Revenge - Aemond Targaryen x OC

Chapter 52 - Humiliation

Chapter 52 - Humiliation

As soon as Amyra and Aemond left the tent, her straight shoulders sagged with exhaustion. Aemond wrapped an arm around her waist, leading her around the side of the war tent and into a darkened alcove, where they might have a moment of privacy. Amyra leaned the backs of her legs against several barrels of salt, the Sea Snakes crest burned across them. She grimaced at the sight as Aemond stood before her, grasping her face gently.

He turned her face this way and that, examining the dried-up cut along her cheek and neck, his sharp face burning with anger at the sight. Amyra let him, sighing as his calluses brushed her skin lightly.

"Just this one?" Aemond asked quietly, running his eye down the rest of her.

Nodding, Amyra stopped one of his assessing hands, letting its warmth bleed into her frigid ones, "I'm alright, my Prince," she murmured.

A muscle feathered in his jaw, "Perhaps you should look in a mirror and say that again," despite his apparent seriousness, Amyra cracked a smile, then hissed as it disturbed the cut. Aemond's nostrils flared, "Ormund?" he asked lowly.

He meant the cut. Amyra hesitated upon answering, though she didn't know why, "No, the matter was quite easy once we followed him back to his tent. The only blade he raised was to himself. If anything, severing the head was most tedious."

"You do love a metaphor," Aemond sighed, though his tone was admiring, "Were you caught?"

Amyra bit her lip, "I met Daeron-"

"Daeron did this to you?" Aemond interrupted a bit loudly, "Cunt," he spat.

She would be lying if she said his protectiveness didn't warm her chest, but Amyra shushed him, "He was not at all what I expected," she admitted, and told Aemond the whole of her encounter with his youngest brother.

Indeed, Amyra had expected some sniveling, arrogant boy, or perhaps one that would break down and grovel after he'd seen what she did to his guardian, Ormund. No, she had not expected his obvious wit, nor his charm. The sort of intriguing, funny charm that, if she was honest, reminded Amyra of herself. Mostly, she had not expected what she glimpsed in his head. The abuse that he suffered at the hand of Ormund Hightower and the rest of his court. Her gut churned as she told Aemond, who paled, eye widened.

"If my mother knew-" he choked on the words, his voice thick with disgust, "She would have had Ormund's head. She would have brought Daeron home."

Daeron's words, his voice a purr of velvet drawn across stone, echoed across her consciousness.

"A pity," he'd said as he stared at Ormund's headless body, "I'd of liked to see his face."

"As far as I could tell, he told no one," Amyra said, her cheeks pinking with shame, "I should not even know. I should never have invaded his mind like that-"

"This is war," Aemond murmured, smoothing a curl back from her face, "You did the smart thing."

"That doesn't make it right," she said tightly, "I was too depleted to glean much information anyway, beyond what conclusions they've already come to." Amyra nodded towards the tent, where voices grew louder and more agitated by the minute.

A lesser man would have tried to soothe her, to convince her of her righteousness. Instead, Aemond merely cocked his head in thought, "I would have done the same," he said at length, neither in blame nor flattery.

Behind them, Amyra heard a fist slam onto the table, apparently accenting whatever ardent words were spoken. She leaned closer to Aemond, knowing time was short, "There is something else," unsheathing the Bloodless Blade at her hip, Amyra held it aloft between them, "It never glowed."