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Alicent was dreaming.
It was late afternoon in the Godswood, the sun just starting to shed hazy orange light on the both of them. Alicent was lying at the roots of the weirwood, her head cradled in someone else’s lap, gentle fingers combing through her hair with near-maternal care. She breathed a sigh of relief. It had been years since Alicent could stand to be touched. The curse of her marriage-bed had taken much from her, but that was a loss she felt most keenly.
A voice hummed softly, the bare traces of a song Alicent could not name. She was never alone in these dreams—there was always someone else, someone with long, slender fingers bedecked in silver and gold rings, someone who’s long silver hair brushed Alicent’s face as she leaned over her. Rhaenyra was always there with her, a protective, reassuring presence, a hand on her shoulder, supportive words on her lips at all times. That’s how Alicent knew it was a dream. Rhaenyra had not behaved in such a way for years and could Alicent truly blame her? She had betrayed their friendship, hadn’t she? She was the woeful cause of this entire mess.
That didn’t stop Alicent from wanting, though. She wanted a long night full of real sleep, to never hear a knock on her chamber door in the small hours of morning again. She wanted Rhaenyra’s hands touching her face with the softness of butterfly wings, to hear her friend’s husky voice speak of her with admiration and love the way she once had.
There were other things she wanted, too. Things she dared not look too closely at. Rhaenyra’s hands on her hips. Rhaenyra’s fingers in that place only the king had ever touched. Rhaenyra’s lips, hot and desperate pressed to hers, to her neck, to her chest, to her breasts—
“Alicent?”
Alicent blinked, letting the daydream fall away, and pasted a smile onto her face. “Yes, my love?”
The king smiled in gentle bafflement. “You drifted away there for a moment, I think?”
Alicent tilted her head slightly to the side. “Did I?”
They were in the Godswood. That was true. But it had passed late afternoon some time ago, the sky turning royal blue overhead. Torches illuminated much of the space now, but still the king lingered with her. She would have preferred to be alone, to sit on this bench where she had sat with Rhaenyra earlier that day and get lost in her dreams. When she did that, it was almost like she wasn’t there at all. And it was so much easier to get through her days if she wasn’t actually there.
“It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?” The king said, this words slightly stilted in the way they always were when he tried to make smalltalk with her. It felt more like he was speaking to himself than to her, or to some empty hole in the air where she might reside if someone looked hard enough to find her.
“A not altogether unpleasant one,” she said, forcing herself to sound chipper. It was the highest compliment she could give of any day—not being entirely terrible.
There had been moments of joy today. Alicent’s heart doubled it’s pace. Rhaenyra had touched her. Not in hate, not because something was wrong. They had shared kind words for the first time since the engagement was announced, and Rhaenyra’s voice had caught when she told Alicent she was missed. She wanted to clutch at Rhaenyra’s hands, to hold onto something solid in the hopes that it would make her solid, too.
“You and Rhaenyra…” The king began, trailing off as if he didn’t know what to say.
“Yes, my love?” She prompted automatically.
“You seemed cordial,” he finished. “More so than you have in some time. I understand how things have strained your relationship, but I am glad to see it’s on the mend. It’s far past time for that.”
“Of course, my love,” she said. She wondered how many times in the past four years she’d used that epithet, if he’d ever noticed how dead those words felt on her tongue. She doubted it. “I am most pleased, as well. She was a dear friend of mine.” My only friend. My best friend. I wanted to tuck her into my heart and keep her there. “It would be a shame to have that sullied forevermore over something as insignificant as our relationship.”
He patted her hand with a kind of rough firmness that was typical of him. She wanted to cringe away from the touch. “That is good hear,” he said. “I have some business to conduct now. Will you be all right if I beg your leave?”
She nodded. “I am quite comfortable in the Godswood. I will be fine.”
“Don’t dally too long,” he said with a laugh. “The children are wont to miss you.”
The children. Yes, Helaena and her ceaseless crying, Aegon and his shock of silver hair that made dread pool in her belly. Her children that she loved but at times wished she never had to see again. Because one day they would be grown, and when they were grown she did not know what that would spell for her and her family. For Rhaenyra.
Hopefully nothing. But Alicent had lost touch with hope some time ago.
The king left. Alicent stayed. She tried to conjure up her dream again, but the sky was getting too dark, and besides, she could still feel the rough callous of the king’s hand on hers. Subtly, she wiped the back of her hand against the silk of her dress, as if she could rid herself of the touch.
“Insignificant?” A voice called.
Alicent whipped around, her heart hammering in her chest. Rhaenyra stood against the wall of the castle behind the bench, in a patch of shadow just out of reach of the nearest torch. There was no telling how long she had been there.
“You were eavesdropping?” Alicent asked, breathless with despair. No, she thought. Not again. I only just got you back; I can’t lose you again.
Rhaenyra took slow steps forward, torchlight glinting off her hair and softly caressing her face as she came into view. “I was coming to visit the Godswood. It’s not my fault you were here first.”
“It wasn’t—I wasn’t—I didn’t mean it like it sounded, Rhaenyra, I swear that you.” Alicent was closer to pleading than she liked to admit. But it had been such a long four years and she’d been alone for so long, the idea of losing even just that spark of hope that they could mend thing was too much. Maybe she would make a fool of herself to get back into Rhaenyra’s good graces. Maybe it was worth it.
“Then how did you mean it?” She asked, but she did not look angry. She leaned down, placing her elbows on the back of the bench, getting into Alicent’s personal space. Her eyes were impassive, though perhaps somewhat interested in what Alicent was going to say.
“It is what he expects,” she said in a near whisper. “I-I don’t think he truly understands the fragility of two girls’ friendship.”
“It wasn’t terribly fragile, as I remember,” Rhaenyra said. “But a hammer can break even the hardest stone if it’s wielded by the right hands, can it not?”
Alicent closed her eyes a took a deep, steadying breath. Rhaenyra was so close, Alicent could smell her, faint lavender oil and lemon and dragon. It made it easy to find her dream, to let the scene play out in the back of her mind. The two of them, solid as unbroken stone, a song humming in the air between them as Rhaenyra feathered a touch across her face.
But then that last one was real. Alicent’s eyes blinked open in confusion as Rhaenyra reached out, brushing a loose curl out of Alicent’s face, tucking it away behind her ear.
“You don’t look well, Your Grace,” Rhaenyra said, her voice softer.
“I am well,” Alicent said, but it was a weak protest. It was harder to act like things were fine when Rhaenyra was there, when she wanted nothing more than to reach out and cross the divide that separated them. She just didn’t know how to do that, how anything could ever be fully right between them again. That was its own special ache.
“Are you sure?” Rhaenyra asked. She didn’t seem convinced by Alicent’s lie, which was nice. She was tired of people believing her lies.
Suddenly and without permission, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “It’s been a very lonely year,” she said in a choked whisper.
“Do your children not sate your loneliness?” Rhaenyra asked. “I’ve heard that tends to be the way of it with married women.”
Delicately, Alicent wiped the corners of her eyes, hoping Rhaenyra hadn’t noticed. Knowing she probably had. “Children can only do so much,” she said, trying to paste that smile back on. “The Godswood has been so quiet with you gone.”
Rhaenyra didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she straightened and just when Alicent feared she would walk away and leave her behind forever, Rhaenyra instead rounded the bench and came to sit down beside her. Rhaenyra reached of her hand, just as she had earlier that day, and brought it to her lips, pressing a light kiss to the back of it.
Alicent couldn’t halt the flush that stole over her at the act. When they were just girls, it would have gone by without notice. But now that they were women, she knew that was not something that other women did with each other. Not so tenderly. Btu Rhaenyra held her gaze while she did it, as if daring her to comment on it, on the softness of her lips or the gentleness of Rhaenyra’s hand on hers. Alicent did not. She wasn’t sure she could have said anything if she tried.
“I’m here now,” Rhaenyra said, still holding Alicent’s hand. “The Godswood should be considerably less silent from now on.”
“Good,” Alicent said.
“I have missed you,” Rhaenyra said quietly. “That was not a lie.”
“I’m glad,” Alicent said. “You don’t know how glad I am of that.”
Rhaenyra wrapped her other hand around Alicent’s, holding it tightly in both of hers now, and smiled wryly. “Let’s hope things stay civil, then. For all of our sakes.”
“Yes,” Alicent said, because she would acquiesce to almost anything Rhaenyra said at that moment. Because she did not cringe at Rhaenyra’s touch and had no desire to wipe the feeling of it away. Instead, it lit a fire in her that made her want to cling like a babe, to let Rhaenyra see her cry and wipe all her tears away. This was the closest she’d been to comfort in some time and her body begged her to take that comfort and drape it around herself like a blanket.
But that wasn’t fair. She had wronged Rhaenyra. It would not be fair to force her to comfort Alicent in her loveless marriage. That didn’t make the wanting any less sharp; it gnawed at her like the teeth of some fearsome beast.
Rhaenyra left a few minutes later. Alicent’s hand curled into a fist to stop herself from reaching out and holding on to her friend. Some deeply buried, half-feral part of herself wanted to take Rhaenyra’s hands and put them on her, to let Rhaenyra touch every piece of her as if that could bring her deadened skin back to life. Maybe it could.
Alicent looked back at the weirwood, letting her gaze trace over the wine red leaves and pale porcelain bark. Now that it dark, she imagined different things. Dreams for nighttime of a softer, feminine hand undoing the lace of her dress until her clothes were splayed out on the weirwood roots like a picnic blanket. She dreamed of hot breath that left brands on her skin where lips touched flesh, the metallic coldness of thin rings pressing into her belly where someone clutched at her. She imagined what it would be like to grow slick and molten hot and scream in rapture like she’d heard some women did in the flesh-houses of the city. She couldn’t think these things in the day where someone might see her blush in embarrassment, where she might be caught. She supposed the night was good for something after all.
She knew she was wanted back in the keep. But the babes would be fine without her. For now, Alicent stayed where she was and dreamed.