CHAPTER TEN
❪ devils tongue ! ❫

It was no surprise by any nature that Aenemera was always tucked away inside that private library within the castle. It had become a personal safe haven for the young girl where she could be alone without actually being alone.

She loved to study the Targaryen history and read tiny fairy tales about the other houses of westeros.

She took much care of all the books situated in the room, returning them back to their proper places and with gentle touch to the weakened papers from the older tales.

On this specific evening after dinner, Aenemera had more than plenty of books sprawled out on the table near the fireplace. Her finger traced certain sentences from one book before going to the next to find a better understanding of the word.

Whenever Viserys taught Aenemera a new word in Valyrian, she would immediately find a book to study. It was like their own way of showing familia love.

But all happy and peaceful moments would come to an end when someone would stumble into the library, not giving Aenemera the privacy and silence she desperately wanted. This time the face that appeared at her side was her oldest uncle, by surprise.

The cherry and raspberry scent from wine at dinner was pouring from under his skin and through his blonde locks. It was hard for anyone to mistake him for anyone else.

"Yes, my dear uncle?"

She refused to look up from the pages of her book while she continued to study the language of Valyrian.

"Aenemera what in God's name are you doing?"

She laughed gently. "Studying, something we do as children to strengthen our minds. You?" She flipped a few pages from one book and moved to the next to find a different answer.

Aegon sat halfway on the table and waved his left hand before taking a large sip of wine. "That's a bore, Aenemera. When was the last time we spent time together as a family?"

"When was the last time you didn't drink?" She finally gazed up at him with an eyebrow raised.

Aegon began to count on his fingers silently to himself before giving up. "Doesn't matter. I want to talk to you about something."

The girl gently scratched the back of her head and sighed. "Can it wait until tomorrow? I'm trying to be by myself at the moment."

Aegon shook his head. "Nope."

Aenemera slowly straightened her back and stared at her uncle in silence. Aegon giggled to himself from her intimidating glare while settling his empty cup on one of the books. Mera chewed the inside of her cheek, desperately wanting to pick it up.

Aegon started walking around the table and picked up a book for himself, carelessly flipping through the pages. "Have you been reading about our Targaryen blood?"

She hummed. "Of course, would you like to borrow a book?"

He shook his head, now standing at the opposite side of the table from her. "Have you read about the Velaryon blood?"

She stared at the boy quite hard this time while folding her hands together. "What are you trying to ask, dear uncle?"

Aegon waved a hand around again with a shrug of his shoulders. His drunk nature made him come off so carelessly but even something completely under the influence knew what they were doing.

"You know — wanting to learn about my family history."

She raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.

"Tell me princess, what is your opinion on children with dark hair and pale skin from house Velaryon?"

Aenemera slammed one of the large books shut and pointed towards the library door. "Out. I would like to spend the rest of my evening alone."

Aegon placed his hand upon his chest in fake pain. "Ordering the prince to leave? I only wanted to spend time with my niece."

"You're drunk," she pointed out the obvious while running her hand down her face tiredly. "Let's not start this conversation that neither of us want to finish. Please rest uncle."

The door to the library creaked open and both of their attention was centered on Aemond now, who made another appearance. Aenemera felt like she was losing a battle and fighting with the two people that poke fun at her brothers was the last conversation she wanted to have.

"Aegon," Aemond spoke as he walked towards them. "Mother is requesting to see you."

Aenemera's eyes flickered over towards Aegon, silently thanking the God's for whatever timing just happened.

Aegon tilted his head back and let out a long sigh like a child. "I was just discussing the legitimacy of our Aenemera's brothers. It's my favorite social topic."

"Out!" Aenemera shouted at him, her hands gripping the wooden table now until her knuckles started to turn white.

Aegon chuckled under his breath. "See? It's the perfect discussion of debate."

The girl watched him start to make his exit from the room but she quickly stopped him by calling out his name and picking up his empty wine cup. Aemond watched closely in silence as she walked her way over to him with a small smile.

"You almost forgot this, uncle. In case you still had plans of burning your insides some more." She held the cup out in his direction.

Aegon looked over her shoulder towards his brother but Aemond remained silent at the table. He turned his glare back to Aenemera and snatched the goblet from her grasp. "Always the kindest."

When he finally left the library, Aenemera sighed to herself and walked back to the table. Now getting Aemond to leave was going to be much more difficult so she decided to leave on her own first after cleaning up after herself.

Aemond watched as she closed several books and started to stack them by category then by alphabetical order. She never made eye contact with the boy and preferred to act like he wasn't even in the room.

She was in a good mood before but now she felt tired and frustrated. Nothing would spark her anger quicker than the debate of her siblings' legitimacy.

"You should leave those for one of the others to clean and rest out your frustrations."

She closed a book shut and stared up at the boy from across the table. "Oh, are you not going to harass me about my family's bloodline as well?"

She couldn't help it, the frustration penting up in her chest was causing her to lash out without meaning. But her brothers were sacred to her and she knew how special they were to her mother.

"I was looking for my brother but you just so happened to be here." Aemond tucked his hands behind his back, his facial expression as calm as ever.

"Your brother was in here for no good reason but to bother me. Why didn't you defend me?" Her eyes slightly widened as she gestured towards Aemond. "You're aware how the topic makes me uncomfortable and yet you can't do the husband's decency to defend me and my siblings."

"But was he wrong?"

Aenemera leaned backwards in surprise. Getting along with Aemond wasn't always the easiest but she thought she could get him to at least move past these spiteful thoughts due to their marriage.

She ended up being the fool.

"What did you just say?"

Aemond side glanced her from where he stood. "My brother may be an idiot but he was never wrong. I will always pick the side my family is on."

"But I'm your wife!" She shouted out of shock, pointing towards her chest as she walked around the table to him. "At some point you must defend me and my beliefs! That's what marriage is about!"

"You didn't want this marriage to begin with," he reminded calmly.

"And neither did you but I still try to perform my duties as a wife!"

Aemond inhaled sharply and turned to face the princess now. "The only thing you do is become a royal pain in my ass and disregard every single thing I say. You have no respect for me."

"To get respect, you have to earn it." She bit back. "And there has not been a single day of me getting respect from anyone in this fucking castle." She began to jab her finger into his chest as he stepped backwards. "You've been holding onto a grudge since we were children and haven't come up with any other sense of humor besides making my siblings the headline."

Aemond quickly grabbed her finger with warning but gentleness as he then grabbed her wrist to keep her from poking him. "Your brother took my fucking eye, my mother cried for days and there was no punishment — "

"We were kids!" Aenemera pulled away quickly. "You tried to kill my brother!"

"If we were just children then why did I have to lose something over it!" Aemond finally shouted back, catching Aenemera off guard by his raise of voice. "Do you feel no remorse for your husband? I can't go a day with this thing off because all it does is scare everyone away!"

"I didn't want you to lose an eye!" Tears started to form around her bottom lash line but she quickly blinked them gone as she turned away from him. "I didn't want any of that to happen because now it has both of our houses divided!"

Aemond followed after her by grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around to face him again. It was the first time, in a long time — that he ever lost his temper. But memories from his childhood past would always be there to haunt him. It brought back so much anger and resentment to her family.

"You can't accept the fact that your brothers don't share the same father with you. And instead of accepting that cruel reality, you take it out on everyone else." He had her backed against the wall beside the fireplace now with his voice at a lower level but still laced with enough venom to kill a wild animal. "You beg the sevens for everyone to believe but everybody knows you're just the child who got lucky — "

Aenemera's hand came up rather quickly and stung his left cheek with a harsh smack. Her intentions came off stronger than what she originally intended by adrenaline  because now his eye patch was laying on the ground and both of them grew silent.

His head was turned away and her hands were covering her mouth in shock by her own actions. A few heartbeats passed before Aemond finally reached down to retrieve his patch from off the floor.

Aenemera bit her inner cheek and accepted a cruel punishment coming soon but all he did was stand there in silence.

He refused to look at her now while he went to adjust the patch back over his face but she reached for his arm and stopped him by holding his elbow. "Aemond," she whispered regretfully but he still refused to look at her.

He shrugged out of her grasp slowly but placed her hand on his left cheek now, gently turning his face to hers. His right eye was closed tightly, in fear of witnessing her shock and disgust by the view of his left eye.

But instead her mouth gaped open in silence when she was met with a blue gem in place where his left eye used to be.

She cradled his face gently while she scanned the area around his broken eye. The scar — the redness that still took weeks to heal. It had grown better throughout the years but it was still easily noticeable how irritated it used to be.

When Aemond opened his eye to look at the princess, she quickly dropped her hand and looked at him in silence.

The couple stood there silently for a few moments until Aemond raised his own hand and held the left side of her cheek. Her heartbeat stammered against her chest quickly, unsure what was going to happen next.

His eyebrows furrowed with curiosity as his thumb began to trace her cheekbone to her jaw line. It then gently ran down the bridge of her nose before going back to the bone of her cheek while her eyes remained nervously locked on his.

"You remind me of him," he whispered to the girl.

She blinked several times in confusion, her body unmoving as she began to pick at the skin around her fingers in anticipation. "Who?"

Aemond was very aware that she resembled her mother's beauty in many ways, but there were other parts of her features that stuck out like a full moon. Between her lips and nose — to her short temper and passion for rebellion.

"Daemon."

Her body stiffened against the wall with chills rolling down her spine like balls of snow. He didn't say another word as his eyes drifted from her lips and he quickly turned away, placing his eye patch back over his face and exiting the room as quickly as possible.

Aenemera remained stilled against the wall in silence for a single minute. Her heart rate finally came down to its normal speed but the palms of her hands and the back of her neck held as much moisture as the rain.

❪ dylan ❫
as a mother to my two children, they're toxic. but as a huge Aemera shipper, i'm begging them to kiss already