Chapter Text
Aemond has never felt quite so aware of his body. His skin and the gooseflesh that erupts across it whenever his mind wanders to thoughts of her. His heart and the beat that quickens whenever she enters a room. His veins and the blood that warms within them whenever she speaks to someone else, laughs with someone else, touches someone else. Someone else, but never him. Not since the night beneath the weirwood tree. He’d felt more alive, more himself, than he had in years that night, moonlight making him bold—or mad—enough to press his fingers to the scar he’d left on her temple so long ago. He’d felt…purposeful, almost, as if he’d been born not to serve his family, but to serve her above all else.
But that was last week. Eight days and a handful of hours since they’d parted ways in the corridor. Eight days and a handful of hours since she’d spoken to him—really spoken to him, not just casual, cordial greetings when she’s passed him in the halls or caught him staring at her from across the supper table. Eight days and a handful of hours, and not once has he been able to focus. It’s enough to drive him to madness—to anger, white-hot and familiar, a flammable blend of envy and confusion and desire.
She’s everywhere—everywhere but where he wants her, close and close and close to him. She’s returning from a flight with her temperamental little beast when he’s taking off with Vhagar. She’s leaving the king’s chambers just as he’s entering with fresh salves for his father’s eye. She’s watching her brothers and sister train without so much as a glance at him on the other side of the yard. He doesn’t understand it. Just last week, they’d felt closer than ever before, and it was strange and disquieting and impossible to understand, of course, but he’d almost liked the sense of chaos that flooded his body, more than he’d ever cared for a lack of order and structure in his life. He liked being near her, even if they bickered, even if she was utterly infuriating and captivating at the same time. Now, he’d take a full-blown screaming match if it meant hearing her voice for more than just a few pleasant, empty words at a time.
Why? Why did she grow so quiet? Why did she grow so distant? They live beneath the same roof, and yet she feels further away than when she was on Dragonstone; at least then he only thought of her once a year, and wasn’t burdened with the awful weight of caring, of wondering why. He’s driven himself to the brink of a migraine each time he’s tried to decipher what could’ve happened to cause this new rift, just as they seemed to be mending the last.
Perhaps he scared her, or angered her, or said something foolish and wrong. Perhaps when he touched her scar and called her beautiful, she’d thought him to be mocking her. Idiot, he thinks, though he’s not sure if he means her or himself. He’d meant it: she was heaven made human in the pearlescent glow of the moon, lips parted and chest heaving and gold glimmering in her eyes. Or perhaps it was the next day, when he asked her to sit beside him at supper. He should’ve known she’d sit between her brother and her Northern handmaiden; it was Luke’s nameday, and she’d always choose the boy over him.
He kicks back his blankets and pushes himself out of his bed. It’s unusually hot tonight, and he can’t sleep anyway (nor does he want to, really; his dreams have been terribly unsettling recently, violent images of dragons clawing one another apart above a burning field or other images, dragons of flesh clawing at each other with far less sinister intentions). His thoughts will only continue like this all night unless he distracts himself. He finds a shirt from his wardrobe and pulls it over his head then tugs on his eyepatch, not bothering to comb his hair or shove the diamond into his scarred socket. His boots and swordbelt are by the door, and he grabs them as he leaves his chamber. He needs to hit something, to swing Blackfyre until she stops haunting him, ruining him.
He forces himself to think of anything but her on the walk down to the training yard. The halls are next to empty, with only the occasional soldier on guard or servant in the shadows. His mind should be empty, too, and he’d welcome the silence. Instead, his thoughts drift to the only other thing that’s occupied him as much as his niece in the past week.
The list. Two dozen highborn girls hand-picked by Otto (and, if Aemond knows his mother at all, Alicent) Hightower from the mass of nobles invited to the king’s celebrations, the eligible daughters of the realm’s great houses and wealthy Essosi lords with ancient bloodlines that would make suitable queen consorts to Aegon. Girls with fathers just as calculating and greedy as Otto himself. Girls who can be controlled. He’d felt sick with barely-contained rage at his grandsire’s suggestion that he could take his pick of Aegon’s scraps. He should’ve told him in no uncertain terms precisely why he’d never marry one of them, but he’d known Otto wasn’t in the mood for that conversation. That would have to wait.
But the list cannot. There is just over another moon until the floodgates open and the city is drowned in nobles all desperate to claim a dragon. He’ll do his duty, as best he can: determine for himself which of his grandsire’s choices are best suited to a life as Aegon’s queen and push his brother towards them with a phantom hand. His brother’s bride will have to be woman enough to fend for herself, clever and cunning, either beautiful and skilled at keeping his attentions or secure at suffering his indiscretions—or she’ll have to be a true puppet, weak and content with being moved about the board like a pretty cyvasse piece. It won’t be easy; to survive a marriage into the royal family is no small feat. No wonder the Targaryens kings have often married the only women who already know what it is to be a dragon.
Aemond’s heart stutters to a stop at the thought. An indescribable fury fills him in an instant. To think of Aegon taking another dragon to wife…Helaena, or the twins, or—
He barrels into the deserted training yard, unsheathing Blackfyre and swinging it at a straw figure with all his might. His vision is red and raw on the edges as he hits it again and again, feeling more beast than man. The burning in his chest is worse than when he’d seen his brother’s ring on a slender brown hand, but he cannot put the fire out no matter how hard he strikes the straw dummy. The stars are bright above him but all he can see is Aegon and a white-haired bride at the grand sept’s altar, pulling a red-and-black cloak over her shoulders. And after, once they’ve said their vows and cut the wedding pie…
“f*ck!” He grunts, hacking the figure’s head off entirely.
The straw ball falls to the ground with a soft thud and rolls to his foot. He kicks it and shoves his sword into the dummy’s heart, resting on the hilt as he catches his breath. Blood rushes past his ears, and for a moment he can’t hear anything other than the sound of his ragged panting filling the yard.
“Goodness, uncle. Did he say something to offend you?”
Aemond pulls Blackfyre from the straw and whirls towards the source of the voice. Half-hidden by shadows, leaning over the fence of the upper wall and appraising him with an amused grin,
“Viserra.”
(Eight days and a handful of hours. She’s tried so hard to avoid him, to keep him at arm’s length and be satisfied with that. They’re friends now, nothing more; the little…misstep in the godswood was nothing more than a tiny inkblot on a large, clean page. She thinks of him with no more fondness or confusion than she does her brothers, or Aegon. Or so she tells herself. And in the span of a week, she’s convinced herself it's true.
It’s easier this way. She’d sat awake for hours after Raya fell asleep, bathed in the light of the full moon, beseeching the moon to rid her of the mild insanity that had been taking root in her chest. After hearing Raya speak so highly of her brother, she knew she needed to be focused on the task at hand: finding a husband, not dreaming about silver-white princes with their fingers on her scar and their mouths on her neck. There were thirty-seven other sisters across the realm who would also sing their brothers’ praises if given the chance, and Viserra owed it to the people who would one day be her subjects to consider each suit fairly. And she cannot do that with a mind full of Aemond Targaryen. She’s pruned him away bit by bit over the past eight days and a handful of hours, careful to clip the bud before it can bloom fully—for the health of the plant, she tells herself.
In truth, it hasn’t been all that difficult. She’s had plenty to occupy her: races on dragonback with her brothers and Baela, each taking turns pulling Rhaena into their saddles; picnics in the gardens with the younger boys, screeching for Aegon not to drop Gaemon or her brothers when he hoists them on their shoulders and careens around the hedges; afternoons listening in on Otto’s hearings with the commonfolk or Rhaenyra’s increasingly tense planning sessions with Alicent, learning as much as she can from the objectively well-suited Hand or trying to stop her mother from bickering with the queen. Her mind has hardly strayed back to Aemond.
Until tonight. Tonight, when her dream of fiery hills and dragons coiled together at war above them morphed into a dream of feather beds and dragons coiled together in lust above them—when one of the dragons had scales of silver, the other scales of gold. She’d woken with a flush of shame—and a flush of desire, though she’d never admit it—and a strange restlessness, and left her chambers to pace through the castle until she grew tired enough to sleep without dreaming again.
But of course the gods saw fit to throw him in her path, a windstorm of untamed ferocity and unnerving precision, his sword an extension of his arm as it severed the straw man’s head. And he looks so—so handsome, with his shirt rumpled and unlaced, his hair tangled and almost curly from sweat as it swings over his shoulders. Now, it’s all she can do not to stare at him, and she finds it impossible to remember why she’d wanted to keep her distance in the first place.
Her stomach writhes and her heart slams against her ribs. Oh. This is why; this feeling is dangerous and delightful and it makes her mind feel fuzzy. This is wrong. Distracting. She cannot afford distractions now. But…she cannot help the smile that forces its way to her lips when he glances up at her, pretty mouth parted and sword poised to cut her open. She wants him to do it, if that’s what he wants. She wants to play this dangerous and delightful and distracting game, if that’s what he wants. Caution be damned. )
“Well?” She prods, propping her chin in her hand. “Tell me what he said, so I may avoid his same fate, the poor thing. Did he hit you first, is that it?”
A gust of wind fills his head, swirling at breakneck speed, shattering and tangling his thoughts. He’s not sure what he feels when he looks at her, not ever. It bothers him that she seems so sure of herself, looking down at him with such effortless charm and confidence. Like Aegon. Perhaps his brother should take her to wife; they’re quite similar in that way. Anger swells in him again and he forces the notion away quickly. No, he couldn’t bear to see his brother touch her the way he himself has in his dreams. He can’t bear to even think of it.
He realizes she’s still waiting for an answer, and he’s still pointing his sword at her as though he might throw it like a javelin up to the wall. Aegon will never touch her, he reminds himself, more a vow of solemn determination to make it so, and for a moment it calms him enough to lower Blackfyre.
But then a cold voice in the back of his mind finishes the sentence: and neither will you.
He will never touch her. He will never touch anyone, not as a man touches a wife. That is not something he is allowed to want. He should remember that.
(He cannot remember it now, when her bone-white curls are tumbling over her shoulder and her cinnamon-brown face is lit up with starlight and sweet curiosity.)
“He asked too many questions,” he says drily.
She frowns, just for a second, but a bright smile breaks out across her lips. His heart lurches. “Aemond Targaryen, was that a joke?”
“I can be quite funny.”
“Right,” she co*cks her head to the side, “you’ve just chosen to keep such a talent hidden from the world for nigh on eighteen years.”
“Or perhaps you never noticed.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so bitter. But the words sting as they leave his tongue, and sting as they land on Viserra. The curve of her smile wilts. For a moment, he’s not remorseful in the slightest; he doesn’t mind forcing her to think of him, of all the years he spent in her shadow, never able to shine with his own light. But then it hits him like the flat of the sword straight across his chest. He opens his mouth to—
“I would’ve noticed. I have always seen you, qybor. It is you who has never looked upon me in a fair light,” she says with a quiet fire, her face expressionless and impossible to read.
Cold panic sears through him, amidst the anger and desire and envy and all else. The corners of his mouth twitch. She’s not entirely wrong, but it feels like defeat to admit it. He’s known since the day she came home that he was perhaps…narrow, in his assessment of her as children. But he was a child. Of course he did not see her at nine the way he does now. There are multitudes to her; he can still see her vanity and arrogance in the right light, but the goodness of her, too, brighter and more beautiful than all the rest. Still, he bristles at the suggestion, half-waiting for a quip to follow about his blindness. Of course you’ve never seen all of me. How could you, with only one eye?
More than anything, he wants to see her now, in full. All of her. Whatever cruelty or ugliness may rest beneath the surface, too. He imagines carving her open from her collar to her navel and pulling her apart to inspect the inside of her. He would not judge. He would not do the same to himself and show her all that hides within him—never that, for she’d run away screaming, and he’d be left to sew himself up in great shame—but still he would not judge.
He blinks, finds the bones of his spine and stacks them back up. “And how do you suppose I should come to see you fairly, if you are always at such a distance?”
(Viserra wonders if perhaps he sees her better than anyone else.)
He takes a step towards her and folds his arms over his chest. They stare at one another in silence for a moment, both daring the other to speak first. And then she spreads her hands and grins and— “I am right here.”
As if it is the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. As if challenging him to come, to scale the wall and steal her away and feast upon her until he’s consumed her entirely. And after eight days and a handful of hours, he’s hungry enough for her that he just might do it. Gods, but he wants to.
“You are,” he agrees.
“Ah, but here is your chance,” she teases, and his vision blurs. Chance for what? Do not untie my lead, princess, and give me my freedom, or you will come to regret it once you see the beast I am.
His heart races at a dizzying pace. His feet move forward again until he’s almost directly beneath her. Something about the halo of starlight framing her face emboldens him, makes his tongue move before his mind. “But you are still too far, Serra. Come down to me.”
Come down to me. Come down from your pedestal, the throne made for you by the adoration of my father, my sister, my world. Come down to the fires and shadows of hell that I call home, and meet me in my madness. Do not let me burn alone.
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, mouth parted, eyes shining. He can see her more clearly now than ever before: the coin flipping behind her mind, suspended in midair as she makes a small choice that weighs far more than it should. He vaguely notices that the sky isn’t quite as black anymore, that soon the castle will come to life, that they could be found here by one of his mother’s or grandsire’s spies. He can’t bring himself to care. Let them. He’ll hold Blackfyre to their throats and call for Vhagar, just for another moment with Viserra. But her eyes nervously flick around the yard, and he realizes it was his wish alone to be closer to her; her distance has been no accident, and he’s the fool with the hopeful heart, not her.
(Odd, how fondness can change you.)
She says nothing, remains unaltered by the storm that seems to ravage Aemond alone. She shakes her head like she’s clearing away cobwebs, and he can’t decide if it’s an apology or a sign of pity—silly boy, with your hatred that’s melted into gentleness. Ha! Such a feeling will never be reciprocated, from her or anyone else. Her eyes are on him, and it’s suddenly too much, to be the subject of her attention, though it’s all he’s wanted for the past week.
“Your father’s boat,” he blurts, too loud in the quiet yard, an act of desperation. “I can show you to it. Later today, perhaps.” Only a fool would dodge an unanswered invitation by offering a second. Aemond the Fool, they’ll call him. Florian reborn. A knight, yes, but an idiot more than anything else.
But her expression softens and she smiles in earnest, and it’s warm, entirely without pity or apology or spiteful fire, and he feels the tension unknot itself from his shoulders inch by inch. Brighter than the sun. “You found it? Oh, Aemond…” she trails off, biting at her lower lip. His heart twitches.
“Meet me at the western gate at noon,” he rushes on while he still has an ounce of courage. The roar of blood in his ears is shameful, really; he is a man grown who has lost an eye, taken lives, and fought men twice his size. But it’s his soft-hearted niece, small and weak and unarmed—he thinks—that intimidates him most. He wants to appease her, to avoid her at all costs, to cast her into the sea and be free of her witchcraft, to kiss her senseless.
He realizes then that he’s lost. Hopelessly lost, given over to whatever spells she’s cast on him. And he cannot bring himself to care at all.
She nods, a slight jerk of her head that warms him to his toes. “Alright,” she whispers, a gleam in the gold of her eyes.
He starts to reply, a rush of something akin to the feeling of victory flooding him, but a shuffling noise behind him captures his attention. He grips the hilt of his sword and turns over his right shoulder, losing her to the blackness of his blind spot, ready to strike—but finds only a rat skittering against the far wall in search of a gap in the stones to take him home. Aemond breathes out and turns to Viserra once more.
She’s gone.
He glances around and finds himself alone in the yard—just him, the rat, and the decapitated straw man. He lets out a small chuckle and sheathes Blackfyre before bending down to retrieve the head, vaguely impressed that she managed to leave undetected. “Hm.”
Just then, he notices a small swath of fabric in the dirt. He picks it up and inspects it: a bloodred handkerchief bordered with deep Velaryon blue embroidery, an intricate pattern of waves and flames locked together. And in the corner, a large V outlined with thin cloth-of-gold thread.
Checking once more to make sure he’s truly alone, and fully aware that he’s drowning, falling, lost to a madness that tastes sweeter than honey, he brings the kerchief to his nose and breathes in deeply. Salt and embers and spiceflower greets him. Her scent. His skin prickles—from shame, slightly, but bright desire more than anything else—and he tucks it into his pocket. Perhaps she let it fall on purpose. Perhaps she wants him to have it, this little favor of hers, a maiden’s gift to her doting knight.
Or perhaps it’s a trick, all of it; perhaps she means to work him into this frenzy of hate-that-soured-into-affection, so that she can—why? Why would she want to torture him? Does she need a reason at all? She’s always been vicious, vain Viserra, a viper draped in the softest velvet. She’s tormenting him. He’d prefer the screws or the rack to this, and—no, no, he has no reason to doubt her, no reason to believe her soul to be so black. No reason to believe she left her handkerchief on purpose, either.
Seven hells! This is…mortifying, in truth. His mind is being picked apart like his mother’s fingers.
Enough, he scolds himself. You will tear yourself to shreds if you give her such reign over your thoughts. She has everything else; keep your sanity for yourself. He takes in a shuddering breath, still enveloped by the scent and sorcery of her, and tries to steady himself. She said it herself: I am right here.
She is no great mastermind, hellbent on destroying him. She is still the girl that followed him around and tried to befriend him as a child, and her intentions are no darker tonight than they were years ago. She trusts him, even now, and wants him as her friend (her friend, just her friend, nothing more).
He will give her what she wants. He will obey her as he does all the others. And perhaps, in time, he’ll grow to trust her in return—-and to trust his heart not to betray him most cruelly.
☀
“Well, it’s…” Viserra chews on the inside of her cheek, trying to find a kind word.
“I should have come alone first, checked on it myself,” Aemond mutters half-angrily. She peers over at him and finds his fist clenched around Blackfyre’s hilt, eye trained on the boat. “This is…”
“A challenge! I have my work cut out for me, to say the least, but it will be quite enjoyable, I should think, to have a project.” She musters up as much enthusiasm as she can, almost more for his sake than her own. In truth, she’s not so certain there will be anything enjoyable about this.
She stares at the decomposing lump of wood in front of them and frowns, her hands on her hips as she surveys the damage. Kepa’s boat is almost unrecognizable. The skiff did not fare well without her father’s constant and dedicated attention to its upkeep these nine years. The shipwright with the Velaryon sigil on his uniform had warned them as he led them to the boathouse that he’d found it in poor condition, but she’d believed—hopefully, foolishly—that he was merely exaggerating. Now, she sees that he was perhaps too generous with his assessment. The keel and rudder are missing entirely, the hull is falling to pieces where the wood has rotted and chipped, and the mast is cracked in half. The sails, once painted with bright and cheerful hues, have been lost completely; torn away and stolen, according to the shipwrights, though she can’t understand why someone would steal just the sail and not the whole boat itself.
Her heart is heavy with dismay in the musty, briny air of the drafty boathouse. Sunlight sneaks in through the gaps in the walls, providing just enough light for her to see that repairing Kepa’s skiff will not be the one-afternoon adventure she’d thought it to be.
Aemond shuffles next to her, his frown even deeper than her own. He reaches out to touch a jagged plank of wood jutting out of the hull but thinks better of it, choosing to wrap his knuckles around his sword again instead of risking a splinter. He sighs. “Perhaps…I know the thing has sentimental value, niece, but perhaps it is beyond repair. If it is a fine ship you desire, surely your grandsire would gift you the finest of his fleet, and you would not have to lift a finger.”
She turns her scowl in his direction. “You do not understand. I do not wish for any galley or warship; I wish for this skiff, dilapidated as it may be. It cannot be beyond repair. I shall repair it with mine own hands, as any Velaryon would, no matter how difficult it may be.”
She speaks more harshly than intended, and for a moment considers apologizing when she sees her uncle’s eye widen. She hates that they so often find themselves in this pattern, that he has some strange power over her that brings barbs out of her tongue. He holds her gaze for a second in stony silence before raising his hands in surrender, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“I admire your determination. But can’t you ask this man—” he gestures in the direction of the shipwright who’d greeted them when they first came to the docks “—to have his workers see to this for you? They are professionals in the service of the Sea Snake, and you—”
“And I what?” She challenges, and the pattern feels less like walking through a field of wildfire and more like a game of cyvasse. Her scowl flickers into a smirk. Gods, but it can be fun.
He looks down at her hands pointedly. She holds them up for his inspection. His hand darts out and takes one of hers into his own, finger tracing over the flesh of her palms. Her heartbeat stutters, slows, starts again. His eye drifts up and meets her gaze. “Your hands are soft, Princess. Not a callus in sight. They have never known work such as this, and will not survive this task unbloodied. For the sake of such sweet skin, perhaps you should return these hands to their needlepoint, and let those with rough, seasoned palms take care of your lord father’s boat.”
Ah, she thinks, he still believes me to be a pampered, sheltered girl, who would rather watch from a plush window seat and sip fine wines as men do the heavy lifting for her. She wants to be upset with him for the suggestion, but the pad of his finger is still pressed against her skin, and her breath is caught in her throat at the contact, dizzying her mind. She allows him to touch her for a moment more before she remembers that they’re not alone, that there’s a dozen men at work around them, all craning for a glimpse of their prince and princess.
“You care for my hands, is that it?” She co*cks her head to the side as she pulls her hand away from his grasp—reluctantly, painfully.
“Hm,” he nods in response, eye unblinking.
“Then I shall wear gloves.”
Viserra steps past him with a small giggle, aware of her skirts brushing over the toes of his boots as she moves. He lets out a huff but says nothing else, perhaps sensing that the battle is lost. She makes her way to the other side of the cavernous boathouse, where the lead shipwright, a grizzled old builder named Des, stands watching over his men.
He bows deeply when he sees her approaching. “Princess. You see what I mean? Needs quite a bit of work. It’s a miracle we even found it when the prince came asking. Can’t believe Lord Laenor’s own vessel wasn’t brought to us the day he left. Good man, your father.”
“Indeed,” she agrees, a wistful smile tugging at her lips. “On both counts. I wish to restore the little thing to its former glory in his memory.”
They both know the simple skiff was never a thing of glory, but Des merely returns her smile. “Very well, Princess, we can set to work on it at once.”
“No, I… I intend to do it myself.”
A soft clinking of metal behind her indicates that Aemond approaches, but the older man doesn’t take his eyes away from her. He grunts as he appraises her: though she dressed more plainly than usual, she still looks entirely out of place on the docks, with her finely-made gown and pearl necklace; even the soft leather of her boots is worth more than what every man in the boathouse is wearing combined. No doubt he thinks of her the same as her uncle. She stands a little taller and flicks her hair over her shoulder to show off the seahorse pin on her cape. My hands may be soft and unused to the working of wood and watercraft, but I am still a Velaryon, the blood of the great Sea Snake and the voyagers of old Valyria.
“Aye,” he says simply after a pause. Something gleams in his dark eyes—almost pride, almost approval. “I have served your lord grandsire for eight-and-twenty years, Princess Viserra, right in this very yard, maintaining the Velaryon portion of the royal fleet. It is no easy thing, repairing your first ship. Allow me to humbly offer my assistance, should you need it.”
She remembers when Lord Corlys brought her to these docks once as a child and showed her his largest galley as half a hundred men scrambled around it performing repairs. Builders are proud men, he’d said, and should be: theirs is the hard, honest work that allows me my glory. She offers him a gracious smile and nods. “I would be honored to accept your help. I am new to this, as you say, but I am eager to learn. Now, tell me: where do we begin?”
Des leads her back to Kepa’s boat and launches into an explanation of what they’ll have to do. He rattles off parts and pieces, and his earnest passion reminds her of her father, always so excitable when given the chance to talk about anything related to the sea. A son of the seahorse, through and through. But her mind starts to drift in a dozen other direction as he speaks and points out defects on the stern, and she finds herself glancing over in Aemond’s direction.
He watches her as she circles the boat, face softer than she’s seen it before. Something about the quiet intensity of his gaze makes her mind feel fuzzy, and it reminds her of something she can’t quite put a finger on, but the feeling is reassuring, almost, like a memory of something utterly pleasant. He grins slightly when their eyes meet, and her cheeks grow warm, but she doesn’t look away just yet. She needs to figure out why his expression looks so familiar, why it makes her feel ten times taller, why it makes her blood feel like righteous fire.
Oh.
Once, when she was ten, a nobleman of the Old Blood of Volantis came to visit Dragonstone. He was tall and slender and undeniably handsome, and she remembers thinking at the time that she’d never seen a man so beautiful, with piercing blue eyes and the white-silver hair of the Valyrians. Qavo…something. It was her mother and Daemon he came to meet, but when Muña introduced her, he fell to his knees before her, lavishing praise on her beauty and grace. She’d grown horribly shy from the attention, still not used to having men fawn over her in such a manner, but he’d been almost relentless in his words of affection—and when she offered her hand for him to kiss, as Muña taught her, he’d taken it into his hands and begged her to marry him then and there. The sincerity in his bright blue eyes was nearly enough to make her agree, to flee with him to Volantis and make him the knight from her dreams.
Qavo Something was the first man to look at her thus and beseech her to be his wife, but he was by no means the last. Dozens of men—common oarsmen in the Velaryon fleet, nobles from Westeros and beyond, even servants in her own castle—have given her that same look: a yearning rivaled only in the stories of true knights and their maidens, the look of a man who genuinely believes himself to be smitten with love. She’s long since learned that not everyone who gazes upon her in such a way truly loves her, and that it’s merely a momentary desire for a dragon princess’s title that drives them to the brink of madness. But it flatters her all the same, fills her with a sense of divinity and power that nothing else can bring her. She likes that look.
It’s just…she never expected to see it shining out of the one eye of Aemond Targaryen.
But that’s what it is, it must be, she knows it. She thought she saw it last night, and in the full moon’s light a week ago, but told herself she was mistaken. Only a fool would think the man that so openly loathed her for a lifetime would give her that look, would hold any sort of fondness for her, would…desire her at all. Gods! Perhaps that rock dislodged something in her mind years ago. And yet…
There it is. He may not love her. He may not fall to his knees any second and beg her to be his wife. He may not turn the realm to flame to fight for her hand. But he’s looking at her in that curious way, and she can feel it. From rivals to strangers, strangers to friends, friends to whatever this is. How strange. Something warm curls into a ball in her stomach, a dog settling down for a nap, not soon to leave. It makes her feel good, right, to know he harbors any affection for her. She deserves this. Gods know she’s fought for it for years, forever.
“Thank you,” she says a little louder than intended when Des finishes his long explanation.
She forces herself to tear her eyes away from her uncle, to hide the growing sense of pride that threatens to explode from behind her smile. After so many years, finally, finally, she’s earned his fondness, the warm, beating, bloody thing he hides in his chest of stone. She wants to rip it out and eat it —a terribly unfamiliar feeling for her, but perhaps his viciousness and cruelty is rubbing off on her in this way. She hardly cares about the boat, about the king’s wish that she marry, about anything beyond the electric, vibrating bond she can feel between her own body and Aemond’s. She’s wanted him to see her for a lifetime, and now…
Now she wants to take all that he has to give. Now she wants to consume him whole. Now she wants to coax his affection into love in its entirety—to break him apart and reform him as something made just for her.
Now she wants him.
