The Sapphire Prince | Aemond Targaryen |

11.

"What do you mean she's alive?" Daemon frantically questioned his spy who had barely returned from Kings Landing.

"Her Majesty is alive My Prince. She notified me that she was taken and tortured in the dungeons for two weeks."

The boiling anger that lived inside Daemon erupted as he gripped the sword strapped to his hip. They had her locked and beaten in a dungeon for two weeks and now they flaunted her to the Lords at Kings Landing to show she had taken their side.

"Is it true?" Jace hurriedly burst into the room with evident panic, "Is Verena alive?" he questioned anxiously.

"She's alive." Rhaenyra lightly whispered and clutched her son's shoulder. "Her dragons flew away hours ago."

The evident relief in Jace's demeanor was instantly noticed by the council gathered at the painted table. She was alive. Verena wasn't dead, her body rotting away in some grave. Jace believed it was almost too good to be true that a trick was at hand.

But if she was alive why didn't she escape sooner? Why did she allow her dragons away from her for such a length? Was it possible that in the weeks Verena was gone she had turned to the side of the green?

The side of her own husband. Jace chose to bury those thoughts away. It wouldn't be possible for her to take Aemonds side.

"They had her beat and locked in the dungeons then paraded her as if she was some decorative pig at Prince Aemonds name day." Daemon hunched over the table with his thoughts loose. More importantly, why did Verena prevent the assassins from achieving what they were sent to do? A multitude of questions arose from the further information presented in front of him. Questions they would not get answers to these unless they were able to speak to Verena themselves.

Daemon did not know how to process the disconcerting suddenness of it all. He felt angry, relieved and disappointed all at once. Why hasn't she escaped? Why allow herself to get caught in the first place when she went to meet with Aemond. Just to imagine her chained and beat stung his chest as his heart pounded furiously with rapidness.

Daemon realized that he didn't fail but still it felt like he did.

"By now news will have reached your allies, your majesty. Verena Targaryen will be branded a traitor and may the gods bless us once House Stark hears about this."

Verena and Aemond had locked themselves in their private chambers for anxious hours after she reunited with her dragons. A million questions were asked to him about the day Luke died, she made him repeat everything twice even three times.

For Verena, the sudden cessation of hatred was the most terrifying thing. She did detest him but now not as much as she used to. In the event that Aemond truly did not care about her, he would have permitted Vhagar to simply burn her and Viselar to a pile of ash. Instead, he threw himself between his own dragon and wife adequately prepared to die along with her. She was thrown off her plans that had just begun to unravel last night as a result of the whole event.

There was one unanswered question she was not able to ask him. The words would not come out of her mouth. It was a simple question she desperately wanted to know, yet still she was mystified by it.

The two of them sat side by side at the edge of their beds as they had in the previous hours. Having no idea what to do, Verena stared blankly at the floor, her eyes pacing round the cracks. It was the ominous silence that was killing Aemond, he told her every sparse detail and answered her questions without hesitation.

However, he wondered to himself why Verena had not said anything about whether she truly believed him or if she had forgiven him.

Although the pressure lifted from his chest within hours of telling the truth, he felt like something was pressing against it, almost suffocating him. It never occurred to Aemond how awful her silence could be.