Enigmas | Aemond Targaryen

TWENTY NINE

WARNING:THIS CHAP CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. DETAILED SMUT. READ OR SKIP AT YOUR DISCRETION.

All spymasters were slippery and obsequious toadies who offered everyone a few crumbs of choice information, just sufficient enough to make you think they were yours, but ultimately these fickle tricksters served only one purpose, that was their own, and Lord Larys would be no exception. I knew that, and yet still the news he brought me cut deep into an already festering wound and roused a sickening sense of insecurity and doubt within me.

For hours I sat in front of the vanity, eyes scanning the crumpled parchment over and over and over again, as if my tireless rereading would endue the cruel words with a different meaning. It availed me nothing. The sealing wax and the unique serpentine writing style gave every appearance of being genuine. I could imagine in detail how Daemon had sat at the Painted Table atop the Stone Drum with a scowl drawn on his face, channeling all his inner fury into this hateful letter.

He really meant to have my baby killed. The realization struck cold fear into my core, fear that soon turned into full-blown, irremediable anger. The Iron Throne had always been surrounded by endless connivances, intrigues, and double-dealings, but assassination that was completely premeditated coming from my own father? The thought made me nauseous, sour bile rising up the back of my throat as I folded the tattered letter into smaller and smaller portions. Daemon should have asked for my head to mend the treachery done to them and I wouldn't say a word of complaint, I deserved it, but instead he chose to pick on a baby who was guiltless and defenseless against his wrath. My baby. My Daenaera. His own blood.

This is what happens when you are weak and naïve. A tiny, mocking voice in the back of my mind whispered as I stared into the looking glass. Think about Aenys. Think about Viserys. Always eager to please everyone. Always dependent on others. And what happened to them? The set of my mouth hardened into resolve as I watched my own reflection. My own deathly pale face distorted and suddenly turned into my grandfather's, his face scarred and in anguish, lipless mouth falling agape to show a thin glimpse of broken yellow teeth, one empty eye socket staring sightlessly at me. Inside the socket, only darkness. No. I clenched my fists against the redwood of the vanity. I failed Dany twice already, I won't fail her a third time. I won't.

I asked for quill and paper and ink and began to write a letter.

"To Lord Dalton Greyjoy of Pyke. Find someone you can trust. The king must know nought of it." I said to Lady Hazel with a look of steely firmness in my eyes after I pressed the dragon seal down into the soft bronze wax. Lady Hazel nodded deferentially as she took it and turned to leave.

I casted my gaze back to the looking glass.

Picking up an ivory comb, I brushed my waist-long, platinum-white hair vigorously for the next few minutes. Then I changed into the finest blouse I had, half see-through soft white silk. With a cold detachment, I undid a few buttons, revealing the long, slim neck and one shapely shoulder. I lay on my stomach on the bed, with a book in front of me, legs crossing in the air and swaying, waiting, with all the patience of a spider looking for its prey.

My mind and my heart mutinied against each other while I waited. This was just plain stupid, my mind seethed, you wanted to whore yourself out and for what? Aemond would never even think to dishonor me. Maybe the gold in which love gilded us over and made us show fine things to one another for a time had worn off, and the native brass that was the disappointing reality of marriage appeared. But he was too dutiful a man to shame me with some painted-faced whore from the pleasure house. But was that all there was left for us? Merely duty and circumstance? Was that it? My heart ached with doubt and uncertainty. Am I so unlovable, that everyone exploits me for their own gains, and abandons me after?