Chapter Text
“You are jealous,” Aegon slid down his chair, chin high in the air. He looked like a commoner in this pose, a drunken man from Flea Bottom, not a Targaryen, not a prince; his hair greasy, face swollen and eyes red. A sight, truly.
“Pardon?” Aemond tilted his head to meet Aegon’s gaze. Familiar dark eyes sparkled, and one could have said that it was a ghost of an ancient fire dancing deep in those irises, but it was a mere game of shadows. Aegon’s chambers had never been properly lightened, as dusk was his loyal friend when it came to sliding hands under maids’ skirts.
“You are jealous,” repeated Aegon, licking moisture into his lips and playing with the cup between his fingers. “Because even after you’ve beaten every swordsman in this place, after you’ve claimed the largest dragon, after you’ve learned to maneuver with one eye only, I’m still the one they all care about.”
Aemond rolled his eyes, ignoring a pinch of a traitorous pain in his chest. “I don’t like you drunk.”
“Then you don’t like me at all.”
He eyed Aegon one more time: the mess of his clothes, a phantom of lustful kisses on his neck and lips, a cut on his left hand left by a letter opener, and signed. He was so bloody tired of this.
“Come on,” he slid his arm behind Aegon’s back and forced his brother up by taking two large steps towards the bed and leaving Aegon on its clean sheets. The cup fell out of Aegon’s hand and met the marvel floor with a loud clang, wine spilling around like a crimson pool of blood.
Aemond didn’t give three shits about the wine, the floor or the cup.
“I liked it down there,” whined Aegon, drunkenly leaning back like a new-born kitten who had no eyesight at all. “Why did you have to come?”
“Mother—” Aemond swallowed the end of the sentence. “I didn’t want to see you carried back during the hour of the wolf down the Street of Silk for everyone to enjoy the show.”
Aegon waved his hand, resting his head on a fluffy pillow and closing his eyes, as if even the sight of Aemond bored him to death.
“Should’ve let them. Watch,” he lazily opened one eye. “They all think we live like gods up here. Would’ve been nice to show them for once.”
Aemond arched his brow. “Show them,” he nodded. “Show them what? Your arse dragged to the Red Keep, so they could… what? See all the downsides of the cursed privileged life we lead?”
Aegon snorted, turning to his left and facing away.
“See me for what this place had turned me into,” he mumbled in his sleep, and Aemond, already halfway to the door, stopped and spared his brother’s back one more glance. Then he slid out from the chambers and shut the door behind him.
The guards were already there, changed from the rags Aemond made them wear before, now dressed nicely in shiny armor and green cloaks.
“Call the maids. There is quite a mess there,” he ordered, and one of the guards nodded.
“Yes, my Prince.”
Aemond looked at the door.
“And if he tries to sneak out again, you come to me. Directly to me.”
“Of course, my Prince.”
There was nothing princely in his actions, but Aemond nodded anyway.
This late at night he had nowhere to go but to his own rooms, but he was never much of a sleeper. He didn’t sleep well, not for the last decade at least, if not for his whole life. Nightmares came easily to him, always haunting his dreams, and he grew accustomed to sparing a few hours of sleep here and there, but never really felt the need to rest.
He was tireless.
Drunken Aegon was right in one thing: Aemond was jealous. While his brother was disgracing his name in the whorehouses and all other disgusting places the capital had to offer and his lovely sister was speaking to bugs instead of people, Aemond was being a Prince.
And gods be good, was it a game.
What this place had turned me into. King’s Landing wasn’t built for those who wanted to live—only for those who knew how to survive.
His mother cared more about her reputation than about her children, that was true, but Aemond knew where she was coming from. The Targaryen name was feared and adored as long as people saw them as a force, and Aegon did little to contribute to the family glory. To Alicent Hightower’s pity, it was Aegon who was born first, who she needed to become a king. And Aemond was no fool. He understood the game all too well not to see through the plotting and lies of the court. Aegon wasn’t feared. He was merely acknowledged. His name held power, his persona... was of no necessity.
Aemond was the one who tried to keep Aegon together, because it was abundantly clear that the day would come when Aegon would be the future of the family. His mother didn’t help with her religious rants and rambling: she despised her first-born, feared her daughter and didn’t give a toss about Aemond, so it was his duty.
He squashed the impulse to shove his fist into the nearest wall.
The sacred routine of Aemond Targaryen: eat, train, read, have conversations about power and knowldege with the Hand (also his grandsire and also a man who didn’t give a fuck), fly, scream, fish his brother out of another pile of shit, fuck a pretty face, listen to his sister sing, listen to his mother sigh, listen to his brother vomit, sometimes sleep. So yes, excuse him, that was a tiring life.
But yet again—he was tireless.
“Sneaking around?”
A cold voice smashed into his back like a dagger, and Aemond turned around.
“I learned the best never sleep,” he managed to crack a smile, but Otto Hightower’s face couldn’t be more still. Aemond sometimes wondered if he was born with that look to him, a snake coiled under the sun, perfectly content, filled with poison.
“Well, you should,” coming from the Hand it felt almost like a hug. Aemond lowered his gaze to his grandsire’s hand where a parchment was, freshly read and—obviously—important. Aemond scowled.
He knew he was in no position to ask, as for all the titles and names, he had never been a part of the Small Council. He bit his tongue, but Otto had already followed his gaze and raised the hand with the letter in it.
“Do you want to read it?”
Aemond froze, bewildered. That was something new.
“Is it important?” he managed to ask, and Otto tilted his head, studying him. Always studying him, like a curious book or a rare map.
“Every single matter is important when you rule a kingdom.”
“But is this one?”
A snake, no one could say otherwise. Moonstone-cold eyes, emotionless, sharp, hard to look at.
“Read it, and you will know.”
So he did and then immediately wished he didn’t.
“Corlys Velaryon isn’t even dead, but the fight for his seat has already begun,” Aemond laughed once and rolled the letter, passing it back to the Hand. Otto slid it up his sleeve and folded his hands behind his back, waiting for him to continue. Aemond did.
“You don’t want Rhaenyra to have control over Driftmark, which she will if her bastard inherits the seat.”
“Don’t,” his gransire’s voice cut him off, a knife through the air. “We are in no private quarters to speak like that.”
Aemond shrugged. His father had no spies—they just were of no use for the king who was consumed by illnesses and drugged on milk of the poppy—and others… others knew what those strong boys really were, not one of them in a position higher than Otto. Otto, who was currently watching him like Helaena watched her bugs through a magnifying glass.
“Is it Rhaenyra who you don’t want gaining control or her son? The one who carved out your eye?”
Aemond’s hand reached for his sword, his chest immediately tight and hot. Boiling water, dragon fire.
It wasn’t that Aemond hated the bastards. He didn’t give them much thought, not really: they were rotting on Dragonstone and he was rotting in King’s Landing and the one major difference between them was the color of their hair.
But one of them was the bane of his existence. One of them was nothing but a boy, and watching him scream and beg and suffer would’ve been the greatest of Aemond’s delights.
One of them was Lucerys Velaryon.
“You hate him,” Otto concluded, pleased with himself. “Good. Remember who your enemies are, boy. They will certainly not forget about you.”
Aemond almost scoffed, because Otto Hightower was, for a change, wrong. Aemond was forgettable and he didn’t mind being such.
Past had always been the most bitter of people’s nemesis.
***
“I’m glad you are alive,” Jace poked him on the cheek, and Lucerys felt the uncontrollable urge to bend over their ship’s side and empty his barely filled stomach. He swallowed instead and held onto the mast, begging his body not to betray him, not now, when the Red Keep was emerging through the thick morning mist, barely visible but already there, tall and haunting.
It wasn’t a pleasant journey (they never were when Lucerys had to step on a deck), but this one in particular felt twisted and wrong and Lucerys wished they could just turn around and leave. First of all, he had to face the side of the Targaryen family that had never been quite fond of him. Second of all, he had to play a part in a game called “Legacy and Pride” while not knowing exactly what the game was actually about.
It wasn’t his game, after all.
“Don’t mock your brother,” sighed Rhaenyra, not even looking at them but knowing what was going on. She barely moved: hands on her belly, silver hair flowing down like a waterfall, dress colored in blood and ash. Jacaerys winked at him and moved on with his duties of the eldest brother, messing Joffrey’s curls and starting a story about the monsters that lived underwater, making Rhaena snort.
Lucerys strotted to his mother, staggering with every step. Being on a ship was like emptying a small barrel of rich dornish wine (something Lucerys and his siblings have never done on Jace’s nameday). The deck was definitely moving in the wrong direction, and when Lucerys had finally made it, he felt like vomiting again.
“I hate ships,” he told her, and Rhaenyra turned her head, gaze sliding from the Keep’s towers to him, a smile blossoming on rosy lips. “I should’ve taken Arrax.”
“We must arrive together, as a family,” his mother’s fingers slid through his hair, combing it back. It was a losing game, of course, but Lucerys knew it was her method of checking on him—or she was remembering the person whose hair was just like his.
He nodded. “As a family of dragonriders.”
Rhaenyra cocked her eyebrow. “And Viserys, Aegon and Rhaena?”
“Caraxes is quite long.”
She laughed, and Lucerys once again thought that his mother was the most beautiful thing to ever exist. The Realm’s Delight. Others saw her as the Moon, distant, famous for its cold beauty, unreachable, mysterious. But Rhaenyra Targaryen was the Sun, warm, familiar, golden. She just didn’t shine for everybody.
Lucerys glanced up at the outlines of the Red Keep. The castle had a odd look to it—like it didn’t belong, too bright and grand for its surroundings, trying to fit in but never succeeding at it. Lucerys had spent his childhood there and yet never thought of it as a home.
No, home was somewhere else, and it smelled like salt and fire. It had rough edges and black walls and bas-reliefs of unknown beasts, but it was home.
Seasickness reminded him of its presence again, and Lucerys breathed in deep, searching for the horizon, feeling his mother’s gaze on him.
“How is it that you emerge from the skies with pink cheeks and laughter, but turn into a grumkin on the water?” She asked kindly, and Lucerys shrugged, finding the cherished line with his eyes and breathing out.
“The skies don’t move below my feet, and even if they did, I’d have Arrax,” he responded. “The Velaryon kin is bound by blood to ships and seas, but those are no friends of mine.”
Rhaenyra closed her eyes. It was a mere moment, a glimpse of something Lucerys couldn’t read, and she was already opening her mouth to say something when Daemon emerged from the cabin with Viserys in his arms. Viserys wasn’t happy reaching King’s Landing either, his eyes wet, mouth twitched.
Daemon shoved Viserys into his mother’s arms as if the poor child was a pot of hellfire ready to explode.
“He almost woke Aegon,” he snapped. “And I can take only one wayward son at a time.”
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes, nestling Viserys close to her chest and tapping him on his back. He stopped crying immediately, clenching his little fists on her necklace with pure innocent interest, and she looked at Daemon with challenge in her eyes, almost asking “so?..”. Daemon lifted his palms.
“Apparently, you scare them more than I do.”
“Quite the opposite!” Shouted Jace from the other side of the deck, and Daemon slowly turned, letting the wind blow in his face and play with his hair. Lucerys didn’t see the expression on Daemon’s face, only his back, and that back was… well, promising painful death. Jacaerys instantly broke off and looked away, and Daemon chuckled to himself, which was a rare sound to hear.
For some reason, he was in high spirits (such occasions were even rarer, almost doomed, like Valyria), and Lucerys wondered distantly if Daemon had found a person on this ship who displeased him and tortured him to death. His hands weren’t bloody, but that didn’t tell much—after all, it was in Daemon’s nature to find a person who displeased him to torture another person who displeased him.
The ship was reaching the harbor, which was already filled with sailors and merchants from all the Seven Kingdoms, olive skin and long braids, fur coats and dark beards, massive shoulders and deeply cut necklines. The noise could be heard even from the water, and Lucerys couldn’t help but remember the same noise accompanying him through his childhood, when he had little to no problems and a few more friends.
Daemon appeared before him out of nowhere, blocking the view of the capital. He looked at him with that condescending smirk of his that seemed permanently carved onto his face, and all Lucerys’ nausea receded like magic. Apparently, even his seasickness was scared of Daemon Targaryen.
“Are you ready?” He asked, his face unreadable but hard, full of edges and sharp lines. Lucerys swallowed and nodded.
“Quite.”
Daemon tilted his head and said nothing, and Lucerys felt cold goosebumps racing down his spine. Daemon knew he had that effect on people and still did it, never blinking, just staring, waiting. Lucerys sucked on his lower lip.
“I am. Truly.”
“Hm,” was all the response he got, Daemon finally losing interest and stepping away. And Lucerys knew he didn’t believe him.
These days he wouldn’t even believe himself.
***
The sun was rising and he was on Vhagar’s back, surrounded by flapping of her leathery wings spread wide and proud in lilac clouds, pierced with morning reds and oranges. The wind was blowing right into his mouth, and Aemond wanted to let go of the reins, raise his own arms like wings and fly through this bath of blue gold like a free creature he never was.
“Faster,” he commanded in High Valyrian, and Vhagar responded with a low roar, exhaling a cloud of smoke through her nostrils, almost telling him to piss off and let her be. Aemond pursed his lips, leaning to her back, touching her scales with bare fingers, ignoring the burn. “Faster.”
She listened this time, abruptly heading up, where the contours of the moon were still visible, blurred by the light of a new day.
Once there were two moons, remembered Aemond. But then one of them cracked and dragons flew out of it, gigantic beasts from another realm.
He wondered if Vhagar wanted to go back, to find the place that was truly hers; she was the last surviving dragon of the old, the witness to the Conquest, to the cradle of the Empire. She didn’t belong here, not truly, not with Aemond. He was but a passing acquaintance to her, not a friend or kin, one of many others who tried to claim her.
The bond was there, but it was weak and pitiful. He claimed the largest living beast and still was losing the game. Vhagar didn’t grow up with him, so they never shared a crib, a childhood, the very first flight. For all the firsts he had with the dragon, she already had it with others, who now were all but bone and ash.
Anger flushed his body yet again. Aemond hated it when thoughts like these attacked his head, but here he was, yet again haunted by his own imagination. But he wasn’t much of a dreamer and the sun was getting higher, which meant he would have to go back to being a prince on the ground.
“Down. Let’s go home.”
His hair was a mess when they landed, and Aemond, spitting out his own locks, hastily combed it back with his fingers, tying the whole mass with a twine. The Dragonpit looked ginormous from the hill, but Vhagar never welcomed it as her home, preferring to rule the skies and hunt wild things in the Reach.
His mother was always bothered with the complaints of dragon attacks from farmers and commoners, but Aemond didn’t give it a second thought. If his girl wanted to hunt and be free, he wouldn’t be the one to lock her in a cell like a prisoner. It was a stupid arrangement, one that never should’ve existed in the first place.
Vhagar was in the skies as soon as they parted ways. Aemond knew she would find him if he needed her, but she was no help in the court of lies, by some gruesome mistake called the royal court.
The town was already wide awake: street vendors laid out fowl on their counters, homeless were begging for coin, merchers were discussing matters of trade in the harbor filled with dark-skinned people from Essos. Northern accents mixed with braavosi in this loud opera of sounds, and Aemond was right in the middle of it, a crow in black, not visible, not important.
Many people despised the capital for its noise and smell, but it was the only home he ever knew. It stinked of feces, manipulations, falseness, and gods, did he enjoy it. With his hair safely tucked under the hood he was a nobody, no one, a free person with no responsibilities. He never craved freedom like Aegon, but the duty of making sure the idiot didn’t royally fuck up wasn’t exactly Aemond’s favourite. Were he a first-born son, he wouldn’t even complain.
But he wasn’t.
“Hey-a, look where ya goin!” He smashed into a counter full of stones and jewelry, and some of the pieces fell into the dust of the road, plaintively clinking on the rocks, and the seller, a wide man with poorly trimmed beard swinged a stick to his face.
Aemond backed away, instinctively reaching for his dagger. Vender’s bushy eyebrows rose to his forehead.
“Well? You gonn’ pay, boy?”
Aemond threw him two golden dragons only to shut his mouth, and hurriedly made his way through the crowd. He procured to never stay out when the markets were open, as he hated all those people touching his body. More commoners flooded the streets, sweaty hands and black mouths, and Aemond found himself twitching.
He didn’t fear them, but they disgusted him greatly and, crawling through a hidden passage within the walls of the Red Keep, Aemond almost could feel their touches burning through his skin. He trembled with revulsion and sped up back to his quarters, a fine bath and some food.
The last two were already provided when he got there. Aemond trained his servants well over the years, knowing his mother would question them anyway, and they were loyal to him. They knew that he was rarely in his bed at night, that he never shared breakfast with his absurdly large family and that he bathed alone.
His hair was in knots and smelled worse than Vhagar on her hunting days.
Aemond stripped out of his clothes, folding and leaving them on one of those fancy chairs mother insisted on decorating his room with. Aemond had a little say when it came to the changes the Queen was making in the castle, but he couldn’t help but frown looking at the symbolics of the Seven, which the Red Keep was flooded with these days; seven-pointed stars, faces of The Mother and The Maiden, hands of The Warrior, embroidery of The Father, tapestries of The Stranger. It was as if his mother thought that having all that nonsense staring at them during every single hour would make them more innocent, save them from the seven hells and everything in between, when in truth there was only one hell.
And Aemond was living in it.
His own chambers were the least pompous ones, no fine embroidery on his sheets, no silk pillows and no northern carpets, only a plain desk, shelves filled with folios and a bed, a couple of cushions with the damned star on them, an old tapestry depicting a deer hunt and a small balcony facing the sea. And, of course, a large Targaryen banner on the wall, which Aemond secretly stole when the extravaganza with the Faith began.
He couldn’t blame his mother. Hightowers were all brainwashed by the religion, which they used as a shield that protected them from their duties and wars, and she wasn’t a Targaryen by blood to understand the true meaning to it. To the legendary name they shared.
His glance slowly slid across the banner as he lay in the hot water which smelled like wild woods: pinecones and snow and spruce. All three heads of a blood dragon turned to him, breathing fire, and Aemond shook his head, chasing the vision away. His eyelids were heavy, the smell of forest and honey spiraled in the air, and he realized he was fading away when a voice brought him back.
“Where were you?”
Ah, of-bloody-course.
Aemond yawned.
“Out.”
“Oh. Out. How did it not occur to me to look there,” the sarcastic voice of Criston Cole wasn’t appreciated at any time of a day, but the knight never bothered. Aemond slightly turned his head—and there he was, white cloak, hair nicely brushed, green eyes filled with rage.
“You didn’t have to look at all.”
“I am your protector—”
“You are the Queen’s guard,” snapped Aemond, letting his hair soak in the water for another moment before standing up. “I don’t need your protection.”
“I believe I knocked you off twice this past moon.”
Aemond chuckled. “I wouldn’t phrase it like that.”
Cole smirked at him, and just like that, the tension was gone (it was never truly gone when he was among people, but Criston didn’t really count as people).
Aemond crossed the room, fully aware of the wet trail of soapy water he was leaving behind, wrapping himself in a robe. He wasn’t ashamed of parading his nude body and scars before the knight, after all, Cole grated him some of those scars throughout years of their training. Nevertheless, he still didn’t like the way the green eyes followed him around.
“What happened to your hand?”
Aemond clenched the said hand into a fist. It hurt, but not much, as at this point he was pretty accustomed to the burns. Vhagar felt like lava over the scales of her neck, and he just wanted to fly faster.
“None of your business.”
“You didn’t use the gloves they made you. Why?”
“Are you my father or a guard?” Irritated, Aemond stuck his head out of the shirt’s neck. “Because I recall my father being a walking corpse lying on his bed in the chambers of the King, and my guard minding his own business.”
“I am your friend.”
“I don’t have friends.”
He didn’t. Friends were an unnecessary complication and known traitors. Half of the men died by the hand of some friend . Aemond wasn’t especially thrilled by the idea of being murdered.
The silence that followed his words was depressing and, buttoning his doublet, Aemond sighed, looking at the knight. Cole’s gaze was very much like Otto’s, the same lack of emotions in it, the same coldness. Something was dead inside that man, buried under the armor of duty and pretty words, and he could’ve fooled anybody with his masquerade, but not Aemond.
Aemond had worn a mask of his long enough to recognize it on other people’s faces.
And Cole wore it with intense proudness, almost on the verge of stupidity, as if the mask itself was forged by the gods of old. Aemond would’ve liked to open his head to look inside, because even the most honorable men hid demons, but Cole’s head seemed like a can of worms Aemond wasn’t inclined to touch. So he didn’t.
Cole wasn’t a language Aemond had to learn. He was here to teach him how to kill those who wronged him.
Aemond’s fingers clenched on his sword’s hilt.
“Care for a spar, ser Criston?”
***
It looked the same and it didn’t. Lucerys didn’t quite know what to make of it.
The halls were light and exquisite, the memorabilia of times long passed swirling in the air, moulded ceilings high, wide columns carved from marble standing proud in their places. People looked the same as always; servans, maids, lords and ladies of the court in their fancy embroidered dresses and hair twisted in high crowns, their laughter respectfully muffled and smiles that looked more like oil paintings on their faces than real emotions. All liars, all hungry for yet another juicy gossip.
Jace didn’t spare them a glace, while Lucerys was suddenly weirdly aware of his hands.
“Stop lurching,” Jacaerys gave his shoulder a squeeze. “They will always look. We are princes, after all.”
“That’s not why they are looking,” Lucerys mumbled under his breath, but his brother was already out on the stairs leading to the training yard, filled with the noises of a fight: clang of swords drawn and heavy breaths taken. Jace acted as if he didn’t care about the rumors or stares, but that was what it was—an act. A carefully crafted manner of behavior that Jace adopted and stuck to since they were pups, a future heir at his best.
Lucerys has never been good at it. Dragonstone wasn’t a place where one learns to put on hundreds of masks before leaving the chambers.
He followed Jacaerys out, the crisp air of the morning saluting him on the way, a breath of salty wind playing with his hair. It felt... odd. Odd to be back after all those years. Jace walked with his head high, ignoring every single stare, talking and lighting the atmosphere by his mere presence, because it was only natural to him. His dark eyes were filled with life and fire, and Lucerys bit his lip, looking around.
They were not welcome here. Thankfully, they were also not the main event of the training yard.
He hadn’t seen his uncle since that life-asserting night back at Driftmark and was suddenly taken aback by the realization that Aemond was no longer a boy who coldly looked at the Queen and said that losing an eye gained him a dragon. Lucerys did think a lot about that night and Aemond’s hair, pink from all the blood and sticking to his cheeks, stitches along his face, mouth curled in devious accusations. When he couldn’t sleep at night, the image came freely to him, causing shame to wash over him again and again.
It wasn’t that he wished he hadn’t done it. It was that he had never harmed a living being before, and he was raised to be good. What he did that night to his uncle was as far from good as it could get.
But now here they were, Lucerus on a conquest to take something he wasn’t entirely sure he needed, Aemond swirling a sword as if it was a part of his body.
His infamous platinum Targaryen hair—a courtesy of Old Valyria—was longer now, a mess of locks pinned together with a single cord, running down his shoulders like a wave. His movements were filled with precision and skill. He was a hunter on the loose, a predator in plain sight, a beast that got out of its cage. Aemond’s opponent, ser Criston Cole, was winding a morningstar. Aemond was ducking and dancing around it with a sword in his hands, smirk pressed to thin lips. He had an eyepatch on his face, and Lucerys couldn’t help but wonder what that face looked like without it. Was there a hole or a scar?
“He is good,” admitted Jacaerys to himself, and Lucerys nodded along. It was hard to take his eyes off the fight. It was nothing like the sparrings between Jace and Daemon Lucerys had witnessed over the years. Daemon wasn’t as good as Cole, but he was a skilled commander and swordsman, and the Velaryon boys, all three of them, had learned a great deal from him: Daemon made sure of it. He would poke them with training swords, make inappropriate jokes, behave like a complete twat and generously throw them on their backs, all with one purpose. To show them how to not get killed.
There will always be a target on you. Make sure you’re the only person who knows where this target is.
Jokes and mad inclinations aside, Daemon taught them to always look for the opponent's mistakes, blind spots and poor maneuvers. And from where Lucerys was standing, Aemond had all up his sleeve: strength, speed, dexterity, unique cunning. He had all but one eye and still… The view was tantalizing.
Aemond noticed them as soon as he won.
His face was sweaty. Drops of it were slowly finding their way down his black-leathered doublet, disappearing behind the collar, silver hair fussed, chest rising in heavy breaths. His one eye narrowed as he looked directly at them—at Lucerys , to be precise,—and a smirk appeared on his lips, defiant, provocative.
“Ah, dear nephews. Did you come to train?”
And there it was.
It would’ve been nothing for all those people around. Lucerys knew they didn’t notice it, not even Jace, but he saw it in the mad eye that would’ve pierced him were it a dagger. A promise.
Of vengeance.