Chapter Text
The throne room was filled with warm light that slid across the smooth floor tiles, along the carved columns, across the Iron Throne whose jagged edges no longer seemed like a threat, but rather a declaration of absolute authority. More than eight years had passed since the fire and blood of the Targaryens had brought the Dance of the Dragons to an end, and the ashes of those days no longer lingered in the air — they had settled instead into memory, into songs, into the whispers of servants, beggars, brothel whores, and powerful houses that still feared speaking the names of the defeated aloud.
Aegon sat upon the throne as a king should — heir, victor, ruler — yet his voice was rarely heard within that hall. He ruled, signed decrees, received lords, but the very shadow of power, its cold and crushing weight, seemed to belong not to him. Aegon had never been made for such greatness, yet he had accepted his fate for the sake of his family. For the sake of justice, in the end. And still, in the eyes of the courtiers, in their careful bows and unspoken fears, all of it was directed not at the king, but at his brother.
At “One-Eyed” Aemond Targaryen. The second son of Viserys. The Targaryen whose dragon egg had never hatched. The omega who had possessed no rights. He had once had nothing at all — an unremarkable son, not even considered an heir because of his secondary sex — and yet now Aemond stood at the foot of the throne beside his brother as Hand of the King. His single eye watched everything with sharp attention, and that gaze alone was enough to make even the boldest lords choose their words carefully. He wore no crown, but there was something in him that made a crown unnecessary in King’s Landing.
Victory had not softened him. On the contrary, it had given shape to his cruelty, turned it into order. Those who had once stood with Rhaenyra vanished — not only from life, but from history itself. Their names disappeared from the chronicles, their castles were granted to other houses, their children either died or faded into obscurity. Even House Strong, once tied to the queen herself, had been erased down to its foundations. The stones of their castle had been dismantled, their lands divided, and memory of them had become something like a legend whispered beside campfires by people no longer certain it had ever truly existed.
And yet one thread remained.
Alys Rivers. An omega and bastard of House Strong. She had not been executed, exiled, or reduced to ash alongside the others — Aemond had not allowed it. On the day the last of the Strongs fell, he had taken her with him as a trophy, a symbol, a warning. Everyone was meant to see that even the blood of the defeated belonged to him.
She lived within the Red Keep, though not as a prisoner in chains. Her chambers were spacious, adorned with Volantene fabrics, with windows overlooking the sea where the wind carried the salty scent of freedom. The servants treated her cautiously, uncertain whether she was a concubine, a witch, or something far greater. As for Aemond, he had found a kind of truce in her. Being an omega, he was forced to endure his ruts alone, without support, and Alys, though an omega herself, was capable of soothing him.
And besides, she did not fear him the way everyone else did. There was no submission in her gaze, yet no open defiance either. She looked at him as though she knew something no one else did.
The evenings spent in her chambers were heavy with heat — not only from the fireplace, which rarely went out, but from the tension that rose between them during Aemond’s feverish ruts. He could spend hours easing that heat while watching her recline across the bed, fingers combing through his silver hair as her body arched beneath his touch. Sometimes they spoke honestly to one another. Sometimes they did not speak at all. Sometimes he touched her, and there was more power than tenderness in those touches, yet more truth than in any words. Though more often it was Alys who touched him, who soothed and comforted him, and that alone was enough to make Aemond question his own clarity of mind.
She did not belong to him entirely. The omega understood perfectly well that Alys was free and capable of fleeing whenever she wished. And perhaps that was exactly what kept him bound to her.
Rumors about her spread throughout the castle. They said she dreamed dreams that came true. That she whispered words that made candles die. That she knew when someone would perish before illness had even touched their body. Aemond did not believe in superstition — he believed in strength, in blood, in fire — but neither did he forbid such rumors from living on.
Let them fear.
His life had undeniably become calmer, though never quieter. He still trained every day, honing his skill as though war might erupt again at any moment. He still flew upon his dragon, cutting across the skies above the bay, and every time his shadow passed over the city, people froze and lifted their heads toward the heavens.
He was not king. But he was the one they feared.
And within that fear, he found order.
Today the warmth in Alys’s chambers was thick and enveloping, as though summer itself had chosen to hide within those walls and refused to leave even after nightfall. Heavy curtains kept out the sea wind, leaving behind only the soft stir of air saturated with a sweet scent that slowly spread through the room, mingling with the smell of heated stone and leather.
Aemond lay on his back as though, at last, the entire world had stopped demanding vigilance from him. His head rested in Alys’s lap, and there was something strangely peaceful in the sight, something almost unfitting for a man whose name was spoken with caution. Damp silver strands clung lightly to his temples with sweat, and his single eye remained half-closed, leaving his face unusually relaxed.
Alys sat quietly while her fingers moved slowly through his hair, combing through it with lazy, almost ritualistic care. She did not look at him directly — her gaze drifted somewhere off to the side, as though she were listening not only to his breathing, but to something else entirely, something quieter and more distant. The silence between them was not empty. It stretched softly, without strain, like silent understanding.
“So, how was your training?”
“The same as always,” Aemond replied. “Strange that you suddenly care. You never used to waste even a second on such trivialities.”
Weariness threaded through his voice, though beneath it lingered something sharper. A reproach he made no effort to hide.
“Am I forbidden now from asking how things are going?”
Aemond lifted his head slightly and looked into Alys’s eyes. His brow furrowed faintly, as though the very question required effort. Her fingers paused in his hair for a moment before continuing their motion. It felt as though another second would be enough for Alys to snap, to throw some cutting remark at him deliberately, to make him look like a spoiled, wounded boy and send him storming from her chambers.
Instead, Aemond looked away and exhaled.
He had not realized how exhausted he truly was. Now, lying there in bed, his eyelid drooped lower and lower, as though sleep was moments away from claiming him. He could not understand why. Only recently he had felt perfectly fine, brimming with energy, and now…
Now he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in silence while breathing in the scent of incense that clung to Alys.
“What is that scent?” Aemond’s voice sounded muffled and drowsy, as though the words had to force their way through layers of sleep.
Alys did not answer immediately.
“Incense,” she said calmly. “With notes of honey and musk. They said it came from Dorne. Do you like it?”
He frowned slightly, almost imperceptibly.
“Too sweet.”
She lowered her gaze to his face, studying his reaction with the attentiveness of someone searching for meaning beyond the words themselves. Aemond thought she was likely smiling to herself in quiet satisfaction.
“You don’t like it?”
He opened his eye a little wider but did not turn his head.
“No.”
There was no irritation in his breathing. On the contrary, it had become deeper, steadier, as though the very scent he claimed to dislike was gently lulling him, dragging him into that soft, heavy drowsiness he no longer wished to escape. The sweetness did not feel unpleasant — it felt strangely fitting here beside her, within this closed space where neither throne nor war nor чужие взгляды existed.
Aemond knew Alys understood that he liked it. He simply refused to admit it. He had always complained about her incense, always told her to replace it, and now not only had he asked about it himself, he had not uttered the usual I dislike it, find something else.
“Of course,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. Her fingers drifted to his temple and lingered there a little longer than before. “You would never admit if you liked something.”
He did not answer. His breathing slowed further, heavy and even, and within moments his consciousness slipped into darkness.
***
Aemond blinked, trying to understand what had changed. His body felt heavy, as though filled with lead or drowned in milk of the poppy. Even movement required effort he had not expected.
The omega looked around and saw a silhouette. It stood sharply outlined against the dim moonlight, and there was something deeply unsettling in its shape — something that did not fit within ordinary perception. More accurately, it felt like a nightmare. Helaena often complained of dreams, spoke of feeling trapped and unable to move. Was this the same thing?
His hands refused to obey him, and his body no longer felt entirely his own.
He parted his lips, trying to speak, but only a faint, shrill sound escaped him. On the second attempt his voice trembled, and cold sweat broke across his skin.
“What…” The word came out hoarse.
The figure nearby turned, and moonlight finally illuminated the person’s face.
Alys.
Only Alys.
He exhaled as though a crushing weight had fallen from his shoulders.
Rivers approached the bed and, tracing the outline of Aemond’s face with her hand, climbed over him. She said nothing, yet he had the strange feeling she was looking at him with something close to sorrow. She lifted her nightshift and withdrew a dagger from the tightly bound wrap around her thigh — and that made Aemond tense immediately.
He tried to shove her away, but weakness struck him at once, and his thoughts began to blur.
She brought the dagger to his chest. Cold steel brushed against bare skin, sending a shiver over him. Before the Targaryen could fully react, the place where the blade touched him began to burn.
Aemond felt vulnerable, and the sensation made him want to howl. He wanted to act, to do something, anything, but every attempt was useless.
“Alys,” he said, and his voice came out firm, almost sharp, cutting through the unnatural silence.
Time seemed to stretch in that instant, allowing him to see every detail — the certainty with which her fingers gripped the hilt, the way the moonlight traced the blade, the calm steadiness of her breathing, as though she stood not over a man, but over a boar preparing to gore her.
“Alys…” he repeated.
And in that very moment, she moved.
The motion was swift, precise, stripped of all excess — the kind of strike planned long before it was ever delivered.
He felt the blade enter his chest, though the sensation arrived strangely. Not as sharp pain, but as a sudden, crushing emptiness, as though something inside him had parted to make room for the cold steel. Only a moment later did that emptiness fill with fire.
Pain flooded through his body, stealing his breath, destroying its rhythm, turning every inhale into a battle he was no longer certain he could win. He could even hear his own heartbeat. His body convulsed, spasms tearing through his muscles, forcing his fingers to clench, but his movements remained weak and useless, like trying to hold water slipping through open palms.
He did not scream. No sound emerged. It caught in his throat and dissolved into ragged breathing. He could produce nothing at all, while his mind felt so clouded he no longer understood what was truly happening.
Alys leaned closer, and now that her face hovered near his own, he could have studied every detail, every shadow, if his eyes had not begun to water from the sensation of being torn apart.
The ringing in his ears overwhelmed him completely. He heard muffled murmurs, but nothing except that phantom sound.
***
Noise crashed violently into his consciousness, ripping apart the remnants of sleep as though someone deliberately sought to drag him back to the surface. It was not merely sound — it was insistent, furious pounding filled not only with irritation, but with a grounded, almost mundane anger utterly alien to the worlds his mind had occupied moments before.
The knocking came again, harder this time, with such force it seemed the wooden door would splinter from the blows.
“Open up, I said!” a woman’s shrill voice cut through the room, carrying neither fear nor respect nor even caution.
Aemond opened his eye reluctantly.
The world before him did not sharpen immediately, as though he still lingered somewhere between sleep and waking where forms blurred and sounds arrived too late. His body trembled — not from cold or weakness, but from the lingering aftershock of something endured, something that still echoed through his nerves, his muscles, the deepest corners of his mind.
He inhaled sharply.
Almost instinctively, his hand flew to his chest, to the place where he remembered the strike, where he thought there should still be pain, a wound, some trace of what had happened.
There was nothing.
Nothing at all.
Only quickened breathing and a strange heaviness, as though his body’s memory no longer matched reality.
“How long am I supposed to wait?!” the woman shouted again, louder now, more irritated. “Your time’s up, hear me?!”
He blinked, trying to wake himself fully, then slowly pushed himself upright, his body responding sluggishly, as though after illness or battle. Looking around, he immediately understood that something was terribly wrong.
These were not his chambers. Certainly not the Red Keep. Not even anything that could be mistaken for a prince’s quarters.
The room was cramped and low-ceilinged, dark stains of dampness and age marking the overhead beams. The walls were worn bare in places, fabric peeling away to expose rough plaster beneath. The air was thick with unmistakable smells — cheap wine, sweat, stale smoke, and something else that seemed to cling forever to places like this.
The bed beneath him was crumpled, the gray sheets rough and long stripped of any freshness.
And only then did it strike him.
Silk Street?
Even if it was, it certainly was not the part frequented by noblemen hiding their faces beneath hoods and paying more for silence than for pleasure.
The pounding did not stop.
“Are you mocking me?!” the woman nearly screamed. “Open the damn door or I’ll break it down myself!”
Aemond dragged a hand across his face, trying to gather his thoughts, but they slipped away from him, scattering before they could form any coherent whole.
He could not remember how he had ended up here.
The last thing he remembered was evening. The city. A walk after training. The pleasant exhaustion of a heated body and the clarity that usually followed.
He never drank enough to lose consciousness.
Never allowed himself such weakness.
The pounding grew louder still.
“I’m counting to three!”
He rose abruptly despite the dizziness that followed, ignoring it as he reached for the nearest scrap of cloth hanging over the back of a chair. The fabric was rough and unpleasant beneath his fingers, but he threw it over his shoulders anyway, covering his nakedness before walking toward the door.
When he opened it, the woman nearly collided with him, clearly preparing to break the door down — though honestly, Aemond doubted she could have managed it. She stopped short and looked him over with a quick, assessing glance that held neither fear nor respect. Only irritation and the cold practicality of business.
“Finally,” she snapped. “I thought you’d died in there.”
Aemond said nothing.
He stared at her, trying to decide what was more wrong — her tone or the situation itself.
“You rented the room for two days,” the beta continued, folding her arms across her chest. “And you’ve been lying in there for four. Four, understand? I’m not tolerating that for free.”
The words hit harder than her shouting.
“Four… days?” His voice came out lower than usual, though a flicker of confusion slipped through before he could hide it.
The woman snorted.
“What, you thought one night had passed?” she scoffed. “You were lying there like a corpse. I was already thinking I’d have to haul you out myself.”
Something in his memory did not align. And that unsettled him deeply.
Slowly he reached for the purse at his belt which, to his surprise, was still there. Without counting, he drew several gold coins and handed them to her. Her demeanor changed instantly. Irritation vanished, replaced by satisfied professionalism.
“Now that’s better,” she said, quickly pocketing the coins. “You can stay if you’re paying.”
He gave no answer.
The woman had already turned away as though he ceased to exist the moment the gold touched her hand.
Aemond exhaled quietly in relief and turned back toward the room. He reached for the rest of the clothes scattered nearby, only to freeze once he picked them up. Neither the quality nor the cut nor even the condition belonged to him. The fabric was coarse, worn thin, stained in ways impossible to explain. Confused and increasingly disturbed, he tightened his grip around the garments.
Had he been robbed?
Not merely robbed — stripped of everything and left in this place, in this state, as though he were someone else entirely. But if that was true, why had they left the purse at his waist untouched?
He straightened with a heavy breath, suppressing the pulse of a growing headache, and began dressing without wasting further time. Every movement was sharp, impatient, while inside him the certainty grew stronger that none of this made sense, that reality itself had slipped free of all familiar logic.
When he stepped into the corridor, it greeted him with the same stench, the same noise, the same filthy life endlessly flowing through the building.
And only when he finally emerged onto the street, breathing air that was fresher though still saturated with the city, did he stop dead.
What had been built after the Dance — what belonged to him, where his chambers stood, where Alys lived — was gone.
The space where it should have risen was occupied by something else entirely. Something older. Unfamiliar. As though history itself had changed and erased an entire part of his life.
Aemond stood motionless for a long while, staring at the place where the northern wing of the Red Keep should have towered, and the longer he looked, the stronger the feeling of wrongness grew inside him — something so deep and suffocating it no longer resembled confusion or the lingering effects of sleep.
That place could not simply vanish. It was impossible.
He remembered clearly watching its construction himself — the rising stone arches, the reinforced walls, the heavy beams and marble brought from across the sea so that the wing belonging to him might become its own part of the palace, separated from the rest of the Keep not only by architecture, but by atmosphere itself.
His chambers had been there. The library he slowly filled with rare chronicles and maps and where he allowed Jaehaera to sit. Alys’s rooms had been there too — dark rooms forever scented with oils and wax, their windows facing the sea where gulls cried through the night and waves crashed against the rocks below.
And now none of it existed.
He dragged a hand slowly over his face, trying to force his thoughts into order, but they refused to settle. They collided, tangled together, always circling back to the nightmare he had dreamed.
Wait.
What if he was still asleep?
Yes. That had to be it.
Aemond pinched the skin of his hand sharply, yet nothing changed. Only the sting remained against his wrist. Doubting even his own senses now, he struck himself across the face, but it proved equally useless.
Without hesitating further, the Targaryen strode toward the castle at a rapid pace, barely noticing the people around him. The crowd parted before him more out of instinct than awareness, because even in the cheap clothes he was now forced to wear, something remained in him that made it impossible to mistake him for an ordinary vagrant.
And yet he still felt their stares.
None of them carried recognition.
Or rather — none carried fear.
What in the Seven Hells was happening?
Aemond was used to being recognized instantly — by his posture, by his gaze, by the sapphire gleaming where his lost eye had once been. His name had long since become part of fear itself, and fear always leaves a mark upon human memory. Even years after the war, people still lowered their heads when he passed by.
When he approached the gates of the Red Keep, irritation had already begun to mix with the growing coldness inside him. The guards stood at their posts, spears gleaming beneath the sunlight, red-and-black cloaks shifting in the wind, and everything looked familiar — until he came closer.
One of the guards raised an arm, blocking his path.
“The palace is closed to commoners without permission,” the alpha said dryly, without even looking Aemond in the face.
For a moment, Aemond thought he had misheard him. Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the guard’s arm before lifting his eye to the man’s face.
“Move your hand,” he said quietly, though irritation had already entered his voice.
The guard frowned.
“Are you deaf? I said no entry without permission.”
The second guard smirked, his eyes sliding over Aemond’s clothes.
“Looks like someone drank too much cheap ale on Silk Street and decided he was a lord,” he laughed, and the other guard chuckled as well.
Aemond felt the familiar cold fury begin to rise within him. Not a burst of rage, but that icy irritation that always came before violence.
“Fetch Criston Cole,” he said more sharply this time. “Immediately.”
The two guards exchanged glances.
“Who?”
“Ser Criston Cole,” Aemond repeated slowly, beginning to lose patience. “Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”
They looked at him with that strange expression people wore when hearing something both ridiculous and unsettling at once.
“Wait here,” one of them finally said.
Finally, Aemond thought bitterly.
The guard disappeared behind the gates, leaving Aemond standing there as the tension in the air grew heavier. The second guard now watched him warily, no longer amused, as though trying to decide whether the man before him was insane or simply dangerous.
Several minutes later the gates opened again, and a man around Aemond’s age stepped outside — tall and broad-shouldered, with reddish hair closer to blond and dark brown eyes. Clearly an alpha, though he carried himself more like a beta. His armor bore the sigil of the royal guard, yet his face was entirely unfamiliar.
He stopped before Aemond, studying him carefully.
“You’re the one demanding Ser Criston?” he asked.
“Yes,” Aemond answered shortly. “Where is he?”
The man remained silent for several seconds, glancing back toward the guards, and when they nodded, he let out a faint laugh. Not cruel or mocking, but filled with strange disbelief.
“You’re either mad or making a very poor joke.”
Aemond felt something inside him tighten slowly.
“I asked you a question.”
The red-haired man tilted his head slightly, still examining him as though trying to uncover some hidden trick.
“Ser Criston Cole hasn’t been in this palace for more than twenty years.”
Aemond stared at him motionlessly, unable at first to let the words take shape in his mind.
Twenty years?
“Where is he?” Aemond’s voice dropped lower.
“You can try looking for him in the afterlife.”
Aemond felt as though the ground beneath his feet had lost all stability.
Criston dead?
No. No, that could not be true. He had seen him recently. Heard his voice. Aemond remembered the training yard, the clash of steel, the scrape of blades, the heavy gaze of the man who had stood beside him his entire life.
“Listen, I’m sorry, but men like you don’t belong—”
Aemond was no longer listening. The red-haired man kept speaking, but all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.
Why does no one recognize me?
Why is Criston dead?
Why is the northern wing gone?
His thoughts tangled harder and harder while the sensation grew inside him that reality itself was slipping through his fingers like sand impossible to hold.
The omega inhaled sharply, forcing himself to remain outwardly calm. Panic was for the weak — at least, that was what he believed. He would not lose control, especially not now.
“I demand an audience with the queen,” he said after a brief pause.
The red-haired man crossed his arms over his chest.
“Which one?”
“With Alicent.”
Nothing changed in the man’s face.
And then Aemond added:
“Alicent Hightower.”
That was when the guard’s expression shifted. Not dramatically, but enough for Aemond to notice the crack in his composure. Irritation flickered through the brown eyes alongside confusion, as though the name itself had stirred something unpleasant.
The man exhaled heavily.
“Remove him from here,” the alpha said in a different tone now.
“I demand—”
“You demand nothing,” the man cut him off sharply. “And if you don’t want to spend the rest of the day in the dungeons, I suggest you leave immediately.”
“Do you even understand who you’re speaking to?”
“To someone who is either drunk or completely insane.”
The guards moved toward him, and Aemond instantly felt fury ignite inside him. They were trying to throw him out of his own home like some deranged beggar.
His hand jerked forward almost instinctively, as though his body had already reached for the sword that was no longer there.
How far he had fallen. He no longer even possessed a sword to preserve his honor and pride.
And if he allowed his anger to take over now, he would receive no answers at all.
Slowly, he straightened, his gaze cold as he looked at the guards surrounding him.
“Do not touch me,” he said quietly, yet something in his tone made the nearest men hesitate involuntarily.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Aemond himself turned away from the gates, walking off while feeling the guards following behind him, escorting him as though he truly were some dangerous vagabond who needed to be driven away from the palace.
He did not look back, but he heard the guards muttering about bastards and how Aemond was clearly deranged.
You’re the deranged ones. To hell with all of you.
The feeling inside him only grew stronger — the certainty that the world he had known was gone.
And the most terrifying part was that he was beginning to understand something else.
It was not only the world that had disappeared.
To everyone around him, it seemed that he himself had vanished as well.