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He is still shaking when he descends to the Red Keep. He had barely been able to keep his grip on Vhagar ever since they'd gone above the clouds, had let her fly at her leisure back home as he clenched his teeth and his fists, trying to think of what to say to his grandsire, to Aegon, to his mother. His mother. The thought of her nearly makes Aemond fall as he slides from Vhagar's back, stumbling hard as his boots hit the ground. Gods above, what is he to tell his mother?
"You are an emissary," she had said, sweeping a soothing hand along his back as he'd been leaving. "There only to present your offer to Lord Baratheon, so that he supports Aegon. He may be harsh, but you must take it, and give no one cause for violence."
Aemond knows, if only from his grandsire's mutterings, how desperate his mother is to a peaceable resolution, especially now that that Princess Rhaenys and her Red Queen seem to have cast their lot in with the Princess Rhaenyra. That had been the hope behind sending envoys to the lords of the Seven Kingdoms, to have enough on their side to temper any heated dragon's blood and stop a war before it starts. And now...And now...
Aemond squares his shoulders and makes his way to the Small Council chambers. It is there that anyone will find Lord Otto Hightower at any time of the day, even before Aegon's ascension, when Father was still Lord of the Realm. Aemond knows he needs to tell his mother, his brother, but the King's Hand is the one who needs to know first, to plan next steps to either rectify or even address the situation. Aemond finds his hands curling into fists again at the thought. He had promised his mother. He had agreed that he was only an emissary. He hadn't even meant...He hadn't wanted...He sucks in a deep breath as his footsteps echo along the stones of the Red Keep. It doesn't matter anymore.
Once, long ago, he had wanted two eyes. Now, he must make do with one. And now they must make do with the situation that will arise from Storm's End.
His grandsire is there, as expected in the customary chair for the Hand, when Aemond pushes the door open, but he feels a sinking horror when he sees Aegon sitting at the head of the table, and their queenly mother on his other side. The three of them all turn to stare at him, all of them trusting and his mother happy to see him return, and Aemond wants to turn tail and flee. This must be how goats feel, down in the Dragonpit, before they're devoured.
Clasped behind his back, Aemond One-Eye's hands are trembling.
"Aemond," Mother says warmly. "How fared your journey to Storm's End?"
Aemond swallows against a dry throat. "Prince Lucerys Velaryon is dead," he says without preamble. There is no use attempting to soften it. Lord Baratheon's response to their offer means nothing in the face of what happened.
"What?!" Aegon shakes his head as if his ears are waterlogged, as if he hasn't heard him properly. "Lucerys? Our Lucerys?"
Aemond has a memory, faint and small in his mind, Lucerys turning eyes filled with apprehension from young Arrax's gnashing maw to where Aegon and Aemond were standing, waiting to see if the dragon would serve, and Aegon nodding encouragement, mouthing a small "Go on" for him, smiling when Arrax had obeyed and Lucerys had grinned in his pride. He wonders if Aegon is thinking of that too, and grinds his teeth against the barrage of words that want to spill out of his mouth, the pleas for forgiveness and understanding. He needs to remain focused on the facts of the situation. Instead, he simply nods.
His mother puts her head in her hands, and Grandsire stands, his face grave. "What happened, Aemond? Let us hear the whole of it."
"Prince Lucerys arrived at Storm's End on dragonback soon after I did, to present an offer for Lord Baratheon on behalf of his mother," Aemond says. He finds himself momentarily grateful that his mother has not raised her eyes, else he would have told everything, his brief fit of rage at the sight of his nephew, with his two eyes and his unmarred face. Even the memory brings a flush creeping up his neck. "Lord Baratheon dismissed him, saying that it was not half as good as our's, and we took to the skies around the same time."
"At least we can count on Baratheon," Aegon says, scratching his fingers idly at the spot on his head where the crown of the Conqueror rests, the way he's begun to do when he's anxious. There is not much love lost between them, but Aemond aches to be able to say in all simplicity that yes, they can count on Lord Baratheon, and that is all there is to say, that he succeeded for his brother and nothing more happened. But all he can do is nod and continue on talking.
"The skies were storming, and with Vhagar and Arrax flying so close together for a time..." He wants to forget it, the way he'd wanted to hunt Lucerys in the same way Vhagar had wanted to hunt Arrax, the way he had felt Vhagar's vicious instinct, the violent satisfaction as she'd gotten to her prey in the end, the sated hunger from the blood, the way he had almost tasted it in his own mouth...He swallows down a sudden bout of bile, and keeps on. "Arrax at some point interpreted the situation as a threat, and tried to attack Vhagar, and Vhagar responded in kind."
"Ah." Aemond sees no need to speak such grisly things in front of his dear mother, to explain how Vhagar tore Arrax apart and practically ate Lucerys whole, and no doubt his grandsire feels the same. "We will need to make a response. Promptly, and send our sincerest apologies to the Princess, for her loss. And of course-"
"I would have a moment alone with my son," his mother says suddenly, raising her face from where it has been buried in her palms. She looks tired, and Aemond has a feeling not entirely dissimilar to the night he claimed Vhagar, when his father had ordered him say where he'd heard the rumors of the Velaryons' parentage and he had felt so alone, so vulnerable, and very afraid. Isolated. It is never a feeling he'd thought to have at the prospect of being alone with his mother, or in the face of his own wrongdoings.
Neither his grandsire nor Aegon brook any argument, simply stand and make their way to leave. Aegon shocks him, then, and reaches out to grip his arm reassuringly, the way any older brother might to his younger.
"You did bring us the Baratheons," Aegon says with another squeeze, and Aemond finds his throat tight, when Aegon pulls away and the room is emptied and it is him and his mother alone. She has dark circles under her eyes, when she looks at him. Aemond feels just as exhausted.
"Rhaenyra will never forgive this," Mother says quietly, twisting her fingers together. Aemond wants desperately to argue, to say that of course Rhaenyra will forgive it, once some time has passed and the sting of the loss has lessened. But he knows it would be wrong, when he thinks of how he would feel if something happened to his family, to his mother or Helaena, or even to Aegon or his little children. He would never forgive any harm that came to them.
"I never meant for it to happen." His voice sounds strangled in the open air, now that they're alone. His mother's hair is loose around her shoulders, and she runs her hands through it, agitated, eyes wet when they meet his. That hurts more than even the phantom heat of Arrax's flame on Vhagar's skin, as if it was on his own. It hurts even more than Lucerys's knife across his face, across his eye.
"Aemond," his mother says, low in her throat. "Aemond, if you set out to kill him-"
"Never!" Aemond remembers the rage, remembers the feeling churning deep in his gut, but he'd promised. He'd wanted to honor that promise. "Momma, I never wanted him dead. I..." He grinds his teeth again, and watches the way his mother continues to twist her hands together. "There were words, exchanged in anger, yes, but I never laid a hand on him, and Lord Baratheon made sure that no blood was shed in his hall."
"And outside of his hall?" she asks, as if she doesn't believe him, as if she thinks that he was lying to Aegon, to Grandsire, to her.
"We only wanted to scare them," Aemond insists. He and Vhagar, it had felt as if their wants were one, as if he was unsure where his ended and her's began and if any of them had wanted their counterparts dead until things had gotten so out of control and she had broken from him. "And when Arrax attacked, I tried to stop her, I did try. She wouldn't...She didn't listen."
"Oh, Gods be good Aemond," his mother moans, and that is all he can take, all he can bear, and he rushes to her side, falls to his knees with legs that feel as if they can no longer support his weight. He feels almost feverish. His mother thinks him a liar, an oathbreaker, a kinslayer, a sinner of the worst kind; his mother does not trust his word. His mother who had wielded a knife in his defense and had stayed with him and come to his aid as he'd learned to acclimate to life as Aemond One-Eye, his mother now thinks him false.
"Please, momma, you must believe me," he whispers. If he is any louder, he knows his voice will crack and break and he may even weep like a small child. "It was an accident, only an accident. I could not control it. You have believe me, you have to."
Her hands find his, and Aemond clutches at her fingers desperately. He wants to make a thousand new promises in that moment. Promise to fly to Dragonstone himself and explain, promise to collect Lucerys's remains so that they may be burnt like his forebears, or even buried at sea like the family he is not a part of, promise to stay in the Red Keep and never leave if that's what it takes. He wants to redeem himself, for his mother if for no one else. But she needs to believe him first.
"I believe you," she says softly. A sudden whimper wants to force its way out between his teeth, and Aemond swallows it down. "I believe you, my darling, I do. But this is not a mistake that will easily be rectified. Rhaenyra has lost a throne, and now she has lost a son." There is no recrimination in his mother's voice, only fatigue, but still, Aemond feels the sting. "The situation has become much more fraught."
For a moment, neither says anything, and Aemond focuses on the feeling of his hands in hers, the way he did when he was a child and sought her out for comfort after cruel taunts, or a terror in the night. He still feels himself trembling, as if the weight of what happened above Storm's End, of what he and Vhagar have done, is sapping the strength from his limbs.
"I wanted to take his eye," he mumbles, no longer looking at her, staring firmly at their hands on her lap. "I saw him there, face unblemished, and I drew my dagger and I told him to put out his eye the way he did mine and..." He takes in a deep, shaking breath. It almost frightens him, in a way, the force of his fury when Lucerys had refused, the way he had felt it crest over him in a wave before Lord Baratheon had interfered. "Forgive me, momma, I wanted his eye. I'm sorry."
One of his mother's hands disentangles from his, and strokes his face, over the ten year old scar. Aemond shudders. "What have we done, my sweet boy?" she says softly, almost to herself. "What have we done?" Aemond finds that he does not have an answer, and simply leans into her touch while holding on to her all the more tightly.