Chapter 6: Midnight Confessions
The stillness in her own chambers was worse. It echoed. After the tempest of birth, the quiet felt like a held breath, a vacuum waiting to be filled by the next crisis. Her body ached in strange, deep places, a hollowed-out tenderness. Sleep was a distant country. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the phantom tearing, saw Aegon’s tear-tracked face in the candlelight.
She rose, wrapping a heavy robe around her shoulders, and padded on silent feet to the nursery. The walk was short, the corridor cold. She pushed the heavy oak door open.
He was already there.
Aegon sat in the large, worn armchair by the window, the one their nurse had used decades ago. Moonlight silvered the room, turning the faded dragons on the tapestries into ghostly silhouettes. He was shirtless, the lean muscle of his chest and arms pale in the gloom. Their son was a small, warm bundle against his skin, one tiny starfish hand splayed over Aegon’s heart.
He was humming. A low, rasping, tuneless vibration in his chest. Not a song she recognized, just a steady, empty sound. The babe was quiet, eyes closed, his breath a faint flutter.
Naerys stood in the doorway, caught. This was a version of her brother she had no map for. The usual armor of wine and mockery was gone, stripped away, leaving something raw and defenseless. She felt like an intruder.
She moved forward, her steps silent on the rug. “You should be sleeping,” she whispered. “The maester said you drank enough wine to stun a horse before… before it began.”
He didn’t look up, his eyes fixed on the child’s head. “Horse is still standing,” he murmured. His voice was rough, scraped clean. “Couldn’t.”
She reached for the baby, her arms aching to hold him. “Give him to me. You’ll drop him.”
His hand shot out, faster than she expected, and caught her wrist. Not hard. Just a circle of heat and callus. He finally looked at her. In the moonlight, his violet eyes were dark, endless pools. “Stay,” he said, the word simple. “He likes the sound of your heartbeat too.”
He tugged, a gentle pressure. She was off-balance, exhausted. She let him pull her down into the wide chair with him. It was a tight fit. She settled half on his lap, her back against the armrest, her legs tangled with his. He maneuvered the baby between them, so the infant was cradled against both their chests, a bridge of new life over the old, cracked ground of their relationship.
The heat of him was startling. She could feel the steady thump-thump under her cheek where it rested near his shoulder. Their son sighed, a milky, contented sound.
“What were you humming?” she asked into the quiet.
“Nothing. Just a noise.” He was silent for a long moment. “Our father used to make it. He’d sit and just… drone. Like a bee in a jar.” Aegon’s thumb stroked the baby’s back in a slow, absent circle. “I hated it. Now I get it.”
She’d forgotten that. Aegon remembered.
“We shouldn’t name him Viserys,” Aegon said abruptly.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” He nodded, his chin brushing her hair. “A sad man’s name. He needs something… solid.”
“Jaehaerys?” she offered.
“Too many syllables for a squalling infant. Try yelling that across a dragon yard.” He shifted slightly, his arm tightening around her. “Aemon.”
The name hit her with a soft shock. Aemon the Dragonknight. Chivalrous, loyal, brave. A pillar. She thought of Aemond, her other brother, with his book and his sapphire eye and his cold, clear warnings. ‘Fitness isn’t granted. It’s taken.’
“Aemon,” she repeated, testing the weight of it. The baby stirred, nuzzling. “It’s a good name.”
“He’ll need it,” Aegon said, his voice dropping. “They’re already circling. My green-haired grandfather. Our pious mother. Even Aemond, in his way. They see him as a contingency. A spare part waiting to be fitted if the primary mechanism fails.”
The bitterness was back, but it was a cold, sharp thing now, not the hot, messy anger she was used to. It was observational.
“You’re not a mechanism,” she said.
“Aren’t I? Drink, fuck, sire an heir, repeat. That’s the function.” He looked down at the baby, his expression unreadable. “He makes it feel less like a function.”
Naerys understood. The child was a person, not a political outcome. He was a weight that anchored them both to something real, something beyond the endless, tedious game of thrones.
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the moonlight crawl across the floor. She felt herself drifting, sleep finally pulling at the edges of her consciousness, cushioned by his warmth and the baby’s rhythmic breathing.
“I saw the ledgers,” he said quietly, just as she was about to slip under. “The ones you fixed.”
She went still, fully awake again. “And?”
“And you have a better head for numbers than the treasurer.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking. About the Stepstones. The patrols are a money pit. Corlys Velaryon complains, but his ships profit from the chaos. We should clear the damned islands out. Permanently. A show of strength. Sunfyre and… Vhagar would make short work of those pirate dens.”
Vhagar. Aemond’s dragon. The largest in the world. It was the first strategic thought she’d heard from him in years. It was ruthless, simple, and had the brutal elegance of dragonfire.
“That would be a statement,” she said carefully.
“It would be a solution,” he corrected. “And it would give the realm something else to talk about. Instead of my cups and your… compassion.”
Her compassion. A weakness, in his eyes. She felt the old frustration simmer, but it was muted by exhaustion and the warm child between them. “Just don’t do anything reckless. Talk to Lord Corlys. Plan it.”
“I’m the reckless one,” he said, a ghost of his old smirk in his voice. “You’re the planner. So plan it.”
It was as close to an invitation, to a partnership, as he had ever given. It wasn’t an apology for the bathhouse, for the bites and the bruises and the cruel words. It was something else. A recalibration.
She didn’t answer. She closed her eyes, listening to the two heartbeats next to her ear—one fast and new, one steady and familiar, both strangely synced. The lavender from the baby’s swaddling cloth mixed with the lingering scent of wine on Aegon’s skin. A clash, like everything about them.
Just as she felt sleep take her, his voice rumbled softly through his chest into hers.
“He has your eyes, Naerys.”
When the wet nurse came an hour later, she found them all three asleep in the chair, a tangled knot of silver hair and linen and pale limbs, bathed in the cold blue light of dawn. She hesitated, then backed out silently, leaving the strange, new peace undisturbed.
The wet nurse’s footsteps faded down the corridor.
From the deep shadows of an alcove, a single eye watched her go. The sapphire in the other socket caught no light, remaining a dead, dark blue. Aemond Targaryen had stood there for a long time, a statue of bitter watchfulness. He had seen his brother enter. He had heard the silence that followed, more intimate than any sound.
The peace he witnessed through the cracked door was a physical poison in his gut.
He turned, his leather boots soundless on the stone. The Red Keep felt like a carcass, its halls empty veins. He did not go to the training yard, or the library, or the dragon pit. His feet carried him to the one hearth that had always burned for him, the one source of unquestioning warmth in a court of calculated smiles.
He entered his mother’s sitting room without announcement. Alicent sat by the fire, her needlework forgotten in her lap, staring at the flames. The green velvet of her gown seemed to absorb the light.
“Mother.”
She started, then softened. “Aemond. You’re awake late. Come, sit. Is it… the babe? Is all well?”
He didn’t sit. He stood before her, his posture rigid, his jaw a hard line. The firelight glinted off his sapphire, making it seem for a moment like a wet, blind tear.
“All is well,” he said, his voice flat. “The heir is suckled. The future secured. Our brother has performed his one true duty.” The acid in the words made her flinch.
“Aegon is trying, in his way,” she said, but the defense was weak, automatic.
“His way,” Aemond repeated. He let out a short, hollow breath. “He stumbles from whore to wine cup and is celebrated for producing a child. He neglects every lesson, shirks every duty, and they fall over themselves to mend his peace. Naerys fixes his accounts, cleans his messes, and now warms his chair. For what? A moment of quiet? Where is the justice in that?”
The emotion, usually so tightly leashed, vibrated through him. Alicent rose quickly, her own worry etching lines around her eyes. She approached him, hands lifting to cradle his face. “Oh, my son. My fierce, sharp son. The burden falls on you because you are strong enough to bear it. It is not fair. I know.”
She pulled him into an embrace, pressing his head to her shoulder as she had when he was a boy, come to her with a bruised knee or a bloodied nose from Aemond’s fists. He was taller than her now, all lean, coiled muscle. He shuddered against her, a single, convulsive tremor.
She held him tighter, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other making slow, comforting circles on his back. “You are the steady one. You are my rock.”
Then she felt it. A rigid, heated pressure against her thigh. She froze.
“Aemond?” she asked, her voice a brittle whisper.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t move away. His arms around her tightened, becoming a prison of need instead of a shelter. He began to move, a slow, insistent pressure of his hips, grinding the hard length of him against her.
“Aemond, stop—”
He didn’t stop. He walked her backward, his steps deliberate, until her back met the cold stone wall beside the tapestry. She was pinned, not by force, but by the sheer, shocking intensity of his silence. His breath was hot and ragged against her neck. He rutted against her, a frantic, clumsy rhythm through the layers of their clothing. The rough fabric of his trousers scraped against the delicate silk of her gown.
Alicent’s mind shattered into bright, sharp fragments of panic. She opened her mouth to scream, to command, to pray. No sound came. Her body was rigid. Her hands, still trapped between them, fluttered uselessly. Then, slowly, as if moving through deep water, one of her hands lifted. It settled back on his back, between his shoulder blades.
She began to rub those same, small, comforting circles.
He gasped into the hollow of her throat, a broken sound. His movements grew frantic, desperate. He was mumbling something, a choked, wet stream of words lost against her skin. “Mine… you’re… only… mine…”
He came with a raw, shuddering groan, his entire body seizing against her. She felt the hot dampness spread through the silk, a shocking brand on her thigh. He slumped, his weight pressing her into the wall, his forehead on her shoulder as he fought for air, each breath a ragged pull.
They stood there, locked in the awful, damp quiet. The fire cracked.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright. His face was pale, emptied. He would not meet her eye. He adjusted his trousers with a swift, mechanical motion, then turned and walked to the door.
He paused, his hand on the frame. His voice, when it came, was cold and clear, the Aemond she knew. “The Stepstones plan is a distraction. Aegon’s shiny toy. We will need to be ready.”
Then he was gone.
Alicent slid down the wall until she was crumpled on the floor. She stared at the fire, her shaking hands pressed to her mouth. The damp spot on her gown cooled rapidly, a chilling mockery of the comforting warmth she had always offered. It felt like a wound. The circles her fingers had traced on his back now burned against her own palms.
The circles her fingers had traced on his back now burned against her own palms. She stayed on the floor until the fire burned low, until the damp spot on her gown was cold and stiff. Then she stood, movements stiff, and walked to her bedside cabinet. She removed the small, sharp prayer knife she kept there, its handle worn smooth from her grip. She did not pray. She sliced the soiled panel of silk from her gown, carried it to the fireplace, and watched the threads curl and blacken into nothing.
The smell of burning silk haunted her rooms for days.
A few weeks later, the memory had not faded. It had calcified. It lived in the space behind her eyes when she stared at the Seven-Pointed Star, a vulgar stain on the scripture. She heard Aegon’s laughter from the nursery corridor, saw Naerys’s tired but settled grace at the small council, and felt the absence where her second son now stood, a silent, storm-cloud presence at the edge of every gathering.
She knew he would return.
When the door opened without a knock late that night, she was sitting up in her bed, a book of histories open but unread in her lap. A single candle burned. She had drunk a half-glass of sweet wine. She had braided her hair tightly. She wore a nightgown of the finest, softest blue silk, not her usual high-necked wool.
Aemond stood in the doorway, framed by the dark. He was still in his riding leathers, smelling of cold night air and dragon. He said nothing. His single eye moved from her face to the empty space beside her in the large bed, then back.
“Close the door,” Alicent said. Her voice did not shake.
He did. The lock clicked, a soft, final sound. He stood there, watching her, as if waiting for a command or a dismissal. The tension in him was a visible hum, a bowstring drawn tight.
“You’ve been riding Vhagar,” she stated.
“The clouds are clear over the Blackwater.” His voice was rough. He began to remove his clothes. Not with lustful haste, but with a brutal, practical efficiency. The leather jerkin hit the floor with a thud. His boots followed. He unbuckled his trousers, shoved them down, and stepped out of them. He stood naked before her, bathed in the candle’s flicker. He was all hard planes and scar tissue, the sapphire a cold, dead jewel in the ruin of his socket. His cock was already half-hard, thick and curving against his thigh.
Alicent’s breath caught, but she did not look away. This was her son. This was her child, pain given solid, angry form. She marked the old bruises from training, the new burn on his forearm from a stray ember in the dragon pit. She laid the book aside and pulled back the coverlet on his side of the bed.
He crossed the room and climbed in. The sheets were cool. He was not. He radiated a furnace heat. He turned onto his side, facing her, and for a moment they merely looked at each other. The intensity in his gaze was unbearable, a hungry, searching thing.
“They named him Aemon,” Aemond said, the name a blade.
“I know.”
“A mockery.”
“A hope,” she countered softly, but the word felt like ash.
He moved then. One hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling in her tight braid. The other pushed the silk of her nightgown up her thigh, his touch shockingly warm. There was no gentleness, no preamble. He kissed her, and it was nothing like the desperate grinding against the wall. This was deliberate, a claiming. His tongue pushed into her mouth, tasting of metal and the faint, smoky residue of the dragon pits.
She let him. Her hands came up to rest on his shoulders. She did not push. She accepted.
He broke the kiss, his breath harsh. “You are the only one,” he whispered, the words raw and fractured. “The only one who doesn’t want something from the ruin.”
He pushed her onto her back and yanked the silk gown up to her waist. He didn’t remove it. He settled between her thighs, his weight familiar and alien all at once. He was not careful. He used his hand to guide himself, the broad head of his cock pressing against her. She was dry, tight with dread and a terrible, mounting inevitability.
“Aemond,” she gasped.
He pushed in anyway.
The burn was sharp, a tearing friction. She cried out, a short, bitten-off sound. He shoved a hand over her mouth, his palm callused and smelling of leather. He sheathed himself fully inside her with one relentless, brutal thrust, hilting himself to the root. Her body stretched around him, a painful, full ache. He held there, buried, his eye screwed shut, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. A shudder wracked him.
Then he began to move.
He fucked her with a driving, rhythmic intensity that stole the air from her lungs. Each withdrawal was a cruel relief, each deep, grinding return a punishment. The bed rocked, the headboard tapping a dull, rhythmic complaint against the stone wall. The slick, filthy sound of their joining filled the quiet room, louder than their ragged breathing.
“You see me,” he grunted into her neck, his pace increasing. “You fucking see me. Not him. Not the heir. Me.”
His hand left her mouth, traveled down her body, and pushed the silk of her gown up further, baring her breasts. He took one nipple into his mouth, biting down not quite gently, and the sharp pain twisted strangely inside her, a bright thread in the dark tapestry of sensation. The initial burning ache was changing, melting into a deep, unwanted throbbing. Her body, traitorously, was adjusting, was beginning to slick around his relentless thrusts.
Alicent’s mind floated somewhere near the canopy. This was her duty. This was the comfort she must provide. This was the penance for loving this sharp, broken boy too much, and for loving his golden brother not enough. She let her legs fall open wider. She let her hips tilt up to meet one of his drives.
A low, choked sound escaped her. It wasn’t pain.
He felt it. He groaned, a dark, victorious sound. “Yes,” he hissed. “Take it. Take all of it. It’s yours. It’s always been yours.”
His thrusts became erratic, harder, deeper. One of his hands gripped her hip so tightly she would bruise. The other fumbled between them, his thumb finding her clit, rough and circling. The dual sensation—the deep, full pounding and the insistent, abrasive friction—coiled a tight, shocking heat in her gut. It was wrong. It was a sin that would stain her soul black. But her body, so long frozen in prayer and politics, was roaring to life, betraying her utterly.
“Fuck,” he snarled, his control shattering. “Oh, fuck, Mother—”
The crude word, in that context, snapped the last thread. Her climax ripped through her with a silent, seismic violence, a wave of pure physical release that clenched around his driving cock. She arched off the bed, her mouth open in a soundless scream, her fingers digging into the scarred flesh of his back.
It triggered his own end. With a raw, broken shout that was half a sob, he drove into her one final, brutal time and came. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of him inside her, flooding that forbidden space. He collapsed, his full weight driving her into the mattress, his face buried in her neck. His whole body trembled through the aftershocks.
Slowly, the world reassembled. The candle guttered. The smell of sex and sweat was thick and animal in the air. He softened inside her, but did not pull out. His weight was immense.
She did not shove him off. Her hands, which had gripped him, now rose. One smoothed the sweat-damp hair from his forehead. The other rubbed slow, soothing circles on the back of his neck. He made a small, exhausted sound, like a wounded animal finding its den.
After a time, he slid out of her. He turned, pulling her with him, so her back was to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, his face pressed between her shoulder blades. The wetness between her thighs cooled. The ache settled in.
She held his wrist against her stomach. She kissed his forehead, where a faint scar from a childhood fall lingered. His breathing deepened, slowed, evened out into sleep.
Alicent stared at the dying candle flame. A terrible, quiet clarity settled over her. This was the price. This was the new shape of her house, her love, her loyalty. In the dark, with her favorite son’s seed leaking from her, she felt more than grief or guilt.
She felt, for the first time in years, a horrible, perfect peace.