With the Queen gone, Otto Hightower knew he stood alone.
He stepped forward, his voice regaining the calm, steely authority of the Hand.
"Your Grace! Princess Helaena consents to the match. We accept that."
He paused, his eyes narrowing.
"But the second condition, keeping Prince Aegon on Driftmark as a ward, is, forgive me, far too harsh. It amounts to house arrest! It is utterly unacceptable!"
Rhaenys looked as though she had expected this objection.
Slowly, she raised her right hand, fingers pressed together, as solemn as a septa taking a vow.
"I, Rhaenys Targaryen, swear by the dragon blood in my veins and by the centuries-old, unsullied honor of my husband, Corlys Velaryon, and his House."
Her voice rang through the hall, clear and unyielding.
"While on Driftmark, Prince Aegon Targaryen shall be to us as our own child. He will receive the finest tutelage, seamanship, statecraft, and the ways of knighthood. He will be accorded the same respect and care given to Jacaerys and Lucerys."
She lowered her hand, her eyes blazing with fierce sincerity.
"House Velaryon will never harm him, nor suffer him to endure undeserved hurt or slight. If I break this oath, may the Seven abandon me, revile me, and cast my soul into the seventh hell to burn forever."
So weighty was the vow that even the doubting lords of the Green faction were moved.
Rhaenys softened her tone slightly.
"Besides, it is only for two years. When the term ends, we shall return Prince Aegon to King's Landing safe and whole. By then, he will be a Prince more seasoned, wiser, and more discerning."
She paused, sweeping her gaze over Otto's livid face and Viserys's exhausted, deathly pallor. She delivered the final blow.
"Your Grace, a divided council, a realm at feud with itself… the consequences are clearer to you than to any man alive. Shall the peace our late grandfather spent his life preserving be shattered by our own hands?"
A long, heart-stopping silence followed.
Every eye was fixed upon the King.
At last, Viserys closed his eyes and swallowed the bitter draught. A single, weightless word slipped through his cracked lips.
"…Granted."
Seeing that her father still favored her, Rhaenyra exhaled in relief.
She knew they had won.
It was not the victory she had first sought, but they had forced the Greens to surrender a princess and, more importantly, bolstered Jace's legitimacy.
By marrying Helaena to Jace, the Greens were forced to publicly acknowledge him as a true Targaryen.
Yet, as she looked at her father, the fruit of triumph tasted only of brine and ash.
She had exploited her father's guilt toward her and her dead mother, Aemma.
She had secured her throne, but the cost was the blood and tears of her closest kin.
"All of you… every last one…"
Viserys's eyes fluttered open again, wandering vacantly across the sea of faces below, his children, his blood, his counselors.
"You have turned my House into a pit for beasts to fight in…" his voice rasped like broken bellows.
"You have made the blood of children into coin to be traded…"
He gasped, chest heaving, a sickly flush rising in his cheeks.
"I never wished to choose… I love you all… If only we could return to the way it was… even if only in pretense…"
"Stop… I beg you… stop…"
This belated, feeble cry of a defeated father spoke of every struggle, every compromise, and every helpless sorrow of his reign.
No one answered. Even the hardest hearts in the room felt a pang of pity.
Viserys's gaze, unbidden, drifted to the second son who now sat unguarded on the floor, Aemond, dazed and alone, the gag removed but the silence remaining.
This son, his fierce defiance, his sharp tongue, his defense of his mother, and that final madness willing to destroy himself…
A sudden, absurd thought flashed through Viserys's clouded mind. He reminds me of Daemon.
No. Impossible. He shook the fancy away.
Yet Aemond's sudden change, cold and decisive, far beyond his years, was nothing like the brooding, solitary boy he remembered.
The King looked at no one else.
Shrugging off the reaching hand of a Kingsguard, he shuffled like a sleepwalker down from the dais.
"Your Grace…"
The lords bowed, voices thick with respect, pity, and perhaps even scorn.
"Disperse… let it end…"
The ghost-thin words vanished as he passed through the doors.
Princess Rhaenyra was the first to turn away; the Blacks followed, the air heavy with their hollow victory.
They had traded an eye for a betrothal and a vital hostage.
Hand Otto Hightower cast a complicated glance at his stunned, muttering eldest grandson, Aegon.
Foolish, craven, useless, he judged coldly.
Then his gaze shifted to the second son, who was sitting on the floor. Aemond's eyes were gathering a fearsome chill once more.
The scales in Otto's heart finally tipped.
Aegon would stay on Driftmark with the Blacks.
Otto was sure that with the cunning of the Sea Snake and the pride of Rhaenys, they would never be foolish enough to physically harm the boy.
No, they would do something worse. They would destroy him with kindness.
They would pamper Aegon with exquisite delicacies, fine wines, and flattery, gently robbing a will that was already weak.
Two years later, a man softened by indulgence and good for nothing but feasting would return to King's Landing.
Such an Aegon would be useless against Rhaenyra.
But Aemond...
As Otto turned away, a sharp gleam flashed in his eyes.
The second son he had once overlooked was too much like the young Daemon Targaryen.
He had fire. He had grit.
Perhaps the hope of House Hightower should no longer rest upon the firstborn, Otto mused.
It is time to pour our resources into shaping Aemond.
The hall emptied, leaving silence in its wake.
Then, a slender, pale hand, trembling with cold and nerves, reached toward Aemond.
Aemond lifted his head slowly. His silver hair was disheveled, his face bruised, yet deep in his violet eyes, a flame burned.
It was Helaena. She had returned alone.
She stood before him, trying to force a comforting smile that looked more heartbreaking than tears.
"Aemond," she whispered.
"You don't have to go this far for me."
"We are family," she said, her voice soft yet unwavering.
"I... I don't want to see you lose your eye."
She paused, gathering her courage.
"If it could end all this strife... I would give myself willingly."
To protect this brother who had changed overnight, who had become strange, dangerous, yet fiercely protective, she would pay the price.
Aemond said nothing.
His gaze rested on her outstretched, trembling hand. Slowly, he reached out and clasped her cool fingers.
His palm burned, still warm with lingering fury.
Just as Helaena thought he would rise, he tugged her hand gently but firmly.
"Ah!"
Startled, she lost her balance and tumbled forward into Aemond's thin but taut embrace.
For an instant, they were pressed together on the cold stone floor.
Time seemed to freeze; through thin cloth, they felt the clash of their racing hearts.
Their eyes met, inches apart.
"Helaena," Aemond breathed, his voice low and dangerous.
"I won't accept it."
Color flooded her pale cheeks, spreading down her slender neck.
Her mind went blank; her violet eyes brimmed with confusion, panic, and disbelief.
Smack.
It was a soft sound. Not a blow, but an instinctive, startled response.
She slapped his uninjured right cheek, careful not to hurt him, but desperate to break the spell.
As though burned, Helaena pulled free, scrambling back several steps.
She clutched the hand that had struck him, fingers quivering.
Her eyes shimmered with panic, shame, and a flutter of emotion she did not recognize.
"You... you are... too much, Aemond," she stammered, her voice barely audible.
This unfamiliar, predatory Aemond left her at a loss.
She dared not stay an instant longer.
Gathering her skirts like a frightened fawn, she fled the cold, empty hall, her silver hair streaming behind her.
Aemond remained on the floor. He slowly touched the cheek she had slapped.
The brief daze in his eyes was swept away by the cold draft of the Dragonpit.
A deeper, fiercer fire replaced it.
"I haven't lost yet," he muttered hoarsely to the shadows.
Aegon would serve his purpose as a hostage.
But Aemond... Aemond would return to King's Landing.
Without Aegon there to disappoint them, the Hightower resources would flow to him. He would be the only Prince at Viserys's side.
He would be the sword and the shield.
And he would never suffer Helaena to wed Jacaerys Velaryon.
He rose unsteadily, his body weak but his back straight.
He had Vhagar.
The ancient, colossal dragon of war.
Dance of the Dragons... might be unavoidable.
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