The Realm's Fright | HOTD S1 | Fem!OC x Aemond Targaryen Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-One

The dawn light crept through the curtains, a pale and fleeting shimmer that cast the room in hues of grey and gold. Alysanne stirred first, slipping from the grasp of sleep like a whisper on the wind. Her husband lay still beside her, sprawled on his stomach, the rise and fall of his breath steady and undisturbed. The sheets pooled around his waist, his silver hair a tangle of light against the darker linens. Even in his rest, Aemond was a study of contrasts-beauty and menace intertwined, a Valyrian prince wrought in pale flesh and shadow.

Alysanne studied him quietly, her gaze tracing the curve of his back, the sharp planes of his shoulders. His skin, pale as winter snow, seemed almost luminous in the muted dawn. Envy stirred in her heart, a familiar, bitter pang she had long grown used to carrying. If only her father had truly been Ser Laenor Velaryon. If only she bore the untainted blood of Valyria, the same as her uncle-husband. Then perhaps she might have been beautiful too, might have worn the silver-gold tresses of her ancestors instead of the dark curls she had inherited from Harwin Strong.

Her eyes fell to the bedside table, where his black leather eyepatch dangled precariously over the edge. She hesitated, her breath catching as she saw him as few ever did-bare, vulnerable, his disfigured eye exposed. Or what remained of it.

The hollow socket gleamed faintly, and within it, the sapphire caught the early light, burning cold and vivid. It was no mere adornment; the jewel was a statement, a declaration. He had turned his loss into a weapon, a reminder to the world that even in suffering, he could claim power. And yet, in the half-light of the room, the sapphire seemed almost alien. It rendered him inhuman, a creature of some old and terrible magic, as if the Valyrian gods themselves had claimed his soul the day he lost his eye.

Her thoughts carried her back to Driftmark, to the night it all began. She heard again the clash of voices, the cries of her brothers, the defiant taunts of her uncle as he seized Vhagar for himself. She remembered standing there, watching as her mother's fury unfolded, as Aemond's blood spilled onto the stones. And she remembered her own silence. She had done nothing to stop it. Perhaps she had even enjoyed it-watching him suffer, watching the boy who had tormented her lose something irreplaceable.

*"I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon,"* he had said in Driftmark's hall, his voice ringing with pride and defiance. But his mother had not been so easily appeased. Alicent Hightower had demanded justice, an eye for an eye, and when that justice was denied, her fury had turned to vengeance. Alysanne had been little more than a pawn in the games that followed, her betrothal to Aemond a bond forged in blood and politics.

She had dreamed of other futures once, of other lives far from the shadow of King's Landing. Willa had often teased her, saying she would shine bright in the North if her mother arranged it. She had imagined herself as the Lady of Winterfell, wedded to Cregan Stark, who was six years her elder and a stranger to her. The North had seemed so distant, so free. She had dreamed of its cold winds and snowbound forests, of a life where she might be something more than her mother's daughter. But that dream had long since withered. Cregan Stark had taken another bride, and Alysanne had taken the hand of her uncle.

She thought of those dreams even now, even as she lay with the man who had once been her tormentor. She could never grow used to him, not truly. Aemond was cruel and cunning, a creature of ambition and wrath. And yet, as he lay there, his face softened in sleep, he seemed almost kind, almost human.

He is the true Realm's Fright, she thought. That septa only said I was because she never lived long enough to see how much he had changed.

The wind howled through the open balcony doors, sending a shiver down her spine. She slipped from the bed, careful not to wake him. Naked and cold, she bent to retrieve her chemise from the floor, her movements slow and deliberate. As she dressed, pulling on the layers of clothing she could manage alone, she found herself thinking of the laws of the Seven. Aemond hated to bed her clothed, found it distasteful, though she herself found his preference unsettling. It felt wrong, a violation of tradition. She was no devout follower of the Faith, but she had grown accustomed to its customs, its quiet rhythms. She might have been Valyrian by blood, but she was Westerosi in her heart.