What I Did, I Did for Us | Aemond Targaryen

Three

When Viserys died, his daughter didn't sob or wail. Her grief was horribly discreet but as persistent and silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound.

Rhaenyra had insisted her dragon light the pyre at his funeral — a symbolic transition from king to queen, father to daughter. It was a small ceremony held at sundown, and only Viserys's closest kin attended.

Nearly one moon had passed since then — the time for mourning at its end as the coronation loomed ahead. The castle was up in arms, preparing for the occasion with festivities and feasts that would last a whole week.

This made the new queen anxious — so much to be done, she couldn't keep track. However, tonight held a different sort of worry as Rhaenyra hid herself away in her chambers.

"Don't pretend you're some meek, pathetic little girl," Daemon watched her pace beside the fire— a frequent habit as of late. "I can see that vicious mind working behind your eyes."

"You said you wouldn't, and you fucking did," she growled.

"It had to be done."

"I won't be controlled," Rhaenyra glanced sternly at her husband.

"No one is trying to control you, least of all me," he drawled idly from a nearby chair. "I decided for you — spared you from making the decision yourself."

His wife longed to throw something at him. A chair. Herself — for always knowing what she needed when she needed it.

"He's Alicent's father — my siblings' grandsire," Rhaenyra stressed, anxiously rubbing her swollen stomach.

Daemon scoffed. "He's a cunt — one who might very well have poisoned your father into a slow grave."

Otto Hightower had spent the past moon in the dungeons with the rest of the filth, where he belonged. Thanks to his daughter's request, he'd been treated with relative kindness, spared the torture other traitors had endured.

The screams were good for him — a prelude to the fate he would soon suffer for all his evil deeds.

However, it seemed some, Daemon in particular, weren't willing to exercise more patience. The rogue prince had taken matters into his own hands, sentencing Otto to execution after Rhaenyra's enthronement.

"I have an explicit desire to smack the grin off your face," she admitted.

Daemon immediately rose to his feet, walking over till he was at her side.

"Do it," he taunted, his smile turning smug.

Typical, she thought. Men always thought they knew everything.

"Alright," his wife said and hit him in the face.

Silence — Daemon's jaw flexed, testing out the sharp sting left behind. Despite the harsh slap, the prince was smiling. He was prone to Rhaenyra's hormonal temperament brought about by the pregnancy.

His wife was a dragon — a heavily pregnant dragon.

"It's important that we rip out all who'd oppose you — root and stem," he calmly told her. "It would be negligent to let Otto live after all the chaos he's created. For nearly thirty years, he fed the flames, inspiring greed and turmoil within the confines of our family, but no longer."

"I made a promise to Alicent not to deprive her of a father so soon after the death of her husband," Rhaenyra retorted, less upset than before.

Daemon sighed and gently grasped her hands, pulling them away from her belly. "I know and feel for my good sister, but we aren't safe with him alive — not our children nor your siblings."