ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Uncle Aegon was drunk.

It wasn't something new, but I was getting tired of his comments and laughs and coughs.

Mother had forced us to spend another meal together, as if the last one hadn't ended up being an absolute disaster, and her hopeful eyes and sweet smile were too much for Jace and Luke to say no. It took her a promise of countless cups of wine for me to accept. But it was useless, not even drinking the entire red wine of Westeros could have made that meal nice to say the least.

Again, and I didn't know how, I ended up sitting next to Aemond, to what I was partially glad, because his presence and my mother's eyes were the only thing forbidding me to stab Aegon (sitting at my other side) on his throat. Helaena sat in between Aegon and Jace, and Luke and Joffrey next to Daemon, who was staring at me with frowned brows. Mother was right in front of me, beside her husband, and Alicent and Otto sat next to her, as far from her as the chairs physically allowed them. My grandsire, Baela and Rhaena were nowhere to be found.

The tension could be cut with a knife, and the only sounds besides our chewing and Aegon's burps and coughs and laughs and comments were the footsteps of the servants outside the room and the living city below Aegon's Hill.

A less cool Aegon loudly burped again, and the smell of wine and meat and smash potatoes hit me in the face when he leaned closer and laughed in my face.

"Aegon." Alicent said when my eye started shaking uncontrollably.

My uncle chuckled, leaning forward and serving himself yet another cup of wine that he swallowed in two big sips, and I felt Aemond's warm hand on my knee when my foot started bouncing loudly against the cold ground.

Aemond was never the one for physical touch, in that Helaena and him were similar, and yet, I found quite ironic how his hand or his arm or even his leg were always willing to have a touch on me every time I needed it. He no longer wore the golden ring with the Targaryen sigil on his finger as he did when we were mere children, and I couldn't help but think in how empty, how naked, his hand seemed without it.

Another ironic fact, we were the only two Targaryen around the table that did not wear that kind of ring, or any ring at all, and I guessed that, despite our dragons, he felt more Hightower where I felt more Velaryon, or Strong as he would say, to wear it.

Helaena mumbled something under her breath, and hearing her soft voice was enough to make me swallow the piece of meat I had been chewing for five minutes.

"Are you all enjoying the capital?" She said, politely pinching a piece of meat of her plate.

Alicent stared at her with surprise shining in her brown eyes, and she seemed upset that her daughter was the one starting a conversation with, as she would call us, four bastards after she barely wanted to spend time with her mother and brother-husband.

"As much as it can be enjoyed." Jacaerys replied to her.

I felt Aemond's fingers gripping further in my dark trousers, and I smiled when Helaena chuckled, ignoring my uncle's intense gaze and Aegon's quiet complaining.

Lucerys smiled too, and his beautiful eyes stared at me when I leaned forward, serving myself a cup of wine and winking playfully at him when he faked a silent gag.

He had a terrible hungover the day before, and he spent majority of the day either sleeping or throwing up, cursing me and Rhaena and the cheap wine of Flea Bottom until Daemon arrived at his chambers with frowned brows and many questions. I almost gained a punishment when he found us sleeping until almost noon, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek when Luke tried to lie to him, turning more pale and stuttering and sweating until I told Daemon the truth.