ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Daemon taught me many things.

From how to slowly and painfully kill someone without the need of a sword, to how to actually save a life.

But the lesson I always paid specially attention to was the one I never thought I would use again: the patterns of Maegor the Cruel's secret passages in the Red Keep.

Daemon probably knew I had studied those walls myself multiple times, but he always answered to any question I had about them, telling me stories about his youth when he walked through the passages himself and switching to our mother tongue so no one could understand us (though he always said he did so I could practice it).

Thanks to my stepfather, I knew which corners to turn and which not, which halls to avoid and which not. And the guards that would be in every hallway every second of every day. That I discovered by myself though, they were all so predictable it made me physically ill.

The muty smell welcomed me after I abandoned my chambers, and the darkness swallowed me and blinded me for a second once the secret door closed behind me. I left a hand on the wall, tracing the old stone and sand and allowing my mind to travel back to those old days when Aemond and I would venture inside those walls and ran and scare everyone on the other side until my eyes adapted to the darkness.

Aemond and I never went too far, mostly because we were scared we might got lost in that stone maze, but we were even more afraid of what could happen to us if someone found us and brought us to our mothers.

I almost laughed out loud when I remembered the time Ser Harwin found us coming out of the passage. Aemond went pale and began to babble an apology that died on his throat when I loudly giggled, grabbing his hand and pulling his arm until we were running far from Ser Harwin, whose eyes narrowed in my direction before we turned the corner. I could have gained a punishment, but Ser Harwin kept what he saw to himself and saved us (me) from hearing Alicent complaining about my dedication to make her son unholly and unwhorty of the heavens the Seven created.

Aemond began to despise Ser Harwin after that I guessed, and I didn't quite understand why, since the man never did anything to upset or unsettle him. Quite the opposite, he always questioned me about my brothers and uncle's pranks, and made sure I brought him a vanilla with lemon essence cupcake everytime I went to see him.

The dull sound of my footsteps was the only thing that reached my ears, along with the distant voices and laughs at the other side of the walls I blocked from my hearing.

"The Princess Visenya."

My brain instantly commanded my body to stop when I heard my name, leaning my ear on the wall and pressing my cold hands against it as if it I wasn't completely glued to it already.

The voice was high-pitched, shaking with something that may had been interpreted as fear or perhaps anger, and sounded as if the person speaking was clenching their jaw so hard that a muscle must have hurt in their face. It definitely belonged to a woman, perhaps a maid or some old lady gossiping about me as if it was the only thing they could do. Oh, how I hated the capital.

"What of her?"

Now, that was a voice I would recognize everywhere: Aemond.

He sounded annoying, and I knew for a fact he had his hands behind his back and was controlling himself to not roll his eye. Perhaps he was clenching his jaw too, with his silver hair pulled back and the black eyepatch covering the half of his handsome face.

I hadn't forgotten his visit to my bedchambers two nights prior, yet he seemed as if he was avoiding me. Perhaps he thought I didn't remember, and the truth was I barely remembered what we spoke about, yet his vainilla with lemon essence was all over the bed when I woke up, and that along the closed doors of the balcony (I always left them open) and the fact I was on the bed and not the couch was proof enough I had not imagined his voice and body heat and soft hair. Was he afraid of what I might say? That I could make fun of him? If so, he was definitely an imbecile, how many times did we talk about it when we were children? I could never make fun of him, even when I really wanted to or he made it extremely easy. If anything, I wanted to thank him, the main reason I was sleeping on the couch was because the bed felt too big, and his presence was more than enough to allow me to rest like I hadn't almost since little Viserys was born.