Enigmas | Aemond Targaryen

TWENTY ONE

I had no time for heartbreak, no time to despair over my hurt and loss. Albeit inside, my heart was breaking, for the baby that was cruelly stolen from me just moments after she was born, and the man I loved and laid myself open to with such trust yet willfully betrayed me when I was at my most vulnerable. I felt terribly guilty over the fact that I chose to usurp my own mother in favor of my newborn daughter, my conscience heavy, weighing down on me like a curse. I felt angry, the profound desire for vengeance bubbling like acid in my tightened chest. Yet, I had no time to dwell upon my emotions when the safe return of Daenaera depended on me being hard of will and quick of action. I must seize the throne and have her back with me. She's all that mattered. All else could wait.

The dawn had just begun to blanch the blackness from the sky when Aemond and I reached King's Landing. For the past few days, I slept very little and ate nothing. It weakened me and as a result I almost tripped and fell to my knees when Aemond helped me down from Vhagar. Each step was a struggle, only the knowledge that each step also carried me closer to Daenaera ignited a fire within me that gave me tremendous strength.

The capital was a lot more lawless than I anticipated. Even with guardsmen in gold cloaks of the City Watch overworking, the stinky streets and alleys were filled with thieves and scoundrels who would rob any stranger unfortunate enough to be caught out at night. Houses and shops were ransacked and murders were rampant. When we entered Maegor's Holdfast, I saw a long row of severed heads impaled on the huge iron spikes on the thick stone parapet, dipping in tar, partially eaten by ravens and crows. Aemond tried to shield my eyes but I smacked his hands away. I wanted to see and I wanted to remember.

Entering my old quarters, my ladies-in-waiting were already there, expecting me to help wash the grime of travel from my weary body. I was hurriedly laced into a simple wool dress of deepest black as we were a house in mourning, the sleeves cut short to reveal narrower and longer sleeves of deep green velvet beneath them. The green color made me nauseous, but not as nauseous as the piles of emeralds, malachites, and jades they sild around my throat, wrists, and fingers. The urge to tear everything off and throw them to the ground to stomp was almost insuppressible. I suffered through it with the dignity of a dragon. I would not have them think me weak.

I stood in front of the looking glass and stared blankly at my face after the ladies were done decorating me. My face looked like my face, only different. It was not the face of a naïve princess who once thought the world would be exactly as she wanted it to be. It was the face of a harsh, austere queen whose beauty had an edge to it. I wondered if my face would ever look the same again, or if I'd always see it in my reflection: rage, agonizing sorrow, guilt, shame, loss and pain.

I wasted no time in heading back to the Dragonpit.

As I waited at the side entrance of the Pit, a great bell began to toll. Its voice was deep and sonorous, rumbling across the capital like claps of thunder, warning of the storm to come. The long mournful clanging went on and on, after a while every other bell in the city started to answer, making my headache increase a thousandfold.

Smallfolk after smallfolk swamped the Pit in confusion and consternation.

"People of King's Landing, today is the saddest of days. Our beloved King, Viserys The Peaceful, is dead." I felt as if I had briefly left my body and floated somewhere above when Otto stepped forward on the dais and proclaimed solemnly, silencing the low murmurs from the crowd with a clear and perfectly steady voice. I could not fathom what he must be feeling at the moment, finally having me in his carefully concocted cobweb like a stupid antelope in a poacher's net with nowhere to run. Triumphant? Derisory? Or both. "But it is also the most joyous of days, for as his spirit left us he whispered his final wish, that his beloved granddaughter, Visenya, the Light On the Tides, the Light of All Lights, should succeed him."