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At least there was wine.
Alicent had abstained from drink for most of her life- she had hated the rotten grape smell of the stuff for as long as she could remember, and had always found the taste too sour, even in wines everyone else called "sweet." Even if she had preferred the taste, she preferred much more to keep her mind clear, her judgment uncompromised. Her father took only water or tea in small council meetings and even as a child Alicent could see the obvious wisdom in this, in being strong where others were weak, in being quick where they were slow. In full possession, at all times, of all of one's faculties.
Alicent had no desire to be in possession of all of her faculties tonight.
The wedding was proceeding in the feasting hall with only Viserys, Princess Rhaenys, and Lord Corlys in attendance, which was at least a somewhat smaller affront to the gods, Alicent supposed, since it meant fewer witnesses to the lie that Rhaenyra was still whole and chaste. Alicent had made excuses about needing to look after Aegon and Helaena and left the room. She, at least, would not be a party to the farce.
Alicent poured herself a goblet, drained it, then poured another. Her stomach tried to stage a rebellion at this handling, but she pushed that pain and sickness from her mind. Alicent was quite good now, after years in her marriage bed and childbed and the miserable pregnancies between them, at choosing not to feel whatever unpleasantness tried to make itself felt.
"You may wish to slow down, Your Grace," a man called to her, as sour as the wine and drunk on many more than two cups of it. He drew close enough to her that she could smell it and reached around her to take the flagon and pour himself more.
"Daemon," she said venomously. She hated Daemon.
Maybe not before- she had scarce been around him since her marriage and had seen him even less before that- but she certainly hated him now. Hated the thought of Rhaenyra beneath him, writhing and crying out his name, abandoning her virtue for this tow-headed idiot.
He either missed her venom or ignored it, refilling her cup after refilling his own. "As talented as you are at repression, I don't think it works on vomit." He tipped his cup at her like a toast, then drank.
Alicent considered throwing her wine in his face. It would be ill-bred of her, and neither her lord father nor her husband the king would approve. Her stomach coiled in upon itself with revulsion when she imagined Rhaenyra looking disappointed at her, as if she had the right and as if Rhaenyra herself would not have done as much and faced no consequence more dire than Daemon's smirk and Viserys' indulgent laughter.
She drained this cup so fast her head swam and Daemon, the bastard, laughed at her. "Please yourself, Your Grace. I won't scrape you off the floor when your mind starts to drown."
It was already starting to. Even a slight turn of her head felt like there was an ocean inside her skull, sloshing and swaying. She tried to think of something polite but cutting to say to him, something worthy of the office of the queen. The trouble was that that was impossible to do when all she could imagine was the silver-white top of his head below Rhaenyra's chin, his mouth on Rhaenyra's breasts.
Some small sober part of her that seemed to be calling from very far away, across that wind-tossed sea inside her head, tried to remind her that she had no proof any such thing had happened. Rhaenyra had sworn Daemon had not laid hands on her and Ser Criston had confessed to the crime himself.
But why should she believe any of what Rhaenyra said, when Rhaenyra twisted her words around so Alicent might think her still a virgin when that was not so? Why believe that Ser Criston's confession exonerated Daemon or anyone else?
If she could lie about- about fucking one man, why not two? Why not twenty? Why not a hundred? Why not every man in King's Landing rioting between Rhaenyra's thighs?
She gave no care for what such a thing might do to Alicent. Why should she stop at anything at all?
And why was Alicent always the one left behind, the only one who cared?
Except perhaps not the only one who cared, Alicent realized, or at least tried to. Daemon was sitting out here drinking, too.
"Why?" she asked aloud, half-expecting Daemon to have, in some way, heard her confused, fragmented thoughts.
Daemon raised an eyebrow at her, then took her cup away. "Am I explaining the scraping," he asked, "or why you shouldn't look to me for rescue?"
Ha. "What woman ever looked to you for rescue?" she asked. What woman even could, so volatile of nature was he. At least according to Viserys and her father.
She swayed a little, dizzy and unhappy, as she remembered taking up for Rhaenyra's slain virginity to her father's face. How foolish she must have looked. How stupid he must have thought her.
Another wave of revulsion came over her as she realized that she had, however inadvertently, taken up for him when she had taken up for Rhaenyra. Told her father to his face, knowing what he knew, that Daemon Targaryen had not wenched while out wenching.
Rescue indeed.
She remembered abruptly that she had meant to ask him a question. "What is driving you to drink out here, rather than stay in the hall and witness the wedding?"
Daemon looked annoyed. Good, Alicent thought.
"I could ask you much the same," he said.
"And I would answer that it feels unseemly and ill-omened to attend a ceremony where the bride's gown has been blooded," she said, lifting her chin and trying to give him the haughtiest, most frigid expression she was capable of.
Daemon gave her a long, considering look. "There are places across the Narrow Sea where a wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair. Of course, we have only managed one." His look at her now was charged with danger and warning. "But then, there is still time."
His meaning was clear enough. Be silent about Rhaenyra's transgressions or share a grave with the Knight of Kisses. Alicent wondered if that was what Ser Joffrey's transgression had been. Ser Criston had confessed to her and been forgiven, but no such thing could be said for the princess. Perhaps he found it needful to defend Rhaenyra to guard the secret of Alicent's clemency. She didn't think he would be so hot to defend himself, and certainly no fond feelings remained to him for Rhaenyra.
That distant sober self in her mind tried to push on her awareness again with a question: Have I any fond feelings remaining for Rhaenyra?
If she had confessed to me and asked forgiveness, would I have given it?
She looked at Daemon again and her heart burned with loathing. For Ser Criston alone, she might have. So gallant and so noble and at the time, so smitten with the princess he served. Alicent herself might have been tempted, and she was worse than a virgin, she was a married woman. There was no more grievous sin in all the world, at least without visiting death or terrible bodily harm on another person.
But Daemon had no honor, no nobility. He was vulgar and bitter and something about the shape of his face reminded Alicent of a foot without toes. Ser Criston had merely deflowered Rhaenyra. Daemon had sullied her.
Alicent wanted to bite his lips from his face for having made Rhaenyra dirty with their touch.
She decided to run him through with words instead. "Do you seek to protect her, Daemon? Used and abused as she is- as she has done to herself with your no doubt eager assistance?"
Daemon did not look hurt at all. "Oh, happy day- a Hightower who says what she thinks instead of hiding barbs in the stew and calling it cleverness. How much more comfortably now will I lie in my grave."
"I could happily put you in that grave," she said, shaking. "For what you did to her. For what the two of you did to this family when you did it." She fisted her hands to keep from clawing his eyes out. "Viserys loves you- the both of you- and if he believed the truth, it would break his heart beyond recovery."
Daemon wrapped one hand around her neck. It was not tight enough to choke her or even to bruise her skin, but it was another warning. As was the thunderous look on his face as he hissed at her like a snake. "You will not speak of my brother to me." His thumb dug into the softer space in her underjaw where there was no more bone. "He betrayed us both when he married you."
He released her and nudged her away, softer than she would have expected. He was regaining control of himself. "Anyway, I thought this was about Rhaenyra." He raised an eyebrow, both mocking and insinuating. "You were busy proclaiming yourself the Sworn Defender of the Princess' Cunt."
Alicent felt that as sharply as a knife slashing her cheek. She was just drunk enough to reach to her face and clutch the invisible wound.
Daemon smirked. "May I ask, Your Grace, why you're so eager to defend her? It was my recollection that you've barely been friends since he squeezed a son out of you." His mouth twisted cruelly, and Alicent thought again of biting it off. "Why should it offend you what dragon she rides?"
"It offends decency," Alicent snapped.
"Decency is not a person. It has no eyes to see nor ears to hear. It cannot be offended." Daemon was drawing close to her again, looming over her like a giant from the North. "No, I think it is you who is offended, Your Grace. I think it is your heart that beats with poison and malice where your blood should be, since you are so mortally hurt. And I think if you were as truthful and honorable as you pretend, you might let yourself think about why."
Alicent pressed her lips together to hold back tears and screams. No wonder her father never slid too deep into his cups. It made every secret thought and emotion try to shout itself out.
Finally, once she was certain she would not tear her hair and weep, she allowed a little bubble of pain and anger to float to the surface and burst. "She lied to me."
Daemon raised his eyebrows again, daring her to go on.
"I asked her if she had been in your bed, and she looked in my eyes and swore on her dead mother's soul and she lied to me."
Daemon had a curious look- as though he were satisfied to wring the truth from her and dissatisfied she had said no more, both at once. She had read him well; he asked, "And what more than that?"
Alicent bit the insides of her cheeks, the nervous gesture that had replaced tearing at her cuticles since her wedding. "She- it should have been me." She realized how that sounded and barreled on, "I have little taste for going to bed with men, any more than I have for spinning thread or weaving cloth or embroidering the work. To me, it is a household chore that must be done and nothing more."
"You're breaking my heart," Daemon said, flat.
"I have been nothing but good and faithful," she said. "Why am I granted none of the pleasure that makes girls seek it out, if not with their rightful husbands, then with their cupbearers or horse groomers--"
"Or members of their father's Kingsguard," he said.
"And I thought Rhaenyra to be like me," Alicent said. "Chaste and happy for it. That she had no wish to throw herself in the arms of men. And that one day, we would rock our babies and sew our husbands' shirts and be glad of each other's company in those moments we weren't required to give our bodies to please them."
"Just two ladies being friends," Daemon said. He said it in a sort of mocking, sardonic tone that Alicent did not understand, unless he was just calling her foolish for ever having dreamed.
"What would you give just to have Viserys' friendship?" Alicent said, sniffing. A few tears seemed to have escaped while she wasn't looking.
"And did you never tell Rhaenyra of your dream?" he asked. "Never find out if she dreamed of something more?"
"Rhaenyra only ever dreamed of dragons," she said, and she thought she could taste her own bitterness when she said it.
"That is what Targaryens do," Daemon said, pitiless.
"Yes," she said. "That is what Targaryens do. Ride dragons and fuck their sisters until half their children run mad."
"It's not always our sisters," he said, amused. "Sometimes, it's our cousins."
Alicent's hands were shaking again. She felt sick with wine and rage. "Sometimes, it's your nieces."
Daemon looked at her, just as angry as she. "If only."
Alicent slapped him.
It was so sudden and so loud, she was not sure who was more taken aback, Alicent herself or Daemon. Her handprint stood out swollen and starkly red against his pale white cheek.
Alicent felt no shame. She felt, if anything, strong and righteous to have shocked him. "You should learn to control your tongue," she said.
"Or will Your Grace have to learn to control it for me?" He looked defiant, goading.
Alicent gave in to years of anger and an hour of drunken impulse and lunged for him, biting his lip until it split between her teeth and his blood spurted across her chin.
Daemon laughed and made no effort to pull away. "That's not my tongue," he said, before turning her bite into a kiss.
Alicent did not recoil. She kissed him back and bit his tongue, and kissed him back again, making their two mouths a swollen mess of spit and blood. She would not play the shrinking violet. She would hurt him and scare him and fuck him if that's what it took, he would not win. In her wine-tossed mind, a victory for Daemon felt like a victory for Rhaenyra, and Alicent would not have Rhaenyra win while she was still so hurt. Hurt, betrayed- even rejected. Rhaenyra's love was meant to be her comfort while she did her duty. Rhaenyra would rather waste it on useless fuck boys like this one.
Alicent bit Daemon's tongue so hard that that bled into her mouth, too.
Daemon backed Alicent against the wine cart until her ass was planted firmly on it, the near-empty flagon crashing wetly to the floor. He was shoving her skirts up around her knees, fumbling under them for her smallclothes. She made no move to help him... but she made no move to stop him, either.
She was enjoying the taste of his blood too much.
She was, she could admit to herself, enjoying the thought of stealing this from Rhaenyra too much.
Daemon had not stolen Rhaenyra from her, she could accept that now. No, he had merely been the means Rhaenyra had chosen to let Alicent know she was no longer welcome in her heart.
Alicent would send this note back to her smelling of her kiss.
She started to reach for Daemon's trousers, but he pushed her hands away. Got down on his knees instead, spreading her thighs wide apart with his hands.
"What--?" Alicent started to ask, but Daemon stilled her with two fingers trailing gently along her sex, stroking her for a moment before he spread her open. For the first time, she found herself shuddering with pleasure. She looked down at him with worry and with wonder.
"It's a gift, my queen, enjoy it," he said. He leaned forward until his face was against her- breathing warm, breathing soft, breathing deliberately against her flesh. "Just look down at a head with silver hair between your legs and pretend."
She complied.