Chapter Text
Aemond Targaryen had long since mastered the art of control.
He had to.
From the moment the gods had cursed him with the body of an omega, he had waged war against his own flesh. He refused to yield, refused to bow to the instincts that clawed at his spine, demanding submission. He had carved his own path in fire and fury, willing himself into something greater than the limitations of his wretched biology.
Omegas were weak. Soft. Frail things meant to be protected, possessed, bred. Aemond had spent his entire life proving that he was none of those things.
And yet, as he strode through the Red Keep’s corridors, summoned to his father’s side without explanation, irritation simmered beneath his carefully maintained composure.
King Viserys rarely concerned himself with Aemond. The old man barely regarded him unless forced to. His attentions were always reserved for his precious daughter Rhaenyra and her bastard sons, lavishing them with the warmth and approval he had never spared for Aemond.
So why now? Why this sudden summons?
Aemond’s stomach coiled with unease.
The guards outside the royal solar barely looked at him as they pushed open the heavy wooden doors. The scent of illness hung thick in the air—Viserys’s slow decay was impossible to ignore now. The king sat slumped upon a cushioned chair, his skin pallid, breath wheezing with every shallow exhale. He looked like a man half in the grave, and Aemond wondered—not for the first time—how much longer the Stranger would toy with him before finally pulling him under.
Beside him stood Queen Alicent.
His mother’s hands were tightly clasped, her knuckles pale with strain. Her face was carefully neutral, but Aemond had spent years reading the fine lines of her expressions. She was displeased. Worse—she was resigned.
That sent a sliver of unease creeping down his spine.
“Father,” Aemond said, bowing his head in cold deference. His voice was calm, measured, betraying none of his apprehension.
Viserys smiled weakly. “Come, my son. Stand before me.”
Aemond obeyed, though every instinct screamed at him to turn and leave before he was ensnared in whatever scheme had been woven in his absence.
The flickering candlelight cast long shadows across the chamber. The silence stretched unbearably between them, and in it, Aemond could hear the faint, ragged wheeze of his father’s failing lungs.
Viserys studied him for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his dull, milk-clouded eyes. It was not pride. It was not affection.
It was sorrow.
Aemond’s stomach twisted violently.
He hated that look. That pitying, regretful gaze that men always cast upon him when they remembered what he was. When they remembered what his body would always betray him as.
“I have made arrangements,” Viserys finally said, his voice weaker than Aemond had ever heard it. “To ensure the peace of this realm. To mend the wounds that have festered between our families.”
Aemond’s fingers twitched at his sides. A slow, creeping dread slithered up his spine.
Viserys exhaled heavily, as though the weight of his own words exhausted him. “You are to wed-”
Aemond’s world stilled. “No.”
The words crashed into him like a blade to the gut, stealing the breath from his lungs.
For a moment, he could do nothing but stare, his body locked in place. He felt as if the air had been stolen from the room, thick and suffocating, pressing in on him from all sides.
His gaze snapped to his mother, searching for some sign that this was a cruel jest, that she would deny this madness. But Alicent remained silent, her hands gripping one another so tightly they trembled. “With Prince Lucerys-”
Aemond’s pulse thundered in his ears.
“No.”
His voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy silence like the crack of a whip.
Viserys sighed, as if he had expected this. “Aemond, my son—”
“No.” Aemond’s voice rose, edged with barely restrained fury. He stepped forward, his entire body taut with rage. “You would have me wed the bastard? He's brother took my eye! You would have me lie beneath him like some docile thing? I would sooner let Vhagar rip him apart limb by limb.”
“Aemond.” His mother’s voice was soft, pleading.
His hands curled into fists, nails digging into his palms so hard he felt the sharp sting of skin breaking.
“This is not a request,” Viserys said tiredly. “It is my will as king. This feud between you cannot continue. The realm must see that we are united, not divided.”
“The realm?” Aemond let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Do you think the realm will forget what was done to me simply because you parade me before them as that bastard’s omega? Do you think they will see anything other than a mockery?”
Viserys exhaled heavily. “You are a prince of the realm, Aemond. And an omega, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not. This match will strengthen the family, secure your future. It is not a punishment, but a necessity.”
Aemond wanted to scream. To rip the heavy tapestries from the walls and burn this wretched castle to the ground.
His entire life, he had fought to escape this fate.
He had starved himself of softness, dulled his body to the whispers of instinct. He had trained until his bones ached, sharpened himself into a weapon so that no one would ever look at him and see an omega.
And now—this.
This final insult. This degradation.
Lucerys Velaryon.
Aemond could still hear this night's laughter ringing in his ears, the boy’s wide, frightened eyes as he ran, the moment before steel cut flesh and Aemond’s world turned red. His fingers ghosted over the scar that marred his face, the permanent, grotesque reminder of his shame.
And now, his father would have him bound to the a child. A child, 15 years old.
His body recoiled at the thought. His instincts churned, sickened and twisted.
Lucerys was an alpha.
Aemond had spent years convincing himself that he would never kneel before one. That he would never allow his body to betray him, never let himself become what nature had tried to make him.
His breath came too fast, too shallow.
He needed to leave before he lost the last shreds of control he had.
Instead, he forced his voice into something cold, something sharp as glass.
“You may command me as your son,” he said, voice trembling with barely restrained fury. “But I will never be his. I can't be, he's still a baby.”
Viserys only looked at him, weary and unyielding. “ He will grow… The betrothal will be announced by sundown. Rhaenyra and her family will be at the Keep soon. ”
Aemond turned on his heel and strode from the room before he did something unforgivable.
He did not hear his mother call after him. He did not care for the guards who stepped hastily aside at the fury etched across his face.
He only knew that his world, already carved by loss and resentment, had just tilted irreversibly into something crueler.
Aemond Targaryen would marry Lucerys Velaryon.
But he would never love him.
Aemond’s steps were swift, his boots striking the stone floor with sharp, deliberate force as he stormed through the halls of the Red Keep. Fury burned in his veins, hot and all-consuming, threatening to spill over in ways he could not afford.
To be shackled to Lucerys Velaryon.
The mere thought of it made his stomach churn, his entire body recoiling in disgust. His father, in all his weakness, had sealed his fate with little more than a tired sigh. It did not matter how much Aemond fought, how much he bled to carve out a place for himself outside the confines of his cursed biology. He was still seen as something to be bartered, something to be claimed.
His breath came too fast, too shallow. He needed control.
And then, the sky split with the deep, resonant roar of dragons.
Aemond stilled.
He turned sharply, his gaze snapping toward the nearest window. The sky beyond the city walls churned with shadow and fire, five great beasts descending through the pale afternoon light.
His fingers curled into fists as he recognized them instantly.
Syrax, golden and elegant, her great wings glinting in the sunlight. Caraxes, Blood Wyrm, long and serpentine, his scarlet scales like fresh-spilled blood against the sky. Vermax and Arrax, smaller but no less significant, circling protectively around their mother’s beast. And Tyraxes, just a tiny shadow of purple.
Rhaenyra and her bastards had come.
Aemond’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together so hard it sent a sharp jolt of pain through his skull. The sight of them, so smug in their unity, so sure of their place in this world, filled him with a hatred so raw it made his vision blur.
They were coming for him.
For his humiliation.
For the final chain his father meant to lock around his throat.
The walls of the Red Keep suddenly felt suffocating, pressing in on him from all sides. If he remained here, he would do something reckless. Something that would make his father’s pathetic decrees meaningless, because there would be no Lucerys Velaryon left to wed if Aemond let himself slip.
No.
Not yet.
With a sharp turn, Aemond tore himself away from the window, his cloak snapping at his heels as he strode toward the courtyard. His body was tight with unspent fury, his blood a molten current surging beneath his skin. He needed steel in his hands. He needed movement, the clash of blades, the bite of pain—something to ground himself before he burned alive from the inside out.
The moment he stepped onto the hard-packed earth of the training yard, his voice rang out, sharp and commanding.
“You.”
Ser Arryk Cargyll, the first knight in his line of sight, turned swiftly at the call. The man’s expression barely had time to shift from confusion to understanding before Aemond reached for the sword at his waist.
“Draw your sword,” Aemond ordered, his grip firm, his tone brooking no argument.
Ser Arryk hesitated. “My prince, I—”
“Do not make me repeat myself,” Aemond snapped, unsheathing his own longsword. The steel caught the afternoon sun, gleaming bright and hungry. “Draw your blade and face me.”
There was a beat of silence before Ser Arryk nodded stiffly and obeyed, drawing his sword with practiced ease.
Aemond did not wait.
He lunged.
His first strike was brutal, unrelenting, the force of it sending vibrations up his arms, the impact ringing through the courtyard like the toll of a bell.
Ser Arryk barely managed to parry in time, his expression shifting from hesitation to focus. He was a Kingsguard, sworn to be one of the best warriors in the realm. But Aemond did not fight like a man merely testing his skill. He fought like a man with something to prove.
Aemond pressed forward, each strike sharper, heavier, harder than the last. His movements were calculated, precise, but there was fire burning beneath them, a fury barely leashed. He attacked with the relentless precision of a warrior who had spent years honing himself into something formidable, something beyond the confines of what the gods had cursed him with.
Ser Arryk grunted as he met each blow, his footing slipping slightly as he was forced back. The courtyard had gone silent. Other knights and squires had paused their own drills to watch.
Aemond did not care.
This was not for them.
This was for him.
The steel sang as their swords clashed, the weight of every unspoken word, every bitter resentment, channeled into Aemond’s strikes. He did not slow, did not relent, until finally—Ser Arryk made a mistake.
It was small, almost imperceptible, but Aemond had spent years learning how to exploit even the smallest weaknesses. His sword flicked forward, disarming the knight in one swift movement. Ser Arryk’s blade clattered to the ground, and before he could react, Aemond drove his own blade forward, stopping just short of the knight’s throat.
The world stood still.
Aemond’s breath was ragged, his muscles taut with restrained violence.
His heart thundered in his chest, but the fire in his veins had not dimmed. If anything, it burned hotter.
He wanted more.
Slowly, he lowered his blade, stepping back as Ser Arryk exhaled heavily, nodding in stiff respect.
“My prince,” the knight murmured.
Aemond barely heard him.
His body still burned, his instincts still screamed.
His eye locked onto another figure in the yard.
“You.”
Ser Erryk Cargyll, twin to the man he had just bested, stiffened under the weight of his glare.
“Draw your sword,” Aemond ordered, his voice cutting through the tense silence like steel against stone.
Ser Erryk hesitated, glancing at his brother, but he knew better than to refuse. With a measured breath, he drew his blade and took his stance.
Aemond lunged.
The clash of steel rang out, sharper, more vicious than before. Ser Erryk was skilled—perhaps even a better swordsman than his brother—but Aemond was relentless.
He struck like a storm, fast and merciless, his blade a blur of silver. Erryk parried, barely holding his ground, but Aemond was already pushing forward.
He would not yield.
He would never yield.
Erryk managed to land a strike—his sword cutting a thin line across Aemond’s forearm—but Aemond did not even flinch. Pain was nothing.
He knocked Erryk’s sword aside with a brutal swing, stepping into his guard and slamming the hilt of his weapon into the knight’s ribs. Erryk grunted, stumbling back, and before he could recover, Aemond kicked his feet from under him, sending him crashing to the ground.
Aemond pressed his blade against Erryk’s throat, his chest rising and falling, barely winded.
“Yield,” he commanded, voice low and cold.
Erryk swallowed hard. “I yield, my prince.”
Aemond turned away before the words had even fully left his mouth.
The knights stood frozen, watching him with careful eyes, uncertain whether they should intervene.
He raised his sword again, pointing to another man.
“And you, uncle.”
Ser Gwayne Hightower stepped forward, his expression unreadable, but before Aemond could strike, slow, deliberate applause shattered the silence.
Mocking.
Aemond stilled, his breath sharp as a blade’s edge.
He turned.
And there they stood.
Jacaerys Velaryon, the bastard who had stolen his eye, and Lucerys Velaryon, the child who was meant to be his husband, hovered just beyond the gathered knights.
Jace stood at the front, his curls wind-tousled, his Velaryon-blue cloak draped elegantly over his shoulders. His lips curled into a knowing smile. Behind him, half-hidden, Lucerys clung to his older brother’s arm, his wide brown eyes filled with something between fear and defiance.
Aemond’s grip on his sword tightened until his knuckles turned white.
“Well fought, uncle,” Jace drawled, his voice lilting with insufferable amusement. “You do love putting on a show, don’t you?”
Aemond’s nostrils flared. He felt the fire in his chest surge higher, licking at his ribs, his throat, his mind.
He was here.
He had seen him.
Aemond’s entire body recoiled with the weight of his presence, his instincts raging against what his father had decreed.
To belong to them.
Unthinkable. Unforgivable.
His lips curled into a sneer. “You mock me at your own peril, Velaryon.”
Jace only smiled. “Oh, I would never dare.”
Lucerys shrank further behind his brother, his hands gripping Jace’s sleeve.
The watching knights shifted uneasily, sensing the storm that loomed between them.
Aemond did not move.
For a long, suffocating moment, they simply stared.
The fire inside him burned hotter, sharper, deadlier.
This was not over.
Not by a long shot.