Chapter Text
Aemma had once thought to never darken the doorstep of the Red Keep nor even see it again and rejoiced at it. It had brought her little but pain in the years she had spent there. Her belief had only grown once Viserys was gone and dead and yet here she was.
Nobles gathered in King’s Landing as they awaited the return of their newly crowned sovereign from Oldtown. Baelon of the House Targaryen, the First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm. Baelon the Brave. Not so much in Aemma’s experience.
There was little bravery to his flight from the Vale.
There was little bravery in omitting Aemma from the invitation to the grand festivities planned to celebrate His Grace’s ascension to the Iron Throne her family had received.
There was little bravery and no foresight in it, truly. Her family would have never dreamed of leaving Daella, the granddaughter of the new king, and Aemma, his niece and gooddaughter and a dragonrider in her own right, behind. Not when their continued presence in the Eyrie after her father had passed had become… complicated.
The craven should have known better. Had he not wished her there, he should have forbidden her presence outright.
Once, Aemma would have been content to remain in the Eyrie forever, but she had been wed back then, her husband far away, and her father had been alive and well. Their new king had been there with them back then too.
Those days had been happier than any before. She had her family about her, she had been strong and healthy and she had been included in so much and every night after supper, after putting Daella to bed, after even her father had retired, she had spent endless hours with her goodfather simply… talking about all manner of things.
Aemma had been so happy the day she had first flown on her beautiful Moondancer. She had glowed with it and with pride. The dragon had been too young, she had believed. It had been her goodfather that had convinced her she had been grown enough, that Aemma herself had been slight enough to try.
Oh, the sheer rapture of being aflight, of wind rushing past one’s ears, brushing through one’s hair, of being so far beyond the reach of the world and all its cares.
She had indulged perhaps a little too much in their celebrations or perhaps he had. Whatever the truth of it, their laughing lips had met and their tongues had tangled and an unfamiliar fire had been lit deep inside her, licking up her insides with marked desperation. For the first time in her life, Aemma had wanted. Desperately so.
“Goodfather,” she had gasped somewhere along the way and he had frozen, his lips remaining torturously motionless on her breast for an agonizing moment before he had pushed himself away from her, his eyes wild and horrified, stammering apologies. He was gone from the Eyrie mere days later, never to return.
Once he had gone, Aemma had never been invited to the capital again. Even Gael’s pleadings had ceased.
After the news of her husband’s death reached them, she had been treated to a seemingly endless stream of suitors, but there had not been a single one that could rouse even a spark of interest in her. Not when she had spent years bound to Viserys ignorant of fire, of the hunger her goodfather had opened her eyes to.
That had been the worst of his offenses she thought. Aemma would have gone on to blame Gael for her humiliation, for her husband’s senseless banishment, blissfully oblivious of the wrongs that had been done to her. Gael had simply not understood the nature of things, she had told herself. She had been new to marriage and sheltered and…
Oh, what a fool Aemma had been to think herself superior in her knowledge of marriage and marriage beds.
Come-into-my-castle Gael had likened it to and Aemma should have known, should have understood. She had been an unquestioned master of the game when she had been a little girl, but there had been many a sullen little boy unhappy with a pale little girl beating them at anything. One could follow prescribed steps and win themselves the castle with their wit. Or one could use the force. Aemma had enjoyed the game of wits, even the times she had lost at it. She had not once enjoyed the game when force had been employed.
There had never been force with Viserys she had told her—told them—again and again when they had decided to send him away. He had always been gentle with her, kind and considerate and he had spared her his attentions whenever she had been with child. They had not listened and she had thought them unreasonable.
That had been before she had been shown that there could be fire and hunger and need, not just terror or resignation or forbearance.
It smarted still that the one time she had come to feel that need, she had been denied. It had seemed the greatest cruelty to shatter her world, set the shards aflame and leave her with the cooling ashes.
Yet here Aemma was, returned to the Red Keep at least if not to Maegor’s Holdfast as any member of the family would be.
She had not belonged here when she had lived here, but she no longer belonged in the Vale either. Her father was dead and her nephew was the new Lord of the Eyrie, his wife the lady of the keep and Aemma… Aemma was no longer the beloved daughter sheltered in her father’s castle. She was a distant relation who along with her daughter usurped the precedence owed to the lady of the castle.
There was no place for Aemma and Daella left in the world, not unless she made one for them.
While her uncle might be a craven, she was not.
Aemma had planned the arrival of their party perfectly to ensure they were settled in by the time their valiant king returned. She had planned to make use of his absence and plead her case to her grandmother too, but the Good Queen had been… changed. The life had gone out of her eyes and she expressed little interest in Aemma or truly anyone else but the children running around. At least Daella was included in that small circle of her regard.
When Vhagar, Caraxes, and Gaelithox descended on King’s Landing, Aemma was in Maegor’s in the Queen’s ballroom enjoying tea and scones and mountains of cakes with her absent grandmother and many of the ladies visiting at court, weathering the company as well as she could after years away and with little aid or interest from the Dowager Queen.
In a way, the appearance of dragons was a deliverance. The ladies grew sufficiently distracted and the company dispersed to welcome the king back to the Red Keep properly. Aemma… Aemma stayed with Grandmother, lending her an arm in support in the long strenuous journey to the keep’s outer courtyard.
She was by Grandmother’s side still when their king’s carriage entered the courtyard and he emerged from it to great cheers, walking toward his mother, toward Aemma with long measured strides, his gaze nor step never wavering. Not until he was right in front of his mother and there was little to see but Alysanne and Aemma, two small pale-headed figures in a sea of colors.
“Welcome home, son,” his mother welcomed him with a tremulous smile, caressing his cheek before pressing a kiss to it.
“Welcome home, Uncle,” she greeted him next with a sweet smile and rose to her tiptoes to press her lips to his cheek. “I would speak with you in the Small Council chamber after,” she whispered as she did so.
If there was one thing she had learned from him in their many, many long conversations by the warmth of a hearth it was to never afford an adversary a respite, to always, always strike at them at their weakest. So after it would be.
After he headed for the throne room so the entire court could bow to him and welcome him with flowery speeches and endless well-wishes. After whatever strength that had not been sapped by the long hours in the saddle had been spent on his grandiose nobles.
Gael approached her with a cautiously hopeful smile as she was about to pass and then tried to squeeze the life out of her at Aemma’s small answering nod. Gael steadfastly ignored her husband’s long-suffering examination of the sky at their antics and tugged at his arm insistently until he shook his head with a helpless smile and embraced her and pressed a kiss to her temple. Daemon, unlike his wife, did not try to squeeze the life out of her, but his embrace was no less warm for it.
He had grown in the years she had not seen him. He was the same height as his father now. And gods, she had not known how much she had missed them until they were right there, and she was in their arms, fighting tears.
There were not too many wellwishers left for the king to attend to when she slipped from the throne room and headed in the direction of the accursed chamber where her fell fate had been sealed so long ago. There were few places in the world that evoked those same dark emotions in her as the chamber where the Small Council met.
She stood and stared at the two Valyrian sphinxes guarding the door to the chamber seemingly for an eternity, perhaps longer because her uncle appeared, no longer wearing his—her grandfather's—crown, no longer proud and forbidding, but tired and… human. He opened the door for her and it groaned open with the sound of a tomb opening and death becoming.
Brave. Be brave, little girl, her father’s voice had whispered into her ear just before he had taken her into this very chamber to be presented to her grandfather and his council. Stand tall and stand fast. Do not let them see your fear. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear is death.
Death is death, she knew now. Not living was death. Aemma had been dead her whole life.
She hardened her heart and stepped into the chamber with her head held high and her spine made of steel.
Her uncle seated himself at the head of the table as was his wont as the king and motioned for her to speak. He had not spoken a word to her yet. Not when she had greeted him in the courtyard in front of half the court and not now.
“Your Grace,” she curtsied, her head lowering with it. “I came to plead my case with you, Your Grace, for House Arryn and myself have been wronged greatly by House Targaryen.”
That did spur him to words as his brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Promises were made when my father agreed to sell me as a bride for House Targaryen,” she told her dear uncle and watched him wince at her choice of words. “One of those promises was that I would be queen, if you recall, Uncle. You should. After all,” she paused to tap the back of the seat that customarily belonged to the Master of Laws and continued easily, “you were seated right here when those promises were made.”
“Aemma–”
She did not let him finish, pressing on with a glare in his direction. “There were other promises that were made and broken too. That I would be loved and cherished and well cared for. That I would never want for anything. That my children would never want for anything.”
“What is it that you want?” There was resignation in his eyes if not in his voice, but resignation was not enough. She demanded complete and utter capitulation.
“I want a home. For me and my daughter. With my father dead, the Eyrie is no longer that.” It had not truly felt it even before that, but there was no need for him to know that, not now. She glided toward him, toward where he sat at the head of the council table, until she was but half a step away from him. “I want to be loved and cherished and well cared for.” She shifted yet closer, removing any space left between them. “I want to be the queen. I want to be your queen.”
His eyes were very, very dark as he looked up into her face, like they had been that night and that terrible, terrible fire sparked to life deep in her gut.
“It was a folly,” he told her bluntly, merciless in his delivery. “A drunken folly.”
“Was it?” she murmured and raised a hand to caress his cheekbone, right under the dark shadow forming under his eye. “Then what is this?” she asked and leaned down to press her lips to his.
For years the embers had been left to smolder but now… Now the spark had been lit and flames roared to life, hungrier and more insistent than ever before as she was pulled down into his lap and they were fed by each brush of battling tongues, of insistent lips, of questing hands.
But once more she found herself pushed away and they were both standing, the heavy seat of kings pushed back too with the strength of her uncle’s rejection.
“Gods, we can’t, we will be found out and you will be ruined.” His gaze was wild, horrified once more, but she would not allow that. Not this time.
“Please, I can be quiet,” she promised and drew him in for another searing kiss, her body begging him not to stop, not to run away, not to leave her wanting. Aemma had always been quiet.
And he gave in. He gave in to her kiss, gave in to her with an anguished groan, his hands becoming rougher as they tugged on the bodice of her dress, freeing her breasts and oh, gods, she tried. She truly tried to be quiet, to bite down on her lips and silence her moans, but it seemed an impossible task, made all the more impossible once her bottom was lifted and placed on the table, her skirts rucked up.
Aemma was exposed like never before and she felt no burn of shame only the flames of need burning ever higher, but then fingers teased that cursed spot at her center, only it was cursed no more, adding to the wildfire that ravaged her body. But then the fingers slid inside her and her throat felt raw as her insides burned and shuddered around them and she tried, she tried to push that tormenting hand away but there was no strength left in her limbs, her body surrendered to the torturous sensations, her tongue too heavy to form words.
It was such a relief when the fingers withdrew and were replaced because oh, dear beloved gods, at least this part was familiar only not as each gloriously smooth movement ignited new flames, sparked new ruinous sensations.
Their bodies made obscene sounds as they met and glided against each other, and there was no stopping the river of fire that had replaced her blood in her veins as it built into ever more devastating fire until she was consumed by it completely.
Aemma blinked at the ceiling once her wits returned to her somewhat more than a little fascinated. She had believed herself a master of come-into-my-castle when she had been a child, but Baelon… Baelon was plainly the king of it.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, still unable to catch her breath, unable to contain her trembling body, tiny shocks racing up and down her spine with each idle caress of his fingers when his knees met the ground with a dull thud.
“What else?” There was a queer smile on his face and dark, dark hunger in his eyes when they looked up from between her shivering thighs and met hers. “Kneeling to my queen.”
There was something very, very wicked about that dark look and those sinful lips as they descended on her poor, poor flesh.
There was not even a pretense to silence when she sobbed and spasmed through the most devastating experience of her life yet.