Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 98: Chapter 98: Old Wounds Sharpened

The morning after the dragon yard, I returned to the sound of steel.

Not the wooden clack of children learning where to place their feet, nor the careful rhythm Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk kept with my sons. This was harder, sharper, and more measured. Blunted steel, but steel all the same, ringing through the lower practice yard in clean intervals.

I had meant only to pass by on my way back from the armoury. A messenger from Dragonstone had arrived with another note from Grey Worm about stores, harbour watches, and which returned men required longer rest before reassignment. It was the kind of report that should have held my attention fully.

Then I heard the pattern. Strike. Turn. Recover. Again. No laughter followed it. No boyish complaint. No impatient demand to be taught the glorious part first.

I stopped beneath the shaded archway. Aemond Targaryen stood in the yard with Ser Curtis Crakehall. He had grown while I was gone.

That was an obvious thing to notice, and still it unsettled me. Aemond had been a wounded boy in my memory more than a prince, half fury and half humiliation, blood dried around an empty eye while Driftmark’s hall turned every adult into something worse than they had been the day before. The boy before me now was taller, leaner, and controlled in a way no child achieved by accident.

His patch was plain black. No jewels. No ornament. It made the rest of his face look sharper, as if the wound had cut away softness from more than his sight.

Curtis moved around him with a longsword in both hands. He did not flatter. He did not soothe. He did not speak unless correction served a purpose. That was part of what made him dangerous. Criston Cole had carried resentment like a torch and wanted everyone to see its flame. Curtis carried obedience like a sealed blade.

He attacked Aemond’s blind side. Aemond was ready. He did not turn his head too much. He did not overcompensate. His feet shifted first, then his shoulders, then the sword. The block was not beautiful, but it was clean. He gave ground instead of pretending he could hold it, let Curtis’s strength pass, then answered with a cut toward the ribs.

Curtis caught the blow and forced it low. "Do not admire your own recovery before the exchange is finished," Curtis said. "A man who survives the first danger often dies congratulating himself before the second."

Aemond stepped back, breathing hard through his nose. "Then the recovery is not complete until I am ready again."

"That is closer to truth than your last answer."

They resumed. I watched longer than courtesy required.

The easy thought would have been to hate what I saw. Curtis had drawn steel on Driftmark when Alicent ordered Lucerys’s eye taken. I had no interest in pretending that obedience became harmless because the hand holding the sword was calm. Yet skill remained skill, even in men I distrusted. Curtis was making Aemond better.

Worse, he was doing it well.

Aemond did not fight like a boy trying to prove he was angry. He fought like someone who had made anger wait outside until it could be useful. Every attack he offered had thought behind it. Every mistake was taken in, stored, and adjusted for the next attempt. A few times Curtis struck the side where the missing eye should have warned him sooner. Each time, Aemond’s response improved.

I almost missed the child who had shouted. A shouting child could be stopped by stronger arms, firmer words, or exhaustion. This was different. This was pain taught patience.

Rhaenyra joined me before I heard her footsteps. She had always been better than most at moving through the Red Keep without granting it the satisfaction of announcing her.

"You found them," she said.

"I heard them."

"That is usually how people find Ser Curtis. He sounds as if he is trying to beat manners into the stones."

Her voice was dry, but her eyes remained on Aemond.

For a while, neither of us spoke. In the yard, Curtis feinted high and drove low. Aemond read it late, took the flat of the blade against his thigh, and did not allow the pain to pull sound from him. He reset his stance with visible effort.

Rhaenyra’s mouth tightened. "He trains every morning," she said. "Before court, before lessons, before most of his own household wakes. Alicent watches when she can."

"She is here?"

"Sometimes. Not yet today."

That answer carried more than the words themselves. Rhaenyra did not say the Queen with contempt. She did not say Alicent with warmth either. Their names for one another had become careful things, handled like cups already cracked.

Aemond pressed forward too quickly for the first time that morning. Curtis punished it at once, turning his blade aside and stepping close enough that the next strike stopped at Aemond’s throat.

The yard went still. Curtis held the position for a breath before lowering the sword. "You wanted that exchange to end," he said. "Wanting an end is not the same as earning one."

Aemond’s jaw worked once. "I let impatience choose the moment."

"You did."

"I will not do it again."

"You will. The lesson is to notice sooner."

Aemond nodded.

Rhaenyra exhaled quietly. "He is not being taught gently."

"No."

"Would you have him taught differently?"

I considered the question before answering. Rhaenyra deserved better than a husband’s reflexive anger. "I would not want Curtis near Luke. That has not changed. But Aemond is not Luke, and refusing to admit Curtis is competent would only make me feel cleaner while understanding less."

Rhaenyra glanced at me. "That is not a comfortable answer."

"Comfortable answers are usually lying about something."

The yard shifted as Curtis called for a pause. Aemond drank from a cup offered by a servant, then returned it before he had fully caught his breath. He saw us then. His face did not change. He bowed from across the yard, correct to the inch. Curtis followed the movement and bowed as well.

Before either could approach, another figure entered from the far archway.

Alicent wore green, but not the heavy green of court display. Her gown was plainer, her hair covered loosely, and only one lady accompanied her. For a moment, before she noticed us, she looked only like a mother arriving to see whether her son had taken a bruise he would not mention.

Then her eyes found Rhaenyra. Something passed between them, thin and old. Not friendship as it had once been. Not forgiveness. But recognition. Alicent came to stand near us. Her lady remained behind, wise enough not to make herself part of a history that could bruise anyone too close to it.

"Princess," Alicent said.

"Your Grace," Rhaenyra replied.

The greeting was formal. The silence after it was not. Aemond had returned to his stance. Curtis corrected the angle of his rear foot with a tap of his blade, then stepped back.

Alicent watched her son. "He was feverish last week and still tried to come down here. I had to threaten the master-at-arms before Aemond would accept that no one would admit him to the yard."

"He takes it seriously," Rhaenyra said.

"He takes everything seriously now."

The words were not accusation, though they could have been.

Rhaenyra’s hands folded before her. "Pain often teaches children lessons we would never have chosen for them."

Alicent looked at her then.

There were years in that look. The old friendship beneath the rivalry. The night at Driftmark. A knife in my hand, blood at my arm, Lucerys shaking, Aemond ruined, Alicent broken open before the court. Everything they had done to each other and everything done around them by men who later called it politics.

Alicent’s voice softened without becoming gentle. "Some lessons cannot be taken back."

"No," Rhaenyra said. "But they can still be guided."

Alicent turned back to the yard. "That is what I tell myself when I watch him."

The admission hung there.

Rhaenyra did not seize on it. She could have. A crueller version of her might have answered with something sharp about guiding him before Driftmark, or before Vhagar, or before the court taught all their children to measure one another by claim and insult. She did not.

Instead she said, "I told myself the same thing yesterday when Jace flew Vermax over the city."

Alicent’s face changed slightly. "I heard he has taken to flight."

"He has."

"And Lucerys?"

"Arrax carried him three days before Othorion returned."

Alicent looked toward me once, then away. "That must have been difficult to miss."

"It was," I said.

Her expression held no victory in it. That surprised me less than it once would have. Motherhood had become one of the few languages she and Rhaenyra could still speak without immediately drawing blood.

"My children grow in ways I do not always welcome," Alicent said.

Rhaenyra answered quietly. "So do mine."

Below us, Curtis disarmed Aemond. The prince’s sword spun into the sand. For an instant, old temper flashed across Aemond’s face. Then he closed a hand around it and breathed through whatever answer had almost left him.

Curtis did not smile.

"You lost the blade because you made the wound into a wall," he said. "A wall stops you as surely as it stops another man. Your missing eye is not a wall. It is ground you must know better than your opponent."

Aemond retrieved his sword. "Again, Ser Curtis."

"Not until you explain the mistake."

"I turned too far because I wanted to see the attack. That made my shoulder late, and my grip followed late."

Curtis nodded. "Better. Again."

Alicent watched with pride and fear so closely braided that neither could be separated. Rhaenyra noticed. I knew she did.

"He should not have needed to become this strong so young," Rhaenyra said.

Alicent’s mouth tightened. "No child should. Yet here we are, raising them in a court that rewards weakness only when it can use it against someone else."

"That may be the truest thing you have said to me in years."

"It is easier to be truthful when neither of us is asking the other to surrender."

Rhaenyra looked at her. "Is that what we do?"

"Not always." Alicent’s gaze stayed on Aemond. "Sometimes we only stand near each other and remember that we were girls before we became banners."

Rhaenyra did not answer at once. When she did, her voice was low enough that the yard did not hear. "I remember."

Alicent’s eyes glistened briefly, though she blinked the weakness away before it could be used by the world. "So do I."

It would have been easy to call the moment healing. It was not.

Healing required more than memory. It required trust, and trust had been spent too often between them to return simply because grief recognised grief. Still, something held. A thin plank over deep water, perhaps. Not enough for armies. Enough for two women to stand briefly without trying to push the other into the dark.

The lesson ended after another exchange.

Aemond did not win. Curtis did not allow him that false comfort. But the last sequence was better than the first. Aemond kept his shoulder guarded, did not chase the strike, and forced Curtis to adjust. That was victory of a quieter kind.

Curtis lowered his blade. "That will serve for today."

"I can continue."

"You can continue badly. That is not the same thing."

Aemond accepted the rebuke with visible reluctance. "Then I will stop before I make the lesson worse."

"Good."

He came toward us, sweat darkening his collar, pale hair pulled back, one eye steady. He bowed first to Alicent, then Rhaenyra, then me.

"Mother. Princess. Prince Othorion."

Alicent reached as if to touch his cheek, then stopped before the gesture became too public. Aemond saw it. He spared her the embarrassment by shifting his sword to his other hand, giving her a reason to inspect his grip instead.

"You trained well," she said.

"I made fewer mistakes by the end."

"That is often what training means."

The faintest warmth touched his face for her. It vanished when he looked at me.

"I was told the Stepstones are quieter now," Aemond said.

"Quieter than they were."

"That sounds like peace refusing to overpromise."

"It usually does."

He absorbed that. "Did your enemies there fight as soldiers or raiders?"

"Both. The dangerous ones knew when to become either."

Curtis listened without seeming to.

Aemond’s gaze sharpened. "Then discipline was not enough by itself."

"No. Discipline keeps men from breaking. It does not remove the need to think."

"That is useful to know."

There was no insult in his tone, yet every word felt placed with care. Aemond was not asking because he admired me. He was collecting. I answered anyway. Refusing knowledge out of dislike would have been childish, and there were already enough children being trained for war.

"You will find that most men prefer one kind of enemy," I said. "A soldier wants another soldier across from him. A raider wants prey. The Stepstones were troublesome because the Triarchy remnants learned to change their shape. When they could not win a field, they struck stores. When they could not hold a cove, they vanished into rocks. When they could not break walls, they tried sleep, hunger, and impatience."

Aemond listened closely. "And how did you answer that?"

"By refusing to chase every insult."

Something in his face tightened, barely enough to see. Curtis saw it too.

Aemond inclined his head. "That may be the hardest lesson."

"It often is."

For a moment, Luke’s name stood between us without being spoken. Aemond knew it. I knew it. So did both mothers.

Alicent stepped in before the silence curdled. "You should wash before the maester decides sweat is a mortal condition and confines you to your rooms."

Aemond almost smiled. "The maester fears damp air more than sickness."

"He has kept more princes alive than damp air has killed, so you will indulge him."

"I will obey you, Mother."

He bowed again and left with Curtis beside him. The two did not walk like friends. They walked like blade and whetstone, each made more useful by the other and more dangerous for it.

When they had gone, Alicent remained.

Rhaenyra watched the empty yard. "He has become formidable."

"He has become determined," Alicent said.

"Those are close cousins."

"Perhaps. I would rather he be determined than helpless."

Rhaenyra turned to her. "I would never wish helplessness on him."

Alicent held her gaze.

For a moment, I thought she might answer with anger. Old habit reached for it. Then she let the habit pass. "I know," Alicent said. "I do know that, even when remembering it is difficult."

Rhaenyra’s face softened in a way few at court were allowed to see. "I do not forgive everything."

"I have not asked you to."

"I do not ask it either."

Alicent nodded. "Then we have at least spared each other one lie."

It was not comfort, but it was honest. That was rarer.

Alicent excused herself soon after. She left by the same archway Aemond had taken, though not quickly enough to seem as if she followed him. Queens also had pride.

Rhaenyra and I remained in the shade. The yard below looked ordinary now. Sand, racks, marks where boots had turned, a dark line where Aemond’s blade had fallen before being recovered. Nothing in the ground admitted what it had held.

Rhaenyra spoke first. "You are thinking of Luke."

"I am thinking of all of them."

"That is a heavy way to answer."

"It is a heavy thing."

She leaned against the stone beside me, close enough that our sleeves touched. "Alicent is afraid."

"It would seem like it."

"So am I."

"I know."

She looked toward the archway where the boys had left earlier that morning. "Jace wants to be worthy. Luke wants to stop being afraid. Rhaegar wants to understand everything before it hurts him. Aerion wants the world to admire him before he has earned the danger of being admired."

"You see them clearly."

"I am their mother. Seeing them clearly is one of the cruelties of loving them."

That stayed with me.

Below, a servant crossed the yard with a broom, sweeping the sand smooth as if the morning could be erased before the next lesson began. It could not. Every stroke had already done its work.

Aemond would return tomorrow with the correction living in his hands. My sons would return to their own yard with Arryk and Erryk. The dragons would grow in their cells and yards, learning the weight of wings while their riders learned the weight of names.

Alicent and Rhaenyra had stood beside each other without peace. That mattered more than peace would have if forced. Peace could be spoken falsely. Restraint had to be practised.

I had watched my sons learn swords and dragons after a year away. I had feared the creatures they would ride and the men they might become. Now I had watched Aemond move through the yard with one eye, one blade, and a wound that no longer bled because it had learned discipline.

Old wounds did not always heal. Sometimes they trained. And in the Red Keep, surrounded by mothers who loved, fathers who feared, knights who obeyed, and children growing too quickly into the shapes made for them, I understood that the next war did not need to begin with banners.

It could begin like this. A boy in a yard. A sword raised again.

A mother watching closely enough to be proud and terrified in the same breath.