Chapter Text
There was no hunger within him. He tapped his fingers on the table nervously, his single violet eye watching as people begin to dance in the hall, averting his gaze from anyone who dared look his way. His mind was a fog, realizing just how long a day could pass by and yet how fast sceneries could change.
Aemond had been silent once he arrived back at King's Landing the night before, his entire frame sopping wet and cold from his failure, unresponsive as his Mother begged him to tell her what was wrong. He had just sat within his chambers, looking at the hearth and the flames that tried to comfort him before taking off the primary layer of attire, throwing the wet leather atop it to smother the fire. It sizzled dead, resembling the now vacant passion and yearning within the Targaryen prince. The remains of it only fragments, sinking into the Narrow Sea.
When the news finally broke about what he'd done, he was summoned to the council room, his mother moving swiftly before him and running a hard hand across his face. The impact of it made his ears ring, the heat of the slap barely felt as Aemond's blood ran so cold. He stayed unmoving as Alicent cried and screamed at him, trying to claw her way back to pull at his hair, to try and make Aemond face her. But his grandsire ordered Cole to hold her steady, Otto telling him to fetch her tea to calm Alicent's nerves and remain with her in her separate quarters, shutting the doors of the council room to let out a long exhale. The Targaryen prince still did not move, frozen in time as his mind replayed insistently the image of pieces of the iridescent white dragon, his nephew's petrified face, and the sound of sharp winds lapping at the carcass' of Arrax and Lucerys as they plummeted down into an abyss of nothingness.
"You only lost one eye. How could you be so blind?" They could hear Alicent crying for the gods down the corridor. Aemond's single eye glides up to finally acknowledge everyone in the room, staring at him, their shaking gazes whispering 'Kinslayer'. Aegon's face was the only one showing something other than disdain, knowing without a word that his younger brother had seen quite enough. That it would have been a curse to witness the awfulness of his actions with full vision. And that he had started the war everyone else was too hesitant and afraid to get going.
"I believe that's one less dragon rider we have to worry about, don't you all agree?" There were short murmurings of shared opinion to their king, eyes ahead on the table and shaking hands. "It seems you have gotten your debt repaid, after all these years, brother."
The words sear him, set alight the scars on his back as if they were reopened and bleeding. Aemond almost believed that he was trickling from the wounds, but realized it was only the rain still dripping from his flight, proof of his venture. A reminder of how unclean he still was of his sin.
"The Baratheons have risen to our call as well, I feel there is no reason to be having such a tense meeting in a moment of victory-"
"My king, there is much to be discussed-"
"Grandsire, do tend to Mother so she recognizes our standing. I'll see to it that the realm does as well." Before Otto can argue, the doors are opened for him by a pair of knights from the Kingsguard, so ghostly and loyal they blend into the chamber walls. Then as he turns to go, giving Aemond a final judging stare, Aegon begins to drown the room out with his proposal of a feast, proclivities unsuited for such circumstances.
"Is this to be a celebration, Your Grace?" The question looms for a few seconds, a shiver of a smile hanging on Aegon's face before he furrows his brows and gives a simplistic answer.
"No, not at all is this to rejoice in our nephew's unplanned misfortune. I see this as something entirely different. Perhaps a way to appease any nerves in the Red Keep. Maybe even a slight transition into Aemond's annual name-day festivities. Something modest." It wasn't as if anyone could tell him no— never to their king.
After a moment of silence, Aegon waves his hand in dismissal, bored of the grim faces and shaken statures of his men. He would have thought it most pathetic if Aemond wasn't so shell-shocked in front of him. The older boy drinks from his goblet and walks over to his younger brother, Aemond's jaw tensed and lips pulled as if the truth will spill, but nothing ever does come out. So Aegon sighs, stepping forward and leaning into his brother's ear before he takes his own leave. "You are to be seventeen. No more of this heated game you play at. Childhood has been over, and war had begun since that little wretch took your eye. I need the Red Keep a fortress, not a fucking funeral."
Aemond feels the Conqueror's crown only encourages the spoils inside his brother's head, plunging their family into even more darkness. But who was he to judge in such a state as his own?
That night, he did not sleep. He bathed in scorching waters to try and rid himself of the stench of dragon, sinking himself until the temperatures became too cold. He thought of Vhagar as he scrubbed the feeling of her warmth from his translucent skin, wanting so badly to blame or hate her. But he couldn't, at least not as much as he loathed himself. For the she-dragon did not know better, familiar with only war and hardly a scratch of politics. Pruned fingers helped the usually graceful Targaryen prince clamor his way out of the tin bathtub, long legs shivering while taking him to his wardrobe as he dressed, certain that he would not find comfort in slumber. Or it in him. He sat by the snuffed-out fire again, his dripping hair drenching his white dress shirt as Aemond stared into nothingness, hand resting on his chin. In the pile of black, leather clothing, he realized he had thrown his eyepatch during his fit. The horrified stares from earlier further scorned the prince.
He tried scrounging up an excuse. Something to explain the mishap, anything other than the truth. Because as soon as Aemond had sunk his teeth into the Baratheons, learning about how much the pompous man had wanted of a son to inherit his prospects, duty had felt fulfilled. Even though there was fluttering feelings before his journey, with Rhaenyra answering their betrayal with poise still. She was offering for her half-siblings to come to Dragonstone and bend the knee if it meant leaving his mother and grandsire to hang; Aemond thought about it only for a second. But that fairy tale ended once reality felt perfect, every fleeting second where the Targaryen prince was welcomed and celebrated, earnest offerings of a meal and drink to lengthen his stay at Storm's End, it undeniably made his ego soar high. And still, he acted aloof as ever, so quiet and calculated when picking which of the daughters to marry, his eye raking over every inch of revealed skin to see if moles or freckles were speckled on it. Only one, whichever of them it was. That was the one he claimed, full hair dark and wide eyes brown. With everything having settled, the call to his brother's claim aided, and the second son finally relinquishing what the gods owed him, it crashed down on him just as quickly.
Lucerys' arrival was a taunting, either by the secret awfulness of the boy himself or by their twisted fate. The intrusion of his very presence had struck Aemond incredibly offended, his tiny stature standing before all to bark out the message of his mother's own claim. He had come once again to take something from his uncle and was possibly able to get away with it, since it wouldn't be the first time. In that part, Aemond felt he wasn't unjust for awakening his awful temper. His nephew had a way of talking and holding himself that he was so unaware of, his voice of defiance never matching his childlike features that had people like Rhaenyra or Aemond's father fooled. Sweet summer child, the boy was regarded as when he was born and walked around the Red Keep. After the incident on Driftmark, Queen Alicent made certain the nickname came to a halt as well as the Targaryen heraldry.
But bright princes who only knew of joy did not thrive in the middle of storms. People like Aemond did. After Lord Borros' quick scolding of the boy, struck down and wilted enough, his uncle felt it was justified to further twist his arm.
He thought maybe his half-sister was sending her son to him as appeasement, but how could she have known of his being there? No, it was someone righteous, justice itself whispering into Aemond Targaryen's ear that this was the moment he had been waiting for, that all of his repentance had led up to this glorious moment. Lucerys was his to have finally, even if it was in the small form of one of his eyes.
It had struck Aemond mad, a ghost of rage and entitlement possessing him as he demanded his right to his nephew's eye, the look of fear still not aligning with the way Luke's voice had come out in a thick husk of rejection. At the moment Lord Borros called him off, the prince felt he had experienced this moment before, knife in hand and ready to strike at the object of his ire. Then he remembered his mother, and the way her face had pierced into Rhaenyra's after she had drawn blood from her. It was a look of possessive nature, the striking thought that Lucerys was not indebted to him in mere measurements of flesh or muscle dawning finally. No— Lucerys Velaryon was his to have in full.
Chasing him was akin to the first time he had ridden Vhagar, the feeling of freeness and knowing everything was falling into place, that life was simply giving Aemond what he had so desperately yearned for. He knew that when it came to claiming his she-dragon, snatching his nephew off the back of his little beast would be a fortifying reward just as much. What he hadn't thought of is how keen Lucerys was on not being caught, the blight whispering to the Targaryen prince that the boy wanted to see how dedicated his uncle was. But the thought rushed out as soon as he realized Luke was afraid, Arrax spitting fire in retaliation while Lucerys yelped for his creature to falter. Before Aemond could let the intricate way his nephew spoke in High Valyrian wedge itself inside his sick mind, Vhagar acted without him. After that, above the storm and in the place where even clouds could not reach, Aemond can only remember the sound of bones crunching, the smell of iron, and hearing no more breath or cries leave the body of the Velaryon prince.
The first time his nephew had spoken to him had unknowingly been his last.
It was that unrelenting cycle of thoughts he was stuck in until morning, up to the moment his chamber doors were knocked upon and immediately opened. It was his mother, frigid and breathing in and out carefully as if she planned each inhale and exhale. Then he noticed his grandsire's outline by the door, Otto sparing him a glance before the doors were ordered shut once more. Aemond knew instantly he was being handled with great caution, and that Alicent's presence was something plotted to carry out something nobody else but his mother could will from him. For a moment she stood, rubbing her hands together nervously while her son looked blankly at the wall, still unwanting of conversation.
"Have you eaten anything, Aemond?" A vibrant quiet was his response. "I supposed you haven't slept either. I myself could not."
He lets her ramble on about the littlest of matters, but once she comes back to the fact that only scraps of the boy's dragon have been found, Aemond cuts her off before she can utter Lucerys' name.
"What is it you've actually come to talk about with me?" They both know, especially with the way his voice comes out hoarse, so tired from the yelling of yesterday's chase.
"Your grandfather and I have decided it would be of utmost importance that you write to your sister." He is already out of his chair, feeling so see-through that the prince finds himself bending into the hearth to retrieve his eyepatch and secure it back on his face. "Please, Aemond. I know it not in you to have actually been keen on killing your nephew-"
"Stop."
"Write for forgiveness-"
"Mother."
"Tell her of how you'll be sent to the wall-"
"Please! For fuck's sake, just-" He throws his hands over his face, he feels as if the chambers of his walls are no longer there and everyone at court is around to witness the failure. Certainly, they can hear his mother scolding him, Aemond first of his name, the Kinslayer who is to be handled like the true child he is. He chokes out a laugh, not even noticing the way his eye dribbles out hot tears that collect at his chin, feeling it fitting that even after death Lucerys still threatens everything he's worked for. "Just stop."
Aemond swallows the lump in his throat, looking away from his mother's horrified face, not knowing if he means for her to halt speaking or cease bearing such an unrecognizable gleam in her eyes toward him.
"I will not write."
"Aemond-"
"Our king has seen my actions fit. I shall move however he commands-"
"My son, please!"
"Do not beg, mother. Not for this— not when you've undone these matters with your own hands. You placed Aegon on the throne, now this is his kingdom and war to shift whichever way he pleases." Her wide eyes let tears fall out, running to outline the frown on her face as Aemond continues to sear her with his words. "What did you expect after all? Spoking this fire in me all these years concerning my 'sister'. Familial ties and sentiment are futile now. They always have been, as soon as you told us to forget about going to Dragonstone to bend the knee to Rhaenyra. No— maybe this was all over once you took Father to wed."
She reaches to strike at him for the second time within the fleeting hours, but Aemond spots it, even if Alicent has made sure to try to do so on his blind side. Her entire body shakes as he holds her still, rage coating her small frame as she struggles to break out of his grip to try and hurt him. The only thing that fills the room is her sobs, and the amount of shame she bears for her second son. He feels it cannot get any worse, so he finishes wording the conclusion of his thoughts that he has been going over throughout the dark of the night.
"I know how you only hit us when we appear too much like the worst parts of you, mother. I know too much about this damned family from the place I've sat at my entire life, even with one eye. And I know how deeply you pray and wished in Sept that Rhaenyra agreed to your peace treaty." He leans into her ear, his paranoia is certain that everyone is still pressing their ears to the walls to listen. "That she to be yours to keep and seek out as you please on that little island across Blackwater Bay. Close friends until the end."
Finally, she stumbles backward, Aemond letting her go and watching as she holds her hands to her face to muffle her mouthing cries, the cuticles of her fingers red and freshly picked at. Like this, her auburn hair falling around her in waves and dark eyes filled with tears as she only stares at him, as if she regrets ever holding him in her womb, the second son sees the resemblance of a child he never knew. The one wed to a king and unable to refuse, so close in age to him that if they escaped to Essos, he knows nobody would think of the woman as his mother. And with her fragile appearance, the scorned face, and the incoherent babbling she's only ever shown to Aemond, perhaps not even mistaken as a queen.
Despite her flinch, he takes her into his arms, a silent apology to remedy the wounds he reopened up for her. He thinks that if he caught a glimpse of her back, he could see her own cuttings, but Aemond grimaces above her head. Everyone knows it is her hands she takes to repent. Yet still, nobody had stopped to cease her pain. Including him.
"You must know Mother, that I regret my actions deeply, but letters and treaties are now over." She nods against his chest, as he continues to whisper soothing words, and pat her softly as if she was the child. But this exchange is so familiar between the two that it would be foreign for Alicent to hold Aemond in her arms, the child grown too large and burns too hot for her to try and coddle. It's not as if she never tried, but it is the white hair and violet eyes, features she wouldn't allow herself to find love in.
His mother leaves, wiping her face earnestly and retreating back into the depths of her mind, refuging somewhere deep and silent as Aemond had, quiet when her father presses for answers. As the silence settles again and coldness runs through his body once more, the second son feels he should have let his mother land her palm across his face. At least in that case, they both would've felt anything other than their newfound, long-lasting pain.
He forgets what follows after the confrontation, the morning a fog of grief and hiding away as servants run throughout the Red Keep to prep for the feast. Aemond only remembers himself being found in front of the blackened fireplace, Helaena and the children coaxing him from his seat and escorting him to the banquet hall. She bounces Maelor on her hip, the twins running around the two siblings grown, his sister running a free hand absentmindedly on the walls as they walk.
"The babe is full of fussing nowadays. I myself cannot get him this tolerable for long. Dyana- I think her name was- the only one who could. But now she no longer is assigned to my quarters." Aemond looks at the babbling bundle in her arms, giant pools of lilac peering up at him. The child reaches out to the man, so unaware that he had the capability of spilling the blood of his family.
Aemond pushes onward and away from the children, Helaena jumping suddenly as Aemond walks ahead and into the open room, Aegon hollering at his arrival. It is the sounds of overbearing clapping that drown his hearing, and even when his brother holds him by the back of the neck to allow everyone to relish in him, the Targaryen prince feels anything but proud.
Yet there he was, stomach empty and hands jittery on the hardwood of the table, staring down at the blue veins that shined up at him. He wondered what would happen if he got the cutlery knife and slashed at them here, in front of everyone, would they try to stop the bleeding? The answers were in the lingering stares floating within the great hall, Aemond understanding that the curse of kinslaying was now branded upon him. Even his mother who was present never came close by, sticking to her father at the end of the table as he muttered things to her. Alicent wielded a blade for him at one point, and he threw blame to cover for her; their frigid relationship of coexistence shifted too much for Aemond to handle.
He tried to instead wonder how people could dance at times like these, joyous and feasting. The people in King's Landing court who remained by his brother were eager to be rewarded it seemed. Despite Aegon making certain to talk about how it was not to be on any accord a celebration, his brother still toasted to Aemond, even if the younger's chalice was still full.
"To a good beginning, as well as my good brother. Seventeen years young and you already show the true blood of the dragon."
The second son holds his chin up and keeps his eye off of the table, the weight of his king's hand clamping down on his shoulder and making him feel like a dutiful puppet rather than a man grown.
The feast lasted from midday into the afternoon as the sun began to graze the horizon, only being called off once Aegon's drinking led to the revealment of his usual unhonorable behaviors. With the day practically gone, Aemond felt he did not want to go back to the four walls of his chamber and continue staring into the blackened hearth. Like the boy he was once, a lifetime ago it seemed, the Targaryen prince let his body carry himself out of the Red Keep underneath the shadow of a cloak, his soul calling out for his dragon.
Vhagar resided on the shore of King's Landing, sleeping underneath the soothing heat of the disappearing sunset. She resembled the great broken rocks that clung to the sides of the beginning to Westeros, but the steady breathing and rising of her dark scales are what threw all similarity aside. The callus and cuts of her skin are perhaps what drew Aemond to his terrible habit, wanting to thicken his own and become impenetrable upon anyone's words or hurtful glances. But still, he understood it all, the boy had grown too smart for his wellbeing, the weight of the truth sinking the lashings deeper into his back.
Even just by looking off into Blackwater Bay, his mind wondered how soon bodies would begin littering the gravel. Of the many soldiers that would begin washing up from Dragonstone and Driftmark. The ugly thoughts always ended up back in the sky above Storm's End, and the dropping feeling in his stomach that still hadn't entirely gone away.
He sought warmth in Vhagar, pulling off his gloves and running his shaking palm against her dry, green skin. Aemond wondered if he never claimed the dragon, if he could have remained a child forgotten. Simply kept in the shadows and his growth hindered, he could have stayed a suitable size for his mother's arms. But he remembered how vacant her hold was and how far away she always seemed, and how duty ran him hungry beyond concern. Vhagar did not flinch as he sat with his back pressed into her, his long legs sprawled onto the crunching rocks of the seashore, wedging uncomfortably into his flesh. Aemond watched as the moon began to shine and the sky turned dark, his weak eye flitting closed as his mind finally began to find peace; comparing the dark of the night to the black of Lucerys' curls.
But the curse of kin slaying had shown down on him along with the stars, a new beast beneath the boards out to play in the absence of the dutiful second son.
___
The white-haired prince woke once he heard yelling coming from above him, Vhagar grumbling in discontent from the noise. The vibrations omitting from her scales had Aemond peeking his eye open to meet with the brightness of morning, almost hiding from the sun, but instead too occupied with the loudness of the Red Keep. He began walking back, peering up in confusion as he knew the sounds to not be of joy from another celebration, and that his grandfather would certainly have Aegon too preoccupied with recovering from yesterday's deep drinking to continue feasting. It was the weakened state of Aemond and tiredness within his bones that slowly made his mind contort, realizing that the ugliness of reality only escaped him when he needed it most it seemed. The Targaryen prince climbed the rocks, Vhagar shining her head around at his frazzled state and getting up as if to aid him, but once he settled on the land and could look over her, he spoke to her in High Valryian.
"Lykirī." He felt the command was mostly to himself. Aemond thought that perhaps Rhaenyra had indeed sent his mother a long letter of how she was to now seek all of their heads and put them on spikes, with his own being first. That the running servants were fortifying the Red Keep as Aegon had urged for it to be since they were too preoccupied to even bow to him, but once he saw their shaking hands carrying tubs of darkened water and reddened fabrics, Aemond knew better. The walk all the way to the Tower of the Hand felt like an eternity, sympathetic glances aimed his way along with scoffs, and whisperings behind hands that let the prince know whatever occurred was believed to also be his fault. He swallowed nothingness into his tightened throat, about to ascend the stairs to where his mother's quarters were, where all the help was scurrying into, but his grandfather caught him on his way down.
"Aemond, where have you been?" He asked urgently, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief and blotting his nose, trying to mask the scent of iron. The boy only shook his head and walked onward, shaking his arm out of Otto's grip before continuing on route to see what was wrong, and why the smell was growing heavier. "Aemond!"
"Is it her? What's happened to my mother?" Perhaps he had been too reckless with her yesterday morning, his temper had grown frigid as he came of age. She had to have known it wasn't his truth. Certainly, Alicent understood she gave birth to relentless dragons, and that breathing fire was in their nature. She had to accept it, just as Aemond had with Vhagar.
"It's not her. My son it is-" He finally turns to Otto as his heart calms for a second in his chest, his grandfather looking at him with pity for the first time since he got back home. Instead of explaining to Aemond any further, he lets him go, putting the cloth back to his nose and letting his eyes follow the servant girls as they carry scrubbers and a new tub of water and soap, the Targaryen prince following them into his mother's room. Certainly, if the young maidens could swallow the scene, then so should he, Aemond thought.
He nearly fainted as he came upon the threshold of the room, his mind dizzying and his insides churning as his eye steadied on the tiny body in the center of the room, head gone from it. Even with the likeliness of him gone, the prince knows it to be the eldest boy of his sister, barely of age six. Only his mother is in the room, her brown eyes already on Aemond as he looks at her with horror, her arms opened for him to take hold of and keep himself upright.
"What has happened— Mother— are you okay? Is anybody else harmed?" She holds him sturdy before her, leaning close as if to hold him but instead Alicent seethes as she is hidden in her son's hair.
"Where were you? Your sister had her babe ripped apart in front of her and the ones who did it run free with the boy's head. Just where were you?" He pulls his head back, feeling she already knows as her nose twitches and the corner of her mouth frowns downward at the stench of dragon. "Even without you present, it seems the safety of your nephews is never secure."
Through a whole day and night's worth of crying and tearing apart at the flesh of her fingers, she is eager to scorn Aemond back. The prince sees it finally in that instance, how his mother can become a fearsome thing that makes even fire-breathing beasts curl away, resembling the sting of the whip he takes upon his back.
He flees from the scene as if he has done it, and the reality of the circumstances, the glares from those at court, make Aemond feel as if he has. The same aristocrats that were eager to relish in Lucerys' death in order to get their hands on imported wines now grimaced at the prince. He stalked through the halls toward the council room, certain his grandfather has called a meeting, understanding how the man is not hindered by awful events to discuss the crown's next move. Aemond recognizes his grandfather's own call to duty, urgent to stay afloat as a second son himself, raised in the shadows of his older brother and the Hightower in Oldtown.
Once he opens the doors to the council room, Aegon laughs upon seeing Aemond and downs the remaining wine in his goblet, Otto beside him with a tired expression. The rest of the men shift in their seats as tension brews in the air, their king standing from his seat and looking the soberest he has in hours.
"It seems the hour of kinslaying has come for us all. Welcome back to the small council meeting, little brother, will you speak this time around? I'm sure the topic of another one of your sibling's children dying is an invigorating one for you-"
"You all are dismissed." The men stutter at Otto's sudden command, seeing if Aegon will back him, but take his violent stare toward Aemond as an answer instead. They push past the taller of the princes, the boy taking it into account and feeling even smaller than the day before. "Now, sons please let's just-"
"Have you caught the scum who've done this? And what of our sister Helaena?"
"Oh fuck right off, Aemond. You leave all night and come right back to try and act like the knight in shining armor that you believe yourself to be? No, brother, you are a fucking craven-"
"I was with Vhagar all night. I am not familiar with such outings as Your Grace is, but know I was not gone on my own accord-"
"Ah, along with the title of a kinslayer, we shall come to find you a dragon fucker as well?"
"Stop this bickering at once." Their grandfather cuts their heated argument in half entirely, just in time for the doors of the council room to reopen and his mother to walk in with the men that were just let out of the hellfire path of the Targaryen brothers.
"What is the status of the capture of the two perpetrators from Ser Criston Cole, Father? Aemond, Aegon, please sit, we have much to discuss." They simmer down, Aemond taking his place beside the Hand and the Dowager Queen to his right. Aegon steadies back down reluctantly, staring down his brother who looks only at the table, knowing if he returns the glare he will be unable to bite his tongue. In that case, his head might be cut from his shoulders before Rhaenyra can get the chance. As the men of the council begin to talk once more, Alicent starts in before Aegon feels himself ready to give Aemond the penance he deserves, grabbing a hold of her second son's hand and looking at her eldest boy with doe-eyes.
"Let us remember we are all that we have. The true enemy resides across Blackwater Bay, and the culprits still roam beneath us with—" She looks up to blink away tears, Aemond wondering how his mother can shift from a vengeful woman to a mourning grandmother within the hour. "With Jaehaerys' head."
She clenched hard on Aemond's hand, the boy almost wincing before nodding, finally turning to look at Aegon who swallows, his eyes wavering at the mention of his late son's name. They are playing their parts. And receiving punishment for them too.
"I shall go aid Ser Criston in the search if my liege shall permit?"
"Yes, brother. Be off." He got up and out of Alicent's grip, but while leaving through the wooden doors, he heard Aegon speak once more. "And Otto, seek to it that all the city's rat catchers are hung."
Before he set off, Aemond went to Maegor's Holdfast to seek out Helaena after all of his concerns for her had been omitted. Servants finally paid him mind, bending along his path like flowers wilting, some carrying uneaten dishes while others had bundles of blankets in their arms. Once he arrived to his sibling's shared quarters and let out a breath he hadn't known he held, he walked into the room and let his eye fall upon his older sister. Only, she looked tiny, holding onto herself within the bed while Jaehaera slept next to her, Maelor not in sight. Helaena flinched at the sight of Aemond, before softening and letting her hands fall from the sides of her head, pressing into the canals so she could only hear her heartbeat.
"Sister," He swallows and approaches her carefully as the girl looks at her daughter, the child stirring in her sleep a bit and letting out a whimper before she falls easy again. Helaena no longer pays mind to Aemond, staring at the contours of Jaehaera's face and seeing Jaehaerys', the twin boy gone from her arms forever. "I'm sorry I was not here when it happened."
"It wouldn't have made a difference. Nothing did. Nothing could." She pulls her violet eyes away from her daughter, wiping her reddened face free of any more hot tears. Helaena rocks herself gently, her hands crawling up to grip her shoulders and going deep into her mind. Aemond sits on the bed and lets his eye fall upon his niece, her fair brows pulled down as she continued to twitch in her sleep. "Poor child saw it all. Her other half torn from this world."
Aemond thins his lip and looks to his sister who still won't return her own attention to him, her palms pressed against her ears again and fingers digging into her scalp of white hair.
"You did too, Helaena." He reaches out to pull an arm down and away from her head, but she shakes her head and swats him away. Aemond gets up from the bed and steps back, the girl's eyes brimming with tears again as she bites down her lip to stifle her cry. It doesn't work and Jaehaera rolls over in the bed with another whine.
"They gave me a choice on which to have murdered. And I chose Maelor." She shudders out, manically beginning to slap at her ears now to try and pound out the sound of Jaehaerys' cries, the image of his tears still flowing from his severed head never leaving her even with her eyes open. "Son for a son."
Aemond's eye shakes as Helaena finally looks upon him, letting him know the truth of the execution of her firstborn boy. Jaehaera has arisen from her little rest, crying in frustration and mourning as her sleepy eyes fall upon her uncle and their new reality of war. Reluctantly, his sister takes to her daughter's side, holding her so tightly to drown her cries but the girl was so numb she grew limp with weariness again, Aemond taking his leave once Helaena continued to show her back to him.
Some of the men of the Kingsguard had already left their stations to join Daemon, and the amount of coverage they had over the city fell short compared to usual. But with the shores blocked and continuous watch within the towers, they caught a gaunt man who was said to have previously been a knight himself, trying to flee with the late prince Jaehaerys' head in a satchel. While the Queen Dowager overlooked the man's torture, seeking more information from the criminal, Aemond sought to it that the princeling was wrapped as if whole, Aegon taking it upon himself to call Sunfyre to burn the pyre of his son's remains. Helaena remained in her quarters, never wishing to see what was left of Jaehaerys, and ordering for separate sleeping chambers to be assigned between herself and her husband. Their king did not grow offended by the proposal, ignoring the passing days and growing wounds of their claim as Rhaenyra grew stronger despite being said to remain collapsed in mourning; Harrenhal, Winterfell, and even The Vale answering to her call.
To rid his hands of Lucerys' death, Aemond sought to cover it with new shades of crimson. He would take to the dungeons at night and join Larys Strong in the torturing of the man known to be 'Blood'. The Clubfoot had his men do the dirty work, running rusted and infected blades across the man's already inflamed and leaking skin, Larys stepping down on the fragile spots roughly with his metal boot of a leg. The child slayer had grown so infested and deranged he was beginning to laugh at the agony, the sensation beginning to numb after so many days. Whenever 'Blood' would rake his eyes over Aemond's singular one though, he'd grimace and look away, the look of failure painted across his face. The young prince knew the feeling well enough to recognize it immediately, crashing all mirrors that occupied his private chambers to stop catching glimpses of it within himself. The sorry sight brought Aemond out of the shadows for the first time, Larys peeling away from the man's giant back to make way for the dragon, the coldness of the prince chilling the air around them. From within his cloak, the Targaryen brought out a dragon whip, rolling it in his hand before 'Blood' looked up wearily, his mouth falling open in a cry as he heard Aemond crack the weapon.
They found out that night from the man's incessant cries that it was Daemon Targaryen who had called for the killing of a son of the Dowager Queen's, still in close entanglement with the White Worm of Flea Bottom. That they wanted Aegon, but he was too guarded both on his own and within Maegor's Holdfast. When Aemond left him, he was barely breathing, left to recover on his own through the morning in the dark of the dungeon, dying on the thirteenth day after confessing weakly how if he'd killed the 'Kinslayer', none would have stirred at the debt repaid.
The days were a blur of rage, the counsel room a fury of plans and oppositions of action, Otto still believing that the realm wouldn't take it lightly if war was thrust upon Westeros so heatedly. Aegon was hot with anger with the sun out, the hangovers from night-long drinking not aiding with his souring moods, demanding a course of action from his Hand but never proposing one himself. Their grandfather finally answered their fevering want for revenge, calling upon a plan of attack on Dragonstone, but through the hesitant Triarchy that laid across the sea. The sound of ship blockades and slowing trade made Aegon impatient, ordering the counsel out, and by dinnertime, the news of Ser Criston being appointed as the new Hand let everyone know how the family was beginning to crack apart under the weight of war. That their foraged places within the Red Keep were softly crumbling. Aemond was too numb and tired to try to shield his family in the light of day.
It was in the night that Aemond found his true battles, trying to soothe things over with Alicent and the rest of his family by tending to their endless needs. He had started aiding her with the new task of raising Maelor as his sister could no longer bear the sight of the babe, always fussing and yearning to be held by his own mother.
"Helaena says it is the servant girl Dyana that calms Maelor best-"
"He's weaning is all." She dismissed, Aemond bouncing the child with a sizzling eye on his mother who refused to call attention to bloodshed anymore, staring vacantly with tinged of dried, brown iron underneath her nails as she picked absentmindedly. He felt pity for her, realizing that this was the state of her when she had them all so young, Daeron being the last of her brood but by then Rhaenyra was only on the first of her own. The thought of Lucerys pulled at Aemond again, the prince silencing the impeding thought by snuggling his nose into Maelor's head of white hair.
He wondered then for a moment if his mother had grown up with her own, then maybe she would've known how to care for them a little softer. That them bearing too close a resemblance to their late father and their fires burning too similar to her own wouldn't set her so on edge. Aemond put down the sleeping babe in his cradle, looking down at the child his sister called to be killed, breathing steadily.
Aegon had told Aemond one crazed afternoon after a morning of drinking about why Helaena had picked Maelor to be slain, that the boy was too young to know of the matters.
"A child knows when it's unwanted. It is human nature to understand what places reject us, so we might pass it on for one that allows us to thrive."
Aemond only covered his brother with a blanket as he talked himself to sleep, one of the many Helaena had been sending from her quarters as she said the texture of the fabrics was making her skin crawl. Once everyone was settled and the Targaryen prince felt nothing would stir, he would return back to the prisons to do his brother's bidding, Ser Criston Cole immediately calling to the deaths of all of those who refused to bend the knee to Aegon. It was how Aemond remained afloat, proving what little worth he felt he had left by snuffing out anyone his family needed dead, never dirtying their own hands.
While he readied the crying once-elite onto slabs, encasing their wrists and neck to hold them down as if they were cattle, Aemond raising a blade to let it slice through the bone and flesh, Ser Criston watched. He caught the heads as they rolled, letting his foot kick them to a halt and flick them to the side. Their eyes rolled and mouths were stuck open in eternal horror, their remains contrarily slumping down in limp bliss.
"My prince, those at court feel your heart has blackened even more throughout the past few weeks," Aemond remained his rhythm, his head clearer than it had been ever since he'd last seen Lucerys. "I know this to not be true, I've known you since infancy and see how dutiful of a son you are."
The Targaryen prince grabbed a hold of another, the woman grew so weak and malleable from not eating that she felt like a skeleton in his hand, already eager to meet the Stranger. Ser Criston still did not allow for silence to welcome death.
"Take into consideration that you might-" He slammed the pillory shut, the wood making Cole hesitate, the only one of them all to see how his blight was returning but in a new form. Something inhumane. "That you might publicly show affection to Maelor in the halls, my prince. It would negate the fear the realm is beginning to hold for you."
Aemond only looked at the newfound Hand as if his brother had made a mistake, wanting to crane at the man about how he was to whisper words into the king's ear, not his. But instead, he shifted his feet, the rhythm beating back into his veins as he raised the sword above his head again, slicing down through neck so easily it could've been hollow. As the head rolled to Ser Criston again, the man looked down at it for a second, his eyes glimpsing upward as soon as Aemond began to move again. It was there he saw the swirling of fear, the person that had told him he knew of his troubles best now branding the princeling as a 'Kinslayer' with his shaking gaze alone. The white-haired boy hummed, throwing the sword to the side and leaving the dungeons for the man to clean up or leave the bodies to rot, neither result affecting him in any way.
"Let them fear," Aemond called out as he walked through the darkness to the staircase, ascending the steps with little newfound pride in what he had said. For he knew what he did was out of necessity, that any affections to come his way were forged, carved out in the same way his mother had for their places in King's Landing. Aemond would rather grow lonely under the tears and blood of those opposed to him, than shrink underneath the shadows of the public who sought to reject his presence.
He made sure to draw the serpents out, repulsed stares on him once Aemond refrained from wearing his eyepatch any longer. The only pain searing him was the reminder of how it was Lucerys' that ironically made him able to see in full the hypocrisy at court. Yet the smell of blood and charred bodies did not deter Aemond from engaging in war on Rhaenyra, guilt riddling him to finish what he started.