Chapter Text
“You murdered him,” Alicent says out loud, fingers on her temples. “You went and murdered Rhaenyra’s son.”
Aegon watches as Aemond flinches. His brother has never been the one to be the problem child. He was always their mother’s favorite, actually. Helaena and Daeron gave fair competition, but never were quite there; Helaena was considered a pleasant child, but not one who could carry her mother’s burdens, while Daeron was simply not around to carry them. Aegon has never been an option to entrust them with to begin with; so Aemond was the one who took it upon himself.
Always upholding the duty to his heart, the same way their mother did, despite carrying just as much hate as the rest of them. Aegon looks down as his drenched brother, who’s trying desperately to navigate through the tension in the room.
Aegon knows he does not know how.
Even their grandsire is speechless; all while Helaena seems paralyzed beyond thought, frightened.
“Vhagar disobeyed my order,” he says again, and it almost sounds like a plea. “Arrax fired at her eye, I couldn’t control her—”
He tries to defend himself, but Otto comes forward and slaps him across the face. The slap is familiar, and Aegon could feel his ears ring, knowing exactly how it feels. Helaena’s hands are at her ears, shaking, as if she’s can hear the same thing despite never experiencing it.
“You officially have started a war!” Otto screams, holding Aemond by his shirt’s collar. Aemond gritted his teeth, holding onto their grandsire’s hand.
“We have started a war the moment Aegon was crowned!” he shoots back at Otto, the two almost forehead to forehead. The sound of his name makes a shiver run down his spine, and he huffs; but that statement is not untrue, and given that he had been in his place, Aegon would’ve spoke of any of his brother’s issues to get leeway too.
He is not a hypocrite to deny his brother the same right, no matter how shaky their kinship might’ve been.
“And yet it was your blasted aunt should’ve been the one to have spilled first blood, boy.” Otto almost damn near chokes him. Helaena twists her chair and rises with a tear slipping from her eye, but can’t find it in herself to move forward; meanwhile their mother comes to her father, bringing a hand to his shoulder.
“Father, the Baratheons will talk.. we can’t let them spread this around,” she says, the anxiety radiating off her small frame. Otto drops Aemond, who almost trips back, and moves to look at his daughter.
“And what would you have us do to them, Alicent? Unless you want to send him back to make Storm’s End a feast for crows, we have no play at hand!”
“Any excuse will do! If it was self-defense—”
Otto held onto his mother’s arm as if he was going to break it. “He declared his vendetta against a boy too young to be wed, tormented him with a dragon ten times bigger than Arrax, and you think people will believe it was for self-defense? Does your mother’s view make you blind? Does it make your brain rot, Alicent?!”
Aegon notices his mother is crying. Aegon notices Helaena is crying, too. Aemond comes between their grandsire and their mother, glassy eye of his own, and he sees it too. But what he sees his grandfather’s hypocrisy, as well. As if you weren’t blinded and grew rotten by ambition, when you crowned me as king.
Alicent kisses Aemond’s hair for coming to her defense, giving her boy one acknowledging, pained look before pushing him aside and looking back at her father. Ever since Viserys died, she looked at their grandsire like that; bitter. “An accident, then! The accident it was. If all we ever vouched for was the truth, we’ll keep it aloud!”
“And who would believe that truth, exactly?”
His mother’s breath quivered. Aegon notes Aemond has to hold her by now; the only one keeping things from falling apart in this Keep. Their pretense of peace is already broken, but he is trying to keep it afloat, as always. Right now, it might be futile.
“So what would you have us do, father? Tell me your grand idea for your grandchild!”
His mother’s screams always hurt the most.
“I cannot make this type of decision without consultants, Alicent. We need Vhagar, but if we stand by this, we will lose allies and they already have more dragons. The oaths of our sworn houses are already flimsy by definition,” Otto trails off, and all of the spite Aegon has felt through the years resurfaces. We need Vhagar, not Aemond. If he wasn’t a first son, if he didn’t have Sunfyre — he would’ve been disposable, just as disposable just as much as his shaking brother must feel right now. “Your husband had a streak of sham exiles for his brother. If that cockroach Daemon can return within a few years, while being free to do as he pleases…”
Exile.
The word rings, as it sounds like freedom. Aegon likes the crown on his head, he likes the cheer of crowd, but a few days prior, he would’ve been glad to be on his merry way to Essos. But Aemond does not wish to be free; he almost becomes like a little boy, losing his eye again, hiding his face against his mother’s shoulders.
“No!” Helaena finally comes out of her frozen state, the tears rolling down her face as if she has been in the storm outside, far too gentle hands coming to their grandsire’s back. “We can’t… grandfather, I beg of you.”
A few years without Aemond would be too much for her, she means. It’s not something that was extended to all of her brothers, of course. If Aegon was the one to be exiled, he isn’t sure she would have protested. She wouldn’t even send him letters, the way she does Daeron who’s in Oldtown.
Aegon sips on his cup of wine. His throat feels too dry to carry on without it. Jealousy is easy to have, but admitting it would be inviting a slew of spears at him. He is well informed of what he is like, his family told him plenty of times. It’s his possessiveness speaking, not actual love, he thinks, so it doesn’t matter — but it still stings, and he wonders how it would feel, to be as shielded as Aemond. Even shielded as Helaena is, actually.
Even Otto Hightower doesn’t dare harming Helaena. In the eyes of others, she’s a wallflower too fragile to pluck. Aegon isn’t as sure; she whispered enough dark scenarios to him as if they are songs to make him think otherwise. Sometimes he wonders if she does it only to him; when he listens to her, her most frightful words are right.
“Begging won’t make his sins less apparent, my girl,” Otto says. “Kinslaying is a cursed crime, and any other noble house would have him take the black for life. A short exile might be the most lenient thing I could offer, to keep our names clean.”
It is at that moment, that Aegon finds himself laughing.
Everyone else in the room is terrified, scared, frightened. Crying and ready to weep and bemoan their fates. Their names, clean? They were dirtied with splatters of colorful envy and ambition. Otto is grasping at straws, because he is no Targaryen.
His mother, his grandsire, they were towers holding duty as a weapon of self-righteousness, fearful to besmirch their names in the face of their bannermen, who were so afraid of the gods’ curse they dared to try and shun anything that is not right by their rules.
Aegon has not studied histories to the extent Aemond did, but he does know that his great grandsire Jaehaerys made a fine distinction between Targaryens and men. Incest is an abomination, to anyone but them. Violation of guest right seems to only matter if anyone but Daemon Targaryen does it; Vaemond Velaryon, albeit in a hushed way, ate in the Red Keep before his trial, and Aegon could only wonder if he could still taste the food without his head attached to his tongue.
Sins were attached to them all by definition, and he would have not been married off to his sister had his Hightower mother and grandsire not embraced it. It should not be any different now.
“What are you laughing for, Aegon?” Otto asks, stepping closer to him. Aegon chuckles yet again; trust that his one move would make all other problems forgotten.
“For the notion that bannermen would save us against more dragons coming our way, grandfather. As if any number of men are more valuable than Aemond and Vhagar,” Aegon answers. “Our cunt of a nephew is gone, and now we have one less dragon our way. Didn’t you and mother say our half-sister will kill us all? She has one less way to execute us now, grandsire.”
“Aegon, it is not the time for you to use our words against us.”Alicent warns him, eyes squinted in scrutiny. Aegon glares back, downing the rest of his wine before standing up.
“And what if I will? You gave me those words so I’ll speak and chant them as a prayer. Now the war begins, and we’re no mortals,” Aegon says, walking past Otto and went by his siblings. “We’re dragons. The bannermen have no say in our decisions in war. They will also not leave, if we’re the winning side. It might sting you, but no one ever thought we were morally upright. It’s not why they’re with us.”
Alicent looks down, the same way Aegon looked down when he took her verbal lashings. All things coming full circle, he thought.
“You won’t hear me cry for the bastard that took my brother’s eye, as evil as you’d think me,” he keeps on going, the words spilling from his mouth faster than the tears that did pool in his eyes. He is no liar; they did not pool there for Luke’s death, even if a part of him falters remembering their days as little kids. Those are tears of frustration that built up for years on end. “You’ve put me as king by making a grandiose farce to convince the masses. Despite every rumor they know of me, despite every fact they know of me, they were convinced.”
He feels sick already just saying this aloud, but he won’t stop.
“If I have to put a thousand feasts to make them accept my brother’s misgivings, I will. And if they won’t…” Aegon looks at Aemond then, lifting the empty cup in his hand. “When the Blacks come storming, I’ll probably grow to have the same title.”
Aemond says nothing, but shaking fists and a widened eye were enough for Aegon. His ever-perfect younger brother didn’t look at him at the eyes before unless for judgement. It is different, now.
His mother’s hand reaches her forehead. Surprisingly enough, Helaena was the one holding her now. His sister-wife seems just as shocked as Aemond, although the grief in her face was still ever so present. She must be biting the innards of her cheeks again.
Aegon does not think his words will ever provide her peace, but the rain of her tears stops.
“Let’s speak of this tomorrow,” Alicent finally says, her weak voice betraying her. She knows he’s right, even if she’ll never admit it. “The hour is late.”
The hour is late. It is always late, and Aegon grew up at midnight’s mercy. His sun only rose with Sunfyre lighting up the world with his scales. The hour is late, and he will wait again. Even if he won the argument, even if he was right, the rest of them will click their tongues should he dig deeper into his mother’s fears tonight.
He chuckles bitterly. “Right. Brother should bathe, lest he grows sick when war comes knocking.”
Out of habit, the cup in his hand comes to his mouth again. It’s empty, and the dryness of his throat makes him burn within. It is a cycle that never stops. Aemond swallows, and despite all her misgivings with comfort and touch, Helaena directs him and their mother to the door with gentle fingers.
He wants to yell, but it would be no dragon’s roar. He seethes, but she does know him best, even when he wished she knew him as different.
It is not kind fingers that meet him when they all leave. Their grandsire hardened stare feels like the Iron Throne; it has the force of a hundred swords stabbing him.
“Don’t doom us all with your hubris, my king.”
Otto leaves the room, Aegon throws the cup in his hand against the wall, as hard as he could. He does not break it.
I cannot break what you’ve already broken, grandfather.