Salvation - Aemond Targaryen / Aegon Targaryen

The Lion's Claws

The day before her Wedding, Jeyne Hightower sat alone in her chambers. There was no entourage of ladies in waiting, no sister or lady mother to tend to her. The gathering last night had been... unsuccessful, in many ways. And with Prince Aemond's savage beating of her betrothed, loneliness ensued.

She sat—as was tradition for a maid on the eve of her wedding—alone, staring at the broken maiden on her alter still missing a candle. She wondered which of the remaining gods that represented. Surely not the Stranger, he had yet to visit her. The Father Above protected all his children, or so she was told. But Jeyne Hightower's protection did not come from the father, it came from Aemond.

The Crone granted people wisdom, and Jeyne did not feel very wise. She felt like a child again, forced by her septa to a night of fasting to purify. She used to think she knew everything, but now she knew nothing.

The morning had passed her by with no news of Jason Lannister, which she could only take as bad news—that his thick skull had protected him—and he was still alive. Jeyne had never been so sad, so lost. But still she sat alone in her chambers, staring out the window to her home leagues away, wishing it could be different.

She finished the work on her maiden's cloak, burning loose threads and fixing crooked jewels. She read her book, glazing over chapters that had once given her life. She sang a few songs, the only ones she knew not to be surrounded of her faith. The Song of Exile, which had been written about the Targaryens, and their longing to return to rebuild their homeland, Valyria, was perhaps her favorite.

There was something about them—magical, mystical—and it wasn't their dragons. Jeyne had the blood of the Andals in her veins—the men who brought righteousness to a feral land—but the Targaryens, the Velaryons, the Celtigars... They were Valyrian.

Land of sun and land of moonlight,

Land that gave us joy and sorrow,

Land that gave us love and laughter,

We will go home across the mountains.

It was a slow, pretty song filled with sorrow, with longing and hope of returning home. Jeyne felt that now. She would give up everything to be free of Jason Lannister, if it meant living her life a Septa or a Silent Sister, so be it.

It would never be, however, so Jeyne resumed her endless cycle of monotony—well and truly bored out of her skull.

The only thing that brought her comfort was the patch. The simple piece of brown leather with a thin strap large enough to wrap around a skull. She took it from Prince Aemond on the beach of the Blackwater, hoping that it would give him leave to return to her. But Aemond kept his distance, and Jeyne kept the patch.

She lounged on her bed, her Seven-Pointed star sat in her lap and the patch running through her fingers. She had never noticed its craftmanship before. Four thick stitches connected the leather strap to the circular, protruding cover—polished and refined until it shone—with just enough left that the prince could slip it over his head with ease.

Jeyne—blushing at the oddness of it—brought it to her lips and placed a small kiss on the outside, the smell of brimstone and smoke slowly fading from it. She wondered what Aemond thought, about her, the wedding, the horror of it all. He had been willing to kill for her, to strike Jason Lannister down in front of gods and men simply because she asked him to.

The thought made her heart flutter.

The sun was high in the sky when a knock brought her from her thoughts. She jumped, scrambling to stuff the patch deep into the center of her book. Jeyne slammed the cover closed. "Come in."