Our Violet Delights

《Chapter 4》

White cloaks come for Aemond the morning the king stops breathing.

He is the armory, half dressed in plate and mail when he hears heavy footsteps and ravens cawing.

Chaos is here, he thinks.

"Is Aegon King?" Aemond asks Ser Willas Fell, "or must we kneel and kiss the old whore's cunt?"

His mother is waiting for him in Helaena's apartments, his sister soon to be a little Queen. But she looks nothing like their lady mother, with her hair so white and skin so pale and lacking in life. His sister is a dragon with no fire, whose mind is trapped in clouds she will never reach.

"Aegon is missing," their mother explains, her eyes black and her gown green.

She's Queen no longer. But she still wishes to pull the strings.

"Aegon must be found, and he must be brought to me."

His mother finds her power through no throne, but the blood of her children. She wields her babes like a weapon. Aegon would be King and Alicent Hightower wished to control him. Aemond only needs one eye to see the truth people tried so desperately to hide.

"I will not fail you, mother."

He never did.

He digs through the filth of flea bottom and roots his brother out like a weed. Aegon squirms and squeals and begs for an escape east. He holds his brother's face in his hands and weeps like a child.

"I have no wish to rule! No taste for duty! I'm not suited."

Aemond thinks of the curse of second sons and mutters, "You'll get no argument from me."

~
It is dusk when the red queen flies for Dragonstone.

The sentries had spotted the beast in the distance, tolling the bells to the occupants within the keep. Dragonstone comes alive at the arrival of Meleys, broad winged and roaring on the black shores.

The dragon is a dark omen none wishes to believe.

"Why is she here?" Aemma asks when she sees Jace running down the hall. "What's happened?"

"She brings news from the capital," he pants, beckoning her away from the windows and into the chamber with the painted table. "You must come."

When Rhaenyra Targaryen is told of her father's death, she does not weep or scream. She is Queen now and her grief is weighed down by the burden of the crown.

Daemon is the first to take the knee. "My Queen."

Jace follows and Aemma too, curtsying deeply to the woman before her. Gone is her mother and in her place, a Queen of fire and blood.

But this is no coronation and Rhaenyra finds herself robbed of her own throne.

"They declare Aegon King?" She roars, face flushing with anger and the dragon breaking free of her skin. "They give him the conqueror's crown?"

"It is treason," Jace snaps.

"It is seizure," Daemon spits. "The Hightowers shall know no peace until they meet the Stranger."

Aemma's heart is racing as whispers of war are spoken. She thinks of a violet eye and forbidden touches and wonders if she has damned them all with her sins. Aemond seeks to destroy her and now he has given his brother the crown her mother should wear. Aemma knows she will not escape this chaos unscathed.

"The Greens are coming for you, Rhaenyra. And your children."

But the Stranger comes for Visenya first.