𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖔𝖓
❛ she wanted nothing
more than the strange
silver-haired queen ❜
━━ IN WHICH a foreign princess arrives at king's landing with a plot but finds herself side-tracked by the queen whose dream...
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IT HAD been a while since Aliandra encountered Queen Helaena, and for good reason. It wasn't easy to face a woman that knew of the affairs her husband was having. Aliandra had been with many boys and had slighted many girls who liked those boys or were courting them, but this situation was different.
Helaena was different.
Aliandra picked nervously at her dress as she lounged beside the queen and her brother, the warmth of the sun trickling through the large windows across the room. She had gone in search of Aemond hoping that she might find the prince alone. She found him in the library, sprawled across a large chair with a book held open with one hand, his chin resting on the other.
His gaze had darted to Aliandra when she entered the library, but before she could even get a word out, that scent tickled her nostrils and her gaze was drawn to Helaena like she were a magnet. The queen was on a settee, her back as straight as a board as she delicately embroidered, her twins sprawled across the floor before her.
She stood now before the queen and the prince, her hands fisted in her skirts as her gaze darted from one to the other. Aemond watched her curiously, but Helaena did not even bother to lift her gaze from her embroidery loom.
"Is there something you need, Princess?" Aemond murmured, his book lowering to his lap, his monotone voice drawing Aliandra's attention from his sister.
"I was hoping I might speak with you, my Prince." Aemond's chest deflated with a heavy sigh as he snapped his book shut and straightened in his chair. When he did not say anything, Aliandra glanced at Helaena again. She wanted to speak to him in private, but she would not ask Helaena to leave. "Might we take a turn about the gardens?"
Aemond's expression remained as flat as ever. "No," he deadpanned. "I am content where I am."
Helaena's embroidering slowed slightly as she cast Aemond a glance. Aliandra was surprised by Aemond's curtness, though she did not blame him. She wasn't particularly keen on spending time with him either, but she needed to. Cassandra and the other girls were ahead of her when it came to courting Aemond, for every time she had tried to seek out the prince when he was not busy, he was accompanied by one of the other ladies.
Not this morning, though. Aliandra would be the first girl to capture Aemond and attempt to woo him, but it seemed her task wasn't going to be quite as easy as she believed. "Very well," she murmured with another glance to Helaena, whose lips were twitched into the faintest of smiles. "May I ask what you are reading?"
She crossed the room to Aemond, whose eye rolled ever-so-slightly. She lowered herself into the chair across from Aemond, her smile pleasant. He toyed with the worn pages of the book for a moment, a dark look flashing through his eye as he shoved it to the side and tucked it between his thigh and the arm of the chair. "Nothing important," he murmured, "just a history book."
