Aegon is crying when she steps into his chambers to ask if he's seen the nursemaid their mother forced her to hire for Maelor. Across from him, their mother is yelling. When Helaena announces herself, her mother rushes to her and pulls her into a stiff hug. The Princess is frozen, confusion clear on her face as she meets her brother's gaze. It isn't until Queen Alicent leaves the room that she goes to him.
Aegon stands before her, naked with a sheet at his waist. 'I fucked it,' he says softly. He lets the sheet fall when she reaches to offer him a hug. It is so unlike her and they both know it, both enjoy the contact. 'Mother is mad at me...again. I was supposed to be there this morning to see Rhaenyra and Daemon to their chambers but I was out all last night and...I fucked it.' Helaena can feel his warm tears soaking the shoulder of her dress.
'It's alright, Aegon.' She sits at the edge of his bed and he sits beside her. 'You and I and Aemond will never be what mother wanted. We can never please her so long as we live.' But our deaths will destroy her more. She holds her tongue from saying the last bit.
'Can you hold me for a while?' She nods at her brother's question even though she knows he will not see. Laying back, Helaena pretends he is Maelor in need of comfort. Her hands go to Aegon's head of hair, dancing on his scalp as he presses his cheek into her breast. Even when she wants to tell him that she is still tender, that Maelor has found a way to make her nipples hurt more than both the twins suckling at once, she says nothing. She looks up at his pale ceiling and whispers a Valyrian lullaby.
.
Helaena is made to stand at her husband's side, swaying softly as her mind fills with visions she cannot control. She keeps her lips tightly sealed but is otherwise too occupied with the images to hear a word of the petitions for Driftmark. Aemond notices and tries to soothe her in the way only he can, his fingers once ghosting over the palm behind her back. She looks at the ground and sees Vhagar plummeting into a pool of black water.
She pulls away and looks over to Aegon to see him glaring at their nephews. 'Green and black,' she mouths, though no sound leaves her lips, 'crippled and burned. Broken the both of them.' Biting her lip to be certain no words leave her mouth, Helaena looks to see her grandfather sitting the throne and calling for lord Vaemond Velaryon's petition.
The arguing goes unnoticed by her as she sees Dreamfyre decades before Helaena was ever born. She sees her with another Targaryen woman, swooping low over a bay of pristine blue water. When the Princess blinks her eyes, she sees the great hall again, Rhaenyra now standing at the center. Almost as soon as her half-sister has started talking, the great doors towards the back open.
'He will get only today.' Helaena finds her lips moving even when she did not think the words, though she is grateful that her voice does not speak. She smiles sadly at the sight of her father, hunched over and dying.
Still, Viserys Targaryen sits the throne of his ancestors and calls out to the hall. Helaena holds her tongue as she feels the cryptic phrases, promises, enter her mind. She tries to push them to the recesses of her thoughts, to distract herself by remembering Aemond's smile or Jaehaera's laughter. Anything else.
'The sword of the Conqueror has two edges,' she whispers though she knows even Aegon and Alicent will not listen. 'A promise that will destroy our house, and a promise to bring back the Dawn.'
She jumps when her uncle Daemon cruelly slices through Vaemond Velaryon with Dark Sister. Covering her ears in a frantic need not to hear the sloughing of flesh and the dripping of blood, she turns to Aegon. She tries to steady her breath and unhear, wishing then that she was deaf. Helaena knows what is expected of her as she hides her head behind her husband's shoulder and whispers that the sounds will end soon. Even still, she can hear the slicing as if it was right beside her, can see the red blood pouring.
