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She hears Aemond spitting venom before he even stalks through the doors. The maid cleaning the red chunks out of her hair startles, accidentally yanking a lock. Helaena winces, batting the hand away.
“Out,” Aemond snarls loudly the moment he sees her. “Out.”
The staff scramble, barely curtsying in their haste to leave. Aemond’s fists are clenched at his side, his eye locked on Helaena, wide and burning with cold fury. It could almost match the sapphire in his other.
Helaena pats uselessly at the pulp still tangled in her hair, dazedly wondering if she will have to cut it out with a knife. She does not move as her brother comes towards her, nor does she flinch when his own hand reaches for the mess on her head.
“You have been hurt,” Aemond says, quiet and livid.
“It is only food.” Helaena is not entirely sure why she is the one assuring him. “Mother is the one who bled.” Her words falter at the feel of his deft fingers untangling her hair.
Aemond is not gentle - he is sharp and harsh and denies any vulnerability like a weapon. So it surprises her some at the careful way he picks the rotten tomato pieces from her hair, a contrast to the stern look on his face.
“I would put whoever did this to the sword,” he mutters almost to himself.
Helaena closes her eyes. “They are hungry, Aemond.”
“They can starve for what they’ve done to you.”
She can still feel the spike points pressed up against her back, her mothers arms shielding the hits. It had not stopped the bruises on her arms or her torn dress, but Helaena will not tell Aemond that part. He would burn the smallfolk to cinders without a second thought.
(On her wedding night, after Aegon impaled her, Helaena had a bath drawn and wept in it until the water was stone cold. Aemond found her like that in the morning. “I’ll kill him,” he had said, eerily calm.
Helaena shook her head so hard her vision swam. “Just help me, please,” she pleaded, standing naked on shaky legs. Aemond had silently wrapped her in a towel, gaze lingering a moment too long on her bare breasts until the skin flushed pink. He had turned and left as fast as he had arrived.)
“You are not to leave the palace for some time, I think,” Aemond tells her now, comb in hand to rid her of what is left of the rotted food in her silver hair. This close, his head bent to hers, they blend together. If someone saw them now, they might think they are conjoined. Not knowing where one ends and the other begins.
Helaena watches Aemond’s movements, his eye narrowed in concentration and lips pressed into a thin line. It’s a familiar look, one she’s seen many times before, often directed at someone else - a threat, a challenge, a promise of retribution. At Aegon, most of all.
But now his focus is on her entirely. The juxtaposition of his fury and his tender ministrations leaves her feeling unmoored.
It is almost a glimpse of who he could have been.
“You have seen our brother today.” It is not a question.
Aemond stiffens for half a second, then continues undoing her hair, letting it fall in waves to her shoulders. “The King has a long road ahead of him.”
He should have died, he doesn’t say. But Helaena hears it.
“He will last two years,” she mutters distantly.
“What?” Aemond frowns.
Helaena blinks. “Don’t punish the people. Perhaps we can get more food to them?”
“Hm.” Her brother's mouth downturns. “You never did understand politics, did you, sweet sister?”
Her hair is loose now. She will have to wash it later. Aemond stands in front of her, tucking a lock behind her ear.
Helaena stares at him, lump in her throat. “You could be better than him, Aemond,” she says softly. “I want you to be better.”
She often wonders how different it would have been, had they been betrothed instead.
Aemond’s hand pauses at her ear, fingers lingering in the silken strands of her hair. His eye, stormy and filled with an unreadable emotion, searches hers. For a moment, the room is filled with a tense silence. He hovers, just touching the edge of Helaena's cheek, as if he's holding onto something delicate, something that might break under the weight of his next words. His expression shifts, the anger that had coloured his features softening into something more vulnerable. More human.
"You ask for what cannot be, sister," he says quietly, the edge of his voice dulled. "I am what I am. You know this." There's a resignation in his tone, a weary acceptance of a role he feels bound to play, a mask he cannot remove.
“Yet I live in hope, brother,” Helaena says.
Aemond leans forward, his forehead resting against hers, his eye closed. For a moment, he almost looks at peace - as if he is drawing his strength from her. Helaena touches his cheek, heart pounding. This will happen, she knows. This must happen. When he kisses her, light and soft, she is not shocked. She has dreamed this.
“Do not speak of Aegon again,” he warns, steel in his voice. “Not to me.”
Helaena bows her head. She doesn’t want to think about her dreams now. Does not want to think about Gods Eye, of the water tower spouted up by dying dragons.
Aemond straightens, his mask back in place. He gives a tight nod, then turns away, the moment of intimacy gone. He walks towards the door, a clear signal that their conversation is over. As he reaches for the handle, he pauses, glancing back at her, a flicker of something—regret, longing, or maybe just a shadow of who he might have been—crossing his face. "If you need anything, anything at all, call for me. I will be here."
"I know," she says, clearing her throat. She must be bold now. “And I would invite you to my chambers tonight.”
Aemond’s eye widens. “Helaena?”
“The realm requires a new heir…Your Grace.” Helaena swallows. “Since Jaehaerys…” she trails off, her eyes suddenly feeling hot.
There is one more yet to come. He will be called Maelor.
Understanding dawns on his face, his hand still gripping the door handle. “Then I will lay with you tonight, my Queen,” he promises.
Helaena watches him leave, allowing her maids back in. They draw a bath and wash her hair of the day. The water is hot and turns her skin red.
Like roses, like blood. Like fire.