Chapter Text
Aemond stepped out of the dancing bodies and joined the circle of clappers and fiddlers keeping the rhythm going, too exhausted to do anything else. He'd danced with three Baratheons, four Lannisters, one of whom had been twelve for the oldest, a Tyrell and a Gardener, a Smallwood, a Greenwood, and a Blackwood, two Cleganes, a Brax and a Crakehall, a Payne and a Westerling—Johanna's niece—two Cranes, and a pale, older woman with hair blacker than night and unnaturally green eyes.
Someone thumped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see that his uncles had found him. Tourney done, they’d all changed out of their armor, washed, and decked themselves off in all their finery.
“Why aren't there chairs?” he complained.
"Better question—why aren't we indoors?" Bryndon replied, joining in the clapping but a beat or two behind the music. "I didn't take Jason to be so provincial, but the weather’s right for it. If it starts to rain though, I’ll raise a ruckus."
“Ay.”
The weather was wonderful. The sun had gone down but the moon was full, and the stars were out in all their glory. Not a cloud in the sky. Good weather for outdoor dancing, but still, having a chair would have been nice.
“I think you’ve danced with every woman here except the one you want to dance with.” Gwayne, in green velvet, standing on his blind side with a smirk on his face. “Curious.”
His mother’s oldest and youngest brothers couldn't be further apart from each other in age or temperament, but he was grateful for them all the same. All of them. Earlier, Prestan had hugged him and lifted him off his feet in celebration of his escape from the Red Crypt and he’d actually hugged the man back. A man he’d last seen when he was twelve who should have been like a stranger to him.
It was nice to remember that he had uncles who didn’t want him dead. Uncles who gave a fuck. Uncles whose loyalties were never in question. If his mother needed them, they’d come.
“Very curious,” Gwayne said again, pulling on invisible chin hairs.
“Whatever do you mean, Uncle?” Aemond looked away from where Rhaena was being twirled about under the steeple of Garmund’s arms. With some distance between them, he could see that she didn't know all the steps but was simply copying the women around her and being spirited about it. She had stepped on Garmund's feet at least twice in the short time he’d been watching, and she was showing absolutely no remorse about it, but Garmund, ninny that he was, simply laughed along with her. It was hard to look away from her—the gold in her skirts kept shimmering with reflected light from the balefire, and the occasional peal of laughter kept hooking his attention—but he did his best. “I’ve danced with everyone I meant to dance with.”
“You could marry her, you know,” Gwayne's insidious voice whispered. “Septon Rogare is just there,” he said, pointing with his chin, "and you have here a gathering of the lords paramount of the Mander, the Westerlands, and the Stormlands bearing witness. What more do you need? She is there for the taking.”
“I cannot.”
“What harm is there in asking?”
“I will not,” he said again. “As you put it earlier, it would be unfair. To have her burn every bridge back to her family when it’s almost certain I'll be dead this time next year or the year after?”
“Such optimism.”
“Three dragons against six? You want me to be optimistic?” The Strong dragons were crushable enough, but Dragonstone was teeming with dragonseeds and Daemon had had years to find a rider for Grey Ghost and Silverwing. Who was to say they hadn’t already found someone mad enough to mount Vermithor? “I cannot ask that of her, nor will I demand it. I’m here only to ensure her safety.”
“With Garmund?” Gwayne frowned.
Aemond watched them dance and swallowed down the bad taste in his mouth. “She’ll run roughshod over the dolt,” he said. “Ignore her pageantry—she’s clever and most heartless. She’ll trample those flowers at Highgarden.”
“He is but a glorified hostage there.”
“Exactly,” he said. “They won’t allow their hostage to marry until the conflict’s resolved and in the meanwhile, they’d treat her like a princess. When the war is done, and if I survive it, who knows—maybe the good page accidentally skewers himself while cleaning someone’s sword.”
“Yours?”
“Anyone’s. Sword-polishing is dangerous business.”
“He is clumsy like that,” Bryndon said dryly, and Aemond nodded as if to say, ‘Exactly.’
Gwayne huffed out a breath. “Why are you like this?” he asked, still clapping as he eyed a red-haired woman in the center of the circle who was making a deliberate show of kicking up her skirts. “How did the venom get into you? Everyone’s celebrating, and you’re here plotting murder.”
“I’m a dragon,” he said as if the answer was obvious. “We are born venomous.”
“Ah.”
“The way I see it—” He paused as Garmund’s hands brushed a little too near Rhaena’s back for his liking. “It’s as though I am merely storing gold at a bank. You don't go into battle with your money purse on you.”
“I do,” Gwayne said, fondling the newly procured winner's purse hanging from his belt and making the coins tinkle. “There’s not a fucker alive I trust with my money.”
“I was referring to people who aren’t idiots,” Aemond corrected. “Normal people don't go into battle with their gold on them. You deposit it, and if you live, you get it back with interest.”
Gwayne laughed. “Your interest is going to be some other man's baby.”
“Babies die all the time,” he said. “Mothers grieve… and then they move on.”
“You are diabolical.”
Aemond touched his chest. “I’m not saying that I would kill a child. I would never. Only that children die. All the time.”
Gwayne snorted. “You’d kill babies for the woman, but you can’t admit you love her?”
“Of course I love her,” Aemond said easily. “That is nothing to admit. She’s my cousin. I love all my cousins.”
Another uncle, Cayde, from the gravelly sound of his rough voice, started chuckling behind him. “Garmund’s a cousin and you’re here dreaming of stabbing the poor lad.”
Aemond turned away from the dancers. “I love most of my cousins,” he said. “As I love my uncles and my brothers and my sisters. With a few exceptions. And I’d have you know, I’ve never killed anyone,” he added. “I'm not a man of violence like you scoundrels. I don't even have a proper sword.”
“Oh, give it up already,” Bryndon snapped. “The man is taking Vigilance with him to the grave.”
“I’m not above grave robbing.”
“Aemond!” someone squealed, and he turned around to see Rhaena all but hopping towards him, arms, outstretched, her intent clear.
“Go!” someone urged from behind him, chucking him in the spine. “Go and dance, you devil.”
Aemond shook his head. “I’m tired,” he shouted at her over the music. “You have your fun.”
Someone grabbed her around the middle and spun her around, and off they went, slipping into the flow with all the other dancers. He watched her go, equal parts relieved and disappointed, keeping his eyes on her pale hair as it bobbed in and out of sight.
“What are we doing?” Daeron asked, walking up to their group, back in his riding leathers once more. “Why is my brother so crestfallen?”
“I am not—”
Gwayne cleared his throat. “Well, you see, what’s happening is your brother’s trying to make the princess jealous. He’s danced with every lady here, even the toddlers, but she hasn’t noticed because she’s been dancing with Garmund all night, so now he’s in a bind. If he dances with her, it’ll look like he’s just been waiting on her to ask and that’s pathetic—”
“Pathetic as all fucking hell.” Prestan. “I haven’t been to a wedding in decades—just fucking marry the girl. Instead of glowering at her. Acting like the fate of the world depends on what you do with yer cock.”
“—but if he doesn’t dance with her,” Gwayne continued, “it’ll look like he’s the one who’s jealous, and being jealous of Garmund is… Well, that’s just sad, really.”
“I’m not jealous!” Aemond snapped at his uncle. “Nobody’s jealous.” And then, to Daeron, “I’m tired, that’s all. I’ve been dancing all night, and she’s like a squirrel.”
“Ay,” someone agreed. “Nutty.” Just as someone else said, “Very brown,” while a third person added, “More like a chipmunk,” and a fourth nudged him in the ribs saying, “Not enough meat on her to be a squirrel, but you don’t mind, eh?”
He put his back to the lot of them and found Rhaena, a half-circle away, hoop-dee-dooing her way around a Lannister in red and gold. Glittering and flittering about, blushing and gushing, pretending to be just the most delightful, most enchanting, most rapturous, most carefree girl in the world.
He was not jealous; he was confused. He didn’t want to dance with her. He didn’t want to participate in her masquerade of happiness. He wanted…
Well, it didn’t matter what he wanted, did it?
He watched her make the entire circle, the fiddlers switching to a faster tune, and when she reached him again, he stepped in and very gently bumped the Lannister into someone else.
“The long-awaited mating dance of dragons!” Gwayne bellowed, and his uncles set up a raucous cheer behind him.
Aemond sighed.
“How drunk are they?” Rhaena asked.
“One rung under very,” he grumbled, careful not to step on her feet. He’d not stepped on anyone’s feet all night and he’d be damned if he stepped on hers.
“I remember you having concerns about not being able to dance,” she said, slapping the bulk of her skirts at his thighs as he circled her.
It was a very ridiculous dance, truth be told. Meant to get the blood pumping and the heart thumping. A dance for farmers in much lighter garb than what he had on and for farmgirls who weren’t wearing jewels in their hair. Bucolic in the extreme.
He turned a half circle, one hand hovering over her head, and then hopped, and then another hop, and then another turn with the other hand over her head, and then they were moving again.
“There you have it,” she said, doing a horrible impression of Criston. “Be light on your feet. Anticipate your enemy’s next steps, only don’t brain her with a morningstar.”
“My morningstar—I knew I forgot something.” Hop. Skip. Reverse skip. Twirl. Reverse twirl. “This is—”
“Pleasant?”
“—dizzying and exhausting,” he complained.
“You were enthusiastic enough when you were dancing with Floris. Did she excite you?”
“She was lovely. Don’t be mean.”
“How am I being mean?” she asked, eyes big and bright, glinting with malice. “I’m asking if she’s exciting.”
Spin. Spin. Twirl.
Anything he said would be used against him. She grinned when he refused to answer. “And the witch,” she went on. “Was she exciting? Did she teach you any spells?”
“What witch?”
“The one with the glowing green eyes.”
Aemond nearly laughed. “Her eyes did not glow. And she’s not a witch.”
“She is very obviously a witch.”
“You are jealous.”
“She is old enough to be my mother. Your mother. Your mother’s mother.”
“She is not.”
She sniffed and made a face as though she felt bad for him. “I suppose you wouldn’t notice since you are clearly under her spell already.”
“Where I should be under your spell instead?” He came to a stop with his hands in the air and let her twirl herself around him for a slow half-chorus before she came to a stop in front of him and pressed her palms against his. As warm and as soft as ever. “You are the only witch here,” he said, looking down at her face and the glow of the fire dancing on it as she looked up at him.
“Can’t you say I’m bewitching without making an accusation of it?”
The fiddlers ended their performance in a flourish and Aemond applauded them as the crowd began shouting requests for yet another song.
“Jason’s invited us to spend the rest of the week,” he informed her. “Are we staying?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Unless you want to stay. To spend time with your brother?”
“Ormund’s leaving tonight.”
“Well, let’s leave then. Did you get your dagger back from Loreon?”
“Not yet. He’s somewhere in the castle.”
“Oh.”
“I also need to eat before we leave. I’m starving.”
“Of course you are. You’ve been dancing with a witch all night who’s been feeding on your life force.”
“Rhaena.”
She laughed. “I’ll meet you at the kitchens?”
“Kitchens,” he agreed just as the musicians struck up a new ditty. And then she was gone.
Back to Garmund again, somehow. His cousin stole her away with a wink and in exchange, he was left with a woman who had the brightest blue eyes and a small button nose, but a full mouth to make up for it. Definitely a Baratheon. Or a Whent, if he went by the cheekbones.
“Pleasant evening, my prince?”
Aemond’s feet groaned at the thought of dancing again. “Is it?”
“The weather, I meant. You wondered earlier if it would hold.”
She was Floris, he guessed, trying to place her face. “Of course,” he said, offering a hand while he struggled to recall who she was or what they’d spoken about earlier. He’d kept a list of topics at hand. Poems, dragons, hunting, the histories... “You were telling me that your brother trains at the citadel…”
It took him half an hour to make it back to his uncles who had cleared an area on the grass for themselves so they could enjoy the music but also sit, and every single one of them was laughing at his return.
“I have to head back soon,” he told them.
“At the very least, you should challenge Garmund to a duel,” Cayde drawled. “Kill him honorably.”
“I have to get Rhaena back before someone misses her.”
“She’s been gone an entire day,” Bryndon said. “I’m sure they’re a good deal past missing her.”
Rhaena’d been gone from the Keep for three days now and someone was bound to notice at some point. Aemond shrugged, weary to his bones. “Daemon’s not the most attentive father.”
“Yes, but where does he think she is?”
“Honestly, who’s to say?”
Bryndon sat up a little straighter. “And who’s to say he doesn’t know exactly where she is?” he asked. “Who’s to say he didn’t send her to lure you away? Trick you into coming out here, leaving your brother and mother back there so the mice can play while the dragon’s away?”
Aemond stretched his arms out until the bones cracked. He couldn’t blame his uncle for having such thoughts. The same suspicions had crossed his mind the instant Baela had suggested their little escapade, but he’d put them away just as fast because of Rhaena. Whatever they were to each other, he trusted her.
She was lying to him about something. Unless he’d missed the mark entirely, there was some scheme or the other up her sleeve. Some secret at the tip of her tongue. She’d been dancing around the truth for days now, parrying away every attempt he made at genuine conversation… But he trusted her. With his life, he realized, and that was both pleasing to discover and terrifying.
And it wasn’t as though his brother was a defenseless newborn babe-in-arms. Vhagar might be the deterrent, but Sunfyre was properly demonic.
“Aegon’s…” He started but didn’t know how to finish. “An assassination attempt might actually do my brother good. I don't know what it'll take to snap him out of this state he's in.”
It was getting late, Rhaena realized. The crowd of dancers had thinned and most of the other girls had gone inside out of the cold. Tyshara was still out, as was Cassandra, but they were both at their father's sides…
“I beg your pardon,” she said, pulling on a smile as she interrupted the young son of a Tully lord who was telling her about some rare type of fish or turtle he’d found. He had sought her out for her opinion since, as a Velaryon, she was of course an expert on all things seaborn. Annoying, but he had come in handy when she’d needed to break herself free of Garmund. And now she had only to free herself of him. “My cousin will be searching for me. I had not noticed it had gotten so late."
He let her go politely and she mingled through the crowd, making her farewells and trying to spot Aemond or one of the Hightowers. Daeron, she knew, had already left on his dragon. About an hour ago, the Blue Queen flying low and scaring everyone. Someone had half-heartedly thrown a wine cup up at him. A wine cup that had been full to the brim, and now she was sticky. They were all getting drunker and wilder, the warm breeze was turning into a chilly wind, and it was time to leave.
Cutting through the cherry grove saved her some time, but she ran into Johanna, or rather, Johanna ran into her, and the woman pulled her aside so they could speak properly on the state of things. The state of things being a full inquiry into Rhaenyra's intentions if she sat the throne instead of Aegon.
Rhaena put it as simply as she could. “My stepmother has no plans for anything. Your concern should be reserved for her husband, the would-be King. Tyland controls the Treasury—it is he who needs a plan for dealing with my father.”
She doubted very much that her father had spared a thought for anything so mundane as war chests and funding for all the bribes and sellswords they were sure to need—perhaps this was where her grandfather would contribute to the effort—but bringing up the deeper costs of siding with Rhaenyra seemed like the best approach for Johanna.
A Westerling she may have been by birth, but she was a Lannister now, through and through, and the woman loved her family. Her son, her daughters, her loud, silly husband… She was not going to marry Loreon, but making the Lannisters feel appreciated would not go unrewarded. When she came back with Laenor, she would need them all to extend her the same courtesy and lend an ear.
They made a turn about one of the gardens, Johanna using the opportunity to inform her of a long list of problems that might affect House Lannister's ability to effectively assist in the war effort, most prominently, the Red Kraken and his pirate horde.
"The continued defense of Faircastle alone takes five garrisons."
"And the king does not intervene?"
"They send missives to the Greyjoys, reminders that they are still bound by the laws of the realm, but what point is there in reminding pirates that piracy is illegal? As long as they have ships, they will continue to raid us. That is their way. As long as they raid us, the best we can do is split our resources and manpower…"
They walked and talked until Rhaena was all but shivering.
“I wish we could have spoken on this at greater length," she said, breaking away from the lady as politely as she could, "but my cousin will be looking for me, and I do not want to risk one of his moods.”
She had wanted to be more diplomatic and open, but she was simply too tired now to keep all the politics sorted and all the names together seeing as she was yet to even meet a Greyjoy. And even so, it took her another half hour to bid Johanna goodbye. Succinct would never be included in the Lannister words.
At last, finding herself in a clearing, she paused, relieved to see she'd finally made her way back to the main party. Almost. She could see the balefire in the distance and hear the music, but she was too far away to recognize anyone…
"Out for a walk?" a man asked. A man she had not noticed was behind her until he'd spoken. She startled and whirled around.
One of the Highgarden knights, his flower-embroidered cape enviably snug and warm-looking on his shoulders. With him, was a Lannister cousin who’d taken a hard blow to the head during the tourney and one side of his face was still a bruised red.
"Yes," she said, picking up her pace as she gestured back to the castle where she'd left Johanna. "Such a pleasant night."
"Not safe to be out on your own like this," the Tyrell said. "Your father being all the way back in King's Landing. Anything could happen to you and who's here to protect you?"
"Your concern is appreciated, but I'm here with my cousin," she said, keeping the fear out of her voice. "We came on Vhagar, if you remember?"
"Which one’s Vhagar?" the bruised one asked.
"The big ugly one with the saggy neck," the Tyrell said.
"Where is it?" the Lannister asked. "Dragon big as that, you'd think you'd see it a ways off, wouldn't you? I think your cousin’s left ya behind."
The Tyrell made a show of looking up at the sky and Rhaena took off running the moment his eyes were off her. A thousand bitter recriminations surged through her mind as she ran.
That she should have worn a less eye-catching dress. That she should have been less inviting in her demeanor and perhaps been frostier and more standoffish, more like Tysharra. That she should have refused Johanna’s invitation for a walk and gotten back to Aemond while there were more people still about. That she shouldn’t have antagonized him all day, but instead stuck by his side as she’d promised Baela she would have done. That something like this would have never happened to her sister. That she needed to start walking around with a sword…
She managed to scream for help exactly once, before one of her pursuers got a hand over her mouth and another one grabbed her from behind, lifting her clear off the ground.
“Where’s your big bad dragon?” the one behind her asked, words heavily slurred, his hot, foul breath on her neck. “She wants a dragon to ride, Tylos. Show her your dragon.”
Tylos, the Lannister youth, began scrambling at his belt, stripping out of his trousers as if they were on fire, his cock already standing erect and pointed right at her.
Rhaena bit the hand over her mouth. “Let me go right this moment, and I won’t say anything,” she said, not meaning it at all but trying to sound earnest. “No harm’s been done as yet. We’ve just been walking. Let me go, and this is the end of it. We’ll all go our own way.”
The knight behind her laughed. “Sounds awful lot like a threat,” he said.
Tylos Lannister, whose cock was in his hand now as he stroked himself, said nothing.
“How the fuck do you reckon you’re in any position to be making threats right now? The bitch has lost her mind.”
“Do you know who I am?”
Angry now, he ripped at her dress, tearing one of the sleeves. “I was going to be gentle, but now—”
His words were cut off with a wet gurgle, and Rhaena felt something hot splash against her face. Her first thought was rain. Her second thought was blood, as she spotted the hilt of a dagger protruding from the side of the knight’s neck, little splotches of red speckling the white flowers on his coat.
His mouth was moving, opening and closing as if he were trying to say something. He reached for her, fingers fumbling before they returned to the hilt of the blade in his throat.
“Are you alright?” Aemond, like a ghost in the dark. Jogging up to her.
She nodded, but he must not have seen because he asked again.
“Rhaena!”
“I’m alright!” she said, eyes fixed on the Tyrell knight.
The knight tottered one way and then another as he tried to pull the short blade loose, and then he stumbled, crashing down on his knees, gasping and coughing up blood. And Rhaena watched, an odd mix of vengeful peace descending on her.
And then she turned to her other attacker as Aemond drew near. The man seemed to be frozen in place, paralyzed to say or do anything as he watched his friend claw at the grass and dirt like an animal. Too frozen to pull his britches back up, even.
She had warned them.
Aemond passed her his coat without a word and then went to her dead—dying—attacker.
He knocked the man’s hands away and tried to pull the dagger loose himself, wiggling it one way and then another, but it was apparently stuck.
“And you thought I had too many blades on me,” he said, unsheathing his sword. The fancy red one that a blacksmith had made specially for him, heating and cooling the blade over and over until the metal flushed crimson.
“What are you doing?” Tylos said, slack-jawed and still bottomless, nearly tripping over his feet as his trousers were still down around his boots. “He’s dying. Pull it out!”
The Lannister was not so young now that she was looking at him fully. His scruffy beard and lined face put him somewhere in his late twenties perhaps…
The Tyrell gave one last groan and shuddered.
Aemond eyed the remnant rapist, lips turning down in a pout. “Why’s your cock out?” he asked.
Tylos looked down at his naked self and then back up at Aemond as if he were just as perplexed. “I-I-I only showed it to her,” he stammered out.
Aemond nodded, his lips tugging down even deeper as the pout became a frown that was almost comical on his face.
“She didn’t even touch it. I didn’t do anything,” Tylos swore, reaching down to grab his belt. “Only showed it to her.”
“No, no,” Aemon said, tapping the man’s belt with his sword until he dropped it again. “Don’t do that. I want to see it.”
Tylos’s mouth opened in silent horror as Aemond rapped him on the knuckles with the flat of his blade.
“Drop it,” he said, calm as ever.
“It’s-It-It-” Tylos looked to her as if he expected her to come to his defense. “Tell him! I didn’t do anything. Please.”
Aemond used the side of his blade to turn the man’s face away from her, a faint red line spreading across the pale cheek. “Don’t be rude,” he said. “I don’t like being ignored.”
“Please,” the knight begged.
“Show me,” Aemond said, giving the sword a twirl. “If my cousin asked to see your cock, there must be something special about it. Show me, and I’ll let you go if I’m impressed.”
Rhaena took a precautionary step back and then another, feeling snug and warm in Aemond’s coat and making a mental note to never leave her own coat with a dragon for safekeeping again.
“I didn’t ask to see it,” she said, taking an extra step back to avoid getting any more blood on her, whatever Aemond was planning on doing.
She nearly laughed when Aemond acted surprised by the revelation that she had not in fact asked Tylos Lannister to show her his cock.
“Well, it must be very special then,” he said, nudging the tip of the man’s cock with the tip of his sword, “if he feels a need to show it off unsolicited. Does it do tricks? Do you piss gold?”
“Show mercy, my prince.”
Aemond smiled. The most genuine smile she’d seen on him all day. “This is what my mercy looks like,” he said. “Kneel.”
Tylos dropped to his knees almost instantly. “I meant nothing by it,” he said, openly sobbing now. His gaze drifted to his friend who had stopped chortling and shuddering and was now lying very, very still except for the blood still pulsing out from the wound in his neck. “I didn’t do anything.”
Aemond gave his sword another twirl and then rest it down ever so gently near the base of the man’s cock.
“Please, milord.”
“Mm-mm. None of that now,” Aemond said. “You wanted to show it off. We’re going to show it off. I’ll take it to the maesters and maybe they’ll tell me what’s so special about it.”
Rhaena took another step back as she realized how close the Tyrell’s blood was to her feet. The pool was spreading, and the ground was turning muddy.
“Please!” Tylos begged.
“Now, I’ve never done this before, so you won't want to move,” Aemond said. “Move, and my sword might slip and accidentally take your head off. You can live without a cock, but you cannot live without a head.”
“Please!”
“I’ve had a lot to drink and I don’t usually drink at all, so you want to stay extremely still,” Aemond continued, gleefully unmindful of the man’s terror. “Look at your friend here. I wasn’t even aiming for his neck.”
Tylos put his trembling hands in the air. “Please,” he said, voice shaking. “My father’s here. He’ll pay you. He’ll make you rich. We always pay our debts.”
Aemond laughed. “That’s alright. Between gold and a mystical cock, I’d take the mystical cock any day.”
“Please!”
Another twirl of the sword. “Why are you still hard?”
The man opened his mouth but not the slightest sound came out.
“Is that your trick?” Aemond asked. And then he made a face, head tilting to the side a little as he considered it. “Actually, that is impressive.”
And then the sword came down with blistering, blurring speed and blood was everywhere.
Tylos, done with being still, jumped to his feet and screamed as blood gushed out his stub of a cock.
Aemond cursed as blood splashed him across the face. So much blood, it was as though someone had thrown a bucket of it at him.
Rhaena took another step back, watching her would-be rapist scream and spray blood out of his groin, and watching her rescuer freeze up, sword still in hand, as he was bespattered by said blood.
“Fucking hell,” he swore. “Stop bleeding on me!”
With his last bit of conscious thought, Tylos turned to the music and lights, the same music and lights she’d been running to to avoid him, and took off. He made it at most five yards before collapsing in the dirt and lying still.
Aemond turned to her, body hunching over like a wet cat, hissing and spitting up a storm. “I think it got in my mouth,” he mumbled.
Of all the men in the world, she thought, why had she been saddled with this one? “Are you alright?” she asked.
He spat again. “It got in my mouth!” he said. “The cock-blood.”
It had not gotten in his mouth—his mouth was the only part of him that had been spared—but it was on his eyepatch, in his eyebrows, in his ears, in his hair, dripping from his nose… She wiped some of it off with the sleeve of his coat.
“Ahhhhh…”
“It’s just a little blood,” she lied, wiping his face dry as best she could. “It’s barely anything. Stop fussing. A hot bath and you’ll be good as new.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“That was one of Jason’s cousins,” she said softly. “One of the Lannister cousins.”
“There wasn’t this much blood when Criston did it,” he grumbled, bending over, hands on his knees as he tried to hawk up whatever blood he imagined he’d swallowed.
Rhaena pat him on the back, not even bothering to ask how many people’s cocks Criston had cut off. Vandals or thieves breaking into Alicent’s bedchamber, perhaps. Or someone who stared at her for too long.
“There you go,” she said when he made himself throw up at long last.
He straightened himself and looked at her. “Are you alright?”
She nodded, but he patted her down brusquely, nevertheless, turning her this way and that. “Where is this blood coming from?”
Rhaena pointed to the dead Tyrell on the ground. “I told you I was fine.”
“Alright,” he said, sitting down and spitting again. “I feel like I can taste it.”
“Where were you?” she asked.
“With Borros,” he said. “At the Rock. We said we’d meet at the Rock.”
Ah… They had agreed to meet back in the castle. In the kitchens, to be exact, but she’d gotten distracted by Garmund or someone else…
“Are we burying them?” she asked.
“I mean…” Aemond leaned back against his hands, looking like a demon freshly spat out of hell, the blood already congealing in his hair. “We should—”
Tyros groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees.
Aemond got up, went over, nudged Tyros onto his back with his boot, and then stabbed the man through the chest. He waited a moment, as if to see if Tyros would rise again, and then came back to her and sat down.
“You think Vhagar would eat them?” she asked.
“She won’t.”
“She’s eaten men before.”
“They’re not men anymore,” he said, gesturing to the corpses in the dirt. “They’re just carrion now. But she could burn them.”
Rhaena shook her head, remembering everything she’d told Baela about their need to distinguish themselves as the good Targaryens. That would extend to their dragons as well. They could not afford to have people telling stories about Vhagar setting knights on fire at a child’s name day feast. She didn’t want any of the lords thinking that it could have been them.
“We bury them,” she said, trying to think on her feet. “And then we go back to King’s Landing and you tell Tyland, in private, that your cousin was attacked by his cousin. A heinous attack. I was terrified. You heard me screaming for help and took action before you could recognize who my assailants were.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Should our closest allies be made aware that we just killed one of their family members?”
“A rapist,” she pointed out. “You’re a prince. You’re allowed to carry out the king’s justice when you see fit. If anything, it’s the Lannisters who should apologize to you. For the inconvenience of you having to draw your blade. A true lord ensures the safety of all his guests—the shame is theirs. Which is why you left the bodies in an unmarked grave, so they might decide what they wanted to do with the vermin of their house,” she said. “And then you pretend to be very upset about the entire ordeal. Very overwhelmed. And disappointed. Make them know it’s their fault for not locking the family rapist away.”
He sniffed and spat again. “Well, it is their fault,” he agreed, “and I am upset, but why are we burying them?”
“To give the Lannisters a chance to save face.”
He snorted. “I really don’t give a shit, but alright.”
Half an hour into digging a grave, Aemond tossed aside his makeshift shovel and kicked the loose dirt over the two bodies. He was a prince, not a fucking gravedigger. “I’m done with this.”
“They’re barely covered,” Rhaena complained.
He spat, still tasting blood in his mouth. “I don’t care.” He wiped dirt, sweat, and grime from his eyes as Vhagar started circling overhead. “It’s more than they deserve.”
“The crows will be circling by sunrise.”
“Good.”
Vhagar landed with a gentle thud and Aemond started walking towards her on tired legs. They had taken their time getting to Casterly Rock, but he would ask her to hurry back to King’s Landing as fast as she was able. He felt dirty and all kinds of disgusting. “Let’s go.”
Had he swallowed it down, the cock-blood, or was his imagination running away with it? Adding tastes and sensations where there’d been none. Why would he have swallowed?
In silence, they mounted Vhagar. She returned his coat to him and put on her own white one that was still perfectly clean and toasty warm.
“You take the saddle,” he said, passing her the reins and tying her in.
“And what’ll you do?”
“I’ll hold on to the netting,” he said. “I don’t want to get you dirty.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, tossing the rope back to him and sliding back in the saddle. “Water is free, and blood washes off.”
“I feel… repellent,” he said. “I am wet, muddy, and bloody, and it is disgusting, and I don’t want to get you dirty.”
“Killing rapists is dirty work,” she said easily. “A little blood never hurt anyone.”
“It’s in my hair.”
“Mine too.”
He sighed. That was true.
He’d stood in the turret, watching Rhaena take a turn about the garden with the lady of the house, and then she’d left off, crossing the open field back to the tents and he’d watched, confused as to where she was going, annoyed, assuming she was going back to Garmund for one last dance and then concerned when he’d spotted the two cloak figures following behind her, using the cover of shadows to keep themselves hidden, staying always out of her field of view.
He’d lied before. He had been aiming at the man’s neck. He’d seen his opening and without thinking, he’d let it fly, only remembering after the blade had left his hand that he was only a decent archer and had never actually thrown a dagger at anyone before.
He’d walked with two, but only in case he’d ended up in a close-quarters fight that was too small for his longsword, so he’d held his breath as the blade turned over in the air, and even if he lived to be a hundred, he would never be able to fully describe the relief he’d felt when it hit its mark.
As long as he lived, he might never throw a dagger again. Too risky. If he’d missed, if he’d hit Rhaena instead, he felt as though his heart might have just stopped beating then and there. His body would have given up his ghost and that would have been the end of him.
“I’ll be a better escort next time,” he said. “Promise.”
“Next time?”
“That’s fair,” he said.
He sat down in the saddle and took the reins from her. “Where to?” he asked as Vhagar leaped into the air. “We have killed a Lannister and a Tyrell. Who else is on your list? Starks and the Martells, wasn’t it? Dorne or Winterfell?”
He was only ribbing her, of course, meaning to head back to King’s Landing. He had an appointment with a loofah and a dozen or so buckets of hot water. The cold air on his damp clothes was only making him feel more like a monster crawled out of the foulest bog.
So much for all his threats to bathe in the blood of his enemies. The experience was not for him. He would prefer to go down into an actual bog than bathe in the blood spouting from some man’s severed cock. The way he’d seen Criston do it, the men just fell over and died without all the ruction.
“Or we could go to Ironman’s Bay,” Rhaena said behind him. One of her arms came around his waist and she leaned against him so he might hear her over the thumping of Vhagar’s wings. “The Greyjoys are pillaging again, and to be fair, your grandfather did warn them that there’d be consequences if they persisted.”
He looked over his shoulder at the little devil pretending to be an innocent maiden. He’d had the same exact thought the fifth time Lord Brax and Jason had tactlessly mentioned their losses at sea. He’d thought that it would be a very easy problem to rectify, but he’d kept the thought to himself.
Hearing it out loud though from someone else made him feel less like a deranged madman. “We should do something about that.”
“It would be a nice way to show them that your family’s the half that will protect its allies. No need for anyone to go to court and plead before the small council for support when they’ve already spoken to the very generous, very noble, dare we say most vigilant prince of the realm? A beacon of justice and fair play who was very angered by the disservice done to his supporters. His fellows.”
Aemond laughed. “A gullible prince who was easily tempted from his path of righteousness by a strange woman whispering words of violence in his ear?”
“I am hardly whispering.”
He thought it over as Vhagar climbed and when the dragon turned north instead of south, he was not surprised. All in all, he’d had a terrible day and he’d been in the mood to set something on fire all afternoon, and Vhagar always knew when he was in the mood to watch something burn.
They flew against the wind and the cold until the Iron Islands came into sight. The fleet was scattered in the water, but Vhagar had already picked out the first harbor she wanted to destroy. He could feel the dragon’s excitement thrumming through his own body as she swooped down low, her talons just beginning to skim the surface of the water.
He felt Rhaena’s hands tighten around him as Vhagar began to curve herself in feet-first, and he tightened his grip on her arms, saying a silent prayer to the Warrior and the Father to keep all the saddle’s bindings and straps intact. He’d had the dragon for the better part of a decade now and he’d never once thought to have the keepers check her over and make whatever reinforcements needed to be made. He’d always fancied that regardless of whatever accident befell him the worst that would happen was that he’d die, but with Rhaena clutching on to him for dear life, he made a mental note of things to have fixed. A bigger, more comfortable padded saddle for one thing. More rope for another and perhaps chains as well, for added safety. A rack to hold his swords so he wouldn’t have to carry them all on his person…
Vhagar crashed into the first ship and Rhaena screamed at the impact. Wood and splinters went flying in every direction.
Whoop, whoop, whoop …
Like a boulder crushing through a bird’s nest. A small collection of birds’ nests.
The screams started just as Vhagar began to climb again, building speed for another attack at another port.
“Are you alright?” he called to Rhaena, and he felt her nod against his back. They were going so fast now; the wind was screaming past his ears. He was used to Vhagar’s antics when she was in her mood for carnage, but he was certain that this was his cousin’s first time sitting on the back of a dragon unleashing its fury.
“Lykiri, Vhagar,” he ordered. He was not out to destroy their entire fleet. Just enough to let them know that they had earned the displeasure of the crown. Whether they liked it or not, they were part of the realm now, and they would have to abide by the same rules as everyone else or suffer the consequences.
Vhagar went high and let her fire rain down almost gently on the docked ships. She swooped up, careening towards the towers of Pyke and if her tail happened to swat down a bridge then it was all accidental and nothing to do with him.
As Aegon was always so fond of saying, a dragon could never be truly controlled. They had minds of their own and while they were open to suggestions, they did as they willed. And technically, he had not told Vhagar to do anything at all except to calm down. It was all mostly out of his control.
Which was what he’d say if a Greyjoy came to court to complain about their ships being burned which was highly unlikely since it was dark out, long after midnight, and it wasn’t as though Vhagar was a notorious ship burner. She probably hadn’t burned a city since her days at Dorne…
She circled and swooped down on a third harbor, using her feet to push the ships into the rocks and turning at such a sharp angle it had him feeling as though he had spiders crawling up his spine. It was only when she made a full roll in the air through a blazing ring of fire that he realized she was trying to cheer him up and maybe Rhaena as well. To distract him from the mess that had happened earlier. An apology for not being there when they’d legitimately needed her.
“To harbor, to harbor, to set ships ablaze,” Rhaena recited, shouting to be heard and clearly enjoying their little foray into pillaging and leaving hell behind. As uncannily fascinated with fire as she’d ever been.
“Fly away, fly away, in a fiery haze,” he continued.
“To conquer, to conquer, to raze a fleet.”
“Ashes and smoke, and sweet man meat,” he finished.
An odd rhyme for children, but it had been one of his favorites growing up, back when he’d considered himself more of a dragon and less on the side of sweet man meat. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder—were the dragons the ones eating the sailors and finding the meat sweet? Were the dragons coming up with rhymes about burning fleets? Which deranged Targaryen had come up with the song in the first place and had he been a cannibal, yearning for sweet man meat?
And still, he could easily imagine Aegon having the whole rhyme memorized and not finding it strange at all. He could very easily see his brother and Sunfyre eating a sailor and agreeing with each other that the meat was indeed sweet.
His family...
He would have to do something that was actually nice to make up for the ordeal Rhaena’d been through. Something nicer than a bit of random ship-burning. He had promised her sister that he’d keep her safe and how’d that worked out? He should have stuck with her. He should have stayed with the group, but he’d just been so… exasperated watching her and Garmund dancing and laughing it up like they were the only two people in the world. He’d been at the end of his rope, and he’d decided that it would be better to go back to the castle than murder his cousin.
And because of his actions, she’d ended up in very real danger, and he’d had to kill two people, and—
Aemond blinked, realizing that had not buried the amputated cock. He'd left it on the ground somewhere, and there would definitely be crows. He could only hope that the crows did away with it before some farmer's daughter found it while she did her morning work.
He’d also left his second dagger behind in Kober Tyrell’s neck, and that was just a waste of good gold.
Vhagar made short work of their flight back, going fast and high above the cloud, cutting through the air like a large, belligerent knife. When Rhaena climbed down after him, he could tell by the look on her face that she was near frozen all the way through.
“Well,” she said, teeth chattering. “You should come in and clean up.”
He shook his head as he walked her to her door. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t show up at the Keep like this,” she said. “You look like you’ve just crawled out of something dead,” and with that, she was bustling him into her home as if he were some small urchin she had rescued from the streets and had been tasked with cleaning up.
He was grateful for the bowl of spiced warmed milk and oats though. It was good to have the taste of mint and cinnamon in his mouth and comforting to have something warm in his belly. His coat had been modern and quite in fashion, but it had been made with warm summer days in mind as opposed to midnight flights miles in the air.
They ate their breakfast together, careful to avoid even clinking their spoons against the dishes too loudly in fear of waking someone up. The house was so quiet, if he so much as sneezed it would be as loud as an elephant trumpeting.
His chair creaked and he looked up to find her staring at him, eyebrows raised at the noise. It was bad enough that she’d spent the night out on her own, but if the servants woke up to find her taking breakfast with his mud-soaked self, both of them thoroughly bloodstained… Well, he didn’t even want to imagine that gossip.
She should not be beautiful, he thought. Earlier, when she’d been dressed up like a doll come to life, yes, but not now. Not with her hair in disarray, ash and soot staining her face and her clothes. Not after the ordeal she’d been through. But there was something in the way she smiled at him that made him forget that he was smeared in the blood of a stranger—not that he believed it would be any better to be soaked in the blood of a friend or family member.
“What?” he mouthed.
She shook her head and went back to her food.
“What do I say if my grandfather asks about what we did?” he whispered as she passed him fresh linens, towels, and clothes that she had pilfered from some guard perhaps.
“The truth,” she said.
“Handling Jason is fine, but the Tyrells—”
“—aren’t planning to participate in the war in either case, so you’ve lost nothing there. In fact—”
He loved the way she had of saying in fact as though the thought was only just coming to her and she couldn't help but say it aloud.
“—they’re damn near skirting with treason themselves and in no position, honestly, to be taking offense to a single dead rapist. It was my virtue and reputation and life at stake. What have they lost? Nothing they can't recover.”
“Right,” he agreed, not sure how Kober Tyrell could be considered recoverable.
“The porridge was… edible. Thank you.”
“You’re being peculiarly agreeable,” she said with a frown. “Why? Have I become piteous now?”
In a sense, yes. He remembered her as being strong and fearsome, but it was only now truly settling on him that she really was alone in the world. Alone and dragonless. Motherless and fatherless. Brotherless. Uncle-less. Near homeless as well given her hatred of Dragonstone and the state of Driftmark.
She had Baela and she had him and that was all.
“Do you think you would like it at the Vale?” he asked. “Your stepmother Rhaenyra has Arryn blood. If she were to ask them to foster you, they might take you in. It would be safe there.”
“My father murdered the Lady of Runestone,” she said. As if anyone in Westeros could ever possibly forget. “I’m his daughter, but I'm not entirely without shame.”
“But if you asked…”
“Your sister needs me on hand to marry Luke. What good’s having your proof of Velaryon blood sent off to the Eyrie?”
Aemond sighed. “We could try anyway,” he said. “It is less than a day away. I would go with you.”
“To the Vale?”
He nodded, setting down his towel and clean clothes near the tub of warm water. He and Rhaena had filled it themselves, carrying pots from the stove to the bath chamber. As the filthier between the two, it had been decided that he should have the first bath and she would go second.
As horrible as yesterday had been, he was enjoying the new day so far. Vhagar had been right. Destroying the Greyjoy fleet had cheered him up.
And he had enjoyed eating with Rhaena, quiet as mice. She had changed into a simple shift, and while they'd eaten, while they'd carried water around, it had been easy to imagine how simple, how easy their lives would have been if they were simple peasants, simple servants, living simple lives.
No crowns in contention. No one else's lives hanging in the balance. No dragons. No thrones. No daggers. No swords. Just the two of them eating breakfast at a table. Maybe he was a blacksmith, and she was a cook. To be married when he received his wages at the end of the fortnight. He'd buy food with one coin; she'd buy a dress with the other. And the world would go on and just leave them alone to enjoy simple things like good weather and sunrises.
“Your safety is important to me,” he said, “and I cannot be in two places at once.” That was painfully obvious now. If he'd been a second slower, if his aim had been a fraction wide… He couldn't think of it. “The Arryns are known to run a more disciplined ship than the Lannisters and the lords of the flowery Reach. If there is any place safe in this world, it should be the Eyrie.”
“I think I'd choose death over asking Rhaenyra's help if I'm being honest."
“I'll arrange it then. I’m a prince.”
“As you keep reminding me.”
“Only because I get the sense you’ve forgotten.” He was a prince. If he ordered the lords of the Vale to shelter her, what would they say? What could they say? And if he impressed upon them exactly what would happen to them if she so much as stubbed a toe under their watch… “We can go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“A visit. We meet them. You’ll see how you like the place and the people…”
She looked at him for a long moment, silently staring, but she nodded and started hustling him to the tub. “Good. Alright. But hurry now,” she said. “In the light, you really are mucky.”
Yes, he supposed he should hurry. The sun was rising, and it would be better to get back before his family woke up. Less questions that way.
When she left the bath chamber, he closed the door behind her, stripped himself out of his filthy clothes, and stepped into the tub and its bleeding hot water. He sank into it easily, his eyes closing on a sigh as his tense muscles finally relaxed, and his body finally caught on that nothing was burning anymore and that there was no one in the immediate vicinity that he needed to kill.
The steam made his eye water, but he could not think of any other place he would rather be just then. Despite the circumstances.
They would not be married, and he was beginning to accept that, but in some pervasive sense he still considered her his. To protect at least. She was his cousin, his friend, someone who was important to him, precious to him, and if she wanted to go somewhere and live with a different family that made her feel safe, then who was he to demand that, no, she should stay smack dab in the middle of the war with him, her own safety be damned? Even as a child, he had never actually wanted her to be some shieldmaiden riding into battle at his side. He wanted her safe from everything that might ever hurt her, be it a stray arrow or an ill-swung sword or his own hastily thrown dagger or—
The door swung open just as he took a soaped-up rag in hand.
Rhaena again with another large black pot of steaming water, struggling with the weight on her own, that she emptied into the tub. "It should be warm enough now," she said, "or maybe one more."
It was damn near scalding, but Aemond only found it in himself to nod, his mind reeling with a thousand questions. Questions largely about what she was doing in the bath chamber with him, and what he was supposed to do about it given that he was technically a guest in her home and couldn't order her out the room.
He had taken his clothes off already.
All his clothes.
They were on a pile, there, on the ground at her feet.
In fact, she was standing on his breeches.
“One more?”
“Hmm?”
She should not be in the room with him. The water had already gone opaque with a layer of ash on the surface, but he covered himself with his hands all the same.
She left in a flurry of skirts and came back with yet another pot that she sat down just near the tub by his head. In her hand she held yet another rag.
"We must hurry before the servants wake," she whispered, and in one quick flurry, she took his eyepatch off.
His mouth opened to protest, to push her off, to snatch the eyepatch back before she could look at him properly, before she could see the ruin of his face for what it was… But then she was scooping hot water out of the pot with a cup and her fingers were tracing over his scalp, and the only sound that escaped him was a strangled "Oh."
He kept his head straight as she washed his hair, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough.
"You should have washed the cock-blood out before it dried," she muttered, working at what he guessed was a knot.
"Can you just say blood?" he asked, confused by the softness of his own voice. "It's regular blood."
"You have blood from another man's cock in your hair. No use pussyfooting around it," she said. "You cannot go back to the queen with another man's cock-blood in your hair."
He would have replied if her fingers weren't scraping across his scalp again. She had accused him of having a cat's mouth, and a cat's attitude, so he would not purr, but he wanted to. It felt good.
The water was the perfect temperature, he was the perfect amount of tired, and even when she tugged the occasional hair out by the follicle, even the pain was pleasurable.
The last time he'd had someone wash his hair, he'd been four years old, and it had been his mother. He'd gotten mud in it from one of Helaena's frogs… It had not felt this good.
"Alright," she said, taking his chin in her hand and turning him to face her. "Let's see."
Her eyes moved over his face, lingering over the stone, the scar, going down to his lips and then returning to the scar.
"Alright," she said again, and then she wrang the excess water out of her rag and touched it to his face, just under the lid of his ruined eye. "I know it is healed already, but it is not right to go around with cock-blood in your wounds."
She dabbed at the skin gently and Aemond let her, holding himself still all the while. She rubbed soap through his eyebrow and scrubbed gently. Patting and dabbing as if she were a mother cat and he her sickly frail kitten.
"Does it hurt if I do this?" she asked, blotting down the line of his scar.
"No," he said, whispering now.
"Does it hurt? I remember it would hurt you sometimes. How is the stone?"
"It doesn’t hurt often," he heard himself say. "But there is an itch at times, and I think that is worse. It's... like having ants trapped under the skin. Having ants inside me. It's…"
He did not have the words to describe the torment of it, he realized. He had never tried to articulate it before. To tell his mother would only set her off. Criston would tell him some war story about a soldier he knew who was perhaps eaten alive by ants to make him feel less sorry for himself. His grandfather would pretend as though he'd never even heard of ants, and the maesters would recommend some insane solution like perhaps rinsing the socket out with boiling wine every fortnight.
Rhaena said nothing. Only sat beside him and wiped his face in a show of gentleness he had not expected her to possess. Time on Dragonstone had both hardened and softened her.
"There," she said softly, her warm breath on his cheek. And then, so quick and so light he might have imagined it, she pressed her lips to his scar.
She was so near, so just there, that it took hardly any effort at all to turn his head just so and meet her lips with his own.
She tasted of the honeyed wine she'd been drinking all day and the cherries she'd been constantly snacking on.
Before he could stop himself, his hand was in her hair—softer than he'd imagined it—and he was pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. Tasting her. Feeling the warmth of her tongue press against his…
He had never kissed anyone before, and he was certain he was doing it wrong. Surely, there was supposed to be less tongue and teeth involved, and there would be some trick to breathing he’d have to figure out, but Rhaena made a sound, a vibrating little moan, or whimper, that sparked a fire in his chest and his loins, and made something near his kidneys twist and coil over as though he had live snakes inside him, and suddenly he could not find it in himself to give half a rat’s ass about skill or technique.
All that mattered was that she was near, that she was with him, that her hand was on his bare chest, right there over his heart as if she meant to reach into his chest and rip it out. And he would let her, he decided as her nose brushed against his, as she leaned over him, halfway over the tub herself now, as her hands tangled in his hair pulling his head back so she could kiss him better—
And then someone cleared their throat, and she squeaked and jumped away.
Baela.
Still in her nightgown, hair ruffled, deep sleep lines marring one side of her face. She stood in the doorway glaring at him and then her sister.
"It is not how it looks," Aemond said after the longest stretch of silence.
He thought to cover his stone eye but didn't because Rhaena had already seen it, and she'd kissed him, and in the moment, that was all he could truly think about. He was naked, but the water was cloudy enough to afford him some small dignity, and he found that he was not embarrassed in the slightest to be caught with the woman he was definitely, beyond all doubt, going to marry, regardless of how many ever nephews and toddlers and cousins he'd have to kill. He'd killed two people for her already, and it had been remarkably easy. Killing a few more would be no bother at all. He'd simply have to invest in more daggers. And a proper shovel, perhaps.
"We were only—"
His future good sister raised a hand, cutting him off. "It is always you religious types who take the most liberties. Rhaena—"
Rhaena took a step towards her sister, head bowed so low her chin was almost touching her chest. Only hours ago, they'd burned a fleet of ships together, and now, she wouldn't even look at him. Shy.
"Will you manage?" she asked in his general direction, eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder.
"He is a grown man!" Baela barked, ushering her sister roughly out the room. "If he cannot manage to wash himself, then he is beyond all help. Out. Now."
Head down, Rhaena left him.
"It was only a kiss," he mumbled.
"If she is pregnant, I will skin you," she said. "And I will put your skin down in the child's crib as a blanket. Do you understand me?"
"As I recall, it was you who said I should seize the moments I had with her before it all ends."
"Seize the moment to go dancing!" she growled. "I never said to steal my sister's virtue in a tub of dirty water." And then her eyes narrowed down to slits as she took in the state of him and his bloody, muddy clothes on the floor. "What's happened to you? Did you go fucking in a graveyard? Were you attacked? You smell like blood and ash."
Aemond took up the rag Rhaena had dropped and lathered it up on the bar of hard soap.
"What happened?" she asked him again.
He sighed, thinking of the two murdered lords, the burning ships of the Greyjoy fleet, and the bridges Vhagar had accidentally torn down. "If you must know,” he said, “I was a perfect gentleman."