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Storm's End stands out like a jagged tooth out of the jaws of a beastly sea creature. Sharp, narrow, it crowns the ravine jewel-like, gilded in thunder and seawater.
It should feel hostile to Aemond, perhaps, compared to King's Landing and its everlasting sun. It doesn't. Aemond feels it in his blood. He's a dragonrider with blood of Old Valyria, his beast a thing of legend - there's no threat but the one that he makes on his wake.
"Lykīri, Vagus."
Vhagar huffs as they make ground, letting her body rest against wet stone. It's a mighty enough huff to rival the winds that break against the walls of the castle.
When Aemond walks up to the guards, he doesn't ask. His dagger digs into his thigh, a familiar weight.
"I will meet with lord Borron Baratheon."
In the distance, lightning cracks and outlines Vhagar's body, her spine rivaling the highest tower of the Keep.
It's easy passage after that.
Lord Borros sits his throne lazily, yet his eyes are sharp. Aemond makes the deal the way he duels, with a quick hand and a promise. He's been raised in the art of blood, and yet there is no blood to be spilled today. A marriage. That, he promises. It's easy after that, to secure the rest of the pieces that make up the alliance.
It's easy, except -
"- Prince Lucerys Velaryon, son of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen."
Aemond has seen him in dreams. In nightmares. It's been years in the making. It's been the lapse between that dinner after the Driftmark audience and today, the picture of candle-lit Lucerys laughing at him like there was something to be laughed at, like the Dragonpit all over again.
He's not laughing now.
When he speaks, he speaks not with assurance. I brought a message from the Queen. He relays his mother's demands with the charm or potency of a wet stone. To think of moving armies to battle like that, the arrogance - only these kids could think it, coddled since the cradle, protected by the throne above better blood, dragon-bonded since birth. Only that bitch mother of theirs could imagine something like this. Self-entitled. Delirious.
Aemond stills the thrumming hum in his blood. Outside, Vhagar roars.
He stares at the bastard as he stammers his way through Borron Baratheon's demands. He is but an insolent slip of a thing, a pup playing at games he does not understand. His eyes are winter green. He does not belong here. Maybe his bastard half-sister had thought it safe - but one is never safe, sister. Not in time of war. Not when there is a truth that only some like Aemond know, dragonless for half of his life; that a Targaryen without its dragon is as pathetically vulnerable as any other living, shitting creature.
By the end, Borron Baratheon seems one step away from spitting at the bastard's feet.
"Take that back to your mother, child."
He does not protest, weak thing that he is. He just nods. No kind of fight in him - no fire. A bastard through and through.
It does seem to be the end of it. Something tingles in Aemond's blood, though. It can't be.
Not yet.
"Thank you, lord -"
”I will escort my nephew out.”
It's not a request - it's a warning. Aemond challenges the Storm's End guard to stop him. They barely meet his eye. They have heard the names; most probably, they have heard the stories. They know enough of the creatures of Old Valyria, of wings so large they summoned night at their pleasure, of hinged jaws that could swallow up the sun. Aemond commands a creature of the past, a carpet of blood unfolding before his feet that he steps on readily. None wish to meet him there.
Across the grand Hall of bone, the bastard Strong meets his eye. He looks weary at the prospect of Aemond's request - smart. He should be. His pair of eyes shine distrustingly, the black-and-red of his House's sigil catching the light in his clothes.
”Careful, Targaryen,” Borros answers his request roughly. “Do not spill blood inside my walls.”
Aemond takes it for what it is - agreement.
When Lucerys Velaryon turns on his heel, Aemond follows.
The corridors of Storm's End are high and cavernous. It's easy to spot the little prince in them and give chase.
"You're a long way from Dragonstone, valonqar."
Aemond feels it, the throb behind his eyepatch, pulsing into the chill surface of the stone.
Lucerys does not stop his march towards the exit as he speaks. "I did what I was sent here to do. I am leaving now."
"And what were you sent for, exactly? Embarrassing your whore mother? Making a laughingstock of her claim?"
At that, Lucerys Velaryon does turn. So predictable. Aemond stares. He’s but a fledgeling, still green and soft at the edges yet his eyes are ablaze now, set in embers. The color in them boils.
"Do not speak like that about my mother."
He's a unique sort of pathetic. A mere pup with a scowl, toothless as he barks. Pretty, too. A fact like any other. Pretty the way girls from the Court are pretty, the upturned nose, the big watery eyes and soft waves of his hair.
"Or what?" Aemond grins. "You'll fight me?"
It seems to snap the little prince out of it. His frown rolls back, face plain again.
"I am here as a messenger." He says it firmly. "I delivered the message. And I will leave now."
Aemond concedes, casually staring at his nails. "Well enough."
The bastard sends him one more look before he turns again, once more aiming for the patio where Arrax must be waiting. Aemond grabs him by the arm, iron grip hold before he can do so.
”One thing before you leave, though, Lord Strong.” He says, faux-lightly. "I'm going to need your eye."
Aemond watches the emotions dawn on the little prince's face one by one, contort his features - shock. Confusion. Realization. And then -
"No," he whispers, shaking his head. He repeats it. "Daor."
The echo of it bounces against the corridors of Storm's End and promptly gets swallowed by the stone.
"I'm still owed. I thought Rhaenyra believed in fair trade, dear nephew," Aemond hums. He pulls his dagger from its holster, twirls it between his fingers. "I'll not even blind you - one will do." He lets go of Lucery's wrist just to pull back his eyepatch. "An eye for an eye."
Aemond doesn't wonder what little prince is thinking as he peaks at the wound, the sapphire nestled in it like a moon.
Lucerys swallows. "That trade was done long ago. Everyone paid its share."
Aemond's hackles raise. "I remember none paid."
"You earned your dragon-"
"It was not enough!!"
It was not. It never was. Aemond was but cursed that day - a half-life he's been leading, whispers at his back. This little bastard had gotten the cradle - the dragon. The eye. He had taken from Aemond, mutilated him freely and all Aemond had received from his own father was a shush. Someone had to make him pay. Someone had to show the bitch bastards hiding at Dragonstone what real Targaryens dealt in.
Fire and blood.
Lucerys' eyes widen. "How can the debt not be paid? You got Vhagar out of it. The greatest dragon, and she's yours."
Aemond presses a hand to his shoulder, crowds him against cold stone. "It was not you who paid."
The Velaryon bitch had paid for that, her mother's dragon lost, riderless - not this bastard. This one, he still has yet to pay.
"I -"
Aemond brings his dagger to face level; lets the steel shine. He presses fingers harder into Lucerys' shoulder, keeps him there. An image of the dinner flashes lighting-fast in front of his eyes. A mockery. A roasted pig.
"Are you going to scream, little prince? Ask for help?" He wonders, smirking. "I'll even let you pick the side."
For a second, silence - nothing but the storm beating against the bastion like a fist. Aemond wonders what the little prince will do. He's a cowardly thing like his mother, coiled and lazy in Dragonstone as a tomb. He bets running. He could scream. Arrax won't be fast enough.
Then slowly, slowly, Lucerys grabs his wrist and directs the dagger so the tip lays just at the jut of his left cheekbone. A caress.
"Do it then."
Aemond stills.
"Get on with it." Lucerys' voice shakes but his resolve doesn't. "Jiōragon va lēda ziry se sīr sagon ziry. Pār henujagon nyke se ñuhon mērī. [1] A debt paid."
His command of the language is strong. Stronger than Aemond had expected, liquid-smooth. Aemond thinks of endless nights in the Maester's library, a father as present as the dream of a ghost, a mother that could barely hold the stitches of herself together without spilling her guts all over the Great Hall, unable to teach, forever foreign to the world of Valyria. All Aemond learned, he learned on his own.
Aegon never learned. The cloak of legitimacy had been protection enough. The king of dragons, mute.
Lucerys speaks again. "Gaomagon ziry, qībor." [2] His chin is high. His fingers dig deeper onto the handle of the dagger. "Get on with it."
Aemond has dreamed of this. He has dreamed of it so many times it is more a clearwater image, more like reclaiming a memory than rehashing a thing of sleep. The unblemished face of Rhaenyra's second son torn open, a jagged chasm to match Aemond's own. The stench of meat. The blood, running thick and warm on his hands. He'd be careful - he'd keep it, the eye. Wash it clean. He'd come to know the weight of it, the exact color of the iris, the texture. He has dreamed of playing marbles with it. Of piercing it. Of eating it. He has dreamed of cracking it open like an egg and drinking its insides until nothing but a viscous husk remains.
He'd dreamed a dream of violence, of resistance and reclaiming and screams so loud they would drown the wind. He'd dreamed of pain so bright it could blind the world with it.
He hadn't dreamed of this.
Aemond slides the tip of his blade up the bastard's skin. It's a skin of milk, soft and untested. Childlike. He digs in - presses in just hard enough for a drop of blood to well up to the surface, a sharp cut.
Lucery's breath hitches at the sting of pain. He does not close his eyes. He challenges Aemond with them.
It would be easy. To dig his blade in deeper, watch it cut butter-like through the pretty flesh and tendon alike. To scoop the eye out like one would do the pit of a fruit. Aemond slides the tip through the rest of Lucerys' face, traces the angles of it. Cheekbone and nose and jaw. When he meets his lower lip, he lets it slide until it sits beneath his chin, then pushes up so their eyes meet.
It should be enough. An eye for an eye. It should taste like victory enough, the cusp of years of wait.
It doesn't.
Aemond steps back. Lucerys exhales.
He sheathes the dagger back to where it belongs. "Daor. Ziry iksos tolī adere." [3] Aemond won't waste it. "Not today, little prince."
Aemond will make him pay - but not like this. Not this trite, this simple, here in these halls that smell of seawater, under a stranger's roof. He will take his time. He will break the bastard until no piece can be put back together.
He steps closer once more, drags a cold finger down Lucerys' new scar. It's small. It's enough - for now.
Aemond leans in, brushes his ear with warm breath. "Tell your traitor mother I said hi."
The bastard doesn't wait. He takes his opportunity to slip from Aemond's grasp, scurrying a healthy distance away from him. Aemond doesn't give chase. He's decided - for now.
Now freed and by the gates, the bastard looks up at him one last time. He looks severe. His eyes are sharp. And then -
Lucerys Velaryon smiles.
It's not just a smile. It's a dragon claw, a slash, it's a quarter-moon that hangs loose from his mouth. It transforms him. There's a dragon in the flesh waiting outside for Lucerys, proof of his blood and yet it's this smile that finally makes everything click in Aemond's mind. It normally hides well beneath the dark hair and the soft eyes, all that childlike innocence a buffer for it - it's not enough to cover for it now.
Fang-sharp. Cunning. Shameless. Like he's mocking Aemond once again, somewhere a match lost, a game played where he had chosen the wrong move. He's a thousand times prettier for it, the little prince, menacing in his scheming.
Fire and blood.
Aemond could stop him. Could drag him back to the corridors again, wipe that smile clean from his mouth. He could kill him, too. Nothing could stop him.
He doesn't.
Instead, Aemond watches him cross the patio and make his way towards Arrax, another quicksilver and scrawny thing. They meet each other in the middle of the storm, both sopping and soothed by each other's presence, the same heart beating in two chests. A match made in birth, forged in the cradle. Aemond despises him even more for it.
"Lykīri, Arraks. Ryptēs. Rybãs." [4]
It sounds buttery and ancient in Lucerys' mouth, a thing of relic and old glory.
Aemond looks up.
Lucerys Velaryon is already staring back at him from atop of Arrax, hands digging into the reigns. The rain pummels into them violently, a thousand glass blades falling from the sky. Aemond can see it when he looks hard enough, the minute wound under the bastard's left eye that he just put there. It still bleeds, a long tear-track down his cheek. At the same time, Arrax licks his own face like there's blood also spilling from him.
There's a flash of that smile again, there and gone. One last challenge.
"Sōvēs, Arraks!"
When they fly into the sky, they soar as one. They are inexperienced, both rider and dragon, yet the bond rings true in every flap of Arrax's wings. It's formidable, that kind of bond. An unbreakable thing.
A thought creeps in, lies at Aemond's feet. Another sapphire of his own.
An eye for an eye is no longer enough.
Something more painful. Not something to make him mourn: something to make him break.
An eye for a dragon -
A dragon for an eye.