#aemond: blurring the lines for everything forever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ivypos-writes · 1 month

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put your lips (where i’m rotten)

— aemond targaryen [2/?]

[SERIES MASTERLIST] | [GENERAL MASTERLIST]

summary: There are times when Aemond thinks he hates her, if only for the crime of reminding him about the chains of servitude shackled to his throat. Other times, he convinces himself that he feels nothing towards her at all. She is a stranger. A no one. A face without a soul. She is but another prisoner within these walls; a spoil of war, only one he never wished for.

He cannot condemn her for existing.

(He does. He does.)

Or, in which war puts them together, bound by duty and united in wrath.

warnings: 18+, aemond x unnamed!betrothed, angst, implied/referenced abuse, arranged marriage, falling in love, tension, morally grey characters, doomed from the start, dual pov, they’re both miserable and broken, eventual smut

word count: 8.5k

notes: this is my first time writing aemond’s pov—i’d love to hear your thoughts! thank you so much for reading<3

(also available on ao3.)

The walls of the Red Keep close around him like bloodthirsty jaws.

Aemond paces their length with the same rigidity he has donned since Driftmark—this much remains unchanged, even when everything else around him shifts and turns and blurs into something darker. He has come to recognise harshness as the one thing that shields him from curious gazes, as though the sharp lines of his silhouette served the purpose of intimidating any onlookers. As though the leather patch on his face couldn’t achieve the same on its own. As though the scar marring his face wasn’t enough. At all times, he is stiff and cutting. None dares meet his eye.

There is a foreign restlessness in his bones that he cannot rid himself from. Tremors of hollow anticipation run their course down his spine, each more forceful and rattling than the other, rendering him powerless against their brunt. He is suspended in vicious claws of idleness, trapped in a state of procrastination that has never truly suited him. Never before was he allowed to fall into a suspension quite like this, forever preferring action to its lack. He is waiting—for what, though, Aemond does not know. Assurance? Solace? Both are laughable motions, and not ones that will ever come. Not from his mother, who seems to have grown a cutting coldness inside her chest, no longer willing to spare him crumbs of her affection. Certainly not from his brother. The king. The fool.

It began with a storm.

Aemond knows the rot inside him. Vhagar might have disobeyed him, but she was only ever fuelled by the ugly, festering rage of his heart. It may as well have been his own teeth that had sunk into flesh; that tore it apart in one gnawing of jaws. Aemond One-Eye became Aemond the Kinslayer in a moment of insanity and hungry wrath, high above ground and clouds and the eyes of the gods. He returned from Storm’s End a changed man—a man forced to own his crimes, if only to spare himself from spouting meaningless justifications for an act that cannot be defended. It is better to be seen as a wretched sinner than a fool who lost control. He clings to this newfound depravity with blood-stained hands. It must suit him. Not even his mother seems to question its existence.

This is what he has been made for. This is what granted him a feast thrown in his name. Aemond adapts to the environment with violence carved into his stone-cold heart. Blow after blow, he welcomes grief. It is thorned and cuts through his flesh, and remains forever shielded from others’ eyes. He will not admit to it. Doing so would defeat the purpose of painting himself a villain.

(Does a villain stop being a villain when their sins have been accidental? Or do the crimes committed through mistakes only ever occur because there was never any innocence to begin with? Was he born like this—with rage in place of bones, and a festering emptiness where his heart should be? Aemond does not know. He never will. It changes nothing.)

Only his brother is capable of glee at the prospect of Aemond’s sin. His grandsire’s gaze becomes disapproving; his mother tears away the last of warmth, turning her back on him. Everyone knows what he has done. They watch him with revulsion. Scorn. It is nothing he has not known before, and Aemond endures the stares with a practiced indifference. He is not truly there. Their eyes fall upon him, and all the while Aemond pictures himself amongst the skies. When he closes his eye, he sees distant lands that hold no meaning nor value. They are not kingdoms. There is no crown.

Only the crown exists. It is there to haunt him each day, placed upon Aegon’s head. It adds to his brother’s vanity; fuels his depravity that he is no longer obligated to hide. He stains it with his corrupt touch, and Aemond stands by and watches.

A second son. It is his fate. It always has been.

In the aftermath of self-proclaimed victory, he has been reduced to a bargaining chip. Aemond never fooled himself into thinking that chains of marriage would never be shackled to his hands, but he always believed that he’d be offered the right to choose. He supposes that it makes little difference in the long run—whoever his wife is, she is sure to fear him. How could she not? Why would she not? Aegon may be a fool, but even he knows much the same. This is his new way of tormenting him. Take a wife, the king orders, and have her shrink away from you in fear. Have her repulsion. It is all you deserve.

And remember—always remember—that Aegon is the only one who welcomed him home with open arms.

The one who deserves loyalty in return.

The one Aemond ought to bow before.

Ever the good soldier, Aemond swallows his own fire and obeys.

Fear means nothing, either way. What matters is the girl’s name, and her father’s soldiers, and the support of another prominent house it grants them. This will be a long war—war of both swords and fire, ashes left in its wake. Dragons will not win it alone. Aemond breathes in and breathes out, and pretends that being chained to this foreign girl doesn’t make any difference. It is his duty. He will sell himself for armies, and it will not matter.

Except that it does. She is there now, living within the same walls and making them shrink, and he cannot forget her name nor her eyes. She is made of contradictions. Her spine straightens out in pride; eyes lower in a display of humility. She is frightened. Indifferent. She looked at him as though she saw only the blood on his hands. As though by one glance alone, she saw right through his rotten heart.

He knows deep-rooted anger when he sees it. It is there, flickering inside her eyes. It was the first thing he saw. What haunts him now, even if it’s been days since their gazes last met.

Sometimes, Aemond awakens amidst night and chokes on the hatred that spreads from his heart to his throat. He hates with all his being. He cannot help it. No longer does he recall the boy he once was—the one cowering before his brother’s vicious gaze, the one who was no dragon and whose blood was just blood and not fire. It is for the best. That boy was weak and soft-hearted. That boy only ever lost, and never, never gained. Her eyes are a mirror image of it—of wrath, ugly and barbed and poisonous. Aemond dared look into their depths only once, but the memory is intense enough to burn to this moment. In more ways than one, the fire in them reflects his own. He is curious to know what it’s borne from. He shouldn’t. He cannot stop.

The signs of past torment are written all over her being. She may not think it, but Aemond catches them each time they walk past one another. It is the constant tremble of her fingers that she ineptly tries to hide. It is the way her eyes flicker towards each and every sound. It is the insistence with which she clings to shadows, half-shrouded by their darkness as though in hope that she’ll become invisible. She is not. Aemond sees her everywhere he goes, though he desperately wishes he didn’t. She is like a ghost that haunts the walls of the keep, appearing only in brief, dissolving into nothing when one attempts to chase it. He never tries. More often than not, Aemond aims to eradicate her from his mind, if only to save himself from another onslaught of torment.

Has he doomed her, or are they both equally doomed? He remembers her hollow cheeks and pale skin, and decides that it must be the former.

It is still early when he finds her. He does so unintentionally, half-prepared to flee before she notices him. She sits with her feet tucked under the skirts of her dress, and there is contemplation written over her face. She holds a book in her hands, so obviously engrossed in its contents that Aemond doubts she can see him at all.

It is what keeps him still—the prospect of seeing her without being seen in return. It’s a stolen moment, and he allows himself to exploit it against better judgement. His eye traces her cheek, and the slightest pouting of her lips, and the way that stray wisps of hair fall onto her forehead, braid long come undone. He is surprised to find that she is quite gentle-looking when she isn’t frowning. Unaware of his presence, she allows herself to be just a girl—not a sword eager to cut through his being; not a shield ready to keep him away. There is a softness about her that wasn’t there before.

He averts his gaze. He has no right to see her like this. And though he should not care, it oddly reminds him of the eyepatch covering his scarred eye. Aemond never lets anyone look underneath it anymore. The wound is private—it is his.

And the softness is hers. Only hers.

Aemond rarely hesitates. It is what puts him apart from the rest of his family; what more often than not fuels his rotten ego. He is quick and effective. Unwavering. Determination flows through his veins the way debauchery flows through Aegon’s; it grows with time, flaring up and boiling. Sometimes, it is driven by duty; sometimes, it is borne from the everlasting urge to be better. He is the son who bites his tongue and holds onto his restraint, and yet does not fear dirtying his own hands in the name of preservation. Aemond offers his sword and flesh ready to bleed, and in return he gets nothing.

He hesitates now, and immediately pays the price for it.

Stupid. Stupid.

He should have left long ago.

In a sudden movement, she closes the book and stands from the window sill. The skirt of her dress sways and brushes the stone floors. She looks around. Their gazes meet.

There are times when Aemond thinks he hates her, if only for the crime of reminding him about the chains of servitude shackled to his throat. Other times, he convinces himself that he feels nothing towards her at all. She is a stranger. A no one. A face without a soul. She is but another prisoner within these walls; a spoil of war, only one he never wished for.

He cannot condemn her for existing.

(He does. He does.)

Aemond’s mouth moves without thinking. “You skulk about like a shadow.”

He watches her freeze. It is a curious sight; rigidity spreads out from her fingertips, higher, higher, until it reaches her face, its lines turning harsher. Her eyes remain alive, though—even from afar, Aemond sees the flames inside them. He watches her veil under composure—she does so quickly and almost effectively, though not without minor flaws. The corner of her lip trembles.

Aemond knows attempts at feigned sense of control too well, though. He sees right through it. He sees the deep-rooted fear.

“Must I announce every step I intend to take outside of my bedchamber?”

Aemond’s mouth quirks in response. For all her quietude, the girl has yet to lose the spark. He is relieved to know this. Her face is too expressive to become an empty visage carved in marble.

In truth, Aemond wishes to know nothing of her whereabouts. The Red Keep is large, but not large enough to prevent their paths from crossing. It’s a pity. He would rather forget her face and her existence; forget what her presence means. Alas, they are doomed to repeat this cycle: running into each other against their will, eyes forever refusing to meet. Clinging to stubbornness. Forgoing politeness. Sometimes, Aemond wonders which of them is worse at pretending there is no resentment blooming between them. He knows that she tries to avoid him with equal fervour. He knows what she thinks of him.

He could say it. Tell her the truth. Reveal the extent of the rot inside his heart. If he wanted to, he could spit words that sit at the tip of his tongue—voice his hatred without letting her return it. He could. She deserves it.

Aemond corrects his posture and takes a step forward. All the while, the girl’s eyes don’t stray away from him. Does she anticipate hostility? The slightest, barely noticeable way that she flinches provides an answer to his silent pondering. Of course, she expects violence. It is all she has known. Aemond sees the invisible scars she wears underneath flesh, ugly things made of trauma suffered throughout her childhood. She isn’t very good at hiding her past. It took Aemond moments to discern it.

Despite himself, Aemond stops. Swallows the spiteful words. Intimidating her serves him no purpose. Her fear is useless to him.

“My brother would have us dine together,” he tells her instead, mostly because silence borders on unbearable.

She remains impassive. “No, thank you.”

He hums quietly, letting the sound stretch between them, and tilts his head. Her eyes follow every motion of Aemond’s body. Like this, she reminds him of himself in the training yard. Does she hope to search for his weak points? It is what Aemond would have done to his opponent. There is no blade in her hand, but she has no need for it. Her gaze alone cuts through his skin. It is effective on its own.

“And if his Grace ordered it?”

There is something wild that flickers in her eyes. With a smile that isn’t really a smile but an ugly twist of her lips, she says, “Can his Grace afford to waste time on such trivial matters? Surely, if he crowned himself as king, he ought to focus on his war.”

She spits the words as though they burned her tongue, and Aemond’s eyebrow arches at the unbridled display of repulsion she seems to care little about concealing. Is this what evokes her anger? Would she rather support his half-sister’s claim?

A traitor, then. Pretty-faced and doe-eyed, and a traitor nonetheless.

Like him. The same resentment flows through Aemond’s veins, though he is entitled to it. Most times, he keeps it curbed, if only for the sake of their mother. His thoughts never falter, though. Aegon’s only talent lies in having been born first; his head is too empty and wine-addled for the crown. There are plenty better suited for its weight. Even Rhaenyra is more worthy than he is.

But the girl doesn’t know that. She is speaking for the sake of defying the law, without truly grasping the reality they’ve come to live in. If she continues with this nonsense—if she nurtures traitorous rhetoric instead of smothering it, she’ll only get in trouble. The Red Keep is full of curious eyes and ears. Most of its residents live to serve their masters through capable spying. It won’t take long before she says the wrong thing to the wrong person—before word spreads and she is led to the gallows.

He should not care. The girl means nothing to him. If she chooses to cling to senseless defiance, it is not Aemond’s concern.

And yet.

Aemond takes a bold step forward and decides to test her. “It was his right to be crowned. Or do you deny it?”

She is quick to answer, eyes a little wider, “I never said that.”

“Your tone speaks for itself.”

He expects her to lower her gaze in obedience. To apologise. To twist it into something else, claiming innocence. Instead, she squares her shoulders and narrows her eyes.

She looks a little more alive than before.

“I have little care about who sits the throne, so long as they do not plunge the realm into a war that cannot be won. The issues of House Targaryen are its own.” She hums, and Aemond recognises the sound as one of his own. It clings to his skin; elicits goosebumps. With a bold step forward, she crosses the distance between them. She smells of flowers that he doesn’t know the name of. “Only they aren’t. Bannermen march to battle in the name of two rulers, though none knows their names nor cares for their fate.”

He studies her face. It is closer now—close enough that Aemond can trace all its details and lines. All softness is gone. He wonders if it was ever there in the first place.

She looks as though she’s testing him, too. As though she’s waiting for something. Aemond traces her eyes for answers and finds only anticipation. She seems to be awaiting eruption.

Perhaps she wishes to know how far she can push before he gets angry. Before he burns down everything around. He is a kinslayer, is he not? She must expect the worst of him.

Punishment. She is checking whether or not he will punish her. It would be his right to do so.

Just to defy her, Aemond will not give her his anger. It will remain shielded. His and his alone.

Veil of composure remains fixed on his face. It matches the one she tried to put on before. His is impeccable.

“Such is the way of war,” he says tonelessly.

“What a stupid way,” she retorts with an ugly grimace. “It only makes sense, I suppose, since it has been paved by men.”

“And you think yourself wiser than history and tradition?”

“Do you wish to know what I think, my prince?”

A step forward. Another one.

Aemond hardly remembers the last time anyone dared come this close.

Flowers. Flowers and warmth. A day underneath the scorching sun. She smells of life. He holds his breath and steadies himself, and tries not to let her scent embed in his memory.

Because he cannot let her win, Aemond doesn’t take a step back.

“Just like you have no care for their names and their fate,” the girl continues, the warmth of her breath hitting the skin of his neck, “know that there will be none to truly cheer nor mourn you, be it in victory or defeat.”

With a quick movement backwards, she is gone. So is her warmth. So is everything else. The fog in his brain that had him standing there, unmoved and tongue-tied. Whatever invisible chains she must have shackled to him to keep him from leaving.

It is true. She may possess an inclination for dramatics, but she is not a liar. Aemond doubts his own family would have found it in their hearts to mourn him. He was born with decay—it began long before him, somewhere in his mother’s heart; somewhere atop his father’s flesh. They don’t know how to love him. They are unwilling to learn. He is undeserving of praise and grief and everything. It took the girl before him just one glance to know this much.

Aemond’s hand wraps around her arm before she can walk past him, though it is not his mind that makes him move. He acts upon instinct. Or maybe madness. It is not a strong grip. If she wanted to, she could free herself from him in a moment. She is colder to touch than he expected; the fabrics of her gown are scratchy underneath his fingertips.

There it is: a tremor. Flinching. She tries to pull back, and there is something dark painting itself across her face that has Aemond pausing. He takes in her wide eyes. They stare at him with fiery wrath, though there is something else, too. No matter how she tries, she is incapable of keeping a stiff upper lip. The alarmed glint inside her gaze betrays her.

He doesn’t need her fear. He doesn’t.

His hand falls from her skin so rapidly that it almost seems as if she burnt him. Aemond pretends he doesn’t see the way hers is quick to come up and rub the spot he touched, fingers lingering against it.

Aemond is unsure if he was harsh enough to leave imprints.

Just for a second, he prays that he was not.

“You’d do well to curb this boldness,” he says, a hoarseness he cannot explain colouring his voice.

Her eyes are a storm. Aemond knows storms. Storms never bode well, whether they come from high up in the skies or this foreign girl’s gaze.

(Is this where violence comes? Is this where one of them bleeds? Aemond doesn’t fool himself into thinking it won’t happen. Wrath is the only thing that prevails. It may as well come early and end any suffering yet to come.)

There is a shakiness in her voice that she attempts to shield with harshness. “Have I displeased you?”

“Any prize loses its value when it doesn’t know how to hold its tongue.”

She chases his gaze when he tries to avert it, as though trying to haunt him with the raging tempest of her eyes. She is too close. Too explosive. Aemond’s skin itches from the proximity.

He wants her to hurt. To buckle underneath the cruel reality. To know that she will never again be anything more than a prize he never wanted. A spoil of war. Unloved. Untouched. He wants her to look at him and know that this is her fate. Fire. Wrath. A tormenting sort of emptiness.

Sooner than later, she will become just like him. If there is any trace of hope she still possesses, it will be gone before a moon has passed. One day, Aemond will look into her eyes and find there a mirror image of himself. A being without light. Just another shadow.

His words don’t seem to unsettle her. She tilts her head without a care for the fire in his eye, and he watches the corner of her mouth lift in a bitter smile. “Perhaps you ought to get rid of me and pray that the next one knows her place.”

Finally, she walks past him. Her arm brushes against his, and though it lasts no more than a second, Aemond knows that the touch will scorch him for days to come.

Such is his fate. He burns. He never stops.

“Since the King himself orders me to join you for dinner, I will be glad to accept,” she calls out from behind. “I’d so hate to lose my head.”

Aegon officially announces their betrothal during the feast, red in the face, wine dripping down his chin. His shoulders shake from the force of his laughter; he laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and his eyes never stray from Aemond’s face.

Aemond counts the stones within the walls. Then the stones beneath his feet. He counts the cups of wine that Aegon downs with increasing speed. He counts until he forgets all about rage. Aemond’s restraint has gone warped, a jagged line that cuts through flesh, yet he clings to it all the same, bleeding on the inside but stubbornly persisting. He cannot let go. If he does, he fears there will be no return.

(It was storming when he last let himself go.)

Their mother is absent. So is Helaena. Otto entertained this farce only for a quarter hour, leaving at the first opportunity to do so. There’s only Aegon, sprawled on the large chair much like he was on the throne earlier this day, feet planted atop the table in a display of impertinence. Jaehaerys sits by his side, clutching his favourite toy, paying no attention to anything else. He is too young to recognise the taunting of his father’s voice; the tension in the air, thick-layered and thorned. Too young to see the rot. Aemond envies the boy this blissful unawareness. If he could, he’d switch places with him in a heartbeat.

And then there’s the girl. Pale. Stone-faced. For the first time since before their departure from her home, she is donning red, and Aemond is quick to decide that it doesn’t suit her. She sits there, seemingly shrinking into herself, and looks small enough to go unnoticed. Her lips are pressed into a thin line—thinner than any blade and no doubt sharper than it. He knows her ability to spout cutting words. It may falter and grow subdued under pressure, but it is there all the same.

Briefly, Aemond wishes she would not hold them back now. Would she curse them? Spit out insults? If she allowed rage to blind her, would it manifest itself in scorching viciousness spilling from her mouth? She is capable of it, he thinks. Of malice. He swallows his own because he must, but oh, wouldn’t it be nice to see someone let theirs ignite instead of being smothered?

There will be none to truly cheer nor mourn you.

Her voice still echoes through Aemond’s head. Her touch still has his skin feeling raw.

Erupt, he urges her, eye bearing into her face with a ferocious sort of intensity. For the first time that night, their gazes meet. To Aemond’s disappointment, hers remains dulled.

Then again, she is just a girl. Any display of her wrath that would go unpunished is little more than a pipe dream. She may cling to the false sense of defiance that they share, but it will never be enough to eradicate the duty tied around them.

We are both equally chained.

Let her keep silent. It wouldn’t do to have Aegon remove her tongue.

Aegon’s gathering of useless lickspittles stands by the entryway, keeping up the pretence of guarding their king. Aemond smells the wine even from afar. The cunts wouldn’t do shit should danger present itself. He doubts they’d manage to draw their swords without fumbling with the sheaths.

He supposes that a king this useless warrants a kingsguard of equal measure. It wouldn’t do for his cronies to outsmart him.

“Let us hope your cunt is worthy of a prince, my lady,” Aegon simpers. “My brother’s tastes are unique. It will be no easy fit to satisfy him, though I have faith in your assets.”

His guards guffaw at the remark, their gazes landing on the girl. Aemond tightens his hold on the empty cup beside him. He could unsheathe his dagger. It feels heavier than ever before, a tingling sensation spreading from where it’s attached to his hip. It calls out for him. Urges him to draw blood. With a straight spine and unblinking eye, Aemond looks at her face instead. If there is a trace of resentment—if she seems to be pleading with him to act in retaliation, Aemond doesn’t know whether or not he’d be able not to.

She says nothing in response. She has yet to speak at all, having held her tongue since she entered the chamber. Like this, she seems to be carved in stone: she is so still that Aemond wonders if she’s forgotten to breathe. Her features betray nothing.

“Should your marriage bed remain cold, though,” his brother adds, leaning forward, elbows pushing away the platters around him, “please know that mine own is not so far away.”

Aemond’s fingers go white from the pressure.

There are no words that come to sit on his tongue. He cannot look at Aegon without imagining him swallowed by flames. It is not the first time he feels such ugly resentment towards his own blood, and it is certainly far from the last. Aemond doesn’t yet know what to do with it. How to stop himself from acting on it. How to smother it instead.

(It is just like it was with Luke. The bitter taste sitting on his tongue is just the same. If he lets himself lose control again, it will end in bloodshed. It always does. It always does.)

Aemond forces himself to swallow down the hostility—to once more begin counting everything within sight—to breathe—

But then her lips part. Their eyes meet. It is the briefest of moments—so brief that he almost thinks he imagined it. She is as quick as always, averting her gaze before it can become meaningful. But it is too late—Aemond already saw the fire. A fire like his. It burns and burns, and Aemond welcomes the flames with a heavy exhale.

She shifts in her seat. Like this, they are closer together. The warmth of her body merges with his own.

His heartbeat slows. Gradually, it becomes steady again.

Somehow, silently as though in sin, it feels like a short-lived moment of affinity.

Like two flames recognising one another.

Like a beginning.

His mother has no wish to see him in council meetings. Her faith in him is long gone. Aemond takes his seat regardless of the weight of her disapproving gaze, keeping his face artfully blank.

War is a fragile thing. They toe the line between passive and active participation, swayed by varying opinions and opposing viewpoints. His grandsire seems to think the weight of it remains entirely upon his own shoulders, as though he alone was wise enough to dictate its course. Aegon succumbs to rashness. It is only a matter of time before he gets rid of Otto; Aemond recognises the wild glint inside his brother’s eyes even from afar. He will send him away. Ravens and written demands will not satisfy him for much longer.

Aemond remains with his feet planted firmly in the spot where passiveness and action clash. He once allowed wrath to blind him, overtaken by the urge to take revenge that no one before him had dared to, and it resulted in fire and blood. He let himself be rash. Their current situation is the aftermath of his own impulsiveness. Aemond likes to think he knows better now—that he is rid of the previous lack of control. But inactivity and letters will not grant them victory, either. To admit that is not equal to succumbing to violence.

It is yet another of his brother’s many faults. He is swayed by their grandsire, and their mother, and the self-important imbeciles sitting his council and spouting wisdom about the ways of war. And Aemond knows the truth of it. He knows it the way he has since he first mounted the largest dragon. Aegon slouches in his seat and looks from one face to another, and waits for someone to win the fight for him because it is what he does best: be useless.

Inadequate.

But he was born first.

Later, on his way to patrol the skies above King’s Landing, Aemond enters the Throne Room. It was not his intention to come here. The hundreds of swords called to him, some inaudible chanting acting as summons.

Sometimes, when he lay suspended in a place between lucidity and dreams, Aemond sees himself on the throne. The scar marring his face blurs away, erased by the crown placed atop his head. He sits there as king, and no longer do they see a crippled boy, but a man. They bow before him. Whispers are gone. Who would dare mock the ruler? Who would see the protector of the realm as incapable?

They wouldn’t remember the missing eye. They wouldn’t dare to.

But Aegon was born first.

Aemond no longer believes that there is an end to his infinite bitterness. He will forever be forced to bear the image of his unworthy brother, and the whispers that fuel antagonism will never really fade.

A loyal hound.

Aegon trusts him. He has faith in Aemond’s ability to keep them all safe. Vhagar is their biggest asset, and it was Aemond who struck first—it was him who begot the war. He made a choice and would now have to live with it. He forced their hand. He did, he did, he did.

And shouldn’t they know better now? Aemond is the one who lost his eye, and yet his brother’s blindness surpasses his own. There are truths that he has yet to recognise. Ones that Aemond’s heart is gradually growing accustomed to.

Trust is a weakness.

Hounds know how to bite.

Aemond’s days go by in accordance with an established order. He mounts Vhagar and ascends to the skies along with the rising sun, patrolling the horizon above King’s Landing until his hands ache from their grip on the saddle. When morning turns to afternoon, he returns to the Red Keep and loses himself in the training yard. He grips his sword with a vice strength; swings it blindly, hoping that it’ll cut through flesh and bone, regardless of who his opponent is. Hours pass and the sun gives way to the moon, and once he’s sweating and bleeding and panting from exertion, Aemond returns to his bedchamber and imagines that he doesn’t exist at all.

Cole puts up a good fight. His blows are vicious. He knows where to hit to make it hurt; knows every weak point ready to be exploited. It was him who taught Aemond how to properly hold a sword; how to wield anger without losing composure. There are times when Aemond wonders which of the two of them is cursed with a stronger rage. When they enter the training grounds, more often than not Cole seems to forget who he’s fighting with. As though he looked at Aemond but saw someone else. An enemy. His own demons.

Here, they are both different people. Honourable men. Here, vicious anger is justified. They push and shove and draw blood, and it is not seen as a sign of insanity-driven violence. This is what men do: they hold swords and point them at each other on training grounds, and it doesn’t make them murderers.

Aemond is quicker. He always has been. In a swift movement, he swings one foot behind Cole’s, forcing him to lose balance and stumble. Aemond uses the hilt of his sword to block the counterattack, dodging to the side before the blade hits him. Three steps left. One forward. He consistently breaks any rhythm and pattern there may be, keeping his footwork unforeseen.

In some ways, this particular freedom reminds him of flying.

There is peacefulness that sinks into his bones. Aemond clings to it with feverish force. For the first time in days, he lets himself forget about the past. There is just him and his sword. There is just brutish strength and gasps of exhaustion, and the eagerness to prevail—

“Your betrothed is here,” Cole announces, glancing over at the balcony stretched above the courtyard, a change to the cadence of his voice. It’s a little less raspy. A little more teasing.

Aemond tenses.

Just like that, all sense of peace is gone.

Cole uses the sudden loss of focus to strike, the tip of his sword nicking Aemond’s neck. The wound stings; Aemond’s eye flickers to his opponent but remains glazed over.

She is there. Just standing. Looking at nothing in particular, as though lost deep in thoughts. As always, she’s alone. As always, she doesn’t spare him a glance. Aemond tries and fails to keep his gaze steady on Cole’s face; the dull greys of her gown distract him, even if the lack of colour should do anything but.

“Come now, Aemond,” Cole breathes with amusement. “It would do you more good to impress the lady.”

But it wouldn’t. She is cursed with him anyway. It is best to let her see his real face—the face carved by violence and wrath, kissed by a scar that dictates his life. When she sees him like this—sweat-slicked, holding a sword—does she see a murderer? She must. It is who he is.

He drops his weapon and moves towards the entryway, ignoring the tingling at the nape of his neck.

He wants her never to look at him again. He wants her gone.

Later, he lies on soft linens, skin caressed by softer yet hands. Low chatter and the sound of skin against skin rings in his ear; Aemond tunes it out and imagines the surroundings blending into some other place. His bones are heavy. It feels as though he’s been carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. Just for a little while, he needed to get away. To flee from reality. To disappear.

It might have been shameful to think of this establishment once—even more so to step inside. It reeks of sin and gluttony, and it poisons the hearts of those who choose to enter. Everything it represents is a contradiction to what Aemond once thought was his core. Years before, he was forced to come here—and for years after, he endured dreams about it, cruel and haunting and terrifying. Dreams about foreign hands on his body, pulling and squeezing and burning. Nightmares. Images he could never erase.

And now he’s back, and the same hands that once haunted him are touching him, and he holds his breath for so long that his lungs seem to collapse. Aemond forces himself to be still. To yield. To endure. The madam brushes his hair away from his face. Aemond tries and fails to stop himself from flinching.

This touch is warm. Kind. It is tender and familiar in ways no other touch could ever be. It burns and it hurts, and oh, doesn’t he deserve this pain? Doesn’t he deserve it? Pain is what makes him. It is what has led him to this point. It is an old friend, and a lost lover, and a splinter stuck in the centre of his heart. Here, he controls it. He inflicts it upon himself. If he wishes to, he may pull away and never return; he may cut her hands off for daring to touch him. He may burn this hole into the ground.

He is in control. Just this once. Only ever here.

She whispers sweet nothings into his ear, and her hands are soft and kind, and he is warmer than he has been in a long time.

If he pretends intently enough, he barely remembers that it hurts.

Second sons can only live a life within shadows.

It is his fate to own nothing, and to cling to the nothingness that comes with the shroud of darkness. He was born with only his name, and to this day it serves as both a blessing and a curse. Aemond Targaryen, son to one king, brother to another, his own head free from the weight of the crown. Had he never been maimed, Aemond doubts they would have remembered his name at all. Sometimes, he thinks he has become a shadow himself. There was a poisonous seed planted inside him, and what bloomed from it is smouldering wrath.

He has come to appreciate the darkness.

It’s well past the hour of the owl when he walks the familiar path to his bedchamber, the scent of fire and smoke clinging to his robes. Each day, the patrols become a little longer. He is unwilling to leave the skies—unwilling to face the real world. There is nothing good that waits for him on steady ground, anyway. Every crumble of happiness he could ever attempt to chase remains high above clouds.

He finds her trodding down the corridor, an impatient shakiness to her steps.

Aemond leaves nothing to fate. Fate hasn’t extended kindness towards him. He has a servant keeping an eye on the girl, informing him about her habits with varying frequency. It’s the reason why he knows of the girl’s taste for late-night reading. It’s why he should have expected it.

Aemond halts, mouth twisted in displeasure. He makes to turn around and walk away before she notices him, but—

No.

Is it not his right to look her in the eye? To demand that she look at him, scarred and ruined and angry? She is the latest source of his wrath. She is the reminder of duty. Aemond will not flee at the mere sight of her. Her repulsion does not mean anything to him. It is all he has ever known.

He still remembers the way she shifted closer.

He is cursed with the memory.

When she reaches an entrance and slips inside, Aemond can do nothing but follow.

“You seem to favour the library.”

She tenses. The sight is a familiar one. She is always tense when there are eyes upon her. Although Aemond’s lip twists, he clears his throat and forces himself to look away.

“I came for a book,” she announces in a flat tone, not sparing him a glance.

He shrugs. “Don’t let me distract you.”

And she doesn’t. It is almost as if he weren’t there at all. The girl marches off towards the farthest corner of the library, hand coming up to brush away the dust covering the spines of the books. Most tomes have been left to wither away with age; they are fragile, pages ready to crumble. Aemond’s eye traces the movement of her fingers—even from afar, he sees how gentle she is about it. She knows not to apply too much pressure. Her fingertips caress the binds in a featherlike manner.

Although he knows that he should leave her be, something prevents him from moving. He entered the library despite himself, and now remains standing there like a fool. There is no one but the two of them. None else would think to read books at such hour.

He should leave.

He should.

He doesn’t.

Something between them has changed. Aemond constantly goes back to the brief moment of understanding that they shared; the way her gaze reflected his own rage. Try as he might, he cannot fool himself into thinking it does not mean anything. Those seconds linger in the back of his mind, coming forth whenever he is not too busy to think of anything at all. They haunt him. He has yet to decide whether the shivers they induce are ones of anticipation or dread.

Before he can change his mind, Aemond grabs a random volume and takes a seat by one of the wooden tables.

When he was younger, he’d sit at the same chair with Helaena by his side. She would hold one of her bugs, and together they’d search for books on various insects, trying to figure out what species it was. His sister was a different person, then. A little lighter. She would offer him a smile and sometimes laugh with abandon, and she’d never flinch away from him.

And Aemond was not yet a kinslayer.

And now that he became tainted, Helaena, too, has abandoned him.

The sound of the girl’s footsteps force him to open the book he picked up. He pays no mind to the scribbles inside, too focused on listening. Three steps. A pause. A moment of hesitation. He can almost see the grimace that must be now gracing her features.

Aemond holds back a laugh when she sits as far away from him as possible while at the exact same table. She drops her own book atop the surface, applying enough force to indicate vexation. She does not want him here. Not this close. Not when they’re alone.

And although he knows better, Aemond remains seated there. Just to vex her further. Just to spark a fire.

“Dragonkin?” he muses.

She closes the book she has just opened, a thud echoing through the room, and raises one eyebrow in challenge. Her face is barely discernible in the subdued lighting, but Aemond is able to make out its lines. The gentle curve of her nose. Lips forever twisted in displeasure.

She is lonely like him, but the way she wields the solitude of her heart is different. There is bitterness in her, yes—bitterness that he, too, possesses. But where his own is forever aimed towards himself, hers busts out from her chest and scorches everyone nearby.

It scorches him now. Somehow, the flames seem almost pleasant.

“I’ve been sold to a dragon prince.” Her jaw is clenched; even without seeing them from up close, he knows that her eyes are burning. “Isn’t it wiser to know your enemy’s customs?”

He smiles despite himself. It is easier to do so without illumination piercing his skin. “What customs do you expect from me?”

“Something savage,” she says without missing a beat. “Befitting a beast.”

Aemond knows what she thinks of him. She expressed her feelings in every conversation they have ever shared. He knows the word that sits at the tip of her tongue despite never being spoken aloud. Kinslayer. Kinslayer.

But there was a fire. Not just hers, and not just his, but theirs. He did not imagine it. His mind could not have conjured such an image on its own.

It is that fire that keeps him seated there, even though he’d rather leave without once looking back. The memory of it prevents him from walking away. Confusion blooms inside him.

He is possessed by some mad urges. Unexplainable emotions. He is acting like a fool—

“Enemies?” he prompts.

“Do you dislike the word?”

“It implies care for each other’s existence. I’m rather indifferent about you.”

Indifferent. Infuriated. More often than not, Aemond himself is unsure of the extent to which his emotions are affected by her existence. She is always in the back of his mind; always closer than he wishes she would be. She is a constant. He cannot be rid of her.

“And yet here you are.” She puts her elbows on the table, pushing herself closer to him. The table is suddenly not large enough. The distance between them shrinks into something much more agonising. “And here I am.”

And so is the fire. It is there, it is right there—

Something inside him flares. Aemond lets his hand tighten into a fist underneath the table.

Without looking at her, he murmurs, “Do not mistake it for a want of companionship.”

She lets out a breathy laugh. “I know better than that. Just like I know you seem intent on following me.”

“You shouldn’t wander around at night.”

“Shouldn’t?” she cuts in, a low hiss reverberating through the empty walls. “Or cannot? Do you forbid it, my prince?”

“Would you listen to me if I did?”

She offers a shrug. He wonders what expression graces her face. “Only one way to find out.”

He doesn’t think that she would. She has thus far painted herself as an image of sheer force. She clings to defiance and meets his gaze without hesitation, and more often than not, Aemond believes that she is seconds from snapping at him. She doesn’t truly fear him—not the way everyone else does. It is odd. Entirely unfamiliar. Almost… curious.

But he hasn’t yet given her a reason to be afraid.

He will, eventually.

He always does.

“Back home, I was forbidden from doing many things.”

The confession spills from her lips so suddenly that Aemond hangs onto the echo of the words until it fades. He half-expected her to throw her book at him and leave, and yet here she is… talking to him?

Aemond keeps every inch of himself still. He breathes in and breathes out. He waits.

“My father never allowed many books to be held in our house. They were a distraction from other duties.”

He raises an eyebrow. Though he asks no questions, Aemond hopes that she’ll continue speaking to him. Her voice is melodic. Soft. She seems to have abandoned the biting tone, no longer intent to evoke anger or have him walk away. Like this, the fire they shared becomes warranted. They sit together and they talk, and isn’t that what people do?

Almost as though they weren’t doomed.

Almost as though they weren’t cursed.

“He would catch me reading and then burn the book. Always, always before I finished.”

“Your father isn’t here,” Aemond replies. His own voice surprises him. “And you are welcome to read as many books as you please.”

The hint of sarcasm is back. Aemond imagines that she narrows her eyes at him. “You’d let a war prize spoil your precious books?”

Aemond’s cheek twitches in annoyance. He doesn’t need to entertain this taunting. He doesn’t even need to be there—to listen—to pretend that this is anything more than duty—

“Do whatever you want. It makes no difference.”

He pushes himself upwards, finger tapping against the wooden table before he folds his hands behind his back. Despite knowing that it’s ridiculous, Aemond chooses the longer path towards the door, only because he has no wish to walk past the girl.

“Why?” she demands. Just like he expected her to.

Aemond lets himself ponder the question. Why? Why does nothing ever make a difference? Why would they sit at the same table despite the festering hatred between them? Why would she proclaim them enemies when they are anything but? He is all she has in the Red Keep. She is all he owns.

There isn’t much that he can tell her. Aemond settles on a half-truth. “Duty will be there whether you waste your time on being miserable about it or not. It won’t go away just because you’re content.”

Duty is all that remains. Realm will soon turn to ashes and still, echoes of past promises and agreements and birthrights will haunt them.

Duty is the chain that connects them.

Today—just this once, and only within the solitude of the library—Aemond admits to himself that the chain is lighter than he thought.

“Do you ever forget about yours?”

My lady, he wishes to say, I am never, never content.

Kinslayer. A loyal hound. His head is forever filled with echoes of past sins, and those sins continue to shape him. Each day, he is sharper. More jagged. Touching him would make someone bleed.

“I do not.”

He takes one step. Another. There is an odd rush in his veins; Aemond flexes his fingers to rid himself from the tingling sensation, determined to make haste. The corner is right there—

“Thank you,” she calls after him, so softly that he barely makes out the words.

They are odd. Foreign. Aemond lets himself still for just a moment. To bask in the warmth the novelty has brought about. When he turns around, the girl is already engrossed in her book, but the library remains bathed in an unfamiliar sort of light.

She said the words as if it were the easiest thing in the world. She said them to him. To the dragon prince who barged into her house to claim her. To the stranger. The kinslayer. The forever unworthy.

No one ever has before.

Aemond resumes walking, forgetting where he was headed in the first place, and just for a little while—just until he must shield himself from strange eyes—he lets himself be bewildered.

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