SEE HOW IT SHINES

XI.

It should be easy to refuse her.

He hates her. He always has. It is all he has ever known, all he has ever wanted to know, all he has ever been allowed to know. It is a fact as simple and indisputable to him as the color of the sky, or the seven faces of the gods: Rhaenyra is a treacherous whore, mother to bastards and snakes, who will kill her half-siblings if she is allowed to take the throne. Mother has taught him thus for as long as he can remember.

And he has believed it, without question—happily, even. The sky is dark at night, and prayers can be found in prayer books, and he can never befriend his half-sister's daughter, no matter what his father says. Viserra is her mother's copy, a spoiled, presumptuous, little brat. Rotten, Mother always called her. It was easy to loathe her when they were children. They were as different as could be. She smiled; he scowled. She plucked her harp; he swung his sword. She laughed; he grumbled. He spent his days turning his back to her, mocking her, rejecting her pallid attempts at camaraderie in the least uncertain terms a child could muster.

So. It should be easy to refuse her now. One look at that outstretched hand, that expectant, demanding, waiting hand, and he should slap it away, chastise her for her greed, for wanting more, more, always more. It should bring him pride and comfort to wipe the keen half-smile from her petal lips. She has more than enough. He has spent his life in her golden shadow, watched her be showered in the finest tings that wealth can buy since the moment she came squalling into the world eleven hours after him. And it was not just the material things; it was the love, the adoration, the constant praise. It made her soft in the head, forever dependent on more, expecting it from anyone and everyone who found themselves in her orbit. Even him, the one man in all of Westeros who has denied her.

But still she is not satisfied. Still the little fool wants to be his friend.

Perhaps a lack of sleep has made her half-mad. Perhaps it was the rock he brought down on her lovely face all those years ago—some delayed defects of the mind.

Or perhaps his half-sister and Daemon have sent her to disarm him, seduce him, eke out some Green secrets and plots that have been entrusted to him. He would not be surprised, nor would he disapprove. It would not be so different from what he was sent to do earlier tonight.

Aemond looks at her hand. Her palm is soft. It carries no blade. (He would almost prefer if it did; that way, at least, he would know how to defeat her.) He looks at her face again, those inhuman eyes, wide and ardent, and—

She means it. I want to be friends, Aemond. She means it.

He finds it hard to believe. He hates that he finds it hard to believe. He hates that he can question his beliefs at all. He hates her! He always has! His head is throbbing, and his heart is beating far too fast, and he has never once, in all his years, cared for what she wants.

But—

Something is changing. Changed. Different. He cannot say what it is, or when it began, or how or when he noticed it. But he knows it is here. There is a strange weight in the air, a charged, heady tension that hangs in the ever dwindling distance between them. And it feels so...natural. Good. Right. It's felt this way for weeks. She infuriates him to no end, but when his anger comes, it only burns at half its usual heat. He cannot bring himself to snarl at her or gnash his teeth and make her flinch in fear. She is not a hapless doe that cowers when he comes near. She is not half the fool he has thought her to be. She is soft, but not weak, and though she may never admit it, she lusts after blood just as he does. She makes him bluster and swelter with something other than rage, something just beneath the surface of his skin, warm and odd and nameless. And there have been these moments, here and there, when they've passed each other in the corridors or read to Father together, or when he noticed that she used the salve he made for her...