Work Text:
Edmund has fought in wars and is weary of his mother’s banishment: ‘ “to stain my sword with random blood” ’ (p. 194) no longer pleases him; he wants to return home.
DiPlacidi, Jenny. Gothic Incest: Gender, Sexuality and Transgression, 2018
The carved hardwood shutters trembled in protest as the wind blew into the room, stirring the velvet curtains and the thin layer of dust that had settled over the display cases.
Two servants, uneasy twin shadows in their plain garbs, lingered by the entrance. Two women, with twitchy hands and gazes that oft pointed toward the floor — newly appointed to their posts, after half of the keep’s servants had either fled or been put to death on grounds of treason.
“Change the bedsheets. Take the rugs outside, and leave the windows open. For now.”
The quiet replies were almost carried off by the hissing current, snaking from the sharp spikes at the bottom of the dry moat all the way to the highest windows on the Queen’s chambers. The higher one ascended within the Red Keep, the harsher the drafts would grow, and the royal apartments, located on the last floor of Maegor’s Holdfast, bore the brunt of the late autumn morning.
The air was cold enough that it burned Maegelle’s lungs as she breathed it in — it brought a renewed sense of clarity, to approach the windows and see the capital sprawling ahead. It breathed quietly, now, with the shouting, roaring and fervent preaching silenced.
No fires burned in the distance anymore, yet Dragonpit’s dome remained open, waiting, like a great maw.
On the window sill, three small bronze cages sat empty. The tiny doors, a delicate craft made by a talented blacksmith, had been left open.
It was quite easy to imagine Helaena crouching where she stood, releasing the crickets that had sung within. It only made sense that she would give them freedom, before-
“Princess.”
Maegelle turned on her heel. A page boy, dressed in the green and silver of House Hightower, bowed his head — but not before flinching at the sight of her face.
“The Prince Regent requests your presence.”
She breathed in the cold air again and exhaled heavily, allowing it to numb her entirely.
“And where is the Prince Regent?”
“The Lady Chamberlain’s private audience chamber.”
The boy, newly arrived with the Reachmen host, made an amusing effort of escorting the Princess to her own chamber within the Queen’s Ballroom in the first floor, when he barely knew his way around the holdfast. By the time they passed the tall gilded doors, she dismissed him and took the stairs to the gallery above the ballroom by herself.
Maegelle supposed it had gone unused since the early days of Rhaenyra’s takeover, only a mere half year ago, judging by the thin layer of dust that had settled over the candle wax and the walnut shells abandoned over the high table — crumbs and remains of a celebratory feast.
It would have to be cleaned and put to use soon, she knew. A year ago, soon after her coronation, Helaena had the ballroom restored to the glory of Queen Alysanne’s days, in which to host her own women’s court. Her older sister had occupied the Good Queen’s chair — gilded wood piled with golden cushions, the back shaped like the wingspan of a dragon, the legs shaped like valyrian sphinxes — as if she had stepped out of a song, her cloth-of-gold gown as bright as the promise of her dawn as Queen Consort.
Helaena had bestowed the office of Lady Chamberlain upon Maegelle, placed the ring of office on her finger and kissed her face.
What joy it had been then, to stand behind her sister's throne, to prepare and plan for a future far more hopeful than what it had come to pass.
Now, cobwebs had formed between the sphinxes’ wings. Its amethyst eyes had been stolen – a hideous scratch marked it, as if someone had pried the stones out with the tip of a dagger. The light pouring in through the gallery left most of the ballroom in the gloom, yet she could hear faint squeaking and the padding of very small feet scurrying below. Mice.
With the Mistress of the Household, Falia Fossoway, having fled the court before the Blacks came, it fell to her to oversee the minutiae of the keep's routine. She would have the cats brought in.
The cats, yes. The cats will solve the issue. Maegelle's grip on the railings tightened, favoring it over her cane as she ascended the stairs, her lungs starting to burn.
There would be no rat catchers inside this place anymore. Aegon had made sure of it.
Her footsteps echoed as she followed the eastern wall. No familiar white cloak stood guarding the door to her audience chamber, and the absence of Ser Rickard Thorne’s armored footsteps behind hers still stung like a fresh cut.
The door had been left ajar, and the Princess drew to a halt immediately upon entering.
A pair of riding gloves had been draped on the back of her chair, the owner comfortably resting his elbow on the armrest while his gaze scanned the contents of a letter. His unoccupied hand toyed with her letter opener, thumb sliding over the blunt edge, back and forth.
Numerous ledgers had been left open across the table — the holdfast’s accounts, the Royal Vault’s inventories, bills of sale and transactions. Personal correspondence — her personal correspondence — was gathered in a pile in front of him, including discarded parchments, letters that she had begun yet and put aside in a frustrated lack of words.
A year ago, Maegelle would have grown red in the face, stomped her foot and yelled. Perhaps, she would have been bold enough to snatch the letter from his hand and order him out — but that was a young maiden’s privilege, and the war had seen fit to drain her of every drop of innocence and willfulness that remained in her.
Instead, she wrestled these impulses in silence, and tightened the grip on her cane.
His gaze met hers briefly, before returning to the letter’s contents. Aemond clicked his tongue softly.
“There you are.” A greeting, dismissive in nature. “Have you written to Storm’s End?”
“I have-” She began carefully. “-and Lady Elenda has answered that Helaena expressed no desire to return-”
The hand playing with the letter opener went still, abandoning its prize on the desk.
“Did I order you to write to Lady Elenda?”
His voice remained as composed as before, yet the Princess froze.
Careful. Be very, very careful.
“No, Your Grace.”
“Who did I order you to write to?”
“To Helaena, Your Grace.”
Aemond lowered the letter to the desk and interlaced his fingers, his stare piercing her.
“Then why have you not done as you were told?”
“I have done as you ordered.” Her patience came to its end, carrying the formality of titles with it. “Helaena has not replied to any of the letters I have sent. Nor has she replied to those sent by the Dowager Queen, or Daeron.”
“She is needed here, to guard the city with Dreamfyre.”
She was here, in case you have forgotten. The Princess had wanted to say. She was here, and it did not stop the common folk from killing three dragons. Dreamfyre was almost the fourth.
“She is sick with grief.” Maegelle began quietly, her voice cracking halfway through. “Her two sons have been murdered-”
“You will continue writing until she returns.” Aemond did not care to hear it. “In the meantime, I have need of you for other matters.”
Taken by weariness, Maegelle sat on the couch in the center of the room, her joints grown stiff from the several flights of stairs she had ascended and descended. The Red Keep had never been kind to her.
“How may I be of service?”
“We have need of livestock.”
The Prince Regent traced the broken seals on her letters as he spoke. It was a provocation, she was certain of it. He was waiting, with bated breath, for the slightest gesture of indignation at this violation of her privacy.
“You will write to our allies in the Reach — especially those who have shown good will to you in the past — and inform that their tithes are to be paid in livestock, for the foreseeable future. You shall use my personal seal, so they will know this is not a woman’s plea, but mine own command.”
Winter has almost come. The riverlands have been reduced to ash. Half of the fertile fields of the Reach still burn. How can they spare cattle to feed beasts with unending appetites?
But the Princess knew better than to raise this question. Not to him, never with him.
There had been hope in the early weeks of Daeron’s arrival. The young Prince had entered King’s Landing as a hero, riding ahead of the column escorting a legion of wagons — his hair, grown past his shoulders since the war had begun, swayed like a crown of ringlets. Even with the deep shadows under his eyes, Daeron had smiled in all the glory of the Conqueror’s descendant, and the common folk had cheered as if they had not been seeking to tear Rhaenyra limb to limb less than a fortnight before. When Tessarion roared as she flew circles around the capital, they did not bat an eye — the Dragonpit’s carnage forgotten.
With him, came House Hightower and their allies of the Reach, and order had been restored to a city left to its own disparaging mummer kings and queens. Arrests were made, trade was restored in the city. Food began to flow into the capital, and the common folk’s fears abated.
Aegon had vanished on the same day the city fell to Rhaenyra. With him, so had vanished Lord Larys Strong, and there had been no news of Aemond’s warmongering in the riverlands after their uncle had departed in search of him, taking the bastard girl along in his pursuit.
Maegelle had, more than once, called for Daeron’s coronation. She had gone as far as to clutch his hands — once delicate and fit only to hold quills and paintbrushes and pluck strings, now larger than hers and made rough — and plead with him to accept it.
Take the throne, Daeron. You are no green boy, clinging to our mother’s skirt — you are a Dragonlord, now, tried and proved by fire. But you are loved. You are adored. The common folk, from Fishmonger Square to the harbor in Oldtown know your name and call upon the Seven to bless you. You know strength, but you know kindness. You long to put the sword and the whip down, and the lords, both high and small, will follow your lead. You will mend the wounds that tore the Seven Kingdoms apart, and your reign will be one of peace, joy and music. Helaena will return to us, and she will smile and dance and laugh again, and all will be as it once was.
Daeron had given her a long look.
Nothing will ever be the same again. The usual sharp, mischievious glint in his eyes was gone, leaving nothing but the memory of it. He pulled his hands from her grasp. Jaehaerys is dead, and so is little Maelor. Can I make them whole? Can you? The throne is not mine to claim, Maggie. I have fought to keep Aegon on it — if he’s gone, and his boys as well, then I will fight for Aemond.
What a fool he was, to grasp at honor at such a dire hour! But he remained stubbornly blind, no matter how much she had tried to make him see that their older brothers were two vicious, snarling curs, not fit for any crown.
Nevertheless, even as the Prince lingered in uncertainty, the men looked to him — if not as king, then as regent. In the small council’s chamber, Daeron sat at the head of the table, where his brothers and father had sat before him.
The council, made whole again, gathered every day. Daeron presided as regent. Her husband, Ser Tyland Lannister, still recovering from months of captivity and torture, sat with his back straight and the badge of Hand of the King firmly pinned to his doublet. Equally proud and released from the black cells, Corlys Velaryon had joined their council, as Master of Ships. Grand Maester Orwyle, with his calm demeanor, served them once again, as did Septon Eustace. The Dowager Queen joined as advisor, as she had been since the beginning, and so did Maegelle, in Helaena's absence, by virtue of being the Queen’s Chamberlain. Ormund Hightower and a select few of the other lords who had ridden with the host would also attend, as guests.
A threadbare sense of normalcy had returned to the Red Keep, as the council debated the most swift way to end the war, and the myriad issues that remained. Rhaenyra’s fate was unknown — she had escaped the city at dawn after the smallfolk had stormed the Dragonpit. Daemon had vanished in the riverlands, along with Aemond, yet Cregan Stark was slowly marching up the kingsroad and the Vale remained in open defiance, along with the Tullys. Lord Borros Baratheon and his host, their supposed allies, had gone to the dornish marshes and were nowhere to be seen.
It was an illusion to think it was over. A tempting, almost irresistible, illusion.
So it came that one day, not long after noon, as they went over the report on the structural damage caused to the Dragonpit, her gaze became restless enough to settle at the head of the table. Daeron rested his head on his palm, while his other hand scribbled something on the parchment — by the way his brow remained relaxed, Maegelle knew he was distracted, his mind far away, perhaps lost to a verse. Her little brother stifled a yawn and politely disguised it by stretching his arms, and he had been in the middle of it when his eyes widened suddenly.
In the lilac pools of his eyes, time seemed to freeze. The debating voices lowering until silence fell all together, as if all councilors had fallen into the same spell. Their heads would turn in confusion toward the same direction, the small council chamber's entrance, and remain so, until Maegelle herself could not resist its pull.
Clad in black armor chased with gold, and a crimson cloak, torn and stained, covering one of his shoulders: the kinslayer stood under the threshold, like an ill omen.
His hair, grown longer since his departure, was windblown and unkempt, with strands that had escaped the leather tie that secured it firmly to the back of his head. An uneven patch of wiry hair that covered his cheeks — a poor excuse of a beard, as devoid of color as his hair.
Maegelle's blood rushed to her head, pounding in her ears as the spell was broken. Acid burned in the back of her throat, as if she were about to retch.
No. No. No. The councilors began to speak over each other, all at once, as the chamber became no different than a fish market. He can't be back. This can't be happening.
It was their mother who rose first — the chainlinks and seven-pointed stars that decorated her dark green gown clinking as Alicent darted toward her second son, giving a cry of praise to the Mother Above when she brought his gangly figure into her embrace and kissed his face. In that moment, he was no longer the kinslayer, the tyrant, the villain — to her, it seemed, he was again the little boy he had once been.
Her gaze returned to the head of the table again, to find Daeron with unshed tears glistening in his eyes.
Stay seated, Daeron. Do not rise. Stay there. Stay. Stay seated. Stay.
Maegelle recalled her lips moving. Perhaps she had, in fact, said the words out loud, but none had been heard by its intended target. The Princess had wanted to scream, to plead, but she could do nothing but watch as he rose from the king's seat.
You are surrendering the regency. You are surrendering the throne back into the hands of a tyrant.
But Daeron would see none of it. To him, Aemond was the older brother to be idolized. Admired. The brother he would often praise and speak of with fondness.
Maegelle had been no different, once. Blind to the darkness that inhabited in him, the cruelty and the hunger for destruction. Until her last day, she would pray to the gods to forgive her oversights.
So she had remained in her seat, frozen and impotent, as governance of the realm returned into the hands of the Prince Regent and Protector of the Realm.
That night, she had held her son, barely three moons old, his little head resting against her chest as he smiled with all the innocence and unconditional love that only babes knew, and wondered if she could still love this little boy, with delicate, tiny hands that would reach for the cloth toys she dangled within his curious grasp, if he grew into a man whose hands were soaked in the blood of thousands.
Would she still kiss his forehead, and cradle him, as she did now? Banish his sins from her mind? Erase, deny or justify it, in the safety of her thoughts?
Could she be like her mother?
Would she turn into Alicent? A metarmorphosis that could not be helped, already in motion, her being dissolving inside a coccoon of her own fears, sacrifices and vanities?
"It shall be done." Maegelle began quietly, relaxing against the cushions. "But I fear it shall not suffice. Winter has all but began — highborn and lowborn alike need their sheep for wool, and the goats for milk, to keep sickly babes fed-"
A stack of parchments hit her desk like a slap.
"Witholding resources from the crown is treason."
The chair dragged. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him stand. His footsteps were barely perceptible, lightfooted as the dozens of cats that dwelt in every nook within the Red Keep.
As she refused to stare at him directly, his presence at the corner of her field of view remained a dark blur. A wraith or a devil, Aemond seemed, a haunting even in life.
"Do not trouble your little head with such matters." The corners of his mouth were tilted upward — she could tell by his tone, condescendense dripping through. "I shall make an example out of the rats that nested here in my absence-"
The Prince Regent drew to a halt behind her.
"-and the lords of the Reach will be made meek. Like lambs."
Dread ran its icy fingers along her spine, despite the lit hearth across the room. She could feel the weight of his presence, the oscillating sharpness of his gaze, as if it were an axe looming over her neck.
"Meek. Submissive. Docile." Each word was followed by a pregnant pause, swelling within the four walls. "That is what I expect-"
"Did you kill our uncle?"
A stunned silence.
Maegelle looked over her shoulder as she spoke — just in time to catch him shifting his weight, his boots scraping the parquet softly.
"I did."
The boldness and arrogance with which he had all but salivated over this moment of triumph in the past never came. It sounded rather strange, perhaps to both, to the point he amended with a sharp inhale.
"I did." His voice was carefully composed, as if to make up for the previous slip. "He and Caraxes rest at the bottom of the Gods Eye, for the fish to feed upon — the only legacy of his that will remain."
"I see."
You do not wish to erase our uncle, but merely replace him — the eternal boy prince, whose boredom heralds destruction everywhere he goes. The heirs of Maegor the Cruel, not Aegon the Conqueror.
"Do not." Aemond snapped.
Her hand froze halfway to her seven-pointed star pendant, a prayer half caught in her throat.
"Do you wish to call me kinslayer to my face, once more?"
His breath was hot and humid, lowered to her ear. Maegelle fixated her gaze on the portrait above the hearth, where Ceryse Hightower, clad in her wedding gown, stood in eternal vigil.
The bridal cloak's clasp seemed to wrap around her throat.
Let my silence irate him further.
"I have been told of this preacher who led the assault on the Dragonpit." The Prince chuckled, rolling his Rs as he slipped into High Valyrian. "This Shepherd, who denounces our family and dragons as demons, the spawn of godless Valyria. He claims we will bring the doom of men through our wickedness. Our abhorrent customs. An unruly peasant ought have his tongue removed for spewing such ignorance. The matter would be forgotten. But this is no mere ignorance. This is a perversion of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism when, in over fifty years, not a single voice dared to question it."
His hand clasped the back of her neck.
Out of reflex, Maegelle sucked in a breath through her teeth.
"The seeds of dissent scatters wherever the wind blows. It concerns me that this evil first took root here-" His voice had grown quieter, yet the vibrations still reached the shell of her ear. "-in the bosom of our family. And I wonder, sister — does the Shepherd speak with another's tongue? Were these lies, his so-called enlightement, penned by a bored hand?"
"I would not know, Your Grace."
Her first book of prayers had been stained, weathered and yellowed after being forgotten under a floorboard for more than half a century. The initials on the first page were timid, but elegant: V and T.
Viserys Targaryen, she had come to learn — not the king, her father, but the prince who had come before. The son of King Aenys and Queen Alyssa, who had been tortured to death on his uncle's order.
Compiled many, many years before the Doctrine came to light, its revelations had destroyed the world Maegelle had known until then. The true faith, untainted by Valyrian wickedness, had saved her, and in it, she had found solace.
In the disfigurement the greyscale had visited upon her body, which she had once believed a curse, she found penitence. Atonement, for the sins her kin had committed, for the foul sorcery that had built Valyria, where men and dragons mated with each other, and where brother laid with sister.
Salvation. Absolution. Mercy. What else could it be?
It had been foolish to think this brother, crowned in silver, with the largest dragon in the world as a mount, would see it the same way she had.
When Maegelle had revealed this relic to him, during some inconsequential, cold afternoon many years past, Aemond had flicked through the pages — his gaze sweeping its contents, his slow gait lulling the read by the solar's hearth, until he drew to a halt and gently closed it.
Then, her older, wiser brother, whose knowledge and authority branched into the emptiness left by their bed-bound father, threw her book into the fire.
Maegelle leaped from her seat with a cry, lunging for it, but he had held her back and berated her.
You will cease filling your head with this Andal nonsense, and honor the blood of the dragon in your veins. The laws of common men do not apply to us, nor do their silent gods, nor their barbaric customs.
"Traitor or not, I admire the purity of his faith."
"The purity of his faith."
Aemond repeated and clicked his tongue. His hand, still clasped on the back of her neck, felt like a leash.
"We shall see whether the purity of his faith will make him burn faster."
"Father, I pray for justice. Mother, I ask for compassion, and-"
The Prince hissed, and when she had expected his fingers to close with force around her neck, he let go.
Only to return, light as a feather, where her nape met the scalp, with its fragile, unruly strands. Her hair had been long, thick and curly, past the back of her thighs — the only real beauty that the greyscale had allowed her to keep. Once shorn like a sheep, close to her scalp, it had now grown enough to offer the timid promise of ringlets.
"What happened here?" He stroked her hair, and it felt worse than being choked.
"Lice." Maegelle spoke slowly, savoring the thought of his disgust. "From the corpses at the charnel house."
The movement ceased.
The place your pride sent me to. You made me birth my child in a place surrounded by the dead, with only your servant, your dog, to keep me company, while our uncle was butchered by the gold cloaks, our grandfather beheaded, our mother and sister dragged in chains before Rhaenyra, and my husband mutilated.
All because you refused to accept that the city would fall, and that you would lose the throne to her.
All because your bloodlust, your ambition, your hunger, clouded your mind.
His fingers slid back to her nape, slowly, before departing the surface of her skin altogether. She felt him pull away, defeated, straightening his posture, the joints in his hand popping as he closed it into a fist.
"Write to Farring Cross first. Now." Aemond ordered over his shoulder, returning to her chair and his gloves. "You know their livestock and granaries. Their reserves. They are closest to the city — it falls to them to prevent another famine."
Maegelle traced the engravings on the armrest. On her left hand, only two fingers and her thumb remained — the other digits had been claimed by the sickness, still in her childhood. But since her return to the Red Keep, after Rhaenyra's flight and her moons hiding under the charnel house, she did not bother wearing gloves in public. Just like she did not bother to paint her face, or cover herself in precious stones and velvets, anymore.
Those things belonged to a girl-child with vanities. There was no vanity to her anymore. Only fear.
The Princess exhaled deeply before clearing her throat.
“On my third moon there, one of the goats kidded during the night — two kids, one as black as ink, whereas the other was the color of clotted cream. Such small, darling things, yet two days later, I noticed the nanny kept slipping away whenever the black one attempted to latch onto her teat-”
“Do you take me for a peasant?” Impatient footsteps began toward the entrance. “I do not wish to hear this nonsense. Send word to me once you've written as you've been told.”
Maegelle ignored his tirade.
“The following morn, she did not let him nurse at all. In fact, whenever he tried to approach, she would kick him away. Poor little thing — it did not know anything else, did it? Where else would he go?”
The footsteps halted.
“For warmth, protection, nourishment. I suppose it is instinct, to keep returning to where you are not wanted.”
The Princess toyed with the pearl ring sitting on her right pinky.
“Finally, these small aggressions escalated until the nanny headbutted him, and the herdsman intervened. I asked what would happen to it, and he said they would see if one of the other nannies would accept him. Those who kid stillborns oft do. And if they did not…”
A long sigh followed. It was only hers, as if even the holdfast’s sounds had grown distant, beyond the Queen's Ballroom.
“I wished to hold it, so I ordered the herdsman to give him to me. He trembled, thrashed and bleated as if I were harming him, even though all I did was speak softly and pet his fur — he was so soft, lustrous, healthy. I asked the herdsman why the goat had cast this kid out. Sometimes, he said, the mother cannot afford to feed both at once. She will pick one of the two.”
For the first time, Maegelle turned to properly face him.
“As of late, I have come to wonder: do you resent me for taking your place at our mother’s breast?”
The crows that had made their home on the holdfast’s battlements had grown silent. The mice had ceased to scurry under and within cupboards and tables, and so did the cats that prowled in their pursuit.
His answer was delayed, wet and dripping with venom.
“You have gone mad. As all mothers are.” His tongue wet his lower lip before he continued. “Birthing has done something to your wits. Made them as soft as your belly, it seems.”
“You have not answered my question-”
“You did not take my place."
His voice rose over hers shrilly, cracking at the sudden shift from his quiet, measured cadence.
“You did not take my place.” The Prince repeated, grasping at his own composure. “I gave it to you — you were born weak. Sickly. Small.”
You were born as small as I was, Maegelle had wanted to say, knowing his face would grow red with anger at that fact.
“But it was not fair to you, was it?”
The soft scraping of his boots against the parquet followed, his weight shifting uncertainly.
“Fair?”
The Princess hummed in response, as he returned to her proximity. Aemond ignored the seat beside her and sat on the low table instead, directly in front of her.
“Dismiss it as much as you will, say it does not matter. Say that what ails common men does not extend to the blood of Old Valyria.” Maegelle tilted her head down and lowered her gaze in a well-practiced act of modesty, worthy of a Braavosi mummer. “What do I know, beyond what pains my soft mother’s heart?”
From under her eyelashes, she observed the late morning light, softened by the keep’s arches, highlighting his mauve iris. Framed by silvery lashes, with the same ethereal quality as the myrish porcelain dolls she had played with as a child.
Pliant. Soft. Nurturing. Weave your web with the words he wishes to hear.
“Yet long before I brought Tommen into this world, I knew you deserved much, much more.”
The corners of his mouth twisted upward. A soft click of his tongue followed.
“You deceitful whore.” His voice did not waver, once returned to his quiet, measured cadence. “You speak with two tongues — denouncing me as a kinslayer and a blight upon our House to any who will hear you, yet serving me honeyed words in private. You think I cannot see fear and intent in you? In you — of all people?"
The insult stung — the urge to deny grappling with the sharp, angry retort that seemed to cut her own tongue. Folded over her lap, her maimed hand closed into a fist, nails digging into her palm.
You must be pleasant, my daughter. Otto Hightower had cradled her face when he had spoken. Pliant. Penitent and remorseful as the Maiden for your past transgressions, yet merciful and forgiving for his as if you were the Mother.
And if I cannot? Maegelle had replied dryly, the corset tightening comfortably around her waist as Alarra pulled the laces. What if I cannot find a single shred of mercy within myself? Jaehaerys is dead. Helaena is drowning in her grief. Mother is-
It was not his doing.
It might as well have been-
The hand that had been tenderly cupping her face covered her mouth, silencing her.
The pieces on the board are not the ones we desired. The signet ring pressed into her cheek — not enough to hurt, yet cold enough to be uncomfortable. But the outcome might yet be favorable to our cause. Your brothers, in their infinite wisdom, have delivered the governance of the realm into the hands of a man whose competence stretches as far as the training yard. Aegon now lies broken, unable to move his head without weeping like a babe in agony. Aemond would make an enemy out of his own shadow, but his petulance may yet be tempered. It is your duty to assure that it will be.
“Whore?” Maintaining her tone level took enough strength to divert a river, she felt. “I would accept the insult from any other man — but you and I both know I have only laid with one. My husband. The father of my child.”
Aegon’s drunken wager on whether Aemond had taken her maidenhead or not was an anecdote that would chase her until her last breath, she knew — every man and woman across the seven kingdoms had gossiped and would continue to gossip about them. It had been the source of an immeasurable grief for years, one careless jape that had nearly ruined her tenuous prospects.
Maegelle did, however, have to commend his sharp wit. There was intent, indeed, and only this goal could have brought her this far, willing to act and play the part that was expected of her.
Make peace with your brother. Her husband had whispered in the dark, her head resting on his chest as they laid in bed. Make peace with him, Maegelle. I will not live forever, and you will be left in this world, alone, with a child clinging to your skirts. Do not keep him as your enemy.
“You are quick to use that word for me, purely for the offense, as it has no ground to stand on. Or, perhaps, you mean well: you are fond of your whores, are you not?”
Her smile was as acidic as the words, bared teeth to match her rage at the thought alone.
His hand twitched.
Maegelle flinched, bracing herself for a slap.
It did not come. His nostrils flared, his lips thinned into a line, but Aemond would not meet her eyes.
For once, he was the one to lower his gaze, as if chastised.
“You hold me in contempt. I understand it, now.” Slowly, she reached out — making sure that he saw her approaching hand first, as if he were a wary fawn at the edge of her garden — to cup his cheek. “You deserved as much attention as I received. You deserved to be as coddled as I was.”
He was soft, smooth, and warmer than any person should be. But, most importantly, he did not shrug off her touch. Patiently, he allowed it, staring at her from under his lashes.
“I cannot undo what has been done.”
There was enough steel in her that her other hand did not tremble as it moved to the sash tied at her waist.
“I cannot give back your place at Mother’s breast.”
To pull it free was easier than she could have expected. The silk sleeves slid down her shoulders, leaving her sternum bare.
“But I can offer you mine.”
A soft hitch in his breathing followed.
His lips, tenderly-shaped as if the Smith himself had carved him, parted, and she felt the muscles in his jaw grow slack. Perhaps the shame and the wrongness burning inside her throat were easier to conceal, when his attention was so focused on her bare flesh.
Aemond did not utter a single word, abandoning her in a limbo of uncertainty. He swallowed dryly, the apple of his throat moving upward like a spasm, before the muscles against her hands stiffened — his jaw setting so hard that, in a moment of absurdity, she feared his teeth would shatter.
Instead, he approached her.
Maegelle forced herself to remain still, as if he would bolt away if she moved brusquely — or, perhaps, she would be the one to bolt from her seat. Only her thumb continued moving against his cheek in a comforting, welcoming circular movement. Distantly, she remembered the farmhands tying a cow so that her calf could nurse for the first time. How her leg had to be tied, so she would not kick at the sudden intrusion and crush the trembling little creature, weak with hunger.
An old bile coiled inside her stomach — the urge to kick him away from her. To plant her slipper on his chest and push as hard as she could, throwing him off his balance until he fell on his back.
Vulnerable. Exposed. Humiliated. Small as he had once made her feel. It would be quite easy to do so.
While Maegelle examined the thought as if testing the feel of a whip in her hands, she allowed him to approach, until his hot, erratic breaths fanned the expanse of her bare sternum. He lingered, still as a statue, his eye closed, until the ugliness she felt morphed into confusion.
The icy tip of his nose brushed against her thin, bony flesh. A deep inhalation followed. Once, twice, thrice. A sudden bout of impatience almost had her seizing him by the shoulders, to end this agony.
Does he not know what to do? He has seen naked women before. He has. I know he has. I know he has touched them. Laid with them-
The Princess found herself remembering the evening of his coronation as Prince Regent — how Tyland’s hands had hovered over her waist in the privacy of their chambers. An experienced man, about the same age as her mother, who had hesitated to touch her.
But not out of disgust, as she had expected.
I may be your wife, The evening sounds of Visenya’s Hill and the guests pouring into the Chamber of Trade did little to drown out the sound of her voice within the carriage. But you are not my equal. You would do well to remember that, Ser.
Maegelle had snapped at him, the remaining vitriol from their wedding night spilling out of her. Resigned to a marriage doomed since its conception, the words had caused the opposite effect she had expected.
It was reverence that had stilled his hands.
The knowledge that his wife was, by birth, higher than him. That, in her veins, ran the blood of the Conqueror.
Thus, it had been her prerogative to seize his hands and guide him exactly to where she desired to be touched. To speak, slowly and clearly, what pleased her, and discover his reaction in each hitched breath and sigh. To feel his hands cup and knead her breasts, with eagerness, once she guided him to it.
I am satisfied with my choices. The chains had clinked softly in the torchlight. Otto Hightower, in his stained and crumpled garbs, sat in the black cells’ dirty straw with all the dignity of a man who had sat the Iron Throne for three kings. Tyland Lannister will not break. He will know through every torment in the seven hells before he surrenders a single coin to them.
The Stranger’s shadow looms over me. The former Lord Hand had squinted at her tear-stained face, studying her. What odd sentimentality it evokes. Would you believe me, daughter, if I said that, underneath all the plans and pacts and plots, I did consider your well-being? That this weighed in my choice, when the time came to sign you away?
No. The Princess thought, yet only sniffled in response.
I believed he would be a good husband to you, and that you would find happiness with him. His dry, large hands covered hers completely. He has a similar nature to your brother, after all.
What a terrible thing it had been to hear.
What horrible knowledge her grandsire had imparted upon her, maddening enough to keep her wide-eyed late in the evening, gnawed raw by the possibility that the warmth and safety she had found in her husband’s arms, the desire she felt at the brush of his hands on her inner thighs, to be a haunting.
The disembodied voice of the prince she had dreamed of marrying as a young girl. His specter, the promise of a young Jaehaerys, to her Alysanne covered in poultices, missing fingers and toes. The promise she had seen in Aemond, the starry-eyed kind, which only maidens that had not yet been slapped hard enough to cut their lips on their own teeth, could see.
But was there wisdom in it? Did my grandsire truly decide on that which I could not yet perceive?
Maegelle hummed softly with an inquisitive lilt, enough for his eye to flicker open.
“Tommen has his wet nurses now.” A creeping bitterness made itself known. It had not been her choice, after all. The Dowager Queen and Tyland had all but forced her into accepting that her son would be cared for by others, now that there was no more need to hide from the gold cloaks. “He does not need me as he did before.”
Her hand traveled to the top of her engorged left breast, gently pressing downward toward the nipple, before cupping it.
“And now, I often find myself swollen. Heavy. This pressure growing until it aches, to the point it becomes unbearable.”
The Princess pushed back softly, before her fingers slid forward again.
“Yet I ache as if I were the one famished.” With the pads of her index and middle fingers, she collected the pale, timid drops that beaded on her nipple. “Famished. You used that word, once. In the royal sept, do you remember? A lifetime of scraps under the table leaves one famished, you said to me.”
Maegelle offered her fingers to him, yet the urge to trace his lips, the target of her envy, won over her intent.
“Are you still famished?”
His plump lower lip felt warm and soft. Delicate, as if in defiance of his nature, and even more delicate was the hesitant brush of his tongue on her digit, sweeping away the offered prize.
She did not pull back. His eyelid fluttered closed, the timid contact repeating itself before his lips closed around her fingers.
A steel grip around her wrist made her veins turn to ice, as he held her in place. A quiet whimper accompanied the suction, as if mourning the faint taste that had long since been swallowed. Aemond took her fingers deeper into his mouth, his wetness coating her skin, as if that would, somehow, solve-
It was not only the milk, Maegelle realized, her hand growing numb from how hard he was squeezing her wrist. It was also the taste of her skin that drove him to into this labored, whimpering desperation.
“Come.”
It was her turn to touch the back of his neck, and guide him gently toward her breast.
“Yes, come.”
The grip around her wrist grew slack. Maegelle pulled her fingers, glistening and slick, out of his mouth — a string of saliva stretching within that newfound distance, and Aemond demurely lowered his head before his tongue darted over his lower lip, as if to conceal the evidence.
This bashfulness did not endure her beckoning, however.
The flat of his tongue met her nipple before his mouth clamped down on her. The Princess inhaled sharply. As she sat, immovable, his tongue resting against her breast while he swallowed and pulled, a sinking realization made itself known in the pit of her stomach.
This was entirely different. This was something else, something that she had no hope to navigate with a clear conscience, a divorce between mind and body. Not when she could feel her body responding to the aggressive pulls of his mouth, the early milk that had appeared timidly would soon flow as heavy as the Mander after an autumn storm.
The Prince wrapped his arms around her midriff, as much as possible. With his dark sleeves, he reminded her of a bat, gingerly concealing himself into her embrace. She could have endured that, yes, if not for his short nails sinking into her back, his grip as forceful as his mouth. As if he pulled, or pushed, hard enough, the barrier between their skins would ceased to exist.
“Aemond.” Maegelle warned softly. Even with her frayed sensibility – another consequence the grey death had left on her body – the sensation was uncomfortable. Which meant that an unafflicted person would have been in moderate pain by then.
His grip tightened. His cheeks hollowed out, following by a sharp, sudden pain – his teeth scraped her nipple.
“Aemond.” The softness was gone from her voice. “You are hurting me.”
Where her palm rested, she could feel the muscles in his neck contracting and relaxing with each mouthful. Not only could she feel, but also hear every time he swallowed – the apple of his throat bouncing heavily, the movement punctuated by a deep, drawn-out sigh of contentment, of the sort she had never heard from him before.
“Stop.”
No answer, save for his tongue pressing against the underside of her breast. Another careless flash of his teeth against the nipple made her hiss.
Aemond tightened his grip around her again. How it enraged her — it was unbearable how suffocating he could be.
How petulantly demanding, with these hands that would roam her body as freely as if it were his own.
How pathetically dependent, and easy to bend, with a soft word and a gentle caress.
It enraged her, how this brother of hers would pile every misery known to man on his own back, so quick to stoke the flames of his righteousness, and act as if he had been wronged by the gods and men alike. What did he know, but the piercing, fleeting, touch of a dagger? An eye he had lost, yes, but gained the impeded freedom of wings, the skills of a deadly swordsman, liberty to sharpen his wrath, to turn it into an extension of himself.
Maegelle had known the slow, prolonged, drag of a scalpel’s edge against her skin, over and over, for close to a decade, as if she were a carcass being prepared for display. She had lost fingers and toes and years of her life to isolation. What had she gained in return?
Nothing. Not even her anger was hers to keep – the Prince could act as if the world had personally done him wrong and lash out as he pleased, to kneel at the altar of his own fury and vanity.
The Princess, however, had to be courteous, polite and mindful of her behavior. When she had failed to do so, it was a slap to the face she had gained. The first, from their mother. The second, from the hand that was clutching the curve of her spine.
Maegelle stared down at his face lowered to her breast, and imagined what he would look like with the bruise he had left on her, years ago, during that fateful supper. Would the eye patch conceal half of the faint purple mark as well as it concealed the sapphire?
At least, the color would match his remaining eye, she supposed.
I am merciful.
Her palm struck his cheek with the same force that he had bestowed on her.
I am the Mother Above, in her everlasting benevolence and grace.
Aemond recoiled like a wounded animal. His willowy frame shrinking, his left arm instinctively withdrawing to protect his blind side, where she had hit him. He lost his balance and staggered — his feet, so quick and light in the training yard, grown unsteady.
Profoundly startled, the Prince had let go of her in an instant — her milk spilling out of his mouth and dribbling down his chin. Stark white where it dripped on his dark leather doublet, when he lifted a trembling hand to his lips, as if to conceal the sight of his shame.
Only then, his gaze sought her out — wide, vulnerable and fearful. Maegelle wondered if she had looked the same, when it had been her on the floor, with her cheek throbbing and her silk sleeves torn.
His doll-like lashes fanned his cheeks rapidly, the lilac of his gaze acquiring a shine one would see in a pale, polished amethyst, as his eye welled up. His nostrils flared, announcing a choked breath that made his lips tremble.
Ah, tears. Of course.
Of course, he would weep, and his face would blossom like a budding peach flower. His skin would be washed with salt, and be all the more immaculate for it. His lips would grow swollen and ripe with each gasp, and when he blinked, teardrops would gather on his lashes like dewdrops on a rose.
The opposite of what she had looked like.
Snot, drool and blood. Maegelle had seen herself in the mirror afterward – her eyes swollen, her nose red and covered in dried mucus, the cut his signet ring had left on her mouth had made her lips look uneven. The white ceruse Lady Beesbury had applied to her face earlier that day had come off between tears and sweat. The kohl lining her eyes had run down her face in black tear streaks, and the vermilion paint on her lips was smudged.
With her stiff and dead skin glaring out of the botched canvas of her face, Maegelle felt that she resembled a gargoyle.
A grotesque. He had used that word to describe her once.
Naturally, Aemond would rob her of this, too. Not even in her misery could she find adoration, while his agony was made to be immortalized in stained-glass and songs.
It made her want to strike him again.
But the Princess could not. She would not – how long did she have until this fear in his eye calcified into anger?
Before the Prince’s stupor faded, Maegelle pressed her lips to the cheek she had struck.
“You hurt me.” Her mouth remained close to his skin. “I told you, you were hurting me. You must not do that, yes?”
Maegelle seized him by the chin as she spoke, feeling the stickiness of herself on him.
“You have to be gentle. You have to be careful.”
She kissed his cheek again, this time tasting sweetness – her sweetness – and her teeth itched with the urge to sink into him.
“Will you do that for me?”
Aemond nodded in response to her question, slowly, as if numb. Maegelle wondered if he was under some sort of spell – perhaps, the slap had affected him more than she could have expected.
Faintly, she registered the drip drip drip from her leaking breast, dripping onto the floor due to the angle she found herself leaning.
“What a waste.” She sighed heavily in exasperation, the tip of her nose pressed into his cheek. “An apothecarian in Highgarden once told me that Jonquil’s pool was not sweetwater, but milk. That fair Jonquil bathed in it to keep her beauty, and her skin was as soft as veal.”
As soft as his. The crude scar that had cut over his eye barely made a difference. If anything, the pale pink the skin had knitted itself into only made it more endearing to her. How alive, how hopeful, how whole.
“I would like to try it, one day.” Her lips confess to the object of her envy, her short nails leaving half-moon dents in him. “Perhaps it will make my skin soft as it has never been. Perhaps as soft as yours.”
Aemond shifted, tilting his head so that he was able to see her properly.
But his eye did not meet hers – no, it was drawn to what had brought them together. His tongue swept the surface of his lower lip slowly before he sucked in a breath, tethering on the cusp of a question that lived ten lives each time his lips moved, wordlessly.
The Prince wished to ask, yes. But it was unthinkable to do so. When had Aemond ever asked her for anything? He demanded, ordered, and commanded. To ask was to confront the violability of his will. To be open to the vulnerability of refusal, and bare himself to rejection.
“Ask for it.”
“Why should I?” His lips curled. “You once told me your heart and mine are one and the same. Why should I ask, for that which is mine by right?”
“You should ask,” Her hand itched to slap him again, yet it only cupped his cheek gently. “-because I say so.”
You should, because I wish to pretend I have a choice. I wish to pretend I can push you away and tie my gown and walk out of this chamber, and not glance back once – either because your misery delights me, or because it makes me ache. Perhaps both.
"You may take it by force, of course. Who am I to stop you?" Maegelle reached forward, tucking a loose silver lock of hair behind his ear. "But is it not much more sweeter to be invited?"
The steel in his gaze shattered. His scarred cheek twitched as she cupped it again, like their mother had done.
"To know you are welcome, and… wanted?"
Aemond lowered his forehead to her naked shoulder, and spoke softly, as she had never heard before.
“Please.”