'Four hours,' Sansa hissed when Aegon entered her sitting room; the candles guttering as the door closed behind him, 'you are four hours late.'

'I had a hysterical small council to soothe and rather a lot of damage control to do, my lady,' Aegon told her; his voice mild and unperturbed as he crossed the room to where she sat and stooped to kiss her lips. Sansa pointedly turned her head away from him, and said nothing.

Ser Jaime's open defiance at the tourney had angered her for more reasons than she could count; the most important among them being the humiliation that she had suffered, and her own carelessness in failing to anticipate it. Like some green girl with only a fool's knowledge of the Game, she had grossly underestimated her opponent; taking him for a broken old man too tired and too weak to put up much of a fight; expecting, without a shadow of a doubt, that his dignity would be served up to her on a silver platter within the space of the single tilt that it would take for him to land face down in the dirt. And Aegon had not defended her when the humiliation had occurred; not even glancing in her direction as her husband-to-be had done the chivalric equivalent of telling her to fuck off.

Aegon, observing her coldness, gave a kingly shrug and seated himself opposite her as she continued to glower at him.

'We owe much to Lady Arya's quick thinking,' he said, not appearing to be in any rush to improve her mood, 'had she not decided to so conveniently drop to the floor, the gods only know what would have happened.'

'Indeed,' Sansa testily replied, 'perhaps you would have been required to make a decision for once in your life.'

Aegon stiffened in his seat.

'I must ask you to guard your tongue, my lady.'

'I beg pardon, Your Grace.'

The king was silent. He still wore the black and red doublet that had adorned his person at the joust: the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen picked out in red and gold silk; its hooded eyes as unfeeling and as cold as the magnificent rubies that shone out in their place. The colours made him seem paler than he truly was; his hair falling to his shoulders like the lovechild of moonlight and silver. He was a fool, but at least he was a handsome one. Were he not, she might have died of boredom long ago.

'I'm rather tired of being humiliated in your service, Your Grace,' Sansa declared, 'it was trying enough during the conquest, and it is no less taxing now. What will we do if Ser Jaime tries something like this again?'

'I doubt that he will,' Aegon sighed in exhausted reply, 'his actions are those of a desperate, if spirited man, pretending that there is a way out for him. I just had no idea that his personality was so inclined to the dramatic.'

Sansa chuckled resentfully.

'That's a reproach from you,' she coldly observed, 'after that cheap little stunt in the throne room.'

'Do I detect a hint of anger in your voice?' Aegon pleasantly solicited.

'You are the most perceptive of men,' Sansa replied, with equal insincerity, 'why did you neglect to tell me that the marriage announcement would contain such an element of drama as being threatened at sword point?'

'Surprise was essential, my lady,' the king told her, 'I'm sure you understand.'

'I like other people to be surprised,' Sansa quietly snapped, 'myself; I do not care for it.'

'I understand, I understand,' Aegon replied with magnanimity, 'but notwithstanding your beauty and the greatness of your talent, my lady, Lord Varys and I agreed that had you known about the soldiers beforehand, you might have found it difficult to convey a level of astonishment great enough to place you above suspicion.'

'And knowing about the marriage beforehand might not?' Sansa coldly questioned, 'you make little sense, my king.'

She remembered the moment that the gold cloaks and the black cloaks had drawn their swords in unison; the moment that had possessed her with an irrational and horribly tangible terror that Aegon and Varys had deceived her, and meant to kill her rather than proceed with their understanding. The sound that her father's head had made as it had rolled down the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor had come to her mind; and herself as she had once been: weak, helpless, afraid. She had momentarily felt that terrible fear once more; and the knowledge of it had infuriated her later: the weakness in it, the humanity. It was a fear meant for lesser souls; not for hers; not for the soul of any person with the blood of the First Men running in their veins.

Aegon's face was half-amusement, half-indignation as her thoughts became apparent to him.

'Dear lady, your suspicions are mortifying.'

'Spare me your mortification,' Sansa retorted, 'dealing with the charms of my husband-to-be is quite mortifying enough.'

'Surely you take comfort in the fact that you will not have to deal with them for much longer?' Aegon asked, as though they were debating at philosophy.

'Not nearly as much as you do, my king,' Sansa replied, as though they were debating at life.

Aegon's eyes clouded questioningly at that, and Sansa found her lip curling in contempt. Dragon or falcon, stag or lion, men were all the same. Malleable. Capricious. Transparent.

'Your anxiety to conceal your sentiments is touching, Your Grace,' Sansa scoffed, 'or it would be, were it for my sake rather than your own. But I've seen the way that you look at my little sister –'

'Stop there,' Aegon sharply commanded; a trace of shrillness creeping into his voice.

'Well I have seen it, even if the rest of the world remains in blissful ignorance of the fact,' Sansa triumphantly finished; ignoring him, 'I don't suppose I need to remind Your Grace that it would make you the subject of a great deal of gossip and ridicule were it known that you were in love with one sister while fucking the other.'

'Don't be impertinent,' Aegon replied with dragonfire in his voice, 'we may be in the habit of exchanging certain intimacies, my lady, but that does not change the fact that you are speaking to a king.'

'I believe that I am speaking to a man like any other, with weaknesses, like any other,' Sansa professed, as though nothing were the matter at all, 'but the situation, while entertaining and touchingly universal, is not without its problems. What will you do if my sister falls defending her queen?'

'I demand that you hold your tongue, woman,' Aegon growled; the clouds in his violet eyes beginning to glow with an unholy flame that Sansa recognised all too well.

'And if she survives,' Sansa continued, still feigning indifference, 'how exactly do you plan to go about getting her into your bed?'

'Hold. Your. Tongue.'Aegon snarled; the harsh enunciation of the words baring his white teeth and curling his lips back.

Not long now.

'Will you keep her as a paramour? Dress her in rubies beneath those fetching Kingsguard leathers?'

'I'm warning you –'

'Or will you release her from the Kingsguard, lead her to the sept in chains and stick your cock in her before you even say the words?'

Aegon leapt from his seat like a quarrel launched from a crossbow; hurling himself across the room and screaming into Sansa's face as his fingers tightened in a stranglehold around her throat.

'I have commanded you to hold your tongue !' he roared; spraying her with spittle and crushing her breath from her. The world flashed and churned into whiteness and light and choking, even in the seconds it took her to draw her dagger from the folds of her gown and slam it violently against Aegon's throat.

'Let…go of me,' she rasped.

Aegon continued to tremble against her in wrath; his fingers cloaking her breath in a death shroud, and she pressed the steel down harder; buying her breath back with the threat of his blood, and the calling-up of his true self.

He released her throat. He did not move away from her. She could feel his body unknotting and unravelling as he clawed his way back from the storm that she had sent him to. Aegon's eyes were pale, and terrified, and pleading for deliverance from an enemy that he refused to name, and his hands were framing her face; begging her for forgiveness; for understanding.

'I'm sorry,' Aegon murmured; tears of terror choking his voice, 'Forgive me; I'm sorry; I'm so sorry.'

Sansa kissed him softly and comfortingly, and gently wound her arms around his neck; pulling him closer to her, and cradling his head against her chest.

'It's alright, my love,' she whispered, smirking to herself, 'it's alright.'