Please tell me you have good Martin fics to recommend🫠🫠
hes not appreciated enough😭
i need himmmm
Oh boy, I am still craving for more Martin fics too. I also can’t believe how underrated this promising character is because he is just so special. I really feel you on this one.
Once the chaos of real life has died down, I am so eager to be back here to lurk around for Martin stories. In the meantime, I am going to re-read (for the nth time) @silverdragonfly ‘s Martin oneshot that will always have a hold over my heart and soul and which I believe you have read already 🤭
The Enduring Bloom l Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader
Genre: Enemies to lovers, historical drama, romance, reincarnation AU
Summary: When House Thorne bends the knee to the Black Queen, you are left as a prize of war in the Red Keep. Amidst the tension of a kingdom at war, Prince Aemond Targaryen makes a vow that not even the fires of the God’s Eye can truly extinguish.
Note: My Masterlist
I've already watched the HOTD3 trailer for several times, but I just got some free time to write a little fanfiction for Aemond. I’m dying to write more once the new season is out!
--
The war between the Greens and the Blacks splits the realm into two bleeding halves. King’s Landing is a nest of whispers and sharp steel.
My family, House Thorne, holds the keys to the southern passes. We are a house of ancient blood and vital supply lines. Because of our position, I am kept at court as a guest, though everyone knows I am a hostage to ensure my father's loyalty to King Aegon.
Aemond and I did not start with love. We started with silence in the Great Library. He is a man of books and blades. I am a woman who prefers the quiet corners of the Red Keep. We met over a shared manuscript.
Slowly, the shared silence turned into shared secrets. He found in me a person who did not fear his temper or his dragon. I found in him a soul that is tired of being the second son. We became lovers in the dark, hidden away from the prying eyes of his mother and the Council.
Then the news comes. My father has officially bent the knee to Rhaenyra Targaryen. House Thorne is now a traitor house. I am no longer a guest. I am the daughter of an enemy.
The air at King’s Landing is thick with the scent of dragonfire and impending rain. Aemond stands before me. His armor is cold and unforgiving against my palms. He does not wear his eyepatch. He never wears it when we are alone. The sapphire in his socket catches the dim light of the torches. His hand is steady as it cups my jaw.
I look at him. My heart beats against my ribs like a trapped bird. I think of the guards outside and the executioner’s block.
"You should kill me," I say. My voice shakes. "I am a traitor now. My blood is the blood of the Blacks."
Aemond does not pull away. Instead, he steps closer. He corners me against the cold stone wall of the solar. His shadow looms over me.
"I would end my own life before I ever touched you like that," he says. His voice is a low growl. "Your father’s choices are not yours. You are mine. Only mine."
He leans his forehead against mine. I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. The dragon prince is made of fire, even when his words are like ice. He looks at me with his one good eye. It is full of a pain he never shows the world.
"The God’s Eye beckons," he whispers.
The words feel like a death sentence. We both know Prince Daemon is waiting for him there. This is the battle that will decide everything. Aemond does not ask for my loyalty. He does not ask me to renounce my father. He does not offer an apology for the war he is about to fight.
Instead, he leans down. He presses a single, desperate kiss to my lips. It is a collision of teeth and salt. It is the first time he has truly claimed me in the light of day. It is rough and hungry.
He pulls back just an inch. His breath is ragged.
"I wish we were commoners," he says. "I wish we were nobodies in a village far from here. I would spend my days looking at you instead of staring at maps."
He moves toward the balcony where Vhagar is waiting. The great dragon roars in the distance. The sound shakes the very foundations of the castle. Aemond looks back at me. His silver hair whips in the rising wind.
"You will know my love is there," he promises. "It remains forever, even after the breath leaves my body."
I know I cannot change his mind. He is a prince of the realm and he has a duty to his blood. I reach for him one last time. I kiss him back with everything I have. The love between us is loud enough to drown out the sound of the drums. I watch him mount the dragon and disappear into the dark, rainy sky.
--
The war ends with the scent of ash and the screaming of dragons. The Blacks sit upon the throne. Rhaenyra is Queen, and the world moves on as if the princes of the Green council never existed. I live among the winners, but I feel like a ghost.
My family is restored to favor, yet I am hollow. I refuse every suitor who comes to my father’s hall. I never marry. My heart is at the bottom of the God’s Eye lake, pinned under the scales of a great dragon.
I carry a tattered letter in my bodice for years. It is the last thing he ever gave me. The ink is faded from my thumb rubbing over the words. Following the directions in his messy script, I travel far from King’s Landing. I leave the politics and the heavy stone walls behind.
By the shore stands a small cottage. It is humble and made of dark wood. It is glowing in the golden light of the twilight. What stops my breath is the garden. It is an impossible sea of white carnations. Thousands of them sway in the breeze. The white petals look like fallen snow against the green grass.
An old man is there. He is the groundskeeper, bent over the soil. He looks up as I approach the gate. He does not ask for my name. He does not ask why I am here. He simply smiles with a kind of knowing look.
"The Prince bought this years ago," he says softly. "He told me his dearest would come one day. He said that it was hers."
I walk into the garden. My feet feel heavy. I remember a night in the Red Keep when the walls felt like they were closing in on us.
I was angry and tired of the crown's weight. I had snapped at him during a quiet argument. I told him I would rather live in a small cottage by a lake than live in a golden castle with a prince. I did not mean it to be cruel. I remember he had looked at me with his one eye and said nothing.
I see now that he took every word I spoke as a command. He built the world I asked for, even if he knew he would never get to live in it with me.
In the center of the carnations stands a small stone plinth. It is a symbolic tomb. I know Aemond is not here. His body is lost to the deep water and the rusted armor of his kin. But this place is more real than any grave in the capital. Resting on the stone is a piece of parchment and his leather eyepatch.
I pick up the note first. My fingers tremble.
"Forgive me," the note reads. "My love will endure as long as these petals bloom. In this life, and the next."
I reach for the leather eyepatch. It is worn and smells of old salt and dragon saddle. It is the piece of him he kept for the world, but he left it here for me. I press the leather to my lips. I close my eyes and try to remember the heat of his skin.
I sit by the stone, and I cry. I do not sob loudly. I cry silently, letting the tears fall onto the flowers. The only sound in the world is the soft lapping of the lake against the shore.
He gave me exactly what I wanted. He gave me a home, but he left me alone within it. I stay there until the stars come out, surrounded by the flowers that promise he is still waiting for me somewhere.
--
In the present day
I work as a florist in a city that never stops moving. My shop is usually a riot of color. I handle red roses for passion and yellow tulips for joy. But I am always drawn to the simplicity of white carnations. I keep them in the front window. They feel like a promise that does not need to shout.
For my vacation, I chose to visit the ruins of Harrenhal. The site is now a massive tourist attraction. It is a place of melted stone and dark legends. I walk through the museum section with a crowd. We look at rusted armor and old coins found in the mud.
I stop in front of a glass case. It tells the story of the Lady of the Lake. She was a woman from a fallen house called House Thorne. The plaque says she lived alone in a cottage by the water for decades. She never took a husband. She spent all her days tending to a garden of white carnations.
I read more and learn how the prince gave her a house, but he never lived to make her home. I feel a strange and sharp ache in my chest. It feels like a ghost is pulling at my ribs. I feel a sudden flash of anger. It is an old anger that feels like it belongs to me. I think of the man who left her there. I think of the prince who died in the lake and left his heart in a garden he never visited.
I turn away from the display quickly. I need fresh air to clear my head. I head toward the high battlements to catch the breeze. The wind is strong up here. It smells of rain and ancient dust. I look out over the dark water of the lake.
I find a quiet corner of the stone wall. I am alone for a moment. I look at the gray sky and I find myself whispering to the wind. I am complaining to a man who has been dead for centuries.
"How could you do that?" I whisper. My voice is thick with emotion. "You told her your love would endure. But you left her to wake up in an empty bed every single day. You gave her a roof, but you left her with nothing but silence. You left your dearest all alone."
"She was never alone."
I jump at the sound of the voice. I turn around quickly.
A man is standing a few paces away. He is leaning against the stone wall. He has dark blonde hair that the wind tosses across his forehead. His piercing blue eyes make my skin prickle. He wears a charcoal suit that fits him perfectly. He looks like a man who owns the world, but his expression is soft.
He looks at me with an intensity that makes me forget to breathe. He does not look at me like a stranger. He looks at me like a man who has been searching for a specific face in a crowded room for a very long time.
"I am sorry," I say. I rub my arms to stay warm. "I was just thinking out loud. The history here is very sad."
"It is not just history to some," he says. His voice is deep and rhythmic. He steps closer to me. He does not look at the view. He only looks at me. "You think he was cruel to leave her behind?"
"He was," I say. I feel defensive of the woman in the museum. "He went to a battle he knew he could not win. He left her in a cottage to wait for a ghost. That is a lonely way to live."
The man shakes his head slowly. A small and private smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"He didn't want to leave her," he says. His voice drops to a low murmur. "Every moment he spent away from her was a torment. He built that house because it was the only piece of safety he could give her in a world that was burning. He wanted her to have a place where the war could not find her."
He looks out at the lake for a split second before his gaze snaps back to mine.
"He didn't leave her alone because he wanted to," he continues. "He left her so she could have a life. But he spent every second of his end wishing he could crawl back to that garden. He died with her name as his last thought. To him, she was the only thing that was real."
"How do you know?" I ask.
"I just know.." he said calmly.
I feel my eyes well up with tears. I do not know this man. I do not know why he is talking like this. But his words feel like an answer to a question I have been asking for a thousand years.
"It wasn't enough," I whisper. "A house is just stone and wood without the person you love."
The man steps even closer. He is within arm's reach now. I can feel the heat radiating from him. It is a familiar heat. It feels like fire and ancient hearths.
"I know," he says. The blue in his eyes seems to deepen. "It was a mistake. He should have stayed. He should have let the world burn and stayed by the lake. He has regretted it every day since."
Then a younger man in a uniform hurries up to us. He looks nervous.
"Director Targaryen," the assistant says. "The board is waiting for you in the solar. They are ready to discuss the new floral preservation project."
The man in the suit waves him off. It is a sharp and dismissive flick of his wrist. It is a gesture of pure authority. He does not even look at the assistant.
"Not now," he says.
The assistant bows his head and backs away. The man turns back to me. He ignores the ringing of his phone in his pocket.
"I am the director of this estate," he says. "I spend a lot of time thinking about the people who lived here. Especially the Lady. I have always felt like I owed her an apology for how her story ended."
He looks at me and the air between us feels like it is vibrating.
"Since you have traveled so far," he says. "I could show you the VIP section. It is a private garden by the lake. It is not open to the public yet. I think you would like it."
I do not know why I nod. I usually do not follow men I have just met. But the pull in my chest is too strong to fight. It feels like a rope is tied around my heart and he is pulling the other end.
We walk down a private stone path. The sound of the tourists disappears. As we reach the edge of the water, the scent hits me. It is the overwhelming and sweet spice of thousands of white carnations.
He stops at a gate and holds it open for me. We stand in a field of white petals that glow in the twilight. He looks at me and his blue eyes search my face. He looks like he is finally finding peace.
I walk through the rows of flowers, my fingers brushing against the soft petals. The man in the charcoal suit walks beside me. His presence is heavy and constant.
I look at the gray water of the lake and then back at him. I feel a sudden urge to push him.
"Do you believe in another life?" My voice is soft. "Do you think the prince will eventually find his lady and get the chance to make it up to her?"
He stops walking. He turns to face me, his blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that makes my heart skip. He does not hesitate.
"If it's real, the love will root in his soul in every single life. He will find her," he says. His voice is a low, rhythmic vibration. "He will spend every second of the next life ensuring she never has to wake up in a quiet house again. If it were me, I would give her everything I have. I would burn the world down just to keep her warm, but this time, I would stay by her side to watch it glow."
I feel a shiver crawl down my spine. He speaks with a conviction that feels older than the stones of the castle. I realize then that I have been following him for an hour and I do not even know who he is.
"I realized I never asked your name," I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
"Aemond," he says. Then he gives me a small, knowing smile. "Aemond Targaryen. It is a family name, of course. My mother had a fondness for the old histories. I always thought it was a strange coincidence, especially given my job here."
He looks around at the sprawling estate and the stone walls that loom over the lake.
"I had been looking for a place near the water to reside," he continues. "When this property was shown to me, I felt a pull I could not explain. It felt like you owed someone a home that was actually full of life."
He gestures toward the cottage in the distance. It is the same one from the history books, though it has been beautifully preserved. He lets out a short, dry laugh.
"The history books call it a small cottage," he jokes. "But the prince’s idea of a cottage is quite different from that of normal people. It is still a massive house by any modern standard. I was often asked to open it up for tourists to take a look, but I like to keep it private. It feels like they belong to someone specific."
We walk closer to the plinth where the symbolic tomb stands. The white carnations are everywhere around us.
"The tales say the lady spent all her days here," Aemond says. He looks down at the flowers. "They say she lived among the carnations as if she could feel him loving her through the soil. She stayed faithful to a man who was already gone."
He steps closer to me. The space between us vanishes. I can feel the heat of him, a fire that feels like it has been burning for centuries. He reaches out, his hand hovering just inches from my cheek.
"If it were you," he asks, his voice dropping to a whisper. "If you were that lady, would you forgive him? Could you love him again after all that silence?"
I look into his blue eyes. I see the director of a modern estate, but I also see a shadow of something much deeper. I see the discipline and the pride, but I also see a desperate need for a second chance. I think of the white carnations in my shop and the ache I have felt in my chest since I was a child.
"I think," I say, my voice trembling. "That she already has."
Aemond smiles. It is the smile of a man who has finally found his way home through the dark. He reaches out and his fingers finally brush against my skin.
We stand there among the flowers, two people who should be strangers but feel like the only two souls in existence.
I hope the lady and her prince finally find their way back to one another.
This was so bittersweet but healing. I can’t help but indulge in headcanons now that Aemond and his lady have been given a second chance. This couple tugs at my heartstrings in the best way.
Tags • sibling incest, reader is 18+, canon divergence, canon typical misogyny, mutual yearning, romantic tension, love confession (sort of)
Wordcount • 4,260
No longer able to bear the way Aemond dismisses you and treats you as fragile, you take the opportunity to disguise yourself as a dragonseed to claim a dragon and prove yourself to him.
Aemond Masterlist
Morning was still thick and heavy over the horizon, but the Red Keep was no longer asleep. Such were the ways of war, and men were early to rise to pour over maps and correspondence, sending their orders to troops on the battlefield and their propositions to reluctant allies. In a way, you admired their steadfastness and determination, and envied the way they were serving the cause, fighting for the realm.
Despite knowing of the horrors of war, and probably should have been relieved to be left out of such proceedings, you wandered around the castle day after day, feeling forgotten and without any use while you longed to defend your family. Not only were you a princess, but you were one without a dragon, and therefore served no purpose other than to be called on and used in a political match.
Being sent away to wed some unknown lord and give birth to his heirs simply for his banners and armies was the most distasteful fate you could imagine, and thinking on it, you far preferred it your tormented wandering.
As such you haunted the castle’s corridors alone, your mother too preoccupied with her daughter who was drowning in grief and her eldest sons—one who laid in bed in agony while the other wore the crown in his stead.
In the last few days, you had caught scraps of conversations and had learned that tension was mounting in the Riverlands, with Daemon having taken over Harrenhal, and the Reach being divided over the lack of declaration from House Tyrell.
The Council contemplated sending an offer of marriage to entice them to declare for Aegon, but such a prospect filled you with terror and disgust, and you were desperate to find another way to prove your use to your own family. However, since the war had started, Aemond had kept you away from all matters relating to the crisis of succession, dismissing you at every turn.
The two of you had grown up close, being the two youngest siblings, and you often felt as though Aemond thought it his role to protect and shield you from harm—were it Aegon’s cruel ways or your mother’s expectations. Both of you shared the same considerations and interests, and you had always prided yourself in having his confidence and his trust, just as he had yours.
However as your father passed away and the realm plunged into darkness, it became obvious to you that Aemond still considered you a child, and certainly not an equal. He did not include you in debates or conversations, encouraging whoever was in his company not to burden you with grim matters and he made sure to keep you from any bloody news.
One morning as the prospect of being shipped away like a brood mare grew closer, you decided to impose your presence at Council, hoping to be considered as more than a womb to be bargained with, and to convince Aemond.
“Princess,” Lord Jasper greeted as you entered the chambers. “What do we owe the pleasure?”
“I have heard that Seasmoke now has a new rider,” you said, immediately turning to Aemond, who was walking the length of the room as he was prone to do while troubled.
Arms crossed at his back, Aemond stopped his pacing. “How do you know?” he asked—so far, all he had himself heard were rumors coming from fishermen along the coast.
“I have my ways, and I’m not completely incompetent,” you replied, perhaps too harshly, then turned to the men seated around the table. “Do we know who has claimed him?”
“We can only guess it was the lady Rhaena,” Larys Strong replied.
“She has tried once before and nearly lost her life,” you remarked. “Surely there is another—”
“Never you mind,” Aemond interrupted, stepping closer to you. “Do not trouble yourself with it, sister, everything is under control. Have no fear.”
“As you say,” you replied, then sighed. “Have we news of Daeron?”
“Yes,” Aemond nodded, but when no additional details came, you understood his answer was very much a dismissal. None of the men at the table came to your rescue with a more complete answer, and therefore you had no choice but to leave, swallowing humiliated tears.
Aemond had not expected your presence at Council on that morning, and it had rattled him somehow. For days now Lord Jasper had been relentlessly presenting the idea of offering you in marriage to House Tyrell, and despite the fact that it was politically sound, it made Aemond’s blood boil.
All the more since he was now regent, Aemond considered it one of his utmost important roles in life to protect you. This world was harsh and ugly, he knew it all too well, and he would rather see you upset over being dismissed than see you suffer the horrifying realities of warfare. He had seen what tragedy had done to your sister Helaena’s mind, and how it had warped his mother’s judgement, and as long as he could help it, you would not suffer the same fate.
The farther away from these matters, the safer you would be, he told himself. As long as you remained hidden from enemy eyes, as far from a threat as possible, no one would come after you.
Still, it wounded him to keep you at arms’ length. He was not a sentimental man, and while he cared for his family as any man did, it did not compare to the love he had for you. It was perhaps his only true weakness, and it ran deeper than was comfortable. It made rage and passion alike burst and boil in his blood, clouded his reasoning despite his better judgement, and threatened to unhinge him more than he already was.
The crestfallen look on your face haunted the rest of that morning’s Council meeting, and well into the rest of Aemond’s day, until it became unbearable. Once evening had fallen over the castle, he sought you out, wondering what sort of apology would soothe you. He knocked and entered, surprised to see that you were still in your day clothes.
“Has something happened?” you asked as soon as he had crossed the threshold, eager as always to know what was happening beyond those walls, to a realm that was tearing your family apart.
“There is nothing to trouble you with,” Aemond placated, pressing a kiss to your brow, hoping the gesture would serve better than words of apology, but it was foolish of him to harbor such hope. The sour taste of disappointment spread in his mouth when you pulled away from his embrace.
“Surely you must realize the way you treated me in front of the Council today,” you accused, and even though he had come with the intention of reconciling, frustration rose in him. Instead he grew cold again, an attitude he seemed to turn to quite often these days, and that he knew you despised.
“Might I remind you that you have no seat at Council,” he said, ruthless in both his words and his tone, which was neither right nor helpful.
“Is it because I am a woman?” you inquired, standing your ground for the first time he weeks, and in other circumstances, Aemond would have admired it. “Or is it because I do not have a dragon?”
“I simply wish to spare you, sister, you should be grateful,” he insisted—he wished he could make you understand without causing you more harm, but perhaps making you hate him was the easier path to what he was hoping to achieve.
“Oh, I should be grateful for being undermined and dismissed at every turn?” you scoffed.
“It is my duty to keep you safe,” Aemond tried, clinging to the rhetoric that kept you and him apart, that was supposed to ensure your safety, but instead was ripping you away from him.
“Do not hide behind the facade of duty,” you replied, nearly spitting the word out. “It has nothing to do with duty.”
“What does it have to do with, then?” Aemond shouted.
“Trust,” you said, the word cutting through the air sharply, rendering him silent. “Or the lack of it. Confidence in my abilities. I do not have a dragon therefore I am of no use to you, and you do not trust that my intellect could be of any use to you in Council.”
“Those are councils of war, sister,” he tried to explain once more, but you would not hear him.
Instead you grew cold as well, and quieter. “And women do not belong in war, do they?” you whispered, crossing your arms over your chest.
“Were you a boy, it would change nothing,” Aemond said, but he knew your conversation had reached an end, no matter how unsatisfying it was.
“Leave me, please, I would like to change for the night now,” you said. Aemond curled his fists so as not to reach out for you and complied.
It was only when he had left the rooms that you released the breath you had been holding—anger, despair and sadness were coiled in your chest, making your breastbone heavy. Barely a minute after he had gone, your maid came into the room, holding a linen shift over her arm—she looked preoccupied.
She started to undo the laces of your gown, but suddenly stopped.
“Princess, I thought you ought to know,” she started, hesitating. “There is a rumor spreading in King’s Landing. The kitchen maids were discussing it.”
“What rumor?” you asked, looking at her over your shoulder.
“That Rhaenyra is calling for… Targaryen bastards,” she whispered, undoing your gown fully. You let it drop to the floor and turned to face her.
“Whatever for?”
“As you are aware, there are unclaimed dragons on Dragonstone,” the young woman said pointedly, and the words made your breath catch in your chest. “She is looking for riders.”
Your heart started beating wildly, and an unstoppable idea came to your mind. The decision was made before you could fully comprehend what you were about to do. “I will need plain clothes,” you told your maid.
Making your way through the city and onto the boat without being recognized was easier than you had anticipated—after all, most of the other women and men answering the same call also had white hair, and no one looked at you suspiciously. You had borrowed one of your maid’s dresses along with a long cloak that kept you hidden.
Keeping to yourself, you easily made the journey, knowing the hardest part awaited you at Dragonstone. If you were recognized, you would be taken prisoner, but it was nothing compared to what you would face in the island’s caves.
All knew that claiming an adult dragon was a show of courage and determination, one for which you would now risk your life for. Despite the terror that coursed through your veins, you decided that it was worth it—you would rather perish in the attempt to claim a dragon than to be traded for an alliance or to watch idly as your family tore itself apart.
Hiding behind one of the men who was tall and broad enough, your face obscured by your cloak, you listened as Rhaenyra spoke to the assembly gathered in Dragonstone’s library.
In truth, you were still amazed at the sheer number of people present, and wondered how many among them were true offsprings of House Targaryen. You wondered how many had been fathered by your own father, and the prospect of you sharing close blood with these strangers was uncomfortable—while girls and women in your family were closely guarded, it seemed the men were free to start hidden bloodlines, fruitful enough to topple an entire dynasty.
Rhaenyra warned against the danger of facing a dragon, but it somehow did not weaken your resolve. “If you survive, you will be transformed. No man or woman can face a dragon and be otherwise,” she said, and it was exactly what you had come for. You were determined to shed the person you were, and become anew, or you would die trying.
“The dragon named Vermithor is the largest in the world after Vhagar, and perhaps, the most fierce. He’s called the Bronze Fury. We’ll go to him now,” she concluded, and the mention of this name made your heart beat wildly—Aemond and you had often spoken of him, as he was believed to have been born from one of Vhagar’s eggs. You thought of Aemond’s pride if you were to bring back this dragon to King’s Landing.
“May the gods bless you,” Rhaenyra said, unaware of the fact that a potential instrument of her own demise was among the people she was blessing.
As you made your way down to the caves, you thought that if anyone was worthy in among this brood, and unto whom the Gods should bestow their blessing, it was you, surely—you were a true daughter of the Targaryens, after all, the only legitimate child here.
However the Gods tempered your arrogance quickly, in the form of furious bursts of fire. Vermithor was a force to be reckoned with, and would not let himself be claimed so easily. Lost to the crowd of people in a panic, you regretted your foolish courage, which had been replaced by primal terror.
Crying out as many were, you cowered in the dark, falling down stairs carved in stone, and ignoring the pain in your ankle, fled as far as you could from the beast. Down and down you went, crawling over rocks and stumbling down tunnels, heart in your throat, with only one instinct left in your body—survival.
Soon you were alone and that prospect frightened you even more. You wondered where the others had gone, either having died to the beast’s fire, or having found a way to flee to safety, back to the fortress while you were left to flounder in the bowels of the volcano.
Falling once more down a tunnel you had not seen, you yelped in pain and fear alike, until you realized it led to a cave. It was rather large and plunged in shadows, except for a hole in one of its walls which carried white light from the outside. Tears of relief clouded your vision and you ran towards it, desperate for a way out.
However your escape was cut short when suddenly, one of the walls moved, and you realized it was no rock at all. It was a dragon.
The great beast unfurled and rose from its sleep, shaking itself before approaching—your breath caught in your chest and before you could even think a final prayer, you were being pushed into the ground by its pointed snout. At that moment, you thought of Aemond. You regretted not leaving a letter to explain your actions, and you wondered if he would ever know of your fate, if he would seek revenge on your behalf.
But before regret could come to you, surprise and curiosity did—instead of furious fire as you would have expected, the dragon instead purred and snorted before laying back, its snout to the ground.
“Oh,” you whispered, your voice broken from your crying—Aemond and you had often read the journals of past Dragonkeepers, and knew of a docile, gentle dragon.
It was Silverwing.
On trembling legs you rose and came to her, running your hand along her snout, then her neck, and she only purred, the sound reverberating under your hand. In that moment, you thought the Gods had blessed you indeed.
Back in King’s Landing, Aemond had not seen you since the night before and it worried him. He had been refused at your door by your maid that morning, the young woman claiming that you were indisposed and unable to receive visitors. Remembering your words and the expression on your face, he thought it best to allow you the space you seemed to require, but the conclusion of your conversation sat uneasy with him.
All throughout the Council session of that afternoon he pondered over how to make you understand that besides being regent, he was now the head of the family, and thus your safety now befell on him. His endeavor to keep you away was driven by his duty to you, and by his love for you. He knew he would never forgive himself if you were to come to harm.
As was usual now, he paced the room, walking around the table in a loose circle that kept his courtiers attentive and on edge. It was better to have them fear for an outburst, to keep them eager to resolve the matters at hand rather than have them grow complacent and useless.
However what came next out of Lord Jasper’s mouth stopped his pacing, and displeased him greatly. “I have taken the liberty to draft a letter to deliver to House Tyrell,” the man said, and Aemond wanted to strike him where he sat.
“No,” he replied before any more could be said about it.
“My prince?”
Turning to face the man pointedly, he leaned over the chair facing him, which still sat empty since Cole’s departure. “My sister will not be offered to the Tyrells,” he said slowly, enunciating each syllable so that there could be no mistake as to what he meant.
“It is a sound match, your grace,” Larys Strong said, and Aemond had half a mind to slam his head into the tabletop.
Curling his hand into a fist, he chose each of his words carefully, and his pointed tone left no room for any sort of misunderstanding. “She is not yours to do as you please, but mine, and I have decided that she shall remain here,” he announced to the Council.
Larys Strong looked down. “Very well, we will think of another offer.”
“Ser Ormund has sent word. Tessarion has finally taken to wing, but the dragon is young, and untrained, and we—” Lord Jasper explained, only be interrupted once more.
“Dragon!” came a cry from the rampart, and all men stilled, listening for more calls, or for recognition. While it was rare for Vhagar to take flight over the city without her rider, it was known to happen from time to time. However, within a few seconds, another panicked cry came.
Aemond was out of his seat and onto the balcony in an instant, pushing its doors open until he could see over the city, and he was stunned by what he saw—a silver dragon was circling the city, roaring and chirping as it went.
Without hesitation, he rushed downstairs to the courtyard, jumping on the first horse that he could find. Overhead, the ramparts were alive with soldiers getting into position, maneuvering the scorpions to follow the dragon’s course.
As Aemond crossed the Street of Looms and made his way to the Dragon Gate, the bells were ringing all across the city, and panic was spreading, even though no fire had come yet.
Making his way to the field where Vhagar was dwelling, Aemond wondered if their reports had been false, and Rhaena had not claimed Seasmoke, but tamed another one. There was only one other silver dragon except Dreamfyre, and she had not been seen in years, instead nesting in the bowels of the Dragonstone volcano.
However his questions soon got their answer, which was not one Aemond could have ever guessed. As he left his horse on the hill, Vhagar was already rising in curiosity, stretching out her neck and roaring at the beast now circling over them.
Before he could reach the rope ladder, Silverwing had landed, chirping in what sounded like a playful manner, and in her saddle, a feminine figure dismounted. “Brother!” the rider called, and the voice stopped him in his tracks.
Aemond watched, one hand on the pommel of his sword and the other extended towards Vhagar, who was making a deep growl of recognition, the closest to a purr she was capable of. The figure approached in confident footsteps, and suddenly his eye made sense of what he was seeing—dressed in servant clothes and covered in ash, you were giving him a small, victorious smile, your chin held high.
“Sister,” he greeted in confusion. “What have you done?”
Glancing over your shoulder, and then back at him, you gave him an arrogant look. “I did what was necessary to ensure our survival,” you replied proudly. “I went to Dragonstone and claimed a dragon of my own.”
Aemond was momentarily stunned by the scale of the achievement, before his might caught up to his heart. “How could you put yourself in danger in such a way!” he admonished.
“I was tired of you dismissing me, and treating me as a child!” you shouted, raising your voice for the first time while addressing him. “Well I am not a child anymore, now I am a dragonrider, such as you.”
Pride suited you, he found, despite the ash on your face and the obvious ordeal you had been through.
“I can fight, and I will not ask for your permission to defend my family,” you said, your tone sounding determined and final, and Aemond knew then not to contradict you.
Standing there with Silverwing at your back, he was struck by how much you had changed in the span of a day, and it had nothing to do with your appearance—there was a glimmer in your eyes he had never seen before, one that exhilarated him.
It was not in his character to admit to his shortcomings, and yet one was currently looming over him, with a pointed snout and silver scales that gleamed into the sunlight.
“It seems I underestimated you, sister,” he admitted.
“So it seems,” you confirmed. “Now let us announce to the Council, that I am to join this war after all.”
Once the city had been assured that they were not under attack, and once the outrage at Rhaenyra’s summoning bastards to turn into dragonlords had slightly abated, you had retired to your chambers to bathe and dress in proper, clean clothes.
Pride and utter elation were still coursing through your veins, and you felt as though you had been changed into another person entirely—Rhaenyra had been right in her words of warning. It seemed the Gods had favored your boldness, and perhaps rewarded your patience after years of feeling on the fringe, not overtly excluded, but still aware of your difference.
Now you would no longer hesitate, no longer lower your eyes or cower—you would listen to your instincts and your desires, you would take what was rightfully yours, and obey orders from no one.
The evening was still early when a knock to your chambers interrupted you. Still dressed in a simple robe, hair damp from your bath, you called your visitor inside, unsurprised to find it was Aemond.
Standing with his arms crossed behind his back, he sighed. “We have sent word to the fishing outposts along the bay, we shall know soon enough if Vermithor has a rider,” he said solemnly.
“Surely you have not come here at this hour to tell me this,” you replied, setting your hairbrush aside.
The corner of his eye twitched, but his mouth did not move for a moment, but then he finally spoke, and his voice was quieter and softer than it usually was.
“I regret having underestimated you,” he said, lighting a flicker of hope inside of your heart. Slowly, you rose from your seat to face him, and even though claiming a dragon had not changed you physically you felt taller, more assured as you stood before him.
Months of anguish lifted from your shoulders, and you wanted to weep with relief—once more you were facing him as an equal, not a burden for him to bear and protect, but someone who could remain at his side.
“I have come to ask you…” he said softly, his eye earnest like you had not seen since the open honesty of youth had been replaced by the bitterness of manhood. “Come with me, to Harrenhal?”
Those were words you had never only dreamed of hearing, and now they were coming from his very lips.
“Together we will easily prevail against Daemon and his army,” you replied, delighting in the small smile that pulled at the corner of his lips.
Almost on instinct, he reached for you, and while you had expected him to press a kiss to your brow as he usually did in brotherly affection, he instead surprised you with a graze of his lips to your cheekbone, his breath hot and slightly uneven against your skin.
“All I ever wanted was to protect you,” he said once more, but those were not the words you heard.
What you heard instead was a confession, unspoken words that had too long laid silent between the two of you. Without a word you pushed up against him, swallowing his shallow breath with your lips, and a spark flared up inside the both of you, awakening desires that had been buried for far too long under the weight of a misplaced sense of duty.
“All I ever wanted was to be at your side,” you answered against his lips, and your words were vows that he clung to with the certainty that no matter the outcome of it all, he had already had his victory, and with that assurance in mind, he knew he could conquer any hardship and best any foe.
I have finally found my chosen canon for sweet Silverwing. That cuteness is simply meant for a female rider.
Aemond’s overprotectiveness is endearing and mostly annoying so I totally get why his sister doing what she did. I was so giddy when her efforts paid off. Before I even forget, I want to thank her maid for making it all possible 🤭
Now they can proceed to doing war crimes together 💙
We Walk The Plank On A Sinking Ship [Chapter 9: Baby, Seasons Change But People Don't]
Series summary: After Queen Helaena is murdered during Blood and Cheese, the devastated Greens scramble to arrange an advantageous match for Aegon. They settle on you, the sister of Dalton Greyjoy, to forge an alliance with the Red Kraken and his fleet. But when you arrive in King’s Landing, the Usurper is not who you imagined him to be…and to fulfill your purpose, you must give him everything.
Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, blood and violence, death, pregnancy/childbirth/babies, miscarriage/stillbirth, mentions of sexual content (18+ readers only), fan fav Beauty's fate is revealed, Aegon continues to be intellectually ungifted, a spooky new addition joins the Targjoy fam 🥰🔮
Series title is a lyric from: “Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?” by Fall Out Boy.
Chapter title is a lyric from: “The Take Over, the Breaks Over” by Fall Out Boy.
Word count: 5.8k
Dividers were made by the wonderful @thecutestgrotto 🎨
🦑 All of my writing can be found HERE! 🦑
Father is dead and has been for years, but he is here nonetheless. He is sitting in the firelight, the great stone hearth with a kraken carved into the overmantel looming, the storm outside battering the windows with rain, the thunder growling. He is surrounded by three cradles, only silhouettes in the gloom, the babies Mother buried at sea. Father is cradling your daughter in his arms, rocking her gently, smiling down at her; and when he touches her tiny wrinkled palm, she grasps his hand because here she is alive again.
You are standing in the shadows. The blaze of the fire—where wood crackles and embers glow—is too far away to warm your bones, but it is beckoning to you. “Father?”
He looks up and says: “Not yet.”
You jolt awake. A woman has her palm on your chest. If you had enough strength left to feel anything, you would be afraid of her. She is like the priests of the Drowned God you have on the Iron Islands, someone who drifts on the border between the dominions of the living and the dead. Her gown is made of swampy green lace and hangs like spiderwebs. Her hair is long and dark and tangled. Her eyes are silvery like a mirror. But she’s not looking at you, and she’s not listening to anything in this room. She’s listening to whispers in the wind, the tides of the sea, the cold burning of the stars, the soft ceaseless ticking of eternity’s clock.
“Can you heal her?” Aegon asks. He is standing at the foot of the bed and watching the witch with great mistrust. It must have been a very uncomfortable journey south, but Sunfyre is faster than Vhagar, and you don’t have much time left.
“The heart is still whole,” Alys Rivers murmurs, a voice like a gale whistling through brittle autumn leaves. Her fingertips press at your ribs, your collarbones, your sternum.
“Can you heal her?” Aegon says again, like a threat. You realize that other people are standing with him: Floris, Aemond, Alicent, Maester Orwyle. Somebody is missing. Otto Hightower, you think, remembering how Daemon stabbed the blade of your dagger through his throat.
“Yes,” Alys answers. “Seawater.” Alicent sweeps out of the room to fetch some, and Orwyle follows her. Alys sets a large glass jar on the nightstand. Aemond comes closer so he can observe. Tenderly, familiarly, he touches her shoulders and then her waist; you’ve never seen him so at ease with anyone. You wouldn’t have thought it was possible.
“Does it always have to be seawater?” he asks, as if he’s studying her magic like a foreign language or the proper footwork for wielding a sword, for spilling an adversary’s intestines into the dirt.
Alys shakes her head, still examining you, not your body but your soul. “It just has to be something sacred to them. Sometimes it is flowers or fur. Sometimes it is wheat, coins, seeds, fabric, stones, gems, earth from a certain place. Sometimes it is the bones of a person or animal they loved.” She turns to her audience. “Someone must be willing to bleed for her.”
Both Aegon and Floris immediately step forward, then glare at Aemond. He shrugs.
Alys points to Aegon. Her fingernails are long and filthy, smoke, soil, ash. “You are the one.”
Aemond unsheathes Blackfyre from where the sword had been hanging at his belt. In the sunlight streaming through the windows, the Valyrian steel blade gleams. Alys lays her palm open, flat and expectant. When Aegon—after some hesitation—offers her his bandaged left hand, she takes it and positions him so that his wrist is over the gaping mouth of the jar.
“How much does he have to bleed?” Floris says anxiously.
“Half the jar.”
Floris gasps. He’s already hurt, you think. You whisper from where you lie only half-conscious on the bed: “No.”
“Shh,” Aegon hushes you. He is pale with fear, but he doesn’t fight it. He conjures up a weak smile instead. “The hand is already mangled. Might as well make the wrist match.”
Aemond places the edge of Blackfyre’s blade against the blue shadows of veins. Aegon swallows noisily; Floris covers her mouth with both hands, like a small skittish animal cleaning its face with its paws. Then Aemond pauses and looks to Alys one last time: Are you sure this is right? Are you sure this is the only way?
“Cut deeply,” she says.
The steel bites into Aegon’s wrist and he hisses in a breath through his teeth. Dark viscous blood spurts into the jar. As Floris turns away, Alys stares fixedly through the glass, waiting for the wine-red currents to swell to the halfway point.
“Stop,” Alys says at last.
Aemond snaps a rag off the nightstand and knots it tightly around his brother’s wrist, staunching the bleeding. Now Alicent and Orwyle have returned, and the maester is carrying a bronze pitcher presumably filled with water from Blackwater Bay. He gives it to Alys.
“What’s going on?!” Alicent demands when she sees the blood in the jar, the makeshift tourniquet around Aegon’s left wrist. She rushes to him as Alys pulls a long cord of emerald seaweed out of the pitcher.
“I’m fine, Mother,” Aegon assures her, but he’s unsteady on his feet. Orwyle grabs a chair and Alicent helps Aegon into it, and he collapses there slumped and emptied, like a priest of the Drowned God who once gifted your house a prophesy.
You hear him again: I see bubbles rising from the depths. I see ships snapped in two and pulled under.
Because this world has magic in it, not just dragons but krakens too, and seers, and skinchangers, and perhaps even witches who can resurrect the dying.
Alys pours clear salt-smelling seawater into the jar until the thick maroon blood flushes crimson and rises all the way up to the rim. Then she takes the seaweed, green and ropy like a snake, and braids it into your hair. She is humming something alien and tuneless. And you can feel that it’s beginning to work: a luminance blossoming from deep in your bones, a buzzing like the bumblebees in the gardens of the Red Keep.
You ask the witch, believing in her secrets and her spells: “Can you bring back a baby?”
For the first time, Alys seems very human. She touches your feverish cheek with compassion. Her hand is freezing; her fingernails are talons. “No, love. Not if they never truly lived.”
Aegon lurches towards the bed, collapses to his knees, reaches across the mattress to take your hand. “What is dead may never die.”
“What is dead may never die,” you echo weakly.
Alys chants, a low eerie refrain, knowing that it means something to you: “What is dead may never die, what is dead may never die, what is dead may never die...”
On the nightstand, the full jar quivers. The red brew goes black like an eclipse, begins to boil, floods over the rim to drench the wood and stone below. And as your marrow glows in your bones, your vision goes dark. You are drawn elsewhere, a riptide, a whirlpool; you are dragged under the hull of the world like a keelhauled man. You are not in the ocean, you are the ocean, and in an instant that lasts eons you go everywhere: to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea where snow falls silently into frigid grey waves, to Heart’s Home in the vast shadows of the Mountains of the Moon, to Shipbreaker Bay where the piecemeal remains of little Luke Strong and his dragon Arrax rained down into the chop, to arid Starfall on the Summer Sea, to the Shield Islands of the Reach where your one-time captive Gabriel of House Grimm hails from, to the Tower of the Glimmering on Harlaw where Mother spent her spare solitary youth, to where the Lonely Light rises out of the Sunset Sea at the edge of the world and the very strangest of the Ironborn—already a strange people to begin with—claw their way into the minds of spotted whales and hunt like wolves in the darkness, in the depths.
They must know things, you think as you drift in the abyss. The Ironborn of the Lonely Light, with their secrets and their myths and their piebald birthmarks. If they can skinchange into spotted whales, perhaps they know about krakens too. Dalton should ask his first mate Rollo Pyke about them.
If Dalton is still alive.
He has to be. Wouldn’t I feel it if he wasn’t? Wouldn’t there be a void in me like a wound left by a dagger or an arrow?
A priest of the Drowned God tells Mother in the firelight: You will mourn many children, but your bloodline will be eternal. Do you understand?
No, but you’re trying to.
Only a few hours later, your eyes open again, and your fever breaks like shattered bones.
You are famished and thirsty, like you’ve been adrift on wreckage for days. Orwyle checks your pulse and your eyes. Alicent feeds you bits of cake wet with butter and blackberry jam. Floris gives you too-sweet tea, holding a cup to your lips with fingers still bandaged from where the nails were ripped out. Alys lurks in the shadowy corner of the room where the secret passageway was bricked up after Helaena and Jaehaerys were murdered, watching you thoughtfully, exchanging murmurs with Aemond. You ask if someone can bring you oysters fresh from the sea, and Aegon laughs and kisses your knuckles, tears in his eyes.
“What happened to your hand?” you say.
“An archer got me at Tumbleton.”
“He must have been very talented.”
“He still is. I didn’t get to kill him, unfortunately. And I lost my dagger.”
So did I. Daemon put it through your grandfather’s throat. “I’m glad you’re back,” you tell Aegon, combing your fingers through his silver hair when he rests his head on your belly, no longer round with a child you share but collapsed, barren, still bleeding. Outside there is a high shrill scream of a dragon. Tessarion?
“Me too.”
“I’m sorry I lost the baby.”
“I’m sorry I left you both unprotected.”
“You couldn’t have known. None of us knew.”
Abruptly, Alys turns to Floris, a snap like a fracture being set. “The dog is still alive.”
Floris startles. “What? Beauty?!”
“She is somewhere dark and dusty. She has been eating dead rats. She is hungry, she is cold.”
Floris looses a pitiful cry of dismay. “Where?!”
“I am not sure. But she is very close.”
“The tunnels beneath the Tower of the Hand,” Aemond says, and strides out of the bedchamber, Floris darting behind him like a shadow.
You say to the witch, your voice still faint and anemic: “Aemond told us that you see things.”
She tilts her head to the side. She’s not unbeautiful, but she is ghoulish. She has the gaze of a shark: vacant, cold, forever faraway. “Some things. Old things, new things. Not everything.”
“Do you know where my brother is?”
“If he is alive, you mean?” Alys replies, and you shiver; do you really want the answer? Will the truth be crueler than hope? “No, I have not seen the Red Kraken. But I have been looking for him.”
“Looking for him where?”
“In the water. In the mirrors.” She floats out of the room, her footsteps not making a sound.
“Here, you try,” Floris says. She offers you her needle and embroidery hoop. In the fabric, she is stitching a ship for you. Floris is perched on the bed; in her lap, Beauty wheezes, bulging eyes and lolling pink tongue. She is very skinny and very clingy, whining any time Floris sets her down, but she is alive.
You chuckle. “I can’t. I’m terrible at embroidery.”
“But I’m doing it, and I’m missing five fingernails!”
“Because you have a great talent, like Mother. The Drowned God gave you a gift.”
“And what is your gift? Stabbing poor defenseless octopuses?”
You smile dimly. “I’m not sure what mine is yet.” You hear Dalton saying as you sit together on the sand, the surf rising to cover your boots: You’ll know it before the end. “And you only think octopuses are defenseless because you’ve never gone to war with one.”
“And I never will!” Floris declares. “When do I get to meet your mother? She sounds lovely. And I’d like to have a real mother someday. I mean, Alicent tries, but she’s...” She smirks and gestures vaguely. You understand what she means. Sad, polite, absent. She’s been praying in the sept for her father. Otto Hightower’s body could not be found; Alicent fears he was fed to Caraxes, and can he go to the seven heavens in so many pieces? Can Maelor? Can poor little disembodied Luke Strong?
“Maybe after the war is over, Mother can sail south to King’s Landing.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We could throw a feast of ocean creatures to celebrate her arrival. Horrible uncivilized dishes none of us land dwellers will touch. Sea turtles! Dolphins! Jellyfish!”
“And she can bring a priest from the Iron Islands with her.”
Floris puts down her embroidery. Now she’s concerned about your soul again. “Oh?”
“There are things I’d want to ask him.” Has my daughter found her way to the Drowned God? Why was I not given a gift that could save her?
Suddenly, you climb out of bed and Floris is aghast. “Don’t! You’re supposed to be resting!”
“I feel fine.” And as you stand on the floor in your clean cotton shift, you pause just long enough to make sure that’s true. You are a little sluggish, but not unbalanced or in a prohibitive degree of pain. Your bleeding has slowed, and this morning the maids brought in a bronze bathtub and buckets of seawater so you could scrub all the old salt from your skin—tears, sweat, blood—and start over again. The stone beneath your bare feet is stained from the bloody potion that bubbled out of the witch’s jar. Aegon’s blood.
Floris stands, and Beauty squeals hysterically on the mattress until Floris scoops her up and tucks her under one arm. “You’re going to exhaust yourself and end up sick again!”
“I want to see the king.”
Floris sighs and rolls her dark eyes. “Well, I suppose I know there’s no stopping you. Let me help you into something decent, at least. Or were you planning to go in your octopus-murdering attire?”
You choose a velvet dress of vivid oceanic blue—the color of Aegon’s eyes—and starfish made of silver thread. Then you descend the grand staircase of Maegor’s Holdfast, Floris urging you to go slowly all the way down, and step outside for the first time since Rhaenyra and Daemon took the city. The sky is grey and cloudy, the breeze brisk; it’s still warm, but the weather is beginning to turn. Winter is coming, you think as you cross the lower bailey. Halfway up the serpentine steps, you fear you might have made a mistake and halt, gripping the stone banister.
“Ready to return to bed?” Floris asks, still lugging an ever-ogling Beauty.
“No. I’m alright.”
“Of course you are.”
“I just need a moment to catch my breath.”
“I can bring Aegon to your bedchamber, you needn’t hunt him down like a stag in the Kingswood.”
“He bled for me, I can walk to him. I want to surprise him.”
“He’ll certainly be surprised,” Floris mutters, and although she disapproves she can’t help but smile a little bit too. Your kind are incorrigible. You continue up the steps. Beauty whimpers.
In the castle courtyard, the courtiers who survived Rhaenyra’s brief, bleak occupation are gathered around a sparring match between the Fossoway knight and a youth you’ve never seen before, around fifteen and wearing the bones and coloring of a Targaryen. Noble men and women cheer for Prince Daeron. Floris claps and whistles for the Fossoway knight, startling Beauty. The knight spots her and bows with a flourish. The prince sees you and promptly sheaths his sword, then elbows his way through the crowd to get to you as quickly as he can. The courtiers—who once gawked at your clothes, weapons, face, appetite—now wear expressions of vague, perplexed pity. They know you lost a baby. They don’t know what to say about it.
An Ironborn would know what to say, you think. They would tell the truth. They would say that it’s horrible, but now she is with the Drowned God and what is dead may never die. And soon Rhaenyra and Daemon will pay for her life, their blood spilled into the sea until they are empty.
“You’re her, aren’t you?!” Daeron says excitedly. He looks a lot like Aegon, except that his hair is a bit more gold than silver, and his eyes aren’t so large or so sad. They are also dark like his mother’s. He wears a mint green tunic and flashing gold medallion, and a spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks. “The Greyjoy queen.”
“I am,” you admit, beaming. Rarely is any courtier delighted to see you.
“I’ve been waiting ages to meet you, Your Grace!” In his exuberance, he forgets to introduce himself. “I’ve read a dozen books about your people! Can I ask you some questions?”
Floris says: “We have one for you first. Where are your dreadful brothers?”
“Aemond is in the small council chamber. I’m not sure about Aegon.”
“Go on,” you tell the prince as you continue across the courtyard, displacing gravel with each footstep. Would Alys Rivers make any noise as she walked? you wonder. Or would she glide over the ground like a gull across the waves?
“Is it true that all Ironborn are born in the sea?”
“Not all of them, but many. It isn’t always practical...the mother might live too far inland, or the delivery might be complex, in which case the maester or midwife could care for her better in bed. But no matter where they are born, all babies are baptized in the ocean before they are named.”
“Baptized by a priest of the Drowned God?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve read that they are frightful.”
“They are unnerving, surely.” Like Alys. Like a Targaryen. “But they don’t cause harm unless they are denied hospitality.”
“At what age do your warriors start their training?”
“Boys are given weapons as soon as they have hands big enough to hold them. They attend their first reaving between twelve and fifteen years of age, depending on their health and their skill.”
“When did Lord Dalton Greyjoy go?”
“At twelve, of course.”
“And why were you permitted to join him in battle?”
“Some women reave. It’s just that not many have the interest or acumen. I was good enough with a bow, and none of Dalton’s brothers survived. He needed a playmate.”
“I hope the Red Kraken is still alive,” Daeron says, his dark eyes alight, walking backwards so he can watch you, study you. On his gold medallion is carved the sigil of his house, a roaring dragon with three heads. “I want to sail with him someday.”
“I hope he is too. And if you are fearsome, he’d be happy to have you.”
Prince Daeron holds open the door to the small council chamber and the three of you slip inside, unnoticed at first. In Aegon’s absence, Aemond is at the head of the long rectangular table and looking very much like a king. He is discussing the Sea Snake’s blockade of Blackwater Bay with the surviving council members: Criston Cole, Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister minus two eyes, which were taken by Rhaenyra’s torturers. She’s running out of gold and was hoping to locate the Greens’ treasury, enriched by the Lannisters and the Hightowers and the pillaged Celtigars. To Sir Tyland’s credit, he did not betray his king. He fumbles blindly for his goblet of wine until Maester Orwyle mercifully intervenes and places it firmly in his grasp.
Somebody is missing, you think again, feeling Otto’s absence like an abrupt lessening in gravity. Can we stay tethered to the world without him?
“The Velaryons have retaken Dragonstone,” Larys Strong says. “But at a very grave cost, ten of their men for every one slayed Ironborn.”
“And now they will attempt to find long-lost illegitimate Targaryens to ride the unclaimed dragons, I presume,” Criston replies.
“An unlikely prospect.” Aemond smirks with dark satisfaction. His long hair, pale and shimmering like the moonstone pommel of Dalton’s sword Nightfall, hangs over one shoulder in a thick braid. Does Alys prefer his hair that way? you wonder. Did she weave it for him with her cold clawed hands? “We hold the capital, and therefore nearly all the royal bastards in the realm. And now everyone has seen how Rhaenyra treats dragonriders. She cares only for her own bastard children.”
“I have secured the necessary funds and building materials, so reconstruction can begin on the Dragonpit,” the unseeing Tyland Lannister says.
“We have the dead dragon’s skull, don’t we? For the throne room?”
“Not yet, Your Grace. From what I’ve heard, the smallfolk are still...making use of the corpse.”
Criston is confused. “Making use of it?”
“Eating it,” Tyland clarifies. “And carrying off the bones to be fashioned into tools and furniture and things. They are proud of themselves for helping to kill and enemy.”
Aemond sighs. “It’s not good for the people to see dragons as so fallible—” He glances to the doorway and spots you, cuts off, goes still. After a moment he says: “That was very quick.”
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Maester Orwyle greets you warmly. “It is wonderful to see you so well again.”
You smile. “I was just looking for the king.”
Aemond’s lone blue eye is wide, deliberately impassive, betraying no emotion. You could skate across it like ice. “Were you?”
He’s stalling, you realize. The other members of the council fidget with their small stone spheres, avoiding your gaze, willing themselves to become invisible. Your smile dies. You exchange a glance with Floris; she seems equally puzzled. You ask Aemond: “Where is he?”
“I can fetch him, if you like.”
“Fetch him from where?”
“I’ll leave immediately.” Aemond rises from the table, his chair squealing against the floor, and swiftly departs from the small council chamber. Daeron, perhaps sensing impending doom, goes to ask Sir Criston Cole about how the remaining Baratheon forces are faring, those who escaped into the Kingswood before they could be torched by Rhaenyra’s dragons during her seizure of the capital.
“Your brothers are handling it,” Criston replies.
“Yes, I’m sure they are, but I want to help...”
You go after Aemond, and although he’s moving very quickly—intentionally quickly, aiming to escape you—you catch a glimpse of him vanishing through the towering bronze gates and into the bustling streets of the city. You and Floris are left alone on the gravel, cloaked in steel-grey sunlight and chilly wind, gulls squawking as they wheel in the air, goosebumps rising on your arms.
No, you think. He can’t be with them. He abandoned them. He sent them away after our marriage was finally consummated.
But he didn’t send them very far; only back to the Street of Silk where they belong.
Suddenly, Floris seems to surmise what you fear. She tries to distract you, her voice too cheerful. “Maybe we should go wait in the gardens.”
“I’m waiting here.”
“We could play cards or dice. Or both!”
“Floris,” you say severely, and she falls quiet, petting Beauty with her nail-less right hand. “I’m waiting here.”
Relenting, she nods. “Then I’ll wait too.”
Aemond brings him back, not like a king but a prisoner, pulled and shoved along as he staggers. His companions are with him, Reyne, Estermont, Waters, and they are cackling and wine-stained. When they notice you, they stop laughing and peer down at their boots, but it is only out of shame and not love, not loyalty. Aemond pushes Aegon towards you and he stands there swaying in his hastily donned clothes, missed buttons and yanked out threads that his dead wife once stitched into his tunic. Somehow he is the man from your wedding night all over again: drunk, weak, miserable. Aemond is not smug or indifferent; it’s not like when you first arrived in King’s Landing and he wanted you to know that Aegon was asleep instead of preparing for his imminent nuptials. It’s much worse than that. Now he looks at you with pity.
Father had salt wives, you try to remind yourself, but you can’t feel it.
I’ve always known that Aegon keeps whores, you think, but how can he touch someone else when you’re still grieving the child you shared?
As you cramp and bleed, Aegon sweats out sweet floral oils and perfumes you never wear. His mouth is red from the vermilion another woman painted on her lips. His cheeks are smudged with black kohl. You want to hit him; you want to claw him bloody. He blinks at you, slow, dazed, his silver hair hanging in his face. His eyes are slick pools of deep water. “You’re up already,” he says.
“You’re lower than I’ve ever seen you.”
You turn and leave him, and gradually everyone else does too, drifting away like kites with cut strings.
“After all that whinging he did about not wanting heirs with blood from the First Men and ordinary unsilver hair, he goes and falls madly in love with her?” Floris says, nodding to where Alys is wandering by the stone wall of the Godswood and filling a basket with scavenged feathers. The pregnant witch isn’t showing yet, but surely she will be soon. Her dark hair, always loose, always tangled, billows in the wind that smells less like the ocean and more like metal. Winter is coming.
Floris jostles a young chestnut tree and a blue jay goes flapping out of the leaves. You shoot, but your arrow finds only open air. The bird disappears towards the castle gardens. Renewed agony springs up in your belly, your shoulders, your heart. All at once, you are about to start sobbing.
“You were close!” Floris says encouragingly.
You frown, not speaking so your voice won’t break. I need to get better so I can kill Rhaenyra.
“Not that I mind,” Floris continues, meaning Aemond taking Alys Rivers as a mistress. “She can endure his endless lectures and his sticky intrusions in the night. Perhaps she even enjoys them. I just hope Father doesn’t find out and snap my neck for failing to give him a royal grandson.”
Floris is trying to keep you preoccupied so you won’t think about Aegon, but it’s not working. Like a coward, he sent a maid to summon you to his bed last night, and you didn’t go. In the morning, Floris spied him loitering in the hallway just outside your door, and you told her to get rid of him. Perhaps that makes you a coward too.
“Are you in pain?” Floris asks, reaching for you fretfully. Beauty whines and paws at her ankles in protest of being put down in the grass, even if only for a few minutes. “You don’t look well. You should rest.”
You toss your bow over your shoulder. “I’m going to the beach.”
“Shall I walk with you? And pray for the souls of the sea creatures you’ll torment?”
“No, I want to be alone.”
“Alright,” she acquiesces, and smiles sadly. Floris picks up Beauty and snuggles her as the dog wheezes and gawps with glassy, obsidian-black eyes. “I hope you feel better soon. Don’t leave me unarmed with the witch any longer than you have to.”
In your trousers and tunic and boots, you trek down to the sand, stopping more often than you’d ever admit to catch your breath and clutch your belly, where the cramps are still bad. You have to change the rag between your legs every few hours, dark clotted blood, lifeless and futile. You could be curled up in your bedchamber with hot stones easing your suffering, this is true, but then you would have nothing to do but think of Aegon’s treasonless betrayal, for what king could be denied the company of mistresses with their simpers and their silk? And you would feel so far from the Drowned God.
A ways down the beach, the gargantuan dark blotch of Vhagar looms. Aemond is stalking towards you, having just returned from a flight. He cannot go far; if he ever leaves King’s Landing, Caraxes might descend, and Sunfyre and Tessarion could not stop him. Aemond is wearing dull reptilian green like his dragon, like his witch. His hair is in a braid again. Instead of ignoring or shoving past you, he stops a few paces away and hesitates, shifting his weight from foot to foot as his boots sink in the sand, his right hand resting on Blackfyre’s hilt. You wait, bewildered.
Eventually, Aemond clears his throat and gestures awkwardly to your body, where no one lives but you. “It must have been difficult.”
“It was. It still is.”
“At least it was only a girl.”
This would be cruel coming from anyone else, but you can tell he is genuinely trying to express his sympathy. “Thank you, Aemond,” you say, and then turn away so he won’t see the tears burning in your eyes.
Aemond inclines his head slightly, a phantom of a bow, and then continues towards the Red Keep. You flee for the nearest jetty, stabbing out into Blackwater Bay like a blade into a belly, and traverse the precarious, ever-shifting rocks. You walk to the very end and then sit and watch the water, grey overcast sunlight glittering on gentle waves, the salt-lashed wind furious in your hair. If you could see all the way to Driftmark and Dragonstone, you’d be able to glimpse the Sea Snake’s blockade of Velaryon ships, sovereign over the bay now that the Ironborn are gone.
Dalton, please come back. Please be alive. I don’t want you to feast in the Drowned God’s halls yet. I need you to stay here with me. I need you to tell me why I shouldn’t be so sad.
In your mind, you know that the Drowned God does not condemn lust. You know that Father had salt wives, and Mother has the castle mason who warms her bed, and that neither of these truths poisoned their devotion to each other. You know that Dalton has many women, but has always loved you and Mother more. You have known that Aegon is not a faithful husband since before your very first fantasies of him, alone in your bedchamber on the wet windswept Iron Islands, shaking with anticipation to learn how he would claim your body and tame your soul. You know that you told him you don’t believe in the Faith’s teachings about fidelity. But in your bones you want him to be yours alone, no other skin beneath the whirls of his fingerprints, no other moans echoing in his skull, even if that’s sacrilege, even if that’s weak.
You hear stones sliding and knocking together, and glance back to see Aegon venturing across the jetty with some trepidation. He falls, catches himself with both hands, heaves himself upright again and continues the journey. He is dressed like you are, a tunic and trousers and boots that keep tripping over the craggy rocks, not a king but just a man, not fit for audiences in the throne room or leading soldiers into battle but only humble, essential work. His left hand is still bandaged in two places: his palm where the archer got him at Tumbleton, his wrist where he bled to pay for your life.
At the end of the jetty, he drops down beside you and says nothing for a while. Together you listen to the waves and the gulls, watch the clouds roam across the sky in soft benign shapes. At last he speaks: “I didn’t know that fidelity was something we expected from each other.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“It’s not...I didn’t...” You can’t make him understand. You barely understand yourself.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to lie with me for a long time,” Aegon explains as he gazes across the bay, the wind in his silver hair. “And I would never jeopardize your health or your comfort. But everything that happened was my fault. I failed to keep you safe. I failed to protect our child. And I needed...just for a moment...to not feel like such a failure anymore.”
You stare down at your empty hands. I lost my daughter. I lost my husband.
He asks, with great effort and like it pains him: “Do you need to lie with someone else to feel that we’re even now? A better warrior, a more formidable man, somebody extraordinary like Aemond?”
“I’ve never wanted anyone else. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
He looks at you, searching oceanic eyes, as if this is the one thing he cannot believe, not even if all the other magic is true: dragons, spells, skinchangers, krakens, resurrection.
You confess in a whisper: “I felt that you had forgotten me.”
Aegon shakes his head. How could you not know by now? “When I fuck other women, I still love you,” he says. “When I kill men in battle, I still love you. When I am here, when I am far away, when I am on the earth or in the sky, when I am drunk, when I am clearheaded, I love you through all of it.”
You are so stunned you can barely manage a reply. “You’ve never told me that.”
“The people I love are taken from me. They bleed to death, they die screaming. I am terrified to lose you. I am terrified to love you. But I love you all the same.”
Back on the beach, someone is shouting. It’s Daeron calling for Aegon, something about their captive Addam Velaryon finally being awake. Aegon rises and goes to meet him. You crawl down the stones and sink your hands beneath the cool rippling water, close your eyes, ask the Drowned God to erase every swirl from your fingerprints and line of your palms so you can start over again.
Aegon and Pearl are going through it this chapter but it feels like a prelude to something utterly beautiful.
Pearl came from a family that openly accepts the reality of mistresses but because she has feelings it became a complication 😂
I loved how in character it is for Aegon to loving Pearl while still screwing up by going to a brothel to lose himself. Despite the accomplishments he has gained and the love and loyalty from his Queen, he is still healing from all that self resentment and hurt. The love confession made me feel how deeply rooted her effect is on him that even if he fucks up it doesn’t take that love away.
We Walk The Plank On A Sinking Ship [Chapter 8: The Tombstones Were Waiting]
Series summary: After Queen Helaena is murdered during Blood and Cheese, the devastated Greens scramble to arrange an advantageous match for Aegon. They settle on you, the sister of Dalton Greyjoy, to forge an alliance with the Red Kraken and his fleet. But when you arrive in King’s Landing, the Usurper is not who you imagined him to be…and to fulfill your purpose, you must give him everything.
Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, blood and violence, death, pregnancy/childbirth/babies, miscarriage/stillbirth, mentions of sexual content (18+ readers only), ominous foreshadowing, Dalton is maybe-dead, everyone gets cool about the witch wife thing really quickly, nothing good happens in this chapter just skip it!!!
Series title is a lyric from: “Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?” by Fall Out Boy.
Chapter title is a lyric from: “Bang The Doldrums” by Fall Out Boy.
Word count: 6.5k
Dividers were made by the wonderful @thecutestgrotto 🎨
🦑 All of my writing can be found HERE! 🦑
In the Reach under a blazing sun, Aegon is getting his hand stitched back together by the maester pledged to House Footly of Tumbleton. The bustling market town, formerly treasonous, has bent the knee to the Usurper after some persuasion: Sunfyre landing atop their castle, a dead dragon at their doorstep. The corpse of Seasmoke still smolders, cold grey eyes glazed over, wings a motionless leathery shroud. Vermax and Moondancer—both small but very quick—fled southwest once it was apparent the battle was lost. It occurs to Aegon that they gave up almost too easily, without hesitation, without chaos, the surviving Black soldiers following their lead and turning to run like rats from a burning house.
From a nearby tent, Addam Velaryon howls in agony; they are setting his bones in there. When he fell from his dragon, he broke his legs in half a dozen places. “We shall allow him to live,” Aegon decides, wincing as the maester works: needle piercing, thread tugging.
Daeron raises his eyebrows. High overhead, Sunfyre and Tessarion circle like vultures, still manic from battle, still hunting for prey. The landscape, aside from what has been charred and trampled, is an ocean of lush tranquil green. Hills roll like the crests of waves. “That’s magnanimous of you.”
“He will remain in the custody of the Hightower army. We can use him as a hostage to try to convince the Sea Snake to abandon Rhaenyra.”
“Very smart,” Daeron says, like he wouldn’t have anticipated it from Aegon. He gestures to the bloodstained arrow in the grass, split in two so it could be removed more readily from Aegon’s impaled palm. “You’re lucky that didn’t hit you in the head or the heart.”
“I am.”
“It’s a wonder it found its way to you at all, with as fast as Sunfyre flies. I’ve never even been clipped by an arrow in the saddle.”
Aegon studies his mangled left hand. “A damn good archer.”
“Too bad he isn’t on our side.”
“I can’t believe I lost my dagger,” Aegon sighs, furious with himself. With his good hand, he touches his belt as if the weapon will miraculously reappear there. When the arrow struck him, Aegon jolted and Sunfyre banked steeply, and the dagger must have been jostled loose and lost to the battlefield below.
“The Hightower men are scouring the hills, one of them will find it.” Then Daeron says, smirking: “I hear your wife is an archer as well.”
“She is.”
“I hear she’s an oddity too. That she eats raw oysters straight from the sea, and absconds from the Red Keep to hunt in the Kingswood, and mingles with the smallfolk, and kills sailors with Dalton Greyjoy. And some of Rhaenyra’s supporters even say that...with as strange and primitive as the Ironborn are...she and the Red Kraken might be rather...overfamiliar.”
Aegon gives him an impatient look. “She doesn’t fuck her brother.”
“But the rest is true?”
Aegon nods, preoccupied. The warm southern breeze tears through his silver hair. The maester, still bent over his hand, finishes the stitching and begins coating the wound in a potent salve well-known in the Reach: garlic, onions, red wine, green cow bile. It prevents pestilence, though no one knows why. The maester takes painstaking care, his arthritic fingers trembling. Perhaps he fears that if the Usurper dies, the next dragon to visit Tumbleton will be Vhagar, and thereafter there will be no such place as Tumbleton at all.
Daeron sits down in the tall emerald grass beside Aegon. His voice is lower now, filled with genuine curiosity. “What is she like as a wife?”
“She doesn’t listen.”
Daeron chuckles. “Is she supposed to?”
Aegon looks at him, unsmiling, severe. He should be in better spirits, the misfortune concerning his hand notwithstanding; he’s just won a victory. From the nearby tent, Addam Velaryon screams again.
“She’s an Ironborn,” Daeron says. Although he’s only fifteen years old, but he’s read much about them; he finds them fascinating. He might even find them a little aspirational. “You didn’t wed a frivolous Reach lady or some pale meek girl from the Riverlands. You married into a house of monsters, just like ours. It’s just that our gods are made of fire instead of waves. You cannot hope to keep her like a songbird, chirping and pretty in her cage.”
“It’s not safe. Helaena stayed in the Red Keep, she was a threat to no one, and not even she was safe. How many wives must I hold as their blood spills onto the floor and the light leaves their eyes?”
Suddenly, Daeron is amazed. This is the last thing he expected. “Do you actually care for her?”
A long time passes before Aegon responds, a hush filled with the wind whispering through the grass and the banners, horses nickering, dragon wings beating like the sails of a ship, Green soldiers shouting orders, Addam Velaryon groaning in anguish. Now the maester is bandaging the Usurper’s hand. “When she arrived, she thought I was going to be some kind hero. And obviously, I disappointed her. I was horrible to her. But no matter what I did, she didn’t hate me. Not really. Not even if she said she did. She kept trying to help me. She kept giving me chances to prove I was worth something. And eventually I did.”
“You’re fortunate to have her,” Daeron says, still a little stunned.
Aegon frowns down at the broken arrow in the grass. “We quarreled before I left. I didn’t conduct myself as I should have.”
“She will forget all about it when you return home with Seasmoke’s skull and a Velaryon hostage. That’s the language her people speak best.”
The Tumbleton maester bows deeply and retreats. Aegon practices flexing his bandaged left hand, wincing. Quietly, he says: “She was the first person who ever believed in me.”
Daeron grins. “I believed in you.”
Aegon laughs and smiles at his brother. “No you didn’t.”
Palm to the freezing stone of the floor, hot blood soaking your gown. There are indistinct footsteps and voices, spiraling froth like a whirlpool, dark water, inevitable gravity; in the heart of the vortex you sink down, down, down.
You saw a man keelhauled once. He was a Goodbrother from Shatterstone on Old Wyk, and he had tried to poison Dalton’s wine; but your brother lifted the goblet and then put it back down again without even a taste. There is treachery here, Dalton had said. The Drowned God is whispering to me, I can hear it in the wind. He poured the gore-red wine down the throat of a land dweller captured to be taken back to the Iron Islands as a thrall, and when he dropped dead the Goodbrother was condemned. They ran a rope beneath the ship and dragged the man underwater from port to starboard until his skin hung in bloody ribbons and you could see the white of his ribs and vertebrae, gleaming like Nightfall’s moonstone pommel. The hull of a ship is not smooth, you see; it is grown over with barnacles and mussels and all manner of hazards, and they cut flesh like rusty blades. You had turned away from the carnage, too weak to watch to the very end, and Dalton had pretended not to notice. But this is what you are reminded of as your belly fills with red violence: shredding, severing, scouring you raw.
A gentle palm on your shoulder, a kind voice, still water. “Let me help you to your bedchamber.”
“Don’t,” you warn Maester Orwyle. “They’ll kill you for it.”
“The queen herself asked me to attend to you.”
But I’m the queen. Except you aren’t anymore.
You peer up at Orwyle, shadows and smoke and torchlight, and he gives you a meaningful look: They are the captains of the ship now. We must play by their rules. You reach for his hands and he raises you to your feet, and now Alicent is here too, and together they bring you upstairs to your rooms where the dead queen’s green tapestries still cover the walls and hand-carved wooden figurines watch you from the vanity, venomous spiders, nocturnal moths. Orwyle and Alicent try to coax you into bed but you collapse to the floor, bruised in a million different places, the pain in your belly incomprehensible, crushing pressure and sailor’s knots and barnacles like razorblades, tightening, slicing.
I want Aegon. I want Mother. I want Dalton.
Is he dead? Is he already waiting for you in the depths?
“You have to put me in the sea,” you rasp, gripping the side of the feather mattress, knees on the stone already stained with Helaena’s blood. You have to give me back to the Drowned God so I can spend eternity in His halls.
Alicent shakes her head forcefully, the grey threads in her copper hair like moonlight. “No, you are not dying. I will not lose another daughter tonight.”
Orwyle is making you drink milk of the poppy. You are swallowed by dreamless darkness in which no time passes, surface only when the pain is at its excruciating zenith, get lost in the black once more. When the agony drags you up into consciousness again, Maegor’s Holdfast echoes with screams, faint and feminine.
“I don’t know where she is!” Floris is shrieking from another room. “Prince Aemond never told me! He doesn’t trust me, he doesn’t even like me! Please stop, please, no more, no more!”
They want to know where Jaehaera is. “What are they doing to Floris?” you ask.
“Nothing, darling,” Alicent lies, forcing a smile with tears in her eyes. “Floris is alright. Don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about anything in the world except getting through this.”
“I can’t stand it,” you sob. I’m too weak. I always have been.
With a cool wet rag, Alicent dabs the sweat from your face. “That means you’re almost done.”
A priest of the Drowned God slumped in the firelight: The baby will die. There’s nothing you’ve done wrong. It has to happen this way.
Aegon in bed with you beneath a canopy of green and gold: Then we will cherish her. I won’t make the same mistakes I did before.
Sitting on the rocks with Dalton the day before you left the Iron Islands: What’s there to be afraid of? It’s triumph or a glorious death. But there is no triumph here, and death would not be glorious, cut down by an enemy within your own walls, bringing forth no new life but only unripe corporeal doom.
It’s over, and anemic grey dawn is murmuring through the windows, and you are in bed and someone has placed her in your arms. She is wrapped in a bloody blanket, her skin transluscent, her bones like glass. She even stirs and tries to breathe, her tiny hand grasping your finger when you touch the lines in her palm. But it only lasts a moment and then she is gone. People are saying things, but you don’t hear them. People are trying to give you wine and tea, to brush your hair out of your face, to clean the salt from your brow and the blood from your cheeks, but you ignore them.
Suddenly you remember what you told Aegon when the Celtigars’ horn failed to summon krakens, when the Drowned God judged you unworthy: I’m of the sea, but I have no magic. And he had replied, smiling: I have magic, but I’m not of the sea.
“She would have been both,” you whisper as you cradle your dead daughter, too softly for anyone to notice. Then somebody lifts her away and your arms are empty.
Rhaenyra is at the foot of the bed, dressed in black and red, volcanic rock, eviscerated flesh. She is wringing her hands. Her expression is merciful. You hear your own voice: Mercy isn’t a gift, it’s a weakness. Your eyes are storms, your blood is riptides. In your open hands you feel the hilt of your dagger, the wood of your bow. You think of having her keelhauled until you can see through her skin like the slivers of light between curtains.
“She will be given a proper burial,” Rhaenyra says, as if this is an act of great generosity.
“She must go in the sea.” She must go to the Drowned God, or I’ll never see her again.
Rhaenyra looks perplexed, not just by your request. That you dared to make one at all.
“A superstition of her people,” Alicent explains. She smooths your hair, damp with futile perspiration. You turn to see that Floris is weeping softly as she holds the baby; when did she get here? Floris’ right hand is bandaged. There are crimson patches blooming through the white linen.
Rhaenyra offers: “I can send the body to be interred in the crypts beneath Oldtown.”
Because Aegon’s child is a Hightower, not a Targaryen. “She must go in the sea,” you say again.
“I will take her to the bay,” Alicent proposes. She gingerly lifts the baby from Floris’ arms, rocks her for a moment—out of habit, as if to stop her from crying—and then entrusts the small silent bundle to Orwyle, who bows his head. “If you will allow it, Your Grace. Have your sailors row me out to where the water is deep, and I will lay her to rest in the currents.”
“Very well,” Rhaenyra says. She is studying you, a strange ancient relic from across a sea, the same as she is. Her voice is tender with grotesque, saccharine compassion. “I lost a daughter too.”
You look up at her and think, very clearly: I’m going to kill you.
You lurch out of bed and thump to the floor. Alicent and Floris yelp in alarm and try to grab you; you crawl on your belly towards the Bitch Queen, blood trailing behind you, hands like claws, skull empty except for ageless primordial rage: hurricanes, rogue waves, serrated shark teeth, spotted whales mangling seal carcasses long after they’re dead. Rhaenyra stares down at you, mystified, horrified, almost tripping over her own feet as she backs towards the doorway.
“You poor dear!” Alicent cries loudly, too loudly, kneeling in front of you and imploring you with her large glistening eyes, just like Aegon’s except dark where his are light. “You’re bleeding terribly. You must rest. You must heal.” She turns to Rhaenyra, who is still rattled. “She is in shock and very ill, and that is your doing. She isn’t in her right mind.”
“It wasn’t my doing,” Rhaenyra objects weakly.
“It was Daemon’s doing, and you aligned yourself with him. Have the decency to claim your choices as your own.”
“The luxury of choice was taken from me when your Aemond murdered Luke. The kinslayer forced my hand.”
“So you prove you are kinder than him by killing women and babies?”
“Daemon loves me, and if he missteps it is only ever because he feels it is the only way to protect me and my children.”
“When we were just girls, Viserys named you his heir to keep Daemon from the Iron Throne. And look what you’ve done. You’ve emboldened his wickedness. You’ve brought war to the realm and the Stranger to your doorstep.”
“Hush now, Alicent,” Rhaenyra hisses from the threshold. “Or a blade will find its way to your throat as well, and you can join your father in the grave.” She leaves, the impact of her boots on stone ricocheting down the corridor.
Floris is helping you back into bed. You look at her bandaged hand again and realize: They took her fingernails.
Maester Orwyle doses you with thick pearlescent milk of the poppy, and you get to forget for a while.
You dream of gleaming metal, iridescent scales and grey shark skin, blood in the water, smoke in your lungs. A priest of the Drowned God is telling Mother: You will mourn many children, but your bloodline will be eternal. Do you understand?
You float up through the sunless depths and the pain breaks in again, like a rock through a glass window, like a scorpion bolt through Meraxes’ skull. When will it stop hurting?
Through the mist of years, the priest is saying: It will rule not just the Sunset Sea, but all those of Westeros. I see bubbles rising from the depths. I see ships snapped in two and pulled under.
Before you can open your eyes, you recognize the voices here in your bedchamber. There are two intruders, and they are alone, and they assume you are dead to the world. You stay very still so they will not learn otherwise.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Rhaenyra says. She sounds fairly close.
Daemon scoffs. He is farther away, over by the window perhaps, watching Velaryon ships bob on Blackwater Bay, the sun on his face and the salt-lashed breeze in his silver hair. “She is your idiot brother’s wife. She is an enemy and a traitor, the same as any of them. And her children are threats to our own. If you love our sons, you will safeguard them.”
“She was given to Aegon by the Red Kraken, who was insane, as you know. She had no say in the matter. Women rarely do.”
The Rogue Prince is revolted. “Do you pity her?”
“Do you forget the torment of an arranged marriage, Daemon? Have too many years passed?”
He does not immediately answer.
“Or perhaps it wasn’t so bad for you,” Rhaenyra says bitterly, and you have the impression this is not an infrequent topic of conversation.
“Stop it,” Daemon snaps.
Rhaenyra wanders closer to the bed and you keep your eyes shut and do not stir, you barely allow yourself to breathe. Her words are soft and mournful. “Aegon is a drunk and a degenerate. A monster of a man. Surely she found no happiness here.”
Heavy footsteps announce a third party. A man who must be the Sea Snake speaks in a deep, placid voice. “We hold the bay. My ships are seizing any cargo that was en route to King’s Landing and taking it into our custody. There is no sign of reprisals yet, and I witnessed no ravens flying overhead.”
Daemon says: “Caraxes and I burned the rookery last night, that will give us more time.”
“And Dalton Greyjoy is dead,” Rhaenyra adds, midway between a question and a fact. Your heartbeat hammers in your corpse-still chest.
“Well...” The Sea Snake hesitates. “We aren’t sure.”
Daemon flings back: “What do you mean you’re not sure?!”
“Many Ironborn vessels burned, but some escaped. And since the dead lie at the bottom of the sea, it’s not as if we can inspect the bodies and sort out who’s accounted for and who isn’t.”
“And what on earth are the smallfolk shouting about?” Rhaenyra asks, flustered. “I’ve heard them out there all day. Everybody can hear them. What are they screaming for?”
The Sea Snake pauses again. It isn’t good news. “They say they want to see the Greyjoy queen.”
A silence; you imagine both Rhaenyra and Daemon turning to where you lie in bed, silent, eyes closed, presumably unconscious, maybe dying. “They want to see her?” Rhaenyra repeats, like she can’t comprehend it.
“To make sure she’s safe and in good health,” Corlys Velaryon explains. “To ensure she hasn’t been...brutalized in any way.”
Another uneasy lull. Daemon says: “But people hate the Ironborn.”
“In the abstract, perhaps. But they like her.”
“Well, we can’t send her out to the bronze gates, obviously,” Rhaenyra says, sounding weary.
Daemon gets an idea. “Show them the Baratheon girl. Make her say everything is fine.”
Corlys replies delicately: “And...what about her hand...?”
Daemon sighs. “It’s just her right hand. It will be bandaged, have her wave with the left!”
“Do the peasants of King’s Landing want Aegon back?” Rhaenyra asks, as if she’s terrified of the answer. “I mean, we...they...I had thought I would be warmly welcomed home at long last. I thought they knew it was my father’s wish that I should succeed him, and that the Hightowers are brazen and conniving climbers. Since the night Alicent wore green to my wedding, her designs were no secret. Have the smallfolk not abandoned her and her deviant brood? Aegon the monster, Aemond the kinslayer, Daeron the child already consumed with bloodlust?”
“They do seem...less than joyous at your return,” the Sea Snake admits.
“My Gold Cloaks are loyal,” Daemon says. He bites wetly into something, an apple or a plum.
“Some of them,” Corlys replies. “But their numbers are fewer than before.” Members of the City Watch are defecting, he means.
“Are there rebellions?” Rhaenyra says, incredulous, as if this is a nightmare she must wake up from. Surely she did not endanger her dragons, her navy, her reputation, her life for no gain.
“Not out in the open,” Corlys replies. “Your dragons dissuade that. But are there whispers and plots? I believe so. The people are restless. They say the Usurper elevated one of their own and gave her Dreamfyre, then you killed them both. Apparently some Fossoway knight is encouraging the resistance.”
“So execute him,” Daemon says.
“He’s difficult to find. The peasants hide him in their homes.”
“Go door to door, hunt him like a boar or a stag, bring his pelt to me when you’re done.”
Corlys waits, no new footsteps. You envision him looking to Rhaenyra for direction. After all, she is the sovereign, not Daemon, though perhaps at times they both forget it. “Have these reports investigated, but spill no blood unnecessarily. We should tread carefully until the city is tamed. Act with circumspection. Show the peasants the Baratheon girl.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The Sea Snake leaves; you hear the thuds of his boots on the stone floor.
Rhaenyra and Daemon are alone again. After a long while she says: “You told me the people of King’s Landing prayed for my return. You told me they believed my brother to be useless and wicked.”
“They did.”
“But they don’t anymore?” She is desperate to understand; she is furious that nothing has happened the way it should. “Now they revere him and love his Ironborn wife?”
“I suppose it’s possible that his victories at Rook’s Rest and Claw Isle slightly improved their opinion of him. But we will win back their favor.”
“How?” Now she sounds close to tears. “By murdering Aegon’s child in the womb? By burning all those people alive last night?” She turns wrathful. “And why should I have to win their favor at all? Aemond killed my son, my boy, unprovoked and in cold blood, was I supposed to forgive that? Bend the knee to Aegon and pretend my father never wished for me to inherit the Iron Throne? He said it for years, he said it right up until the night he died!”
“Shh.” Soft footsteps, quiet voices. Daemon is comforting her. “We are fighting for our survival, and the lives of our sons. We have done the right thing.”
“The smallfolk were supposed to rise up and rejoice at my arrival.”
“They will.”
“Aemond will learn of this,” Rhaenyra says. “It might take time, but word will travel north through the Riverlands to Harrenhal. And he will descend on the city with Vhagar.”
“We can beat him.”
“How is Sheepstealer?”
Sheepstealer??? This must be the mysterious new dragon’s name. And a hazy memory comes back to you, Lord Larys Strong relaying a peculiar happening, that when Rhaenyra was forced to leave Dragonstone some of the riderless dragons fled Blackwater Bay too...not just Seasmoke but another beast as well, only glimpsed from afar, large and brown and ugly. But neither Seasmoke or Sheepstealer are unclaimed anymore.
“He is in the Dragonpit with Nettles,” Daemon says, perhaps with some reluctance.
“Wounded?”
“He was hit by Ironborn scorpion bolts during the battle. But he is being tended to.”
“How many bolts?”
“Five, I believe.”
“Five?!”
“He will recover,” Daemon insists. “None of the strikes were lethal. It’s just been difficult for the Dragonkeepers to yank the bolts out because he is so unaccustomed to human contact. I tried to sing to him, he was not impressed.” He chuckles; he admires wildness.
“Where did he come from, do you think? He’s too large to have spent his whole life near Dragonstone without ever being discovered.”
“Sothoryos, the Summer Isles, the Shadow Lands, the ruins of Valyria, who knows. Who cares. He’s ours now.”
“If he dies, we are once again imperiled by Vhagar. You and Caraxes cannot kill her alone.”
“Sheepstealer is not dying. Nettles will teach him to let the Dragonkeepers work their remedies and their charms.”
Abruptly, Rhaenyra is caustic like lye. “You think so highly of her.”
“She’s a child.”
“She’s the same age I was when you took me to a brothel on the Street of Silk.”
Daemon deflects. “We should try to find more Targaryen bastards here in the city. If we can get a rider on Vermithor, this war is over.”
“And who is going to volunteer for that when we just killed the baker woman?!”
“She was no innocent, she was on dragonback, she was a traitor and a combatant.”
“You could have spared her husband and children at least,” Rhaenyra says, and you can see them cowering in the vast circular chamber beneath the Tower of the Hand, dragged screaming from the altar as the skull of Balerion gapes with cold silent reptilian wrath, their veins opened in the candlelight.
“They always would have hated us.”
“And now all of King’s Landing does,” Rhaenyra says grimly. “Besides, according to the Velaryon sailors, Dragonstone is inaccessible to us at the moment. A group of Ironborn were sent there to ensure we could not get to the unclaimed dragons, and they gut anyone who attempts to land on the island.”
“Caraxes and I will burn them, that’s no trouble.”
“They’ve dug tunnels. They hide underground and wait for somebody to come ashore, then they drag them into the hole and kill them slowly so their screams will deter further intrusion.”
Daemon kicks something over, a chair or a table. “I’m so sick of these fucking squids!”
“We should have offered to wed Jace to the Greyjoy girl. He and Baela would have been devastated, but given the circumstances...”
“If the Red Kraken is dead, the Ironborn will return to their rocks and spend the next two years scrapping over the Seastone Chair. Dalton has a multitude of young sons spread out among his salt wives, and no clear heir. The women will be slitting each other’s throats before the sun sets on the day news of his death arrives.”
“If he’s dead,” Rhaenyra mutters absently. “Have we received news from Jace yet?”
“No. Soon.”
“Soon,” she echoes, she hopes.
The pain in your belly is very great now—a twisting, a stabbing, a maroon slitting—and when a fresh wave of it hits you moan feebly, unable to stop yourself. Your eyes flutter open and daylight fills them. You wonder if Alicent has already put your daughter in the sea, a tiny bundle that sinks with no sound. Will it ever stop hurting?
Rhaenyra walks to the bedside and gazes down at you, wary and exhausted and merciful. “Do you concede that I am the queen?”
“Queen of the dead,” you answer, little more than a whisper. “Queen of ashes. Queen of smoke. But queen of the Seven Kingdoms? No, never.”
Startled, Rhaenyra turns back to Daemon. He says: “Still think we should let her live?”
On the Iron Islands, Mother is sewing a blanket for a child who will never be swaddled in it, and Gabriel of House Grimm of Greyshield—taken as a thrall nearly a full year before—is tending his garden after a long day’s work building the Red Kraken’s warships on Pyke, a scrawny patch of thin earth hosting dauntless roots, beets, turnips, potatoes, leeks. But of course Gabriel Grimm’s brother does not know this.
The archer is in the Reach, southwest of Tumbleton and headed towards Cider Hall, the seat of House Fossoway. Prince Jacaerys intends to punish the Fossoways for their treason and force them to swear fealty to the one true queen. Then he will do the same at New Barrel and Appleton, seize control of the Roseroad, and cut off eastbound trade to the Greens’ soldiers. Let’s see how loyal they are when they’re starving to death.
The archer searches for the prince when the army stops to camp for the night, seeking to give him the prize he won at Tumbleton: a Valyrian steel blade, the Usurper’s dagger. Prince Jacaerys and Princess Baela are moving among the men, thanking them, encouraging them, listening to stories about their families and homes, clasping filthy calloused hands in their own. They are honorable people, and they are brave, flying into battle even on small dragons that Vhagar could swallow whole.
When the archer finds the prince inspecting the scorpions drawn on wagons, the sky is layered with rust and lavender, and the breeze is turning cool. Winter is coming, even to the Reach. It will be here within a year, the maesters foretell. Prince Jacaerys may not have the looks of a Valyrian. Everyone knows his parentage. That is not where the Black and Green factions differ. But he is unquestionably a Targaryen through his mother, and Rhaenyra—despite her flaws—is a decent woman. She did not poison King Viserys into an early grave and scheme to steal the throne. She did not draw first blood. And she did not align herself with the Ironborn, lawless parasites without reason, without mercy.
“You’re the one who shot the Usurper, aren’t you?” the prince says when he glances over at him, and the archer is amazed he remembered.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“The gods gave you a gift.”
The archer bows, not knowing how to reply. It is too high a compliment. He takes the dagger from his belt and surrenders it, arm outstretched, palm flat.
Prince Jacaerys smiles, his dark curls thrashing in the dusk wind. His face is kind and ordinary, no foreign angles, no inescapable otherness. “You fought for it. It’s yours.”
“But it is an heirloom of your family, Your Grace.”
“Heirlooms do not make someone a king or a queen. Winning wars does.” Then the prince gets an idea. “You should have it fashioned into arrowheads. Valyrian steel can pierce any armor. Perhaps next time your arrow will find its mark.”
“I will,” the archer vows. He returns the dagger to his belt, and from the other end of the camp, the young dragons Vermax and Moondancer shriek into the darkening autumn air.
You should be healing, but you’re turning to ice instead: silent and shivering, glaciers knocking around in your veins. People are plying you with bitter tea and sweet wine, pleading with you to eat bits of food from their fingertips. They are thoughtful, they bring you what you like, roasted octopus and pickled herring. But you have no appetite. Dalton was hungry all his life, and now they say he is dead. You think you must be on your way to join him, and at first this is horrible and frightening and sad, and then you sink through the chop and go way down deep to where the Drowned God waits and the black depths turn warm and golden, and you are no longer afraid. You are going home.
As you swim above and below consciousness, like dolphins cresting out of the surf, you catch fragments of conversations. Sometimes people are talking to you, trying to shake you awake or give you comfort, combing your hair, squeezing your hands. But other times they believe you to be insensible—and oftentimes you are—and they speak without knowing you are listening.
A raven arrives from Jace in the Reach, who is delighted to write that the diversion worked; Aegon and Sunfyre were led astray, and Jace and Baela and most of their men escaped unscathed. He is less pleased to inform his mother—his queen—that Seasmoke was killed in an exceptionally vicious attack by Sunfyre and Tessarion, and Corlys Velaryon’s bastard son Addam was gravely wounded and captured by the Usurper. When the Sea Snake asks what is being done to arrange for Addam’s return, it is clear that Rhaenyra’s skull is too full of her own sons to devote much thought to anyone else’s. He leaves the room in a rage, his footsteps thunderous.
Alicent is consoling Floris; Floris is sobbing and saying she cannot find Beauty, that Daemon must have fed her to Caraxes, the poor frail whimpering thing disappearing down the beast’s serpentine inferno of a gullet.
Rhaenyra and Daemon are debating where Jaehaera could be. Rhaenyra suspects Casterly Rock or Storm’s End, but Daemon thinks Aegon had her sent far south to Dorne. They want her so she can be wed to one of Rhaenyra’s young sons when the war is over, and the surviving Green supporters will be compelled to bend the knee.
Alicent is taunting Rhaenyra—her voice sharp and steely, though you can tell she’s frightened—that the people know she’s killed your baby, and Otto, and Helaena’s dragon Dreamfyre, and sweet fearful Rosella and her family, and now they scream for justice. Everyone can hear them outside, even you, a perpetual perilous drone like hornets. They will not bow to her and they will not retreat to their hovels, not unless Daemon starts burning them, and this Rhaenyra is wise to disallow. If she becomes a monster, how can she claim to be more worthy of the throne than Aegon and his sadistic brother and his Ironborn reavers?
And Alicent says something else too: that if Jace’s raven arrived here from the Reach, surely whispers are traveling in the opposite direction as well. Soon Aegon will know King’s Landing was captured, and he will return, not just with Sunfyre and Tessarion but Vhagar too, and Rhaenyra should leave now if she cares to save what is left of her dragons and her ships.
Will Aemond help us? you think from the dark murk of half-dreams. Will he answer if Aegon writes to him, a desperate note scribbled in hasty black ink? Or will he remain at Harrenhal with his witch and leave his family to rue their judgment?
Through the windows come light, dusk, moonshine, dawn, an eternal rhythm like the tides, a wheel of sun and stars. People are still caring for you—a vigil, a deathwatch—but their voices are low and grim.
You think as you glimpse the row of wooden figurines on the vanity: Aegon never carved me anything. I never gave him the pearl from the Iron Islands. I never told him that I love him.
You vanish for a while, no time and no memories, and when you resurface you can hear that the Red Keep is in chaos again, people shouting and running. “What’s happening?” you ask Floris; she is sitting beside you on the bed and trying to embroider with her swollen, nail-less fingers.
“The smallfolk stormed the Dragonpit with all sorts of weapons, swords and crossbows and things,” Floris says. “They even got ahold of a scorpion and dragged it there on a wagon. They attacked that horrible strange dragon and managed to blind it. In its struggle, the beast tore down the entire building and now lies dead beneath the rubble. Daemon and Caraxes are burning people. I think Rhaenyra is preparing to run. They know Syrax and Caraxes cannot face Vhagar alone. And the capitol has rejected Rhaenyra. She will not win the war here. She must find another path to the Iron Throne.”
She is merciful, you think dizzily. She is weak.
“I hope Aemond is on his way,” Floris says wistfully, gazing out the window. “This is the time for him to act like the monster everyone believes him to be.”
You sink again, are tossed by the waves, are aware of nothing. You see white sails going still as the wind dies. You see piecemeal wreckage floating on the surf.
If Dalton is dead, where is the Celtigars’ horn? Will we never summon krakens? Are none of us worthy?
Someone is jostling you awake. Someone is yanking you away from the brink of the plank and back onto the ship. Outside a dragon is roaring, booming and primeval. Vhagar. “Darling, he’s here to see you,” Alicent says, her umber eyes streaming and her voice fragile.
And just like all those times he came out of the gloom to meet you by Balerion’s immortal skull, Aegon appears through the stone arch of the doorway, wearing black and ash and a veil of smoke. He forgets he once swore he’d never enter this haunted room again. He climbs onto the bed and you collapse into him, conform to his shape like water fills a bowl, battle to keep your eyes open as he kisses you and says he’s sorry: he never should have left, he never should have let you believe he lost affection for you.
You touch his face. He looks so young; he looks so afraid. “Aegon, put me in the sea.”
“What? No, you’re not going there.”
“I have to.” I have to go to the Drowned God.
“You’re staying right here with me.”
“I’m so cold,” you whisper, and then he knows it’s almost over. You were once always too warm, here in the south where the sun is harsh and inevitable.
Aegon looks to Maester Orwyle. His oceanic eyes are slick with horror. “Why can’t you help her?”
“This is beyond my capabilities, Your Grace. I believe some of the placenta must still be retained in her womb, and it is festering. I have massaged her belly and given her moon tea, but still she sickens. Her pulse is erratic. Her fever does not break. If there are any other remedies, I do not know them.” He bows deeply, his face crumbling. “I am so sorry that I have failed.”
“You did everything you could,” Alicent says and then embraces the gentle maester, weeping into his shoulder, rattling his chains.
“What about Aemond’s woman at Harrenhal?” Floris remembers suddenly. “The bastard, the kitchen wench, Alys Rivers. Aemond said she can heal people. What if that’s true?”
And then, as if summoned, his silhouette fills the doorway, and for only one terrible moment you mistake him for Daemon. They are both tall and lethal. They both wear Valyrian steel swords and long silver hair like their ancestors who flew across the Narrow Sea. Aemond stares at where you are boneless and dying on the bed, and in his sole blue eye is a sheen of disbelief. He must be thinking: This is impossible. Weren’t we just winning the war? “What’s wrong with her?”
Aegon’s voice is a storm, a blade, a commandment. “I will fetch your witch from Harrenhal,” he says. “And if she saves my queen, I will grant her anything.”
That shared moment between Daeron and Aegon was simply adorable. It’s not very usual we get to witness this brotherhood so this was such a treat for me. There is also my anticipation on how they are actually going to characterize Daeron in the show.
This is the alternate universe where Alys gets the closest to being a legitimate wife of Aemond and I love it a lot. And this is probably the only story where Aemond can achieve his dream to succeed Aegon the Conqueror 🤭
Is the Fossoway knight igniting a rebellion because the princess he writes poems to is in danger? He would be livid once he learned what they’ve done to poor Floris.
Dalton cannot be dead. I am still struggling with the baby’s demise 🥲
About this page: Aemond instructs the assassin to stay hidden while he deals with his brother. Aegon thinks Sylvi is in his bedchamber and teases him. Then he notices Aemond’s broken window
About this page: The assassin tells Aemond the many faced god has a plan for him. Still distrustful, he threatens her. Suddenly there was a loud knock at his door. Who could it be?
About this page: The assassin explains to him that she was sent by Daemon to kill him along with two other men. But she assassinated them instead. Aemond grows suspicious
About this page: Aemond figured out the bat was a ploy to get his attention. He fearlessly shouts and threatens the intruder to reveal themself. It turns out to be female assassin sent to kill him.
Aemond’s look at the lower left portion of the panel was too adorable and very anime-like 🥹 And then I remember he is barely covering himself with a towel and he’s not adorable anymore 🤭
snowghoul
kaledo-art
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