The Banished Blood

Chapter 4

After lunch, I took a bath to wash the smell of the dragon away. As I was told to come to the library. Arykk guided me, pushing the doors open, then taking to waiting outside. Aemond stood over a table, covered in papers. He looked up to me when the door closed.

"You called for me?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yes, there are some things you should know." He beckoned me to his side. Looking back down at the various papers and books.

"This, is our family line. And these are illustrations of us." Aemond rummaged through the papers. As he pulled portraits done in simple ink on parchment. He pulled one and shoved it to my hands. I looked down. It was of my mother Saera.

"Bitter woman she was." I remarked, looking down at her picture. Aemond ran his hands through others, pulling another, of a girl I had never seen.

"This, is Rhaenyra, the kings first born and heir to the throne." He pointed to her, pulling out more and placing them before me. "This was her first husband Laenor Velarion, in which she had slay, to marry her uncle, Daemon, the kings brother." I brushed my hand over all of them. Daemon looked striking, daring. With a sword by his side. I pointed to it.

"How come he has that and no one else has anything in theirs?" I asked.

"That's Dark Sister, Valerien steel, cuts as the gods intended, clean. Daemon, the Rogue Prince. King of the Stepstones and ruler of the seas. Truely something to behold." Aemond smiled to himself. "Also rumoured to have slain his first wife to marry Laenors sister, Leana. He fathered two children to her. She later died in childbirth, as Daemon, the day after his own wife was buried, wed his niece, Rhaenyra." He explained, as my mind grew to a puzzle.

"All of these names sound alike- the line is kind of confusing." I admitted.

"That's why I'm explaining it to you, before anyone else does." Aemond took a seat, as I did too. He poured me wine, I drank as he spoke. Explaining the family relations, along with how Rhaenyra and Daemon were spotted coupling in a pleasure house together when she just came of age. How Daemon mocked the king for a day. How the king mourned Aemma, how he was doped up on milk of the poppy. Everything he knew, he told me. But I knew he was leaving something out.

"So at the funeral- how did you get the dragon- and not her own child. When you said you paid for it.. I thought you meant you were.. Born that way. Or something. Don't tell me you were made to cut it out yourself." I asked slowly.

Aemond looked down, sliding his fingers along the rim of the cup. Face furrowing.

"That night her body set to sea. The largest dragon in the world lay there, for any to take. I had nothing, so I took it. Her children may feel as if it were theirs. However, I the kings trueborn son, it is my birth right to have a dragon. Unlike her illegitimated cretins of sons. Those wildlings." He spat. "I was born with no dragon- so they took it upon themselves to- tease me. As children do.." He trailed.

"Yes, but children can be cruel." I added, he looked up to me, a small smile lingered upon his lips briefly.

"Lucerys, took my eye when Daemons girls told them what I had done. Four of them beat and cut me. I also never threw the first swing. Everything that happened, was upon their accord." Aemond drank longinly from his cup, and lowered it. I raised mine to my lips.

"How old were you?" I sipped.

"I was Ten, Lucerys was Eight, Jacaerys was Ten. The girls were Seven." Aemond spoke calmly. He looked up to me, waiting for me to say something.

"Fuck them. Most children are horrid children anyways." I said calmly. Aemond smiled.

"And you were a lump of joy?" He joked.