THE 7TH MOON [Aemond Targaryen]

Fifteen - Prisoner Of War

"Who spoke of Aegon?"

Aemond turned on his heel, marching down the storm swept beach, no longer caring for his niece's woes, only his own, as always.

Truthfully, he only cared for his need to wed his niece. He cared to take her from beneath Aegon's nose. Cared to show him the crown was a prize he could have but Laenora? Laenora was his, and he would not share. He cared to protect her, politically and physically. He cared to prove, she was more than just an object to him.

He. Cared. He only wished she would believe it. That was why he warned her Alicent would move for her mother's throne in the first place, why he sent that blasted letter and did not talk to her the morning she was sent away on dragonback with her mother.

She was her mother's child after all, more than any of them, and as the heir to the throne, he knew the weight she held on her shoulders - but he could help take that.

Rhaenyra would surely allow their marriage, if only he could prove his loyalty. Of course, the people would call him a turncloak, but once he married the princess he would be their king and they would have no say in the matter. Common people rarely did, they only had their whispers.

"Where are you going Hightower?" His bride called to him, "Do not turn your back on me!"

"Sweet Laenora." He chuckled, venom in his tone however silky he masked it. "So naive. You hardly realise do you?"

That was when he felt her knife at the nape of his neck, ready to hook under his skull and tear through him, to push the sapphire from his eye socket from the inside - she would not hurt him, he knew that, but the knife of his father's, the same that his mother had used to cut Laenora's own mother, was sharp enough to convince him otherwise.

She was a great swordsman after all, and if her finger slipped he knew it was not without lack of intention.

"First your brother takes my eye with a knife. Now you wish to take my head? The irony is palpable, my queen."

"Your queen?" She laughed, a hand pressed around his throat. "I realise enough Aemond. You almost took Lucerys from us, so I will take you from them. A son for a son."

It was no laughing matter. Laenora was not laughing. Nor were their dragons who waited upon the crumbling turrets of stormsend. Neither was Luke, who watched from a far, unable to make out little of anything over the lapping of the waves and anger of the storm.

Aemond however, burst into fits of it. So comfortable in fact that he leaned forwards, hands to his knees, holding his sea water soaked stomach. Just as quickly, he hit the knife from his niece's palm, kicking a gust of sand over it before walking away.

Laenora was quick to unbury it, and much faster than her betrothed, and so it was with a pull of his silver hair, that his back was to her front, and the knife clung to his throat. This, was not so amusing.

"You bury your father's knife. My grandfathers? You disrespectful cunt." She spoke through a laugh of her own. "Now why don't you tell me wherever it is you're going? Or shall I force it out of you?"

"Wherever it seems you are niece." Aemond relented. "Shall we then?"

"You are my prisoner Aemond, and for my mother and father you will make a grand prize. Do not forget your place."

"With you." He nodded curtly.

"Good. Now come along." She motioned, her knife pointing at The Cannibal as they approached the creature with rushed steps.