The Darkness We Hide

Chapter 17

It was quiet in the Red Keep. Not a smile in sight, not a whisper heard from anyone. Just silence.

When Alys was taken to her mother's chambers, she finally started to speak, but she was uncontrollable as she screamed and flailed around to escape.

For a while, all anyone could hear was her.

"Let me go!"

"I have to find it!"

"I have to save her!"

"He threw it away!"

No one could calm her down. Not Ros, not Aemond, not Alicent, not Aegon. No one. The maesters had to force her to drink milk of the poppy to sedate her, but when she was finally out, the silence was deafening.

Ros remained to clean her up and redress her while Maester Orwyle tended to her hands and the bruising starting to form on the side of her face. She never left the girl's side for a moment, even after Orwyle left the room. She'd failed in protecting Alys. She failed as the girl's protector, she'd failed as her mother's friend.

If Aemond hadn't been there, Alys would be gone.

It burned the woman to think that, but it was true. Who knows what would've happened if her husband hadn't finally decided to come see his wife?

"Is she awake?" Aemond whispered as he poked his head through the door. Ros was on her feet, walking over to him with a cautious look in her eyes.

"She's resting. Maester Orwyle gave her milk of the poppy to get her to simmer down." Ros answered. He kept his eye on his sleeping wife the entire time Ros spoke. He wanted to fall apart seeing her like this. "Who was that who attacked her? Do you know?"

"Lord Thomas Banefort. I'd imagine he wasn't too thrilled to learn his brother had his tongue removed and was left in a cell to rot." His voice was ice cold as he thought about the Banefort twins. When he'd taken care of the first one who dared to put hands on his wife, he made his way down to the black cells and finished what he started with the man who insulted his wife.

Realization hit Ros when she heard the hint of bitterness in his tone. "It was you...you had that tongue sent to Alys."

"What about it?" He asked, still looking at his wife.

"Why would you do something like that?!" She whisper-shouted, finally gaining his attention.

His violet eye darkened as glared down at the older woman. "I'm not too fond of someone speaking so foul of my wife or her mother."

"Fine, then take his tongue. But why did you give it to her, you idiot?!" She threw her hands up with a scowl thrown at him.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Why wouldn't he show her he would protect her from harm of any kind?

When she saw the look on his face, she smirked to herself, eyeing him up and down then giving him a sympathetic look. "She hasn't told you about her mother yet, has she?"

"What about her? She died in childbirth." He said.

"That's one way to put it." Ros said in a grim voice as she turned to look at the girl. Aemond narrowed his eye at the woman. Didn't his half sister die from her labors? Along with the babe? Wasn't her father so overcome with grief, he threw himself from the infamous moon door?

"What would be another, Lady Roslin?" He asked.

"All I will tell you is that if you are anything like her father, an eye is nothing compared to what I will take from you." She glared up at him, and for once Aemond felt an uneasiness.