Our Violet Delights

《Chapter 2》

Aemond sneers at the whore his brother has brought him.

"You must become a man, brother," Aegon cackles, cutting the silks from the woman's back.

The whore stands before him, bare as her nameday and smiles.

Aemond turns away, disgust thick in his belly.

"What's wrong?" Aegon asks from where he stands, fingers tracing the lines of her body. She is a porcelain doll, with golden curls and wide blue eyes. Aemond thinks she is a demon wrapped in the flesh of sin. "Is she not to your liking? I thought since you spent so much time with our dear sister that you would enjoy a blonde."

Aemond snarls, "I only spend time with Helaena because you choose to ignore her."

Helaena, who speaks words of madness.

Helaena, who has a soft heart and sad eyes.

Helaena, who was married to her brother and left to rot.

"She is my sister," Aemond spits, hatred so venomous. "I see her as nothing more."

"No?" Aegon asks, tweaking the whore's nipple and placing a kiss at the base of her neck. Her moans are a cheap charade brought by coin. Aemond turns away at the sound of them. "Then who do you lust for, little brother?"

Aemond thinks of brown hair and copper eyes and wants to set the world alight.

"No one."

"That's a lie," Aegon sings, clicking his tongue. "Tell me who you dream of, brother. Gold can easily make fantasies come true."

Aemond bites his tongue as his thoughts return to the girl with hatred in her eyes and a blade at her hip.

Aemond, she had whispered before she had taken his eye.

"Keep your gold," Aemond murmurs. "I have no need for it."

He stalks out of his chambers, his mind full of dark eyes and a longing he should not feel.

~

Aemma Velaryon is in the sky more often than she is on the ground.

She shouts with delight as Arrax dives through clouds and dances with stars, her laughter a constant above the island of Dragonstone. Her mount may be small, but they say none is closer to the beasts of old Valyria than the second-born child of Princess Rhaenyra. The servants whisper Aemma Velaryon is a dragon dressed in human skin, stitched together by the Stranger himself.

Her mother is waiting for her when she lands, sweat thick on her skin.

"What's wrong?" Aemma asks, panting.

The girl is four and ten when her world begins to crumble.

"There is a challenge to Joffrey's succession to Driftmark." Rhaenyra stands on the cliffs of Dragonstone and allows the wind to carry her words. She is crafted by the Gods, silver and perfect. Aemma is crafted by knights, dark and human. They are mirrors of one another; the sun and the moon, night and day. "We must go to King's Landing."

Aemma thinks of purple bruises and buried lies. She thinks of ghosts in the halls and a boy with one eye. Her stomach twists and her heart pounds in her chest.

"Who called the challenge?" Aemma asks, incensed on behalf of her brother. "Grandmother Rhaenys would never-"

"Your grandmother is not behind this." Rhaenyra gathers her daughters' hands in her own. "Vaemond is the one pushing the challenge. But you understand what this means, don't you? What they are trying to say by allowing this farce?"