what Viserra does is never-ending—and, worst of all, not even directed at him. So how can he admit that she is the one who he cannot bear to live with?

Instead, he: “I do not seek revenge for what was taken from me, if that is your concern.”

Mother’s face falls slightly, and Aemond feels a small stab of guilt. She meant well, he knows, and he’s the brute that can only return kindness with anger. The queen collects herself quickly, and tries for another smile. “Very good. I would not expect the two of you to become…friends, by any means. But hostility would not serve us well, and it would upset your father. So long as they are here, I should hope that you and your siblings will be able to maintain a cordial acquaintance with your half-sister and her children. And Daemon, though he is a far more uncouth creature than Lucerys.”

Aemond smirks. Daemon has been tame and toothless since the incident with Vaemond, doting on his wife and playing with his sons. He wonders if the Rogue Prince still yearns for his youth, and if he’ll enter the lists to prove he is still a terror and triumph. If Aemond could unhorse him…well, that would certainly make up for the dragonfire-hot irritation that Viserra’s presence brings. A victor’s laurels after defeating the infamous Daemon Targaryen would be sweeter than the favors of every maiden in the realm. “I will not disappoint you, Mother,” he offers as earnestly as he can.

She pats his hand without any motherly warmth and stands, peering down at him with an unreadable expression. “You are the best of us, Aemond. I may not say it often, but I am very proud of you. My dear son.”

He freezes. A second passes, and then another, and Aemond can do nothing but stare at her in shock while his mind falls silent. Then, sudden as summer storms, pride floods through his body. He reaches for her hand again before he can stop himself and clutches it tightly, just as he did the night his eye was lost. She seems surprised at first, her posture rigid, but it fades quickly and she squeezes his hand with the sort of tender reassurance of her love that’s as sweet as it is rare. She sang him to sleep some nights, and watched him train in the yard some days, and until this instant, Aemond thought that was as much affection he’d ever get from her. Neither moves for a moment, their eyes locked in a warm look of understanding as the unspoken passes between them: If I know how to love anything at all, it’s you. 

After a while, Aemond clears his throat and drops her hand. Mother backs away, almost shy in the wake of the gentle moment. He feels lighter than he has in moons, if not years, no longer forgotten in silver shadows. He stands, drumming his fingers on his dagger’s sheath. “I am going to fly with Vhagar,” he announces, “but shall be back before supper.”

She nods. “If you see your brother—”

A loud creaking noise interrupts her as the door swings open again. They turn in unison to see Helaena entering the chamber, her grin bright and easy as she appraises her mother and brother. “Aemond! I’m so glad you’re here.”

“You are?” He watches her curiously as she presses a quick kiss to their mother’s cheek. She seems unusually cheerful, her feet light and eyes sparkling.

Helaena perches on the arm of a chair across from them. “You were my next visit. This saves me a few steps.”

Mother offers her a small smile. “What are you doing here, sweet girl? Did I forget we were to meet, or…?”

“I only came to let you know that Lady Genna and I are going to the Street of Looms to purchase a few things,” she says. “Is there anything you need?”

“No, thank you,” the queen replies, “but do be careful. Take a sufficient guard, and mind your coin purse. Ser Criston can accompany you.”

Helaena shakes her head. “No need to trouble him. Aemond, will you ride with us? There is no one I trust more with my safety.”

Both his mother’s and sister’s eyes turn to him at once, expectant and unblinking. Trailing around behind Helaena and her lady-in-waiting while they shop was not the way he intended to spend his afternoon. Genna Wylde is a pleasant enough girl, once one gets used to the sound of her voice. She speaks in the most grating, shrill tone Aemond has ever heard another human make, always giggling and tittering at pitches so high only dogs can hear them. But she’s Helaena’s closest friend in spite of this, kind and pious and quiet like his sister. He can’t exactly say no. He sighs, longing for nothing but the sound of Vhagar’s wings in the wind, and nods.

“Of course. I’ll go now to have them ready the wheelhouse.”

Helaena flashes him a wide, excited smile. “You are the very best of men, valonqar . We’ll be down in just a moment.”

He gives his mother a feeble smile and takes his leave, nodding to Ser Criston on his way down the hall. He stops in his rooms quickly to collect Blackfyre then continues down to the courtyard to wait for his sister. I suppose I should get used to this, he thinks absently. It is the duty of the Kingsguard to accompany the royal family wherever they want to go, even if shopping for silks and ribbons is the least appealing way for a knight to spend his afternoon. He waits next to the wheelhouse and wonders what the royal family might look like by the time he wears the white cloak: Aegon will be king, with a consort on his arm and heirs at his side; Helaena will have gone away to be married or take a septa’s vows, coming home to visit once a year; Daeron will have a wife and sons of his own and keep separate apartments in the castle; Mother and Grandsire will be bent-backed and tired but still ruling the kingdom in Aegon’s name. And he’ll be there to watch them all, protect them all, as he always has been—an outsider in his own family, no longer a prince and brother but a faceless suit of armor. A strange, melancholy lump rises in his throat and he swallows it hard, reminding himself that this is what he wants.

Before he can dwell on the sudden ache that forms in his chest, he hears his sister’s voice once more, with Genna’s screech of a giggle soaring above it. He stands up straighter and pushes it all down, opening the wheelhouse’s door as they enter the courtyard.

But then he hears another voice, one that has become just as familiar as Helaena’s in a few long days. Soft and brassy at the same time, with a laugh like the vibration of a fiddle’s strings. His stomach drops. If he had known she was coming, he would have run from Mother’s rooms the second Helaena opened her mouth and taken Vhagar halfway across Westeros.

Viserra emerges from the castle flanked by Helaena on one side and Daemon’s daughter on the other, with Genna and the Stark girl one step behind them. They’re all deep in a lively conversation and seem to hardly notice him—until Viserra’s gaze glides up to meet his. For half a second, the gold flecks in her eyes threaten to disarm him. She’s lined her eyes with some kind of black paint to darken her lashes, which only serves to intensify her lavender-blue stare. His eye trails down, away from the unearthly warmth of her eyes, resentful that he is the first to look away. She wears a gown of pale purple, a departure from the shades of Velaryon blue she seems to prefer, with a beaded replica of her dragon embroidered across her bodice. Her hair falls unbound over bare shoulder, half-hiding the gold-and-dragonglass necklace around her throat. 

Aemond forces his eye back up from her soft neck hastily, ignoring the sudden quickening of his heartbeat and fixing her once more with a cold and scornful stare. Her smile falters and the slightest flush of color rises to her cheeks. Good . She needs to know that he is not so easily won as the rest of the city, and won’t fall victim to the fever she’s spreading. The girls’ conversation dies as they come to a stop in front of him, and he turns his glare to the others. 

Daemon’s spawn meets his eye with a fiery glare of her own. Baela, he knows now. The elder twin, who threw the first punch on Driftmark. She has a sharp sort of beauty that reminds him of the portrait of Queen Visenya hanging in his father’s solar, ethereal in the way only a Targaryen can be. Behind her stands the Stark girl, the half-feral sister of Winterfell’s lord, long of face and limb with striking blue-grey eyes. She offers him a shallow curtsy, though the gleam in her eyes reveals no deference or respect. Genna, as always, fails to meet his eye. She’s a passably attractive creature, small and slender with a mane of thick black hair and pale green irises. Polite, and pretty, and terrified of Aemond. The Master of Law’s daughter has been at court for five years, and has never once dared to look upon the scarred side of his face.

Helaena gives him a gentle nudge and a knowing look, forcing him to soften his stare. “Lady Genna and I came across these three on our way down and decided to bring them along. You don’t mind, Aemond, do you?”

Yes! Yes, I mind very fucking much. I would rather tear my own veins out with my teeth than spend the afternoon with the very person I’ve been trying to avoid. “Not at all,” he bites out through a clenched jaw.

In a flurry of rustling skirts and excited chatter, they push past him and clamber into the wheelhouse. Aemond calls out for a servant to bring his horse; he would have sat inside with just Helaena and Genna, but he can’t stomach squeezing in there with the five of them, least of all Viserra. He slams the door behind the Northern girl and tilts his head back, gazing up at the sky in misery.

“Seven help me,” he mutters under his breath.

☀

It would be a lie to say she does not think of him.

There are so many other things to fill her days that it feels almost shameful whenever her mind wanders to him, like an admission of some treacherous secret that would shock the gods themselves. Viserra has no shortage of distractions: council meetings; luncheons with court ladies; garden walks with Helaena that always end in noblemen flirting with them shamelessly; reading to the king; playing with her brothers; tactfully avoiding Aegon’s wine-stained advances. She’s already succeeding handily in her plan to endear herself to the court; she’d underestimated just how excitedly bored nobles will flock to newcomers who carry the promise of fresh gossip. They seem to smell when she’s nearby and bombard her with obsequious flattery and invasive questions alike, half-desperate to win her favor. From the moment she leaves her chambers in the morning to the moment she re-enters them at night, someone wants to see her, speak to her, or spend time with her. In the past week, she’s hardly had a second to herself, a second where her thoughts are not interrupted.

So really, it’s ridiculous that she’d spend even a fraction of her very limited free time thinking about Aemond Targaryen. And yet…

Well. It would be a lie to say she does not.

Just like in their childhood, she feels the absence of his attention more vividly than she does the onslaught of everyone else’s. She finds herself wondering where he is, or what he’s doing; she rarely even catches a fleeting glimpse of him on the edge of her vision. Still, though, somehow, she can almost feel his presence. He’s there, or must be, and yet he slips through her fingers like water each time she thinks she might catch him. It’s infuriating, maddening, and utterly pathetic.

She is not the same girl that wanted so desperately to call him friend, or brother, or fate-twin. He has proven that he has no interest in her company or companionship, then and now. And she doesn’t want to be the friend of someone who would call her and her brothers names, a grown man who is still the bully he was as a child. She knows all of this, logically speaking. She has decided that she will treat him with the respect he is owed as a prince of the realm and her kinsman beside, but nothing more. She has decided that they will live alongside one another peaceably, if only for the sake of the king and her mother. She has decided that she will not look for him, or hope to earn his favor, or feel any disappointment at all when he ignores her with thorough cruelty. 

To her dismay, however, this is proving to be much easier said than done.

She can’t help the way her heart flickers to attention when she crosses paths with Helaena in the corridor and hears that Aemond is waiting in the courtyard. “Raya,” she turns to her handmaid with an innocent grin, “didn’t you just say yesterday that you need new thread to finish your gown?”

“I did,” her friend agrees, “but I thought we were going to—”

“That can wait. Give me just a moment, dear aunt, to run and collect my coin purse.”

There will be other afternoons, she reasons, to show Raya and Baela the mosaic wall in the Queen’s Ballroom. There may not be other afternoons to force Aemond to spend time with her. Not when he’s so hard to find. It’s not that she wants anything from him; he’ll no doubt sit in sullen silence, only breaking it to spit some rude remark at her. She just wants to put her thoughts to rest. Once she sees him, she’ll surely stop thinking about him, as the question of ‘where is he?’ will finally be answered, and she can go about her very busy days in peace.

(Right?)

Viserra practically runs to her bedchamber, grabbing the soft leather purse from her vanity drawer. She sprays a puff of perfume in the air in front of her and twirls as she walks through it, then inspects her appearance one last time before racing back into the corridor. She gives the other girls a confident smile and follows them down the serpentine steps, only half-listening as they continue their conversation. She laughs where she’s supposed to, and gives the required hums of response to prove she’s paying attention, but her mind is occupied by what waits at the bottom of the stairs—or, rather, who.

When they finally emerge into the yard, she feels him before she sees him, a warm static in the air that feels both tense and comforting at the same time. Her eyes drift to him at once, and her heart lurches in nervous surprise that he’s already looking at her, that piercing stare drilling into her flesh. She feels her lips twitch up into a smile. Found you, she thinks with an unladylike smugness. His lone eye seems glued to her for a moment, terror and glee both swelling in her chest at the thought. And then it drifts, ever so slightly, down to her torso, her chest, her throat, and back to her face. He’s appraising her, she realizes, though where other men would look at her thus in empty lust, his stare is more precise, like a beast tracking his prey. A chill rips down her spine.

“You don’t mind, Aemond, do you?” She hears her aunt say.

Helaena seems entirely immune to her brother’s vicious stare. She doesn’t flinch when he turns it onto her, his expression betraying that he does mind quite a bit. “Not at all,” he lies plainly, jaw tight and eye narrow.

Baela, brave as ever, pulls Viserra along, following Helaena to the wheelhouse. She forces herself to follow her aunt and sister’s example and doesn’t look at Aemond as she passes him, and climbs into the carriage as gracefully as she can. Aemond shuts the door forcefully behind them and shouts for a horse, and the five girls situate themselves in the spacious coach while they wait.

“Some of the finest fabrics in the realm can be found on the Street of Looms,” Genna offers, her voice squeaking slightly on the last word. 

Viserra likes Helaena’s lady-in-waiting well enough, and can see why they’re friends; both are demure and devout, not quite shy but not gregarious, either. Entirely unlike Baela and Raya. Baela has been away on Driftmark for the majority of Raya’s fostering on Dragonstone, but they’d been fast friends before Baela left and picked up like no time has passed each time she’d visit. Rhaena calls them a dangerous duo, but delights in the occasions when her friend and her twin are together.

“Where is Rhaena?” She muses aloud, suddenly aware that her sister is the missing piece to an otherwise complete picture. When she went to their rooms earlier, only Baela was within.

Baela rolls her eyes as the wheelhouse lurches into motion. “She went with Luke to the Dragonpit. I told her that Arrax can’t saddle two yet, but she never listens.”

Viserra grins. Gaelithox is large enough to take Rhaena and Viserra both, but too temperamental; for Rhaena, who thinks she’s too old to fly with her father, Arrax is her only hope until Baela finally mounts Moondancer. She and Lucerys have been attempting to warm his dragon up to the prospect of a second rider for the better part of a year, but have yet to see success, though Arrax has proven to be fond of her. He’s always been a more amiable beast than Gaelithox, who has no patience for anyone but his rider. 

The conversation shifts again, and Viserra’s attention drifts out the window. Aemond’s horse trots beside them, a dark, muscled courser with a gleaming black mane. He looks just as stiff and stoic as his rider, she thinks. A well-matched pair.

By the time they reach the start of the Street of Looms, Viserra has counted every diamond in the lattice that covers the window and discussed every type of gown detailing she likes with Lady Genna. She slips out of the wheelhouse as soon as the door is opened, eager to stretch her legs. Aemond slides out of his saddle with easy grace, and pats the horse’s neck before handing the reins to one of the guards that rode with them.

“Where should we start?” Baela asks as she comes to stand beside her.

Viserra shrugs. “I have never come here without my mother. Helaena knows best.”

They fall into step with the older princess, who points out a shop across the wide street and pulls them along without another word. Aemond follows a few paces behind them, scanning the crowds of people around them with a careful eye. He doesn’t speak for the next hour or so, but trudges along with them dutifully from shop to shop. Viserra can’t imagine that he typically enjoys spending his days buying velvet ribbons with a pack of loud, giggling girls, but he’s here all the same, at his sister’s request. That is perhaps the first proof she’s ever seen that he is indeed a human with a bleeding, beating heart in his chest. She could almost grow to admire him for it, or to relate at the very least; she’d do anything her siblings asked of her, too.

Viserra spends more than she should, as she often does on shopping trips. She has very little self-discipline when it comes to raw silk and Myrish lace, and pays the artisans and shopkeepers more than what they ask for each time. The afternoon passes quickly in the pleasant company of her friends, and even Aemond’s foreboding presence behind them doesn’t dim her mood. When they reach a square plaza, they stumble upon a row of carts selling food, and Viserra hears Raya’s stomach grumbling.

Vendors wave them over and offer the choicest selection on their carts, obviously pleased to have the patronage of a group of Targaryens and highborn ladies. Viserra wanders aimlessly around the plaza, browsing carts overflowing with poorly-made crafts and trinkets as well as the food stalls. Suddenly, on the edge of the square, she hears the faint sound of cheering and applause, and follows after it without a second thought.

Around the corner from the plaza, on a smaller street, a trio of puppeteers are in the midst of a show. A large group of children sit at rapt attention in front of the wooden stage, shrieking with laughter as two of the puppets twitch around. The story is an old one she’s heard a thousand times, but Viserra finds herself just as enthralled as the children. She watches until the end, clapping politely and waiting as a young boy races out from behind the stage with an upturned cap in his hands to collect money from the crowd. Only a few people put anything in the boy’s cap, and from where she stands she sees more buttons and chicken bones than coins. When he finally approaches her, she dumps the remainder of her purse into the felt cap. The boy looks up at her in wonder, only then identifying her as a Targaryen by her hair and eyes, and she winks at him before turning away, laughing to herself when she hears him whoop with glee at the sight of silver and gold between the buttons and bones.

“You gave him far too much.”

Viserra glances up, startled, and sees Aemond blocking her path back to the square. He crosses his arms over his chest and scowls at her like she’s a misbehaved child. She glares back at him, already aware of her blood warming with anger. “It is my money to spend as I please. Unless you have been appointed Master of Coin in the last few minutes, I see no reason why it matters to you.”

“If you give gold dragons to one beggar in this wretched city, soon a thousand beggars will know of your wealth and will seek you out to take it from you,” he says in a condescending tone.

Viserra scoffs. “I think the color of my hair already identifies me as someone of considerable wealth. And what is the use of such wealth if I cannot give it to those who need it more than me?”

“Hm. Is that what you want, then? To be so clearly identified while giving charity to the smallfolk so that they might sing your praises? Generous Princess Viserra, buying favor amongst beggars.”

She shakes her head and lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “And when your mother and sister bring food to orphanages with their septons, do they hide their hair and wear common clothes so no one knows who they are? It matters not to me if that little boy recognizes me as his future queen or if he simply thinks the gods were especially generous today. It is our duty as royals to provide for our subjects, uncle.”

He shifts his weight between his feet, as though to settle into a better position to spar with her. “This city is a dangerous place. You should not have wandered away from us, and should never give your coin so freely. Perhaps these things are different on Dragonstone, but I would hate to see you be robbed, or worse.”

“I’m sure you would love that,” she mutters angrily. Her pulse is hot now, and the same particular sort of frustration she’d felt the night she slapped him fills her again now. “I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t leave me to fend for myself if a robber came upon me now.”

He gives her a mirthless smirk. “As tempting as that sounds, you are still a lady of mine own blood, and I—”

“Ah, so you do remember.”

Her face feels warm. Too warm. She doesn’t want to be here any longer, doesn’t want to hear whatever venom he’ll spit at her next. She hates him, she decides then, just as much as he hates her. She hates that she has to tilt her head back to look at him, hates that his threatening stance intimidates her, hates that he could not have done the easy thing and been a friend to her from the very first day they came into this world together. She hates that she feels any hatred at all.

She takes a step towards him, a flood rising in her chest before she can stop it. “I have only ever been kind to you, uncle. And you loathe me, and I cannot understand why. I no longer care if you love me or resent me, but I will not tolerate your disrespect.”

“But what is there to respect?” He spits out, his eye wide and dark as it darts wildly across her face. “You are a self-important little idiot with nothing between your ears, who has never done a single thing to earn my respect. You think it is your gods-given right to be showered with gifts and praise by the lickspittles at court, simply because you were born a king’s granddaughter. I pity you, niece, far more than I loathe you.”

“And you are a wretched prick who still nurses childhood grudges,” she seethes, the last remaining shred of civility disappearing instantly. “You may ride a conqueror’s dragon and wield a conqueror’s blade, but you are still a sad little boy. I would pity you, but you already pity yourself enough for both of us.”

She whirls away from him then, cheeks burning and mind reeling, and stomps down the street with a red fog of rage hanging over her vision. Too late, she realizes she’s gone the wrong way, but cannot abandon her pride to turn around and pass him again.

“Viserra,” he calls after her, and even the sound of his voice seems to fan the flames of her anger. 

“I know!” She shouts over her shoulder but doesn’t turn back. She spots an alley just ahead of her that looks like it will lead her back to the plaza and practically races towards it.

“Viserra,” he calls again, sharper this time. (Vi-serra . He says it differently than everyone else. It sounds like music though he spits it like a curse, and tastes like honey though he seasons it with poison. Her stomach does a dizzying flip and she tells herself it’s just rage.)

With a frustrated huff, she spins back around to face him, half a step from the corner of the street and alley. “What? ” Her hands curl into white-knuckled fists at her sides. He closes the distance between them in a few long steps, muttering something under his breath.

“Why must you be so difficult?” He nearly snarls, still stalking towards her. “The wheelhouse is this way, and you—”

“I don’t need you to tell me where to go or what to do,” she hurls back at him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he scoffs. She turns away, still refusing to admit she’s gone the wrong way, and moves to take a step into the alley.

Suddenly, with a great rush of wind, a pair of horses pulling a large wagon appear just inches from her face, careening down the alley at a terrifying speed. Time seems to slow for a moment as a scream gets caught in her throat, and she realizes she doesn’t have enough time to jump out of their way, and oh, gods, this is it, she’s going to get trampled by a horse in front of Aemond if she doesn’t move, just move, just—

“Move!”

She feels her feet fly out from beneath her as she’s pulled back from the street, the breath leaving her lungs from the force of it. She barely has time to notice the arm around her waist before she’s falling backwards blindly, unable to gather her bearings fast enough to break her fall. Her eyes squeeze shut and her arms push out on instinct, preparing for the impact of the ground. But instead of slamming into the cobblestone street, her back thuds into something softer. Breathless and still held firmly around the waist, Viserra flails around in an attempt to free herself, and manages to turn around so she’s facing whatever fell with her.

Viserra finds herself face to face with Aemond, who grunts softly in discomfort. She’s pressed against his chest, stuck in place by his grip on her waist, their faces just inches apart. Blackfyre’s hilt is digging into her belly, and she can feel a breeze on her thigh that must mean her gown is hiked up, and the skin on her left palm is scraped and stinging—but all she can think about is the fact that his eyepatch is askew, and there’s something glittering in the scarred ruins of his socket.

She breathes out in surprise, and tries to twist her arm free from his grasp, not at all thinking about what she’s about to do. But just before she can reach up to move the patch off his face entirely, he grabs her hand, holding it in the air so tightly that she winces in pain.

“Don’t,” he whispers. 

His voice is oddly vulnerable, like he’s not demanding, but asking—no, begging her not to do it. Her gaze drifts over to his good eye and she’s shocked by the pleading warmth in it. For a moment, she’s frozen in place, her chest heaving against his as she tries to catch her breath, her hand held captive by his vice-like grip, her heart stuttering and flooding with something she can’t name. At this angle, with her face hovering not six inches above his, he looks younger and gentler than she’s ever seen him, even as a child. She swallows, and nods shortly: no matter the cruel words she’d thrown at him just moments ago, she will not cross this boundary and shame him further. 

They seem to realize their strange position on the ground at the same time and jolt apart, scrambling away from each other. Viserra only realizes in the absence of it that the air around them had felt magnetic in an unearthly way, heavy with something hazy and half-divine. She grimaces as she pushes herself to her feet with as much grace as she can gather, hastily rearranging her skirts. Her face burns with the mortification of what just happened. She looks down at her arm and notices that the scraped marks continue from her palm halfway up her forearm, and that the sleeve of her gown has been ripped in three places. But other than a small twinge of pain in her ankle and the remarkable blow to her dignity, she’s mostly unscathed.

“Are you alright?” She asks as she turns around, dusting off her skirts and lamenting the loss of a favorite gown.

Aemond’s back is to her as he readjusts the patch over his face, but she can see that his doublet has torn at the seams and his leather boots have suffered deep scuffs. He must be in pain, having taken the brunt of the fall, but his posture is stiff as ever, revealing nothing. When he turns to face her, she notices a trickle of blood streaming down from a cut on his cheek, and a scrape similar to hers on his temple. “Fine,” he says without looking at her, straightening his sword belt.

Viserra glances down at her sleeve again and sighs as she rips off a strip of fabric. She vaguely notices people watching them from either end of the street as she holds out the makeshift kerchief to him. “Here.”

He finally turns to face her fully, staring suspiciously at the fabric like she might have rubbed poison into it before handing it to him. But after a moment’s hesitation he takes it and wipes the blood from his cheek. He tries to give it back, his hand outstretched awkwardly, but she waves it away. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you,” she admits with another sigh. “I could have been hurt quite badly if not for you.”

He lets out a flat chuckle. “You could have died. I tried to tell you this city is dangerous, but you wouldn’t listen.”

She scoffs, unable to muster the same annoyance that she’d felt before they fell. “Must you use this as an opportunity to scold me further? Most people would simply accept my thanks and move on.”

“And most people would simply heed my warnings in the first place,” he counters, “but it appears that we are not most people.”

Something about the lightness of his tone makes Viserra’s stomach lurch again. If she didn’t know better, she might think he’s attempting to establish some familiarity between them. Like friends do, she thinks before she can stop herself. The shadow of a smile seems to cross his face quickly, but it’s gone before she can be sure it was there in the first place.

“We must agree to disagree,” she smirks. “If you’ll excuse me.” She pushes past him, advancing up the street in the right direction this time. She hears him huff in exasperation as he follows her, never more than two paces behind her but too proud to walk at her side. 

When they enter the plaza again, Baela and Raya race towards them with Helaena and Genna on their heels. A flurry of what happened? s and are you alright? s and Aemond, you’re bleeding! s swarm them, with four hands tugging at Viserra’s sleeve to inspect her scuffed skin and one hand gently grasping Aemond’s chin to inspect his bloodied face. She tells them only that she was nearly trampled by a reckless cart driver and that Aemond pulled her back in time, omitting any hint at their argument. His cheeks flush almost imperceptibly when Helaena praises him for saving their niece, calling him a true knight. And then they’re ushered back to the wheelhouse, and Aemond rides inside with them this time, and when Viserra catches his eye over Baela and Raya’s fawning and fretting, his typically harsh stare isn’t quite so harsh anymore.

In a few days, Viserra suspects, this will have never happened. Her gown will be mended and her scrapes will be healed, and she’ll have forgotten the shamefully unkind words she hurled at her uncle. But something did change, in that brief moment when his eyepatch lifted, their bodies pressed together and their breathing slowed. She saw something, she knows she did; but more than that, she felt something. She’ll never be able to put a name to it, at least not one that accurately describes the sensation. But for just a moment, the bitter air that has hung between them for seventeen years shifted, and felt ever so slightly lighter, ever so slightly tolerable.

She tells herself it means nothing. She tells herself it might mean everything.

Chapter Text

When Viserra returns from her morning ride with Gaelithox, there is a small clay pot on the floor in front of her door. Frowning, she bends to pick it up, noticing a tiny square of parchment beneath it. Something about the perfect corners of the page gives her pause, her fingers tracing over the neatly folded edges. She glances around to see if she can spot whoever left the jar, but the hall around her is empty. Pushing into her bedchamber, she sets the curious gift down and opens the parchment, only vaguely aware that she’s holding her breath.

For your arm. Apply twice daily and cover with cloth. Listen to me this time. A.

Viserra reads the note over and over until the perfectly-penned Valyrian letters start to swim on the page. She trades the parchment for the little jar and removes the lid, sniffing warily at the contents. The salve smells of honey and a variety of herbs she can’t name, earthy and sweet. A common enough treatment, one she’s received from maesters before for injuries more concerning than the shallow scrapes that trail over her hand and forearm—minor scratches, really, that would have healed on their own before the end of the week. Slowly, before she can stop it, a smile forms on her lips.

A thousand and one overlapping thoughts race through her mind as she lifts her sleeve. Not one of them makes sense. She dips her finger in the jar and smears a thin layer of the cream over the scraped skin, more confused than perhaps she’s ever felt but too obedient to ignore the note written in her uncle’s pristine hand.

The thoughtful instruction, the reference to their conversation, the single letter of his signature…one might almost mistake this as a kind gesture from a caring kinsman. But it’s from Aemond. Aemond, the same spiteful, grouchy creature who called her a self-important little idiot just twelve hours ago. Aemond, the same wild-eyed, arrogant child who meant to dash out her brains with a rock eight years ago. Aemond, the same cold, unreadable knight who would curse at her and save her life in a matter of moments.

Viserra feels a giggle pry its way through her lips against her will. Aemond did this. For her. He granted her a kindness, unprovoked, without any expectation of gaining something in return. He made her a healing ointment out of concern for an injury that even a child would only cry about for a few minutes, and walked halfway across Maegor’s Holdfast to deliver it to her so it would be waiting for her at dawn. Perhaps a maester made it, and perhaps a servant delivered it, but still! Aemond cared, for the first time in their lives, to do something kind for her. It’s laughable. It’s unfathomable.

And yet it’s happened.

☆

“Is there anything else you wish to add, my king?”

Rhaenyra has never been so desperate to leave a council meeting. An ongoing battle with nausea in the mornings has left her weak to her impulses, and with her patience already thinned by Otto Hightower’s very existence, she wants nothing more than to run from the chamber and fly for hours with Syrax. But it is her duty , that gods-forsaken chain around her feet, to sit in the stuffy chamber and wither away until the king dismisses her. And anyway, her poor stomach might implode altogether if she attempts to fly now. This babe has not been nearly as mild-mannered as the first five, which only worsens her worries that the birth will be equally as challenging.

But she cannot think about that now. She turns to the end of the table, where Father sits slumped in his chair, breathing heavily despite not having moved for the better part of the morning. Her heart aches at the sight of him, the man who once boomed with laughter and filled the Iron Throne like Aegon the Dragon himself, now reduced to a frail, rotting carcass with a crown. Viserys, First of His Name, clears his throat and winces from the effort. “Thank you, Otto. Yes, in fact, there is one more matter.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes flick across the room as her father draws a labored breath. Alicent sits at his side in rapt attention, a handkerchief clutched in her fist as if she’s counting down the seconds until the king coughs up a wad of phlegm. The rest of the council—Lannister, Wylde, Beesbury…Strong—look far less enthused to hear what he has to say. No doubt they have all grown accustomed to the Lord Hand speaking for him, and no longer hold their own king’s opinions in particularly high regard. Mindless pricks, the lot of them. She sniffs indignantly.

“Viserra, dear, will you leave us?” Father asks, turning his attention to the corner of the chamber.

All eyes follow the king’s. Viserra stiffens at the sudden audience, but quickly sinks into a curtsy and sets down the pitcher she’d been holding on a nearby table. “Yes, Your Grace,” she murmurs with a soft smile. Her glance shifts from the king to her mother as she moves to the door, and Rhaenyra gives her a small nod of encouragement. Viserra has done well these last days, attending the council without drawing attention to herself and never faltering under the watchful eyes of the Greens who would gladly see her fail. She’s good. Better than good. She's everything Rhaenyra was not at her age--or, at least, it seems like it, with so many years and lifetimes that have transpired since she was Father's cupbearer. But that must be the way of it, when you're born and bred for the throne: you just know how to handle yourself in ways that others will never understand. (Not for the first time, Rhaenyra finds herself envying her own child.)

With a wistful sigh after the door closes, and only a slight flush of envy that her daughter gets to leave, Rhaenyra turns back to the king. “What is it you wish to say, Father, that my heir could not be present to hear?” Alicent gives a mirthless snort, once again taking offense at some imagined insult—to her own godly self, to the king, to the air around them, who can be sure. Rhaenyra bites the inside of her cheek to refrain from giving the cold queen something to really find offensive.

“Nothing she will not learn in due time,” Viserys says as he struggles to sit up straighter in his seat. “But I would have her hear it from her mother directly, as I suspect it will warrant a further discussion that should not involve this council.”

The queen looks just as curious as the princess feels. Alicent opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again, her eyes darting between the king and his Hand. “We have spent many hours in the last week discussing the guest list for my celebration,” Father begins. Jasper Wylde shifts in his chair, bracing for another long debate, but the king silences him with one fair and firm glance. “Our list is…extensive, I cannot deny that, but I have good reason for inviting so many nobles, from houses great and small.”

He is the king, Rhaenyra thinks defensively. That is reason enough. The council has been at war with itself over this damned list, and it seems impossibly foolish to her that they would argue over their king’s wishes at all. The man is dying. Let him have this one last grand feast and invite whomever he wants. We can scrounge up the coin to host every servant and shepherd in the Seven Kingdoms if it pleases him.

“It has long been my wish that my children, and theirs, would not be forced into unhappy unions for the sole sake of political gain or alliance. It is the reason I have ignored all of the dozens of marriage offers that have arrived over the years, and the reason my Rhaenyra was granted a tour of the kingdoms to survey her suitors for herself.”

“Viserys,” Alicent interjects, her hands threaded together so tightly that her bones threaten to pop through her skin. “If this is in reference to what we discussed—”

Father grunts. “It is. You are right, my dear, that it is high time Aegon is wed. And not just Aegon.”

Oh. Rhaenyra swallows down a fresh wave of nausea. She’d hoped for a few more years before she could no longer ignore this issue, a few more years with her children at her side. But all children must cease being children eventually, and her fat-limbed babes are no more. At Luke’s age, she was married. At Viserra’s, she gave birth to Viserra herself. They’re old enough, certainly, and it is their duty. But why, then, does Rhaenyra feel so pitifully sad?

“What are you suggesting?” The queen asks flatly.

“Many royal children are betrothed as infants and wed the instant they mature. It is highly unusual that seven royal children at their ages would still be unmarried, and I believe the timing is right to rectify that.” A gleam enters the king’s eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago. A gleam that, when it appears in Daemon’s, only ever precedes something absurd.

The realization seems to dawn on the entire table at once. “Your Grace,” Otto says in a low, warning tone. “Surely you do not mean…”

Viserys gives a small, almost childlike shrug. “I mean to make the most of an opportunity that has been presented to me by the gods themselves. Every eligible son and daughter of this realm will be in our fair city. Respectable, highborn lords and ladies, all suitable consorts to the houses Targaryen and Velaryon, all gathered in the same place at the same time. Let the dragons take their pick of the lot, I say.”

Silence spreads, thick as a humid summer night. Rhaenyra feels an odd sense of calm wash over her as she waits for the inevitable eruption, her hands still and heartbeat slow. One, she thinks. Two, thr—

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but this is absolute madness!” Lord Beesbury blurts.

Jasper Ironrod grunts in agreement. “It is far too dangerous to permit your heirs such an important decision. You, as their king and father, must make these matches for them.”

“They are right, my king,” Ser Tyland says, his pale face slowly turning a concerning shade of pink. “Your generosity in this matter is noble, to be sure, but—”

“At the very least, we must carefully reconsider the guest list, and shave off the lesser houses. It is the only way to prevent this from spiralling out of control. Otherwise, we are at risk of letting someone as meaningless as…” Lord Wylde jabs a fat finger at the stack of parchments the council has dedicated the better part of the week to curating, scoffing at the name closest to his hand, “Salome Erenford within spitting distance of the Iron Throne. Erenford! ”

“Had we known your intentions earlier, Your Grace,” the sly voice of the Clubfoot oozes out from his wet mouth, sending a cold shiver down Rhaenyra’s spine, “we would not have counseled this. There are far fewer names in this realm worthy of marrying into the house of the dragon than the ones on this list.”

Another dozen rebuttals are thrown across the table, but Rhaenyra hardly listens. She focuses instead on her father’s face. He would have them choose, her mind repeats over and over again. He would let them marry for love, all of his children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews. An entire generation of dragons, allowed to wed whom they please and raise obsolete houses of upjumped, landed knights to the status of royal consorts. It is mad, and generous, and kind, and reckless, and so achingly Viserys—short-sighted and warm-hearted all at once. 

What would he have said, if she’d come home from her marriage tour gushing with love for a Lynderly, or a Staedmon, or some equally unimportant second-born son of a second-rate family? She had her pick of them, certainly, when she was young and pretty and delightful. Would he have honored his promise then? If she told him she meant to place a crown on the head of a Reed, or a Vance, or a—

Her gaze drifts to the man standing just behind her father’s shoulder, stoic and silent and cloaked in white. Or a Cole, she thinks with a bitter surge of humor. She tries to imagine what her father would have said then, if she’d skipped into his castle arm in arm with her sworn protector, giggling and moon-eyed and talking of chasing the scent of oranges and cinnamon to Essos. She’s helpless to fight against the laugh that bubbles out of her throat. She presses her fingers to her mouth in a pitiful attempt to silence herself, but the damage has been done.

Criston’s cold, dark eyes meet hers briefly, flashing with the rage he’s let fester and rot within his hollow chest since the moment she rejected him nearly twenty years ago. He means nothing to her now, just as he meant nothing to her then. She moves her hand to let him see the full cruelty of her smirk. Yes, you miserable brute. I’m laughing at you.  

“What say you, Rhaenyra?” The queen asks sharply.

Rhaenyra sighs, and matches her stepmother’s glare. She ponders her words carefully for all of a half-second, then— “I am in support of His Grace’s desires, like any loyal subject. And I know that my children will make wise choices, like any trusting mother.”

It’s not a lie, she realizes after she’s said it. Her children are not feral, unbroken horses who will pick spouses solely using the parts between their legs. They will not tear through their suitors like tempests, leaving broken hearts and scandals in their wake. They are young, yes, and the young are always at risk of making rash decisions when they think they’ve found their great loves. Gods know that Rhaenyra did much the same at their age. But she has not raised fools. Viserra will lead the others to choose with care and will do the same herself, of that she has no doubt.

More than that, she wants them to be happy. Truly. She would not abide them running off with oarsmen or washerwomen, of course, but if they can find a match that satisfies their hearts while still serving to strengthen their position in the realm, she’ll be thrilled to oblige them. And, more importantly, so will the king.

The corners of Alicent's sour, pinched mouth somehow dip even further down. She makes no effort to hide the exasperated roll of her eyes, which only encourages Rhaenyra more. Surely the queen is far from thrilled to hear her husband’s suggestion; any loss for Alicent Hightower is a default win for Rhaenyra Targaryen. “A pleasant statement, but a reductive one. The matter of royal marriages cannot simply be left to chance. You should know that.”

She doesn’t trust Aegon…nor should she. The boy is a wastrel in a prince’s body, drunk and rakish, without the sense to fend for himself. He is as dangerous as a dragon in these circumstances; his mother must be terrified at the thought of her son unleashed on the noble girls who will be put forth by grasping fathers to marry the princes. Another snort of laughter rises behind Rhaenyra’s lips, but she fights it back in time.

“I have made my decision,” Father says simply, his voice more clear and commanding than Rhaenyra has heard it all week. He even musters a proud, definitive smile, one that silences every last retort that his wife and council might think to bleat out. “Within the parameters I have already set out, I intend to honor whatever unions my seven choose for themselves. Now, let us adjourn.”

The Lord Hand, who sat in silence with that stupid, miserable, self-important snarl on his lips while the king and council spoke, clears his throat now, clearly tired of letting Viserys take charge. “My king. I strongly urge you to rethink this—”

“Save your complaints until tomorrow, Otto,” Father interrupts. 

He ignores the tight clench of Otto’s jaw and pushes himself up from his chair with a slight grunt. The rest of the council stands hastily, biting back their rebuttals and counter arguments that no doubt number in the hundreds. Rhaenyra rises languidly, unable to help the smile that plucks at the corners of her mouth. She has concerns, of course, as they all do: what to tell the children; how to prepare them for what will surely be a veritable frenzy once the realm learns of the king’s intentions; and worse, what to tell Daemon . But her king has made his decision, and the Hightowers hate it. That alone is enough to ease many of Rhaenyra’s worries.

Many, but not all.

☀

The ringing in Viserra’s ears grows in volume like a wave, swelling to a deafening level. And then it breaks. The silence is almost as jarring. She blinks rapidly.

“I—uh, yes, I understand.”

She’s not sure what else to say. Her mind is a ball of yarn, hopelessly tangled with thoughts that get more knotted each time she tries to pull one thought out of the mess and decipher it. It’s maddening, and delightful, and absolutely terrifying.

“Perzītsos,” her mother says softly, placing a hand over hers to stop it from trembling. Viserra can’t bring herself to look up, afraid she might cry—or laugh—when she meets Muña’s eyes. “I don’t want you to just understand. I want to hear what you’re thinking: does this please you? Do you have concerns? Is there anything you want to ask me?”

Viserra’s heart might be beating, or it might have stopped altogether. She can’t tell. But there’s a throbbing in her chest that must mean she’s still alive, and if she can feel it, that must mean she’s not asleep. So this is real, she thinks numbly. Perhaps a dream would have been easier.

She has concerns, certainly. Concerns in abundance. And there are a thousand things she could ask her mother—why and how and what and what the fuck and what in the gods’ names do you mean I can choose, to name a few. She knows this. But—

Does this please you?

That, she cannot answer half so easily.

Rhaenyra had summoned her first. The others came later. (This is the way of it, always: Viserra is the first to learn something, and digests it with her mother alone before her siblings are informed.) Muña led her to a chair by the fireless hearth and pressed a goblet of honeyed wine into her hands, an act that was no doubt meant to calm her but served instead to make her nervous stomach flip. She’d started with an awkward smile, and a stiff inhale that betrayed her own nervous state. “Do you know, darling girl, how much I love you?”

Viserra flinched at the question. “What? Of course, Muña. Why—”

“You were my first attempt at motherhood, when I was still half a child myself. With my own mother dead, I had no one to show me how to do it right. How to raise any babe, much less a daughter and heir. But I tried my best. And as you have grown from a girl to a woman, I have tried to treat you as such, to speak to you plainly and not shield you from the realities of our world. Perhaps I have not always struck the right balance between mother and mentor, but you must know it was not from a lack of love.”

“I know,” she said after a moment, a lump forming in her throat. They have gotten better at this over the years—saying the difficult things aloud. It doesn’t mean these conversations do not still fill Viserra with a strange mix of melancholy and discomfort. “I do not doubt it. But what does this have to do with…?”

Rhaenyra hummed softly. She really was nervous, Viserra could tell, a rare and striking thing for someone usually so composed. “I have always been transparent with you about matters that directly affect you and your future. I have shown you each letter that has come asking for your hand in marriage, and always promised that I would never command anything, or force you to marry someone against your will. Even with all the offers of betrothals I’ve received since your birth, the prospect of your marriage seemed so far away. But it is no longer a distant eventuality, I’m afraid.”

Viserra let out a sharp breath, the realization landing on her lungs like a stack of bricks. She swallowed hard and tried her best not to show the warring storms of emotions rushing through her body. “Grandsire has made a match for me, then. Very well. I will…I will do my duty. Who is it?”

“No, no,” Muña said quickly, with an almost sad chuckle. “You are close, but not quite. Your grandsire does not want to impose an unhappy marriage upon you just to strike an alliance with some great lord. That was the mistake the Old King made, and it cost him the lives of his daughters. It’s the opposite, really. Of course, the political angle must still be considered, but…” she paused, shaking her head. “Gods, I’m butchering this.”

The thudding of her heart quickened from a dull trudging to a frenzied run. “I can handle it, Muña, whatever it is. Just tell me.” It hurt to breathe. She didn’t understand. Would she be shipped off to some far corner of the realm tomorrow, or would she have a little more time? Oh, please, couldn’t she have a little more time? Just a year or two, to travel the world and taste a few liberties before accepting the fate she’s always known would be hers eventually? 

She almost asked this aloud, but—

“It seems my father has become something of a romantic with age. He wants you to make your own match, based on more than politics or duty. A match based on…love, if you can find it. He has grand designs of using his upcoming feast as the background for you to choose your future husband, as he has invited every reasonably acceptable lord and knight in the Seven Kingdoms. But you needn’t rush into any of this, or feel like you must choose at the feast. It could merely be an introduction, or the start of a courtship, or—or you might detest them all and wish to go on a tour of the realm like I did. And you can wait a few years before you’re wed; a betrothal doesn’t mean you must be carried to the sept the moment you make your choice. But it—well, it’s your choice, Viserra.”

The room had started to spin then, slow at first, then gaining speed like a storm out at sea. The ringing was quick to follow. And now—

Does this please you?

Viserra has always had a hopeful heart, winged and naive, impervious to reason and desperate for love. She’s tried to suppress it, that traitorous thing that fawned over stories of true love far past the end of girlhood and wanted, so deeply, to feel and know and taste and live in a story like that. She’s tried to push it down and pray it wouldn’t haunt her, so she could face the inevitability of marrying whomever her mother and king chose for her without crushing disappointment. She’s a princess, and a princess must do her duty—truly, she would have walked the length of the realm barefoot and bleeding and married a horrible troll three times her age if they asked it of her. She would do anything to please the crown. She never expected that the crown cared at all for what pleased her. 

And in some divine turn of fate, the sort of glorious intervention that only happens in songs and stories, the crown’s desires and hers are one in the same. A marriage for love. She can find her white knight, the one from her dreams—a good man, kind and true, who will love her not for the blood in her veins or the crown she’ll wear one day, but for the meat of her, the beautiful and the ugly alike. Finally, she’ll have somewhere to put all the love that blooms and dies and blooms again in her heart. For the second time in one day, the impossible has happened.

“Do you really mean it?” She asks quietly, almost hoping her mother will take it all back and tell her it was just a jape. It would be easier that way. It’s always been easier to tell herself that hoping and hoping and desperately hoping would never do her any good. 

Muña nods, smiles, squeezes her daughter’s hand. “Yes.”

Just like that. One word, and her fate is hers. Her heart is hers. Hers to give or guard as she pleases, to share with whomever she wants. A grin cracks across her lips, and suddenly she’s smiling so wide it makes her cheeks hurt. She throws her arms around her mother’s neck and grips her tightly, only aware that she’s crying when she feels something wet on her lashes.

She is pleased. There are more than a few questions that remain, not all of which can be answered, and more than a few worries, too. She’s been given a gift that doubles as a burden—much like the crown itself. This choice will be a heavy one, heavier than any she’s made before. For the man she chooses to marry will not just be her husband, but King Consort of the Seven Kingdoms, father to her heir and the future of the Targaryen dynasty. He must be a partner, who will not shame her in the eyes of the realm, or seek to undermine her in her own court, or steal her power for himself and keep her heavy with child so she’s not able to rule on her own. A man who can be trusted. She is not her own woman, and cannot choose based on her heart alone. Perhaps duty and love can coexist, but one must always take precedence over the other, and their relationship will never be evenly balanced. So it is a gift, a rare and wonderful one, to be granted the freedom to choose who she weds. Not many women in this world can share in this blessing, and Viserra never imagined she would, either. But it comes at a price.

All she can do is hope a little further, hope that she makes the right choice, hope that the price is not too high. All she can do is hope that she will find her white knight.

☾

“Haedar! ” Aegon sticks his fingers in his mouth to whistle, loud and shrill.

Aemond looks up from his book and glares at his brother. Somehow, Aegon had been silent for so long that Aemond nearly forgot he was a few feet away. “What are you—”

“Haedar, ” he calls again, “over here!”

Aegon only has one little sister, and she’s sitting right next to him, beating him sorely in a game of cards. So who—

“I am not a dog, uncle. Try again.”

Oh. Of course. Her.

Aemond fights the urge to turn around and look at her. It’s harder than he would’ve thought. Harder than it was yesterday, at any rate. Aegon leaps to his feet, tossing aside his hand of cards and jogging over to where she must be standing at the entrance to the courtyard. “Forgive me, Princess Viserra,” he hears his brother say in a lofty formal tone. “Would you please do me the honor of joining me beneath the willow tree? Your aunt and uncles kindly request your company.”

Forgive me, Viserra.

(Forgive me, Viserra.)

Aemond groans under his breath. Helaena gives him a curious look but says nothing, gathering up the cards and shuffling them in her deft hands. He swears he sees a shadow of a smile on her lips which only serves to worsen his mood. He didn’t think it could get much worse after the announcement their mother made an hour ago, yet somehow he’s been proven wrong. He should have left his siblings when he had the chance, stalked off to his rooms or the library or somewhere he could be alone. But Helaena asked him to come and spend the afternoon with his family, and he’s never been able to refuse her. Now, though, he really wishes he had. The last thing he wants to hear right now is the chirpy, cheerful sound of his niece’s voice.

“Ah, very well,” she laughs, and Aemond grimaces at the high, brassy melody of it. He busies himself with his book again, ignoring the approaching sound of soft steps in the grass.

“Where are you coming from?” Helaena asks, patting the space beside her in a silent invitation.

A few more footsteps, and Viserra appears. Aemond refuses to look up. She pauses for a moment, and he can sense the warmth of her gaze on him, then scoffs softly and lowers herself to the pile of cushions next to his sister. “My mother’s chambers. My siblings are not far behind, but I…needed some air.”

Was there not any other air to be had in any other part of the castle? Aemond thinks in dry disdain. Aegon flops down a second later, kicking Aemond’s shin in the process. He kicks him back, hard. 

“Ow!” Aegon whines, scowling in his direction. “Prick.”

Viserra scoffs again. “What is the cause of my uncle’s sour temper today?”

“He’s taking the news rather poorly,” the eldest Targaryen brother replies, reaching for the pitcher of wine and untouched cups that his siblings have ignored. He pours a glass for her, and Aemond notices that when he passes it to her, his fingers brush over hers for a moment longer than necessary. His mood sinks yet again, anger prickling in his lungs. At this rate, he’ll be in the seventh hell before supper. “He likes to brood, and Hellie and I let him.”

“He,” Aemond snaps his book shut, “can speak for himself. And I do not brood.”

Aegon giggles, that high-pitched, childish sound that irritates Aemond but somehow charms and disarms the rest of the court. “Oh yes, you do. I think it’s cute.”

At this, Aemond finally lifts his eye, leveling his brother with his sharpest glare. “Enough.”

His gaze flicks over to Viserra, who hides a smirk behind the rim of her cup. A net of gold thread and rubies holds her hair back from her face, but one curl has escaped just to frame the scar on her temple perfectly. He looks away before she catches him, but not so quick that he doesn’t notice the scrap of rough cotton half-hidden beneath her teal sleeve. The sight of it makes his heart thump a little faster. She listened.

“Touchy,” Aegon mumbles, refilling his own glass and downing half of it in one gulp.

A brief silence falls over them, and Aemond debates leaving the others to their own devices. They never needed his presence as children, and they surely don’t need it now. 

“So,” Viserra tries after a moment, “what news?”

“Hmm?” Aegon takes the deck of cards from Helaena and begins to deal them out into piles of three. “Want to play?”

She shifts forward. “Two blue?”

Helaena hums in affirmation, taking her pile in hand. “Father’s feast. I assume your mother told you his true intentions.”

“Oi!” Another voice calls gruffly before Viserra can confirm or deny. “Deal me in.”

Aemond curses under his breath. Lucerys comes loping into the courtyard with the twins a few paces behind him, brown curls flopping in his brown eyes. Talking like a baseborn commoner really does not help him avoid the bastard allegations, Aemond thinks as he bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying it aloud. Luke squeezes onto Viserra’s cushion and slings an arm around her shoulders, wearing the same easy grin as Aegon.

He wonders if he’s the only person in his family who realizes the severity of their situation. Their father’s feast is more death sentence than festivity, but the relaxed posture of the two princes and the elder twin would make one think they’re looking forward to a summer picnic by the river. Aemond opens his book again and stares at the page, but the words swim as his focus is overrun by his thoughts. 

“Your father and I have come to a decision,” Mother had started with the sour tone and pinched lips that always betrayed the truth: the decision was the king’s alone, and she had no choice but to carry out his will. “The three of you have been afforded a great luxury in remaining unmarried this long, but it is high time you marry and start families of your own so that you may strengthen and continue the Targaryen line. Aegon cannot be a king without an heir, else he may make the same mistakes as his father. And you two are valuable to the throne, too.”

Aemond scoffed at the lackluster effort at affection. Aegon muttered a slew of protestations under his breath. Helaena stared at the beetle in her hands.

“His Grace desires that each of you take advantage of his upcoming feast to find a suitable spouse,” the queen continued, “and make a prosperous match for the realm that also satisfies your hearts. Your father and I will have the final approval over these unions, of course. I will not allow you to marry lowborn fools that offer nothing to the throne. But the king insists that you be given the opportunity to wed for…love, a freedom that very few in this world are offered. Truth be told, I find this a great waste of time and effort. You should be grateful that you were not betrothed and shuffled off into strategic marriages as children, like—” she paused, just for a half second. “Like most highborn heirs. All the same, we must adhere to your father’s wishes.”

Aemond knew three things in the space between heartbeats, while his brother flew into an uproarious rage of dissent and his sister nodded sagely like she’d known since she woke up that this would happen.

First, he knew that Aegon would soon realize just how beneficial this actually is for him: a veritable buffet of women throwing themselves at him, desperate for their future king to make them his queen. Some would be well-mannered and only pushed to flirtation by their grasping fathers, but some would be power-hungry on their own, and would make fools and whores of themselves in the race for Aegon’s favor. The king’s eldest son is a greater prize than most brides dare to hope for, and a ravenous rake like Aegon will ravish and ruin each one that he can get his beastly, wine-wet hands on. He would thrash against the prospect of marriage at first, but in a matter of moments he would come to his senses and celebrate his victory.

Second, he knew that his mother had no intention of adhering to his father’s wishes. The Lord Hand did not let a king’s wishes stand between his blood and the Iron Throne; he did not wait for Viserys to choose his daughter out of love. Lady Alicent did not become Queen Alicent by chance and choice, and there was no concern for love on anyone’s part when Otto stuck his daughter beneath the newly-widowed king’s nose. They may have bowed and acquiesced to his father’s face, but there is simply no world in which they will leave Aegon to choose his own queen consort, love be damned. He would not be surprised to learn that a scheme has already been set in motion, or would be soon enough. 

And third, he knew that he, too, had no intention of adhering to his father’s wishes. Father promised him he would be spared the indignity of marriage so that he might pursue a position in the Kingsguard, and he would not change his mind and subject Aemond to such misery without warning. Mother had approved of his plan as well, not long after he told Viserys. She must know that nothing, not even the promise of permission to marry for love (and then, not even the love of the fairest maid in the Seven Kingdoms) could tempt him away from the path he has chosen. If they wanted him to wed, they’d have to force him to the sept with a sword at his neck—in this, at least, he’d be no less difficult than his brother. No, she only included him in this address to soften the blow for Aegon. That was it. He would be allowed to continue on as he has, and only his siblings would face the prison of marriage. 

He hardly listens as the others discuss it, but it strikes him as utterly ridiculous that any of them could possibly face this so calmly, so contentedly. Surely they aren’t so daft to think that they will really be allowed to marry whatever simpering idiot flatters them into a false sense of affection. They are dragons, each of them, even Luke. Dragons cannot concern themselves with something as frivolous and common as love. If they wed at all, they must be wed for the crown’s gain and benefit—wealth, children, alliance. He would hate to see his sister forced into an unhappy union, and would cut down any man who harmed her without a second thought. But love…

Aemond isn’t sure he’d recognize love if it slapped him in the face.

The thought tastes sour on his tongue. He squeezes his eye shut, hard, then looks up, desperate for a distraction anywhere. Viserra smiles contentedly at something Helaena says, propping her hand in her chin. “I, for one, am delighted,” she sighs. 

“Delighted?” He repeats without thinking. “What’s so delightful about being sold to the highest bidder?”

Aegon snorts with laughter, and Aemond sees teasing smirks form on Luke and Baela’s lips, but he can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed at the outburst. He keeps his eye steady on Viserra, waiting for the only reaction he cares to hear. She meets his gaze for the first time since sitting down, the gleam of gold in her pale eyes almost startling. “I am not a cow being traded at auction, uncle.”

“No,” he agrees, “you are not a cow, or a dog. You are a princess. But if you do not think marriage is a transaction, then you are a princess and a fool.”

“Did you not receive the same information as your siblings?” She cocks her head to the side, a small smile playing at her lips. “We are to marry for love, and love is not transactional. Are you familiar with the concept?”

No. “I am.”

“Then I fail to see how I am the fool here.”

A flash of anger washes over him, familiar and warm. But—no, he realizes, not anger. Something different, softer. Where his anger burns everyone, even him, this feeling is almost…enjoyable. He smirks, leaning forward slightly and tracing a finger over the hilt of the dagger on his belt. “Do you understand what awaits you? An onslaught of every half-common lordling in the realm will descend on this city in a moon’s turn, all clamoring to wed and bed a dragon. They will say anything to make you believe they love you, shower you with sweet words and empty flattery, so that they might take your title and your blood for themselves. You will fall victim to it, Viserra, as any vain creature would, and realize too late that you’ve been deceived.”

(Vi-serra. Every time. Gooseflesh prickles to attention on the back of her neck. She wonders if he is the only person who says her name correctly, if everyone else has been wrong, if he speaks a language that only she understands. Then she wonders if the heat in King’s Landing isn’t making her dizzy and dumb.)

“There is no shame in enjoying flattery,” she says with an amused look. “But there is a difference between enjoying it and allowing yourself to be deluded. I have no doubt I will be able to discern true declarations of love from false.”

“And what of wealth? What of dragons? There are a great many factors that suitors will find attractive.”

Viserra shifts forward, and when the light lands on her face, Aemond sees something almost hungry in her features. She smells the fight as much as I do, he realizes with a greedy bloom in his chest. “Yes, Septa Obvious, you are correct. My grandsire Corlys is the wealthiest man in the realm. My grandsire Viserys is the king. I am the eldest child of two powerful houses, and stand to inherit much. Namely, the Iron Throne. If you think I don’t know that every man who attempts to court me will be enticed by proximity to power, then you are twice the fool you believe me to be.”

“And does that not bother you?” He counters quickly, ignoring the slight. He deserves it. He relishes in it. He may or may not be growing to like it when she bares her teeth at him.

“Does it matter?” She shrugs. “No man is immune to the allure of status, or gold, or dragonriders for sons. I cannot blame them. But when they meet me, they will realize that my appeal as a bride is not limited to my inheritance. Would you not agree, qybor?”

The question disarms him, just as he was prepared to deliver a sharp strike. Oh, you proud, imperious creature. You can’t help yourself, can you? Flirting comes as naturally to you as breathing. But why me? I hate you, you know it, you said it yourself. Why turn to me for validation and waste a flutter of those long eyelashes on a beast like me? It has no effect on him. It cannot have an effect on him. Aemond blinks, suddenly very aware that his siblings and hers have been watching them with rapt attention.

“My only concern,” he says evenly, trying desperately to ignore the warmth rising to his cheeks, “is for the prosperity and protection of my house. You are clearly naive to the wickedness of men. Should you be misled and beguiled by an upstart lord, and give your heart to an unworthy charlatan, it will reflect poorly on the entirety of House Targaryen. I hope that you… all make wise decisions.”

She lets out a soft hum, with a honeyed glint in her eyes that is at once disbelieving and condescending and entirely captivating. “Your concern is endearing.”

“Hm,” he huffs, not quite sure whether to smile or cut something with his dagger.

A snort of laughter breaks through the tense delirium in the air between them. Baela claps a hand over her mouth but continues to laugh from behind it, her shoulders shaking and eyes gleaming. Lucerys seems to be trying very hard not to burst into laughter as well. Helaena’s gaze flicks rapidly back and forth between her brother and niece.

“Well,” Rhaena says after a moment of silence. “Would anyone care to explain the rules of two blue to me?”

Aegon chuckles, shaking his head as he looks down at the forgotten cards in the grass. “Right. The first thing you need to know…”

Motion, and noise. A flurry of hands and an exchange of quips. Aemond is only vaguely aware of it. Helaena presses a pair of cards into his palm but he makes no notice of them, the shapes and colors swimming in his vision. Endearing. No one has ever called him that before. Brusque, cold, distant, austere. Brooding. Silver, second. He knows what he is. He has accepted his lot in life, never sought to change the court’s low opinion of him. They fear him, and respect him, and that has been enough for him.

And then—endearing.

It was an insult. It was a compliment. It matters not. All that matters is that he should have been angry, and wasn’t. The space around them had grown still and stiff, as it always does, but this time it didn’t feel so hostile, so volatile. He could have said something cruel and unretractable that sent her running away in tears. She could have said something vicious and haunting that made his blood boil with rage. But they didn’t. Instead of marching into battle, they sparred with wooden swords.

He cannot comprehend it. It should feel wrong, to be defeated. Especially at her hands. But he cannot bring himself to be shamed by his loss, or even hate her quite as thoroughly as he usually does. And yet...

Aemond feels the nudge of a knee against his, and lurches back into his body as he realizes it’s his turn to play. He slaps a card down without much thought and the game carries on, the attention turning to the next player and the next. He tries to focus, to think of anything but the way his heartbeat hasn’t slowed since the moment Viserra sat down. When a thin, ringed hand tosses a card into the pile, he looks up at its owner. She gives him the faintest of smiles when their eyes meet—and if he didn’t know better, he might call it shy.

Something sharp sparks in his lungs. He returns the smile, and the feeling grows, warm and wonderful and completely foreign.

Chapter Text

Viserra smiles to the knight in the white cloak as she approaches the door to the king's chambers. "Good morrow, Ser," she greets cheerfully.

Lorent Marbrand grins. "Princess Viserra. His Grace will be pleased to see you." He pushes open the heavy door and steps aside to let her pass, his kind eyes twinkling. The Kingsguard must be loyal to their king above all else, but other, smaller loyalties lie just beneath the smooth white surface of their armor. Where Ser Criston is openly devoted to Queen Alicent and her children, Ser Lorent has more fondness for Princess Rhaenyra and hers.

She steps into the antechamber and is immediately struck by the thick plumes of smoke swirling through the room, heavy with the scent of incense. Even with the censers posted all around her, the pervasive stench of sickness still remains. She buries her grimace beneath a smile and pushes into the next room. Grand Maester Orwyle stands at the king's bedside, applying a compress to her grandsire's brow. Behind him, another maester is busy preparing some sort of poultice in a small wooden bowl, while a third disposes of cloths stained with pus and blood. And on the king's opposite side, watching with a grim expression and murmuring questions to the grand maester, is—

Him. Viserra blinks. She had not expected to see him here this morning, and certainly not in such an attentive pose beside his father, concern obvious in his lone eye. Then again, she really shouldn't be surprised: Aemond is everywhere, a cold black storm front at the edges of her vision wherever she goes. In the past week, he has gone from an almost-present, half-formed figure to something much more conspicuous—which is exactly what she wanted, yet now that she sees him more often, she feels far more unsettled, too. They haven't spoken since the day in the courtyard, a fact that only seems to add to her nervousness; only long glances and short smiles are exchanged in passing, polite and impersonal, just enough to leave a flicker of hope in the pit of her stomach. She's not sure why she cares; he's just one man, one prince out of seven, one knight out of a thousand, one body out of nearly half a million in all of King's Landing. He should not strike such fear and fascination in her heart. And yet…

He notices her immediately, a sharp twitch of his head and that piercing eye is on her, almost accusatory, almost defensive. She resists the urge to take a step back, the intensity of his stare nearly enough to knock the breath from her lungs. His lip curls slightly. Her heart stops beating. In three long paces he crosses the room, an unmistakable blaze in his eye.

"What are you doing here?" He whispers only half-angrily as the space between them dwindles.

Viserra holds her ground—barely. She's not sure why he's upset. She's never sure. She's not sure if she cares at all. "I came to see my grandsire. Did I need your permission to enter?"

"You—"

"Princess," Orwyle turns, eyes darting briefly between Aemond and Viserra before he dips his head to her. "I'm afraid that this is not the best time for a visit. His Grace…"

She takes a steadying breath, unsure how her blood has turned so warm so fast. She only meant to visit a kindly old man, and now her entire day feels violently derailed—all because of him. How does he manage to do this to her, time and time again?

"Is abed, yes, I see," she nods. "I do not mean to disturb. I shall return later."

A weak moan floats up from the bed, and Viserra's heartbeat comes rushing back. Viserys manages to lift his head ever so slightly. "Rhaenyra?"

She picks up her skirts and pushes past both prince and grand maester. The smell of decay grows stronger as she grows nearer, and she notices the soft pink seep of fresh blood from beneath the new compress that covers most of the king's face. Her lower lip trembles. "It's Viserra, Grandsire."

"Oh," he offers a smile that seems to pain him, and the one visible eye looks past her, through her, beyond her in a clouded stare. "My dear girl. You sound like her…your mother, and hers."

"What a kind thing to say," she smiles and takes his hand in hers, ignoring the rough feel of decaying flesh in her soft palm. No one has ever compared her voice to Muña's, or Queen Aemma's. "The Lord Hand told me you were unwell. I came to sit with you awhile, if you'd like."

Otto Hightower had dismissed her out of hand last night when she'd inquired about the king's health, swatting her questions away like a gnat's irritating buzzing, not a granddaughter's concern. But when His Grace's condition kept him from attending the small council for the third day in a row, when so many important matters pertaining to his festivities were being discussed, Viserra could no longer keep from checking on her grandsire for herself. Her mother would have come with her this morning, but the babe has kept her from venturing more than a few feet away from a chamber pot.

"Yes, please sit," he rasps. "Orwyle, are we finished?"

"Nearly, my king. Princess, if you'd only allow me a few moments to administer a dose of his tonic, I will leave you to it," he takes a glass bottle from his fellow maester and approaches slowly, the heavy, many-linked chain around his throat clanking in a quiet melody.

"Of course," she ducks her chin and backs away. "Please. Do what you must."

Across the room, Aemond still stands stiffly, watching her with an unblinking gaze. She feels a rush in the pit of her stomach and approaches him without thinking, drawn towards him on feet that move of their own accord. "I hope I have not interrupted anything," she tries. "I had no idea you were here."

He gives a curt nod. "I wasn't going to stay much longer. Just…when Orwyle told me the news, I wanted to check on him."

Viserra frowns. "News?"

"Have you not heard?" She shakes her head, and he scowls. "Why have you come, then?"

"As I said, I wanted to visit my grandsire. Are you so skeptical of everyone, or is it only me?"

"Of course you did," he scoffs quietly, a mirthless smirk flashing across his lips. "I should not be surprised. You are the perfect, doting little granddaughter."

She takes another step closer to him. "Spare me the disdain, and tell me true: what news?"

In the space between seconds his expression softens, stony anger giving way to something akin to grief. He looks down. "The infection has spread to his eye. He will…lose it."

Oh. Her heart sinks. Aemond looks younger suddenly, and in his face she sees the faded, faint memory of a boy with a fresh wound tracing over his eye, dried blood on his cheek illuminated by firelight. The boy disappears just as quickly as he came, a solemn, unreadable mask falling back into place.

"I…I'm sorry," she mumbles.

He grunts. "You didn't take it."

"No," she rolls her eyes, "but I am sorry for it all the same." For his, she thinks, and for yours. An idea begins to bloom then, and she leaves her irritation behind. "I know what will cheer him."

"What? Have you planned a little dance, or a song with your damned harp?" His words should break her skin, but instead they leave her with the dull pleasure of a puppy's harmless nipping at her fingers.

She grins, unfazed. "Will you come with me to the library? We can find a few of those old history narratives he loves and read to him. Together."

Aemond gives her a flat stare. "Why do you need me? I trust you are capable of making it to the library and back unaccompanied. There are no speeding carts to hurt you now."

"Because it will please him if we do this together, don't you think?" The idea does not sound half as solid aloud as it did in her mind a second ago. "He has always had such hopes that we would be friends."

A beat, then another. Viserra's blood echoes in her ears. "Hm," he says at last, utterly unmoved.

"I believe it would please our mothers, too, to prove to them that these two sides of our family are at peace. And who better to broker that peace than His Grace's vejes-idañi?" She flashes a winning smile, trying her best to call up the easy confidence she knows so well—but it's harder, somehow, with him. Summoning charm is usually second nature to her, but then, she usually doesn't care quite so much about her target's good opinion of her.

A wretched moment passes in silence. She forces her mind to remain quiet, to not race and ruin itself with a thousand warring thoughts. She focuses on the raspy, ragged sound of her grandsire's breathing somewhere behind her—and she waits, filled with the strange, anxious urge to fidget with something. And just when the waiting grows painful, and it seems like he might back down from whatever imagined challenge he sees in her eyes—

"No."

"Wh—no?"

Aemond lifts his chin, looking down his aquiline nose at her. "No."

Viserra feels her temper flare against her will. "Why not?"

"I don't want to," he says simply. "Is that a problem for you, Princess?"

"I—yes!" She snaps, face flushed, lungs alight. "All I am asking is that you join me in my attempt to put your father in better spirits before his eye is ripped out of his skull. Why must you choose this moment to be so bloody difficult? Can whatever moody little tantrum you're throwing in your mind not wait?"

His jaw clenches. "You know nothing of his condition, of his spirits. You and your mother fly in here weeks ago after years away, never having cared about His Grace once in all that time, and think you can make it all better with a little bedtime story. I have watched him wither away, helped his maesters soothe his every pain, held my mother as she wept over his rotting body. Your ignorance and arrogance is…there is nothing you can do to change this," he finishes with a frustrated sigh.

"I know that," she whispers angrily, taking another step towards him. "I am not smarter than the grand maester or more devoted to His Grace than your mother…or you. I am not so blind with self-importance that I seek to overtake their work. But I know that I can try to lift his spirits in my own small ways, and that is what I intend to do—with or without you. Now, I would much prefer to have your assistance in this, if only because it will make him all the happier, but—"

"I am not a dog that you can call on to do tricks and follow you around the castle," he bites out with a furious blaze in his eye that makes her stomach flip. "I know you have never been denied a thing in your precious life, so let me say it again: no, Viserra, I will not come with you."

Viserra opens her mouth, prepared to fling another retort at him, but nothing comes. She hates that word, those two vicious little letters. He's not wrong; it is as rare to her ears as this feeling of anger that only he seems to bring out of her is to her heart. Somehow, once again, he has enticed her into this cruel dance—and she knows none of the steps. He is almost cordial one moment, malicious the next, and she has no way of predicting what version of him will emerge. It's mortifying, and infuriating. And, though she could never admit it, sets a thrill in her chest that she's never felt before. But—

She does not like to hear no. And she does not like to lose a challenge. Certainly not from him. So she smirks, one brow raised, and cocks her head to the side. "Really?"

Before he can reply, she turns her back on him and faces the king's bed. "Grandsire," she calls out sweetly. "Aemond and I will be back in a moment. He has so wisely suggested that we fetch a few books from the library to read to you. Grand Maester, please take good care of His Grace until we return."

"Oh, how kind," Viserys beams brightly at his son and granddaughter, waving away the cup in Orwyle's outstretched hand. "How very kind of you both. Thank you. I'll be right here, heh," he heaves a breathy chuckle before allowing the maester to press the goblet to his lips once more.

Viserra returns his smile and glances over her shoulder, finding Aemond glaring at her with his mouth agape, his face a shade of red she's only seen on cherries and roses. His abject horror at his defeat is enough to warm the fire he set in her veins to a bright and prideful roar. Emboldened by victory, she slips her hand into the crook of his arm and pats it gently. "Come along, dear uncle, we mustn't keep our king waiting."

Perhaps stunned into submission, or too well-trained to shrug her off and berate her in front of his royal father, Aemond allows her to lead—or, rather, drag—him from the chamber in silence. He doesn't fight back until the door to the king's apartments has closed behind them and a mildly bewildered Ser Lorent has watched them disappear around a thick pillar. Then—

"Are you mad?" He drops her arm like it's burned him and turns a wild glare in her direction, his lone eye roving from the place where her hand had been to her face a dozen times in a matter of one second. "I said—"

"You need not say it again," she sighs, unsure where she's found the mettle to face him unarmed.

"So you did hear me. You just chose to…to…"

"To ignore you. Correct."

He throws his hands up and slaps them against his sides, the sound nearly echoing in the corridor. "What is wrong with you?"

"I could ask you the same question!" She points an angry finger dangerously close to his face. She is in uncharted territory now, the waters growing more violent with every breath between them, but she cannot bring herself to back down. Not now. "I am thinking only of His Grace, and what would gladden his ailing heart. I know your own is a shriveled, neglected, rotten piece of meat behind your ribs, but must you refuse to let anyone else experience happiness, too? Did you not see how brightly his smile shone in there, all because he thought we were truly acting in tandem, as kin, and as—as friends?"

"He can hardly see! His wits are not at all what they once were! He thought you were your mother. He thought I was your mother. He—" and it happens so quickly one might miss it, but Viserra does not. She hears it, sees it, feels it. Aemond's voice breaks, and the fire in his eye is stamped out. "And you think he cares at all if we are friends."

"Aemond…" she tries, dropping her hand listlessly at her side. She ignores the way he threw the last word like a knife and watches his eye flood with a thousand emotions. But just when she thinks he might let down his guard entirely, at least for a moment, at least long enough to let her slip one tendril of care beneath his surface, it slams back down between them hard enough to rattle her teeth. He breathes in, and every trace of a beating heart disappears.

"Come," he says brusquely. "You have trapped me into this moronic errand, so I will go, for Father's sake. Just…do not think this means you have won anything."

Viserra knows then that there is no use in pushing him. She has seen this same tense refusal to feel in Luke before, and Daemon…and, if she were forced to admit it, in herself. It will only make him resent her more if she tries to melt stone, and as it stands now, she can't exactly afford to have him resent her any more than he already does. She swallows, and nods. "A draw, then."

She starts down the hall again, but doesn't hear his soft footfalls behind her. Hesitantly, she turns around, and sees him standing exactly where she left him—trying and failing to hide a smile.

Oh, she thinks, heart giving a strange flutter. This is how he does it. He is trying to kill me in the way I'd least expect. Where I thought to find a blade to my throat, he is giving me a slow death, painful and confusing. What is there to smile about? He looked close to tears just a second before, then cold as ever, and now this? What sense is there to this man?

"What?" She feels the tug of a smile at the corner of her own mouth, quadrupling her confusion.

He shakes his head and follows after her, but his long-legged strides quickly outpace her, and within seconds she's hurrying to catch up. He slows just enough for her to fall into step beside him and she's grateful for what can only be called his version of camaraderie. A smile after bickering, a salve for her wrist, a slowed step. It is…something. Not quite friendship. Not quite hatred. And for the first time in her life, Viserra Velaryon, a girl who has always detested not knowing something for a certainty, thinks she could grow to like this grey matter.

They walk in silence. Neither looks at the other, or says a word about the strange glances they receive from nearly every person they pass. Lord Beesbury raises a curious brow at them, and Lady Caswell gains a gleam in her eyes that tells Viserra she'll be racing to share this new imagined piece of gossip with her friends as soon as they're out of sight. Aemond stares straight ahead, and Viserra pretends not to feel every hair on her arms standing upright. He lets her walk through the carved archways to the library ahead of him, a perfunctory act of chivalry, and merely grunts in response to her quiet glance of thanks.

"You do realize," he says at last, voice lowered for the benefit of the stern-faced maester at a tall desk just inside the entrance, "that Maester Naylin's sole purpose in life is to help people find the books they seek."

Viserra looks at Naylin and resists the urge to pull a face. "You're wrong, uncle. The good maester's sole purpose in life is to bring small children to tears simply for asking a few questions."

Aemond snorts and the decade-old memory comes to life in the space between them. "You and that…brother of yours asked him half a hundred questions, and none of them were particularly polite. His wrath was warranted."

"Oh, please. We were polite!" She notices his single eye roll and grins. "At first. He had no reason to scold us the way he did. Aegon was just as bad, and your laughter wasn't exactly kind, either."

She doesn't mention that Naylin was particularly hard on her and Lucerys because he was a close friend to the Hightowers, and favored the grandsons of the man who gave him a position at the fine library in the Red Keep over the children of Otto's rival. Right now, watching that curved half-smile find its place on Aemond's face again, the things that seemed so important as children are trivial and laughable. Right now, she thinks they could both benefit from pretending that green and black are mere colors, not labels that have defined and separated them since birth.

"Aegon was worse," he admits. "He always was. But the point remains that you did not need me for this expedition. So why force me here? Is it simply to flaunt your abilities of manipulation?"

She gives a small shrug. "I am no master manipulator. My heart is pure, my prince, as are my intentions. You will see this to be true for yourself if only you'd stop searching for ulterior motives in my every move."

"Right," he replies with a hint of levity to his voice that makes her chest warm.

She allows him to take the lead, noting the way he floats through the labyrinthine chamber like it's second nature, hardly looking at the rows of tall shelves before he turns down one or sidesteps another. He must still spend a great deal of time here. He always did. She didn't apply herself half as rigorously to her studies as he did at the time; Aemond and Lucerys were the superior students, and Aegon would have to be dragged here at knifepoint. Helaena preferred the sept or the gardens, and Viserra… I wanted to be wherever Kepa was, she remembers with a knot of sadness rising in her throat. Dangling from the edge of his sailboat or clinging to him on Seasmoke's back, or seated across from him over a game of cards while Muña oiled her hair. It's hard to think of a happy memory from her childhood that didn't include her father.

"Here," Aemond murmurs after a moment, slowing to a halt in a secluded section at the back of the library.

Viserra blinks away the image of Kepa and looks up at the massive shelf in front of them. Dozens of small leather-bound tomes, each with different colored covers and gold swirling script on the spines, sit in neat rows just above eye level. They are glorified children's stories, really, narratives with only a loose interpretation of historical events that dwell on the fantastical more than the literal. But Grandsire loves them, and has for as long as anyone can remember. Even Muña remembers him reading them to her in her own youth.

"The Pact of Children and Men," she reads aloud, "Lord and Lady of Sky and Sea, or The Heart of the Star? Or—all of them?"

She feels the sear of Aemond's eye on her as she approaches the shelf, reaching up on her toes to tip the books down into her hand. "He likes Hardhand's Belligerence," he adds. "And The Ballad of the Water Wizard and the Bloodmage."

"He does," she smiles to herself and stretches for the titles, fingers fumbling to grasp the bright red spine.

He exhales sharply through his nose. "Let me."

"No, I've…got it," she huffs. The book is just beyond reach, much to her chagrin. She resists the urge to stamp her foot in frustration. "Fetch me a ladder, will you?"

"Viserra. Move."

"I—almost…"

A second hand brushes against hers, palm larger, fingers longer, pale and devoid of rings. Not my hand, she realizes vaguely. Calloused, and rough, and almost painfully hot, the hand—his hand—easily overtakes her own, grabbing two books at once with ease. A shock races down her arm at the contact, but it ends before she can fully process that it had even begun. She notices another arm, his arm, brace against the shelf just a few inches away from her waist, closing her in. The air around her turns cold in an instant, then bursts into something white-hot and delightfully suffocating.

She drops with as much grace as she can muster, feet flat against the floor and hand empty, and turns. Aemond's face is closer to hers than she'd expected—his body is closer to hers than she'd expected. A green-clad chest rises and falls steadily mere inches from her own, and a black eye patch looms just above her brow. Her breath catches behind her ribs. She looks up at him from beneath her lashes, lips parted, heart hammering.

"Your stubbornness," he says gravely, "is infuriating."

"Ah. My arrogance, my ignorance, my stubbornness…" she breathes, blinking slowly. "Tell me, uncle, is there anything I do that does not infuriate you?"

A muscle twitches in his cheek, making the scar beneath his eye dance. He licks his lips. "No."

Viserra stares at him wordlessly, and he holds her gaze, fire to fire. She is painfully aware of his closeness, his scent (smoke and fresh linen and something almost sweet, a flower or berry she can't quite place), his clenched jaw. She wonders, just for a moment, what it would feel like to press her lips to the space between his high, scarred cheekbone and the sharp jaw beneath it.

And as soon as the thought crosses her mind, it brings the moment shattering down around her feet. A sign from some god, or perhaps all of them. Aemond takes a large, almost unstable step back, his stare glued to the floor, hands gripping the books so tightly they threaten to rip in his grasp, leather and all. She clutches her own books to her chest, partly to steady herself, partly to hide the flush that she can already feel creeping up from beneath her bodice. Breath does not come as easily to her as it should for one who has spent seven-and-ten years breathing.

"We should go," he clears his throat, still staring at the floor as if expecting—or begging—it to open up and swallow him whole. "His Grace will be waiting."

"Of course."

He walks away without another word, and this time, he makes no effort to shrink his paces for her sake. Viserra watches him disappear, waiting until she's certain her legs are made of flesh and bone not raspberry jam before following after him. It does not take long for her to catch up, but she maintains a few feet of distance behind him the whole way back to the king's apartments, all the time watching him to see if he is at all changed by whatever just transpired. He seems as formidable and indecipherable as ever, stone made human, a firestorm brimming just beneath his dragonglass surface.

She wishes she could be so calm, so unmoved, so apathetic. Instead, her heart and mind are engaged in a footrace towards madness, elbowing one another and hurling taunts to distract and provoke their opponent. And as she walks, pretending to be a princess with only thoughts of grace and duty behind her eyes, she feels the lingering imprint of a thousand sparks against the back of her knuckles. Exactly where Aemond's hand had rested, just for that brief half-second of impatient dominance, against her own.