Vaeryna stares at the hearth, the maids who had been halfway through undressing her stood frozen in fear as she all but becomes a statue before them.
There is no dragon egg in the fire.
The cradle it usually sits in is empty, bereft of the precious cargo that should still be there. Someone has stolen her dragon egg - the same one she had been intending for her babe - a companion in the cradle.
How brazen, how foolish it is to steal from a princess. Especially one whose husband has already demonstrated his willing to feed those who wrong her to his dragon. The sheer audacity of the theft has her reeling, astounded by it having been possible to carry out in the first place.
Just then, Mara comes rushing in, eyes wide with panic as she hastens to address Vaeryna with whatever sour news she brings.
"A plot to steal your egg, princess! They're going to-" Mara whips around to brandish a finger towards the fire and abruptly cuts herself off when she realises that the egg is already missing.
"Who?" Vaeryna seethes, gesturing sharply for the maids to redress her.
"One of your maids, Elise, and a fellow from the kitchens," Mara reports unsteadily, still wearing that look of nervous panic. "I only just overhead another maid talking about it and ran straight to you, your highness. If I had known earlier-"
Vaeryna raises a hand and is granted with an immediate, obedient silence. She turns her critical eyes away from her informant, rounding instead on the small group of maids currently attending to her. By now they have her back in her dress and have retreated slightly to avoid her wrath. For the most part they're all displaying signs of shock, appropriate for those who truly had no idea of the scheme cooked up by their colleague. But there is one - Hanna - who is shaking and avoiding her eyes, a sheen of sweat visible on her forehead. Vaeryna spins to snatch the bejewelled letter opener from her dresser then advances on Hanna with purpose, grabbing a fistful of the girl's hair and yanking on it painfully until she bears her neck. The somewhat dulled, miniature blade held against Hanna's neck, Vaeryna tightens her grip on her hair to ensure she can't get loose. There are a litany of small screams and loud gasps as the other maids scatter away from them, while Hanna just trembles and sobs.
"Tell me what you know," Vaeryna demands of her captive.
Hanna snivels, pale skin turning blotchy and saturating rapidly with tears. "They're going to run off together, sell the egg and live off the coin for the rest of their days! I had nothing to do with it, I only heard it from Elise this morning! Please! If you go now, you might still catch them at the stables! I beg you-"
Vaeryna releases the girl, shoving her to the floor and discarding the makeshift weapon back on the dresser. She turns on her heel and storms as quickly as she can out of her rooms. Mara hurries after her, wringing her hands anxiously as she tries to keep up.
"Should I have a guard wake the prince?" She calls after Vaeryna, who is already most of the way down the winding corridor.
"Do as you wish," Vaeryna dismisses, far too focused on the task at hand to stop and consider the merits of waking Aemond. Mara promptly disappears from her side, evidently planning to do as she had suggested.
Fury takes Vaeryna through the castle at a much faster pace than she could usually manage, the heat of it beneath her skin making it easy to ignore the aches and protestations of her impregnated body. If anything, the difficulty her encumbrance gives her only serves to remind of what exactly has been stolen. It is not just Vaeryna herself who has been robbed, it is also the child who is growing inside of her.
'Tis a grave sin indeed to rob a Targaryen of their dragon.
The guards stationed by the great doors leading out onto the courtyard see her coming - and must be able to sense the blinding heat of her outrage - because they drag one of the heavy instalments of wood open just in time for her to pass through it, removing an obstacle from her path.
She feels a glimmer of pride for the fact that she had not even had to ask them to do so.
The courtyard is blanketed in darkness, spare for the regular placements of flickering torches on the walls. It is hard to see the space properly with such little light, but she knows there will be more opportunity to see in the stables; her intended destination.
Vaeryna takes a route which winds around past the archery range and grabs the practice bow and quiver of arrows from its station. She closes in on the stables with a vengeance, grabbing an arrow out of the quiver and sliding it into place on the bow so that she is ready for confrontation.
There is a brief glimpse of a cloak visible in the gap beneath the stable door. As predicted, there appears to be plenty of light inside, for the shadows cast on the floor are easy enough to make out and tell apart.
"-No time for that, we'll find someone to look at the burns once we're far enough from King's Landing. I can bear the pain until then."
Vaeryna sidles up to the weathered door, listening closely to the thieves inside.
"Michael, you can barely grip the reins and I can't ride a horse! We won't get far like that. This lot have dragons, remember? If we hide in a forest, they'll burn it down... and I hate to think what they'd do to any village that took us in. We need to be able to keep moving, without stopping until we're in the clear! I say we smuggle ourselves in one of the wagons that go to town for supplies. We can hop on one going to the docks from there and get a boat."
"... Fine. You're right. Where are the wagons kept?"
"On the other side of the yard. Come on."
Vaeryna takes a few steps back and raises the bow, aligning perfectly with the spot between Elise's eyes as she and Michael attempt to sneak out through the stable door. Both freeze up, utter horror etching across their features as they catch sight of her.
"Put down the crate," she orders, eyes darting towards where it is held in Elise's arms. Slowly, the errant maid does as she is bid, shaking just as Hanna had.
"Princess Vaeryna, I am so-" Elise tries to appeal but Michael shakes his head vigorously at her, eyes wide and appealing. She lapses quickly into a wiser silence and follows her lover's lead in raising her hands in surrender. Indeed, Michael has visible burns - nasty looking ones - on both of his palms, no doubt from taking the egg out of the fire.
"You stole from me," Vaeryna condemns. "Stole from my child, took the egg from my rooms as if you were in any way entitled to it. Did you hope to make your fortune together, perhaps sail for Dorne and live there in hiding? 'Tis a far-fetched dream, for there is no way you could ever evade justice long enough to enjoy your wealth."
Michael and Elise do not dare to defend themselves, only averting their eyes to escape her cutting gaze. But as Vaeryna is about to order them back towards the castle, she looks away from Michael just long enough for him to dart forward and roughly barge her with his shoulder. She falls with a cry of pain, colliding painfully with a barrel and crashing to the ground hard enough to send a sharp pain shooting across the expanse of her back. Elise and Michael make a run for it, grabbing at each other's hands as they attempt to make their escape together.
There is the brief, interrupted sound of a scream before Vaeryna hears the sound of a blade slicing swiftly through flesh. As she pushes herself back up, one scratched up hand going to her bump and the other grabbing at the barrel to help her find her footing... Vaeryna tries desperately to focus on the scene before her.
Aemond is stood with his foot up on the headless corpse of Michael, bloodied sword resting on his shoulder as he holds Elise in place by the fabric of her cloak. The maid is openly bawling, deep red spatters of her lover's blood seeping into the material that shrowds her. Michael's head is on the ground a small distance away, turned in Vaeryna's direction as if looking at her from beyond the grave. His eyes are still open, bulging out in terror - horrifically, his face twitches - before falling as inert as his body behind him. Slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on her remaining foe, she bends with some difficulty to retrieve her bow and the arrow she had been holding with it.
Vaeryna stumbles forwards, rubbing at her brutalised back with her free hand as she veers around the disembodied head and makes her way towards her husband. He half turns his head in her direction, eye narrowing in on the sight of her and lighting once more with renewed fury when he sees that she is injured. Elise wails louder as Aemond's grip tightens, scrunching up more of her uniform beneath the cloak in order to ensure she cannot escape him.
"Your life is forfeit..." Aemond tells the maid struggling in his grasp. "Time to pay penance for my wife's wounds. Are you off to the dungeons, do you think? Or perhaps the dragonpit, where your corpse will be of some use?" Aemond jerks Elise closer to him so that he may snarl the words in her face, visibly livid but eerily calm at the same time. "Either way, you will bleed for your crimes."
We must do unpleasant things to survive here, as women, her mother had said.
Elise may deserve punishment, but Vaeryna does not wish to see her tortured for the sin of pursuing a better life. Despite the rage that threatens to blind her, she can recognise the cruel extremity of the act... the harsh imbalance of the judgement.
"She is my maid, Aemond. I will be the one to decide her punishment." Vaeryna watches patiently as her husband reluctantly reins himself in, his eye squeezing shut with the effort of holding himself back. A frown settling on his handsome face, Aemond lowers Elise back to where she had been, no longer half dragging her over Michael's corpse. He keeps his hold on her lest she tries to run again, but makes no attempt to deny Vaeryna her right to justice.
Aemond turns to observe her, chest subtly heaving and body rigid with the tension of curbing his appetite for vengeance. "Then what is your decree, princess?"
Wordlessly, Vaeryna raises the bow and takes aim. She has never taken a human life before... at most it has always been an animal at the end of her arrow, alive but inhuman. It helps a little that Elise seems to have understood that Vaeryna is attempting to spare her like this. She shakes violently, hiccuping as the tears continue to stream down her cheeks, but she has ceased her struggling and is trying her best to keep herself still. It is this or be left at Aemond's mercy, a choice she clearly understands and has made already. Vaeryna has no doubt that should she send Elise away or to the dungeons as Aemond had suggested, he would not resign himself into letting her be. He is too vengeful - has proven this by holding a grudge against her brother for so many years - and an attack on his wife and child is not something he would ever let lie.
No, Elise has to die here if she wants to avoid Aemond's wrath.
"I will ensure your sister does not starve," Vaeryna promises the woman she is about to shoot. Elise gives a very slight nod of her head in thanks, then closes her eyes in anticipation of what comes next.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
The arrow meets its mark directly in the centre of Elise's forehead, piercing through the skull and into her brain with a brutal efficiency. Corpselike, the girl slumps to the ground and falls next to Michael, her body splaying somewhat over his.
A violent nausea rises in Vaeryna's gut, threatening to snake its way up her throat until she clamps a hand over her mouth and forces herself away from the killing she has just committed. Aemond strides over to join her, his sword once more sheathed at his hip, and goes to wind an arm around her waist to support her movement. Vaeryna winces, the pain a fresh infliction at his touch, and Aemond instead offers his arm for her to wrap her own in. They are about to pivot and make their way back towards the wooden stairs when she suddenly remembers the crate Elise had placed down by the stables.
"Is it the pain?" Aemond questions when she hesitates.
"The egg," Vaeryna points at the box it's held in. "They smuggled it out in that."
"The guards can retrieve it when they clear this mess up. We must see the maester."
Exhausted from the day's events, all Vaeryna can think to do is nod her head and allow herself to be led by her husband. As they traverse the wooden stairs and make for the grand doors, a dragon can be heard roaring somewhere in the near distance.
AN: This takes place at exactly the same time as the events in Chapter 13 in the original fic.
