Kissed by Fire ~ Kissed by Steel (MAINSTORY 1) by ReginaRubie

Chapter 24 - Symon

Symon

Symon sat in the queen's private solar as the queen and the queen mother poured over some parchment.

The children were sitting on the carpet, the mother unwilling to be separated from them for any length of time since the failed attempt on their lives.

King Aegon was drinking copiously and furiously from his cup and ser Criston Cole, the acting Hand of the King was pacing up and down and sending discreet glances to the queen mother, clearly distressed by the way she was holding her hands, the wounds from the conflict treated and on the mend but not for that less conspicuous.

King Aegon had been in a right mood since the morning of the attack, and Symon could not say he blamed him, especially when lord Otto Hightower was still abed with a terrible fever caused by the wounds he gained by protecting princess Jaehaera from the assassins.

Since the moment Sansa had left on dragonback — and that too had been necessary since apparently prince Aemond had engaged Arrax and prince Lucerys in a airborne battle which almost caused the Blacks prince to die — Symon had been on edge, awaiting behind every corner for any kind of strangeness or danger.

Good thing too, because thus Symon had been present when Blood and Cheese had tried to strike against the royal family.

Queen Alicent had been reprimanding him for nothing keeping his wife in check — after having discovered her disappearance and where she had convinced prince Daeron to take her — when the scream had chilled them to the bone.

Symon had been tried to buy Sansa time but the queen was so annoyed by his wife overruling her and moving without her consent that Symon wondered that if Sansa had not been able to stop the tragedy happening in Storm's End she'd been in for an hell of a punishment from the queen mother.

The shrill in queen Helaena' voice had made Symon unsheath his sword and push queen Alicent behind him in the attempt to keep both women safe. He didn't know which of the two assassins had been sent after prince Jaehaerys and prince Maelor in the nursery, but he knew that queen Helaena had been begging for the assassin to take her life instead of that of her child as the man demanded " A son for a son " in name of Rhaenyra Targaryen and her vengeance for her lost son, Lucerys — despite queen Alicent writing to the Black queen in an attempt to tell her that her son, albeit wounded and without dragon, was indeed alive.

It had been a disgusting scene. The assassin had been keeping prince Jaehaerys, for however struggling the boy was, by the hair and he was keeping Maelor still by a foot on the middle, the toddler terrified and crying.

"Please take me!" The queen had been pleading.

"A wife is not a son" the assassin had hissed before dragging the edge of his knife over the prince' cheek.

"Choose," he was telling queen Helaena "a son for a son, which one do you choose ? " he had asked and Symon had felt suddenly spooked especially when the assassin had added "you can choose which one a courtesy you did not give the Black Queen"