The Sapphire Prince | Aemond Targaryen |

10.

He had struggled for hours before he managed to pull himself back into their bed. His shaken mind played Verena's words in a loop throughout the desperate hours of glaring out to the clouded skies.

Verena and Aegon never slept together.

She was never his brother's lover. In Aemond's brutal heart a bottomless pit formed from his aggressive behaviours that frigid night when he severely hurt her. The fact that she was barely recovered and he caused her even more pain based on a lie dreaded him. The way she was screaming in agony that night and frantically clawing at him to get away.

It was impossible for him to make sense of anything round him. His political hatred for her festered in him like an overwhelming infection for weeks after she falsely had led him to believe she slept with Aegon.

And now?

All that hatred was built and fuelled on one simple little fib.

While the sun was beginning to reveal its beams, he sighed. Aemond peeled himself off the ledge and walked over to the hollow side of the bed. It came as no surprise that Jaehaera and Verena spent the sound night glued to one another, her little head comfortably tucked into Verena's shapely neck and her arm resting across her chest. In the midst of their profound sleep, Aemond discovered it mildly entertaining to watch them both pout in the same exact way.

Slipping gently under the covers with ease, he lay on his side to observe them.

War aside.

Green and black aside.

This would have been his promising future if Aegon never took the crown. If Aemond had never slaughtered Luke. Would her feelings change towards him if he revealed that Lukes's death was genuinely an accident?

That he didn't want Luke to die that he was simply toying with him, wanting Luke to be afraid of him. But Aemond knew that Verena would still criticise the fact he flew after the youthful prince with his dragon knowing how small Arrax was.

So many lies.

So many unspoken words between them caused their marriage to be what it is at present. Had he not sneaked off to ride Vhagar the morning after their wedding, would things have been different? He could've forced her to stay, yes also a terrible thing that would have its dire consequences, but maybe Luke would have never died. If Aegon wouldn't have dispatched him as an envoy, they would've never encountered one another and Aemond and Verena would focus on making their marriage work.

And it wasn't some hopeless dream he clung to, it was her specific actions on their wedding night that allowed both of them to imagine what could have been.

Despite their hatred for one another, husband and wife both carried a mild fantasy of what might have happened if the events hadn't unfolded as they did. In fact, Verena had accepted she was to be his wife. It's why she even showed up to the wedding, it's why she gave Aemond her father's dagger in the first place.

They would forever question the what-ifs.

In the afternoon, Verena awoke after a peaceful sleep of many pleasant hours. It was one of the most tranquil nights of sleep she had since the day she fled to dragonstone. The bed felt warm under her compared to the marked coldness of her prisoned chambers. Rather than letting her mild eyes be bugged by the annoying sunbeam, she willingly smiled whimsically. It was a feeling she never anticipated she would dearly miss.

Verena felt Jaehaera's head resting comfortably on her neck, her tiny hand placed across her chest, but the warm welcome instantly ran cold when Verena also felt a heavy arm wrapped round her hip. She snapped her head to see Aemond was close to her as well. Comfortably laying on his stomach with his head turned towards her asleep.