Chapter Text
“My father said she is mourning.”
The prince hadn’t noticed the girl approaching until she was by his side, her hands on the parapet mirroring his. She gazed out toward the beach where Vhagar, the old dragon who belonged to the late Lady Laena Velaryon, lay resting.
The girl had long, wavy silver-gold hair and fair skin, her features unmistakable. He had spotted her earlier, standing poised one step behind his uncle; he had noticed her composure and his gaze had lingered a bit too much, maybe, on her features. She had the beauty of the Targaryen women, much like his sister.
As he studied her now, his thoughts drifted back to his foolish exchange with his ungrateful brother. Perhaps not all was lost. Maybe he could still have a chance to marry within his own blood and strengthen his own lineage, a chance that was standing right there.
“I am sorry for your loss,” the prince said politely, trying to make a good first impression.
“Thank you, cousin. I mourn her, but the Lady Laena was not my mother,” she clarified, turning toward him with a hint of a smile. “I am the eldest daughter of Prince Daemon.”
She had pretty blue eyes. That he noticed, and he also couldn’t help but notice the practiced ease with which she spoke, as if this was not the first time she had to offer that explanation.
Suddenly it came all back to him. During the journey to Driftmark, while aboard the ship with his parents, he had overheard them speaking of his uncle’s eldest being present at the funeral. She was a bastard, born to Prince Daemon right before he married the lady Laena. His mother had wondered aloud what the girl might have looked like considering her mother was Dornish.
And there she was now, standing next to him. At first sight, it had been easy for him to assume she was one of Laena and Daemon’s daughters… realising she was not true-born had a bittersweet taste. She definitely didn’t fit any of the many theories his mother had woven… for despite being a bastard, she bore all the features of those in whose veins the blood of Old Valyria run thick, as the mourner had nicely declared in the eulogy earlier. He smirked at the thought.
“So, you’re the Dornish bastard, aren't you?” It hadn’t been his intention, the words had reached his mouth and, before he could even realise it, he blurted them out. A fleeting moment of regret was swiftly buried under a surge of spite. After all, she was still a bastard.
“Yes,” she smiled, politely. “I am indeed.”
She seemed utterly unbothered and this really bothered Aemond. How could she not be offended?
“Is it Sand right? The name bastards take in Dorne?” he probed, trying to provoke her and elicit a more satisfying reaction.
“Yes it is.”
And now, more than ever, he wanted to wipe that smile off her face, for bastards are an insult to true-borns.
“I am the bastard daughter of Prince Daemon Targaryen and Princess Deria of House Martell, younger sister of the Prince of Dorne,” she added, the smile gone, replaced by a stern, unyielding look in her eyes. There was no anger in her tone, but the young prince could see it; she was ready for a confrontation, if that was the path he wanted to take.
In truth, Aemond was taken aback by her answer. He hadn’t expected her to be highborn, let alone a highborn from the ruling house of Dorne. He resented his parents for failing to mention this ‘small’ detail in their conversation.
As he was still thinking, searching for an appropriate response, he caught a shadow flicker in her eyes. He turned to follow her gaze and saw his father, the King, talking to his uncle, Prince Daemon.
“I am glad my father had a chance to see his brother. Even in these sad circumstances.”
Prince Daemon glanced towards them. A part of him was eager to meet the uncle he heard so many stories about; the bold and fierce man who was still feared and revered in King’s Landing, the one who dared defy even the King. But the cold look in the man’s eyes was too intimidating.
Daemon made a nod towards his daughter.
“If you’ll excuse me, Prince Aemond,” she said.
“How do you …” he faltered, caught off guard. “I don’t know your name.”
“Nymeria, My Prince. Nymeria Sand,” she said with a graceful curtsy, before rejoining the two men.
A small smile tugged at his lips as he watched her curtsying his father, the King, in the same manner she did with him only moments before. But when his father raised a hand to caress her cheek, he felt the bitter sting of jealousy. He turned away, glooming at the thought that a stranger could get so easily what he and his siblings had to earn every day. Any gesture of affection, or even just attention, was scarcely bestowed to them.
A lament from Vhagar raised low from the beach, drawing the young prince’s attention towards it. There she was, the oldest, mightiest and largest of dragons in the world, and right now she was riderless. He would not wait for one of the hatchlings on Dragonstone, as his father had suggested, promising him one if he was bold enough. No, he would show them all how bold he was, he thought, as an idea began to take shape in his mind.
That night Nymeria laid in bed, sleepless, thinking of the harsh word his father had exchanged with his brother. The King had asked him to return to King’s Landing with all of them, and she had heard the warmth in his voice, the unspoken affection, the longing for his younger brother whom he must have missed very much. But her father had dismissed the request and walked away so abruptly that she could almost feel the weight pressing down on the King’s shoulders, threatening to crush him. She couldn’t even imagine the depth of pain that came from being so rejected by someone you held so dear.
She finally fell asleep, well past the hour of the ghost, promising herself she would try to convince her father to at least visit the King in the capital. It would be the chance, both for her and her sisters, to see the court, the famed Red Keep. She whispered to herself that it was certainly not because of her cousin, whom she had just met. He was not so very beautiful, perhaps a little annoying. Still, she couldn't help but wonder—would he really be so bothered by the fact that she was a bastard?
The sound of muffled voices, rustling steps, and robes, roused her up from the depth of her sleep. She sat on the bed she had shared with her sisters, now empty. It took her a couple of minutes to adjust to the darkness of the room, the cold making her shiver, then she saw them. The two younger girls were standing by the window, whispering incomprehensibly. As she concentrated to understand what they were saying, she heard it; the roar of a dragon. She stood up, heedless of the cold stones under her bare feet, and she reached them.
“What is happening?” She asked, glancing outside. The sky was still pitch dark. But there, barely visible against the darkness, she spotted the looming mass of what could only be Vhagar. The beast was no longer circling the sky aimlessly, as she had done since their arrival in Driftmark. There was something intentional in the way the dragon moved.
“Someone stole Vhagar!” Rhaena told her, upset.
Of course she was. It was her mother’s dragon.
“Rhaena …” she began, but before she could say another word, the two girls darted across the room where Princess Rhaenyra’s boys were sleeping.
She looked out the window again. The dragon roared once more but this time it was not a mournful roar. The riderless dragon had a new rider.
“Ny! Come!” She turned and saw the four children hurriedly finishing getting dressed.
“Where do you think you are going?!”
“To confront the thief!” Jace said boldly.
“There is no thief! A dragon cannot be stolen! It’s not some piece of jewellery!” She whispered, exasperated. She would have yelled but held back, not wanting to wake the whole castle. She knew trouble was coming. There were only three people on that island with enough Dragonlord blood in their veins to claim a dragon such as Vhagar, and two of them were in that very room. This left only one possibility.
Prince Aemond. It must have been him, she thought, panicking.
“We should wake father, and your parents!” she said addressing Jace and Luke “They’ll know what to do!”
Her words fell on deaf ears.
“Are you coming or not?” Rhaena called as they rushed through the door. Nymeria let out a deep breath, both annoyed and worried, before hastily throwing on her clothes before hurrying outside.
She didn’t follow them immediately; instead, she rushed to her father’s door. She didn’t bother knocking and entered unceremoniously, only to find the room empty. The bed, untouched. No sign of his clothes either. Not a single trace of him. She felt at loss and, for a moment, she considered knocking on Princess Rhaenyra’s door but she hesitated. She wasn’t even sure which one it was.
Damn , she thought as she sprinted toward the outer yard of the castle, trying to catch up with the four avengers on a warpath. She was older and taller than them, she should have been faster too, well able to recover some of the advantage they had gained.
Silence enveloped the corridors and stairs of the castle, making her footsteps echo against the thick walls. Few torches had been left alight to cast away the shadows from the darkest corners. Nymeria couldn’t help but notice, not without surprise, that not a single guard was in sight. Neither Lord Corlys’ men nor the Kingsguard.
She heard their screams right before she reached the outer yards. Heart pounding, she rushed through the door, just on time to see Prince Aemond pinned to the ground, her sisters and one of the boys above him raining down blows. She froze at the sheer brutality of the scene. They were just children, yet, at that moment they looked anything but.
Nymeria yelled at them to stop at top of her lungs, but to no avail. She saw the boy, who now she recognised as Prince Jacaerys, kicked away, and her sisters shoved on the side while Aemond regained the upper hand.
She grabbed her sisters and pulled them back. Lucerys attacked the older Targaryen boy, but it was no match and Aemond blocked him easily, holding him by the neck as he raised with a rock in his free hand.
“Please stop!” She pleaded again, putting herself between her sisters and the boys still fighting.
“You will die screaming in flames like your father did!” Aemond spat venomously, then glared towards Jacaerys. “Bastards.”
She froze again at his words, unable to move. It hit her like a wave crashing on the rocks, the despise, the hatred in his voice.
Lucerys cried “My father’s still alive”
Aemond lowered the hand holding the rock. “He doesn’t know, does he? Lord Strong,” he taunted Jacaerys.
The three girls held their breath, Nymeria’s eyes locked on Aemond, shocked that he had dared to speak the truth - one everyone knew but that no one was allowed to even whisper. Then a sudden cry shattered her shock. Her sister screamed Jace’s name as the boy drew a dagger and attacked Aemond.
She couldn’t make herself move or speak as the fight spiralled before her eyes. Jace was on the ground once more, the dagger lost, while Aemond loomed over him, a rock in his hand, ready to hit him. Desperation broke through her paralysis, and she screamed at the top of her lungs again, begging them to stop.
And Aemond hesitated.
He looked towards her, one second too long and it was fatal. She saw him, Lucerys, picking up the blade, while Jacaerys, in a desperate attempt to defend himself, threw sand in his uncle’s eyes. The blade glinted sinisterly in the light of the torches as Lucerys slashed Aemond’s face.
The prince wailed, clutching the left side of his face, and before she knew it, she had rushed to him, gripping his shoulder. The boy latched onto her arm as she held his head gently.
“Get help!” she screamed at the four children, who were all staring speechless and frightened, Lucerys battered and bleeding. Then finally help arrived. Ser Harrold stormed in, intimating them to “cease at once.”
Where were you?! She thought bitterly, but she bit her tongue as the knight shoved her aside, Aemond still clutching her arm, his right eye wild with rage.
“Gods be good,” the man whispered, shocked.
But the gods were not good that night.
She walked behind as they brought the prince inside, her dress soaked in blood. She barely registered her sister Rhaena slipping a hand into hers or the knights of the Kingsguard herding them forward.
She could have stopped this, but she hadn’t and let it happen. For the first time in her life, she felt helpless.
Nymeria sat tall on the edge of the chair, staring stubbornly at the small table in front of her, jaws clenched.
“I do not like you taking the Hightower boy's side. We are family. It is your sisters and your cousins you should be siding with,” her father repeated once again, exasperated by her silence.
“Are we clear?” He was barely hiding his irritation.
Daemon interrupted pacing the room to stand in front of her, his eyes, hardened, were burning like dragon fire. He wanted an answer, but she wasn’t ready to comply and give him the answer he wanted. After all, she was as stubborn as he was, or so they said.
She lifted her head to meet his gaze, her blue eyes calm like twin lakes. “I did not take his side for the sake of it. I merely answered the King’s question.” With a weary sigh, she repeated the story once more.
“When I arrived, I saw Prince Aemond on the ground, surrounded by others who were punching and kicking him. I do not know who started it. And I did take my sisters' side, I pulled them away and I pleaded with them all to stop. To no avail”
“You blamed Lucerys. This is what your sisters told me.”
“I did,” she antagonised him. “And I blame Jacaerys for bringing a blade. He is responsible for drawing it in the first place. Had he not, Aemond will still have his eye and all this would have been nothing more than a stupid kids’ quarrel! I do blame Aemond for provoking them, calling them bastards. But that does not justify what happened next!” She exclaimed angrily, unable to hide it any longer.
“He had a rock in his hand and he wanted to kill Jace,” her father smirked. It was just the two of them, and from the early hours of the morning, she had known how much he had found the whole ordeal amusing. He had smirked the same way when Princess Rhaenyra had asked Aemond to be ‘sharply’ questioned, something she had found outrageous at the time.
There was not a person in the Seven Kingdoms who hadn’t heard rumours about the Velaryon boys, yet no one would dare say anything, not when the King himself refused to see it. She remembered her father’s hand pressing firmly over mouth, silencing her before she could say something they would both come to regret in the King’s presence. She had looked up at him, angered but he paid no attention to her; he just kept staring at the whole scene unravelling in front of them with contented amusement.
Everyone knows … Aegon’s words echoed in her mind.
“We will never know what might have happened …” she murmured, pensively. “All we know is what did happen and its consequences. A boy has lost one eye and was left disfigured. Another boy got a broken nose and will carry forever the memory of blinding his uncle, remember forever that he blinded his uncle, his conscience burdened. It is unfair.”
She drew in a sharp breath, her eyes locking onto his father’s with quiet defiance. “I hope Lucerys feels guilt. I hope he regrets it. And you can scold me all you want, but it won’t change how I feel.”
Her fingers clenched around the fabric of her gown, knuckles white, as she held her ground. Though she had changed into fresh clothes, she could still smell the blood that stained what she wore earlier. When she closed her eyes she could still see the deep gash on the prince’s face, the maester hunched over him. He had barely made a sound when they treated the wound and removed what remained of his blinded eye, and stitched the torn flesh closed. He had been so brave, the bravest she had ever seen.
“Nuha tale jorraeliarza …” her father said in a much sweeter voice than she expected. He sat in the chair next to her, taking her hand. “We’ll go to your sisters and you’ll make peace with each other. I want you to set aside this anger and put this behind you. What is done cannot be undone. We shall not waste any more time on it.”
“I don’t need to make peace with them. I love them,” she answered softly.
“I am angry with myself,” she admitted, shunning his gaze. “I am also to blame… for not stepping in, and stopping them from fighting. I froze. I was afraid and I didn’t know what to do.”
“You couldn’t have done anything, except getting yourself hurt.”
“Then teach me. Teach me how to fight so that I can block an assailant. Teach me how to defend myself and the ones I care about,” she pleaded.
He nodded, smiling. “Once we’re in Dragonstone. Now come, your sisters are waiting for you and I want to get some sleep”
She followed him without protest, confused at the idea of traveling to Dragonstone. She couldn’t remember that being part of the plans. Ever. As far as she knew, her father and sisters were meant to remain at Driftmark for a time before returning to Essos, while she had expected to return to Sunspear for a few moons to visit her mother. It seemed her father had made completely different plans overnight.
As she walked through the corridor, trailing behind him, she heard voices, echoing from the nearby staircase.
“Father,” she called, quickening her pace. “I would like to go and see how Prince Aemond is fairing.” She was certain it was his voice she just heard.
“No. You won’t. You have no business with the Hightower boy. You will not look for him or speak to him. He’s done enough already”
“The ‘Hightower’ boy is also half Targaryen; he is blood of your blood, he is your brother’s son! You cannot deny that.” She retorted, her voice firm, unwavering. “And he did exactly what you would have done if you were in his place. What you wish Rhaena or I would have done.” Her words hung between them, laced with defiance.
“Watch your tongue now! I won’t tolerate your insolence,” he snapped, pushing open the door of the room she shared with her siblings.
“Gaomagon daor jenigon issa,” Do not cross me , he warned before closing the door behind her.
She sighed at the sight of her sisters, then opened her arms with a small, weary smile. “Come here, you two troublemakers!”
She didn’t have to repeat it twice. The girls rushed to her embrace, holding on tightly. After a long moment, Baela let go while Rhaena clung on to her a little longer.
Turning to the boys, she softened her expression and forced a smile. “How’s your nose Lucerys?”
Lucerys offered an hesitant smile in return, but she could see a somber look in his eyes. She felt heartbroken, knowing he would have to carry that weight for the rest of his life.
“It will heal quickly,” she said in the most reassuring tone she could muster.
She unlatched Rhaena’s arms from her waist. “Wait here, I will be back soon.”
The girls tried to object but she silenced them with a firm, authoritative tone to convince them not to follow her. They were already in enough trouble, herself included, but she would take the risk. She wanted to take the risk.
She ran to the stairwell, then down to the main hall and the courtyard. She heard the dragons roar and, as she stepped in the sunlight, she saw a golden dragon take flight, followed closely by another blue one, equally magnificent. But there was no sign of Vhagar in the skies.
Nymeria climbed up the outer bastions, her heart racing, her stomach churning. She leaned forward on the parapet and she saw it, advancing slowly, ready to take flight, the prince steadily straddled. He turned in her direction, bandages covering half his face. He looked at her for a long moment before Vhagar jumped off the rocks and flew high into the sky.
Nymeria remained there, her eyes locked on the horizon until the dragons vanished from view. A strange, warm ache tugged at her chest, something she never felt before and couldn’t quite understand.