Chapter Text
Aemond died long before he ever set foot in the Gods Eye.
Long before he chained himself to Vhagar and commanded her to the skies, ready to face his doom. Long before he watched his uncle throw himself from atop Caraxes with eyes clouded by madness and grief and bloodlust. Aemond didn’t die when the Rogue Prince Daemon Targaryen raised Dark Sister above his head, a mighty roar ripping from the older alpha, and plunged the ancestral sword through his nephew’s black plated armor, piercing his clavicle. He didn’t die when he felt the bond between he and Vhagar snap like a string that had been pulled too taunt for far too long and her massive body sent both beasts and their dragons plunging into the dark waters below.
Aemond died the moment Lucerys Velaryon did.
His nephew. That little strong bastard. A bloodthirsty creature disguised with a most lovely faced omega – an omega that sliced the eye from Aemond’s own face like some wild, possessed animal. Aemond remembers watching with sick pleasure as his nephew’s soft face contorted in terror as he tried to flee from his uncle, the rain streaking against the boy’s face like tears. Vhagar answered the call of her master’s deepest, unspoken desires and the she-dragon had snapped her jaw around the boy. Aemond could only watch as the omega disappeared beneath the clouds – plunging into depths unknown with his pathetic excuse of a dragon.
Moons passed. The pleasure faded and Lucerys was still gone.
That is when Aemond died.
Something rotten had always lived in him. Perhaps it began to sprout when his nephew carved his eye out. Or, perhaps he was born with it — nestled deep in his belly and spreading like poisonous vines, rooting itself in every fiber of his being. Maybe that is why his egg never hatched. Maybe that was the Gods way of making sure his rottenness could never be nurtured into something more dangerous. Something more disastrous.
But, in the end, Aemond lost an eye and gained a dragon. And his nephew — the one who first spun the wheel of Aemond’s fate and began this lethal dance within their family — was dead.
This hollowness was not a foreign feeling to Aemond. When he lost his eye, the maesters had to remove it in its entirety, scooping the organ out with prying fingers and sleek iron tools to stitch it shut in order to avoid infection. Then, with a gaping hole in the side of his face, Aemond was forced to learn how to adapt, and that came with its own humiliations. He had to learn how to walk again, how to keep his balance and how to sense someone in his blind stop. He had to learn how to wield a sword again and not just reach the level he once was at. No – Aemond needed to surpass it.
But the hollow feeling never left. Even when he presented the maesters with the sapphire Helaena had picked out, requesting it be shaped and fitted in the empty socket.
It is a lovely shade, Mother had smiled, Though I must say I have always thought green complimented your coloring most favorably.
Helaena had only hummed when she saw the gem stone, boiling blood and tumbling Gods, she said with unfocused eyes before smiling, a flower cannot grow devoid of water.
The weight of the gem did little to quell the consuming feeling of nothingness in Aemond.
For so long, all that remained lingering inside him was his anger. It was all he had; that festering, sick need to consume and to conquer and for Lucerys. For his soft curls the color of winterbark and his big, innocent looking eyes that were anything but.
Most nights, Aemond’s dreams were haunted by the boy. Usually it was just the events over Shipbreaker’s Bay over and over – watching himself condemn his nephew to the waters below. On rare occasions, however, the dreams were different. Instead of watching Lucerys’ eyes fill with fear, Aemond would see them full of pleasure, wiggling under him – pliant and willing. Aemond would gasp awake in his quarters, shamefully hard in his breeches and would dig his nails into his thighs until he could no longer smell the ghostly fragrance of salt-tinged lemon and sweetgrass.
That whoreson was nothing but a pathetic excuse for a dragon. Aemond would have questioned if he was even a Targaryen had he not been physically birthed from his bitch of a half-sister. The little bastard cuts his eye out and has the audacity to spend the rest of his measly life hiding behind the skirts and backs of people more brave than him. It filled Aemond with anger. With disgust. With envy and disdain and annoyance and confusion and for once, there was something more than the hollowness.
Lucerys Velaryon was deplorable and Lucerys Velaryon made him feel more than anything else ever had.
And Lucerys Valeryon was dead. Dead by Aemond’s own weak, craven hands.
Vhagar’s blood spills in the waters around them, diluting the cool liquid with saturated reds and blacks. His skin tingles, the biting cold of the deep waters battling with the boiling but dying fire of the ancient dragon’s blood upon his flesh. It is a strange feeling. It hurts, but is also oddly comforting.
He misses Helaena. He misses the twins and little Maelor. He even misses his mother, with her bloodied nail beds and kind but sad eyes. The Targaryens do not follow the New Gods but his mother was devoted to them and he spent countless hours besides her at the Sept in prayer. He knelt and clasped his hands and prayed for salvation and justice. But the Targaryens were gods in their own right. Aemond just hopes whatever happens to them – wherever they end up – after he’s gone, they will be at peace.
Aemond lets his remaining eye flutter shut as Vhagar begins to drag him further into the waters below. The chains wrapped around his waist tug, water filling the space between with clothes and armor. Liquid – he can’t tell if it’s water or blood or both – fills his nose, dripping down his throat and making him gag.
As the she-dragon’s body plunges into the depths of the lake and finally submerges him completely, Aemond wonders for a brief moment how his nephew felt. Little Luke always had much more light in him compared to the rest of their family. Before his attack on Driftmark, the boy trailed behind his older brother and uncles like a little shadow — a bright smile always on his chubby face and his boyish voice chirping for attention. Even at that last ill-fated family feast the boy couldn’t help but to smirk and laugh to himself when that roasted pig was set in front of Aemond.
Did he feel hopelessness? Maybe a strong desire to flee into his mother’s safe arms and hide in her skirts like a child again? He probably did not feel so numb. So resigned to his fate. He likely wanted to fight back only to have the horror of his situation finally dawn on him and the realization that no one and nothing could save him any longer. Lucerys was likely overwhelmed with the desperation to live and choked with the terror at the fact it was impossible.
Aemond knew Luke. Knew the dragon’s blood that boiled underneath his freckled skin. Felt it when the brat lunged forward and gouged Aemond’s eye out in defense of his older brother.
Lucerys had the fire to survive.
Aemond wonders for a moment what that must feel like.
The freezing water grabs his limbs, their grip unshakeable and making them too heavy to move any longer.
He closes his eye and lets the darkness claim him.
Magic exists.
The Citadel may try to suppress it, but it makes its presence known in a number of ways, many that Aemond has witnessed with his own eye. The scrolls he read as a boy, the ones his father was so fond of, wove stories of a once great empire – ripe with the strange and the powerful. Their dragons were remnants of the Doom, as one scroll called it. His ancestor, a girl called Daenys, had dreams foreseeing the cataclysmic event. She was like Helaena in that way. The prophetic girl had told her father of her visions and he listened to her bumbling riddles and rambles. He listened and she saved her family.
Aemond was always a good listener. He would listen to his mother’s anxieties and when she spat venomous insults towards his half-sister. A harlot. She would whisper. A sinful whore with no respect for the Realm. Sometimes, however, she would forget he was there. She’d stare at her hands with a small smile and share stories – more so telling herself them, as if she tried hard enough she could relive those memories – of her long since tainted past with Rhaenyra.
Once she upset the Septa so terribly, the poor old woman made a grab at her braids. Mother gave a rare, genuine laugh. Rhaenyra stumbled backwards and into my arms and we both fell to the floor in a fit of giggles. She still stunk of leather and dragon but she always had a lingering scent of roses… She would let her voice trail off before clearing her throat and composing herself once more; the mask slips firmly back in place.
He’ll have to close an eye. Helaena had mumbled shortly before he lost his eye claiming Vhagar. She was like Daenys, he had realized afterwards. When their older brother rolled his eyes and called her hare-brained, Aemond listened attentively. Most times Helaena’s ramblings were just that – ramblings. Nonsensically riddles or overcomplicated barbs. But magic runs through her veins and he loves his sister. That was enough for him.
Boiling blood and tumbling Gods.
Boiling blood and tumbling Gods.
Boiling blood and tumbling Gods.
A light shines from beyond his eyelid and he grabs at it.
The chains of Vhagar’s saddle were still wrapped around his lower body when he broke through the surface of the lake, their safety now no different than the suffocating arms of one of those Iron Island krakens that pull ships under. His left shoulder sears in pain, their ancestral sword Dark Sister jutting through his back. As expected, his arm barely moves when he tries to support himself above the water. He gasps, desperate for breath, and clears his lungs and stomach of bloodied water. His hair sticks to his face, obscuring his vision, and bile drips down his chin. Aemond tries to swim towards the edge of the lake but his shoulder screams in pain and he gags. Dark Sister has made his arm useless, every movement digs her Valryian steel into the muscles and dislodging it without sinking is impossible – he cannot risk bleeding out before he can even reach the shore.
Heavy iron links tighten around his thigh and Aemond begins to panic. But he doesn’t seem to be the only one to feel such a way. Besides him, a dragon screech rings out with a terror he is all too familiar with. It’s like that which Arrax let out when his own dragon, an ancient weapon of brutality, snapped its much larger jaw down on the other's body, gnawing the creature in half before sending both dragon and rider plunging into the sea below.
The Blood Wyrm lives — just barely. Like Aemond, Caraxes struggles to stay afloat, his blade sharp claws desperately trying to grip the shore and pull himself out. The creature is desperate to save itself.
Aemond’s uncle must be dead. He hasn’t seen the man resurface.
Aemond makes his way towards the beast, groaning in pain but pushing forward regardless. He swims slowly, the weight of his armor certainly not helping his situation, but he can feel the chains around his body finally loosen and start to slip. Caraxes appears to share his luck as the red dragon sinks its claws into the earth and begins to weakly pull itself out of the lake. Aemond makes one last push and wraps his good arm around a spine on the creature's tail.
Caraxes pulls himself and the nephew of his dead rider back onto land.
Rolling onto his side, Aemond pushes himself away from Caraxes’ tail and presses his face into the damp earth below him. A shaky sob bubbles up from deep within him, unleashing itself in a grotesque mix of equal part wail and hysterical laugh. He heaves with no regard to who may bear witness to his madness because he is alive. He’s covered in water, blood, his own bile and tears, and Gods know what else — his shoulder screaming in pain from where the Targaryen ancestral sword remains impaled — but he is alive. His shoulder refuses to be forgotten, however, and a sharp pain spreads through him when he moves it slightly.
Aemond forces himself into a sitting position and carefully touches the hilt where it juts out from between his armor. A low but loud whine causes him to jump, the sudden movement making his hand knock into the pommel and he grits his teeth in pain. Caraxes isn’t faring much better. His breathing is shallow and there is a large opening on its side exposing flesh and bone. Boiling blood pours from the wound, steam rising from where it pools on the earth surrounding the creature. It’s bleeding out, just as Aemond will.
A young man, Aemond was new to war. He wasn’t a seasoned knight or battle hardened prince like his uncle, but time in the fields, amongst smallfolk and banner men alike, allowed him to witness enough bloodshed to learn a few things. He remembers seeing a soldier from the Riverlands get his leg crushed under rubble and watching in abject horror as a healer placed a belt in the man’s mouth before bringing a saw to the mangled limb. Aemond had hunched over and emptied the contents of his stomach when the smell of burning flesh flooded his senses. Ser Criston had simply placed a firm hand on him and led the trembling prince away from the sight.
His good hand reaches up to his face, gloved fingers tracing the smooth leather of his eyepatch before finding the buckle and ripping it off. He hisses when a few strands of hair get caught but it’ll have to do. Aemond stares at the material in his hand and glances at the dragon beside him. Caraxes stares back, large unblinking eye seemingly entertained by the man’s plight. With a frustrated growl, Aemond folds the eyepatch and stuffs it in his mouth. Sharp teeth sink into the leather and he tries to steel himself. He takes a deep breath, wraps his hand around the jeweled hilt of the sword, and pulls.
His eyepatch does little to muffle his screams.
The blade grinds against bone and muscle as he drags it out, the metal sliding free from where it was wedged between plates of armor with a slick noise. Blood begins to spill from the wounds, trickling down his back and chest, and soaking his clothing underneath. His injured arm still pulses in pain but Aemond refuses to die from blood loss – not after making it this far. With haste, he undoes the buckling of his pauldron and breastplate, throwing them aside with a clang along with his undershirt . He forces himself to his feet but quickly falls back to his knees, his legs numb with pins and needles. His vision blurs slightly, likely from the steady flow of blood loss he’s been experiencing for the past Gods know how long. Caraxes lets out a huff, almost a laugh, clearly enjoying watching its rider’s killer struggle. Aemond grits his teeth, mouth still full of leather, and tries to rise once more. His footing is unsteady but he manages to carry himself to the wounded dragon.
The Blood Wyrm isn’t going to make it. The monstrous wound on its side gapes and pulses thick, boiling red-black blood on its surroundings. Caraxes seems oddly at peace with his impending death. The dragon’s breathing is getting shallower and shallower, eyes blinking slowly. It has no fight left in it. Aemond finds it quite disturbing to look at – how human the creature appears in that moment. He stares for a brief second. A fresh stream of boiling blood pours from the injured beast. No longer delaying the inevitable, Aemond dips his hand in the pool, feeling its steam rise and the heat seeping through the leather of his riding gloves, making his palm blister underneath. He bites down and smears the blood on his hand over his wound.
Aemond thanks his past self for having the hindsight to keep the eyepatch in his mouth.
Had he not remembered the sensation of the Strong bastard’s dagger gliding across his face and claiming his eye, this would be the worst pain he has ever experienced. The skin around the wound blisters and burns, dragons blood mixing with his own as it cauterizes the wound. He repeats this with the injury on his back, gasping in agony as he forces the openings to heal shut. There is likely internal damage but that matters little if he were to just bleed out. The wounds seal as best as they can given the circumstances, hopefully being able to stave off infection long enough for him to reach a healer or maester. Caraxes rumbles besides him.
“Ironic, is it not?” Aemond huffs a small laugh. “I slay your master, and yet it is by you that I am saved.” The dragon is silent, its eyes following him sluggishly. He could laugh at that sight they make: him next to Daemon’s loyal companion while Aemond’s own sinks to the bottom of a lake alongside his aforementioned uncle.
It hasn’t set in yet – that Vhagar is truly gone. She’s survived so much for so long. At some point Aemond had started to think she was indestructible. The connection that lingered in the most back of his mind is no longer there. That feeling of absolute trust and reliability. Except when you were too weak and lost control and let your nephew die. His mind supplies unhelpfully. The landscape is unnervingly serene. Everything is just… still. Rain drizzles lightly, the droplets pattering on his discarded armor and Caraxes red scales. His hair begins to stick to his face again. It irritates his skin, making his nose tickle. He places a hand on the Wyrm – its body radiating only a weak but comforting warmth. Dragons are not servants. They are symbols of powers beyond the comprehension of humans, of a time long past. Dragons are strong on their own – lethal, even – but with a trusted companion, they become unstoppable. Aemond feels Caraxes exhale under his palm. The dragon huffs and closes its eyes. Caraxes stills.
Dark Sister lays discarded on the grass beside the lake, her silver and gold pommel looking dull in the rain. Aemond sneezes. His hair is limp around his shoulders and falls in front of his single eye. He picks up the sword and rests the blade just below his jaw.
The blade slices along the width of his neck.
Silvery-blonde hair falls to the grass like snow.
Aemond turns, and heads towards King’s Landing.
The capitol has fallen.
His older brother’s banners – black fabric with a golden dragon in the image of Sunfyre stitched in the center – were nowhere to be found, likely already cut down and discarded.
Instead, all there is is an abomination.
His half-sister’s banners are an ugly thing: two squares of Targaryen black and red divided by the sigils of Arryn and Velaryon. Sharing her throne, sharing her power. Aemond scoffs. Even in her own banners she is weak, dependent on people more powerful while she pretends to be in control. It is a mockery of the Targaryens name.
He’d stumble upon a small village as he traveled along the King’s Road towards the Old Gate. There were sparse amounts of cottages littered about, enough distance between them that he could move without risk of being recognized by one of Rhaenyra’s loyalists. Aemond managed to snag some clothes from where they were hung to dry outside, though the shirt and pants were a tad too small for his taller figure. He lucked out when he discovered a hooded cloak discarded beside the road, quickly pulling the garment on and covering his noticeable hair. The rest of his journey was free of issue – a welcomed change to the constant fighting he’d become accustomed to these past a dozen or so moons. He reached the Old Gate just before sun down after two days of travel. Despite the war, the city is never truly at rest and it was easy to slip through undetected – his cloaked figure becoming just another body among the hundreds in search of nightly pleasures.
Flea Bottom has never been a… becoming place. Aemond knows this from the numerous occasions he was forced to traverse its streets in order to detach his disgrace of an older brother from the bosom of an alpha whore, or when he himself was ushered through the filthy streets of Silk by Aegon on his thirteenth name day. His skin breaks out into gooseflesh at the mere thought of the beta and omega whores his brother had encouraged him to drink with and fuck, their grubby hands on him and heavily perfumed bodies masking their true scents as they pressed against his. The smell of wine, sweat, sewage, perfume, and pig shit wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but unlike Aegon, it gave Aemond no comfort.
That is why he finds it odd how unsettled he feels seeing it now.
The slums are somehow in more disarray. There’s a noticeable lack of gold cloaks patrolling, the streets filled with an increased amount of unsavory characters than typical. The streets are noisy with life and violence, groups of smallfolk pouring out from the warmth of taverns and rat pits, their bodies filling the narrow alleys and pathways. The people’s faces look more gaunt than normal. There is a hunger in their eyes. Hunger for food and something else. Something that makes Aemond’s spine chill. It’s a look he’s familiar with.
He adjusts his hood and moves with the flow of bodies, allowing the assault of smells to blind his nose. Aemond needs to find out what is happening, what the current state of affairs is regarding the war. The blacks had taken King’s Landing before Aemond made his way to the Gods Eye from Harrenhall. In a quite predictable move, his sister and uncle laid siege the moment Aemond and Ser Criston were not an immediate threat and it appears his brother once again failed to be useful. Aemond knew this would happen.
The issue was that he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not anymore.
He went to fight his uncle with no intention of reemerging. But alas, Gods in their benevolence and cruelty, let him live. The trip from the Riverlands to Old Gate along the Kingsroad was a surprisingly quick one by foot, but it was likely his half-sister had already received word of her husband’s demise. No matter how estranged the rumors suggested the couple had become, Rhaenyra was infatuated with their uncle – and their path to marriage was one stained with blood. No one, not even their family, would be spared from her wrath.
Aemond lets himself hope Helaena and her children are safe.
The Dragonpit still sits atop Rhaenys’ Hill, overlooking sin-filled streets. His mind drifts to Vhagar and the way the dragon's lingering presence in the back of his mind – once a welcomed comfort – is gone, leaving only a cold feeling of incompleteness in the prince. He tears his eye away from the structure and looks back ahead. He stills. A child – probably no older than Maelor – stares at him from his mother’s arms. He wiggles and makes grabbing hands at Aemond, the youngling entranced by his sapphire eye obscured under his hood. Aemond can see the boy’s mother look at her child in confusion before turning around to see what has caught her son’s curiosity.
It happens too quickly for him to react. The woman squints at him, brown eyes darting from his obscured face to his missing eye and then to his now cropped blonde hair. Realization soon melts across her face. And she screams.
Bodies turn to the source of sound and the commotion worsens as people begin to recognize him. Hands reach forward from the darkness surrounding him, only illuminated by what torches light the alleys, and pull at Aemond. He hisses in pain when someone slams him into the wall, his injured shoulder spasming. His hood is tugged off giving the crowd gathering around him a clearer look at him. Emboldened, a burly man with breathe stinking of ale keeps him pressed to that wall and gives a laugh.
“Well would you look at that?” he turns to the crowd, godding them. “We got ourselves a dragon in our midst!” Despite the man’s build, his drunkenness makes him useless compared to a well trained fighter such as he. Aemond seizes the opportunity to throw the man off him and the drunk stumbles backwards and onto his arse. He quickly draws Dark Sister from where her sheath is attached to his waist and points the tip at the man’s neck. His throat bobs and the crowd surrounding them takes a step back, screams and shouts of surprise and confusion reverberating through the alleys. The man looks at him with fear and disgust. He trembles like a bird.
“Go on, boy!” The man says with wavering bravery. “Kill a defenseless man! ‘Tis what ye Green cunts do best!” Aemond snarls, eye unfocusing as he prepares to plunge the blade through the thin skin and shut the fool up.
The loud sound of footsteps stops him, three large bodies shoving their ways through the gathering.
“Halt, in the name of the Queen!” a voice booms. The crowd splits to let the men through but do not disperse, too absorbed on the scene before them. Three large men dressed in plain armor and cloaks stand before Aemond. Gold cloaks, Aemond grimaces, Daemon’s men. The City Watch was always fiercely loyal to his uncle during his stint as commander and based on the faces of the men, they still are. The biggest of them, a man with wavy yellow hair that is receding and a thick, bushy mustache, brings the blade of his own broadsword up to Aemond’s throat. Aemond slowly meets the man’s eyes, watching as realization fills them.
“Prince Aemond.” He doesn't lower his blade. Aemond mimics. The two other gold cloaks watch in silence, hands on the pommels of their own swords, ready to strike at their leader’s command. “A bold decision to return here. Or, perhaps, stupid.” The cloak adjusts his grip. “Put down your weapon.” Aemond huffs a laugh. The drunken man scurries back and away from his blade, crawling on the filthy ground like a pig fleeing its butcher. Aemond may be a skilled fighter – a prince trained by only the finest swordsmen and fresh from victory in battle – but he’s not a fool. He’s not his brother and half-sister.
The gold cloaks quickly disarm him, the blonde one twisting Aemond’s arms behind him and slamming him into the wall once more. The cloak holding Dark Sister looks at that blade and back at Aemond, rage flashing across his face. Aemond smirks.
“Is this what the noble defenders of the city have fallen to?” A pair of cuffs click around his wrists. “Assaulting and imprisoning one of their own princes?” The knight just chuckles, pulling Aemond away from the brick roughly and shoving him down the alley.
“You are a traitor to the crown and an enemy of Queen Rhaenyra.” Aemond struggles to not lose his footing as he is pulled along. “And I will be most honored to deliver you, Your Grace.” he spits sarcastically. The man leads him to a set of horses. Another gold cloak approaches them, a sack in one hand.
“As requested, Ser Balman.” Ser Balman Byrch, Aemond recalls, a son of a purposeless house. Ser Balman thanks the other knight and turns back to Aemond. “For you, Your Grace.” Aemond rolls his eye at the mocking tone, straightening his back and raising his chin. They may be similar heights but Aemond is above him – it would do the man well to not forget that. Ser Balman sneers at him before pulling the sack over his head, his world being encased in darkness once more. “Ride ahead and inform the Queen of our impending arrival.” Ser Balman barks. Aemond feels himself being lifted off his feet and grunts when he’s thrown over the back of the horse, the air being forced from his lungs. The gold cloak climbs in front of him and spurs the horse forward.
He can hear the mummers of onlooking smallfolk, the sound of their following footsteps in time with the horse’s hooves ringing in his ears. Aemond squeezes his remaining eye shut and swallows down the humiliation that crawls its way up his throat. The rocking motion of the horse makes him feel sick and his stomach clenches in hunger and shame. The burning sensation in his shoulder worsens. Aemond feels exhaustion overtake him, and his conscience slips. He goes limp.
As is often the case in Aemond’s life, his peace is short-lived.
He is awoken by the now familiar feeling of sneering pain shooting through his body as he is thrown off the horse and directly on his shoulder. Aemond isn’t able to conceal his agony this time, a pathetic groan ripping from him. A pair of hands pull him from the ground and onto his feet. Another pair grab him and he is once more being dragged forward, tripping over his feet unable to keep in time without seeing.
Aemond grew up in the Red Keep. He spent his youth roaming the halls of Maegor’s Holdfast and learning its secrets, racing down the passages to smuggle sweets and flee from his brother and older nephew’s cruel pranks. He spent years being knocked to his arse by Ser Criston in the training yards and cooped up in its expansive libraries, enthralled by tales of great dragon knights and their noble companions. Sometimes – when Aegon and Jacaerys liked to pretend they were men grown and too mature to play with him – his little nephew would find his way to the libraries while Aemond was there and whine until the elder gave in and read out-loud to him. Lucerys rarely ever actually listened, instead choosing to interrupt repeatedly with questions or demand Aemond use voices for the characters. These rare occasions always ended the same, with a sleepy Lucerys drifting off against his shoulder smelling of milk and lemon and Aemond’s legs would go numb from refusing to move as to not disturb him.
The Red Keep was his home and now he is being dragged up its grand staircase like an intruder by the men sworn to defend it and its residents.
The ground transitions from stone to dirt to sleek marble and Aemond can tell he’s being pulled past the training grounds and into the halls towards the throne room. His uncoordinated footsteps echo against stone walls and he stumbles when the men holding him suddenly come to a halt. Nosey servants pause their duties and their whispers grow louder and louder as their curiosity grows. Aemond hears one cloak whisper something he can’t make out to the other. They both make a noise of agreement and there’s the sound of heavy doors being opened. The moment Aemond sets foot in the room, a familiar chill shoots down his spine.
The throne room.
Ser Balman drags him deeper into the room and finally stops, forcing the Prince onto his knees. It’s unnervingly silent and Balman addresses himself to the room. The sack around his head is carelessly pulled off, its rough material scratching against his cheek and forcing his head up. Aemond squeezes his eyes shut and blinks rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the change in lighting. His eye darts around, mind distorted, and focuses on the wall beside him to stabilize his vision. He can make out the deep reds of the castle's brick and the line of torches on the walls. Ser Balman grips Aemond’s hair and forces him to face forward.
“You would do well to look at your Queen while she addresses you.”
Aemond doesn’t have many fond memories of Father’s first born. His half-sister had little regard for he and his siblings as they grew up – more focused on her illicit romantic affairs and, later on, her litter of bastards. The last time Aemond had seen her was that ill-fated dinner shortly before Father’s death. Rhaenyra may have been an oath breaking whore with little regard for honor and tradition, but Aemond could admit she was a beautiful woman – the picture of a regal alpha woman of Old Valyria.
That was not the woman sitting before him.
Rhaenyra sits on the Iron Throne clad in a black-plated armor dress but Aemond could see small cuts littering her hands and arms from where the blades touch her. Her face is puffy and sunken in, dark circles that expose her exhaustion under her crazed purple eyes which glare at him with disdain. The crown of their great-grandfather rests atop her pulled back silver hair and it makes her look older than she is. War has not been kind to his half-sister. It hasn’t been to any of them. Neither of the siblings speak for a long moment, just staring and waiting for the other to make the first move. Rhaenyra may be a coward who sends others to do her bidding and dirty work but Aemond is not.
“Where is,” he pauses, his voice is rough from disuse. “My mother and sister–”
“Silence.” Her voice is cold and venomous, her words spill out like poison and echo through the throne room. The alpha tilts her head, eyes taking in his battered figure with disgust. “I did not give you permission to speak.”
Aemond scoffs. “You are not my Queen, you traitorous cunt.” The knight beside him brings a hand down across his face, striking him with a loud smack. Rhaenyra dismisses the white cloak with a wave of her hand and the knight resumes his previous position.
“You don’t have a Queen.” It’s as if a bucket of ice cold water has been dumped over his head. Aemond’s skin breaks out in gooseflesh and his vision blurs. He begins to shake.
No
No
No
No
No
Not Helaena. Anyone but Helaena.
He lunges forward, the chains binding him going taunt as the guards try to pull him back.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SISTER?” he roars, throat straining. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR SISTER?” Rhaenyra flinches at that, her eyes wavering for a moment. The white cloaks force him back to the ground, pinning his shoulders and head to the floor. He struggles and snarls and continues to glare at his bitch of a half-sister, his own scent of smoke and clover challenging hers.
She quickly schools her features, resetting her jaw in a pathetic attempt to look in control. “ I have done nothing to our sister. I wouldn’t senselessly butcher my own kin. I am not you , Aemond.”
Everything always comes back to that boy. People call this a war of succession, but it was always about him. Aemond Targaryen killed Lucerys Velaryon and the Realm bleeds for it.
Aemond isn’t sure he regrets it.
War made him feel alive. War made him feel powerful and in control and he loved it. No longer did people look at him as a disposable second son of a second wife with no titles or land to inherit. No longer did they look at his face with poorly concealed pity and disgust. No – now they look at him with terror. He was the one that led forces to capture Harrenhall. He was the one that burned Darry and Blackbuckle and Claypool and every last one of those traitorous Riverland bastards. He was the tamer of the most fearsome beast since Balerion the Black Dread and the slayer of the Rogue Prince. He deserves to be feared. If he can’t be loved by the people, he would gladly have them fear him .
Vhagar is gone. His mind cruelly reminds him. Now you are just a pathetic, dragonless child as you once were. As you have always been. Aemond wants to slam his own head against the floors until his brain and its betraying thoughts are nothing more than a mush of bone and blood puddled around him.
“She remains confined in Maegor’s Holdfast along with your treasonous snake of a mother. They are alive,” Aemond lets out a shaky breath of relief. “For now.” He glares at her, eye no doubt looking as crazed as he feels. He wants to grab her, to plug her upon one of the very swords she sits upon. Aemond can see the cuts on her hands – it is rejecting her. He would be doing it a service. The entire realm would be better off with all of them dead. “Their fates depend on you now, Aemond. Your foolish drunk of a King is nowhere to be found since our siege so now, as their de facto leader, the responsibility of cleaning up his mess falls to you. Once again.” She says those last words slowly, tongue rolling over the syllables with obvious enjoyment.
Aemond had lost track of Aegon shortly after Rook’s Nest. Quite frankly, Aemond stopped caring about the rest of his family’s doings once he set off to the Riverlands and Harrenhall. Last he had heard of Aegon was when he had set out for the Gullet, taking out Rhaenyra’s eldest bastard but seriously injuring himself in the process. Of course that craven would abandon his wife and surviving children to save his own skin. His drinking and whoring only worsened after Jaehaerys’ assassination and Aegon stopped even bothering to pretend to be a decent husband or father. Aegon was not a good man. Aemond could admit that. But he was a man, nonetheless, and the agony of losing a child was not one Aemond could understand. He never wished to have to.
Oh Gods, Jaehaera and Maelor.
“Where are our niece and nephew?” he said. Once upon a time, Aemond wouldn’t believe his sister capable of hurting a child, let alone one of her own kin. Jaehaerys paid the price for that naivety.
Rhaenyra folds her hands on her lap. “Neither child was in the Keep when my forces reclaimed it. Last I heard the Princess was seen in Storms’ End accompanied by Ser Willis Fell.” She sighs. “As for the boy, he has yet to resurface. However, given your younger brother’s seemingly unprovoked assault on Bitterbridge…”
They were trying to get the boy to Old Town, those fucking fools. Aemond can only hope the child didn’t suffer.
“Letting children die? Forcing them to flee their homes?” Aemond chuckles. “Have you not taken enough, Sister?” Aemond knows he sounds foolish but he doesn’t know what to say and he won’t give her the privilege of his silence. His words seem to work, angering her greatly and she suddenly rises from her seat with fury in her eyes.
“I HAVE NOT CALLED FOR THE DEATHS OF ANY CHILDREN!” Rhaenyra roars, descending from her throne with quick, lethal steps. “Daemon’s actions were his own and they were his to answer.” She lets out a shaky breath, poorly choking down her sorrow. “And answer he did.” His sister stops in front of where he kneels, looking down at him with eyes full of cold rage. “Your family’s betrayal killed my daughter.” Her voice shakes. “My Visenya, innocent to this world, dead because of your Grandsire’s selfishness.” Aemond clenches his jaw, eye darting to look anywhere but at her.
“Look at me, you coward.” She grabs his jaw, forcing his face back forward.
Her eyes waver while she stares at him. “You murdered my Lucerys. My sweet, sweet boy. So kind and gentle,” Even now Rhaenyra can’t accept her son's true nature – the crime he committed upon Aemond. “Thrown to the sea by his own Uncle .” A single tear falls down her cheek but she refuses to look away. “Your family killed my father, then my daughter, and then my son, and then another, and then another.” Her face becomes unsettlingly calm once more.
“Tell me, Aemond, what do you know of real loss?” Aemond remains silent, a feeling he hasn’t felt in a long while filling him.
Shame.
“That is enough, Your Grace.” A large, dark skinned man with white dreads and an unkempt beard appears behind his sister. Corlys Velaryon. He places a hand on Rhaenyra’s forearm and she drops her brother’s face, eyes still refusing to part from his own. “Let us summon the small council and discuss what should be done with the traitor.” Rhaenyra nods, finally turning from Aemond and walking back to the throne.
“Take the Prince and place him in confinement with his sister.” The Hand of the Queen orders. A group of white cloaks surround Aemond and pull him from the ground. “Keep an eye on him. Do not let him see his mother.” The knights bow and begin to lead him away but Aemond pulls against them.
He can’t help himself. “I’m surprised you haven’t beheaded me yourself, Lord Velaryon. After all, if anyone has lost the most because of my family, it is you.” Aemond had meant it as a taunt but he’s surprised by how honest his voice sounds in his ears. The old man turns to him, face not angered as he expected but rather, resigned.
“It is exactly because of that loss that I do not kill you, boy.” His voice is gruff yet even. “Your house may seek to tear itself apart, but I intend to keep what little family I have remaining safe.” He turns his back to Aemond.
“You would do well to learn from that.”
When Aemond was a boy, long before Driftmark and Vhagar, his older sister Helaena would frequently ask him to accompany her to the Dragonpit to visit her own dragon, Dreamfyre. Bitter and envious, he said no more often than not. Helaena would only hum in understanding and return to her insects or needlework but her nature as an omega would betray her, revealing her true feelings. Her scent of cedarwood and lavender – something that Aemond usually found quiet comfort – would suddenly flare with a ting of sadness and Aemond would relent.
They would make their way to the pit on the rare occasions they could avoid the overbearing hands of their mother and spend the day in its winding tunnels, usually settling by firelight with a book in his hands and Helaena with an embroidery hoop in her’s. Randomly and without reason Helaena would suddenly perk up, alerting Aemond that Dreamfyre had finally awoken from her nap and she would race to meet the dragon.
Mother never cared for dragons, preferring to call them violent beasts and challengers to all that her gods taught. Aemond could understand her reasoning, to a degree. Balerion the Black Dread was a fearsome creature of war ridden by the Conqueror and Aemond’s father, the King, and Vhagar – a truly marvelous and powerful creature – stood as a symbol of worlds beyond modern comprehension. Dreamfyre was more like an oversized cat. But Helaena, usually quiet and content to be lost in her own mind, loved that dragon more than anything. And even after everything went to shit – after she was forced to marry their brother and be given a crown she never wanted and watched her own son die as a result of their family’s cruel actions and she began to refuse to even look at anything having to do with their family afterwards – she never stopped loving the dragon.
When the doors to the rooms meant to be his new prison open and he sees his sister standing on the ledge of its window, his body moves on its own.
It was like he moved purely on instinct, no longer in control but a powerless child once more, watching himself from outside his body. He can remember throwing the guard holding him off and racing forward, the chains around his wrists rattling as he moved. He remembers seeing her body start to fall forward and time stilling as he felt his world shake and crack, what fragile structures held it up beginning to crumble under the weight placed upon them. He remembers throwing his arms up and over her falling body, so thin and willowy and devoid of life, and the chains of his restraints wrapping around her stomach – pulling her back against him. His back hitting the ground beneath him forces reality back to him. His sister is restrained tight to his chest, which rises and falls with rapid, shallow breaths. Helaena doesn’t move – her steady breathing is the only sign of life from the sad Queen. A choked sob reverberates through the room and it’s only when the attending guard removes his cuffs and pulls his sister off him that Aemond realizes that it’s coming from him.
Helaena refuses to look at him, letting herself be manhandled across the room and onto a lounging chair. A maester rushes into the room, face panicked and arms full of bottles. Aemond watches as the old man prepares a cup – no doubt milk of the poppy – and feeds it to the woman with easy, practiced movements.
Aemond finds his voice. “Has she done this before?” He lifts himself from the floor and his body shakes without permission. “Does my mother know of her condition? Does my sister? ” The maester doesn’t answer at first, his attention entirely on Helaena as her conscience begins to slip from the effects of the medicine. Finally he turns and faces Aemond, his face subdued. The look answers Aemond’s question.
“The Princess has been without her mind for some time, Your Grace. An empty shell plagued by sadness.” Helaena’s eyes flutter shut and her head droops, mind finally at peace – if only temporarily. “I do all I can to help but her wounds are beyond my expertise. You cannot put bandages on a fractured mind.”
Aemond approaches her sleeping form as if she’s a wounded and freighted deer. Her face has lost its once healthy plumpness, now sunken in and gaunt much like the rest of them. Her white-blonde tresses are matted and stringy, unkempt as they fall far past her shoulders.
After Jaehaerys’ death, Helaena was never the same. No longer did she try to force her brothers to hold one of her strange, exotic insects or spout her cryptic riddles during uncomfortable dinners without a care in the world. She never really spoke much again, to be quite honest. Up until Aemond departed from King’s Landing she was kept confined to her rooms, unstable and unwilling to speak or even look at anyone – especially her surviving children. Little Maelor was forced to be handed off to their mother because the mere sight of him would send Helaena into hysterics. As much as Aemond hated to have his once lively and endearingly strange sister reduced down to it, she was as the maester described. An empty shell plagued by sadness.
He brings a hand up to touch her sleeping head, but drops it at his side instead. He doesn’t deserve her. He failed her.
The maester begins to gather his materials and prepares to leave and the guard walks past Aemond to the window to close it shut. The guard reaches out but he suddenly halts – as does the maester. Something is not right. Aemond’s eye darts to the empty glass on the table beside Helaena, watching as it begins to wobble, the porcelain cup rattling against its saucer.
The castle is shaking .
Aemond snaps his head to the window and races towards it, followed closely by an equally confused white cloak and maester. The three men watch in shared confusion that quickly morphs into horror at the scene that is commencing in front of them.
The streets in their line of sight are filled with hoards of smallfolk. And they are angry. Aemond can’t make out much in the darkness but he sees gatherings running away from the Dragonpit illuminated by their own torches. A blue scaly, horned head bursts through the glass dome above the structure and a bone-chilling screech rings throughout the capital.
Dreamfyre.
Aemond watches as his sister’s dragon pulls herself free from the pit and spreads her large wings and shoots up into the night sky, debris raining down upon the city below her as she takes to the clouds. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Helaena’s unconscious body twitch as if responding to her dragon’s call.
Aemond has read stories of moments such as this before. Has experienced them himself. In moments of heightened emotion – be it glee, panic, or anger – it is as if dragons feel what their riders do and they react accordingly. Dreamfyre felt Helaena’s distress – her agony – and responded to her call.
Both the maester and guard rush from the chambers leaving the Prince and Princess alone. Aemond watches with baited breath as the pit is stormed by more enraged mobs of smallfolk. Those fools enter the belly of the beast armed only with torches and tools from their homes and yet Aemond can’t help but fear for the creatures within. Captivity had made their dragons docile – Vhagar was the only one in their arsenal that had ever seen combat and she was gone. The dragons in there were glorified hatchlings – loyal but inexperienced creatures. More smallfolk flood into the pit and into their doom. Fools . From the caved-in ceiling, Aemond can see another, much smaller dragon take to the skies after Dreamfyre. He can’t make out if it is Morghul or Shrykos but based on their size it is undoubtedly one of the two.
Aemond is furious to see creatures deserving of the utmost respect be descended upon as if they were nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered. A distressed roar booms from above Aemond and he leans out the window and up to find its source. He sees as Syrax – his half-sister’s massive yellow she-dragon – takes to the sky but something is off. The dragon moves without grace, instead her movements jerky and confused. There’s also no way Rhaenyra’s small council would have approved of her descending upon the people on dragon back. However, Aemond isn’t given anymore time to dwell as a firm hand is placed on his shoulder, stealing his attention from the chaos unfolding outside.
“You must come with me now, my Prince.” It’s Ser Balman. He’s alone and stone-faced; his utter calmness fills Aemond with anything besides calm. Helaena remains, unmoving. The gold cloak doesn’t place restraints on him this time, instead simply holding him by the arm as they make their way back to the throne room. A group of Rhaenyra’s Queensguard rush past them, paying the Prince and his escort no mind, before running out the doors of the Red Keep.
“Gods be merciful on that boy,” Ser Balman mumbles to himself. Aemond isn’t given a chance to question what he means as he finds himself in the throne’s room once again.
The throne room is in a condition much similar to the one outside the walls of the Keep; that is to say, in utter disarray. Rhaenyra is hunched over, her armor clad form trembling and she is surrounded by her small council. Lord Velaryon is barking commands at the servants and supporters that have flooded the hall. An old man Aemond recognizes as Bartimos Celtigar, Rhaenyra’s Master of coin, is attempting to hold his feeble looking half-sister up. There’s a small boy held closely to Rhaenyra, his whines of confusion and discomfort ignored in favor of being clung to by his sister like a lifeline. It is Aegon. The younger one, named in a decision fueled by sheer pettiness. Her other son, the eldest remaining one, is nowhere to be seen.
“Aemond, we are not safe here.” A gentle, yet firm familiar hand rests itself on his arm. He immediately recognizes its bloodied nail beds, gnawed down to the cuticle in ever present stress.
Ser Criston once told Aemond that all women were in the image of the Mother herself. The embodiment of selflessness and the nurturing spirit, deserving only of the utmost respect. Aemond had the courtesy to not point out the man’s obvious hypocrisy – Criston’s disdain for Aemond’s half-sister was not as skillfully concealed as the knight thought it was. But Aemond could agree with Criston for the most part.
Alicent Hightower was Aemond’s only champion growing up. When his weak king of a father refused to seek justice for his mutilated son, it was Mother who brandished a catspaw dagger against the heir to the realm in defense of her child. The Dowager Queen was an omega – her scent that of pine and rosemary, permanently tinged with discomfort and worry – but for her children, she was as fearsome as alphas such as the Conqueror himself. Aemond had witnessed it that day in the Dragonpit; Alicent had thrown herself in front of Rhaenys and the Red Queen – a mortal facing down a god for her children. After Aemond killed Lucerys, Mother refused to speak to him for a long while. He remembers her hysterics, screaming that Aemond had damned them all. In his anger, Aemond recalls spitting that they were all damned the moment she allowed his grandsire to poison her mind with conspiracy. The ghost of a slap blooms on his cheek. He spent little time in her presence after that.
Aemond finally lets himself look at his mother. Her auburn hair is knotted tightly away from her face, her eyes sunken with stress and wrinkles forming at their corners. Frown lines are present around her bloodied lips, bitten with worry. She’s dressed in all black with her ever present seven-point-star. She looks more like the Stranger than the Mother.
Her eyes flash with worry, her brow pinching. For the first time in months, she appears to finally see him as he is.
“Oh, my darling boy, what happened to you?” She brings a trembling hand to his head, nimble fingers cressing a strand of his poorly cut silver hair. Aemond knows he must look a mess; the undershirt he wore was still torn and bloodied from where he pulled Dark Sister free and his eyepatch was nowhere to be found, leaving his piercing blue sapphire exposed to prying eyes.
He rests his hand on her own and holds it, gently rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. Even now he falls back into his role so easily. “I am well, Mother. And you, have they hurt you?” His mother doesn’t appear to believe his words but says nothing, only shaking her head and wrapping her arm around his.
“This place has fallen into madness, Aemond.” She looks away from him. “Your brother is missing and we have no allies here and you are the biggest threat to the throne, our best chance for survival.” Even now, as the realm crumbles in on itself, his mother to cannot help herself. He clenches his jaw and says nothing. He can’t. Not while there is a target on their heads.
He looks forward. Their executioner looks back.
Rhaenyra stares at Aemond, eyes shaking with fear and madness. She pushes Lord Celtigar off her, ignoring her council's shouts to march forward with graceless power; a dragon descending upon its meal. It is like that fateful night in Driftmark and the irony of it is not lost on Aemond. He killed the boy that mutilated him that night for poorly reasoned justice and now that boy’s mother descends on him for just retribution.
“Bring me his head.”
Mother immediately pushes him behind her, a feeble attempt to protect him like she did during Aegon’s coronation. The entire court is watching them now. His mother's scent flares in distress but it’s no match for Rhaenyra’s own overpowering alpha one – her scent of ginger and smoke so thick with panic and fury it’s suffocating. Rhaenyra is armed with nothing but her hands and yet her pursuit does not falter.
She points a finger at Aemond. “If the people want a spectacle, I shall give them one.” Aemond feels his mother tremble.
“This is madness, Rhaenyra!” Alicent’s voice is not alone in her cry. Lord Corlys is close behind the Queen, reaching out to pull the woman back and away from her brother and her once friend. Rhaenyra snarls at this interruption, struggling against that old man until she frees herself from his grasp. His mother has put some distance between him and his half-sister.
Rhaenyra stares at her Hand, jaw clenched in fury. “The people want blood, Corlys!” She roars.
“The people want peace !” The old alpha roars back, flooding the throne room with the smell of saltwater. Rhaenyra wavers before him. It’s easy to forget that they were once family – the Sea Snake once her good-father and most staunch defender of her litter of bastards. But now they stand opposed, a Queen and her Hand and the fate of the realm balanced in the middle.
Rhaenyra trembles. “What would you have me do, Corlys? Every moment I hesitate is another moment closer to our doom. The people are fueled with bloodlust – they will lay siege to this place and tear us apart limb by limb until satiated and how do you plan to protect Baela and Rhaena if you are dead ?” Corlys refuses to falter. “You say you seek to protect your family, good-father.” Rhaenyra turns back towards Aemond. His mother whimpers before him. “As do I.”
No one moves. Rhaenrya commences her pursuit.
Perhaps this is for the best , Aemond wants to tell them. He has spilled so much blood in the name of justice – it is only fair for the people to want the same. Rhaenyra stops before them. His mother’s legs give out and she drops to the floor.
“Please,” His mother attempts to bargain with a god. “Please, Rhaenyra, I beg you – not as your father’s wife but as a mother. As your friend .”
Rhaenyra doesn’t spare her a glance. “You lost the right to invoke me as a mother when you killed my children.” Mother sobs. Aemond doesn’t look away from his sister.
The doors to the throne room slam open.
A knight with brownish-blonde hair and a sturdy build stands in the doorway out of breath, the metal of his chest plate rising and falling in quick succession.
There’s something in his arms, held firmly and wrapped tightly in his white cloak. It isn’t moving.
“Your Grace, I have found something – it is urgent.” Dozens of eyes are on the knight.
Rhaenyra swallows, her eyes trembling. “What is it, Ser Medrick? Is it my son, have you found Joffery?” She asks this but her voice is full of doubt. Aemond was once told by his tutors that the connection between an alpha or omega mother and their children was deeper than any other – that they can sense their emotions as if they are their own. His mother once said that a mother can feel when their child’s soul is brought into the world – and when it departs. Ser Medrick lowers his head.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, for abandoning my duty,” He adjusts the bundle in his arms. “But I needed to return to you immediately with what I found.”
Rhaenyra’s patience has run out. “What is it, you fool?” She snaps. “Speak while you still have your tongue!” The bundle in the knight’s arm moves.
Aemond watches a head of familiar brown curls – the same curls that have haunted his dreams for years – emerge from where they are hidden underneath the cloak. An eye peaks out beneath the hair.
Aemond stares. His ghost stares back.