Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Blood Before Vows
For a moment after the scream, the court did not move.
That was what made the Dread Legion seem so violent. The nobles froze with cups in hand, mouths half-open, silk sleeves lifted from dances that had not finished, faces pale beneath torchlight as the truth crawled too slowly across the throne room.
Servants stood like carved things beside tables. Musicians held their instruments in useless hands. Lords who would have shouted commands at armies could not find words because blood had reached the floor before ceremony had told them how to react.
My officers did not wait for ceremony.
Jasper hit the first Kingsguard like a battering ram finding a gate. The white cloak nearest him had stepped forward to block the path to Criston, perhaps out of duty, perhaps out of instinct, and Jasper nearly drove him backwards into the dancers.
Another Kingsguard caught Jasper by the shoulder, then two Targaryen household guards joined them, boots scraping across stone as they fought to hold back a man who had forgotten the room contained kings, queens, princes, and consequences.
Rollis came behind him, slower because of the leg, but no less terrible. His cane was raised like a weapon, his face hollow with grief that had not yet found tears, and the young Targaryen guard who seized his arm looked more frightened of the old officer than of Jasper’s rage. Rollis snarled something I did not hear, low and broken, and tried to wrench himself free with a strength his body had no right to possess.
"Hold them!" Harrold Westerling roared, and the command cracked through the hall with the authority Viserys had not yet found.
Criston Cole backed away from Emeric.
His white cloak was no longer clean. Blood marked his hand, his sleeve, the edge of his knuckles, a smear against the white that seemed obscene because it should never have been there.
For one instant, he looked down at what he had done, chest heaving, face caught between fury and the first dawning recognition that anger had carried him somewhere no oath could follow. Then his eyes lifted and found me.
I do not know what he saw. I know what I felt.
My hand went to the place where World Breaker would have hung if the Red Keep had allowed a bridegroom to enter the feast armed as a battlefield required. My fingers closed on nothing, and the absence may have saved the room from becoming worse than murder. I wanted steel. I wanted his throat under it. I wanted the white cloak torn from him and stuffed into his mouth so he could choke on the honour he had dressed himself in.
He turned and fled.
Not toward the King. Not toward Harrold. Not toward the justice his cloak was supposed to serve. He fled toward the side passage near the wall, past a servant who dropped a silver tray and stumbled back with a cry. Harrold shouted his name. Another Kingsguard moved after him, but too late, and too uncertainly, as if the sight of one of their own running from blood had broken something inside their order.
I shouted after him in High Valyrian.
The words tore out of me before thought could shape them into Westerosi courtesy. I cursed him by blood, by fire, by broken oaths, by every god this world had invented to watch men lie beneath banners. I called him coward, oath-breaker, carrion in white, a butcher of guests, a dog gnawing at the hand of a princess he pretended to guard. Most of the hall did not understand the words, but they understood the sound. Hatred did not need translation.
Rhaenyra understood enough. Daemon understood more. Viserys paled for a different reason.
Daemon had Rhaenyra behind him before I fully realised she was moving. He had crossed the space with the quickness of a man who expected violence from every angle, one arm barring her from the chaos while his other hand hovered near the dagger he had somehow kept despite every rule written for the feast. Rhaenyra tried to step around him, eyes fixed on Emeric, on me, on Criston’s vanishing white cloak, but Daemon held her back with a force that was protective rather than gentle.
"Not yet," he told her.
She looked furious enough to strike him. He did not move.
For that, I was grateful, though gratitude tasted like ash. Rhaenyra near the centre of that madness would have given Otto Hightower a dozen new weapons before Emeric’s blood had finished spreading across the stone. Daemon knew it. He stood between her and the collapse of the hall like a dragon in human shape, smiling at nothing now, every trace of amusement burned out of him.
Landrey reached Emeric first.
He went to his knees hard enough that I heard the impact over the shouting. The elegance of the dance, the careful vanity of fitted sleeves, the cavalryman’s endless complaints about court and horses and cities vanished from him as if they had been costumes torn away.
He lifted Emeric’s shoulders with a care so desperate it looked like prayer, one hand sliding beneath the archer’s head, the other pressing uselessly against blood that would not return where it belonged.
"Emeric," Landrey said, voice raw. "Emeric, damn you, breathe."
Emeric did not. I reached them and dropped to one knee.
The side of his face had been broken against the stone. Blood darkened his hair, his cheek, the collar of his purple coat. The white sword within its crescent wreath was half-hidden beneath the twist of his body, the thread wet and blackening where blood had soaked through.
His eyes were partly open, but whatever discipline had lived behind them was gone. The careful archer who had counted strings, checked wind, measured distance, doubted me, followed me, and stayed when a thousand men walked away was no longer looking at anything.
Landrey held him as if grip alone could keep him from leaving. Vaeron arrived beside me and stopped. He did not kneel. That frightened me more than if he had screamed.
His gaze fixed on Emeric’s body with a coldness so complete it did not look like grief at first. It looked like winter settling over a ledger where one line had been written in blood. His face held no tears, no rage, no visible tremor. Only stillness. Only calculation pressed flat over something breaking beneath it.
Then his eyes moved to Criston’s blood on the floor. To the side passage. To Jasper being restrained. To Otto Hightower. I followed his gaze without meaning to.
Viserys had risen behind the royal table, but he had not yet become the King. He stood with one hand braced against the wood, staring at Emeric’s body as if the sight refused to become real because he had not permitted it.
His mouth opened once, then closed. Alicent stood beside him, one hand pressed against her chest, face pale beneath the green of her gown, and I could not tell whether horror, fear, or the instinct to protect Criston held her frozen.
Otto Hightower did not look shocked. That was what I saw through the rage.
The Hand of the King watched the hall collapse around a dead man in purple, and there was something almost amused in the calm of his face. Not a smile. Otto was too careful for that. But amusement lived in the absence of surprise, in the slight softness near his eyes, in the way his attention moved not to Emeric as a murdered guest, but to Jasper straining against Kingsguard hands, to Rollis’s raised cane, to my face, to every dangerous reaction that could be named proof.
Criston Cole had placed a knife on the table. Otto was already deciding whose hand should be blamed for reaching toward it.
"No steel," Vaeron said. He did not shout. Somehow, every Galeris man heard him.
Jasper fought another moment, chest heaving, teeth bared, three men still holding him back. Rollis lowered his cane by a fraction, not because he was calmer, but because Vaeron’s voice had cut through rage with the weight of survival. Landrey did not look up from Emeric. I remained kneeling, my hands hovering uselessly because there was nothing left to save and too much left to destroy.
"No steel," Vaeron repeated, colder now. "Do not give them what they want."
That was the worst part. He was right.
If Jasper broke free and killed a Kingsguard knight in the throne room, Emeric would become the beginning of a different story by morning. If I attacked the white cloaks, Otto would call it foreign violence beneath the King’s roof.
If the Dread Legion drew blood before the court, the murder of my officer would be buried beneath fear of my army. The trap had not been laid by Otto, perhaps, but it had appeared at his feet, and he had already stepped around it neatly.
I looked down at Emeric. He had been beaten to death in my wedding colours. Under royal hospitality. In the throne room. At the first feast of the week meant to celebrate my marriage.
"Your Grace," I said. My voice sounded wrong. Too calm. Viserys looked at me as if waking from water. "He murdered my officer beneath your roof."
The hall heard that. Good.
Let them hear it in Westerosi words. Let no one claim later that grief had spoken only in a foreign tongue. Let them know what had happened before Otto could dress it in softer cloth.
Viserys swallowed. "I saw..."
"No," Alicent said suddenly.
Every eye moved to her.
Her face had gone whiter than before, but she stood straight in green, fear and resolve fighting openly now. "No, Your Grace. We do not know what passed between them. Ser Criston must be heard."
Rhaenyra stepped around Daemon then, though he stayed close enough to stop anything worse. "He was seen standing over a dying man."
Alicent looked at her. "And your captain’s officers tried to attack the Kingsguard."
Jasper made a sound that should have drawn swords. Vaeron turned his head very slowly toward the Queen. The temperature of the hall seemed to drop.
"Careful," I said.
Alicent’s eyes met mine, and for the first time that night I saw real fear there. Not fear of me alone. Fear of what had happened, what Criston had done, what she had already begun defending because some part of her had moved toward him before reason could stop it. Otto stepped slightly toward his daughter, not enough to interrupt, enough to remind the room she did not stand alone.
"My queen," I continued, "one of my men lies dead on your husband’s floor."
"And a knight of the Kingsguard has fled," Daemon added, voice sharp enough to cut through every whisper. "Perhaps send men after him before we begin polishing his excuses."
Harrold Westerling’s face was carved from shame. "Your Grace," he said to Viserys, bowing stiffly, "I will have Ser Criston secured."
Viserys found the King then. Late. Too late. But found him.
"Do it," he said. "Bring him to guarded custody. Now."
Harrold turned at once, snapping orders to two white cloaks and several Targaryen guards. They moved toward the side passage with more purpose than they had shown when Criston fled.
Whether they meant to seize him, protect him, or simply remove him from reach, I could not know. All I knew was that the man who had killed Emeric was gone, and every breath between his escape and justice gave anger more room to rot.
The feast was over before Viserys said it.
The music would not return. The dancers had scattered to the edges. Nobles stood in clusters, whispering into sleeves, behind cups, through stiff lips. The Great Houses had come to witness a wedding week and had been given murder before the first night’s sweets were cleared.
Lannister gold looked dimmer in the torchlight. Baratheon confidence had grown watchful. Tyrell softness had sharpened. Corlys Velaryon watched me with something like grim understanding. Rhaenys watched Criston’s blood trail. The Royces looked at Daemon, then at Emeric, perhaps wondering whether all royal rooms protected killers until they did not.
Viserys looked at the hall and aged in front of us. "My lords and ladies," he said, voice rough but carrying, "return to your chambers. The feast is ended. The King’s peace has been broken, and it will be answered."
Otto bowed his head slightly, as if the words pleased him less than the situation did. "Your Grace," he said softly, "with the city crowded, tempers inflamed, and foreign soldiers housed by the harbour, we must act with care. Any appearance of haste may worsen matters."
I almost stood. Vaeron’s hand gripped my shoulder. Not gently. I stayed kneeling.
Daemon laughed once, without humour. "A man has been murdered in front of you, Otto. Haste might be the first honest thing this room has seen tonight."
Otto did not look at him. "And yet Prince Daemon knows better than most how quickly accusation can outrun proof."
The Royce table stirred. Gerold rose fully this time.
His kinsman caught him again, but too late for the movement to go unseen. Daemon’s eyes flicked toward him, and for the first time that evening, even he did not smile. Viserys saw the motion, saw Gerold, saw Daemon, saw Alicent in green, saw Rhaenyra beside blood, saw me kneeling before the body of a man murdered under his hospitality, and perhaps at last understood that five more days of festivities would not contain the damage. They would feed it.
"No," Viserys said. The word was quiet, but final enough to make Otto pause. "No more." The King’s voice strengthened, though grief and shock still shook beneath it. "The tourney is cancelled. The concluding feast is cancelled. The week is ended."
A murmur surged, then died when Viserys struck his hand against the table.
"The vows will be spoken tonight," he said. "Privately. In the sept chamber. Before the gods, before the witnesses required, and under my authority. This marriage will not be left five more days for every grievance in the realm to gather around it like carrion."
Rhaenyra stared at him. So did I. It was the right decision. I hated it.
Jasper did not understand at first. Then he did, and his face twisted with fury. "We are to light candles while he breathes?"
No one answered him. Rollis looked at Emeric and then toward the King. "Our brother dies, and the feast becomes a wedding."
"Rollis," Vaeron said.
The old officer turned on him. "Do not speak to me of sense."
"I am not," Vaeron replied. "I am asking you to survive the night."
Landrey still held Emeric. Blood had soaked into his sleeves, ruined the dark purple he had pretended not to like. He looked down at the body in his arms and spoke without lifting his head. "He should have had arrows at his back and wind in his face. Not this."
I placed a hand on Emeric’s shoulder. Cold had not reached him yet. That seemed cruel.
"We will carry him," I said.
Landrey’s jaw clenched. "I have him."
"I know."
His eyes lifted then, wet and furious. "Captain."
"I know," I repeated.
There was nothing else I could give him in that hall. No blood. No justice.No immediate answer that did not destroy everything Emeric had died before seeing completed. That was the theft.
Not only death. Death was a soldier’s old companion, and Emeric had known that bargain better than most. What had been stolen from us was the right to answer it in the language we understood.
The Dread Legion demanded blood. Jasper’s hands still shook for it. Rollis’s cane trembled with it. Landrey’s grief begged for it. Vaeron’s cold eyes promised it would be counted. I wanted it so badly my teeth hurt.
The Red Keep stripped it from us. Not forever, I told myself. But tonight. That was enough to feel like betrayal.
Emeric’s body was carried from the throne room by his own. Landrey refused to give him up until Jasper, calmer only in the way a drawn bow was calm before release, helped lift him. Rollis walked beside them, cane striking the stones like a slow drum. Vaeron followed with blood on one cuff where he had touched Emeric’s sleeve. I walked behind them until Rhaenyra came to my side.
She did not speak. Neither did I.
The court parted before us. Not from respect alone. Fear had joined it now. The Great Houses watched the Dread Legion carry one of its dead through the same doors we had entered in splendour hours earlier. The dark purple that had stolen the room with beauty left it stained and ruined, the white sword within its crescent wreath darkened by blood.
Behind us, the Iron Throne remained where it had always been. Unmoved. Unsatisfied.
The private sept chamber was beneath the inner keep, small enough that the torches made more shadow than light. It was not the great space prepared for ceremony. It had no long tables, no gathered houses, no music, no flowers beyond a few pale arrangements brought hastily and set down as if embarrassed by their own softness. The stone smelled of incense, wax, and old prayers. Seven faces watched from carved niches in the walls, their features half-lost in darkness.
The bedding ceremony was gone. The tourney was gone. The week of celebration was gone. Only the vows remained, dragged forward through blood because delay had become more dangerous than haste.
Viserys stood as King and father, pale and shaken, yet determined now in the way men became when every softer choice had been murdered in front of them. Rhaenyra stood beside me in red and black, her hand cold but steady in mine.
Daemon stood behind her, silent for once, eyes alert to every door. Vaeron stood behind me, face emptied into discipline. Jasper, Rollis, and Landrey were there too, because I would not speak vows without the men who had carried Emeric from the hall. Their purple was stained. No steward had dared tell them to change.
Emeric’s place was empty. That absence stood with more force than many living witnesses. Alicent came because she was Queen. She wore green into the sept. Otto came because he was Hand. He wore calm like armour.
Harrold Westerling stood near the door, shame visible in every line of him. Criston Cole was not there. Whether he had been secured, hidden, guarded, or protected, I had not been told. That ignorance sat in me like a coal.
The septon’s voice trembled at first. Then steadied.
He spoke of duty, union, houses joined, gods watching, vows binding flesh and future beneath sacred sight. The words should have felt important. Perhaps they were. Yet I heard them through blood, through music that had continued too long, through Landrey telling Emeric to breathe, through Jasper roaring a dead man’s name, through my own High Valyrian curses tearing across a hall that had not deserved to understand them.
Rhaenyra squeezed my hand. I looked at her.
There were tears in her eyes, held back by force, fury, and pride. Not for ceremony. Not for display. For Emeric, perhaps, and for me, and for the knowledge that our vows had been dragged into shadow because the world would not grant us even one clean thing.
She had chosen me in court. I had chosen her before kings. Now we stood in a dark sept chamber with blood still drying on my officers and spoke words that should have been crowned by song.
When my turn came, I said the vows clearly. Not loudly. Clearly. Rhaenyra did the same. Her voice did not break. That nearly broke me.
The septon bound our hands with cloth. Red and black. Purple and white. Someone had found Galeris colours even in haste, or Rhaenyra had ordered it before I knew to ask. The fabric crossed our wrists beneath the torchlight, and for a moment all I could see was the white sword within its crescent wreath, darkened in my mind by blood on Emeric’s coat.
Viserys stepped forward when the words were complete. His eyes were wet. "Before gods and men," he said, voice rough, "I name this marriage true."
The chamber was silent. No cheers. No music. No feast. No laughter.
Rhaenyra Targaryen was my wife, and the first sound after our marriage was not celebration, but Jasper’s breath shaking behind me like a man holding back a war. The officers of the Dread Legion wanted blood. They had been given vows.
And in the darkness of the sept, with my wife’s hand bound to mine and Emeric’s absence standing beside us, I understood that justice had not been denied with a shout. It had been postponed with ceremony, wrapped in holy words, and stripped from us one prayer at a time.
Comments