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lilacs-and-sunshine · 19 days ago

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“If You’re Bored To The Bone, Just Pester Your Favorite Uncle”

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Rowie blinked as she was waking up. Hiding in a trunk and going to King’s Landing with her uncle had been her most brilliant idea… except for the fact that she fell asleep halfway and was starving. Maybe it wasn’t so brilliant as she had expected after all.

Seeing her Uncle Marwyn’s face contort in agony was fun (and hearing him talk about being dismemberited, or something of the sort was too), but she felt like her back was hurting. And, of course, she couldn’t forget about Lily and Periwinkle, whom she’d brought along with her. With enough carrots and tuna pies for them not to starve.

She gave her uncle a smile, equal parts cheeky and innocent and fluttered her eyelashes, like her Aunt Mya had taught her to.

“Oh, but, Uncle Marwyn, I’d be awfully bored if I stayed at Heart’s Home! Can you imagine a more tragic fate than staying away from all the fun?”, she said, her little voice taking an innocent tone. “Besides, you promised I’d be able to go to the capital with you the next time you came! Are you a man of your word or not?”.

Her tone was acquiring a more accusatory tone, as if she was trying to blame him, but, alas, that pretty little sharp mind of hers remembered everything clearly, she even made a small speech as to why she should be allowed to accompany her uncle to King’s Landing, and her parents, much to their dismay, had agreed. But apparently, he forgot last minute, and she had to use her last resource: go with him as a little stowaway and nobody would notice.

“Did I tell you you’re my favorite uncle already? Don’t tell Uncle Corwyn, he’ll be jealous”, she said, using a sweet pleading tone this time. “Oh, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends, by the way? I’m Rowena, but everyone calls me Rowie”. She gave a pretty curtsy to her uncle’s friends; she had to show her politeness after all. “Uncle, by the way, when are we going to meet the Queen and the Princesses? You promised I could meet them when I came with you. Please, please, please, please, please, please!”.

𓅂 A TRUNKFUL OF TROUBLE 𓅂

(A starter with @lilacs-and-sunshine)

It began, as all the gravest threats to Marwyn’s freedom did, with Mother’s matchmaking book.

Lady Alyssa had emerged from her solar with the terrible tome cradled in one arm and the expression of a woman who had plans. That damned book—the one with the cracked spine and dog-eared portraits of noble daughters arranged like bounty posters—had resurfaced, and it was open. Wide open. Like a maw.

Ready to swallow him whole.

“Marwyn,” she said crisply, “sit. We’re going to make a few sensible choices.”

Marwyn, who’d been enjoying a perfectly innocent midday pear, froze mid-bite. “Sensible choices,” he repeated. “Mother, the last time we made ‘sensible choices,’ I ended up courting a woman who collected dead moths and believed in salt-based astrology.”

“She’s married now. Happily, I might add,” Alyssa replied without missing a beat. “To a cousin. So there’s still time for you.”

“Absolutely not. I’m going to the rookery. Urgent business. Feathers need fluffing.” He spun on his heel and made a break for it, pear flying from his hand like a fallen weapon.

Marwyn ducked into the corridor, heart pounding, breath shallow, cloak billowing behind him like a romantic tragedy. He needed an escape plan. A tunnel. A fast horse. A raven’s wing.

Instead, he found Corwyn and immediately launched into panicked signing: Tell her I’m dead. Tell her I perished nobly in the courtyard, trampled by ambition and bad taste.

Corwyn raised one eyebrow and whispered back: “She’s behind you.”

Marwyn didn’t look. He simply bolted.

He made it to the library, his safe haven, his last redoubt, and threw himself behind a table. He could wait this out. He had dried fruit and a flask of wine. Maybe a little light reading on poisons for dramatic flair.

But then—doom.

Little footsteps.

Giggling.

The sound of small children sensing blood in the water.

“Uncle Marwyn’s hiding again!” Maddy announced in that sing-song betrayal children are born with.

“I saw him go behind the tapestry!” Quentyn added helpfully, lifting it like he was unveiling a prize hog at a fair.

“You tiny traitors!” Marwyn cried, scrambling to his feet. “You snack-sized Judas goats!”

“We get sweets if we tell Grandmother where you are!” Maddy declared proudly.

“You’ll get guilt!” he wailed, fleeing again as

Quentyn cheerily shouted after him, “She says you’re not getting out of it this time!”

Which is how he ended up in Leowyn’s solar, hair tangled, breath short, and head bowed like a man on trial. Leowyn was sitting by the hearth, polishing a blade with one hand and bottle-feeding a lamb with the other—of course he was. All while Alyssa loomed nearby like judgment given form.

“I’m not asking,” she said crisply. “You will wed. You will cease scandalizing me, and you will not fake your death again, Marwyn. I’m still apologizing to Maester Garick for the funeral bread.”

“She’s going to marry me off, Leowyn!” Marwyn burst out. “I’ve seen the book. I know the names. There’s a lady in there who drinks boiled turnip water and thinks ghosts live in spoons.”

Leowyn, deadpanned: “You’ve dated worse.”

“That’s beside the point! Listen, I have a proposal. Send me to King’s Landing. As your emissary. For diplomatic reasons.”

Kella, lounging nearby with embroidery and a knowing look, chimed in, “You just want to escape Angel Day.”

“False. I want to serve House Corbray. And also escape Angel Day.” He turned back to Leowyn, eyes wide with sincerity. “You can’t go! You’d miss it, and your whole family would riot. But I am expendable.”

“I’ll gut you myself before I let you weasel out of Angel Day again,” came Alyssa’s voice, slicing through the room like a sword through cream. Book in hand. Smile terrifying.

“I just think I’d be more useful elsewhere,” Marwyn said, slowly backing away. “I’ll do paperwork. I’ll write reports. I’ll learn the names of every smallfolk child in Flea Bottom if it keeps me unmarried until winter.”

“You’re six-and-twenty,” Alyssa snapped.

“I’m developing gracefully. Like cheese!”

Leowyn rubbed his face. Kella had started giggling into her needlework.

“And,” Marwyn added, pointing dramatically, “I swear on father’s grave, I’ll look for a wife while I’m there. Genuinely. Earnestly. One with a pulse, even.”

Leowyn groaned. “And when you get challenged to a duel by some Lannister minor lord because you made a joke about his vest?”

“I won’t! I’ll be good! So good! I’ll braid my hair and everything! Kings Landing will think I’m a diplomat of unmatched virtue and modesty!”

“You’re wearing boots with embroidered dragons eating each other.”

“It’s metaphorical!”

Leowyn looked at Kella, who was now wiping her eyes, then at Alyssa, whose expression said I am one sigh away from slapping you with this book.

He sighed. Then signed to Corwyn, If I let him go, Mother might actually sleep. Or kill someone. Possibly both.

Corwyn nodded gravely, signing back: I’d help her hide the body.

Marwyn dropped to his knees. “Pleasepleasepleaseplease—”

Leowyn waved him off. “Fine. Go. But if you bring shame to this house—”

“I’ll bring gifts!” Marwyn cried, already halfway out the door. “And probably lice, but that’s part of the adventure!”

Alyssa’s voice rang after him like a war horn: “I’M SENDING THE CARGYLL GIRL YOUR PORTRAIT ANYWAY!”

Marwyn didn’t even slow. “Make sure she sees my good side!” he yelled over his shoulder, hair flying behind him like a banner of glorious defeat.

From the hall, Quentyn murmured, “I hope she sends him a spoon ghost.”

And Maddy replied, “I hope she marries him twice.”

It was barely past noon, and already the air stank of perfume, ambition, and something unidentifiably wet. Marwyn was halfway convinced that was just how King’s Landing was, like a city-sized armpit with titles.

But he’d made it.

He was alive.

He was unmarried.

And he spotted his salvation in the form of a bear-sized Northerner with a braid like a noose and a face that said don’t talk to me unless you’re bleeding or offering beer.

“BENJEN!” Marwyn cried, arms outstretched like a martyr come home from the grave. “My dearest friend, my shield, my cover from predatory mothers!”

Benjen, who’d been trying to go unnoticed, groaned like a man who’d just stepped in something that squelched. “Seven hells. Not you.”

“Oh, don’t be coy. You missed me.”

“I thought they were sending Corwyn.”

“Surprise! You got the better brother.”

“The last time I saw you, I had to fight a duel. With a Farlow. Because you—”

“—accidentally seduced his wife. Listen, in my defense, she said she was a widow and very bored.”

“She was a widow,” Benjen growled. “After her husband fell down the stairs chasing you with a boot in one hand and a dagger in the other.”

“Love makes fools and corpses of us all,” Marwyn said sagely. “Anyway, how are you? You look... trapped.”

Benjen gave a long-suffering sigh, glancing around the courtyard like he expected someone to lunge at him with a marriage contract. “This place is a cage. Every hallway smells like old perfume and old regrets. I can’t go ten feet without bumping into someone I’ve—”

“—shown your longsword?”

“Don’t,” Benjen warned.

Marwyn grinned. “Tell me, is there a secret tunnel out of the keep, or do I just climb inside your cloak and live there like a tick?”

“I will shake you off,” Benjen growled.

“I will cling,” Marwyn said, ducking behind Benjen just as two well-dressed ladies paused mid-conversation to scan the courtyard like hawks searching for prey with good bloodlines and poor judgment. “You’re tall. Broad. Basically a mobile marriage shield.”

“I hate you.”

“And I adore you.” He peeked around Benjen’s arm. “Are they gone?”

“No.”

“I’ll die here. I’ll be buried in the godswood under a tree that smells like regret.”

They rounded a corner, and Benjen very nearly walked straight into a woman seated at the edge of a marble fountain. Lyarra sat in a posture of unstudied elegance, legs crossed, her dark hair pinned back with the kind of casual grace that usually took hours. She was flipping through a book with the leisurely confidence of someone who had either finished reading it or never intended to.

“Ah, Lyarra,” Benjen said without missing a beat. “If anyone asks—”

“You’re dead,” she replied automatically. “And if they say they saw you alive, I scream in horror.”

“You see why she’s my favorite.”

“Flattered,” Lyarra said, already amused. “And what are you doing here, Marwyn? Didn’t you fake your death last spring to avoid a dance?”

“It wasn’t a dance, it was an ambush. With roses and witnesses.” He beamed. “And I’m here to serve my house. Honorably. As a diplomat.”

Benjen snorted.

Lyarra raised an eyebrow. “You? Diplomatic?”

“I once negotiated peace between two dueling septas over pie selection.”

“And by peace,” Benjen muttered, “he means he stole both slices and ran.”

“Effective,” Marwyn said proudly.

Benjen rolled his eyes. “I’ve had enough of this. Come on. I need to see Lord Gyles about something actually important. If anyone asks—”

“You’re still dead,” Lyarra repeated, grinning.

Marwyn trailed after Benjen, hands clasped behind his back, skipping a little. “We make quite the pair, don’t we? The grumpy bear and the dashing rogue. A tale for the ages. The romance of it all.”

Benjen didn’t even look back. “You’re not my type.”

Marwyn gasped, hand to chest. “You wound me!”

“You’ll live.”

“You just don’t like men.”

Benjen paused. Then slowly looked over his shoulder.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t correct him.

“I don’t like you.”

Marwyn’s mouth fell open. “Well that’s just rude.”

Lyarra lost it. She was doubled over against the fountain, laughing so hard she dropped the book she’d been pretending to read.

Benjen just kept walking. Marwyn jogged to catch up, still sputtering. “I have excellent musical taste! And manners! And cheekbones!”

Benjen rubbed his temples. “You’re exhausting.”

“You’re just old.”

“I’m one year older than you.”

“Exactly.”

Lyarra, breathless and gleeful behind them, called after: “You’re definitely his type, Marwyn. His favorite type of headache!”

Marwyn just gave a flourishing bow, walking backward. “Then I shall be the most charming migraine this court has ever seen!”

Lyarra just shook her head and picked up her book. She muttered to herself with fond exasperation as she settled back into place, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“Gods help the Red Keep.”

Benjen didn’t keep walking.

Instead, he stopped short with a scowl and hooked an arm around Marwyn’s neck, dragging him bodily toward a waiting cart stacked haphazardly with two traveling trunks and a battered chest reinforced in brass.

“You’re staying with me,” Benjen grunted. “Which means I’m not spending the rest of the day tripping over your baggage.”

Marwyn, red-faced and flailing, flapped his arms like an indignant bird. “I’ll have you know that trunk contains highly sensitive diplomatic materials!”

Benjen let him go with a shove. “It rattles like it’s full of spoons.”

“It’s props,” Marwyn said, dusting himself off. “Lady Florent is staging The Maiden’s Mercy in the rose courtyard. I promised her some of the Dornish costumes from that pageant I may or may not have crashed last year.”

Benjen raised a brow. “Does this have anything to do with the incident where you were chased across a rooftop dressed as a septa?”

“Define ‘incident,’” Marwyn said breezily, kneeling by the chest and fussing with the latches. “And ‘septa.’”

With a grunt, Benjen bent down beside him, jimmied one of the stubborn clasps open with a dagger, and together they heaved the lid up.

Then froze.

Silence.

Complete and total.

Even the birds seemed to stop chirping.

Benjen was the first to blink. He stepped back slowly, his expression unreadable.

Marwyn, however, went through all seven stages of grief in half a breath. His jaw dropped. His face drained of color. He let out the softest, most broken whisper:

“No.”

He leaned in, as if by getting closer he might see someone else instead. As if that might change reality.

But it didn’t.

It was still her.

Still Rowena.

His niece. His small niece. The one with sparkly pins in her hair and the unfortunate fondness for dramatic monologues and fairytales. The one who was supposed to be in Heart’s Home, learning embroidery and not hiding in trunks headed to the most dangerous place in the realm.

“Oh no no no no no,” Marwyn croaked, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. “Leowyn’s going to kill me.”

He dropped to a crouch, peering in like she might vanish if he blinked.

“Kella is going to kill me first. Slowly. With embroidery needles. And then Leowyn will kill what’s left.”

Benjen folded his arms. “You forgot someone.”

Marwyn groaned. “My mother.”

Benjen gave a solemn nod. “Alyssa’s going to kill you three times. One for each of them.”

“This is it,” Marwyn said faintly, pressing a hand to his heart. “This is how I die. Not from poison or scandal or a lover’s husband. But from parental wrath.”

“You earned it.”

“She must’ve climbed in at the last minute! I checked the trunk!”

“You checked…?”

“From the outside!”

Benjen snorted.

Marwyn buried his face in his hands. “I’m going to be disinherited. I’m going to be dismembered. I’m going to be dismemberited!”

Lyarra, now standing a few paces away, had her arms crossed and one brow arched so high it could’ve touched the sky. “Dare I ask?”

Benjen gestured at the chest. “Surprise cargo.”

Lyarra stepped forward, peeked inside, then blinked and covered her mouth with a gasp.

Marwyn didn’t lift his head. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say her name. The gods might hear.”

Lyarra’s shoulders shook with poorly-contained laughter. “Oh, Marwyn.”

He peeked through his fingers. “Do you think if I climb into the chest and close the lid, the world will forget I exist?”

Benjen bent down again, carefully lowering the lid without closing it all the way.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Rowie, dearest…” Marwyn scream-whispered, “why? Just why?”

#With A Kiss And A Wink We Will Waken Our Souls: Threads #Far Beyond Where Memories Lie: Family #Our Steel Is True: House Corbray #Lady Rowie Corbray #Ser Marwyn Corbray

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 7 months ago

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Cannibals [Chapter 5: Sapphires and Cinnamon]

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), references to war-related violence, Targ chaos terrorizes poor innocent House Corbray, Red and Jace have a lovers' quarrel, interesting news arrives from the Riverlands, bats!!!

Word count: 7.4k

💙 All my writing can be found HERE! ❤️

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Like game pieces on a board, he moves the coins he’s using as tokens around the ink-and-parchment Westeros that is rolled open across the table. He’s been underwater for weeks, but now he can breathe again. Aegon is starting to heal, through the worst of the danger and unlikely to die, and he has been tucked away someplace no enemy will find him: an unassuming farm in the countryside surrounding Rook’s Rest, under the protection of the knights of his Kingsguard and tended to by requisitioned maesters. Criston’s infantrymen and cavalry have rested and healed and reorganized to fill the gaps in their ranks following the battles to subdue the turncoat houses of the Crownlands. Yesterday, Aemond rode Vhagar to the stone gates of Claw Isle and accepted a tremulous, tearful surrender from Bartimos Celtigar’s lady wife, in whose care the castle was left. Rhaenyra will receive no further gold from the region, and she will find the treasury of King’s Landing empty, the wealth once stored there split and hidden at Tyland Lannister’s suggestion in Braavos, Casterly Rock, and Oldtown. She will try to tax the smallfolk to fund her war effort, and they will rise up and murder her. That, at least, is Aemond’s hope.

Criston walks into the room. He’s just come from the rookery, where ravens arrive carrying news from Green spies and allies throughout the Seven Kingdoms: the Triarchy will send ships to combat the Sea Snake’s fleet; the Hightower army in the Reach has won battles at the Honeywine, Tumbleton, and Bitterbridge; the Lannister army in the Riverlands triumphed at the Red Fork and Acorn Hall; Cregan Stark is marching south from Winterfell with ten thousand men to fight for Rhaenyra, and they will need to be dealt with.

This will all be over soon, and I can go home. Home to my family, home to her.

“Daemon is restless,” Aemond says, repositioning his coins. “He will tire of enduring Rhaenyra’s orders in the capital, and he will fly elsewhere on Caraxes. He yearns for battle, I know him. A hero’s glory, perhaps even a hero’s death. When he leaves King’s Landing, I will go there on Vhagar and kill Syrax, Vermax, and this new dragon Sheepstealer. I will retake the capital and then leave Daeron as its protector in my stead while I hunt Daemon. Daeron has proven himself in the Reach. He’s growing up.”

Faintly, fondly, Aemond smiles. But Criston appears stricken.

“Bad news,” Aemond says for him. “From where?”

“The Red Keep.”

“Mother?” He fears that Rhaenyra will have her executed like Grandsire, though this would be a grievous mistake. The people love the queen dowager, who has lived among them nearly all her life and selflessly nursed King Viserys while Rhaenyra seduced her uncle, plotted Laenor Velaryon’s death, and secluded herself and her vile nest of bastards and villains on Dragonstone.

Criston is hesitant to begin. Perhaps he isn’t sure if Aemond should know this. “No, your mother and Helaena are still held in the dungeon, captive but in relative safety. Jaehaera and Maelor are wards of Rhaenyra. I would assume she’s trying to win their affection and then arrange politically advantageous betrothals.”

There has been a name left out. Aemond stares up from his map, waiting.

“She’s been taken out of the city,” Criston says.

An impossibility, an irrationality. “What?”

“I don’t know where to, or for what purpose. But she’s not in King’s Landing.”

Aemond says nothing for long, cold, grey minutes. The sky outside beckons in the coming winter like a nefarious houseguest, one who shares your dinner table and then slits your throat while you’re asleep. When he finally speaks, his voice is low but fierce. “She’s no threat to them.”

“She isn’t.”

“She can’t travel by dragon.”

“No,” Criston agrees. “So they must have transported her by land or sea.”

Aemond shakes his head. “Why would Rhaenyra do that?”

Criston’s dark eyes are afraid. “I don’t know.”

“Where might they have sent her? Where could she be?”

“Anywhere, Aemond,” Criston says helplessly. “Anywhere.”

And it rises in him like magma through the earth: a scorching venom that pools in the capillary beds of his lungs, a fatal heat that burns away flesh and bones and reason.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rain falls from the sky, sea spray erupts from the waves, stinging eyes and the abrasions on your skin from falling on the rocks over and over again. You are a child, and you are tracking Vermithor on Dragonstone. The mist is so thick that Criston and the guards have lost sight of you, and you can hear them shouting for you to wait for them, but you can’t, you can’t, you’ve wanted this for years and now it’s about to happen. You can feel the volcanic stones, black and serrated, quaking as the Bronze Fury stomps in his hovel. The cave is shrouded in fog, but you know he’s in there. He is growling, a sound like thunder. You can see the glinting gold of his eyes.

“Vermithor!”you command him in High Valyrian, holding out your hands, your maroon gown billowing around you in the vicious wind. Strands of long silver hair are torn from your braid. Blood runs in thin rivulets from your ravaged palms down your wrists and forearms. Saltwater burns like fire in the gashes on your feet; you’ve lost your shoes while scrambling over the rocks. “All my life I’ve dreamed of you, and now we will fly together at last. We will be bonded to one another until death. We will preserve the realm and burn our enemies. Serve me, Vermithor! Serve me!”

He emerges from his cave: a colossal skull covered in scales and spines, steam rising from his nostrils, jagged fangs bared, eyes that are at once reptilian and mindless and wrathful and sage. He is a century old and unfathomably mighty; he is an inheritor of the sacred magic of Old Valyria. He judges you with eyes like kindling flames.

“Red, step back!” Aemond yells from where he watches, his black cloak like a banner in the wind, closed at the neck with a silver chain and with a constellation of silver buttons in the shape of Vhagar’s wings across his shoulders. He is the only person who has kept pace with you. “Give him room! Let him approach you!”

But Vermithor is yours, there is no other possibility, in your heart he has always been yours, he has been the beast you claimed in your soul when you first heard his legends as Aemond read them aloud to you, Aegon, Helaena, Daeron under the heart tree in the Godswood of the Red Keep, and now you will climb onto his back and fly with him and meet Aemond and Vhagar in the mist-grey sky. From deep in his throat, the Bronze Fury snarls.

“Vermithor, be calm! Don’t you recognize me? We are meant for each other. We belong to each other. The dragon egg I was given in the cradle didn’t hatch so I could come here and find you instead. I am not afraid of you. I will not flee from you. Serve me! Serve me!”

“It’s not working,” Aemond tells you with dawning horror. “Get away from him! Red, get away!”

“Serve me, Vermithor!” you scream, and now you’re terrified, because his jaws are opening and dragonfire is boiling up into his mouth, crimson and glowing. “No, no!”

You try to run but the heat is already everywhere, and the air is suddenly too hot to breathe, and when you touch your face with your bloody hands you can feel your cheeks blistering. And then something collides with you like a lance striking a jousting knight, and you are thrown to the ground. It’s Aemond, and he is shoving you down into a crevice between two slabs of black basalt, and when instinctively you try to push him away—you’re always fighting him, something wild to be tamed—Aemond pins your wrists to your chest and shields your body with his, shrinking from the lethal heat of the world outside and burying his face in the velvet of your gown.

Then Criston and the guards and the Dragonkeepers are here, and with their ancient spells the Dragonkeepers convince Vermithor to retreat into his cave. When Aemond helps you out of the crevice, you see that the buttons on the back of his cloak have melted, and if the attack had lasted even a moment longer he’d be dead.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you wake in your bedchamber at the top of a tower of Heart’s Home, Jace is already gone. You peer through the window and see him strolling in the castle courtyard with Lord Leowyn Corbray, both of them bundled up in heavy furs; there is a layer of powdery snow on the ground, just as high as the ankles. The pine trees of the surrounding forest sway in the cold mountain wind. Servants lead horses in and out of the stable. And you wonder randomly: Do they have bats in the Vale?

Maids hear you walking around and file into the room to show you the clothes your closet has been stocked with through House Corbray’s generosity and help you dress. They try to distract you, but you notice anyway: one of them strips the bed and takes the sheets away, blotted with a watery, pale pink stain of blood. You’re sore, but not terribly so, just enough pain to remind you—when you move in certain ways—that you are wed to Jace, and that he took you last night as any husband would, and that now you could be carrying his dark-haired heir. The thought stuns you; you’ve never been more than ambivalent to the prospect of bearing children. Your dreams were of Vermithor, and marrying Aemond, and being possessed by him in every sense possible. Motherhood would come later, and you had always assumed you would one day begin to dream of that too.

Do I dream of it now?

No, you feel in your bones. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

The colors of the Vale are chilly and weak like the sky. The maids show you velvet gowns of dusky rose, icy blue, moss green, dove grey. After some consideration, you choose the blue. Then you wander the castle, your drafty stone prison, your new home. There are no tapestries of the Hightower or wrathful dragons or lovers ensnared like knotted threads, no familiar faces. Heart’s Home is austere, its primary embellishments being candlelit chandeliers and rugs made from dead animals, and the loudest sound you hear is the whistling of wind through cracks in the walls, frigid air that howls in from the Mountains of the Moon.

After much exploration you find the rookery, where ravens squawk in their cages and bed down in mounds of straw, and through the window is a view of snowcapped mountains that stretch on endlessly like a sea. There is no table to write on, and you see no parchment or ink or quills, and you don’t know which raven (if any of them) is trained to fly to Rook’s Rest. It doesn’t matter; you can’t write to Aemond without endangering your family held hostage in King’s Landing. And even if you could, what would you say to him?

Aemond, I’ve married Jace and I did it to save you. But don’t fear for my safety. I am protected here, I am content enough. I have no dragon, but I can help fight the war in my own way. Jace seems to like me. I might even be beginning to like him too.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” someone says, and you whirl to see Lord Corbray’s wife filling up the doorway.

You do not bow or curtsey. As a princess, you outrank her. “Lady Caroline.” No. Not quite. “Lady Carolyn. Lady Carolina.” Then you remember. “I am so sorry, Lady Carolei. Forgive me.”

She laughs boisterously. “Carolei is a common name in the Vale, but not elsewhere, I’ve been told. My closest friends here call me Lady Caro, you can feel welcome to do the same.”

“Lady Caro. Please allow me to apologize again.”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure you had a late night.” Her eyes—large and round, almost bulging, and a very pale blue—sweep from your feet to your face. “But you didn’t have too bad of a time with it, I think.”

“The maids took the sheets,” you say like an accusation.

She smiles, perhaps a little guiltily. “As High As Honor,” she replies. “They are the words of House Arryn, but all the great families of the Vale aspire to be above reproach.”

“And you are a great family.” It’s more of a question.

“We are not grand or wealthy, that’s true,” Lady Caro concedes. “And I can imagine our little castle cannot compare to King’s Landing or the Hightower of your Mother’s house. But we are dependable and honest. What Queen Rhaenyra has entrusted us with is a tremendous privilege. We will abide by her instructions, and endeavor to satisfy her every request.”

“So she wanted to know that I bled.”

Lady Caro shrugs—I can’t tell you that—and then signals for you to follow her. “Join me in the Great Hall. We’ll have some cinnamon tea.”

The Great Hall of Heart’s Home is about the same size as your bedchamber in the Red Keep, with two rows of wooden tables and a crackling fire in the hearth. When you look into the glowing embers, you are reminded of Vermithor’s flames. Cool overcast light falls like snow in through the windows. Lady Caro gestures for you to sit with her at the table closest to the fire, and maids bring you fried eggs and bacon, fresh bread, butter, blackberry jam, and cinnamon tea, milky and aromatic and very sweet.

“It must be difficult for you,” Lady Caro says thoughtfully as she slurps her tea, steam wafting into the air. “Being so very far from your family. Even if they are traitors.”

She seems to be testing you for a reaction. You gaze into your tea and try not to let tears well up in your eyes as you think of them: Mother and Helaena in a dungeon, Jaehaera and Maelor with strangers, Jaehaerys and Grandsire dead, Daeron at war, Aegon burned, Aemond hating me once he learns of my betrayal. None of us are in the same place. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. “But you must be far from home too. Women get married off and sent across the world, it’s nothing new.”

“This is true,” Lady Caro muses. “I am originally of House Coldwater, and if you think Heart’s Home is plain and remote, I hope you never see Coldwater Burn. You’ve probably never even heard of it.”

“It’s up near the Fingers,” you say softly, remembering Aemond showing you dots littering the Vale on one of his maps, warm firelight, teasing hands, his lips murmuring against the shell of your ear. “The colors of its banner are blue, red, and white.”

She gasps and presses a palm to her chest, delighted. Her already ruddy cheeks flush pinker. “Mother have mercy, they teach that in the capital?”

“I have an interest in geography.” No, you don’t; but Aemond does.

“Do you embroider or sing?”

“Neither. Not well, anyway. Helaena works miracles with a needle and thread.” Absently, you touch your gown where beneath the pale blue velvet a scar runs from your left collarbone down to the top of your breast. So does Aemond.

Lady Caro observes this curiously, peering at you over the rim of her mug. “How did you occupy yourself before you came here? I do want to make you feel as comfortable as possible.”

Because you are kind? Because Rhaenyra told you to? Or because I might be the queen myself someday? “I spent a lot of time with my brothers and sister,” you answer honestly, dolefully. And I kept bats. You decide to omit this. “We all had our crafts. I made mosaics out of seashells.”

Lady Caro titters. “Seashells? Well, they aren’t exactly abundant, but there are some out near where the river meets the Narrow Sea. I’ll see if I can have a bucketful brought to you.”

“I can collect them.”

“The water is very cold, and the current powerful.”

“I like to choose my own shells. You can send knights to watch over me, I’m not hoping to drown myself or anything.”

Now Lady Caro laughs loudly. “Drown yourself! The things you say, princess…”

You decide to try to make conversation to encourage her affection, as Mother would want you to. “Do you have children, Lady Caro?”

“Oh yes, five of them. Four died though. Awful luck, isn’t it?” She goes somber, staring blankly out the nearest window for a long while, leaving you unsure of what to do or say. Eventually, she returns to the Great Hall and is cheerful again. “My daughter Jessamyn was married into House Mallister of Seagard. I get to see her and the children once every few years. And she’s nothing like you.”

You smirk cautiously. “What does that mean?”

“It means she’s very sweet and agreeable and naïve.” And then Lady Caro winks at you, and you realize you might be becoming friends. “Not like a Targaryen.”

You drink your cinnamon tea and think of last night, feeling a strange brew of fondness and shame and relief and loss. “Sounds a bit like Jace though.”

“Yes, well,” Lady Caro says, then wisely leaves the rest unspoken. He’s more of a Strong, isn’t he?

One of the Great Hall’s heavy wooden doors creaks open and Jace strides inside, wearing black accented with red and a bear fur coat overtop, speckled with snowflakes. More flurries are melting in his hair. You stand to meet him and he takes both of your hands. You smile uneasily, not knowing what to expect; then Jace playfully kisses the knuckles of your right hand, and after that your left, and he beams at you.

Instead of a greeting, he says: “We have a few more days together, then I have to go away.”

It’s the second time a man has told you this. “Go where?”

Jace shrugs evasively. No one is allowed to tell you anything. “Do you like horses?”

“Sure.” Aemond used to take you to visit his war horses, all towering and temperamental: Rusty, Apple, Fox, Ladybug, Pomegranate. Then he would watch as you stroked their forelocks and their downy muzzles, his remaining eye fixed on you, imagining sins that never felt like damnation but rather searing, tumultuous waves like an ocean of blood.

“Good. I’ll show you the stable.” Jace kisses you, a quick peck for modesty’s sake since you aren’t alone. He grins and licks his lips. “Mm. You taste like cinnamon.” Something warm, something red. He turns to Lady Caro. “Thank you for making us feel so welcome. The queen will be pleased to hear of your devoted service to the crown. We know that this is an imposition, and we appreciate your generous sacrifice.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Caro replies, and she seems to mean it. “It’s no imposition. It’s an honor.” Then she rises to her feet. “Let me find some boots and a fur coat for the princess.”

Once you are properly guarded against the cold—wrapped in a thick coat of fox pelts—Jace links his arm through yours and leads you outside, and you tread together through the shallow snowfall toward the stable.

“You’ve probably never even seen snow before,” Jace says, and you agree even though this isn’t true. You saw snow here in the Vale when you were very young—you don’t even remember which castle Mother and Father had been visiting on their royal progress—and that was the trip when Aemond pushed you into a frozen river and you caught a chill that almost killed you.

“Jace?” you ask, cutting him off mid-sentence. You hadn’t meant to interrupt him; your mind had been wandering.

He looks at you with some trepidation, as if he’s worried you might have a complaint. “Yes?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

He blinks at you, then exhales in a relieved chuckle. “You’re asking why I’m nice?”

“You never liked me before. And you had no reason to.” In your eyes, I was a traitor. If you could tell what I’m feeling, you’d know I still am.

He ponders how to answer as you walk. Now his expression is serious. “I always knew that when I married—to whoever it was, although for most of my life I believed it would be someone else—that would be it for me, and I would never be estranged from her or take another lover. There are so many families with…” He pauses, and you watch him closely. “There are so many children who suffer from the indiscretions of their parents.” There is a bloom of ashamed, gory pink in his cheeks, and you know he is speaking of himself, and of all the bastards anywhere in the world who have ever been made to feel lied to, less than, disgraced, disavowed. “I swore to myself that I would be a good husband and father, and that my own household would be…wholly uncomplicated.”

“So you would act this way with anyone. With whoever you were wed to.”

“Well…” He smiles softly. “As it turns out, there are things I like about you.”

“Really?” you tease, grinning, and when you reach the stable you shove the door open and step inside onto a straw-strewn floor. There’s no biting mountain breeze here in the shadows, and the body heat radiating off the horses makes the air more hospitable. Jace seems surprised you didn’t wait for him to open the door for you. “What things?”

“Several things,” Jace says, then—now that you are alone aside from the horses nickering and chomping on hay in their stalls—wraps his arms around your waist and holds you from behind, kissing the side of your neck. You have to resist the reflex to fight him off so he can overpower you, pin you to the floor, fuck you as you hiss and claw at him and tell him to stop. Jace wouldn’t understand it. Jace would be horrified by it. “Here,” Jace whispers, skimming a hand over your gown where he made you bleed last night. Then his palms travel up to your breasts. “And here.” Then he nuzzles your silver hair as he gently unfastens your braid and inhales deeply. “And I like this too. Although I’d be interested to see you wear it in a style that is a little…softer.”

“Softer?” you echo doubtfully.

“You’re not a warrior,” Jace says as if he thinks you will want to hear this, as if it will comfort you. It doesn’t. “And that’s alright. You can be soft. You can be ladylike.”

You don’t feel very much like a lady. You feel like a kettle full of boiling water, like lava bursting up through the cracks in the earth, like dragonfire hemorrhaging from a beast’s gaping throat. Now you and Jace are on the wooden floor of the stable, displacing straw as you kiss hungrily and pull off each other’s coats. Jace climbs on top of you, and you think: I can’t do this again, not like last night. I want to be fed too.

Jace stops to marvel at your face, his thumb skating over the curve of your cheekbone. “I want to make it as good for you as it is for me,” he says solemnly. “Last night it was over so quickly, and…I didn’t…I feel like I could have done more, but I don’t know…I’m not sure if…”

You grab his right hand and lace your fingers through his. “Can I show you how I touch myself?”

Jace’s eyebrows go up. “You touch yourself?”

“Don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” he admits bashfully, blushing. He does this a lot, you are learning. “But I’m a man.”

You smile. “Women experience longing too, Jace.”

“Yes,” he says, and now he’s breathing quickly and it sounds less like he’s merely intrigued and more like he’s begging for it. “Show me. Please show me.”

You take his hand and guide it beneath your gown, up the length of your legs, stopping where you are slick and needful, an ache so deep it hurts like the cramps when your blood arrives each month. You place two of Jace’s fingers on the right spot—he keeps inadvertently moving his hand just off the mark, and each time you put it back where it belongs—and lead him into a rhythm, a tight swift circling and pressure that makes your thighs open wider for him and your spine arch.

Jace murmurs as you pant on the stable floor, shadows on your face and straw in your hair: “Is this okay, am I hurting you at all?”

“You can press down pretty hard,” you assure him. “You won’t break me. I’m not glass.”

He’s trying not to lose his focus. “Okay…okay…”

“Jace,” you gasp as you sling your arms around the back of his neck and cling to him, your hips rocking, and he moans and kisses you—deeply, passionately, gluttonously—and under your dress his hand suddenly strokes you so forcefully it’s almost painful and then it’s on you, that feeling better than anything else on earth, being opened, being dragged under, being ignited, being devoured until you go weak and limp and boneless, aftershocks throbbing and your lips smiling drowsily. “Jace, Jace, Jace,” you breathe dizzily, still holding him.

He is gazing down at you, awestruck. “When can I watch you do that again?”

“Soon,” you purr through Jace’s dark curls. “Now…your turn.”

You are barely aware of it as he pushes the hem of your gown up to your waist and frees himself from his trousers, and you only come back to Jace when he enters you—your flesh still tender from last night, but wet and wanting him—and he is careful as he slowly pushes himself all the way inside, trying not to hurt you again. Then he thrusts and you are stunned by how good it feels, like your climax made everything more sensitive, more ready, more flawlessly tailored to fit with him. Jace doesn’t last much longer than the first night, and yet just before it’s over there is the ghost of something, a vague desire that is building, and you think next time (or the time after that, or the time after that) you will be able to finish again, and you will be drained like a slaughtered animal with its throat cut and its body hung by the feet, every last blood drop purged and collected in a bucket to be used for fertilizer or pig feed.

Lying together exhausted on the stable floor, you twirl one of Jace’s curls around your finger and—purely by instinct, because it’s what you and Aemond used to do—whisper to him in High Valyrian: “I love how you touch me, thank you, I needed this, I needed you.” But you can tell by the way Jace turns to you, startled and a little self-conscious, that he doesn’t understand what you said.

“I know some High Valyrian, of course,” he explains quickly. “But I’m…I’m still learning.”

“Oh.” It doesn’t come easily to him. Because he’s a Strong, and the Strongs have nothing to do with Old Valyria. And then, to temper the blow: “I can help you practice.”

“Who taught it to you?” Jace asks. He is suspicious, then hopeful. “Helaena?”

You should lie to him, but you don’t. At some point you have to start letting raindrops of the truth seep in. You are going to share a household with Jace, your bodies, your futures, your children. You want him to understand who you really are. You can’t pretend forever; already, it is stifling, a constant and trudging effort, a vanishing until you are transluscent like clear water. You are reminded of all the times when you’ve tried to hide pieces of yourself to please Mother, whose Hightower blood was washed away by the grim, intoxicating magic of the Targaryens. “No, Helaena doesn’t speak High Valyrian except when giving commands to Dreamfyre. She can understand it fairly well, though.”

Jace nods, studying you, but he doesn’t say anything else. The phantom of Aemond stands in the far corner of the stable. You think: I am a traitor to both of them, I am a house of no banners. After a moment, you ask Jace for your very first favor.

“I want Helaena freed from the dungeon in the Red Keep,” you say. “I understand Rhaenyra’s distrust of Mother, but Helaena is innocent. She should be confined to her chambers and permitted to see her children. And allowed to walk in the garden sometimes too.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jace says distractedly.

“You know Helaena. She is gentle, she is fragile. She deserves compassionate treatment.”

“So did Luke,” Jace replies; and though he takes your hands and helps you to your feet as horses snort and paw at the straw-covered floors of their stalls, he averts his dark gaze—an inheritance from his bloodline, the indomitable lineage of the First Men—and doesn’t meet your eyes.

Two days later he departs Heart’s Home for a destination that Lord and Lady Corbray know, surely, but you don’t. Jace bids you farewell at the edge of the field beyond the castle walls as Vermax waits impatiently for him across the clearing, not liking the mountain cold, not liking you. Jace wears black and red as he almost always does, the colors of his mother’s house. His curls are ruffled by the breeze, his red cloak flowing down from his shoulders like a trail of blood.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Jace touches your cheek, then your chin. “I’ll miss you and all those things I’ve discovered I like so much.”

You smile back. You have the beginning of a headache—a throbbing above your left eye, a fuzziness in your thoughts—but you’re trying not to show it. “I’ll be here.” Where else could I go?

“I love you,” Jace says, and then looks at you expectantly. It takes you a minute to realize he’s waiting for you to say it too.

You open your mouth, but your pulsing skull is clamoring with prayers you cannot voice. Please protect the family I have left. Please don’t find a way to kill Aemond. At last you manage: “I love you,” but it sounds hollow and unnatural and cold, like stark snowcapped peaks and the gales that shriek through them.

Nonetheless, Jace is satisfied. He tilts up your face to bring his lips to yours and then treks across the field towards Vermax, leaving footprints in the fresh snow. His sword hangs from his belt. He practices with knights in the castle courtyard each day, and he’s not bad, you’ve observed anxiously. Not as good as Aemond, but not bad.

That night you see the shadow of something interrupting the moonlight that floods in through the window of your bedchamber, and when you push open the glass a bat lands clumsily on the sill and then scrabbles inside. You squeal with delight and scoop it into your arms. It’s a male and a different sort of bat than the ones in King’s Landing, larger in size, black and white in color and with long fanlike ears. He sniffs at you and gazes up with small but intelligent inky eyes. Then, as a mark of friendship, he begins to lick at your fingertips.

“And what do you eat, huh?” you coo as you pet him. “Probably not honey or fruit if you live way up here in the mountains. Probably just bugs. Should I try to catch you some spiders tomorrow? This decrepit old castle must be full of them.”

You have to name him. And this is an opportunity to break all your old patterns. You could call him Seahorse for Jace’s false house, or Dragon for his true one. You could call him the High Valyrian word for bat or wings. You could name him after something black, the color that Jace favors. And yet as you hold him, old memories come screaming back to you, Aemond helping you tend to your bats, Aemond protecting them, moments of kindness and understanding that you now fear were illusions.

He never said he loves me. Not once in eighteen years.

You keep waiting for a glimpse into Aemond’s mind, a stabbing pang of loss and longing when he realizes you’ve been taken away, but it never happens. You keep waiting for him to find you and descend upon House Corbray with fire and blood.

Aemond, where are you? Aemond, have you forgotten me?

“Sapphire,” you whisper to your new bat—your only bat—and he looks up at you as if he knows his name.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jace is gone for weeks, and in his absence you try to learn how to be his wife. You ask Lady Caro to teach you how to wear your hair like the ladies of the Vale: soft waves, sedate buns knotted at the nape of the neck, delicate wisps that frame the face and blow in the harsh mountain wind. You attempt to cultivate an affinity for pale impassionate colors. You distract yourself so you don’t think of Aemond. You catch spiders and moths in secret to feed to Sapphire when he visits you each night. You spend days practicing quiet, feminine embroidery—ruining yarn scenes, piercing your fingertips with needles—until you give it up and fling the cursed tangle of threads away and return to your strange fixations that once confounded Mother.

Lady Caro sends knights to accompany you to the mouth of the river, and you wade up to your knees in the icy water plucking rare shells out of the silt and the pebbles. You are not permitted to collect bones from the forest—there are bears and wolves and shadowcats—but you arrange for the hunters to give you what’s left of the carcasses once they’ve been skinned and butchered. The carpenters give you boards of wood and the blacksmiths forge you a small iron mallet. Sometimes Lady Caro stands in the castle kitchen watching you boil animal bones in a caldron or in your bedchamber as you shatter shells and paint the shards with glue, and she shakes her head, surely thinking: What is wrong with these Targaryens?

You don’t dare to make any mosaics of Aemond. It’s too dangerous, and too painful, and too revealing of what you’re truly feeling. So instead you piece together visions of the rest of them: Aegon smirking over a goblet of red wine, butterflies landing on Helaena’s outstretched palm, Daeron riding Tessarion, Mother smiling at Criston, Jaehaera and Maelor playing together in the garden of the Red Keep. You hang them on the walls of your bedchamber and at night you sleep better.

When Jace and Vermax return to Heart’s Home, you and Lady Caro are in the inaptly named Great Hall sipping cinnamon tea and nibbling blackberry oatcakes, and Lady Caro is telling you about her flock of grandchildren who reside at Seagard on the shore of the Sunset Sea. “Jasper is clever but terribly loud, and then Joy won’t talk to humans at all but loves her cats…” She trails off as your husband rushes into the room, his steps buoyant, his red cloak flying behind him.

“Welcome back, Prince Jacaerys,” Lady Caro says as she stands to greet him. “I hope your travels were comfortable and all your ventures went well.”

“Very well,” he says, grinning, alight with victories that are yet unspoken. Lady Caro dismisses herself to give the two of you privacy, promising to bring cinnamon tea for Jace. As soon as she is gone, Jace bolts to the table.

“What happened?” you ask he sits opposite of you. The hearth throws off rage-colored heat.

Please let this be peace and not violence. Please don’t have harmed anyone I love.

He is beaming as he takes a messy bite of a blackberry oatcake, crumbs falling down onto the table. And he must have decided that he can begin telling you his secrets now. Perhaps he trusts you; perhaps he knows there’s nothing you can do to sabotage him anyway, no ravens to send, nobody to inform. “I found someone to ride Vermithor.”

The realization sinks inside you, dark and heavy, an anchor, a sickness. You murmur, knowing it is pointless: “He was supposed to be mine.”

“Well…he didn’t agree.”

This hurts you; Jace doesn’t seem to notice. You think of the tiny wooden Vermithor that Aegon once carved for you, and you wonder if it’s still on your dresser in Maegor’s Holdfast or if Rhaenyra has burned or broken it, or mistaken it for something of no value.

“Corlys’ bastard Addam has claimed Seasmoke,” Jace continues, as if this could not possibly be anything to you but good news. “Vermithor and Seasmoke are now helping Mother to safeguard the capital. Daemon and Nettles…” Jace gestures awkwardly. There was a falling out with Rhaenyra. “They’ve taken Harrenhal as a base in the Riverlands. So we needed more help in King’s Landing, and we found it.”

We have two battleworthy dragons. Now they have six. No wonder Jace is so pleased.

“And there are still other unclaimed dragons,” you say dully, nauseous with dread.

“Yes,” Jace agrees. “But unfortunately, Aemond realized what we were doing. So he took possession of Dragonstone, and he and Vhagar are always back and forth from there, and no one can approach the island and risk him happening upon them.” Another bite of his blackberry oatcake, more crumbs, more casual chewing. “Which brings me to my question for you.”

“For me?”

Jace nods. “I need you to tell me what he’s going to do next.”

You stare at your husband inanely. “What?”

“Aemond is the problem,” Jace says, more agitated now. He devours the last of his blackberry oatcake. “Even with all the dragons we have, it’s going to be difficult to destroy Vhagar. Our new dragonriders are inexperienced, and Daemon, he’s…” Jace waves a hand. “Unreliable. Self-serving. But you were there at the Red Keep with Aemond when he and Criston were drawing up their plans, and therefore you can help us.”

You lie immediately. “I don’t know anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Another lie. “Really. He didn’t discuss it with me.”

“Then tell me about him,” Jace says impatiently. “I know he’s good with a sword, but he must have weaknesses. Does he have lasting pain from his maiming, does he have vices that distract him?”

I’m not convinced I knew Aemond at all. “I’m not going to help you kill him.”

Jace glares at you incredulously. “How do you think this ends?”

“Rhaenyra promised Mother that Aemond would be spared, and you were a part of that bargain—”

“We said we would let him live if he’s still alive when the war is over, but we can’t win the war if he and Vhagar are seizing castles and territory and burning our men and supplies and nobody can stop him!”

“Does he know that…” You swallow, your throat burning. “Did Rhaenyra send him a raven to tell him about our marriage?” About my treason, about my ruining?

“No. Why would we provoke him like that? Why would we put a target on my back? The realm will be told when the battles are past and the surviving Green loyalists must be convinced to bend the knee.”

You close your eyes and you can’t picture Aemond as a warrior; you can only see him as a child with stitches and agony, as a man who gave you forbidden, bewitching pleasure. “I don’t know anything. I can’t help you.”

“I did as you asked,” Jace snaps. “I persuaded Mother to give Helaena more freedom, I ensured that Alicent is healthy and that Jaehaera and Maelor are well cared for and never lonely. I can probably even save Daeron. But Aemond must be stopped.”

“He’s my family too—”

“I am your family now!” Jace roars, jolting to his feet and pounding on his own heart. “Me and my siblings, and my parents, and my children, not them!”

One of the doors of the Great Hall swings open and Lady Caro is there with a tray of cinnamon tea and fresh blackberry oatcakes. She gapes at you and Jace, too shocked to remember to be polite. It’s too late for her to pretend she hasn’t heard. She stalls, trying to think of something to say.

“I believe we’re having venison for dinner,” she announces with feigned cheerfulness.

Jace looks at you one last time—with disappointment, with fury—and storms out of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

He doesn’t come to bed all night, and you leave the window wide open so Sapphire can glide in and visit you: hanging from your bedposts, scrambling over your blankets, and then vanishing shortly before daylight. You have a headache that worsens until you are half-blind and sick to your stomach, and the maids hear you retching and bring you toasted bread and ginger tea and a bucket and wet cloths to cool your face.

Lady Caro wanders in and sits down beside you, her weight shifting the feather mattress, and pats your shoulder sympathetically. “I think you should tell the prince that his efforts have been successful.” To produce an heir, she means, and you’re convinced she’s wrong.

“That’s not what it is,” you moan, burrowing under the blankets. “I’m sick all the time.”

“You haven’t had your monthly blood since you’ve been here,” Lady Caro says gently, and of course she knows this because of her maids, her spies. You stare up at her vacuously, unable to comprehend it.

Pregnant with Jace’s child?

And this feels like a final severing of any possibility that Aemond will ever want you back. No other man was allowed to lie with you. Now Jace has wed you, bedded you, bred with you, turned your coat.

You force yourself out of bed and let the maids dress you and comb your hair, nursing the ginger tea—unappetizing, but good for nausea—as you gather your courage. You aren’t sure how to tell Jace. You aren’t sure that you want to see him at all.

Your skull still throbbing and your bare feet unsteady, you stumble through the cold stony corridors of the castle until you hear men arguing spiritedly in the Great Hall, their voices rumbling like thunder. Inside you find Lord Corbray, a number of lords and knights, and the maester of the castle. Jace is bent over one of the tables and reading, then rereading, a letter that the maester must have brought from the rookery.

Lord Corbray is saying: “They write that he has already razed Darry, Blackbuckle, Claypool, Swynford, and Spiderwood. The noble houses are constructing scorpions, but even with them, how many bolts would be needed to kill Vhagar? She’s massive, she’s monstrous. The Northmen are marching south, but now they’re saying they won’t go beyond the Twins without Caraxes and Sheepstealer as escorts, and can we count on Daemon for anything…?”

Jace looks up and sees you standing in the threshold. His dark curls hang over his bloodless face; his eyes are staggered and fearful. And twistedly, horribly, there is a flash of light that burns radiantly through the murky gloom of your skull and your ribcage, a forbidden vindication, a rapture you can never reveal.

Aemond remembers me? Aemond longs for me?

Jace says: “He thinks you’re in the Riverlands.”

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #jace x you #jace velaryon x reader #jace x reader #jacaerys x you #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys velaryon #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n #jace velaryon

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thevelaryons · 2 months ago

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It was Queen Alyssa who broke the spell, through her tears. “I am the Queen Regent,” she reminded them. “Until my son shall come of age, all of you serve at my pleasure. Including the Hand of the King.” When she turned to her lord husband, Benifer tells us that her eyes looked as hard and dark as obsidian. “Your service no longer pleases me, Lord Rogar. Leave us and return to Storm’s End, and we need never speak again of your treason.” Rogar Baratheon looked at her incredulously. “Woman. You think you can dismiss me? No.” He laughed. “No.” That was when Lord Corbray rose to his feet and drew his sword, the Valyrian steel blade called Lady Forlorn that was the pride of his house. “Yes,” he said, and laid the blade upon the table, its point toward Lord Rogar.

#valyrianscrolls #preasoiafedit #asoiafedit #litedit #asoiaf #alyssa velaryon #qarl corbray #alyssa & qarl #edit #*mine #grrm should've let alyssa marry qarl smh >_>

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drakaripykiros130ac · 2 years ago

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This should be the final scene from House of the Dragon:

The extremely emotional reunion of Rhaenyra and Daemon’s sons.

Aegon III Targaryen married to Daenaera Velaryon.

Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen as the Lord and Lady of Driftmark.

Rhaena Targaryen (the rider of the Blacks’ pride and joy, the dragon Morning) and her husband, Corwyn Corbray (Brave valeman and Team Black supporter).

Alicent Hightower’s horrific, well-deserved end and the treacherous Green line permanently ended.

A new beginning for the true members of House Targaryen.

And I want Rhaenyra’s theme to play in the background, just as it did in the first episode, because this is after all, her victory.

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wweskywalker · 1 year ago

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“A sudden trumpet blast heralded the arrival of Baela Velaryon and Rhaena Corbray. The doors to the throne room were thrown open, and the daughters of Prince Daemon entered upon a blast of winter air. Lady Baela was great with child, Lady Rhaena wan and thin from her miscarriage, yet seldom had they seemed more as one. Both were dressed in gowns of soft black velvet with rubies at their throats, and the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen on their cloaks.”

Referenced from The cousins: Queen Victoria and Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1852.

#baela targaryen #rhaena targaryen #fanart #art #asoiaf #game of thrones #asoiaf art #targaryen #house targaryen #artist #fire and blood #a song of ice and fire #house of the dragon #hotd #open commission artist

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studyofasoiaf · 3 months ago

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Supporters of Rhaenyra during the Dance of the Dragons

Houses which supported Rhaneyra's claim to the Iron Throne (sworn supporters, forced supporters, betrayers of the greens)

House Arryn (Lady Jeyne Arryn supported Rhaenyra as her kinswoman in exchange for a dragon to keep Vale safe)

House Bar Emmon (Lord Bar Emmon was a member of Rhaenyra's black council during the civil war)

House Beesbury (Lord Lyman Beesbury was the only member of the small council to support Rhaenyra's claim, his grandson, Lord Alan Beesbury fought for the blacks after his death)

House Bigglestone (Lord Bigglestone fought on the side of the blacks in the battle by the Lakeshore)

House Blackwood (Lord Samwell Blackwood supporter Rhaneyra's claim, his son, Lord Benjicot Blackwood, led the blacks army with Lord Kermit Tully)

House Borrell (Prince Jacaerys gained the support for his mother of House Borrell during his visit to Sisterton)

House Bracken (Initially sided with the greens, after Prince Daemon captured Stone Hedge, Lord Humfrey Bracken surrendered to save his family)

House Broome (Ser Alfred Broome was a part of Rhaenyra's household, until he betrayed the blacks for the promises of lordship and wealth)

House Buckler (Lord Buckler was executed at the beginning of the war for refusing to swear loyalty to Aegon)

House Burley (Billy Burley was the best bowman in service of House Blackwood, fighting on the side of the Blacks)

House Butterwell (Lord Butterwell initially supported Rhaenyra's claim, but after he was captured, he chose to swear loyalty to Aegon)

House Byrch (Ser Balon Byrch served for Rhaenyra, becoming a Commander of the City Watch)

House Cargyll (Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk Cargyll, twin brothers sworn to Kingsguard, Arryk chose to side with the greens and Erryk chose to side with the blacks)

House Caswell (Lord Caswell was among nobles at the court who supported Rhaenyra, he was beheaded for refusing to bend the knee to Aegon)

House Celtigar (Lord Bartimos Celtigar was a member on Rhaenyra's black council, later he became master of coin and lord treasurer)

House Cerwyn (Lord Cerwyn was a close friend of Cregan Stark and fought with him for the blacks)

House Chambers (Lord Chambers fought for blacks in the battle of by the Lakeshore)

House Charlton (Lord Jon Charlton died by the Lakeshore, fighting for the Blacks)

House Corbray (Lord Leowyn and his younger brother Ser Corwyn Corbray led their liege, Lady Jeyne Arryn's army of ten thousand men, to King's Landing in support of Rhaenyra's claim)

House Costayne (Lord Owen Costayne declared support for Rhaenyra, going against his liege, Lord Ormund Hightower)

House Crabb (Ser Rennifer Crabb marched with the Valemen in King's Landing in support of Rhaenyra)

House Darke (Ser Harrold Darke served as a squire for Ser Steffon Darklyn, he became one of Rhaenyra's Queensguard)

House Darklyn (Ser Steffon Darklyn was a Kingsguard for King Viserys Targaryen, after the King's death, he became Lord Commander of the Queensguard)

House Darry (Lord Darry and his heir fought for Rhaenyra before they were burned by Vhagar, other family members, Lord Derrick, Lord Ronald and Ser Damon Darry fought for the Blacks)

House Deddings (Lord Lyonel Deddings sided with the blacks, joining Addam Velaryon at the Second Battle of Tumbleton)

House Dustin (Lord Roderick Dustin led two thousand soldiers, known as the Winter Wolves, to fight for Rhaenyra, leading to several victories for the blacks)

House Fell (Lady Fell was among other nobles who refused to swear loyalty to Aegon and were beheaded for it)

House Footly (Lord Footly hosted the blacks during the war, after his seat was seized, he was slain by Jon Roxton)

House Frey (Lord Forrest Frey aided Prince Daemon during the siege of Stone Hedge, after his death, his widow, Sabitha Frey took over the Frey levies)

House Goode (Ser Glendon Goode was one of Rhaenyra's Queensguard and later her Lord Commander of the Queensguard)

House Grey (Ser Garibald Grey led an army of rivermen in the battle by the Lakeshore for Rhaenyra's claim)

House Greyjoy (Lord Dalton Greyjoy chose to side with blacks, attacking the westerlands while it's liege was fighting for Aegon in the riverlands)

House Grimm (Lord Grimm declared for the blacks, later surrounding to Lord Ormund Hightower in fear of Prince Daeron's dragon, Tessarion)

House Groves (Ser Regis Groves was one of the four blacks appointed to the Kingsguard by Aegon III after the war ended)

House Harte (Lord Harte was one among other nobles who refused to swear loyalty to Aegon and were beheaded for it)

House Hayford (Lord Hayford was beheaded together with Lord Buckler, Lord Caswell and Lady Fell for refusing to break their oaths)

House Hornwood (Lord Hornwood marched alongside Lord Cregan Stark and other northerners towards King's Landing)

House Mallister (Lord Jorah Mallister was among earlier riverlords who declared support for Rhaenyra)

House Manderly (Lord Desmond Manderly agreed to support the blacks in return for his youngest daughter to marry Prince Joffrey, his sons, Ser Medrick and Lord Torrhen Manderly joined Lord Cregan Stark and his army)

House Marbrand (Ser Lorent Marbrand served Rhaenyra's Queensguard and later was Lord Commander of her Queensguard)

House Massey (Lord Gormon Massey very early showed his support for Rhaenyra, being a member of her black council)

House Merryweather (Lord Merryweather was one of Rhaenyra's loyalist, beheaded for refusing to swear loyalty to Aegon, his widow, Lady Merryweather continued supporting the blacks after his death)

House Mooton (Lord Walys Mooton led an army to retake Rook's Rest from the greens and attempted to kill Sunfyre, his brother, Lord Manfryd Moonton later switched sides to the greens)

House Mullendore (Lord Mullendore declared support for Rhaneyra, going against his liege, Lord Ormund Hightower)

House Oakheart (At the beginning of the war, sided with Rhaenyra, later forced into submission by Prince Daeron and Lord Ormund Hightower)

House Perryn (Lord Perryn fought for Rhaenyra at the battle by the Lakeshore)

House Piper (Lord Petyr Piper from the beginning of the civil war swore loyalty to Rhaenyra, as did his successor, Lord Stanton Piper, fighting at the second battle of Tumbleton for blacks)

House Redfort (Ser Adrian Redfort joined Rhaenyra's Queensguard after the seize of King’s Landing)

House Roote (Lord Roote chose to support Rhaenyra's claim over Aegon's and helped capture Stone Hedge)

House Rosby (Lord Rosby first declared support for Rhaenyra, but switched sides to the greens to avoid execution)

House Rowan (Lord Thaddeus Rowan supported Rhaenyra during the war, marching against Lord Ormund Hightower in the Reach)

House Royce (Ser Willam Royce was a knight serving Rhaenyra, he attempted to rescue Prince Joffrey when he tried to save dragons from the city mob)

House Smallwood (Lord Joseth Smallwood fought with the blacks against westermen in the riverlands)

House Stark (Lord Cregan Stark pledged his loyalty to Rhaenyra through her son Prince Jacaerys after they sealed an agreement, leading the northmen to battle in support of blacks)

House Staunton (Lord Staunton was a member on Rhaenyra's black council, he was beheaded by the greens when they seized his seat)

House Stokeworth (Lord Stokeworth was a support of Rhaenyra at court, but swore loyalty to Aegon to escape death, when Rhaenyra took over King's Landing, he tried switching sides again, for his betrayal he was executed)

House Sunderland (Lord Sunderland gave his support for Rhaenyra after he received Prince Jacaerys at Sisterton)

House Tarly (Lord Alan Tarly joined Lord Owen Costayne and Ser Alan Beesbury in an attack on Lord Ormund Hightower's forces for the blacks)

House Tully (Lord Grover Tully wished to supports the greens, but was too weak to take action, his grandson, Lord Elmo Tully joined Rhaenyra's blacks, his sons Kermit and Oscar were leaders of Tully armies)

House Vance of Wayfarer's Rest (Lord Hugo Vance of Wayfarer's Rest supported Rhaenyra and the blacks while Lord Vance of Atlanta supported Aegon and the greens)

House Velaryon (Lord Corlys Velaryon and his wife, Princess Rhaenys were early loyalists to Rhaenyra, fighting with the rest of the blacks)

House Vypren (Lady Sabitha Frey (nee Vypren) supported the blacks as did her father and brothers)

House Wode (Ser Oswald Wode was a supporter of Rhaenyra during the civil war)

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venmondiese · 3 hours ago

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SELF-INDULGENT

𓂃 ࣪₊ ⊹PART TWO OF (UN)WANTED DESIRES

-ˋˏ| summary: When forced to share more time with his wife, Aemond can only start to slowly lose his mind. He is only a man after all, and he feels like a chained beast in his own marriage.

✧ | Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x wife!Original Female Character

✧ | word count: 3.3k

✧ | Warnings: MDNI 18+, masturbation (m), aemond being a perv part two, idk if this counts as dubcon?*, aemond is bad about his complex feelings about his wife.

✧ | notes: tentative second part of unwanted desires. if this works out, it will be hopefully a series! aemond’s wife is refered to lady corbray, but again, no physical description !!

*= (spoiler: he jerks off while she is asleep)

“DO YOU WISH TO JOIN MY MORNING PRAYER?” His wife's tone is soft. He knows his sweet Lady Corbray prays before eating, and before bed.

He nods softly, as he sits on the small table in the balcony, where they often eat together, breaking their fast, supper or even having a treat.

He holds his hands together and bows his head softly as he hears her soft prayer.

She wears a white dress, with gold details. Her head is slightly covered by a white fabric and the small circlet she wears to keep it there. He thinks she looks beautiful, his lady wife.

They often eat in silence, sometimes speaking softly. She ate with ease, a bit gracefully. She was careful not to stain her dress, it would cost a fortune to clean a dirty spot.

“What are your plans for today?” He asks, leaning back as he drinks his watered wine.

“Mhmmm…. I have to meet a new lady in waiting” Lady Corbray tells him, as she applies a bit of marmalade in her bread. “So it will keep me busy most of the day, your mother didn’t tell me who she was so…”

He hums, nodding in agreement. She always dresses nicely, and wearing all white only shows her station in the court. It prides him.

“Good.” He says watching the courtyard and far from the Keep’s walls. “I suppose we won’t see each other all day. Until tomorrow”

Aemond takes pride in knowing how to read his lady’s actions. Her expression is… slightly disappointed. Perhaps she hoped to see him tonight, to sleep together.

“Does that not sit right with you?”

“I was hoping to see you sooner than… tomorrow” she keeps on applying the marmalade as they speak.

“Sooner? Perhaps we could see each other at noon” he says simply. “I will take Vhagar for a ride today”

“Will you let me meet her one day?”

“I am afraid that the height from the flight will… make you swoon”

He would like that, her swooning from the heights. He thinks it’s likely she does not seem like the type to be fond of seeing a dragon so openly.

Lady Corbray frowns, as if disgusted by the idea. “I do not swoon. Did you know that my room was in the highest tower? I can tolerate a bit of high heights”

He hums, his lips pressed together. Now it is her who can see his disappointed face.

“I’ll see when it’s time”

That seems to be his answer for everything. When she wanted to commision a portrait for themselves, when she wanted to go on a horse ride to Kingswood, when she wanted to ride Vhagar, when she wanted to share a bath…. When she wanted him to take her maidenhead.

He sighs as he drinks more of his tea.

His day was mostly busy, his thoughts sometimes drifted to his lady wife. Even if he had never said it outloud, he was fond of her, and glad to have someone with reason, since he had expected someone more spoiled. But his lady Corbray was a good addition to his life, yet he still prefers to have her from afar.

It was almost sunset when Aemond walks past the servants in the hallway, as he comes back after a ride with Vhagar. It gives him a small break from all his duties and worries, in the skies was only his dragoness and himself.

He doesn’t understand all the fuss that there is around his chambers, seeing some maids moving some things, books, chests… until he hears his mother’s voice.

“Mother” Aemond greets her, watching how she was directing the servants with the heavy chest they carry.

“Aemond” Alicent says simply, walking closer to greet him with two kisses on his cheeks, in a regal way.

“What are you exactly doing in my chambers?” He asks, as he sees how the servants are leaving the chests on the floor.

“Your wife will need a place to keep her things for a while”

He blinks for a few moments, looking around.

“What for? her chambers are down the hall”

“The wood in her ceiling was rather rotten. It felt and it made her room all rusty and colder.” his mother says simply. “I told her we will move some of her furniture, and your chambers will be safer”

Aemond feels it’s a bit of a shitty excuse, but not out of the logical grounds. “Hm. And where will she sleep?”

“She hasn’t decided” his mother says simply.

“Bring her here, then” he says, rolling her eyes as he walks to take off his signet ring, leaving it on his dresser. “If she cannot handle a bit of… missing wood in her chambers”

”She does not seem troubled by that fact” His mother says, her hands gripping each other as she looks around his chambers. “Maybe by the fact that your marriage hasn't been consummated”

Aemond pressed his lips together, as he tried not to roll his eyes. Now it seems it was everyone’s business his marital bed. It was already suspicious to the court that he decided not to go forward with the bedding ceremony, and now rumours had reached his mother that he had not taken his wife out of her maiden state.

“Let her sleep here, then” Aemond says then, moving to take off his coat, a bit wet from the flight still. “Where is she? I believe she was with her new lady-in-waiting, has she been notified by the… disaster in her chambers?”

“She has” Queen Alicent nods.

“And how come a princess gets a rotten chamber?”

”It is not rotten, Aemond. As the room was unused for many years, the maids do not seek the wood to clean it, unless there is a spider web”

“Still. My wife deserves a proper chamber. She is a princess now, and she must have the very best luxuries that her station deserves”

“She deserves a babe in her womb” his mother answers him simply “That will ensure her station and the life you so say she deserves” she says simply “If you want court to treat her properly, so must you”

Aemond does not comment further on that.

He lets maids change him into his night clothes, as he remains the eyepatch on his eye. Doesn’t want her to look at his missing eye.

Some days, he is prideful of his missing eye; it’s what he has endured, what he had to overcome to be himself, a dragonlord, a prince.

Other days aren’t so fulfilling. He uses an eyepatch not to scare ladies, not to make them stare at him trying to come to terms with his lost eye. He doesn’t want the pity that comes with it, and he doesn’t want Lady Corbray to look at him like that. To do the same.

It is late when she arrives, quietly and trying not to bother him much.

“Husband” she greets him softly. “I apologise. For coming late and… having… making… for this situation.” She stutters, searching for the right words.

“Not your fault, wife” Aemond answers simply, laying in bed with a book in his hands.

“Yes, I do know, but still I wish not to make haste with it.” The maids undo her dress, take off the headwear and comb her hair as she speaks, remaining still. “To… bother you”

“You’re my wife. You cannot possibly do that” he says simply, turning over a page.

Aemond does not notice how his wife raises her eyebrows, as if not believing him at all as she gets prepared for bed. He can hear the way the maids undo her dress, probably carefully taking off her clothes and taking it away. He notices that his wife is used to it, being taken care of, like a little doll.

“You have to know that I rise early. I do not leave the candles on at night, but I do leave the fireplace warm.” he says simply. “You could stay in bed as long as you want by the morrow”

His wife looks at him with curious eyes, as the maids finish their job. She wears stockings covering the feet, and the length is slightly above the knee.

He waits for her to finish praying, kneeling beside the bed as her hands are clasped together, murmuring lowly as her eyes are closed. She seems peaceful, and fully connected to her prayer.

He observes her, as she takes a moment. And once she finishes, his gaze turns back to the book.

“Your chambers are a bit cold” she says, as she walks over the bed, as if it was her own space. “And your bedding is cold as well, I use more wool like blankets”

“Hm” he says, as his eye runs over the page of the book, yet he didn’t read a thing. He read the same word time and time again, not concentrating at all. He sees how she grabs one of his small pillows, more of decoration than of practicality.

“And… you have pillow covers made from silk? I wear silk for my dresses” she says, checking the fabric “It is very expensive, and here it is... how funny” she says thoughtfully, trying to make lightheaded conversations.

“Just because we share a chamber for now doesn’t mean we have to speak.” He says sharply, looking at her as she freezes with the pillow in her hands. Her cheeks are rosy now, from embarrassment.

In truth, he does not know how to speak with his wife. She enjoys things he cannot understand the reason behind. Perhaps it was how she was raised, she has told him how little of Westeros she actually knew, barely the domain of her House, the Eyrie, and King’s Landing. Barely.

He knows many places, for being a prince and visiting lordly houses. Vhagar can take him wherever he wants, whenever he wants. His wife is afraid of horses, and gets sick in carriages. She likes heights, embroidery and chatter.

And Aemond cannot understand it.

“Didn’t mean to be… hostile. Just don’t force it”

“Okay” she says softly, looking at the pillow in her hands.

“I’ll make sure to buy more fabric for your dresses” he adds, turning over the page. “The seamstress will come next week to fix some of Jaehaera’s dresses” he adds. “I’ll make sure she has time for you”

“Thank you” she says simply.

She accommodates on the bed, her face turned to his side. Perhaps she deems it rude to give him her back, but he disagrees with it. He would rather that she does not face him, so he can take off his eyepatch.

Aemond doesn’t like underestimating his wife. He knows well that Lady Corbray is surprising, far from what he knows of her. But he doesn’t like to frighten ladies with the sight of his scarred eye.

Perhaps she won’t finch, she won’t care to see it. But sleeping with it was a different thing. His eye did not close fully with his other eyelid, but remained mainly open, as it was empty of an eye. And he thinks it would frighten her. So, he decides not to take off his eyepatch.

“Goodnight” he says simply, as he blows off the candles by his bedside. The fireplace cracks slightly, the warmth not leaving the room. She said it was cold, he does not think so.

“Good night, husband” she says, closing her eyes. She does not question how he still uses an eyepatch, he doesn’t know if she notices.

Lady Corbray has a facility to sleep rather quickly, he notices, while he struggles a bit more. Unless he was exhausted, after a day full of fulfilled duties, he had trouble sleeping as quickly as her.

He wasn't blind, or a fool. Even if he claimed he was much more above the base instincts of carnal desires, he knew that, deep in him, he was not. Not at all over the lust and greed. He truly wasn't immune to have a woman in his bed.

Not only a woman, but his lady wife. His lady Corbray, so special to him. He tries to be good with her, but being married is a difficult thing he does not decipher. He is not used to the warmth that she could bring.

She is a bit curled up, as she remains asleep. He isn’t sure how much time passes, perhaps it was close to the hour of the owl. She has been asleep for quite a while now, and he notices by the way her breathing is steady and relaxed.

As his one eye watches over her, he thinks of it again. He was not above the temptation of having a woman in his bed.

He truly was not.

So when he feels that growing tightness within his breeches, he tries to take those thoughts, those feelings, that lust away. Yet he can not.

He wishes she could be closer to him. He wishes to hold her in his arms when they sleep in bed. He had embraced her, at the beginning, but she always got stiff and didn’t seem to be used to it. Aemond tried not to be cruel, and so he stopped. It was odd for him too, with hopes to warm up, and make her used to his touch. But he wasn’t cruel, and he wouldn’t do it if she doesn’t seem to like it

If she got stiff with a hug, he didn’t want to imagine when they consummated their marriage.

He turns to watch her, sleeping and her heavy breath that didn’t quite fit like snores. He sighs as his gaze wanders to her collarbone, how her nightgown was so loose in certain parts. He really cannot help the tightening in his breeches.

Aemond moves slightly, as if trying to move away his filthiness from her. His hand drifted down to his aching cock, sighing harshly almost in unison with his lady wife next to him. It was dangerous, he thinks, as he fixed his erection inside his cotton pants.

It throbs, almost burning as if reminding him of his shameful desire.

Yet it is not enough to keep him still, he stands up, his feet paddling in the cold floor, as he reaches the water ewen and the washbasin. He had asked the maids to leave it there, just in case Lady Corbray had night habits he was not aware of. But for now, he might give it another use.

He undoes his breeches as quickly as he can, his rigid posture gone as he supports his body with his hand on the cabinet, as he leans forward slightly. As he fishes out his cock, sighing as he takes it on his left hand.

“Gods forgive me…” he mutters, as he feels his cock stir in his hand, before he starts stroking himself slowly. Aemond bites his lower lip, trying not to make a single sound, as he was afraid his wife would wake up and notice his doings.

He closes his eye for a moment as he starts stroking himself faster, his cock was rigid and leaking already. He knew he had to be careful… but he did not care. His desire for her, as dark as it is, was rooted deep inside him. It could not be stopped, Aemond knew.

Caressing the tip of his cock always made his eye roll back, and he does it fervently trying to cum quickly. He didn’t want to take long like other times, where he would tease himself and keep himself on edge on purpose, just because it excited him. Now, with her here…

She was here, his mind reminds him. Aemond moves his head a little, just to see her sleeping form on his bed, deep in sleep, not aware of his doings. It felt shameful, he knows he’ll feel horrible for it the next day.

But with his mind filled with pleasure, he leaves the worry for tomorrow. He does not want to worry himself now, for he had the whole day ahead full of it.

His hand grips the edge of the table, trying not to throw the washbasin by mistake. His teeth grit together, as his hips move slightly, trying to catch that slow yet lazy rhythm that he has grown to like. He could feel the pressure on his balls, tightening up as his pleasure became clearer and intense.

Aemond turns to watch her, just for a second, to indulge himself. It was wrong, to have his peak while she remains oblivious, but the perverse thrill makes him curse.

“Fuck, fuck…” he groans, as it is almost embarassing to be that quick to cum at seven and twenty. He’s not a green boy anymore, yet he has been so deprived from his desires that almost everything and anything she does, drives him mad with lust.

He imagines burying his face between her legs, of showing her the pleasure she does not know she was missing. He had witnessed some of the bedding ceremonies, and it was always painfully stiff. More so with a public, watching it closely, as they do with tourneys. Not wanting her to experience the same, he waited. And waited. And keeps on waiting.

He wonders how she’ll taste. He wonders how her cunt would feel around his cock, and the sounds she’ll make as she orgasms. He has never been over the moon with maidens, taking them for inexperienced, immature and foolish girls, but with his wife… it was different. She was all that, but he could bear it.

Aemond can see the wedding ring in his finger, he never takes it off. You use the same one, though sometimes he can see when you do not wear it. He can see it when he strokes his cock, pumping it as his teeth grip on his lower lip and his breath becomes heavier, trying to swallow any moan or groan that could escape his lip, only the occasional sigh of pleasure.

As he cums, he grips on the edge of the washbasin, his knuckles white and hand hurting from the force of it. He rolls his eye trying not to let a groan out from the delicious feeling of cumming. His body is tense, his back stiff as his hips buckling into his fist, as he cums all over his stomach and even smears some of his shirt.

The feeling of drunkenness makes him insane. He slumps back against the back of the chair, his chest heaving. He closes his eye, knowing well that in just a second he’ll have to clean himself, and go back to sleep as if nothing happened. Just always.

Pretending he does not care. Pretending she does not affect him at all, that she does nothing to him, and that she’s no more than a nuisance. It’s not like he wants to treat her like that, but he knows his pervert desires will do her no good, that his wishes borderline the inappropriate, and it makes him feel rotten inside, not having any other way to cope with it.

As he cleans the remnants of his seed with a damp towel, tucking himself in his breeches, he also indulges on it. He likes, deep down, the taboo, rejecting her advances while fantasizing about her. It made him feel conflicted about his own marriage.

He takes a moment to compose himself, walking towards the bed quietly, sliding on his own side. Even if they share a bed, they are so far from each other.

Aemond felt mixed feelings. Her husband, with such horrid desires about her. He craved for her, to hold her, and devour her. He feels flawed, and he only wishes to get away from himself.

Yet he still indulges in his desires. Maybe one day, he´ll tell her. He turns around, giving her his back, as if that would make a bigger gap between them, as if that could help him, at least for now.

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond smut #aemond x reader #aemond fanfic #house of the dragon #hotd #house of the dragon smut #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd smut #hotd fanfic #ewan mitchell #prince aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen imagines #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen x oc #(un)wanted desires

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malaquitesgallery · 1 year ago

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‘As long as he is considerate, kind and noble, I know that I can love him.’— Lady Rhaena of pentos, of house Targaryen ‘the dragon twin’, lady wife to her first husband, lord Corbray and lord Hightower; rider of Morning.’ |

Her and Baela’s matching pearls🤭🤭

#rhaena targaryen #rhaena of pentos #baela and rhaena #asoaif #house velaryon #house of the dragon #house targaryen #character design #artists on tumblr #digital art #fanart #fire and blood #game of thrones

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aegor-bamfsteel · 3 months ago

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So if the current Starks are related to Aemond through Tullys and Whents then does this mean Greens will win in the long run when Bran becomes king?

If you ask me, no. Going by this logic, the Benedict Royce/Jocelyn Stark-descended Waynwoods, Templetons, Corbrays would win (even more than any theoretical descendants Aemond might have had; and it’s a serious stretch that the current Starks are descended from him) as they’re a lot more closely related to the Starks than the Greens would be (sharing a common ancestor from ~90 years ago rather than ~170). This would apparently include Lyn Corbray, who is a minor villain in Sansa’s arc as a hired sword of Littlefinger’s. No, the real “victory” for the Royces and Waynwoods is not getting vicarious enjoyment of distant cousins ruling Westeros, but the current generation of Lord Yohn, Lady Anya, their families, and the rest of the Lords Declarant ousting LF and being instrumental in ridding the North of Bolton tyranny (as the knights of the Vale were necessary for the Starks to retake Winterfell in the show; and the armies of the Vale being ready to fight but held back has been a plot point since book 1). It’s not about what their ancestors did, but about what the characters choose to do in the present to bring stability back to the Kingdoms. The Stark kids don’t know about any potential Targ descent, and barring Jon it wouldn’t matter. They are, as they remind us in their thoughts, truly Stark and take strength from this; Bran and Sansa’s ascensions are first and foremost Stark victories due to their actions. The Greens have nothing to do with it.

#ask #opinion #asoiaf #anti targaryen #house stark

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mermaidslabyrinth · 1 month ago

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"Marriage is only a political arrangement"

In mid spring of 139 AC Prince Rhagerys Targaryen, Lord of Strongsong in the Vale, wed his 1st cousin once removed, Lady Gwynith Belmore. He was 23 and she was 16.

During Rhagerys's grandsire's funeral in 135 AC, Daemon brokered a marriage between Rhagerys and his young Belmore cousin. She is the daughter of Rhagerys's mother's late cousin, Percy Belmore (he, his wife, and his father all died from the Spring fever of 124 AC that swept the Vale. Gwynith was only a year old).

The Belmore family felt that since Rhagerys had never lived at Strongsong and had only visited back when he was 13 for three months that he needed to be wedded to someone who was born and raised in the Vale. And his young cousin Gwynith was the perfect candidate.

They also reminded Daemon that House Belmore has the cadet branch of Belmore that lived a distance off in their ancestral home of Moonsong. As well as the three vassal Houses: Moore, Crayne, and Hersy*. Then there would also be a sort of loyalty from the Houses Arryn and Corbray from Rhagerys's grandmother's side. As well as the Houses: Hunter, Redfort, Serrett, and Brax, from his betrothed's maternal family.

Daemon agreed. He did not care. He was gaining Strongsong, a foothold in the Vale after being denied nineteen years prior with Runestone. The seat of Belmore and it's vassal Houses may belong to his son, but Rhagerys belonged to him.

Gwynith was only 12 at the time, so the marriage wouldn't happen until the girl was of age at 16.

Rhagerys did not find out about the marriage until four years later.

Gwynith knew of the marriage from the start. Her paternal grandmother, her only surviving immediate relative, told her and taught her to be the subservient wife that she was expected to be.

In the spring of 139 AC there is a double wedding with Aemond and Helaena being the other ones to marry. After the week long celebration the two couples, along with Princess Jaehaera, made their home on Dragonstone. Since Rhagerys was the steward of it in stead of his younger brother, Aegon.

Rhagerys and Gwynith go on to have six children, 4 boys and 2 girls. They were as happy as two people forced together in marriage could be. Gwynith would say that Rhagerys was meant to be her husband and her true love. Rhagerys would say he was fond of Gwynith.

When Gwynith took her own life six years later, Rhagerys admitted, behind closed doors, that was the only time she had ever displeased him.

*I know that House Moore, House Crayne, and House Hersy have House Arryn as their overlord. But, oh well, in the words of that meme: My city now.

I will admit I had a much colder version on how Rhagerys acted with her.

But as I've expanded on him and a little on her. It just didn't feel right

The Rhagerys now wouldn't be so detached from her.

I also wanted to show that Rhagerys's marriage to Gwynith was all an arrangement. That it wasn't done with the love that he had hoped that any legal marriage of his would be based on. To them being married in the Sept, to them being dressed extravagantly, to the celebration lasting longer than Rhagerys would have cared for. It was all a show Daemon put on.

Which is ironic in a way. Daemon hated that he was forced into an arranged marriage at sixteen but eagerly pushed his son into one without even consulting him.

This lovely piece of art is the first piece in a three piece art set involving the three marriages of Rhagerys. It was created by the beyond talented @sanzusitxs. They were so lovely and wonderful to work with.

#My HotD OMC #OC: Gwynith Belmore #HotD #OC art #Art #House of the Dragon

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yerimsdreams · 10 months ago

Text

Duty is Sacrifice

author's note: chapter 2 is finally here! sorry for the wait, I had an exam period, but that is finally over!

cregan stark x oc (she/her pronouns)

warnings: swearing. sentencing. mention of death and murder. spoilers for fire&blood.

The council chamber was dimly lit by the morning light filtering through narrow windows, casting long shadows across the stone walls. The air was thick with the scent of parchment and the muted rustle of cloaks as the nobles took their seats. Cregan sat at the head of the table, towering above everyone else.

Benjicot, Oscar and Kermit cautiously observed him. Kermit's fingers lightly drummed against the table as his brother and friend awaited the words of the Lord of Winterfell.

On the other side of the table, the brothers Leowyn and Corwyn Corbray of the Vale sat with anticipation. They'd only arrived that morning in King's Landing after they had received word from Lady Arryn, who occupied a place at the opposite end of the table, her sharp gaze never leaving Cregan.

He let the silence stretch, allowing it to settle over the room. He knew what was coming, the resistance he would face, but he remained fixed.

''Unworthy as Aegon the Usurper might have been, his murder was high treason. Those responsible must answer for it.'' He spoke clearly, his hands clasped in front of him.

The others remained quiet at his words, exchanging uneasy glances with one another. It was a sentiment that most did not share, but none were eager to challenge the northman so directly.

''My lord,'' Benjicot dared to speak up, ''no one here disputes the crime that was committed, but we must consider the realm. Pursuing vengeance will only breed more unrest.''

''What of those who still hold Aegon the Elder's banner? What if they decide to seek a vengeance of their own in response to those imprisoned here?'' Lord Leowyn asked, shifting in his seat.

''There are still pockets of resistance, but they are of little consequence, my Lords.'' Lady Jeyne Arryn responded to his concerns, before Cregan could.

Lord Tully spoke up for the first time, scratching his voice. ''The Dance is done. The war is over, and the realm is in shambles. It is time to make peace.''

The Warden's eyes flicked to Kermit, studying the young boy's tired features. The desire for peace was palpable in the room, but so was the fear of what Cregan might do if his demands were not met.

''The realm must heal,'' he conceded, though his tone remained firm, ''but it cannot come at the mercy of justice. The killers of King Aegon II cannot be allowed to walk free, lest we invite more treachery.''

Kermit Tully’s drumming fingers stopped abruptly. He leaned forward, his expression serious, any trepidation that had manifested itself around Cregan gone. ''Let it be on your head, Stark. I want no part of this, but I will not have it said that Riverrun stood in the way of justice.''

Cregan nodded, somewhat relieved they would stop fighting him on this, even if it was done with heavy hearts and lingering doubts.

''Aegon the Younger will have to make you Hand, my Lord. No lord has the right to put another lord to death. You will need the King's authority to act in his name.'' Ser Corwyn reminded him. If Cregan were to put sentences on the kingslayers' heads, he will at least do so according to the law.

The Warden gave an unimpressed glare to the Corbray knight. He had no desire to undermine the authority of the King, nor to cast doubt on the justice he sought to dispense. The law would be his shield as much as his sword.

''Then it will be done,'' Cregan declared, ''I will seek the King’s authority, and with it, the traitors will be judged.''

The room fell into a heavy silence. The lords and Lady Arryn exchanged uneasy glances but did little more than nod. They could sense the determination in Cregan, a man who would not easily be swayed from his course. Even if they harboured doubts, they understood that any attempt to change his mind would be futile. Cregan held the authority in court now, whether they liked it or not.

''Where is Visenya?'' Bloody Ben asked. He had waited all meeting for her to walk into the room and join them, her empty seat now gathering dust as the council continued without her.

The question hung in the air, drawing the attention of the assembled lords. Cregan looked over to the Blackwood boy, his keen eyes narrowing ever so slightly. It was not only the inquiry that caught him off guard, but the casual way Benjicot referred to Visenya - by her name alone, without her title. Cregan knew that the young lord had fought alongside her, sharing the burdens of war in ways that few others could understand. But even so, the breach in formalities did not sit well with him.

Before he could even think of a response, Jeyne's voice had him beaten again. ''It is curious, isn't it?'' She mused, her tone deceptively light, though her eyes gleamed with sharpness. ''The Princess is not one to retreat without reason.''

She did not know why Visenya had confined herself to her chambers for days on end, speaking to no one but the young King Aegon. However, she had her suspicions, and they pointed directly to the man sitting at the head of the table.

The lords around the table exchanged puzzled glances, not fully grasping the weight of her words, but Cregan understood. Her pointed comment was as much a question as it was an accusation, a way of nudging Cregan to acknowledge his own part in whatever had driven Visenya into isolation.

But Cregan would not allow her to unsettle him in front of the others. ''The Princess will join us when she is ready.'' He replied, emphasising her title as he glanced at Lord Blackwood.

''Or when you are ready for her to join us?'' She'd leaned forward as she asked, further provoking the Warden of the North.

It was uncomfortable to watch, to say the least. The Maiden of the Vale the only one brave enough to somewhat challenge the Wolf of the North. Cregan would respect it if he was not the object of her sharp words. He knew she was testing him, trying to see how far she could push, but he was not about to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

''Whenever that may be,'' his voice was surprisingly calm, ''the council will continue its work. I suggest we resume our other duties now.''

The finality in his tone left no room for further provocation. Jeyne, though clearly unsatisfied, leaned back in her seat, her eyes still fixed on him, as if weighing his resolve.

One by one, the lords rose from their seats exchanging quiet murmurs as they made their way out of the council chamber. The clatter of boots and swords filled the air, the heavy atmosphere easing as the chamber slowly emptied.

Cregan lingered for a moment more, staring at the parchments in front of him. He realised his control over the court was slipping out of his hands. His plans to march on Casterly Rock, Storm's End, and Oldtown had been cast aside, undone by Visenya and Corlys's pacts of peace sent before his arrival. The trials for the traitors in the dungeons was the only thing that remained to him, and he would not let go of it.

The room had emptied, save for one.

Jeyne Arryn had no intention of letting him leave without a final word. She rose from her seat and approached him, her steps slow. There was an air of quiet authority about her, the kind that came from years of ruling her own domain with both strength and wisdom.

''Lord Stark,'' she addressed him, ''a moment, if you would.''

Cregan paused, turning to face her with a guarded expression. He was not in the mood for more of her probing comments, but something in her demeanour told him it would be a bit different.

''What is it you wish to discuss, my Lady?'' He acknowledged, standing up from his chair that scraped against the floor.

She held his gaze, the silence stretching between them for a heartbeat longer than was comfortable. And then, with a tone that was both knowing and subtly accusatory, she spoke a single name.

''Visenya.''

Cregan's breath hitched for a moment, not expecting such an outright answer. The name hung between them like a drawn sword.

''What of the Princess?'' He replied, his voice carefully neutral, though he knew it was a futile attempt to shield himself from whatever insight Jeyne was about to lay bare. Cregan could feel his pulse quicken.

Jeyne tilted her head slightly, a look in her eyes that seemed to see through his composed exterior. ''No one has seen her or spoken to her in days. The court has taken notice, as have I. One might wonder what has driven her to such isolation.''

His jaw tightened, the recurring mention of her absence stirring emotions he had tried to bury. He had thought of little else but her in those silent days, his thoughts a storm of conflicting feelings.

''Perhaps the Princess simply needs time for herself.'' He said, his voice low, though the uncertainty in his tone betrayed him. He didn’t sound sure of himself, and he knew it.

The Lady's gaze softened, feeling somewhat pitiful for him. ''When the council is in need of her mind, she precludes herself? My cousin's daughter does not run when her presence is required by others.''

Cregan's expression remained stoic, his face a mask of controlled indifference. He wasn’t about to let Jeyne, or anyone else, see any sign of doubt or guilt. ''War has taken its toll on all of us, my Lady. I trust the Princess knows what is best for her.''

She noted the evasiveness in his voice. She had seen many men in positions of power adopt this same diplomatic tone, a way of deflecting blame while maintaining an air of authority. But Cregan Stark, despite his best efforts, was not fooling her.

Jeyne's eyes narrowed, her earlier pity giving way to a sharper curiosity. ''Of course,'' she replied, her voice laced with just enough doubt to make it clear she wasn’t convinced, ''But Visenya is not one to retreat, as you have seen for yourself, I am sure. She has been through more than most can bear, yet she always finds a way to press on. So I ask again, what of the Princess, Lord Stark?''

His composure faltered, just for a heartbeat. It was a moment so brief that most might have missed it, but Jeyne Arryn was not most. ''As I said, Lady Arryn,'' he quickly recovered, ''the Princess is taking the time she needs.''

''She is not a woman to be underestimated, my Lord. Nor is she one to leave herself out of decisions that deeply affect her family, such as a potential execution of Lord Corlys Velaryon.''

She was figuring him out despite Cregan not giving anything away, it aggravated him. ''I do not underestimate her, my Lady,'' he said, keeping his tone respectful, ''I know full well what she is capable of.''

Jeyne studied him, letting her eyes wander over his figure. ''Do you?'' She challenged, again.

A flash of frustration crossed his face before he masked it with his usual composure. ''If you are implying something, Lady Arryn, I suggest you say it plainly.''

She chuckled softly, a sound that was more calculating than amused. ''Do not let your sense of duty blind you to what is right in front of you, my Lord.'' Her tone was gentle, more advice than accusation.

Jeyne did not press further, sensing she had said enough. She offered him a faint smile before leaving. The sound of her footsteps echoed softly as she made her way out of the chamber, leaving Cregan alone with his thoughts and maps.

As the guards closed the doors behind her, Cregan stared at the empty room and the large table in front of him. She had seen something in him, something he was not ready to admit to himself yet.

The Great Hall of the Red Keep was eerily silent, the weight of the impending judgments pressing heavily on all present. The Iron Throne loomed in the background, a jagged, forbidding monument to the power that had been fought over so bitterly. But today, it was not the Iron Throne that commanded attention, it was the man sitting before it, on a simple wooden bench, that captured all the eyes in the room.

Lord Cregan Stark, newly named Hand of the King, though it was less an honour and more a necessity born from the young king's fear and the absence of his formidable aunt, sat in judgement of all the turncloaks and kingslayers that had been arrested.

The next criminal in session was Ser Perkin the Flea, a man of no great birth but of infamy enough to fill the hall. His shoulders hunched slightly, his gaze shifting nervously as he was brought forward to stand trial. The man who had once risen so high through treachery now looked small and pathetic.

''Ser Perkin,'' Cregan acknowledged the traitor, ''you rose up in rebellion against your lawful queen and helped drive her from this city to her death. You raised up your own squire in her place, then abandoned him to save your worthless hide.''

The Flea opened his mouth to protest to plead his case, but Cregan continued, his voice growing colder with each word. ''The realm will be a better place without you.''

Desperation flared in Perkin's eyes. ''I was pardoned for those crimes, my Lord! I was forgiven!''

The Warden's expression did not change as he delivered his final, damning words. ''Not by me.''

The weight of that statement hung in the air as the Flea was led away, his fate sealed by the undaunted judgement of the Lord of Winterfell.

Next came Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake himself. The room seemed to hold its breath as the old man was brought forward, his chains clinking softly with each step. Unlike Perkin, Corlys did not cower or plead. His gaze was steady, though weary, as he faced Cregan.

Cregan observed him for a long moment, his thoughts unreadable. The Sea Snake had been many things - an ally, a traitor, a hero, a villain - but now, he stood accused of murder, and that was all that mattered.

''You stand accused of murder, regicide, and high treason. How do you answer these charges, Lord Velaryon?'' His deep northern accent boomed through the Great Hall.

Much to everyone's surprise, Corlys did not attempt to hide his guilt. ''What I did, I did for the good of the realm. I would do the same again. The madness had to end.''

Cregan remained silent for a moment, his gaze steady, measuring Corlys’s resolve. The old man had seen countless battles, navigated treacherous waters, both literal and political, and yet here he stood, admitting to regicide without a flicker of regret.

As he stared into the Sea Snake’s eyes, Cregan’s mind drifted, if only for a heartbeat, to Visenya. Their bitter words echoed in his memory, and he felt the sting of her absence more keenly than ever. Seven days had passed since they had last spoken, seven days of not having even seen a glimpse of her. It was a wound that festered, a silent torment he could not afford to indulge.

His gaze faltered for a brief moment as those thoughts consumed him, but he quickly steeled himself. This was not the time for doubt. Corlys Velaryon had committed murder, and murder demanded justice, no matter the cost.

''I declare Lord Corlys Velaryon guilty of murder, regicide, and high treason. For his crimes, he must pay with his life.'' Cregan decided, every word a hammer blow.

The old man stood silent, accepting the verdict with the same calm he had displayed throughout the trial. His granddaughters watched in horror as their grandsire was escorted away back to his cell in the dungeons, now a sentenced murderer and traitor.

The price of peace was high, and today, it had claimed the Sea Snake.

The halls of the Red Keep were quieter now, the echo of recent trials still lingering in the air. The heavy weight of the verdicts hung over the castle, settling uneasily in every corner, as if the very stones themselves were absorbing the gravity of what had transpired.

Cregan walked the corridors alone,his thoughts occupied with the day's grim duties. He was heading towards the courtyard, seeking his men, when a sudden presence halted him in his tracks.

''You cannot do this,'' Baela's voice was steady, her expression fierce, her hand gripping the hilt of a sword, ''Aegon pardoned my grandsire. He granted him mercy, and you cannot simply take that away.''

Beside her, Rhaena lingered, her gaze troubled but determined. Cregan could see that while she did not entirely condone her sister's approach, she had chosen to stand by her regardless.

The Warden regarded her for a moment, the corners of his mouth twitching in something that was almost a smile. He recognized the fire in her eyes, a familiar Targaryen resolve that demanded to be heard. But her words, her challenge, it amused him more than it angered him.

''And you intend to force this pardon with that sword?'' Cregan asked, his voice laced with a hint of mockery.

Baela tightened her grip on the sword, her expression remaining fierce. She had made a show of defiance, but deep down, she knew she would not raise her blade against him. Cregan saw it too, the internal struggle playing out behind her determined gaze.

He let out a low, rumbling laugh. ''You will not use it, Princess. You are not here to fight me,'' Cregan respected Baela, she had been Jace's betrothed and his late friend had always spoken of her in high praises, ''you are here because you think you can sway me with a threat, but we both know that is not going to work.''

Baela clenched her jaw, her pride wounded by his dismissal. Rhaena, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke. ''My sister only seeks what was promised by the King. It is not too late to honour that, Lord Stark.''

His laughter faded, replaced by a more serious expression as he looked between the Dragon Twins. ''The King may have offered pardon, but I have not. Your grandsire committed crimes that cannot be overlooked. What’s done is done.''

Baela's grip did not falter as she held it up to Cregan, her eyes blazing with a mix of fury and desperation. She could see that her words alone weren't enough to sway him, so she aimed for what she hoped would be a weak spot.

''Is that what you told Visenya, Lord Stark? Or did you wish to court her, but she rejected your Northern beastliness, and you had her imprisoned like you did our grandsire?''

Cregan's eyes flashed with anger at Baela's words, a fire igniting within him that he struggled to keep in check. Her comment had struck deeper than she could have known, but he would not let her see how much it affected him.

''Whispers of the court do not concern me, Princess.'' He brushed it aside, though his voice was dangerously low, his temper barely restrained. He knew she was trying to provoke him.

Baela's eyes narrowed as she noted his reaction. ''But they seem to concern my cousin, and what concerns her, concerns us, Lord Stark.'' She said, her tone dripping with disdain.

His temper flared, but he forced himself to maintain his composure. ''Put the sword down, Princess. You know as well as I do that you will not be making use of it.''

Baela refused to back down, the fire in her eyes only growing more intense as she stared him down. ''Do you think so little of us, Lord Stark?'' She asked, her voice venomous. ''You dismiss our concerns, our family, as if they are beneath you. You should know better than to dance with a dragon.''

''I do not underestimate anyone,'' he retorted, the same way he had said to Lady Jeyne in the council chamber, ''least of all your cousin. Your grandfather was complicit in the poisoning of a King, even if it was the Usurper. A crime he will be punished for.''

Her hand slowly dropped from the sword, the fire in her eyes dimming, replaced by a mixture of frustration and resignation. Still, she was not ready to let him have the last word.

''You might believe this is justice, but there will be those who remember this as cruelty.'' She said quietly, only loud enough for him and her sister to hear.

Cregan nodded slightly, acknowledging her words without conceding to them. ''History will judge us all, Princess.''

With that, he stepped past the two women, leaving them standing in the corridor. He did not slow his pace, even as doubt clawed at the edges of his mind.

Baela's grip on the sword slackened further, her shoulders drooping as she exchanged a look with Rhaena. Her twin put a comforting hand on her shoulder, guiding her away from the cold emptiness of the corridor.

The castle was draped in silence, the kind that only settled over King's Landing in the dead of night. The corridors were empty, save for the occasional torch flickering in its sconce. Outside, the air was cool, a stark contrast to the stuffy warmth inside the castle walls.

Visenya moved quietly, her steps light as she made her way through the Great Yard. She had been to see her dragon, Sōnax, seeking solace in the dead of night when sleep eluded her. The moon cast a pale light over the paths, guiding her through the maze of hedges and flowers that had once been so meticulously tended. Now, they seemed as weary as she felt, their blooms drooping in the darkness.

She passed the godswood, pausing against the heart tree. She took a deep breath, letting the cool air fill her lungs, trying to ease the tension that had settled in her chest.

It was then that she heard the faint sound of footsteps, slow and deliberate. She turned, instinctively reaching for the dagger she kept hidden in the folds of her gown ever since the start of the Dance, but she relaxed slightly when she saw who it was.

Cregan emerged from the shadows, his tall figure illuminated by the soft glow of the moon. He had been patrolling the grounds, unable to sleep with the weight of the day’s decisions pressing down on him. The trials, the confrontations - it all swirled in his mind, leaving him restless.

They had not expected to see each other at this hour or even at all until the Lord of Winterfell would ultimately return to the North.

The pair stared at one another, neither moving or speaking. The tension that had manifested itself in Visenya's chest had been lifted from her body and into the air between them. Cregan's dark eyes met hers, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Visenya did not look away.

''Princess.'' He finally greeted her, his voice rough from the lack of sleep.

''Lord Stark.'' She nodded, her tone equally guarded. She could see the weariness in his eyes, the lines of fatigue etched into his face. It mirrored her own exhaustion, the strain of everything they had endured.

He loosened the grip on his sword as he took a few steps closer. ''What brings you here at this hour?'' He asked, though he already suspected the answer.

''I could ask you the same.'' She replied, her tone neutral, careful.

Cregan let out a soft breath, almost a chuckle, but it lacked any real humour. ''I suppose neither of us has found much comfort in sleep lately.''

Visenya nodded, her gaze turning back to the large tree behind her. ''The nights are long when ones thoughts are troubled.''

''And yours are troubled, Princess?'' He asked, taking a step closer, though still keeping a respectful distance.

Her eyes flickered back to his. ''They are. As are yours, I imagine.''

Cregan did not provide her with an answer right away, instead watching her. He looked at her, really looked at her, and he could see the toll that the last few days had taken on her. She was still beautiful, even in all her fatigue and unrest.

''Yes,'' he said, his voice thoughtful, ''there is much to ponder about.''

''The trials, I suppose.'' She was leaning against the tree, observing every step and move he made.

Cregan stopped his pacing and turned to face her. ''Indeed.''

''I know what you think of his actions,'' Visenya sighed, '' and I agree that poison is a coward's weapon.'' Her gaze became distant, as if dreaming.

The Wolf of the North nodded along, his expression one of contemplation.

''When I flew to King's Landing, I only had one purpose; to kill my half-brother, to kill him as he had my sister, by burning him alive and feeding him to my dragon. You can imagine my anger when I arrived here and I am told that the Usurper is dead, and by poison of all ways,'' she chuckled, though the sound was devoid of real mirth.

''However, I am glad he got a coward's death. My sister died like a true Targaryen, in fire and blood. Her death will be a grand story told for centuries, but no one will remember his. The story of his demise will fade because it lacked the valour and the strength that he lacked,'' She admitted, almost sounding proud.

Cregan nodded slowly, understanding the fierce loyalty and pride that Visenya held for her family.

''But there are others who acted not out of cowardice, but out of duty to the realm, to their family. They deserve a different fate.'' She met his gaze again, sorrow in her eyes.

Cregan's eyes narrowed slightly, sensing where the conversation was leading. ''Lord Corlys Velaryon?''

Visenya nodded. ''I ask you one last time to reconsider his sentence. Yes, he made a choice that many would condemn, but without him, Aegon would not be alive today.''

He remained unreadable, though his eyes softened slightly. ''You ask much, Princess. The law cannot bend every time someone believes their cause is just.''

She stepped closer to him, her violet eyes locked onto his.''If not for the stability of the realm, if not for the honour of my nephew, if not for the sake of peace, for me. A personal boon.''

Cregan studied her, the sincerity in her voice piercing through the walls he had built around himself. ''And if I were to grant this boon, what would you offer in return, Princess?'' There was a hint of curiosity, the first time the mighty Warden of the North could actually sound like his conviction could be persuaded.

''In return, I will give you whatever you desire, Lord Stark.'' Visenya answered, her voice strong despite the tremor in her earlier plea.

He could see the desperation in her eyes, the way she held herself with a dignity that was both regal and vulnerable. The offer she made was not one to be taken lightly.

''What I desire?'' He repeated, almost as if testing the weight of those words. He looked down, thoughtful, then back at her, his gaze piercing through the darkness. ''What if what I desire is not something you are willing to give?''

Visenya stiffened slightly, her heart pounding as she anticipated what he might say. ''Name it.'' She said, though there was a hint of apprehension in her voice.

Cregan took another step, closing the distance between them. ''What I desire is all of you, forever.''

Visenya felt the air catch in her throat as Cregan's words hung between them. It was as if the entire world had paused, waiting for her response. His dark eyes, intense and unwavering, held hers captive, and for a moment, she found herself unable to speak.

''All of me?'' She managed to whisper. She was not sure if it was a question or an incredulous statement.

Cregan nodded, his expression solemn. ''Yes. Your hand in marriage, your loyalty, your trust - everything that you are, everything that you could be. Not just for a night or a season, but for as long as we both shall live.''

She searched his eyes, looking for a trace of jest or manipulation, but found only earnestness. The Warden of the North was not a man to make light of such things. The very idea was preposterous - her, a Targaryen, bound to the North? Yet, in that moment, it felt as though he was offering something more than a mere proposal. It was an invitation to a different kind of life, one far away from King's Landing.

She let out a small, breathless laugh, one that held no humour. ''Are you mad, my Lord? A Targaryen in the North?''

Cregan's lips curved into a faint smile, though his eyes remained serious. ''Perhaps I am, my Princess. But madness and greatness often walk hand in hand, do they not?''

Visenya regarded him, the idea swirling in her mind. It was mad, audacious, and yet... "You would truly ask this of me? To marry into the North, where winter reigns and dragons do not fly?"

He nodded, his expression unwavering. ''I would. The North may be a land of ice and snow, but it is also a land of honour, of strength, and of loyalty. It is a place where bonds are not easily broken, where words are not just spoken but lived, my Princess.''

''It is no place for dragons, nor for those who carry their blood.'' She shook her head.

''And yet, here you are,'' he countered, ''a dragon in King's Landing, a place that has brought you nothing but pain and loss. What has this city given you that the North could not? What has this life offered you, other than endless war and treachery?''

She opened her mouth to respond but found herself at a loss for words. His questions struck at the heart of her fears, her uncertainties. The life she had known was one of fire and blood, of power plays and betrayals. But what had it truly brought her? What had it cost her?

Everything.

Cregan took her silence as an opportunity to continue. ''I offer you more than just a marriage, Princess. I offer you a chance to build something new, something not tainted by the ghosts of the past.''

Visenya felt a chill run down her spine, though she was not sure if it was the cold night air or the weight of his words. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it - a life in Winterfell, far from the scheming of King’s Landing, the endless battles for power. A life with a man who, despite his stern exterior, had shown her a kind of respect and understanding she had not expected.

But the thought of leaving everything behind, of binding herself to a man she barely knew, was terrifying. ''You ask much of me, my Lord.'' She remarked, her voice slightly trembling.

''And you asked much of me, my Princess.'' He retorted gently.

''You are right,'' she chuckled, ''I did ask much of you.''

Visenya looked down, her thoughts a tangled web of doubt and longing. She had always been a Targaryen, defined by her name, her blood, her dragon. But what had that brought her? Loss after loss, betrayal after betrayal.

''What of my dragon? Sōnax is a creature of fire and sky, bound to me as I am to her.'' She could not leave her behind, she'd seen how Seasmoke had acted when Laenor left. She did not want Sōnax to be subjected to the same fate.

''She would find her place,'' he assured her, his eyes not leaving hers, ''The North may be cold, but it is also vast, with endless skies and mountains that reach the heavens. She will not be confined, just as you will not be.''

It did not feel real to her. As a young girl, she had imagined how her betrothal would go. She figured it would be much like her sister's, one to strengthen alliances and no regard for what either the bride or groom want. There was no room for dreams or desires. It was all about duty.

Despite asking him for a favour, his proposal almost felt like a choice. It felt foreign, strange, like something she was not accustomed to. To have a choice in something so monumental felt both liberating and terrifying.

''And if I say yes, if I agree to this... I want to be your equal. I do not wish for you to rule, while my only purpose would be to squeeze out heirs like a broodmare.'' She was firm and resolute, no room for arguing.

Cregan took her hand, engulfed by his. ''You would be my equal in every way, my Princess. We do not see women as mere vessels for heirs. I already have one, my son Rickon. We value strength, wisdom, and the ability to lead, regardless of one's gender. If you stand beside me as my wife, you will be a Lady of Winterfell, not just in name but in action.''

Visenya felt the warmth of his hand enveloping hers, a stark contrast to the cool night air that surrounded them. Her heart raced as she met his gaze, his grey eyes filled with a depth of sincerity she had not encountered before.

With a deep breath, she nodded, her decision crystallising in the quiet of the night. ''I will marry you, Lord Stark. A hand for a head.'' She agreed, grinning.

A genuine look of joy and relief crossed Cregan's face. He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a tender kiss to her knuckles. ''Then it is settled,'' he said, his voice warm with emotion, ''I will have my men release Lord Corlys from his cell when the sun rises.''

''Thank you, my Lord.'' She expressed quietly.

''Cregan.'' He corrected gently.

''What?'' Visenya blinked, caught off guard by his sudden informality.

''You may call me Cregan.'' He repeated, his smile softening.

Visenya hesitated for a moment before nodding, a small smile forming on her lips. ''Then you may call me Visenya.'' She offered in return.

The familiarity between them, though still new, felt strangely comfortable.

''I will be leaving for Winterfell once the sentences have been carried out.'' Cregan informed her, still holding onto her hand.

She nodded, the gravity of his words not lost on her. ''So soon,'' she murmured, squeezing his larger hand as if to hold onto the moment a little longer, ''I will have to stay here longer. For Aegon, he needs me here for the time being.''

''I know,'' he mumbled back, ''your duty to him comes first. But when your time here is done, Winterfell will be waiting for you...and so will I.''

There was a tenderness in his words that made Visenya's heart ache. She gave him a small nod, her grip on his hand tightening for just a moment before she finally let go.

''We will discuss the formalities once we both have found some rest. I am retiring for the night.'' She announced, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of the past week catching up with her as she leaned against the tree.

Cregan noticed the weariness in her posture and stepped forward. ''Allow me to escort you to your chambers, my Princess.'' He offered his arm, for her to support her weight.

Visenya smiled softly, touched by his offer but aware of the distance between their quarters. ''You are kind, Cregan, but your chambers are far, and you need rest as well. We have both endured enough for one night.'' Her words were gentle, her refusal a considerate one.

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded, understanding her reasoning. ''As you wish,'' he accepted, ''goodnight, my betrothed.'' She could see a hint of a smirk on his face.

''Goodnight, my betrothed.'' Visenya echoed, the words feeling both strange and comforting on her lips.

With one last look, they parted ways, each retreating to their respective chambers.

As Visenya walked away, the weight of their conversation settled over her like a heavy cloak. She had made a decision that would change the course of her life, and yet, she felt a strange sense of peace. It was not the peace that came from certainty, but the kind that came from acceptance, from choosing a path and committing to it.

Cregan watched her until she disappeared into the castle, a mix of emotions swirling within him. He had asked for her hand not out of a simple desire for power or alliance, but because he saw how fiercely she protected those who had stood by her sister and their family.

He wanted to be the object of her loyalty, amidst other things.

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