Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: The One-Eyed Prince

After Lucerys’s lesson in the yard, I began watching Aemond more closely.

Not openly. A prince who knows he is being studied either performs for the eye upon him or hides the very thing worth seeing. I had no interest in teaching Aemond to disguise himself better. So I watched in the margins, between duties that could not be neglected and appearances that could not be avoided.

King’s Landing allowed little true privacy. A man who lived inside the Red Keep was never only a husband, father, commander, or courtier. He was whatever the room required him to be, and rooms changed their demands faster than honest men could change their faces.

In the mornings, I answered letters.

Black Rat wrote from Dragonstone with the spare efficiency of a man who had no interest in making parchment more beautiful than useful. His reports covered watch rotations, armour inventories, rations, harbour patrols, and the conduct of the fifty Unsullied sent with me to King’s Landing.

He also noted that the amethyst dragon had been seen twice along the western cliffs, though never close enough for arrows, foolish men, or ambitious dragonkeepers to make trouble of it.

I wrote back in High Valyrian, partly because he preferred it and partly because secrets travelled more slowly when servants could not read them.

Grey Worm is to keep the harbour rotations irregular, I wrote. No pattern should hold longer than seven days. The household guard in King’s Landing is sufficient for the present, but I want another twenty men prepared to sail within a day if I send for them. Do not provoke the Dragonkeepers regarding the amethyst dragon. If they complain, remind them politely that dragons have never been known for obeying household boundaries.

That last line would trouble him. Politeness remained, in his mind, a word used by men who wished to delay clarity. Still, he would obey the instruction, and if he did not understand the humour, Dragonstone would survive.

Other letters required more care.

Lord Boremund Baratheon received gratitude dressed as courtesy, with mention of the Red Pass Road, the men who had held it, and the continuing importance of safe travel through the Marches.

Lord Manfred Dondarrion received something less polished and more direct. He would distrust anything too sweetly written, and I respected him enough not to insult him with court sugar.

To the Vale, Rhaenyra and I sent words that honoured Aemma Arryn’s memory without sounding as though we were digging up the dead for political coin. To Driftmark, our letters were warmer, though warmth itself had become a kind of strategy after the betrothals.

Every raven mattered now.

Otto had spent years tightening his hands around the court. I would not defeat him by complaining that his fingers were already there. The realm had to be reminded that Rhaenyra was not alone, and that support for her was not a leap into darkness but a step toward a future already named by the King.

When letters were done, there were councils, meals, audiences, and the endless ceremony of being seen.

Rhaenyra and I attended more social functions than either of us wished. Her pregnancy made absence impossible. Viserys wanted her close, courtiers wanted to measure her, and Alicent wanted to watch without seeming to watch.

So we appeared in halls, gardens, small feasts, and private gatherings where women congratulated my wife with bright smiles, and men praised the gods for royal fertility while silently counting how many sons stood between Aegon and expectation.

Rhaenyra handled it better than I did.

She had been raised inside the blade’s edge of attention. She knew how to accept praise without trusting it, how to let a compliment pass through her without giving it a place to settle, how to make a courtier feel seen while revealing nothing of herself.

When some lordling’s wife placed a hand over her heart and spoke of the joy another child would bring the realm, Rhaenyra smiled with enough warmth to satisfy the room and enough distance to keep the woman outside her walls.

I stood beside her, husband enough to appear devoted and commander enough to remind men that devotion had teeth.

At one such gathering, held in a solar too warm for the season, I saw Aemond standing near Alicent. He did not fidget. He did not seek sweets from the table or try to escape adult conversation as most boys his age would have done. His eye patch gave his face a severity he had not earned naturally, and the remaining eye moved often. Not nervously. Deliberately.

He watched hands. He watched doors. He watched Lucerys whenever my son crossed the room.

Luke did not notice at first. He was speaking with Helaena, who had placed a beetle on the back of her hand and was explaining to him why its legs knew more about patience than most knights. Luke listened politely because he was Luke, and because Helaena’s strangeness did not frighten him. It never had.

Aemond watched them both.

Alicent saw me seeing him. Her mouth tightened slightly, though she made no move to call her son away. That restraint was new, or perhaps newly visible. After Driftmark, even Alicent understood that every movement near our children would be weighed by hostile eyes as well as friendly ones.

Ser Curtis Crakehall stood not far behind her.

He was tall, composed, and dressed in white so cleanly that the cloak seemed more like a statement than a garment. His green eyes moved across the room with the patient indifference of a man counting risk. When his gaze touched me, it did not linger. He knew better than that. He had no need to challenge me openly when his usefulness lay in appearing dutiful.

That was the difficulty with Ser Curtis. He did not sneer. He did not glower. He did not waste himself on visible dislike. A stupid enemy gave a man handles to grip. Curtis offered polished stone.

Later that day, when court had exhausted its appetite for false warmth, I trained.

My side still pulled where Alicent’s dagger had entered, though the wound had mostly closed. The maester told me to rest more. I thanked him for his concern and ignored him with the confidence of a man who knew that resting in King’s Landing was merely another way of waiting to be cut in better health.

Training without World Breaker at my hip still felt wrong.

I used an ordinary castle blade now, good steel but not Valyrian, balanced well enough and entirely without memory. It served. That was all a sword truly needed to do. Yet every draw reminded my body of what was missing, and every adjustment of my belt made habit reach for weight that was no longer there.

I trained with two Unsullied in the lower yard first, then with Ser Erryk when he offered to test whether I had let paperwork soften me.

"You ask that as if paperwork has not killed more men than swords," I said, taking position opposite him.

Ser Erryk smiled faintly. "Paperwork kills slowly, my prince, which gives its victims time to complain. Steel is more honest."

"Then I will try not to embarrass myself before the honest death."

We crossed blades for the better part of an hour. He was good. Better than most knights I had faced, not because he was flashy, but because he wasted little. Ser Erryk fought like a man who understood that a clean defence was often the beginning of a victory, and that patience could make another man reveal how he wished to die.

I did not beat him easily. That pleased me.

Sweat cooled on my back by the time we lowered our blades. My side ached, but not sharply enough to trouble me. Ser Erryk looked toward the far end of the yard, where another pair had begun to train.

Aemond and Ser Curtis.

The boy wore a dark training tunic, his silver hair tied back severely. His eye patch remained in place, black leather stark against pale skin. Ser Curtis stood before him with a blunted sword held low, not relaxed, but waiting.

Aemond attacked. Curtis did not meet him with force. He stepped to Aemond’s blind side and tapped him across the ribs hard enough to make the boy’s breath catch. Again, Aemond attacked. Again, Curtis moved where the missing eye could not follow quickly enough.

The third time, Aemond anticipated it and turned too far, leaving his front open. Curtis struck him in the chest and sent him back a step.

"You are defending the wound instead of defending yourself," Curtis said. His voice carried because the yard had quieted around them. "A missing eye is not a shield, my prince. If you turn your whole body to protect what is gone, you hand your opponent everything that remains."

Aemond’s jaw tightened. "Then tell me how to stop giving them that opening."

"You stop thinking like a boy who has been injured and begin thinking like a fighter whose field of sight has changed. Your left side is not cursed. It is only less informed than it was."

That was a cold way to phrase it.

Aemond lifted his sword again. "Then attack from that side until I learn it."

Curtis did.

There was no gentleness in the lesson, though neither was there cruelty for its own sake. Curtis struck when Aemond failed, corrected when the mistake mattered, and refused to praise the boy for enduring pain. It was not comfort. It was construction.

Aemond took it like a starving man taking bread.

I watched the next exchange closely. Aemond shifted his stance, adjusting not only his head but his shoulders, trying to create a line of defence that did not depend on sight alone. Curtis moved left. This time Aemond turned less wildly. His block came late, clumsy, but the blade met blade rather than ribs.

Curtis stepped back. "Better, though better is not the same as sufficient."

Aemond breathed hard through his nose. "I did not ask for sufficient."

"No, my prince. Boys ask for glory. Men learn to ask for correction before the battlefield gives it without mercy."

The words landed. Aemond did not answer with pride. He nodded once and reset his stance.

Ser Erryk stood beside me, watching with a thoughtful expression. "Ser Curtis teaches him harshly," he said.

"He teaches him carefully," I replied. "The harshness is not the part that worries me."

Erryk glanced at me. "What does?"

"That Aemond listens."

Across the yard, Curtis moved again, and Aemond tried to follow. The boy’s body was learning around absence. Not quickly, but with intent.

My own duties pulled me away before the lesson ended. There were petitions to hear with Rhaenyra, a Braavosi letter to answer, and an argument between household stewards about storage rooms that somehow required my judgement because all human civilisation eventually decayed into disputes over shelves.

Only after supper did I find time for my sons.

High Valyrian lessons had become one of the few duties that did not feel like a duty. We held them in a smaller chamber near our apartments, where the boys could sit without feeling displayed.

Jacaerys treated the language like a weapon he was determined to master properly. Lucerys tried hard, though his tongue stumbled more often over the sharper sounds. Rhaegar listened with solemn intensity until he understood enough to become smug.

Aerion guessed boldly and wrongly with the confidence of a boy who believed volume might bully grammar into obedience. Little Viserys attended only because he cried if excluded, and because Rhaenyra found it amusing to watch him repeat phrases he did not understand.

That evening, I pointed to a carved wooden dragon on the table. "In High Valyrian, tell me what this is, and do not simply say dragon because even Aerion can manage that when he is not attempting to impress himself."

Aerion sat up straighter. "I can say more than dragon, Father. I can say that the dragon is fierce, hungry, and likely to bite Rhaegar if Rhaegar keeps looking proud."

Rhaegar frowned. "That is not a proper answer. You are supposed to describe the object, not invent crimes for it."

"In High Valyrian," I reminded them. "If you are going to accuse a wooden dragon of violence, at least do it in the language of your ancestors."

Jace answered first, carefully and correctly enough. Luke followed, slower but accurate. Rhaegar improved the sentence by adding that the dragon was carved from dark wood. Aerion tried to say the dragon was hungry and instead implied, with great confidence, that the table desired conquest.

Rhaenyra laughed from her seat near the window.

Aerion looked offended. "That is not what I meant to say."

"No," I said. "But it may be what the table has been hiding from us."

Viserys clapped his small hands because everyone else was amused, then declared in mangled High Valyrian that his cup was a dragon.

"Your cup is not a dragon," Jace told him with the strained patience of an elder brother.

Viserys hugged the cup protectively. "It might be."

Luke smiled then, a small real smile, and the sight made the room feel briefly less dangerous.

I made them repeat the basic phrases again, then had Jacaerys correct Aerion and Lucerys help Viserys. They learned better when the lesson belonged partly to them. More importantly, it taught Jace that leadership was not only knowing the answer first, and taught Luke that gentleness could still be useful when fear tried to convince him otherwise.

For a little while, I let myself exist only there.

Rhaenyra’s hand rested over the small swell not yet visible beneath her gown. Jace argued with Aerion over pronunciation. Luke helped Viserys say cup properly, though Viserys remained loyal to the possibility that it might hatch. Rhaegar watched me closely, memorising more than I had asked him to.

Then the hour ended, because peace in the Red Keep always did.

The children were taken to bed. Rhaenyra remained with them longer than usual, perhaps because she knew I was not finished with the day. I returned to my desk, sealed two letters, corrected a third, and wrote a short note to Grey Roach regarding guard rotations around the boys.

Only near midnight did I see Aemond again. He was in the yard. Not training now. Standing.

The torches burned low along the walls, and most of the keep had settled into the uneasy quiet of a place where too many people slept near too many enemies. Aemond stood alone near the practice posts, one hand resting on the hilt of a blunted sword. No, Ser Curtis. No Aegon. No Alicent. No attendants close enough to matter.

I remained beneath the shadow of the covered walk. Aemond lifted the sword and began moving through forms. Slowly at first. Then again. And again.

Each turn corrected the blind side. Each step measured distance. He moved with the stiffness of a boy still healing and the determination of someone who had decided softness was a debt he could not afford.

He was not graceful yet. He was not ready. But he was changing.

After a while, Ser Curtis appeared at the far entrance. He did not call out. He simply watched, as I watched, though he made no attempt to hide himself. Aemond completed the form and lowered the sword only when he was finished.

Curtis spoke then, his voice carrying just enough to reach me. "Practice done in secret still leaves marks in public, my prince. If you train beyond your strength, your enemies will see fatigue and call it weakness."

Aemond turned toward him. "If I do not train beyond comfort, then I remain the boy they remember."

"No. You remain a boy who misunderstands the purpose of training. Pain is not proof of progress. Pain is only information. Learn from it, then stop before it begins teaching badly."

Aemond looked down at the sword. "Lucerys still has both his eyes."

"He does."

The answer was calm, neither agreement nor rebuke.

Aemond’s voice hardened. "The King called it finished."

"The King called the hall to order," Curtis replied. "That is not always the same thing as finishing what men carry out of it."

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Aemond asked, "Do you think I should forget it?"

"No, my prince. Forgetting is for men who can afford to be surprised twice. You should remember clearly, without letting memory drag you by the throat."

Aemond absorbed that in silence. "And if I cannot?"

"Then you will be very dangerous to your enemies and nearly as dangerous to yourself."

It was the first merciful thing I had heard Ser Curtis say. He made it sound like a warning, not comfort.

Aemond sheathed the practice sword. "I will be ready when they test me again."

Curtis looked at him for a long moment. "See that you are ready for more than revenge. Revenge is simple, and simple things often embarrass princes who mistake them for purpose."

That answer did not please Aemond. I could see it in the set of his shoulders. But he did not argue. He followed Ser Curtis back toward the inner keep, one-eyed, silent, and listening.

When they were gone, I remained beneath the covered walk.

The night smelled of cooling stone, old smoke, and the sea beyond the city. I thought of Luke in the garden, asking whether guilt made him bad. I thought of Aemond in the yard, forcing his body to relearn the world from one side. One boy feared the wound he had caused. The other was building himself around it.

Neither lesson was finished. Neither boy was safe from what adults would make of him.

By morning, I would return to letters, councils, appearances, training, fatherhood, and all the duties that filled the hours between dangers. I would stand beside Rhaenyra while the court counted her pregnancy.

I would teach my sons the language of dead Valyria and hope they inherited more than its pride. I would write to Black Rat about patrols, to lords about loyalty, and to men across the realm who might one day choose between silence and banners.

And I would keep watching Aemond. Not because he was the only danger.

Because he was becoming one.