Our Violet Delights

《Chapter 1》

She is named for a dead queen.

Aemma Velaryon.

Princess Rhaenyra had been laboring for nearly three days when screams finally breached the maidenvault. A squalling babe is lifted high above a bloodied featherbed to the sounds of dragons roaring outside.

"A healthy daughter, Princess!"

They say she is born as she will live: with fire and blood.

The new Princess looks nothing like her namesake. Where the Queen was fair, her granddaughter is dark. Where the Queen had pale eyes, her granddaughter shares the copper gaze of her brother.

The court whispers bastard but the King is deaf to their gossip.

"She has the Arryn look," he whispers, ghosts in his eyes as he holds the girl with his wife's name. He wears a cloak of death, rotting from the inside. They say the King began dying the day his first queen bled out on her featherbed. "Princess Aemma."

He says her name as if it is his salvation, and his queen shrinks at his side.

Alicent Hightower is haunted by ghosts, too.

The servants whisper tales of a queen who weeps when her husband calls her the wrong name. They tell stories of a mother who pays little attention to her children, born silver and male. The King rarely attends the nursery, which his little wife has filled, but Viserys flocks to his daughters' chambers near every day after she delivers a girl with the name Aemma.

The court calls her Princess Strong, but not even vile rumors could ruin the King's affection for his granddaughter.

And when her dragon hatches in the cradle, he has the bells rung every hour for two days.

"She will make a fine dragonrider," he boasts as his wife drowns herself in Dornish wine. "And a fine Princess too!"

~

Aemond scowls at the whelp his sister has sired.

She is wrapped thick in blankets, covering a lack of silver hair and purple eyes. Aemond has already heard the whispers. The entire court could not stop speaking about the dark-haired Princess, who has more in common with the commander of the city watch than she did with her own mother.

His brother Aegon had taken one look at the babe and laughed.

"She is no dragon," he had hissed, leaving the nursery as quickly as he came.

Aemond does not rush to leave. He knows his brother is on his way to the dragonpit, but he thinks it is a waste to go to that place when he had no mount himself.

A screech echoes from the corner of the room. A white beast with gold eyes watches him closely from the confines of a small cage. Even his bastard niece had a dragon.

"Do not fret, dragon," Aemond whispers, his Valyrian rough and choppy.

He leans over the cradle as far as he can reach, looking into the crib that holds the small babe with brown eyes.

She stares at him, fascinated.

Aemond remembers his grandfathers words in that moment. It is a curse to be named after the dead.

~

Princess Aemma grows in the shadow of her parents' sins. Her mother shares secret smiles with her sworn shield, and her father revels in the delights found in the street of silk.

Jace rarely pays attention to the rumors.

"We are Targaryens, Em," Jace tells her when she hears the Queen's ladies snipe about the dark princess. "That's all that matters."