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“Father is dead.” The harshness of Aemond’s cold voice startled even Helaena, who had grown up accustomed to his often stoic nature. His sister dropped her needles and thread as she stood, bewilderment clearly written across her face as she slowly stepped toward where he remained near the doorway.
Though she didn’t speak he saw the way she looked at him, searching either for some kind of explanation or comfort, but he felt ill-suited to provide either.
“I must find Aegon,” he said with impatient words, shifting on his feet as his mind raced. He turned to leave but she reached out and grasped his wrist with a tender, pleading grip.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. He allowed her fragile hold to stop him; he always afforded her such influence over him, never willing to pull away for fear of hurting her.
“He is to be crowned today,” he said quickly, but that prompted her to look at him in even deeper confusion.
“But, Rhaenyra is to be queen...” she questioned.
“Not anymore.”
Helaena hesitated still, her realization slowly becoming apparent as she mulled over his sparse words. Her grip dropped from his wrist and instead she wrung her hands around each other nervously, looking downward. “I do not wish to be queen,” she murmured with a childlike despondence Aemond had grown so familiar with, an innocence he couldn’t help but feel both fond of and protective over. He stepped close and grasped her hands, soft and tiny in his, her eyes growing misty under knitted brows.
“You must do your duty, as Aegon must do his.” He paused, hesitation searing the silent air between them as he lowered his gaze to the floor. “As I must do mine.”
He released her hands, but before they fell to his side she in turn clasped around his, trembling lightly, gingerly running along his slender fingers. Her chest tightened before she spoke, the words hiding away in her throat.
“The hive rejects the queen and a thousand wings sharp as swords sever the threads of both spools.” Her vocal chords wavered and lips trembled as the dread crawled up the back of her neck. “I am frightened.”
Where others sneered and whispered behind her back at what they saw as nonsensical ramblings, he was the one who listened to her cryptic words quietly. There had always been dreamers of Targaryen blood, seers more wise than those with basic understanding of the world would choose to believe. Aemond knew she was likely just in her worry, but knew not how to calm her fears nor change the threads of fate.
When he only sighed and continued to look downward, her grip on his hands tightened. “You must believe me,” she pleaded, tears beading up at the rims of her eyes, desiring only to see him look at her once more, seeking the comfort of her brother who had so often sat quietly by her side while her husband only scoffed at her existence. “Aemond.” Her nails now dug into his hand more firmly than she had ever dared before and when he did finally snap his gaze back up to hers, seemingly in surprise, she grew frightened even of him and quickly released her grip.
But in him Helaena saw the unwaveringly dutiful sibling she had known since he was just a babe, younger though far older in spirit, dauntless and stoic and unreadable to anyone but herself; the one who had displayed nothing but tenderness toward her and her alone. In his eye she saw a blue that shone of the endless sky, of the shimmering sunlit sea spread out wide before her while atop her Dreamfyre with her pale sapphire scales. In his touch she felt warmth, freedom and salvation from the impending doom she felt so viscerally both in her dreams and waking existence.
He could see in her the fear that consumed her body like a raging pyre and he yearned only to once again see her cheeks grow full as her lips curled into a joyous grin and her eyes crinkle as she giggled with youthful abandon.
He raised his hands to her cheeks, gingerly tilting her head back so she gazed up at him with wide eyes. Her skin flushed hot under his touch, pink rising to the surface as his thumbs gently wiped away tears that had rolled slowly down her face. For a moment the fear darkening her usually shining eyes faded, her lips tightening into a soft smile.
“So you do believe me?” she questioned again. Something in his chest ached more than anything he had ever felt, winding and constricting around his heart as she looked up at him with a glimmer of hope that he would be the one to protect her from the evil she feared so much. He couldn’t deny he wanted the same, but they were of royal blood; duty superseded personal wishes and foolish childhood whimsy. He remained silent, unable to put into words what he knew would break her spirit, but his lack of response only made the panic return to her voice, “You can’t… Don’t let them.”
“You know just as well as I, Aegon is no king. Would it be my choice, I-” he stopped himself. To speak the words rattling in his mind would be treason. He ground his jaw, sighing deep, pressing his forehead against hers so as to hide the evidence of the frustration gnawing at every bone and fiber of his being.
She knew him all too well though, and through his stonelike exterior she had already seen that torrent bubbling beneath the surface. In some way, it was hope enough to know she was not the only one with trepidation nipping at her nerves.
“I understand,” she said quietly, placing her hand on his cheek. “It is our fate to crave always what is given to another.”
And yet to crave the king’s wife is also treason.
Aemond still could not deny how right it felt to feel her nearness, her delicate touch, her quick breaths warming his face. He yearned to bathe in her presence, in her familiar scent of ambrosial blooms and sugared sweets.
Aegon is no king. Not yet.
Fingers still cupping her cheeks, he closed the already small space between them, lips barely brushing against hers, seeking her approval.
Her husband was to be king and she would be queen, a bond bound both in blood and before the gods, but in Aemond there was warmth, familiarity, home: things she knew she would never find in Aegon, as king or lord or peasant. She moved her hand from his cheek to the back of his neck, twining between long strands of silver hair, and pushed into his lips.
They were warm and delicate against hers, so unlike the way Aegon either reluctantly pecked her cheek out of duty while at court, or sloppily lapped against her with the bitter taste of alcohol on his breath, murmuring drunken obscenities.
She not only found herself welcoming Aemond into her mouth, but also pulling at him as if she feared he would float away and leave her all alone. His hands dropped to the small of her back, wrapping around her waist, a promise that he would not let go.
When their lips finally did part he still did not release her, savoring their closeness, noticing the way her breath grew deep and calm and eyes sparkled. Above all, it was a reluctance to allow time to regain its pace, to confront a reality in which she was not his own.
He pulled away but held her hand in his, raising it to kiss with a tender affection which made her beam and giggle quietly, feeling like one of the comely maidens regaled in the songs performed at feasts and weddings.
He studied her, committing that smile to memory, but he knew it was only temporary and the longer he looked, the more it dropped as she too saw her fantasy slowly crumble and decay. He released her hand, taking a step backward as it fell loosely to her side.
“I will return with Aegon.” He said the words stiffly, unable to meet her sorrowful gaze, turned, and left her to be alone with her needles and threads tangled on the floor.