The war had already begun but the effects were becoming dire with each passing day, Aemond didn't return. So many times Y'olanda fought the urge to send him letters but she gave in on the tenth day.
She would wait at the parapet in the night expecting a raven or the ugly sight of Vhagar but nothing showed up. No one showed.
There was an attack close to Blackwater Bay that left King's Landing in despair. Sometimes they would see Rhaenyra's dragons flying overhead, eyeing the contenders, so Queen Alicent ordered for all the women to stay within the Castle's walls.
Y'olanda didn't have much of a choice but to spend her time with Maester Orwyle and Aegon. They had made significant progress in his treatment and now Aegon could sit up on his own.
She felt inexplicable joy when he did and she wrapped her arms around him without thinking. She and Aegon had formed a strong bond. She saw him as a good friend who always listened, even though he couldn't speak all that much.
The brown skin girl reading to him was his favorite pastime activity. Her steady yet soft voice like the waves calmed him and he looked forward to it every day. She stared at him like he was a human being and the affinity he was starting to have for her was different from Y'olanda's.
There were days she wouldn't show and he would be unamenable during his exercises. The Grand Maester didn't have the opportunity to mention it to Y'olanda.
Alicent had never visited her son even though she heard that he was making progress. All she wanted to do was leave this place with her daughter. She had everything a woman would want but the grander the luxury, the more trapped she was becoming. All the red-haired Queen hoped was that Rhaenyra kept her word and would spare Haelena if not herself.
Y'olanda shared a laugh with the King that day. This was the first time he had smiled and it suited him. Her mind drifted to another Targaryen brother. What would his genuine smile be like?
"Appears your room is now appealing to you, Makai." Y'olanda hadn't even shut her door when she heard her sister's feathery voice.
"Secreste, what a pleasant surprise! We've hardly seen each other in three months." She smiled, a cautious glint in her eyes as she studied the way her sister stood looking at her, grimly.
"I came earlier in the morning but you weren't here. You are never in your room. Why? Do you not like your quarters?" Her words were supposed to come out kind, however, Y'olanda heard something, deeper.
"I went to visit the King." Y'olanda stilled.
"Yes...." W'yonna's fingers traced the Golden edges of the settee. "Always with the King. People talk you know?"
"Yes. That's the chasm between us and animals, is it not?"
"You and your glib tongue. I'm sure the King must adore it, seeing as he is so eager for your visit. Your tongue must do wonders."
"How dare you!? Do you think I bed the king? The man is paralyzed!" The younger sister raised her voice, incredulous at her sister's accusations.
"You come back to your room so late in the night, then what do you do all day with him!? Do you realize the danger you are putting us in!? Have you heard what they call us!?" W'yonna let out a breath, not bearing to look at her.
"Whores, I know." She replied blankly. "I have to say that our spies are underwhelming if they don't tell you that I spend my nights at the parapet. How could you even think that? I am your sister. The only family you have left."
"That's why you were so comfortable to sell me to that despicable cripple! Do you know what he does to me..... What...." Her hands traced her skin through her clothes, the ghost of his touches still lingering. What he made her do with her feet. Her eyes were hollow. She was disgusted with herself. Sometimes she wanted to.... End it all.
"Then you endure! We do this for Rhaenyra to have a better life. If we can get a title, our lives, and our future will be rooted here. Every great house starts from somewhere." It was always logical. She never thought with her heart.
"The gods, Yaquinn! That's all you have to say!? I am being raped every night and you want me to endure while you go around traipsing with King and slapping the Prince Regent!?" W'yonna closed her eyes, calming herself. "I want to leave."
"What? We can't leave!" Y'olanda moved closer to her sister, speaking in a hushed voice, "We are helping Rhaenyra get information or have you forgotten? Our information about the war plans has been helping in this war!"
"All of that won't matter when I'm dead, would it? You've always cloaked yourself with pride of being wise, never lowly to care about us! Mother's golden child so you thought you could mother everybody. No wonder the other children sneered at you!"
"I wouldn't have to mother you if you didn't behave like a child. Everything I do is for you! I said we should go to Essos but you refused! Now that I am salvaging your ill decision you point a finger at me?" She sighed, the hurt in her W'yonna's words twisting her heart.
She held her sister's hands. "We can't be at odds, Secreste. We just can't. You won't have to be with Larys for long because I will kill him myself, so endure. Te Creste Fer, Secreste." Their foreheads bumped each other, lightly.
"I love you too, Y'olanda. I don't just want to end up like the rest of our family. We are the last remaining Kembel." They pulled apart, Y'olanda lowering herself onto the settee. "Nevertheless, you cannot be going around slapping people and whatever you have with the King has to be pinned. They all think you want the throne."
Y'olanda scoffed, "A thousand swords poking my bum is not all that comfortable." W'yonna smiled, her eyes softening. In her own way, Y'olanda cared for her more than anyone else. She left their family to die to save W'yonna.
Hours passed as Y'olanda's golden-flecked eyes gazed at the night sky. The stars weren't present. They hadn't been for a while. Maybe the Long Winter she read about was coming. The Starks did say Winter was coming.
Where she was from, the seasons weren't balanced but every person saw snow once in their lifetime. She had to just before her older sister was killed because she couldn't bear her husband's heir by their father. Her O'Mara.
Inhaling sharply, she walked away. Disappointment flooded through her like every other night.
However, out of nowhere, someone grabbed her arm, violently, spinning her around with such force that she couldn't see who it was. Her heart pounded in her ears as the culprit pushed her against the wall.
The person unsheathed their sword and pointed it at her, stalking towards her until the edge was an inch away from her throat but the person was also a hair's breadth away from her. The moon illuminated the bastard.
"You!" Her eyes widened, staring at the person in shock.
"I told you I would punish you, darling. Did you miss me?" He wasn't smiling but the coldness around him unnerved her. Her body shivered in his presence.
His face was very close to hers and she could see his eye clearly. She was scared out of her wits but his eye was beautiful. The shade of blue it was wasn't too dark or light and the way it formed was breathtaking. It felt like she was staring at a mirror in the process of being shattered.
Their chests heaved as Aemond traced her bare arm, his eye flickering to her full lips. He could kill her without even trying but his cheeks had sunken in, dark circles surrounding his eyes, and like always he was clothed in blood.
"I'm glad to see that you came back just for me." Aemond glanced up at her, "you flatter yourself way too much."
"Why didn't you retire to bed? Where's your dragon?" Her hand rested on his cheek, her thumb grazing it. He stiffened at the contact.
"I had to kill you first." Y'olanda nodded, her hand reaching up to his eye patch. He grabbed her wrist, bellowing, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I can't hurt you, Aemond. You're the one with the sword you twat." Even with the insult, her voice was soft. He let her slowly remove the patch and her breath shuddered as she ran her fingers against the scar.
He watched her eyes swirl with remorse and pain for him. Why would she care about him? She sent him letters to him during the war. The only thing that kept him sane as he slaughtered people. He had never fought in a war but the longer it went on, the more his mind kept breaking.
"Who did this to you?" She whispered, despondent.
"Dead." Y'olanda nodded. His eye raked over her body, his thumb caressing the softness of her lips. She wasn't afraid of him nor did she feel repulse by his scar. Instead, it broke her heart and Aemond didn't believe it.
He lowered his head, his lips brushing against hers, his sword still close to her throat. Her heart raced. They shouldn't be this intimate. She pushed him away and stalked off to the parapet. She needed to breathe. He intoxicated her thoughts.
There was a tick in his jaw as he followed her and his elbows rested on the edge of the parapet just like her. However, his eye was trained on her, not on the sky.
"Why did you write to me?" He inquired, his head titled to the side.
"Because I didn't want you to be lonely. Wars seem to have that effect on people or so I read." Aemond stared at her amused.
"Is that why you spend so much time with my brother? Because he's lonely?"
Her head snapped to face him, a smile appearing on her exquisite face, "Why? Are you jealous? Your brother doesn't want to slit my throat at every point in time, so I think his company is much better."
"You wouldn't feel the same way when you know the things he had done. He's only pitiful because he's on the ground." He spat and Y'olanda shook her head.
"You also do terrible things. You killed your nephew-"
"Because he took my eye-"
"-And you burn down villages because you can."
"Are you here to judge me or call me a monster? If that's what you're here then I best get on with ripping your throat from your body or would you like to be burned to death?" He barred his teeth at her hoping that she would run away but Y'olanda sighed.
"Using threats and insults to push people away isn't right." She turned back to face the world. The night breeze made her dress flutter and the lights in the city turned off more each day the war progressed. "I don't like being browbeaten, little dragon. I try to forget the past and move on but it's harder than it seems. No book has any clue on how to." The shallow laugh she let out made his heartache. A feeling he had never felt before. What was she doing to him? He wanted to know everything about her.
"What happened to your home?"
"A hunter felt daring enough to march up to the Shadowlands and caught a magical disease that started spreading throughout our village. I warned them to kill the infected, burn their bodies, and not allow any traveling for the time being but no one listened.... Until.... Until almost everyone caught it. I had..." she swallowed and Aemond moved closer, lightly rubbing her arm.
"I had to burn down the village to save me and my sister." she hadn't even cried when she heard their screams. Her baby brother, called for her to carry him but he was infected. The ones who weren't refused to leave their families and they died too.
W'yonna called her a witch when she told her sister to stop crying over the dead because they were dead. Apparently, that was awfully inconsiderate, but if both of them broke down who would help the other?
She remembered reading every book to find out about the disease but it simply didn't exist. There was no cure and she couldn't risk the lives of the ones that could make it. If only her father had listened to her.
"So, little dragon, if you are a monster, then so am I." Her lips curled up, sadly. "I suppose we both have a flair for burning down villages."
He didn't know what to say.
"Our mother had always been distant from us. Aegon and my half-sister's children turned me into a joke. One time they wanted me to bond with a pig. They didn't care for me and used me as a game. That's how I lost my eye. But I promised myself that no one would ever laugh at me." Only fear. People feared him and he thought his mother would finally pay attention to him but she never did.
They all called him unstable and they were right but they made him into this shadow that had blood in his hands. He had never told anyone this and Y'olanda didn't cuddle him, just understood the darkness in him. She didn't say what he wanted to hear but the fact that she comprehended was more than enough.
What he was feeling for her was dangerous and could bear no fruit. He didn't know what he felt but the pull to her was painful when he resisted and he had to. He couldn't have a weakness. It couldn't happen.
Both their shoulders were touching.
"Are you still going to kill me?"
"Yes." he paused, "But not tonight."
"Not tonight," she whispered into the darkness letting his presence warm her. This was fatal but she couldn't retreat. Not now after what they had both shared.