Chapter 3: The Small Council's Aftermath
The new scar on the council table was still pale against the old, dark wood. Aemond’s dagger had bitten deep during the morning’s session, quivering where it stood embedded between the painted lands of the Riverlands and the Vale. The Lords had filed out in a silence thicker than fog, their disapproval a cold weight in the room long after they’d gone. Ser Harren had remained, a stone-faced sentinel by the door, until Aemond had snarled at him to get out.Now, the Regent’s rage needed a different outlet. It carried him through the keep like a winter gale, scattering servants and snapping tapestries in his wake.He did not knock on the door to the Queen’s solar. He struck it with the heel of his palm and it flew inward, cracking against the stone wall.
Alicent was at her writing desk, but she was not writing.She was waiting. The scent of his fury had preceded him, a familiar stormfront.
“They bleat like sheep,” he seethed, the door shuddering shut behind him. He paced before the hearth, where the ghost of their last encounter seemed to linger in the furs.“Beesbury dared to cite precedent. Precedent!As if the law is a chain to bind a dragon. Tyland had the gall to question the cost of fortifying the Gullet.The cost.” He spat the word. “Do they think gold matters? Do they think their cautious, cobwebbed councils matter?”
He stopped, his single eye blazing in the firelight, staring at her as if she were part of the conspiracy. “They look at me and see a boy playing at king.They forget who I am. What I ride.”
Alicent watched him, her expression a placid lake over a turbulent depth. She saw the tremor in his fingers, the tight coil of violence in his shoulders.This was the dangerous time. This was when villages burned, when heads rolled, when the fragile stability she had bargained for with her own body could crumble to ash.Slowly, deliberately, she pushed her chair back and stood. She did not speak.She let the silence stretch, pulling his frantic energy into the vacuum of her calm. Then, her eyes never leaving his, she reached for the clasp of her robe. A simple bronze pin, shaped like the seven-pointed star. She pulled it free and let the heavy velvet slide from her shoulders.It pooled at her feet with a soft whisper.
She wore only a thin shift of ivory silk beneath, the firelight painting the shadowed curves of her body beneath the translucent fabric. She saw his breath catch, the trajectory of his fury interrupted, derailed. The raw hunger flooded back into his face, washing away the political ire, replacing it with something more primal, more controllable.
She lifted her hand, extending a single finger toward him.A command, not an invitation.
He was across the room in three long, predatory strides. His hands, which had trembled with rage, were now steady with purpose, brutally efficient.He didn’t bother with the laces of her shift. He grabbed the neckline and tore it downward. The delicate silk ripped with a sound like a gasp, baring her to the waist. His mouth was on hers before she could draw breath, a hard, claiming kiss that tasted of his anger and the sour wine from the council. His fingers dug into her bare shoulders.He broke the kiss, his hands moving to his own clothing. His belt buckle clattered to the floor. He shoved his breeches and smallclothes down over his hips, his cock already springing free, thick and flushed with blood. He turned her roughly, his grip firm on her hips, and bent her forward over the high back of the carved armchair. The velvet was cold against her flushed skin.He didn’t wait.He didn’t prepare her. He positioned the head of his cock at her entrance, finding her slick—from her own treacherous anticipation or from his earlier, frantic kiss, she didn’t know. With a grunt, he pushed forward, burying himself inside her in one deep, brutal thrust.
Alicent gasped, her fingers scrambling against the chair back, her knuckles whitening. He was huge, and the sudden, unforgiving fullness stole her breath.He gave her no time to adjust.
He pulled back and slammed into her again.And again.The rhythm was immediate and punishing, a physical echo of his temper. The wet slap of his flesh against hers, the creak of the chair under their combined weight, his ragged grunts filled the solar. Each drive was a declaration, a fuck-you to the world that doubted him.He gripped her hips so hard she would bruise, holding her in place for his assault.
“Tell me,” he grunted, pistoning into her. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You,” she moaned, the sound punched out of her with each impact. “Always you.”
“Louder.”
“I am yours!” she cried, the words twisting into a genuine sound of pleasure as he angled deeper, the base of his cock rubbing harshly against her clit with every desperate thrust. The pain and the overwhelming sensation blurred, teetering on a sharp, dark edge. Her back arched, presenting herself to him completely, taking all of him, using the solid chair to push back against his drives, meeting his violence with a calculated, feigned abandon.
“Fucking… take it… all of it…” he snarled, his pace becoming frenzied, erratic.He was close.His balls tightened, slapping against her. His cursing dissolved into incoherent, guttural sounds. “Gods… Mother…!”
He slammed into her one last, final time and held there, buried to the hilt. A raw, shattered roar tore from his throat as he came, his body locking rigid. She felt the hot, sudden flood of his release inside her, pulse after pulse as he emptied himself, his cry of “Mother!” echoing off the blackened marble.
He collapsed forward, his sweat-slicked chest pressing against her bare back, his weight driving her deeper into the chair’s embrace. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps against her shoulder. For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant crackle of the fire.Gently, she nudged him back. He withdrew from her body with a soft, wet sound, his seed already beginning to leak down her inner thigh. She turned, facing him.His eye was hazy, sated, the fury utterly spent. She cradled his face in her hands, her thumbs stroking the sharp planes of his cheeks. She leaned in and kissed him, slowly, deeply. Her tongue slid against his, tasting the salt of his sweat, the fading bitterness of his anger. She kissed him until his lips softened and responded.When she pulled back, she kept her forehead resting against his. “You are the realm,” she whispered, her voice low and firm, the words meant only for him. “Never forget that.Their words are dust.Yours is fire and blood. It is all that matters.”
He nodded, a slow, weary movement.The dragon was gorged, pacified. He sank into the armchair, pulling her down onto his lap. She nestled against him, her torn shift gaping, his spend cooling on her skin. He buried his face in her hair, his arms wrapped possessively around her.Outside, a dragon roared—Vhagar, restless in the yard. Aemond didn’t stir. He was asleep within moments, the deep, untroubled sleep of a child.Alicent waited until his breathing was completely even. Then, with exquisite care, she extracted herself from his embrace.She found a cloth and cleaned herself methodically. She chose a new robe, a somber green, and fastened it tightly. She walked to the window, looking down at the courtyard where the massive, ancient she-dragon shifted her bulk, her scales like dull bronze in the grey light.The leash held.For now.
She thought of Beesbury’s pinched face, of Tyland’s calculating eyes.They were not wrong to be afraid. They were wise. Aemond’s fire would burn the realm to cinders if left unchecked.But it was her fire now.A tool, however dangerous.She would let him sleep. She would have a bath drawn, and send for spiced wine. And later, when he woke, she would suggest, softly, that perhaps fortifying the Gullet could wait. That the Goldcloaks in King’s Landing needed newer armor first.A practical, civilian concern. A mother’s prudent advice.He would listen.Because she had made him listen. Not with words, but with the grip of her thighs, the arch of her back, the willing receptacle of her body. It was the vilest calculus, and it was the only one that worked.
She turned from the window, her face a serene mask, already composing the gentle, persuasive words she would use when he opened his eye. The game continued.She had won this round. There would be countless more.
The wine in his cup held no taste anymore, only a familiar, metallic warmth. Aemond stared at the large map of the Seven Kingdoms spread across the oak table in his private chambers, his finger tracing the Blackwater Rush. “He knows,” Aemond muttered, more to himself than to the man seated across from him.“The old cunt Beesbury. He looks at the ledgers. He sees the gold going to the Dragonstone builders and not to his precious granaries in the Reach.”
Ser Criston Cole poured more wine from the flagon, the sound a liquid gurgle in the quiet room.“He sees a ledger.You see a throne. It is not the same vision.”
“It should be.” Aemond’s voice was a low rasp.He pushed away from the table, his chair scraping stone. He paced to the hearth, where the fire was dying into embers, and kicked a log. A shower of sparks erupted, casting frantic, fleeting shadows over his sharp features. The tension coiled in him was a physical presence, a spring loaded too tight after days of council contempt and his mother’s exhausting, soothing manipulations. He could still smell her on his skin beneath the scent of wine.It wasn’t enough.
Criston watched him with the calm, assessing eyes of a veteran soldier. He saw the tight set of the prince’s shoulders, the restless clenching of his jaw. He placed his cup down with deliberate softness. “My prince,” he said, his tone devoid of its usual formality.It was a flat, knowing statement.
Aemond turned, his single eye glittering in the dim light.He said nothing.He didn’t need to. An understanding, old and practiced, passed between them.Criston rose from his chair, the leather of his jerkin creaking. He crossed the space, not as a knight to his regent, but as one wolf to another. He dropped to his knees on the thick Myrish rug, the action fluid and unhurried.
His hands went to the laces of Aemond’s breeches. Aemond stood perfectly still, looking down at the bowed head of white hair, his own breathing shallow. Criston worked swiftly, pulling the laces free, pushing the fabric down just enough. Aemond’s cock, half-hard from agitation and the leftover heat of wine, sprang into the cool air. Criston didn’t hesitate. He took the length into his mouth in one smooth, deep swallow, his lips stretching wide around the girth.Aemond hissed, his head falling back. His hand came down and tangled in Criston’s hair, not gentle, gripping fistfuls of pale strands.It was nothing like his mother’s calculated performances. This was brutal, base, a raw transaction of stress and release. Criston sucked with a fervent, desperate expertise, his tongue working the underside, his throat relaxing to take him deeper.He knew how to do this. He knew what Aemond needed.
“Fuck,” Aemond growled, his hips beginning to piston forward. He fucked into Criston’s mouth with the same driven intensity he’d shown in the solar, but here there was no pretense of tenderness, no whispered lies of love.This was pure use. He thrust deeper, feeling the head of his cock hit the back of Criston’s throat, reveling in the choked, wet sounds it produced. He held the older man’s head down, controlling the rhythm, his own breath coming in sharp gasps. “Take it.Swallow it, you old whore.”
Criston took it. His eyes watered, but his hands stayed planted on Aemond’s thighs, steadying himself as the prince used his throat. The sloppy, wet noises filled the chamber, a filthy counterpoint to the quiet crackle of the dying fire. Aemond’s thrusts became harder, faster, a frantic race towards climax. The pressure built, a taut wire in his gut drawn from council tables and his mother’s lies and the endless, weighty solitude of power.
He came with a raw, strangled shout, pulling Criston’s head hard against his groin as he pulsed hot seed down the man’s throat. He held him there, spasming, until he was utterly spent. Criston swallowed convulsively, until Aemond finally released his grip and staggered back a step.Silence returned, thicker now, humid and spent. Aemond leaned against the table, his breeches still around his thighs, his chest heaving. The violent energy was gone, drained away into the willing vessel kneeling before him.A calm, cold clarity seeped into its place.
Criston wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stood, calmly, as if rising from prayer.He fastened his own jerkin, walked back to his chair, and sat. He took a slow drink of wine, as if rinsing away the taste. “The Reach,” he said, his voice perfectly even, a little hoarse.“Beesbury is the key. But he is not the lock. The lock is your sister, the so-called Queen in the North, and the rumors of her alliance with him.”
Aemond pulled his breeches up, lacing them with steady fingers.He returned to his seat, the map once again his focus. The fire in his blood was banked, for now. “Then we remind them where the true power resides,” Aemond said, his voice low and composed, his eye fixed on the painted North. “We remind them with Vhagar’s shadow.Not on granaries. On their keeps.”