Chapter Text
From Ria to Carden Grell, 4th day of the twelfth moon, delivered by Nemesis:
Dear Carden,
I find I miss you more than I anticipated. I miss the way the world makes sense when we're together. Here, I feel everything stands still and waits for me to do something.
I am training Prince Aemond now. He is a diligent pupil. You'd like him, I think. He is a strange creature, Carden. When he looks at me, I feel like he's expecting to find light in the dirt, and I find myself looking for it in him. It is a dangerous distraction. I wonder if he could be useful for our plans? And I wonder: Am I getting soft?
Teddy and the others are well, though I suspect they miss the road. It's been some time since we were all together, the six of us. I will return to camp soon enough. I have news that I must tell you face to face.
Until then, know that you are loved and missed dearly,
Ria.
From Carden to Ria, 9th day of the twelfth moon, sent back by raven:
General,
Don’t let the stillness of that palace trick you into thinking you’re losing your edge. You aren’t getting soft, you're simply far from the field, and it's the only place that ever felt solid beneath our feet.
As for that prince of yours, if he’s looking for light, let him find it. You have enough to give. If he’s a diligent pupil, teach him well. We’ve always known how to find the use in a thing, haven't we? You’ve navigated troops in the dark, you can navigate the moods of a dragon.
The camp is growing. We're putting your gold to good use. The commanders ask after you daily and Darren has three new recipes he wants you to try.
Sleep when you can. The world will still be there to be commanded in the morning.
With all that I am,
Carden.
With the passing of the season, Valaeria found she tired easily. There were too many strings to hold, too many pieces to account for and too many tasks to fulfill. Strangely enough, her training with Aemond seemed to be the one thing that kept her steady and gave her some perspective.
The snow fell in lazy, fat flakes when she decided that her pupil had done enough reading. They flew out to that empty meadow in the mountains again, where they could fight without other people watching. The snow disappeared the moment they touched the ground with the two dragons. Valaeria stood with her feet braced, her coat discarded on a nearby rock. She wore only her leathers and the dark material hugged the lines of her body against the snowy landscape.
“Attack me,” she said, readying her stance. “No sword.”
Aemond had his hair braided that morning, and swept it over his shoulder when he eyed her. Despite his biddings for combat training, he did not move. “I cannot strike a lady,” he said stiffly.
His hand-to-hand combat had been with knights and guards only, meant for breaking bones and bruising flesh. To strike her without the steel of a sword between them felt like a violation, even when Valaeria was far from being a respectable lady.
“How noble of you,” she countered with a lazy, dismissive smile.
The muscles of Aemond’s jaw twitched. He stepped forward to close the gap until he was towering over her. “If you bruise,” he warned, “you will have to find your own excuses for the maesters.”
“Let them wonder,” she grinned, knowing he would not even hit the mark. Before he could move, Ria aimed straight for his upper abdomen.
The air left his lungs in a sharp hiss.
"Focus, Your Highness," Valaeria said and her voice dropped into a rasp. "If I were an enemy, you’d be on your knees with a dagger in your throat right now.”
Her punch would've made a lesser man collapse, but to his credit, he was anything but.
Aemond recovered quickly, his face flushing from a sudden surge of adrenaline. He looked at her with a dilated eye. "You punch like a sellsword," he ground out, circling her now. The pain had snapped him out of his etiquette.
Valaeria moved in again, but this time he was ready. When she threw a second strike, albeit a lazy one, he parried her forearm with his own and snaked his hand out to catch her by the front of her tunic. He hauled her towards him, locking her in a hold. Valaeria drove a knee up to his thigh, but he twisted, catching her leg with his own, and they went down to the ground. Aemond landed on top of her, one knee bracing between her thighs, his hands pinning her wrists to the frozen earth.
Her hair spread out against the white ground like a dark halo. Her breath felt warm against his chin.
The silence of the moment roared in the mountains.
"Is this the attack you wished for?" he hissed, his face inches from hers.
"Close enough,” Valaeria whispered with a small shrug of her shoulders.
With a hook of her heel behind his calf, she bucked and the air was knocked out of him for the second time that day. The sky and snow spun until Aemond hit the ground again. There was no time to bring space between them or even attempt to scramble up, before Valaeria was over him, her knees on his hips and her hands flat against his chest, pinning him into the frost.
She let out a bright, triumphant laugh that dispersed the ghostly clouds of their ragged breathing. Aemond laid as still and rigid as a maiden on her wedding night against the heat of her thighs and the weight of her palms.
"You're on top of me.” He stared fixedly at a patch of gray sky over her shoulder.
Valaeria shook her head, clearing dust from her hair. "I am.”
"Well, get off.”
She feigned a frown. "Men normally like when I put them on their backs.”
With a single push, he sent her tumbling into the snow beside him. "Do not mistake me for a common soldier you can tease in a tavern," he countered quickly. "If this is the sort of charm you refined in the Riverlands, it is a wonder they didn't toss you back into the Blackwater." He looked down at her with haughty disapproval.
Valaeria sat up in the snow, leaning back on her elbows with a knowing smirk. She didn’t look insulted in the least, more like she’d just tasted something sweet, while she watched him wrestle with his own composure, enjoying the way he was working overtime to cover up the fact that she’d just had him pinned to the earth.
Aemond cleared his throat. "Well? Do you intend to lounge there until the spring thaw, or are you quite finished making a spectacle of yourself?”
“I'm finished.” She dusted the snow off her trousers with a grin. But instead of getting back into a fighting stance, she watched him with a tilt of her head. The way he was still slightly angled to keep her in his line of sight. "You’ve spent years perfecting your form," she said, her voice dropping the jibe. "You're compensating well for your one eye. Every angle is memorized.”
She raised her left hand, pressing her palm flat against her own eye. The horizon shifted as she looked up at him like this. When she reached out her hand, the distance between them felt more like a guess.
"You've trained your body to guard your left side, and you only turn over that hip.” She began to circle him again, just to see how his gaze would follow her. "Predictable. An experienced opponent won't aim for your blind side, but will wait for you to over-commit to its defense, then take your right arm.”
"I have beaten every knight in the yard with my predictable footwork," Aemond said, prideful and stung by her critique, more than he liked to admit.
"Because they fight you like a prince," Ria countered, her eyes flashed like gems against the snowy ground. "They’re afraid to hurt the king’s son."
This time she leveled her spear at his right shoulder. “Again.”
At times, she joined him in morning prayer.
Not because she had suddenly found her way to the Seven, but the silence of the Sept allowed for a moment of hollow peace. She sat on the stone bench next to the prince, heads bowed before the altar of the Mother.
To a stranger, they might’ve looked like two statues carved from different ores, one of dark bronze, one of cold silver.
From the deep shadows of the vaulted gallery above, Queen Alicent watched them, and her fingers twisted in the fabric of her skirts with treachery. How familiar the sight of them was. The brown head and the silver, side by side in the sacred light that made them look too much like a different girl and a different princess from a lifetime ago.
What could their increased sightings together symbolize but a new beginning? Alicent knew better than anyone how those beginnings ended in blood.
But for the time being, the two creatures sat beside each other and savored the last tastes of freedom that did not carry the taste of carcasses yet.
The quiet of the Sept only lasted until mid-morning when they found themselves in their meadow again.
She quickly found that Aemond watched her more closely than other opponents, could tell when she slipped away into her own head.
Ria would feel the jolt up her arm, to parry and use his momentum against him. Instead, she let her hand go slack and allowed her sword to be swept aside, indulging his need for a victory she didn't have the energy to contest. He cornered her, not without a biting remark.
“Do you take this seriously at all?” Aemond slanted a look of genuine irritation at her. “Or am I just another chore you fit in between accounting and steel shipments?”
Riq leaned her head back to catch a rare ray of sun before she looked up at him.
“My apologies, my prince,” she said with a weary smile. “I shall time my exhaustion for a moment that is less of an affront to your pride.”
Aemond tilted his head, but he didn't pull the sword back. If anything, he pressed the blunt edge a fraction firmer against her, a smirk finally curving his lips. “My pride is robust enough, General. It’s your survival instinct that is delicate. If I were an enemy scout, you’d be a corpse in the snow.”
“If you were an enemy scout, you wouldn’t be lingering here like a jilted suitor waiting for me to tell you how clever and formidable you are,” Ria countered, finally snapping into back focus.
Aemond looked at her as if she were a riddle he wanted to solve and then set on fire.
“You’re distracted because you’ve convinced yourself the sun won't rise unless you personally oversee it,” Aemond remarked, his voice dropping into that rough, private cadence they shared. “You’re sloppy.”
“I’m a general.” she said with a shrug. The sting was gone, replaced by a weary sort of camaraderie. “Some of us have to ensure the soldiers are fed throughout winter before we can play in the dirt.”
“Find a better bookkeeper,” he said, sheathing his blade with a crisp click. “I won't have my target falling asleep midswing because she’s worried about salted beef. You're insulting my technique.”
Ria let out a huff of her own, brushing the snowflakes from her leathers. “Your technique is fine, my prince. It’s your patience that needs work.”
“Again.” His stride was arrogant as ever when he called over his shoulder. “I expect a proper fight now, don't bore me.”
All of their interactions were like this now, a little dance of sharp teeth and witty tongues, that felt safer than the alternative. His title was used as an insult and her name as a challenge.
If they were friends again, she could not tell. They traded remarks like two stones striking together to see which would spark first. But there was a warmth to him that she could not place. Danger, her intuition screamed at her. Anything that she could not account for was dangerous.
From Ria to the Princess Rhaenyra, written with her left hand and personally delivered to an envoy:
Your Grace,
The reports from the capital are as follows:
The Greens intend on poisoning the well before push comes to shove. Reports reach me that the Hand has deployed septons to the markets who speak of Andal law and the natural order.
On the water, they are desperate. They cannot match the Velaryon fleet in grace, even with Lannister support. I'd not be surprised if the Hightowers seek allies across the Narrow Sea.
I've come to know the prince better after a month. He is high-strung and sharp. I am breaking him to the bridle as we discussed, though he bites at the bit. Alicent feeds him with a diet of iron and old grievances. He will be a terror in the field, but he has no concept of how to husband the land once the grass is burned.
The gold from the west continues to flow, but it is a loan, not a gift. The debt is mounting. The loyalty here is bought by the day, it does not reside in the heart.
I shall make a stop to Casterly Rock and the Reach to investigate.
Signed,
your loyal servant.
Take me to war
Honey, I dare you
Helaena’s chambers lingered with the scent of warmed milk and candle wax, now mixed with the clean bite of steel oil that stubbornly continued to cling to Ria when she returned from training.
Teddy trotted ahead of her, chattering to Jaehaera about some imagined battle neither of them had survived. They had formed a habit from holding hands now and Ria smiled despite herself as she followed them inside.
“Princess?”
Helaena was nowhere to be found.
Instead, she found Aemond seated by the window.
A book rested open in his hands and Jaehaerys by his side.
The sight was strange enough to stop her in the doorway.
The prince who was all sharp edges and quiet severity, while the boy seemed incapable of stillness. But Jaehaerys leaned against Aemond's arm, peering intently at the pages like he understood every word.
Nearby, Maelor laid in a cradle, kicking his legs and cooing to himself.
Aemond glanced up first.
"The princess is gone?" Valaeria asked.
"To the gardens," he replied. "You may leave Jaehaera here."
Ria smiled. "I suppose that means I am dismissed."
"If you wish." He gave a gracious nod, looking over her training clothes.
"How did your training fare?"
“She learns quickly,” Valaeria said proudly. “Though she cheats her laps terribly.”
Before the princess could protest, Ria scooped her into the air, spinning her until the little girl shrieked with laughter.
Her face glowed with a vitality that felt more real than any marriage pact signed in Borros Baratheon’s halls.
Tedren tugged at her tunic. “I can spin too.”
“I have no doubt.”
Aemond closed his book. “You may leave the boy,” he said after a moment. “The children seem determined to destroy this room together.”
She gave him a thankful smile and a second thought. “May I stay too?” The day had already demanded more in just that morning than she wanted to give.
The prince paused. Then: “If you wish.”
His permission pleased her more than it should have.
The early noon slipped away pleasantly. Jaehaerys demanded a battle with carved dragons while Teddy tried to argue strategy with all the gravity of a seasoned commander. Jaehaera insisted on crowning her with woven ribbons stolen from somewhere within the chambers and even Aemond accepted one graciously, before removing it with profound dignity.
Ria laughed more than she had in weeks.
Eventually, Maelor began fussing and waved his fists indignantly from his cradle.
“Oh, what troubles you so?” Ria murmured, looking over the cradle walls.
"He wishes to be held."
Her head snapped around.
"Truly?"
The prince looked faintly amused. "Yes."
“Sweet boy,” she murmured, carefully gathering him into her arms. “Gods, he smells delicious,” Ria murmured into his silver tufts of hair that smelled of milk and lavender soap.
Maelor blinked up at her with wide violet eyes and a wobbling lower lip and Ria had to rock him gently, unsure how, but surely there weren’t too many ways to rock an infant.
She paused, looking at him more intently.
"What?" Aemond immediately looked suspicious when he saw her raised brow.
She looked between the infant and the prince. Up close, she could see the sharp little nose, pale lashes, the faintly disapproving expression for one so impossibly small.
"You know..."
"No."
"He resembles you."
Aemond stared.
"When you were a babe, I mean."
His expression told her, this was not an improvement.
"The shape of his nose." She tilted her head. "And the glare."
"He is three months old."
"He glares remarkably well."
Aemond rolled his one eye. Proving her point, as Ria thought, but he did not move away from her.
“My prince…,” she said carefully then. “I will leave for camp again. For a moon or two, I’m not sure.” She could not read the expression on his face. “I placed your readings in the library. If you miss a more ruthless opponent with the sword, my knight is at your service.”
“Thank you,” the prince said curtly. After a brief pause: “I will wait for your return.”
Before she could think of a reply, Jaehaerys climbed onto the plush cushions next to them, pushing a story book to his uncle.
“Read?”
Serwyn of the Mirror Shield.
Ria rolled her eyes. There was hardly a more overtold story than this in all Seven Kingdoms.
Still, Aemond accepted. “As his Grace commands.” Jaehaerys looked immensely pleased when he began reading.
The prince had a voice for story-telling, she realized. Steady and measured and velvety in a way that was unexpected. The sound of him filled the room, deep enough that she could feel it more than hear it at times.
The children gradually settled around them, the twins to their feet and Tedren to her side. Even Maelor drifted into sleep when she placed him back into the cradle.
The story continued. Outside, the wind seemed to howl and rattle the windows. Ria felt her eyes growing heavy.
Just for a moment.
Just until the next page.
She tried to stay awake.
At first, she truly did.
The past few days had left her exhausted down to the bone. Every muscle in her body ached from tension and too little sleep. Warmth from the hearth wrapped around her, pulling at her eyelids until they burned each time she forced them open again.
Ria rested her cheek against her hand, blinking slowly.
Across from her, one of the children had already collapsed against another’s shoulder, fast asleep.
She stopped following the story entirely. All that remained was the sound of him.
Her head dipped once.
She caught herself immediately, straightening with a quiet inhale. Embarrassing.
Then again.
This time exhaustion dragged her downward before she could properly resist it. Entirely improper.
Dimly, somewhere far away, she felt Aemond tense beneath her.
The realization came too slow. By then her body had already given in completely. Her head dropped against his shoulder as sleep overtook her in one heavy wave.
Only when the story ended, Ria jerked upright.
Her eyes flew open.
For one mortifying moment she stared directly into his face, his stupid, unreadable expression.
Color flooded her cheeks.
"Oh."
She nearly stirred up Teddy to her side. "Forgive me... I should go."
A hand came up to the side of her head. His hand, she thought dimly.
“Rest. You should rest.” Aemond guided her back to his side, letting his touch linger against her cheek for a moment longer.
She could only stare at the fireplace before them, dazed and trying to find a sign of mockery or irritation in his tone.
This time, when sleep dragged at her, she did not fight it.
Valaeria let herself curl against his side, exhaustion finally winning as she drifted back into darkness to the sound of Aemond’s breathing beside her.
I'll be the sweetest thing
To ever scare you
Give me a fight I can't resist
Give me something to break with my fists
From Prince Aemond to General Valaeria Targaryen, 17th day of the second moon:
Valaeria,
The Maesters tell me the spring rains have turned the roads in the Riverlands to soup. I assume this means your march is delayed.
The sky is empty in your absence.
The king is unwell again, so the Keep is hushed. Mother mentioned a dinner in the small hall soon, just the family. I told her I do not care for the menu, so long as Aegon is sober enough to stay in his chair.
Tell me the campaign is ending. Tell me the camp is packed. I find I am losing my patience.
Aemond
From Ria to Prince Aemond, 28th day of the second moon:
You didn’t mention it once. Not a single word on this page.
You think if you don’t say the word 'nameday,' I’ll forget that you’re turning another year older? You were always terrible at hiding things from me, my prince. I know exactly when it is and I know that dinner is for you.
Don't you dare spend the evening brooding into your cup. I’m pushing the men hard to finish the final patrols. We’re ahead of schedule, despite the mud. I’ll be there. I’ll definitely make it in time for your evening, though I might smell more of dragon than the queen would prefer.
Keep practicing your parry, I want to see if you’ve improved when I get back. And save me a seat, preferably one far away from your grandfather.
I shall not wish you a happy nameday yet, I fear I will jinx it. Instead, Aemond, find other words: I’m proud of the man you’ve become, even if he is a bit of a brooding terror. You made it so far. We both made it. That’s the greatest victory of all, isn't it?
With love, Ria.