Beginning of the End | House Of The Dragon

10.1

AELTHEA POV

I'd woken up sometime early in the morning before the sun had even risen and made my way back to my rooms to find Aemond already there. A breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, fruits and a glass of iced milk sweetened with honey waiting for me as an apology. I, of course, forgave him and we took our breakfast in bed before falling asleep once more but this time in our own bed, wrapped up in one anothers arms.

I stood on my tiny island, barely big enough for five men to lay abreast, the sword in the stone sat peacefully in the middle.

"It's your fault." A voice echoed around me. It sounded familiar, like it was on the tip of of tongue but I couldn't put a face or a name to it.

The voice was deep and sad, an echo from a cavern full of pain and self-pity. "Your fault."

It came out from the shadows now, it's legs were twisted and broken, a wonder that this creature was walking even with the cane, he was impossibly skinny, and half his face was covered by a golden mask.

I let out a sigh of relief. "Your Grace "

His head shot up so fast I was surprised his neck didn't snap. He wore the Conqueror's crown of iron and ruby. It was then that I saw the undamaged half of the face.

"Egg-on?" My voice was trembling now and I felt my lower lip wobble as I was filled with an overwhelming urge to get away from him. I'd never felt that way before. I took a step back and water licked at my heels. I was trapped.

He pulled the mask away and I saw the burns adorning his once perfectly unmarked skin. He looked how he'd always felt inside. And now that he looked how he felt, and what he felt he now showed on that disfigured face of his...it made him the scariest person in the world.

"You did this to me." His voice was void of any emotion but I felt it, it vibrated through me, the anger he felt as it danced beneath his marred flesh. "I was ready to die!" His tone was sorrowful now.

We danced around the stone in the middle, I was trying to get away but he just kept following me. I didn't want to see, I didn't- But his sorrow...it made me turn to face him, with that rock still resting between us as a buffer, and I cursed myself for longing to take him into my arms as I saw the tears flowing down his face.

His laugh was unsettling now. It was like whiplash, like the five stages of grief fast-forwarded so that it spun around my head like butterflys but hit me like a hammer to give me a headache. "But wait-just wait until they find out." The laughter died in his throat. He charged foreward. "Till they find out that Aegon the Ursurper lives, because of you!"

I couldn't explain it, the fire that came over me in that moment, the pure rage like a wildfire poured through my veins and setting me alight as that distorted voice reverberated in my head. "And you have died because of me!"

I don't know why I said it...I don't know where the words came from, or what they meant. But it made him pause and it doused the burning anger inside of me to replace it again with fear and confusion.