117 AC, Driftmark
Rhaenyra was waiting for him, dressed for bed and bent over his half packed trunk. Daemon could tell from the tension in her shoulders that their conversation was not likely to be a happy one, so he tightened his gut and folded his hands behind his back. The perfect image of calm despite the fire raging inside him.
Never before had he felt so uncomfortable in his own skin.
Like a thousand embers had taken up residence beneath the muscle and along his bones – they would bury themselves deep and eat away until he was numb and the fire finally subsided enough that he could think like himself again. He would be free to ponder the terrible reality of a life that now turned eastward and be freer still to ponder the terrible reality of his second marriage.
Daemon rolled his shoulders and turned to close the door with a soft click.
Close, though, they had always been, Daemon refused to show the depth of his horror.
The depth of his weakness.
The depths of how much he did not recognize the man that now stared back at him in the mirror.
Daemon knew that he had all but lost himself entirely.
His hand griped the cold metal for a moment longer before he finally felt her had sufficiently gathered what little remained of his wits and turned around.
Rhaenyra met him there and pinned him place with the intensity of her glare. Never much of a soft creature, she had grown truly fierce following the birth of her first child. A lesser man might have cowered – he might have cowered – if he was not so used to being on the receiving end of such looks.
"It is late, Rhaenyra," He said, stepping away from the door. She did not move and instead straightened her back just a touch to appear taller. Daemon tried not to roll his eyes. "And I have much to do before the morning."
A silly notion, considering.
One that did nothing to sway him any which way and instead only served to anger him further.
Was it not enough?
Was it not enough that he was forced to prostrate himself to not only his brother, but Corlys Velaryon as well?
Now he must be subjected to the same inquisition from Rhaenyra.
"Do you love her?" Rhaenyra asked, voice soft and so very unlike her. He had hoped, when the time came for this discussion, he might be better prepared for what to say. Long gone were the days when he could dance around his words with her – when he could charm her into forgetting the subject. A slight flirt, a lingering stare, a touch that was less than familial. She had spent years looking at him with the sort of longing that only a man could sate, but now, with the weight of the silence that stretched between them, she stared at him with all the familiarity of a passing face in the crowd.
"No." Daemon could give her that, at the very least.
"Then why marry her?" She asked, clearly not willing to let the subject rest while she had him all to herself.
"Did you not marry Laenor in much the same circumstances?"
He stepped around her and looked down at his half-packed trunk. He had packed for a tourney – all armor and leather and mail. He supposed he would have no need for finery anyway. Laena, impertinent and annoying as she was, was not a woman who seemed keen on such things. If there was anything good to come from this union, it was the likelihood that he had found himself a wife who would prefer the company of her own dragon over him.
A better prospect, he could scarcely imagine.
And yet his mouth tasted of ashes all the same.
"I married Laenor because I need to produce heirs to insure my claim to the Throne. You had no such requirements."
"Is this what you wish to do before I leave?" Daemon kept his back to her. He did not trust himself to look at her fully. He picked up the closest bundle of fabric, a nightshirt he thought, and began to roll it up. "I have no desire to fight."
It seemed the man he used to be was determined to slip even further away.
"We have never lied to each other, Daemon," Rhaenyra said, moving close enough to him that she could place her hand on the small of his back. Her fingers were soft against the fabric of his shirt and if he were not so in tune with her very essence he might not have felt it at all. A week before he longed to feel those fingers against his skin, to feel them move like perfect little spiders and make themselves at home.
Now, they made him want to crawl out of his skin entirely.
Her arm moved around his side, hesitant at first, before she became bold. She splayed her hand open as she continued to pull herself close. Chest to shoulders, stomach to back, she fit herself against him like she was meant to be there. She found the first tie of his leathers, the motion practiced and hurried and measured.
Practiced, from all the years that he could not claim.
Hurried, from anticipation.
Measured, from pleasuring men that were not him.
"Rhaenyra," Daemon said, growing hard.
It was not, strictly speaking, a foreign concept to him where she was involved.
The protest was weak.
Her hand toyed with the waistband of his pants, lingering for the briefest of moments like he might push her back. Like he might say no.
As if he ever would.
As if he could ever deny himself of that sort of sickness.
When he did nothing but drop his chin to his chest, she continued.
Daemon gasped when her hand found him for the first time, the sensation far more overwhelming that he could have ever imagined. How many years had he spent imagining this very moment? How many times had he taken himself into his own hand at the merest sight of her? Of her smell, her eyes, her.
Her, her, her.
Rhaenyra's hand moved down, shifting from long firm strokes to focus on the tip. His hips flexed forward as she continued to move her hand up and down, the pure pleasure rolling up and down his spine beginning to close in. Warmth spread and he was on the verge of losing himself entirely.
Years he had longed for this.
Years he had desired little else.
And just the moment it was happening, just as he had her to himself, he could not lose himself in the moment entirely. Because just as her hand began to move over his cock in a heated frenzy, he was reminded vividly of why she was in his room in the first place.
Ophaella.
"Rhaenyra, stop."
Disgust wracked him to his very core. He tried to step away, stomach churning as he fought the urge to vomit. When she did not stop, he was forced to wrap his hand around her wrist and squeeze it tight enough to cause her to cry out. She wrenched herself backwards, knocking over one of the many half-packed leather bags.
"How many times will you reject me?" She demanded, hurt clear in her voice despite the anger she now leveled at him. "How many times must I throw myself at you before y-"
"Rhaenyra."
Daemon finally turned back to face her, warmth giving way to such an un imaginable cold he could hardly stand it.
"No. I am not the child whose steps you haunted for all those years. I am not the child that hung on your every word, who you could manipulate with a simple smile. You have rejected marriage at every opportunity. You have bemoaned that plain faced Royce for as long as I can remember, and yet you willingly jump into another woman's bed and style yourself 'Husband'. For what? What happened to cause this?"
"Nothing."
"Lies!"
"What does it matter to you? You have styled yourself 'Wife' to one man and 'Lover' to another. What am I to you now? What more can I possibly be?"
"More? I gave up on demanding more from you years ago." Her shoulders slumped, but she still tried to keep herself as tall as possible. She had always been a prideful creature, but the way she held herself now – the way she stared him down and pinned him place – nearly stole his breath. "I begged you once. You rejected me. I swore to myself that I would never beg you again. I will not start now."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am concerned. I cannot keep track of everything that has happened – I cannot explain even half of it – but somehow you are right in the middle of it. Laena, the Hightower, the servant everyone seems to believe responsible. Every single thing that has happened since we arrived on Driftmark has involved you."
"Leave it."
"No. I will not. Why? Why are you lying? Why will you not trust me as you always have? Why are you marrying her? Why are you going East? Why take Aemond with you? Why?"
Daemon had never been one to wish the floor would open and swallow him whole. But he found himself looking at the ground, staring at the cracks between the ornate tiles, and imagining them cracking open like an egg. He would sink between the stone and bury himself in the salty earth, safe from all the incessant stares and free from the inquisition now leveled at him.
The whiplash of emotions exhausted him.
Surprise.
Annoyance.
Pleasure.
Disgust.
Pain.
They all swirled around his mind and threated to swallow him whole.
There would be a peace for him to say it out loud. He could unburden himself, he could return to his selfish state of being that he had perfected. It was simpler for him to be that person. Easier. But he knew that person died a quiet death at some point in the last seven years and was replaced by an entirely different monster. And that monster could no longer hold Rhaenyra up on the same pedestal when it was now occupied by someone else.
"I must protect my family," Daemon said, although the words sounded wooden even to his own ears.
Up until this very conversation, she would have been included in that. He knew she still was, even if she wouldn't believe it right now, but that would do nothing to assuage her anger and hurt. She would remember this conversation and the way he abandoned her.
Still, he stayed silent.
Still, he kept the truth of it all to himself.
"I am your family. Your only family, to hear you tell all these years. Or have you forgotten?" She folded her hands across her stomach to keep them from visibly shaking, pinning him in place with her stare. "But I can see that you do not care for me as you once did. If you did you would not consider leaving when I need you the most. Despite the little charade of, the Hightowers remained convinced Ser Harwin had something to do with Ormund's death."
"Fuck the Hightowers. They can believe what they like and their words have the same power as the braying of donkeys."
"Their beliefs have the ear of my father…"
"And you will have his Throne." Daemon hoped that would be the end of it. The punctuation to what he thought might be the worst conversation he had ever had.
"I suppose I will." Rhaenyra visibly deflated. "And you will have your life in the East, with my brother for a squire, my good-sister for a wife, and the daughter you never wanted."
Daemon scowled at her.
"Do you remember what you called her?" She pushed, rage muting the kinder of her tendencies as she gave into her own hurt. "When you first heard she was born? A little beast. A monster. You swore to me that you would dash her head against the rocks before you ever claimed her as your own."
"Enough."
The hurt that wracked him was shocking in its intensity.
He remembered those words clearly. Spoken in anger and hatred, he swore them to the highest of heavens and to Rhaenyra herself. Just as he could scarcely recognize himself now, he could scarcely imagine ever having such contempt and hatred for his own child. She was certainly a complication. Her gifts, an aberration. But she was no monster and he could carry the guilt of his own mistakes with him to grave.
"Yes, I suppose it is." Rhaenyra looked at him a moment longer, eyes glassy like she might cry, before she shook her head put her back to him. She did not linger when she left – did not regard him with one last meaningful look. And why would she? Why would she give him even that, when he so steadfastly refused to give her anything else?
Not a reason.
Not an excuse.
Not even an apology.
Daemon looked down at the rest of his unpacked belongings, dread settling in his stomach. A marriage and a life in the East waited for him, but it brought him no sense of peace. He would be surrounded by people and he had never felt so alone. What comfort would he find? What peace could he hope to achieve when he knew that he was now walking headfirst into the very maw of chaos?
Little he could do about it now.
And he was not the sort of man that let his emotions rule him for longer than a night or two.
He would kill them, if needed, kill the affection he held for all but himself and Ophaella, if it would make what he was about to do easier. He straightened his shoulders and stood up straight, the last of his sadness and hurt burning away.
His mind turned towards the East.
The rest would burn.
Aemond felt he was going to explode, his anticipation was so great.
Every fiber of his being – every nerve and sinew and piece of bone – buzzed with each breath he took.
And why wouldn't he be?
Today he was going to ride a dragon.
And not just any dragon, but the oldest and largest in the world. He was practically bouncing, floating, vibrating, as he stared down to the beach. Not even Aegon could ruin his mood today, although he seemed determined to try all the same.
Since the earliest hours of the morning – before the sun and the servants were awake – Aemond had sat by his window and stared at the dragon sitting on the sand, mind racing and heart threatening to beat out of his chest. Vhagar, Caraxes, The Cannibal - they all belonged to someone else, but he was going to ride one of them all the same and he could not find it within himself to be upset about his own lack of mount.
He would have his own one day.
He would.
"Aemond!" His mother snapped at him, voice brittle and forced. She stood by his bed, dressed in a deep emerald green, and clutching a small bundle of fabric in her hands. The deep green was a mourning color – for him or her cousin, he could not be sure – and she wore it with purpose.
But it was lost on Aemond.
He truly did not care.
Nothing could compare at the moment to what was about to happen.
Not his mother's sadness, or his brother's japes, or his sister's tears.
Today he was going to ride a dragon.
"Yes, mother," He said, tearing his eyes away from the beach long enough to look at her in full.
"You will write every day," She said, leaving no room for him to argue. Not that he would. He could do that, at least. He nodded, looking down at his hands. He had them clutched together over his lap to hide the shakes, but it was a losing proposition. His family – those that were here - knew how he felt.
Perhaps his visible excitement was what turned his mother's usually honeyed tone to pure acid.
"And you will behave. I will drag you back to King's Landing myself if I hear one whisper of you disrespecting your uncle or Lady Laena." Aemond nodded again. "I will hear you say it."
To her right, Aegon snickered.
"I promise."
"Good boy." She wrung her hands together over the fabric, pulling it closer to her stomach before she signed and stepped forward. "Something to remember, while you are on your adventure."
Her mouth curled around the word, like it was a poison that would soon spread.
She pressed the fabric into his belt, trusting that he would look at it later.
She smoothed his hair next and ran her cold fingers over the smattering of freckles and the shell of excitement that had encased him eve since his Uncle Daemon told him the news finally cracked. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around her middle, pressing his face into her chest.
Aegon made another noise, but Aemond pointedly ignored him as he pressed in as close as he could.
"Your Highness, Lady Laena is outside," The maid's soft voice cut across the embrace and Aemond, remembering his own excitement once again, stepped back. His mother smoothed her dress, erasing he evidence that she had ever held him, and turned to face the maid.
"Send her in."
His mother stepped into the middle of the room, putting her back to her three children as she straightened up to her full height. Aegon, never one to let an opportunity to needle Aemond pass him by, sidled closer to him. Taller than Aemond cared to admit, he had to bend down to whisper in his ear.
"You know, little brother, the more time you spend in the East, the less likely it is that you'll get a dragon of your own."
"Leave him be, Aeg," Helaena hissed, coming to stand on Aemond's other side. She was taller than him as well, but not so much so that she had to bend. She did not press in as close as Aegon, instead keeping her arms rigid and tucked tightly to her sides to avoid touching him. "You will write to more than just mother?"
"Of course."
To Helaena, without a shadow of a doubt.
It was hard for him to fathom how much he would miss his sweet sister. Save for Ophaella, there was not a single soul alive who he cared for more. He wished he could bring her with them. She would be miserable alone, trapped in a dusty keep with no one but Aegon and their mother for company, but he knew that he couldn't.
Daemon asked for him.
And his father acquiesced.
Aemond was under no delusions that it was a hard calculation for his father.
"I will write to you both," Aemond promised, knowing that despite how little he and Aegon cared for each other as people, they still loved each other as brothers. And, though he would be long dead before he ever admitted it, he would miss him as well. "Maybe you can come visit."
"Maybe," Helaena agreed, a certain sorrow to her voice that made Aemond want to cry. "If you are not too busy. Aeg says you'll be trained as a warrior."
"A squire," Aegon corrected her. "Which is about as far from a warrior as a butcher."
A squire.
A warrior.
A dragonrider.
Aemond would be all of them before he returned home.
How he thought he might achieve that, he was not so certain, but he was determined all the same and he knew that all he had to do was ask and Ophaella would do everything in her power to see that it was done.
Helaena stared at him, pale brows furrowing as she looked over his face. Her pupils dilated, blowing wide as she got lost in the space just beyond his head. Aegon leaned sideways, taking note of her expression, before he rolled his eyes and stepped away from them both, entirely bored of their conversation. He rifled through the remainder of Aemond's stuff, using the momentary distraction of his sister's abject strangeness to snoop.
But Aemond did not care.
He only cared to watch Helaena as her eyes rolled back and she gasped.
"Hel?" He resisted the urge to touch her arm, knowing it would only make her panic. She would need to ride it to the end – follow all the little threads of what he strange mind decided to show her – before she would recognize him again.
"I see them," Helaena said, voice barely above a whisper. "All their faces. All their eyes. I feel them on me."
"What is she babbling about?" Aegon asked, dropping an old pair of Aemond's boots on the ground as he continued to undo all the hard work of the maids packing.
"Prick."
"What? With you leaving, I am going to be the one who has to listen to her."
"And what a tragedy for you that is."
Aemond ducked just in time to avoid the shirt lobbed at his head.
It hit Helaena, the soft fabric tossed just hard enough to knock her out of her little trip.
"Nice of you to join us again, Helly," Aegon said, only the tiniest bit of malice in his voice. Helaena blinked, pale skin flushing pink as she looked around the room and remembered where she was. She looked at Aegon first before she looked back at Aemond.
"You have two eyes."
Aegon snorted.
"Brilliant."
"Aemond, come!" His mother called.
"Helaena, what did you s…"
"Aemond, now." She left no room for arguments and Aemond – too worried that she might decide the wrath of her husband was worth her defiance. She could lock him in his room and keep him by her side forever. Not out of love or his mother's approximation of that emotion, but out of an inherent need to control everything around her.
He walked over to her side.
"It is time to leave," She said, placing her hand on his shoulder. She looked down at him for a moment before she bent down to eye level. "Remember. No one will ever love you as much as your family. Your family in this room, in the Highest Towers, and safely protected in the Red Keep. Remember that Aemond."
Memory was not, strictly speaking, what they were known for.
Those were Ophaella's family's words.
We Remember.
He would remember as much as she liked, if it would appease her and let him travel East. But he would also remember something else – something that he would never forget. He would remember that the first time he saw Ophaella Targaryen he finally felt like someone was looking right back.
Two wide, bloodshot eyes.
So out of place at the time, but the one thing he desperately needed after years of walking through the many many halls of the Red Keep so utterly and devastatingly alone.
He gave his mother one last hug, mind already moving on.
To his new life.
To Ophaella.
To Daemon and all that he would teach him.
To Ophaella.
To Laena and the dragon that she was going to let him ride.
To Ophaella.
Aemond felt he was going to explode, his anticipation was so great.
Every fiber of his being – every nerve and sinew and piece of bone – buzzed with each breath he took.
And why wouldn't he be?
Today he was going to ride a dragon.
117 AC, Dragonstone
"Do you think she will remember me?" Ophaella asked, pressing close to her father as they walked side by side.
He had been quiet the entire ride here, having only spoken enough words to collect her early in the morning before he loaded her on the back of Caraxes and set off. That was not to say that she minded. She had worried herself into a near panic.
What if he hated her?"
What if regretted hiding what she did?
"She will remember," Her father said, voice quiet. His hand moved to the top of head, ruffling the feathery blonde hair against her temples. "You are in her marrow. The only way for her to forget would be if you reached inside and scooped it all out."
His hand moved down from the top of her head to her shoulder.
They hadn't spoken since it all happened and to hear him speaking as if nothing happened made her feel like spiders were crawling up and down her body. She tried not to visibly squirm, but she knew he already knew that she felt like she wanted to slip out of her own skin.
Maybe the spiders were guilt.
Guilt for the life she took and guilt for the life she saved.
His hand squeezed her shoulder and pulled her just a step closer. "You are shaking."
"I'm nervous," She admitted, glancing up at him. He was dressed for a long flight, just as he had been when they left Runestone.
"I know," He said, his voice the sort of timber that was almost comforting. She could tell he was trying.
Perhaps more than he ever had, for reasons she could not explain.
She was going to cry again.
Ophaella had spent the better part of the day crying. One dead man and quickly turned into and, while she could not say for certain, she couldn't help but feel like she was responsible. She sniffed, feeling the urge bubbling so hard she couldn't fight it much longer.
"You can cry."
"I do not want to."
"Yes you do. You killed someone." He was so blunt it hurt. But he did not remove his hand and instead squeezed her shoulder tighter as he pulled her to his side. "The first man I killed kept me awake for weeks. He was a Tyrell, I think, and smelled like roses. At least, he smelled like roses before my sword punctured his guts."
Ophaella blanched.
"I killed him because he tried to kill me." Daemon stopped walking, hand moving from her shoulder to grab her hand. He lifted it up and looked at it, flipping it over so that her palm faced the morning light. "You killed the Hightower because you wanted to protect me. I did not sleep for weeks, but I spared no tears for a man who would have sliced open my belly just as you should not either. But you will. You will think about him for months and you will cry often."
"Is this meant to be uplifting?" She asked, sniffing harder.
"No," He said, flipping her hand back over. "If you hoped to find comfort, you will have to speak to Laena or Aemond. They will fill your head with pretty words and lies to make you feel something other than guilt. But they are artificial. You will only stop feeling guilt when you are ready."
"Do you feel it anymore?" She looked up at him, voice smaller than she intended. "When you kill someone. Do you feel anything?"
Five more lives loomed over her head.
Five.
How could she ever live with herself?
"Every time. And then I remember that if not them, then it would be me or you." He reached around in his breast pocket, confusing her for a moment before he pulled out a smooth stone. "And that is a prospect I refuse to entertain. Get your dragon, we are running late."
He pressed the runestone into her hand and gestured towards the outcropping of rocks that her dragon was hidden in.
She turned it over and over in her hand.
It was meant to be kept by whatever you value most.
She tucked it into her pocket and wiped the stay tears, straightening her back as she started to walk.
"Ophaella!" Her father called, stopping her just before she was out of earshot. "I'll be expecting you to bring me that stone back. I have grown rather attached to it."
Ophaella nodded and walked again, pace slowing down and speeding up as her thoughts cycled over and over.
Marrow deep though their connection may be, her dragon was still, well, a dragon, and it had been several weeks now since she had last seen her.
But she needn't have feared.
She needn't have worried.
Because the moment she stepped into the rock clearing, her dragon turned her head towards her and stood up. Ophaella rushed forward, smiling as pressed in close and laid her head against her side.
They breathed together.
Chest rising and falling in tandem.
She felt her in her marrow.
Felt her in her blood and bones and all the viscera in between.
The stone in her hand, in her heart, and beneath her chest.
The stones that she covered in runes.
The stones that she had cast away.
The stones that she would collect.
The specks of stone that flowed in her veins, alongside the Blood of the First Men.
"Dorenka."
Made of Stone.
Maybe if she was made of stone she could forget what she did. But she wasn't, not fully. Her blood boiled just like her father's and the pain of the deaths she caused would live with her until the day she died.
The wind moved above her head and she tiled her chin up to look at the sky, smiling, in spite of the guilt and the pain she still felt, at the sight of Vhagar passing overhead.
Aemond shouted, practically screaming with joy.
They were heading East and to the new lives waiting for them. Laena, free of her parents expectations, Daemon, free of whatever pain he inflicted on everyone else at court, Aemond, free of his brother and his father's indifference, and her, finally free of the absolute and unending discomfort she had felt since the moment she left Runestone. She had tried so hard to fit in, to feel like she might belong, but all that had done is brought her more sadness. Her desperate attempts to hold onto something that was no longer there had brought her nothing but pain.
Ophaella climbed onto the Cannibal's – Dorenka's – back, feeling her breathing between her legs.
Caraxes passed overhead next, a bloody slick against the fresh morning light.
By the time she mustered the courage to trust Dorenka to push off the ground, the others were nothing more than specks. Ophaella clutched the runestone tight in the hand not holding on for dear life as she flew in the direction of the sun. She would keep it for a while, keep a hold of this one last piece of herself. Her father might be right. She might stop feeling the guilt of what she had done one day.
One day, she might not see blood when she closed her eyes.
One day, she might not imagine being so alone.
One day, she might pick up her rune knife again.
Until then, she would fly her dragon into the sun and the let the rest burn away.