SEE HOW IT SHINES

XIV.

"I want what I want."

Viserra hears the words on an endless loop in her mind, ringing out clear as sept bells or muddled and soft as a whisper, day and night. For four days, Aemond's words have plagued her, followed her, entranced her. They're everywhere, in the shadows between flickering torches in the corridors as she walks to the small council chamber, in the rustling of curtains on a breeze coming in through her windows as she tries to sleep, in the echoes of steel clashing in the yard as she watches her brothers train.

I want what I want. There is hope in those five words, of that she can be certain. Hope, desire, a promise of...something. But what, she does not know. Nor how, or why. And when...that is another matter altogether.

For four days, though his voice murmurs against the shell of her ear at all hours, she has hardly seen him, much less found the chance to be alone with him again. It is, in a way she never would have expected, a particular kind of torture. She has spent her days helping her mother and Queen Alicent with the final preparations for the feast and ball; with just one week left, there is much that captures their attention. Aemond has no such responsibility to assist the princess and the queen, and so their glimpses of one another have been cruelly limited. But when she catches his eye or crosses his path in the castle halls or on the road to the Dragonpit, she's noticed the change, as potent as milk of the poppy and twice as alluring to a new addict like her.

It's not something she can name with ease. The pull is stronger, the air is warmer, the hum shifts to a deeper tone and sings out longer. Her bones feel more sturdy in her skin, and the veins and tendons and muscles next to them more alive and alight with gold fire than ever before. When he looks at her, every hair on her body stands to attention. And she can see, with some strange, second sight, that the same occurs within him. It gives her a confidence that renews each moment: he sees her. He wants her.

I want what I want. It's like a dream. A pretty dream, to be sure. More than anything, she wants to fall backwards into it, to spread her arms wide and close her eyes and let it take control of her. It would be soft, she thinks, and warm. But—

But there is no time. Not now, one week away from His Grace's tourney. Not now, when such a distraction is like to derail her entirely. Not now, when she still sees the list every time she closes her eyes.

Blackwood, Celtigar, Corbray, Lannister, Mallister, Manderly, Redwyne, Stark.

A thrumming refrain like a song she's known all her life. It has become so familiar so fast—too fast, really, a chain of nine possible promises, nine potential futures, nine out of many, nine hand-picked by the Princess of Dragonstone to be considered above the rest. And while she's often found herself mumbling the names under her breath while washing her hair or drifting off to sleep, they have, as yet, been little more than the words of that song. But soon they will become real. No longer just syllables on her tongue or letters on parchment but real, belonging to men with flesh and blood and voices, dreams and ambitions and fears they keep hidden in their hearts.

She has done what she can to learn of them, so that they are not complete strangers when they arrive at the gates of the city, but there is still so much that only the living, breathing men themselves can reveal to her. And she does want to know them, truly, beyond just a simple desire to do her duty and obey Muña's wishes. Though the list itself was born of an attention to strategy, to beneficial alliances and alignments with houses that may be influential in the success of Rhaenyra Targaryen's future reign, Viserra does not think that it can only provide her with a convenient arrangement. Indeed, she hopes, foolish as it may be, that one of those names might be that of a husband she loves, too. Or, at least, a husband she could grow to love.