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sapphire-moths · 14 days ago

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Cannibals [Chapter 2: Roses and Forget-Me-Nots]

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else’s protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm’s End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence and murder, bodily injury, Aemond needs comfort, Helaena needs to make a choice, Aegon needs revenge, Red needs stitches.

Word count: 6.4k

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Too much to drink, blood on your teeth; you stumbled going up the Grand Staircase and bit your lip and now all you can taste is warm copper. It’s the past, but the recent past. Viserys isn’t dead yet, but not far from it either, an unquiet ghost who groans from rooms cloudy with incense. Criston oversees Aemond’s training and Grandsire sits the Iron Throne when petitioners come begging for relief from taxes or the requisitioning of their livestock. Helaena plays with her children in the garden. Larys Strong dwells in shadowy corners of rooms, lurking, listening. Mother lights candles for her husband in the sept, tries to forgive herself for being so repulsed by him she shivers when her skin brushes his and comes away damp from the weeping sores.

It’s Criston’s nameday, and the court is celebrating as if it is a prince’s. Mother has ordered the kitchen to prepare his favorite foods—lamb marinated with figs and blood oranges, a myriad of olives, spiced wine, roasted eggplant, dragon peppers stuffed with cheese and onions—and the musicians to play Dornish ballads. In the midst of the festivities in the Great Hall, Aemond has been pulled aside by Grandsire to discuss a pressing concern: an idea, proposed by Master of Ships Tyland Lannister, to split the royal treasury and hide it in several different locations should a war of succession break out after Viserys’ death. No one knows what will happen when Father dies. Everybody is moving invisible pieces on an imaginary board, trying to convince themselves they are prepared.

Now the hour is late and guests are vanishing, and everyone seems to be drunk, the world warm and spinning, and you are going to your chambers to wait for Aemond. What you have together is new and exhilarating, and your pulse is thudding in your ears as you stagger down the hallway. You are going to take off all your clothes and wait for him in bed beneath blankets Helaena has stitched with red bats. If Aemond asked you for everything tonight, you’d give it; but you’re beginning to like his idea to wait. You will never fly a dragon into battle like Aegon the Conqueror’s wives, but this is one war you and Aemond can fight together: thwarting all other matches, at last claiming a victory that the realm must witness. Aemond wants a Valyrian wedding ceremony. He has no fear of your blood.

You are passing Helaena’s chambers when you hear muffled voices inside, things you should not listen to but are too drunk to politely ignore. Helaena is whimpering quietly. Aegon says, sounding like he is close to tears: “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m almost done…”

You should leave, but you don’t. You are trapped there by the poison that slows your thoughts, by the horror that blooms in you like roses, thorny and maroon. You’ve never had to experience intimacy that feels like a violation. You never will. And you’re the only one of Alicent’s children that’s true for: Aemond’s first experiences were with a middle-aged prostitute on the Street of Silk, something Aegon mistook for a favor; Daeron will have to bed a Baratheon girl he barely knows.

After a few minutes the door opens, and there is Aegon swimming in a white nightshirt stained with red wine. He startles when he sees you, then averts his watery eyes. He is ashamed. He says weakly, his hair hanging in his face: “I try to make it good for her.”

“I know you do.”

“She loves the children,” Aegon explains, although you haven’t asked. “She wants more, and she understands how that happens. Now I only lie with her when she invites me. But that doesn’t mean she enjoys it. I just don’t want you to think that I’m…I’m…that I’m a monster.”

You shake your head, profoundly sad. “No, Aegon.”

“How do you not get…?” He rubs his own soft belly, then makes an arc through the air, miming a pregnancy. “We’re fertile stock. And I can’t imagine Mother allowing Orwyle to ply you with moon tea.”

You smile faintly. “We don’t do that, just everything else.”

A raised eyebrow; Aegon is intrigued. “Really? How adventurous. I’m surprised. About Aemond, not so much you.”

“We’re saving it until after our wedding. Something to look forward to.”

“Unless Grandsire and Mother eventually succeed in marrying you off to a painfully uninteresting, Andal-blooded lord with a formidable army or some nice ships or whatever.”

“And then Aemond will murder him.”

Aegon laughs, recedes again and becomes remote, goes out to sea like low tide. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? My marriage is built on obligation, and yours will be the opposite.”

You say like a confession, something you seek forgiveness for: “I’m so sorry, Aegon.”

“No, no, I didn’t…I wasn’t trying to…I mean…” He sighs, then looks at you, dazed drunk childlike honesty. “You and Aemond being miserable wouldn’t make my life better. I have no wish to disrupt your happiness.”

You don’t know how to respond. Aegon doesn’t expect you to. He gives you a drowsy little smirk, then meanders down the hallway. When he spots a maid, he snaps his fingers at her and orders: “Draw a bath for the queen.”

You retreat to your own chambers, where you walk right past your bed—you now feel no desire at all to creep naked into it—and kneel beside the roost by the open window. Most of the bats you call your babies are out flying, but Kingfisher clings to the dark blue velvet you keep draped over the large wooden box. He peers at you with clever black eyes, his ears perked straight up, and when you offer your palm Kingfisher scrambles into it. You pet him as your thoughts wander, slow, dizzy, morose.

Aemond breezes into the room, first swift and famished, then bewildered as he nears you. “Why are you sad?” And then, because he gets glimpses into your mind as well: “Something with Aegon.”

You shrug, not looking away from Kingfisher. You are trying not to cry. “I just wish the world was different.”

Aemond stares at you for a while. And you’re a little afraid, because if he grabs you and you tell him to stop, you don’t know if he’ll listen. But Aemond doesn’t grab you at all. Instead after a moment he says: “I’ll be right back,” and he leaves your bedchamber. He must go all the way to the kitchen across the courtyard of the Red Keep, because when he reappears he is carrying a small glass jar with a piece of honeycomb inside. He sits down beside you and opens the jar, wets his fingertips with honey, and holds them out to Kingfisher so he can lick them clean.

You smile at Aemond. “What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, he motions for you to dip your fingers in the honey too, and together you feed Kingfisher and watch the others swoop and glide outside, snatching insects from the starlit air like stolen coins.

The only time Aemond touches you that night is to thread your long, silver braid through his hands; and why did you ever begin wearing your hair in a braid at all? Because you heard the reverence in his voice when he told you about Aegon the Conqueror’s wife Visenya.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now you are on the floor of your bedchamber crushing seashells, and the afternoon light cascades in hot and golden, a day that feels more like midsummer than autumn. With each whack of your tiny steel hammer—a gift from Criston on your nameday several years past—a shell breaks into irregular shards to be arranged on the board and then glued down; you have a jar filled with paste made from boiled animal bones and a paintbrush to apply it with. You collect and boil the bones yourself. Helaena and the children went with you to the beach to search for shells this morning, an arduous task as you were on the hunt for rare specimens: blue to mimic Tessarion’s scales. This mosaic is for Mother, a vision of Daeron to hang on her bedroom wall. He was sent away so he might turn out differently from the rest of you, but he will be home again soon. The Hightower army is marching across the Reach to King’s Landing, your youngest brother and his dragon safeguarding it from above.

You don’t have to be in the small council chamber to know that Grandsire rails against Aemond, that Criston struggles to defend him. Killing Luke was a disastrous mistake, no sane person could disagree. Now they debate how to proceed. Grandsire writes his letters: to the Lannisters, to the Baratheons, to the Triarchy. Aemond sees to the gathering of soldiers and supplies, moving tokens around the map laid open on a table in his bedchamber. Aegon wants to fly into battle. Criston tries to negotiate between them, and relays their feuds to Mother. Larys Strong shares the whispers he has heard of the Blacks’ machinations: Rhaenyra sick with grief and struggling to manage her forces from Dragonstone, Daemon abandoning her to take the haunted castle of Harrenhal in the Riverlands. Rhaenyra is a weak queen, and the Rogue Prince cannot stomach bowing to her.

You drop the steel hammer again—whack!—and as the cobalt-colored seashell shatters, Aemond steps into your bedchamber and closes the door behind him. He takes off his sword and his dagger, leaves them on the dresser, then drops to the floor and crawls on his hands and knees to you. He grabs your ankles and drags you under him; you giggle as your hammer tumbles out of your grasp and you wrap your legs around Aemond, pulling him in closer.

Aemond kisses you insatiably, his tongue parting your lips, his long silver hair spilling down to the floor. Then he says: “I have to go away.”

You know this has to happen. He has trained all his life for war, and now it is here. “For how long?”

“A week, maybe. Or a month, or a year. Nobody knows.”

“A year?” You’ve never been away from him for more than a few nights at a time. It is impossible to imagine.

Aemond takes off his eyepatch and flings it aside. His sapphire eye—cold, sharp, glittering fire—unnerves others, but to you it is a talisman of his faithfulness. In the boardgame you played as children, you were always the red bat and Aemond the blue wolf. It was a game of ambition, of cruelty, but sometimes mercy as well, and there were always exactly five players until Mother sent Daeron away to Oldtown. Blue is Aemond’s place in the family. He is cunning, he is arrogant, he is difficult at times…but he knows where he belongs. He would cease to exist without the rest of you. “Rhaenyra is bedbound on Dragonstone,” Aemond says, skating his thumb across your cheek. “Still recovering from childbirth and broken by Luke’s death. Daemon is far away in the Riverlands doing gods know what, there are rumors he’s taken up with some girl there. Now is the time to bring the Crownlands under Green control. House Thorne is already with us, next we will take Massey, Bar Emmon, Rosby, Stokeworth, Byrch, Harte, Hayford, Staunton, and Darklyn. They will bend the knee to Aegon, or they will burn. Rhaenyra will be encircled, and then we can do whatever we want with her.”

“What about the Celtigars of Claw Isle? They are Valyrians, they should honor tradition. The firstborn son always inherits. And Rhaenyra has defiled the bloodline with her Strong boys.”

“They must not see it that way. I’ve heard Bartimos Celtigar is her Master of Coin.”

“Traitors,” you hiss, and Aemond beams and kisses your forehead.

“Don’t worry, I have plans for them. Crabs are delicious when boiled alive.”

So Caraxes is at Harrenhal, Syrax is unable to be ridden and not inclined towards battle anyway, Vermax and Moondancer are both too small to be much of a threat to a dragon as ferocious as Sunfyre, let alone Vhagar… “Where is Meleys?”

Aemond chuckles. “Rhaenys won’t strike on her own. She doesn’t have the courage.”

“She might now that you’ve killed her grandson.” A pause. “Alleged grandson.”

“Luke wasn’t her blood, but Baela and Rhaena are. I’m sure she wants to live to see them grow up. I can’t imagine her flying to war for Rhaenyra and Daemon, the people who murdered Laenor so they could fuck on his grave.”

“He was buried at sea.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“I wish I could help,” you tell Aemond, feeling small and fragile, feeling worthless. If you had a dragon, you could follow him into battle like Visenya.

“Not everyone is meant to have wings,” Aemond says gently, and you wonder—as you have countless times before—if part of him is glad that he’ll always know that you are exactly where he left you, that you’ll always be defenseless. Then he distracts you. “Do you remember how you chased Vermithor all over Dragonstone?”

Of course you do: a trip to the mist-swept volcanic rock arranged while Rhaenyra and Daemon were travelling elsewhere, Grandsire fervently hoping that one of the wild dragons would bond to you and add to the Greens’ arsenal. None of them did, not even the Bronze Fury, the beast you had dreamed of riding as a girl, whose stories gave you a sensation like flying, like falling. “I wanted him so badly.”

“And to show his appreciation, he almost incinerated you.”

You smile up at Aemond, touching the scar that cuts down the left half of his face. After his maiming on Driftmark, he developed a phobia of needles. If he saw Helaena embroidering, he would become nauseous and unsteady on his feet. So he had the maesters teach him how to stitch wounded flesh, and after months of bloody observation and practice he was cured. He is not a man who lets others break him. He makes himself whole again, one brick at a time. “You saved me.”

“I couldn’t have you reduced to charred bones. I like you warm…and wet…and willful.”

Aemond wrenches you over and onto your belly, presses his hips against yours, crushes you into the floor with his weight. His left hand covers yours, your fingers interweaving; his right hand slides under your waist and stops between your legs, stroking you through your scarlet gown. You move with him, laughing, moaning, feeling the chill of the stone floor bleed into your skin.

Aemond whispers: “I need to be inside you.”

It’s a statement that is actually a question; he’s asking for permission. No, he’s begging for it. But you want the same thing. He’ll be gone soon, for a week or a month or a year. “Then do it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

He lets you up and as he takes off his tunic and trousers, you crawl into your bed, a crimson canopy, curtains that billow in the wind blowing off the ocean. Now Aemond is here too and he’s tearing off your gown so he can possess you: not the sort of coupling that could result in a child, the other way. It’s a sin, of course, but so is incest, and so is murder, and so are pride and envy and wrath, and so at this point what’s one more transgression tossed onto the heap? You aren’t sure if you believe in the Faith of the Seven anyway. Rhaenyra is one of the most immoral people you can think of, and yet she has been abundantly blessed until now: married to the man of her design, absolved of all wrongdoing by Viserys. Why would the Seven shower gifts upon Rhaenyra while your own mother is so cursed? If they exist, they must be brutal masters.

You are lying on your belly on the soft feather mattress, reaching back to touch Aemond’s face and his hair as his lips claim your neck, your collarbone, your shoulder. You lift your hips so he can reach under you more easily, where wetness is pooling for him. His right hand caresses you with rough, insistent motions, making you ravenous and breathless, making you need him. With his left hand, he slips two fingers effortlessly inside; and then, once they are slick and dripping, he pulls them out and travels farther back. There is pressure, resistance, and then: a glorious, forbidden fulness that draws a moan from deep in your throat. Your fingernails bite into your pillows, your body moves in time with Aemond as his fingers thrust into you, first slowly and cautiously and then faster as he feels your muscles relax around him.

“Now,” you plead helplessly.

“Not yet.”

“I’m ready, I promise.”

“No, no, you’re not,” he purrs, and when you turn your face to his, he kisses you in a way that is slovenly, bestial, natural like the dark moist earth or the sea. No one else would understand this. No one else will ever need to.

Aemond’s fingers work on you until there is hardly any tension, then he yanks open the drawer of your nightstand to get the jar of Dornish olive oil he keeps there for exactly this reason. He drenches himself with it—his hardness, his thickness, his length—and spills oil all over the sheets in the process. Then he settles behind you again. It was your idea to try this the first time, one humid sunlit morning when you were desperate for each other, when you had an emptiness inside you his fingers alone could not cure. You needed him closer, just like you do now. And your climax was so intense it felt like it would snap your bones and unspool your muscles like loose threads.

As Aemond’s right hand strokes you—coaxing you closer, flooding your bloodstream with sweltering riptide lust—he positions himself and pushes in slowly, so so slowly, and at first there is a burning like there always is, but the oil eases his entry and your muscles are swift to accommodate him, they are supple and trained, and as he fills you there is an indescribable intensity as his heat melds with yours, and when you are this close to him it’s like you can feel everything he’s feeling, hear every thought that flits through his mind, and he knows exactly when to pause to give you more time, when to begin again, until he is all the way inside and he moans and rests his head between your shoulder blades, drinking you in through his lungs and his pores, his long silver hair whispering over your ribs.

When Aemond is sure he can last, he moves in you carefully, divinely. The fingers of his right hand—still circling, still pressing against you with commanding force—have you panting and powerless. It’s overwhelming, the fullness, the closeness, the warm blossoming euphoria…and if you’re sore tomorrow, you won’t care. Aemond could be gone by then.

“Harder,” you plead.

“No, Red, no, I’ll hurt you.”

Your hips quicken the rhythm, jolting back against him, and as Aemond gasps—taken by surprise, trying not to finish yet—a torrent like a wave of scalding blood rolls through you, and instead of dissipating to a froth like seafoam it keeps going, unraveling you, ruining you, until you can’t stand it anymore, and your spine and ribcage ache, and there is pain where Aemond is thrusting into you as he shudders and cries out in a low rasping voice midway between ecstasy and agony, like someone has buried a blade in him, like maybe he’s dying.

“Enough,” you sigh, and Aemond knows what that means. He withdrawals from you, gingerly and very, very slowly. Then he rolls you onto your back as you gasp for air, staring up at the distorted afternoon shadows on the ceiling. He kisses the side of your face again and again, murmuring through your hair in High Valyrian. Has Aemond ever said that he loves you? Not that you can remember. He acts as if he does, but still…sometimes you wonder.

When your pulse is calm again and the sweat cooling on your belly and your chest, Aemond rises and shuffles to the door, still naked. He opens the door and looks out into the hallway until he spies a maid and beckons her over. You see her silhouette just beyond the threshold.

“Fresh linens for the bed,” he says. “And a bath.”

“Yes, my prince.” The maid peeks in to where you are naked on the oil-stained sheets, and you cannot find it in yourself to act shy or ashamed. You aren’t. You smile wickedly at her and she skitters away, blushing and wide-eyed.

You loll together in a hot bath—Aemond drifting off as he leans against the back of the tub, you dozing with your head on his chest as soap bubbles pop in your hair—then he just barely manages to throw on some nightclothes and stagger back into your bed, not wanting his own room but yours, and he is asleep in just minutes. Outside the sun is setting and the sky is turning from flames to indigo, and the bats are venturing out of their roost to feed. You spend a while with them and then, starving, leave Aemond to rest while you go down to the kitchen to scavenge a plate of dinner, something hearty and satiating: bread, butter, venison pie, an apple tart, a pint of ale. You eat alone in the garden as your bats circle overhead. The members of the small council—with the exception of Aemond, dead to the world—are dining together, and Mother is eating with Helaena. You are avoiding Mother for now; after you and Aemond have sinned, you always feel like she can smell it on you, or see it, or hear the echoes of your moans, and there is such pitiful disappointment on her face you cannot bear to meet her eyes. She deserved a different husband, and children who she could recognize as her own.

When you return to Maegor’s Holdfast, you pass Aegon as he is trotting down the Grand Staircase, a goblet of wine in his hand and escorted by Sir Willis Fell. Aegon grins at you and says: “Aemond is practically comatose. You’ve exhausted him.”

“Well, he does most of the work,” you reply mischievously. “Where are you going?”

“To get my armor fitted. Aemond will have to have his finished tomorrow, I suppose. If he’s recovered by then. Try to keep him off you for a few hours, I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“I’ll let him know about the armor. But I don’t think he’ll want to wear it in the saddle.”

“Try to convince him. It could shield him from dragonfire in combat.”

“Right,” you say, and all at once your mood plummets, because this is real: the war is descending like a storm and your brothers must fight in it, must leave you, must risk their lives. Aegon waves goodbye and strides off to the armory across the courtyard of the Red Keep, Sir Willis Fell in tow and looking disturbed but trying not to show it.

Upstairs, Helaena is in the hallway with her children, and you can tell she’s overwhelmed by them: Maelor is yowling in her arms, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera both shouting and tugging at the skirt of her lemon-colored gown. Helaena is looking around for someone, perhaps a maid; uncharacteristically, she is unable to find one.

“Well hello there!” you say, kneeling and opening your arms so the twins can barrel into you. “What are we playing, huh? Hide and seek? Chase? Tame the dragon?”

“We’re trying to find Aemond!” Jaehaerys answers exuberantly.

“Oh, is that right?” You glance at Helaena, and she smiles awkwardly and shrugs. She must know where he is and is attempting to distract them so he can sleep.

She says, a bit flustered: “Mother went to the small council chamber after dinner, and the maid…I don’t know where she’s disappeared to all the sudden…”

“It’s alright, I’ll help them find Aemond.”

“Really?!” Jaehaera says, overjoyed.

“Of course!” Then you wink at Helaena, and she is relieved. “Let’s go check his bedchamber.”

“But we’re not allowed in there,” Jaehaerys says uncertainly.

And no, they usually aren’t; Aemond has too many relics they might break or maps they could rip or stain or knock his tokens off of. “It’s okay if I go with you. I’ll make sure we don’t touch anything important.”

“Yay!” the twins yell together, and then Maelor joins them between chomps on his own fingers, even though the details of the expedition elude him.

You swish in your gown—a pale drained pink, your wet hair in a fresh braid—towards Aemond’s rooms. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera dash after you, and Helaena trails behind them carrying Maelor. You hold the door open so the children and Helaena can enter, then follow them into Aemond’s bedchamber. The hearth is lit and crackling; papers litter his desks and tables, the wooden shelves are heavy with books. Mosaics you’ve made since childhood freckle the stone walls like birthmarks. You pick up a candle, light it in the fireplace, and begin igniting wicks around the room so the children will have more light. Helaena sets Maelor down so he can wobble after his siblings.

“Aemond, where are you?” Jaehaerys calls with a beaming smile.

You say: “Let’s check in the closets, and under the bed, and behind the curtains—” Then you scream and drop the candle, because there is a man in this room, and he has lunged out from the shadows. He traps you against the wall with a blade at your throat. Another man—huge, broad, towering—has cornered Helaena and the children. He holds a butcher’s cleaver in one monstrous fist. Blood drips from it in dark, viscous threads down to the floor.

He nods to Helaena and tells you: “Scream again and I’ll put this through her windpipe, and we can watch her try to learn how to breathe blood.”

You shake your head franticly. “I won’t scream, I swear I won’t.” You are thinking: Criston and Grandsire and Mother are in the small council chamber, and Aegon is in the armory, and Aemond is sleeping so deeply he can’t be roused…so who is going to save us? Who the fuck is going to walk in and stop this?

“Quiet,” the large man growls at the children. “No noise or Mummy dies.”

“Jewels,” Helaena says, taking off her necklace and earrings. The children cling to her, trembling and sniffling, weeping but trying not to make a sound. “We can give you these.”

“We’re not here for jewels, you dumb bitch,” the smaller man sneers. “We’re here for a boy. A son for a son.”

“No,” you whisper, realizing what he means.

“Aemond killed Lucerys Velaryon,” the large man says. “We’re here to kill Aemond. But Aemond doesn’t seem to be around at the moment, is he? Fortunately, any son of the Greens will do.”

Helaena shoves the children behind her, shielding them with her willowy body. From the Dragonpit, you hear Dreamfyre’s shrill screeches. “You can have me instead.”

“You’re not a son.”

“So which one do you choose?” the small man asks Helaena, raking the point of his blade back and forth across the front of your throat, leaving shallow nicks that glow sharp and searing.

Helaena doesn’t answer—she can’t, of course she can’t—and so the large man reaches around her and drags out Jaehaerys and Maelor. He pushes them to the floor and they cower there, clasping each other and tears streaming down their cheeks. There’s a dead maid over by the bed, you notice, the same one who saw you naked in bed earlier; she must have had the misfortune of stumbling upon the intruders. There is a gaping black hole in the wall on the opposite end of the room, the entrance to a secret passageway to the beach, an escape hatch that almost nobody knows about. But Daemon would.

“Which one?!” the large man demands, glaring hatefully at Helaena. “Choose or we’ll kill them both. We’ll kill all three.”

Helaena covers her ears with her hands and shrinks into herself, trying to disappear. Jaehaera hides behind her mother; Jaehaerys is petrified; Maelor, mercifully, doesn’t fully understand. If he was struck on his tiny blonde head, he would be gone before he had time to comprehend that his short life was over.

The men are assailing Helaena: “Choose or we’ll kill them all, we’ll kill them in front of you, we’ll kill them slow.”

“Helaena, pick one,” you sob.

She shakes her head. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Aemond, can’t you feel how afraid I am? Aemond, you have to wake up.

“All three?!” The large man taunts. “Alright, that’s fine, we can do it that way!” He raises his cleaver above the boys’ heads, and Helaena attempts to stop him.

He’s going to murder her too, he’s going to sever her arm or cut her throat.

“Maelor!” you burst out. “Maelor, the little one, she chooses Maelor!”

“What?” Maelor says, gazing up at you with vast shimmering eyes. And instead, the large man seizes Jaehaerys by his hair and hacks his head off his shoulders.

Blood spurts like a fountain, blood flows over the floor, blood soaks Helaena’s gown when she bundles her dead son into her arms. Forgetting the knife at your throat, you try to get to her; the blade drops and slits your flesh from your collarbone down to the top of your left breast. A river of red flows in a sheet down the front of your gown. Everyone is screaming—you, Helaena, Jaehaera, Maelor—but it doesn’t matter now; the men throw Jaehaerys’ head into a burlap sack and vanish together into the blackness of the passageway.

“They can’t get away,” you say numbly, and then you bolt after them. You grab a flickering candle off Aemond’s writing desk and plunge into the tunnel. There are blooddrops on the dusty floor, a trail of gore. Jaehaerys’ head must have bled through the sack. You aren’t thinking, you don’t know what you’ll do if you catch up to them. But if there is a boat waiting to ferry the men and their grisly trophy to Dragonstone, somebody must prevent them from escaping.

Jaehaerys can’t be dead, he can’t be, be can’t be, he was just here and he was smiling—

Someone catches your wrist and you shriek, but it isn’t the strange men. It’s Aemond, still dressed in his nightclothes, his sapphire gleaming, blood all over him and clutching his dagger in his other hand.

He tells you, taking the candle: “Go back to my bedchamber.”

“Aemond, they…Jaehaerys…he…they…”

“I know,” he says hoarsely. “Go back to where it’s safe.”

Obediently, knowing that he needs you to, you flee; you are passed by several knights of the Kingsguard with torches, their swords drawn, in pursuit of the murderers. In Aemond’s bedchamber is a nightmare you can’t wake up from: Aegon is wailing and collapsed on the blood-soaked floor with the mutilated body of his son in his arms, Helaena is slumped and paralyzed against the wall, Mother is weeping as she embraces Jaehaera and Maelor and takes them out of the room, Criston has just appeared in the doorway and stands there horrorstruck. You go to Aegon and lay a palm on his shoulder, the words impossible. Without looking—he already knows it’s you—he reaches up to grip your hand, so forcefully it feels like he’ll crush your bones.

“What the hell is…?” Grandsire says when arrives. Then he sees the blood, the body, and he sways and his knees buckle. Maester Orwyle sweeps in behind him, carrying a small wooden trunk of remedies. He comes directly to where you are standing.

“Princess, your mother asked me to tend to you.”

“What?” you reply dully, and he gestures to the bone-deep gash on the left side of your chest. Abruptly, agony flares there. “Oh. Of course.”

Orwyle leads you patiently to the chair at Aemond’s writing desk, then begins to clean your wound. He pours a small amount of milk of the poppy into your mouth, and you accept it passively. You are barely aware of it as his needle pierces your flesh and begins to stitch it back together.

“Is this what your letters have bought us?!” Aegon is shouting at Grandsire, who doesn’t know what to say. “Not safety even here in our own castle, but killers who breach our walls and butcher my son?!”

There are echoing footsteps, and Aemond emerges from the darkness, crossing into the rage-colored firelight of his bedchamber. “We got one of them. The guards are still searching for the other. We’ll find him, I swear we will. There was a boat in the sand, but we’ve taken it.”

“It’s your fucking fault!” Aegon screams at him. “They were here, they were looking for you, you killed Luke so they killed my boy, he was only six years old, he…he…” Aegon breaks down in sobs, then he crawls across the room to Helaena and clings to her, his head in her lap. Despite her shock, Helaena’s hands come alive again and she holds him.

“Aegon, it’s my fault too,” you say.

“What are you talking about?! You didn’t kill Luke Strong, you didn’t start this war!”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond says, almost too quietly to hear. “Aegon, I’m sorry.”

“Enough letters,” Aegon seethes, hatred splitting out of him, bloodlust that can never be satisfied. “You’re done, Grandsire. I relieve you of the burden of being Hand of the King. It never sat right with you anyway, did it? Enacting the plans of a degenerate like me. Well, now you can just watch them happen. Criston, we will go to battle now, no more delays. You will lead the infantry and I’ll be in the sky, and when we drag Rhaenyra from her sickbed I’ll let Sunfyre eat her, one limb at a time.”

“Yes, my king,” Criston says, still stunned, gaping at Jaehaerys’ small, headless body.

“I’m going with you,” Aemond tells his brother.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yes you do. And I would never let you fly into battle alone.”

Aegon sniffles and wipes the tears from his face with his bloodied palms, leaving stains of clotting crimson there. Then he stands, touches his forehead to Helaena’s as a goodbye, and stumbles towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Grandsire demands.

“To torture that man to death,” Aegon says, and is gone.

Aemond turns to where you are sitting at his writing desk, Orwyle just beginning your stitches. Your eyes—glazed and drugged, grief-stricken and horrified—meet his, and you know that he is thinking that had the blade hit just a few inches higher, you would have bled to death. Aemond approaches. “Move,” he commands Orwyle.

Maester Orwyle meekly retreats; but first, he hands over the needle. And Aemond finishes mending your flesh, one painstaking, practiced stitch at a time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aemond tells you goodbye on a bluff overlooking where Vhagar is waiting for him down on the beach. He keeps you a safe distance away; not only have you no dragon of your own, but the beasts also share an aversion to you, they snarl and slink away like they would in the presence of no other Targaryen. The wind is raging and the sun bright, the sky blue and full of slow-moving clouds. Helaena is curled up in the Dragonpit with Dreamfyre. Alicent is with the surviving children. Maelor shrieks and runs away when he glimpses you.

Under torture, the larger assassin revealed that he was indeed commissioned by a messenger sent by Daemon, and that all he knew of his companion was that he was a ratcatcher. Your brothers paraded every ratcatcher they could find in front of you, but none of them were the man with the knife. Aegon, believing their ranks had nonetheless been perilously infiltrated, ordered all the ratcatchers of King’s Landing to be executed. Now they hang from walls and bridges, attracting crows. Some people weep for the dead men, but many more weep for Queen Helaena, who is known to be gentle and kind. The details have reached every street of the city: beheaded in front of his mother, made to choose between her sons. Rhaenyra has given them yet another reason to hate her. Her mortal enemies grow more numerous by the hour.

“What if something happens here?” you ask Aemond, your hands in his, strands of silver hair raked from your braid by the wind. Under your gown, your bandages loop over your left shoulder and below your right arm; beneath them, your stitches throb and your heart aches. “What if we have to leave the city for some reason? What if when you return you don’t know where I’ve gone?”

“Then I will find you,” Aemond says, as if there is no other possibility. “You belong to me, you always have. That will never change. Here, in Dorne, at the Wall, in Essos or the Summer Isles, anywhere on earth, anywhere you go, you are still mine.”

You smile, and when Aemond kisses you, his long hair trashing in the wind, he is tender and harmless, and you are reminded that he can be this way sometimes. He isn’t always fierce. He isn’t always treacherous. “Take care of Aegon.”

“Of course I will.”

“Don’t come back without him.”

“I’ll carry him the whole way home if I have to,” Aemond says, and then he leaves you, stalking down the hill towards Vhagar.

That night, when you climb into your bed, you find a note there that Aemond has left for you. You unfold the parchment, wincing; each movement pains you, reminds you of the muscles that have been slit by the assassin’s blade. You will carry the scar forever. Aemond’s note reads:

Red,

When you are here…think of me.

Soon we’ll have everything.

In place of a signature, he has finished with a sketch of a forget-me-not in blue ink.

You close the note and hold it to your chest, the parchment scratching against your bandages.

227 notes · View notes

sapphire-moths · 21 days ago

Text

Cannibals [Chapter 1: Bruises and Bloodlines]

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else's protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm's End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), Aemond stressing everybody out, Aegon hating his life even more than usual, RIP lil Luke Strong, don't touch bats in real life or you will get rabies.

Word count: 6.3k

💙 All my writing can be found HERE! ❤️

Tagging: @themoonofthesun @chattylurker @mrs-starkgaryen @moonfllowerr @ecstaticactus

🦇 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🦇

Cannibal, a noun: one that devours its own.

~~~~~~~~~~

He’s back, you can feel it: a sensation like falling, the impact of Vhagar’s claws against the earth. You get glimpses like this, unpredictable flashes of intuition, a window into the contents of his mind or the scenery he is draped in like how branches hang from a willow tree. You set Blueberry down on the windowsill, where he skitters to the edge and swoops out into the night, chasing white specks of moths and lacewings. Then you leave your bedchamber to meet Aemond in the hallway.

One of the maids is there, trying to be patient as she paces with Maelor in her arms. He’s just like you were at that age: a demon who never sleeps. His white-blonde hair is disheveled, his eyes rheumy and pink from crying in protest. But then they brighten.

“Red Red!” Maelor swipes at you with tiny, grasping hands.

“What are you doing awake?” you coo at him, beaming. “It’s nighttime. You aren’t a bat. Are you a bat, huh? Are you hiding a pair of wings somewhere?”

He giggles as you pretend to inspect him. The maid smiles.

“If you don’t have any wings, I’m afraid you’ll have to go right to sleep. That’s the rule for humans.”

Maelor trills in his toddler lisp: “Then I want to be a bat.”

“Okay! I’ll find some bugs for you to eat.”

“No!” he squeals, dismayed. “No bugs!”

“In that case, I guess you’re a human after all. If you go to bed now, you can help me collect seashells tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Maelor agrees grudgingly, and the maid ferries him away. From the Godswood, great horned owls hoot. One of the knights of Aegon’s Kingsguard, Sir Willis Fell from the Stormlands, passes by on his patrol and gives you a quick nod, polite but a bit avoidant, awkward truths he pretends he can ignore. He doesn’t ask if you need assistance or why you’re awake at this hour. He already knows. He vanishes again, his white cloak swishing behind him like the tail of a wolf or a jackal.

You lurk at the top of the Grand Staircase shrouded in shadows and shifting firelight, feeling night wind skate over your cheek like children playing on a frozen lake, and that breeze is not here but outside where Aemond must be trudging across the courtyard towards the royal apartments in Maegor’s Holdfast. You drum your fingertips impatiently on the stone banister. When at last he appears—first only a silhouette in the darkness, then rippling into color under the torches, black leather and silver hair—Aemond is drenched with rain and ascending swiftly, two stairs at a time.

You grin as you take a step down to him, slinking, conspiratorial. He told you all his plans before he left; he tells you everything. “How was Storm’s End?”

But Aemond doesn’t answer. He blows past you and stalks towards Criston’s chambers, rainwater dripping from his hair and littering the floor with tiny, transluscent pools.

You turn to watch him leave, mystified. “Aemond?”

He says without stopping: “Go wake Aegon and Mother. Tell them to meet me in the small council chamber. I’ll get Criston and Grandsire.”

“Why?” Again, Aemond ignores you. This is unusual. You bolt after him, closing the space between you until your fingers catch his wrist. “Aemond, what—?”

He grabs you and pins you to the wall, the stones cold against your belly through the crimson velvet of your robe, Aemond’s hips braced against yours, domineering, demanding, promising what he will do for you after. You close your eyes and sigh shakily—a savoring, a surrender—and then he is tender, turning your face so he can kiss the apple of your cheek. He murmurs, warm and low: “Do as I ask.”

You nod. “Okay,” you agree in a whisper. Aemond releases you and vanishes to rouse Criston. You break for Aegon’s chambers.

There is a woman in his bed, snoring softly and with long auburn hair spilling over her bare shoulders. He has endeavored to spend less time drinking and philandering since becoming king, and yet…it is so rare for a creature to change its spots or stripes or scales. Aegon has always been this way. Without his vices, you would not recognize him.

You kneel beside the bed and rest a palm lightly on Aegon’s damp forehead. You have to be careful when you wake him; he flinches, he startles, he has too many memories of being ripped from sleep by bruises and crescent-moon indentations of fingernails. “Aegon? I’m really sorry, I know it’s late.”

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know it’s you. “Fuck off,” he groans into his pillow.

“Aemond’s back from Storm’s End, but something’s wrong. He wants you to meet him in the council chamber.”

Aegon looks up and blinks drowsily. Moonlight spills into the room through gaps in the curtains. He smells strange, like lavender; that must be from his companion. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

You shake your head.

Now Aegon is alarmed. The dark, cloudy blue of his irises is rapidly clearing. “Alright. Give me five minutes.”

“Wash the girl’s perfume off you so Mother isn’t quite so disappointed.”

Aegon chuckles, rubbing his eyes; something about the way he does this reminds you of Maelor. They are both just boys; they are both so incendiary and yet so vulnerable. “Get out, whore.”

You tousle his hair roughly, smack a kiss onto his sweat-salted temple as he tries to shove you away, snicker as he hurls pillows at you. You are slipping through the doorway when you hear the woman in bed mumble: “Huh? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Aegon says. “Thank you very much for your company, your skills were more than adequate, now kindly find your way home…”

You hurry down the hall to Mother’s chambers. There are seven-pointed stars on the walls and the furniture, green tapestries everywhere. She will always be a Hightower, averse to Valyrian oddities and suspicious of that sinister, ancient magic. She does not understand it; she tries to overlook it in her children. It’s the only way she knows how to love them. You sit beside the indistinct shape beneath the blankets, sinking into the goose feather mattress, and nudge what you guess is her shoulder. “Mother?”

She stirs, and then her face fills with concern when she sees you in the dim light from her candles. “What’s happened, darling? Are you ill?” You are prone to headaches and chills and nausea, you always have been, maladies of the flesh that are either a blood inheritance or a curse from bad stars. Once when you were very young, Aemond pushed you into a cold stream during a royal progress to the Vale, and you had been laughing when Criston leapt in and dragged you from the water; but two days later, you began burning up with a fever so hot they thought you might die. Aemond had slept on the floor beside your bed, and when you shivered so violently your bones ached he climbed in beside you and held you until you could sleep again; and later when his eye was cut out on Driftmark and he was half-mad with pain, you did the same for him.

“No, Mother, I’m fine. It’s Aemond.”

She sits up and studies you. “Aemond?”

“He’s back from Storm’s End, and he wants to talk to you.”

“To me?”

“And Criston and Aegon, and Grandsire too.”

She doesn’t understand. “Now? Why? What’s wrong?”

“I have no idea.”

“What did he say?”

Everyone expects you to already know, but you don’t. “I think he wants to tell all of us at the same time. In the small council chamber.”

“Now?” she says again, puzzled, still half-asleep. “What is so important that it can’t wait until morning?”

“Mother, there are only so many ways for me to express that I don’t know. If I had any indications at all, I’d share them.”

“Alright.” She’s smiling; you have amused her. She throws off the covers and touches her bare feet to the floor. “Pass me my robe. It’s on that chair over there.” And of course, the swath of velvet you hand her to wear over her nightgown is a deep emerald green: the color of fertile fields, not blood or beasts.

By the time you and Mother arrive together, everyone else is already taking their places in the council chamber. Aegon is at the head of the table, spinning his stone—a black sphere of volcanic glass—and peering around boredly. Grandsire and Criston are greeting Mother and yawning into the backs of their hands. No one has woken Helaena, and yet she is here, settling nimbly into the chair beside Aegon. He gives her a brief, fond glance, noting that she is fidgeting with a small oak dragonfly he once made for her. Aegon carves wood, Helaena embroiders, you shatter seashells with tiny hammers and use the shards to make mosaics, miniscule yet unladylike violence. Aemond has books and swords in place of crafts. And Daeron…you assume he must have cultivated some artistic talents while away in Oldtown—he was always so imaginative as a boy—but you would not know them. You see him so rarely now. You sit across the table from Aemond. He is the only attendee not dressed in nightclothes. His black leather tunic is still layered with a sheen of rain.

Grandsire lowers himself gingerly into his seat, grinding arthritic bones that pain him. The nights have grown chilly, even here in the south. Winter is coming, the maesters warn. His gaze passes over you and Helaena—the two of you aren’t really supposed to be here, but you’ll be permitted to stay if you cause no trouble—then he smirks humorlessly at Aemond. “So you failed.”

“No,” Aemond says, and you think as you look around the table: No Orwyle, no Lannister, no Wylde, not even Larys Strong. What does Aemond not want them to know? “Lord Baratheon has agreed to marry his youngest daughter to Daeron in one year’s time. He was very enthusiastic about the match.”

“Great!” Aegon declares. “Although, personally, I am of the inexpert opinion that this could have been discussed over bacon and honeycakes at breakfast…”

Grandsire snorts, derisive; he disapproves, though perhaps he is not surprised. He says to Aemond: “You were sent to negotiate your own marriage, not Daeron’s.”

Aemond shrugs, as if it happened by coincidence. “That was Borros Baratheon’s preference.”

“It was your preference, you mean.”

Aemond is careful not to reveal any emotion. “Daeron is young, but he already has a reputation. He is known to be handsome and chivalrous and…” A wave of the hand as he searches for the right word. “Unmutilated. It is not so difficult to imagine why a father would believe him to be a more worthy son-in-law.”

“It doesn’t matter to me, one Targaryen is as good as the next,” Aegon says, and of course nobody pays much attention.

“Perhaps Borros Baratheon’s judgment has been contaminated by certain disturbing and disgraceful rumors,” Grandsire counters and glares at you. You don’t reply; there’s nothing you can say that would help. Everyone knows, but it rarely spoken of aloud, as if it is a ghost nobody wants to inadvertently conjure. All your life there has been this perpetual rebalancing of scales: someone mentions a diplomatic match for you, you stall and Aemond makes excuses, Grandsire and Mother try to convince him, Aemond is immoveable and they aren’t willing to invoke his wrath. Vhagar is the subtext of every dispute. They need her, they are terrified of her.

Criston attempts to deescalate. “Aemond’s task was to ensure the Baratheons’ loyalty to the crown, and he has accomplished that. Perhaps it would be wise to move on.”

“Fine, what else?” Grandsire snaps. “You assembled us here for some reason, I presume. It must be urgent to merit a meeting now. It better be urgent, or I’ll be paying people to shake you awake during the hour of the wolf for the next month.”

“It is urgent,” Aemond says softly, then pauses, gazing down at the ball in front of him, white quartz dappled with blue. Everyone watches him. You share a glance with Aegon; he is curious, but you have nothing to offer him. You turn back to Aemond with bewilderment in your face, furrows in your brow.

“Aemond?” Mother prompts.

He looks at you, only for a second, but you’re thunderstruck by what you see in his remaining eye. You have never known Aemond to be afraid, but he is right now. What happened? you think, horror making the blood in your veins cold and slow and heavy. What did he do?

Aemond begins: “Luke Strong was at Storm’s End too.”

“What?” Grandsire says, more baffled than worried. “That runt? Why?”

“He’s a weasel,” Aegon mutters, spinning his ball again.

“Rhaenyra’s son?” Mother asks. “She sent him there all alone? How peculiar. The way she was always hovering over him while they were here, I’m amazed she let him out of her sight for that long. How old is he now? With that plain, ever-anxious, pug-nosed face, he looks like a little boy—”

Aemond says: “He was sent to remind Borros of his old pledge to uphold Rhaenyra’s claim. But Luke had no incentives to offer.”

“And so Lord Baratheon rejected him,” Grandsire surmises.

Aemond nods, though perhaps halfheartedly.

“Well, good,” Grandsire says, surveying the table for agreement. “That’s good, right? With every house that refuses to aid her, Rhaenyra will be more likely to accept our terms, and we can resolve this question of succession without any bloodshed.”

“Meleys and the Dragonpit,” Aegon reminds him.

“Without further bloodshed,” Grandsire amends.

Mother and Criston concur, but you’re watching Aemond. He hasn’t responded yet. Mother’s gaze flits between the two of you. She is somewhat sympathetic to the affinity you share, but she doesn’t understand it. More than anything, you get the sense she believes it is something you must be saved from. The Hightowers could stomach Aegon and Helaena’s match—Viserys was still healthy enough to insist upon it, and the couple so seemingly platonic it was easy to forget they were married at all—but they have no appetite for a desire that defies political expediency, that burns scorching and wild.

“Aemond, did you quarrel with Luke?” Mother says, her tone patient in an I-won’t-be-mad-if-you-just-tell-me-the-truth sort of way. “I know…your eye…” She touches her own face, wincing at the memory of how he suffered. “Did you seek restitution of some sort from him? Did you make accusations?”

“We…exchanged some words,” Aemond admits. “And then…when Luke left on Arrax…” There is a lull, and everyone stares at him. “Vhagar and I followed.”

“What?!” Grandsire exclaims. “You threatened Rhaenyra’s son?!”

“I…” Aemond closes his eye, then after a moment opens it again and continues. “It was my intention to frighten him, that was all.”

“Idiot,” Grandsire hisses. “You know better. You’re too well-educated to act like you don’t. Now, that one…” He jabs an accusatory finger at Aegon, who is caught off-guard, what the fuck do I have to do with this?

Criston says, more gently: “That was very dangerous, Aemond.” Mother covers her mouth with one hand and shakes her head. Her long coppery hair hangs in uncombed waves, still tangled from sleep.

“So what happened?” Aegon asks. “Where’d you chase him to? All the way back to Dragonstone? You must have scared him to death.”

Aemond chooses his words with great care and agonizing slowness. “Everything was under control. Then Arrax…he unleashed his flames on Vhagar, and she…she attacked.”

Everyone is silent. After a moment, Grandsire says: “What do you mean she attacked?”

“She…” Aemond gestures vaguely with open hands, hands that have held you, caged you, dragged you, pleased you until you were forged to him like a blade to a hilt. Again, he looks at you, and what is he asking for? Help, empathy, compassion, forgiveness? “She bit Arrax.”

“She wounded him?” Aegon says.

“She devoured him.”

Criston blinks. “So…Arrax is dead, and where is Luke now?”

Aemond laces his fingers together on the table like he’s praying. “He’s…he’s gone.”

“Gone?” Mother echoes.

“Did you look for him?” Grandsire demands. “I mean, did you even bother to search for Luke, or did you just leave him in the Stormlands somewhere? Did he fall into the sea, could he be wandering around in a forest? If Luke is injured, we should send out people to find him. We could hold him as a hostage.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Aemond’s voice is frayed. And now for the first time tonight, you finally know what he’s going to say. Your eyes snag on Aegon’s, and he reads the terror there, and then it hits him too. “There is nothing to search for.”

Mother is gaping at him, the unwanted knowledge seeping in like rain through earth. “Nothing?”

“There is no body. Pieces, perhaps.”

Unspeakable, suffocating dread fills the room, and then Grandsire leaps to his feet and slams his fists down on the table. “Useless!” he roars at Aemond. “Worse than useless, a saboteur, a curse, a plague, you have ruined everything your Mother and I worked for, Rhaenyra was considering our terms and now you’ve condemned us all!”

“You killed Lucerys Velaryon?” Mother says, stunned. Her large dark eyes glisten with unpardonable betrayal. She’ll never look at him the same way again. “You murdered Rhaenyra’s son? A prince, the heir to Driftmark?”

“It wasn’t murder,” Aemond pleads. “It was…it was combat, it was a battle—”

“A battle with that child?!” Grandsire thunders. Helaena begins to cry, and Aegon places a hand on her wrist as his wide eyes dart around the table. “Everyone’s seen him, it’s no secret, and not a single person in the realm would be delusional enough to believe a clash between Vhagar and Arrax was anything but a slaughter!”

“Aemond,” Criston says quietly, appalled, astonished.

Aemond can’t meet his eyes. He peers down at the table, and despite everything—what will happen to us, what will happen to me?—there is an ache in your chest like cracked ribs trying to heal, a profound lightless distress, a ricochet of the pain he’s feeling. “It wasn’t my intention to harm Luke.”

Grandsire shouts: “Did you give Vhagar the order or not?!”

It feels like a long time before Aemond answers. “No.”

“Oh gods,” Criston says as he sinks down in his chair, turning to Alicent. She has hidden her face with both hands and seems to be weeping.

“So you can’t control Vhagar,” Grandsire seethes. “You ride the largest and most dangerous dragon in the world and you can’t stop her from eating people.”

“I never would have purposefully—”

“But you created the situation! You pursued Luke, you tormented him, and surely somewhere in your sick brain you considered that you were endangering his life! And now… now…now Rhaenyra will be merciless, she will never submit, she will endeavor to destroy us all!”

“It will bring more allies to her side,” Criston says. “They will believe she was wronged, and she will wield that weapon to great advantage. She is cunning.”

“What about your family, Aemond?!” Mother sobs, her face a hectic, bloody pink. “You and your brothers will have to go to war, you might be maimed or butchered, and your sisters and I…we could be taken as prisoners, we could be executed for treason!”

“That will never happen,” he swears; but his pale blue eye is misty, and he bites his lips together so they won’t tremble.

Mother is desperate, tears streaming down her cheeks “What can we do, Father? How can we salvage this?”

Grandsire points to you. “She must be wed immediately. We’ve already waited too long.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aegon says, but no one is listening.

“Mother,” you beg. “Please don’t let them—”

“She will be married to whoever can help us in this,” Grandsire says. “The Lannisters or the Redwynes or the Swanns, perhaps the Butterwells or the Mootons if that will coax them to our side—”

“Then the realm will burn,” Aemond replies darkly, leaning over the table. “But I’ll come knocking on your door first, Grandsire.”

Grandsire looks at him, startled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Shall we find out?”

“Otto, please,” Criston says, holding up a palm. Then he considers how to dissuade him. “All things considered—the military strength that Aemond has brought to our side, the devotion that he has shown this family, present circumstances notwithstanding—he has never asked for much.”

“He asks for the one thing we cannot give him,” Grandsire replies, then turns to you. “What do you think about what Aemond has done? This recklessness, this monstrous error?”

He rarely asks for your opinion about anything. This is not a question but a summons: you are supposed to disavow Aemond. You are the one who can hurt him best. Instead you say, though it’s not what you truly feel: “Luke was an enemy. He perished in combat.”

Grandsire, Mother, and Criston all begin yelling at once. Helaena shrinks into herself, her dragonfly made of oak wood clutched to her chest. Aegon whispers something to her—you can leave, you believe he says—but she shakes her head no. You are stoic as the adults berate and implore you, and perhaps it’s strange that you still think of them that way since you’re an adult now too, and yet…their gravity seems so much heavier than yours, their tethers to the earth overgrown with weeds and moss.

“I’ll gut you myself!” Grandsire screams at Aemond, empty threats woven from helpless terror. “I’ll lock you in the Black Cells, I’ll have you banished to Dorne—!”

“I’ll throw a feast!” Aegon says suddenly, and the others go quiet.

“You’ll what?” Grandsire snarls.

“Little Luke Strong is dead and that’s a victory for our side. There’s no other way to look at it.”

“You intend to celebrate this calamity?”

“What else should we do?” Aegon asks. “Apologize? Go crawling on our bellies to Rhaenyra for forgiveness? No, she’d burn us alive. If it’s done, we must embrace it and use it to bolster our cause as much as possible. It was a battle and a victory. Aemond is a war hero. Onto the next objective.”

“What a disaster,” Criston mutters, rubbing his forehead. “Yes, that might be the only option we have.”

Mother clasps the small seven-pointed star that hangs from the gold chain at her throat. “I must go to the sept. I must pray for our survival.”

Grandsire glowers at Aegon. “You are a humiliation.”

“I am the king. I want a feast.”

Grandsire sighs deeply, pushing his chair away from the table. “I suppose I have letters to write.” And then, to Aemond: “When your sisters are captured and enslaved and married off to whichever Black loyalists will pay Rhaenyra and Daemon the most for them, I trust you’ll remember who’s responsible.”

Aemond gets up and storms out of the small council chamber. Mother mops the tears off her face with the sleeves of her green robe. Criston takes one of her hands and is murmuring promises, assurances, perhaps lies. You, Aegon, and Helaena say nothing. None of you can defend what Aemond has done, but you won’t denounce him either.

Then Grandsire grins at you, a cruel bestial flash of his teeth, an old grizzled animal tough from too many winters, icy wind shrieking through the chambers of its heart. “Oh, are you pretending that you’re not about to run after him?”

You don’t reply. But you rise from the table and flee as Mother watches you, her vast eyes swimming with misery.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a game with five pieces: the green snake, the yellow butterfly, the blue wolf, the red bat, and the purple shadowcat. They chase each other around the board, and if one of the other pieces lands on the same spot as yours then you have to go all the way back to the start.

Daeron is the youngest, but he almost always seems to win; some people are like that, luck flows like a river in their veins. Helaena enjoys playing even if she finished last. Aegon feigns disinterest but never declines an invitation, sliding his snake across the spaces with his index finger between slurps of wine. And sometimes Aemond is ruthless, taking every single opportunity to land on your spot and send your bat hurtling back to the beginning, sawing your legs out from under you, shattering your hopes like glass again and again until you are so frustrated you can feel embers glowing dry and searing in your throat.

But other times, Aemond pretends to misread the dots on the dice so he lands either too close or too far away and you are spared, and if you win he lies and says you deserve it.

~~~~~~~~~~

He is waiting at your bedroom door; when you are close enough to breathe him in, you taste rain and soot. Perhaps—if it isn’t your imagination—you can even detect the coppery tinge of blood, splatters of little Luke Strong soaked into the black leather of his tunic or his coat. You remember that boy you barely knew, more a phantom than flesh, a wraith who stole Aemond’s eye and then was spirited away to Dragonstone to escape retribution, a tiny god who Viserys worshipped from afar the same way he never stopped loving Rhaenyra. All you knew of your father was absence, and this was a sadness but a relief as well, because you could not escape the sense that if he was there you would only disappoint him.

“What is wrong with you?!” you whisper savagely. Aemond smiles and reaches for your face, but you swat his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me. You’re insane, you’re going to get us all killed—”

He drags you into your bedchamber, kicking the door shut behind him. He’s lean but wiry, all muscle, and when you fight him—although you both know you want him to win—it is in vain. He tugs your hair out of its braid and hauls you across the room, pushes you down on the bed, rips off his coat and tunic and then follows you onto the mattress. You clamber away until you hit the headboard, your spine flat against the wood. As he closes in on you, your palm cracks across the blind side of Aemond’s face, and he grins. You have often thought that it should have been reversed, you wed to Aegon and Aemond to Helaena. You would not be so scandalized by Aegon’s vices; Aemond would be chivalrous with a meek, compliant wife. But alas, Helaena was born first, and the arrangement was set in stone long before any of your natures became apparent.

Aemond unfastens your robe and reaches under your nightgown of white cotton. “Open your legs.”

“No.” It is always this way with him; it always has been. You fight and he vanquishes, and both of you enjoy it.

He forces your thighs apart and you moan, the resistance bleeding out of you, you muscles going soft and yielding, Aemond radiant with this clandestine conquest on a night when nothing else is under his control. He can only love you when you’re tamed and tractable. Sometimes you think he likes that you don’t have a dragon, that your egg never hatched, that all of the unclaimed beasts denied you. You will always be vulnerable, powerless, at his mercy.

You cling to Aemond, your arms around his neck. He knows exactly what you need because you’ve already done this, more times than either of you could count: everything besides what could get you pregnant, and not just because Aemond would rather slit his own throat than have bastards like Rhaenyra’s. It’s something you’re both saving until at last you are married, and no one except The Stranger can separate you.

You gasp and Aemond growls through your hair: “Shh. Hurry up.”

“I missed you.”

“I know.” He doesn’t have to say it back; if he hadn’t missed you, he wouldn’t be here right now, two fingers buried to the knuckles and the heel of his hand grinding against you, almost, almost, almost…

The bedchamber door bangs opens, and Aegon saunters in with a goblet of wine, emeralds gleaming on the rim.

“Stop,” you tell Aemond, but he knows you don’t mean it, not really; beneath your nightgown his hand works faster, more roughly. You sigh and kiss him, deep and messy, surrendering, very close.

Aegon takes a swig of wine, licks the stray drops from his lips, and frowns down at you both, slightly intrigued but mostly nauseated. He cannot fathom a hunger for his own.

Aemond looks to him and says casually: “Do you want something?”

“I do, actually,” Aegon replies. “Were you planning to thank me?”

“Thank you for what?”

“For what I did for you in the council chamber, obviously. For the feast.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Thank you, Aegon,” you say, and you are sincere.

Aegon raises his goblet in a mock toast. “That’s very kind, Red, but I wasn’t asking you.”

You whimper against Aemond’s throat, embarrassed but in ecstasy, not able to hold off much longer. “Aemond, just thank him.”

“Well I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

“That’s okay,” Aegon says. “I can wait.” He sits at the end of the bed, then bounces up and down a few times. “Oh, this is a great mattress! Very soft, like sleeping on a cloud! Why isn’t mine this nice?”

“Probably because you’ve ejaculated all over it five thousand times,” Aemond says.

“Oh, right,” Aegon jests. “Not quite that frequently, I think.”

“Aemond,” you plead breathlessly. “Just say thank you. Get rid of him.”

Aemond sighs and, with his hand still beneath your nightgown, turns to Aegon. “Thank you.”

Aegon smirks, mischievous. “And how will you repay me?”

“By overcompensating for your shortcomings in order to ensure the enduring success of our family, as I have done since birth.”

“Of course,” Aegon says, though a bit distantly.

Aemond glances down at you and then asks his brother: “Were you hoping to join us?” It’s not a serious question; if Aegon ever tried to touch you with genuine desire, Aemond would break both his arms. Fortunately, Aegon is the closest thing you’ll ever have to a real brother, and thus his limbs are safe.

Aegon chuckles and stands. “No, this is a bit unsavory, even for my taste.” He gulps the last of his wine and says as he leaves: “Enjoy, freaks.”

“Bye, Aegon,” you call, laughing. He waves and then closes the door behind him.

Seconds later—twenty, thirty, time evaporates like mist burned away at dawn—Aemond is making you come, and then you are yanking off his trousers and taking him in your mouth, and when you do this he always has to be touching you, smoothing back your hair, telling you how well you’re doing, and even though he warns you so you can pull away if you choose to, tonight you swallow every last drop of him and think of the sea that Lucerys Velaryon’s scraps tumbled into, the mineral bite of salt and metal and blood.

But when he finishes, Aemond doesn’t collapse like a dead man as he usually does. He throws you onto your back, licks and nuzzles his way down your breasts and belly, parts your legs and murmurs against the inside of your thigh before he begins again: “I want you, I want you, I want you, I can’t wait much longer.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s one of your earliest memories. You are in the garden, and it’s a blazing hot day, and a million varieties of blooms cut through the greenery: goldenrods, orchids, lilies, irises, daisies, bellflowers, red roses, blue forget-me-nots. Butterflies whirl in the air and land on Helaena’s outstretched fingertips. Grandsire is slapping Aegon and calling him an imbecile for trying to pet a bumblebee, and Aegon is wailing: But it’s fuzzy! Why can’t I hold it?!

You must not be very steady on your feet yet, because Aemond is pulling you up by both of your hands and asking: If I ran, do you think you could catch me?

Yes, you had said, and then you’d staggered after him as he darted into the foliage. Under the shade of blossoms and shrubs that towered so much taller than you, you tripped and fell and scraped your palms, one of them bleeding from striking a pebble. You cried out, but no one was there to pick you up: no Mother, no Criston, no Helaena or Aegon. You wept pitifully, thinking—as children do—that you would be lost forever, that you would never see your family again.

But Aemond came back for you, and he studied your bloodied palm, carefully plucking out every grain of brown soil; and then he kissed it, held it against his cheek, painted himself with the scarlet ink of your arteries and veins.

See? he had said, smiling so you knew everything would be okay. Now we’re both red.

~~~~~~~~~~

“How are the babies?” Aemond asks when he arrives, dressed for the feast in a green tunic embroidered with shimmering gold threads in the shapes of dragons, flying, shrieking, breathing fire. Helaena made it for him, of course. Each of you have wardrobes full of garments she’s sewn, a collection of Aegon’s woodcarvings scattered around your rooms, seashell mosaics hanging from walls: insects for Helaena, Sunfyre for Aegon, heroes from myths for Aemond.

You grin over your shoulder. “Come see them.”

It’s dusk now, so they are leaving the roost you keep in one corner of your bedchamber, covered with dark velvet to blot out light and sound as they slumber. Aemond kneels beside you and holds out his hand so River can scurry from your palm into his, clawing with his hooklike appendages. All of your bats are named after blue things—Blueberry, Sailfish, Clear Sky, Bluejay, Misty, Dragonfly, Lagoon, Lightning, Kingfisher—just as Aemond’s hawks and war horses are given names like Fox and Rusty and Cherry and Pomegranate. He is the only one who defends your pets when Mother threatens to banish them back to the Godswood or the seaside cliffs. You have no dragon; you must find solace with some other creature that inspires dread and revulsion. But you think they’re beautiful, and strange, and fearless, and wrongly unloved.

“Let’s move things along,” Aegon says as he appears in the doorway, wearing all green except for the Conqueror’s crown. “No one can dig into the roast boar until the guest of honor enters the Great Hall. So I need Aemond to show up immediately.”

“Almost ready,” Aemond replies without looking away from River, who is now scrambling up his forearm. Lighting takes flight and attempts to land on Aegon’s shoulder; Aegon yelps and flings him away.

“No, you can’t!” you say, rushing across the room to scoop up Lightning and cradle him in your arms. Fortunately, he is unharmed. “I told you, Aegon. They have tiny bones, you have to be gentle or you’ll hurt them.”

Aegon shudders. “They’re fucking disgusting. Rats with wings.”

Aemond sets River on the windowsill, goes to his brother, shoves him hard; Aegon’s back hits the wall. His crown is knocked from his head and clatters against the floor.

“I’m not apologizing,” Aegon insists. “I’m a victim of grave injustice. I was attacked. That thing could have bitten me.”

You say to Aemond in High Valyrian: “Should we do this for a while to annoy him?”

Aemond smiles. “Yes. We should talk a lot. A great amount, we should talk. Very much talking.”

“Hey, hey, stop that,” Aegon says.

“Aemond, what else will they serve besides boar?”

“I heard something about pies.”

“What kinds of pies?”

“Who knows. Maybe apple, or cherry, or plum…”

“Oh, I adore apple pies. Perfect for autumn. I could eat them all day.”

“I could eat you all day.”

“Don’t tease me, or we’ll never make it to the feast.”

Aegon is distressed. “I mean it! Stop!”

“They aren’t saying anything important,” Helaena assures him as she swishes into your bedchamber wearing a butter yellow gown. In her hair are gold pins shaped like ladybugs.

“Okay, but what are they talking about?”

Helaena says matter-of-factly: “Sex and pastries.”

Aegon groans and rolls his eyes. “Why did I ask. Okay, time to go.”

You walk together to the Great Hall, where Helaena and Jaehaera and Grandsire will dance in the center of the floor, and you and Aemond will whisper in shadowy corners, and Mother will peer around worriedly with her large watery eyes as Criston yearns to console her, and Aegon will smile patiently and never scold Jaehaerys when he gets underfoot or spills his pomegranate juice.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s another game, or maybe it’s a ritual; you are a little girl again, and every once in a while, without any warning, Aemond will shove you into a closet or a heavy wooden trunk and lock you inside. You will scream and pound on the door, but no one will hear, and you will spend what feels like hours alone in the darkness, wondering if this will be the time when you are not discovered until you have died of thirst and hunger, until there is nothing left but bones.

Then you hear approaching footsteps and Aemond lets you out, and when you strike and scratch at him he embraces you fiercely, like he’s a soldier who’s been away for a year or more; and he holds you until you stop fighting it and your heartbeat goes quiet in your chest.

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