Chapter Text
•••
Losing Jaehaerys was a lot like burning. White hot rage consumed Aegon from the inside out and left him in ruins. Helaena’s death was like a torch going out: everything became a little colder, a little darker. As for Daeron, Aegon mourned the opportunity to know his youngest brother more than he mourned the boy himself.
Aegon thought he knew loss. And then came the news that Aemond had fallen at the God’s Eye.
Losing Aemond…
Losing Aemond is like plunging through ice into frigid water.
It is pain like a thousand needles and air knocked from his chest and heavy limbs. It is numbness and agony. It is seeing all light and hope fade away as he sinks into the darkness below. It is never catching his breath but never dying either, trapped in a state of eternal drowning.
He wants to thrash and scream and fight.
He wants to give up and let himself drown.
Most of all Aegon wants vengeance but there is nowhere to have it. Daemon and Caraxes are already dead. Any satisfaction killing his half-sister brings him is crushed when Sunfyre dies soon after. He attends the beheadings of traitors in vain. Ten thousand of their heads on stakes couldn’t amount to Aemond’s worth.
The war is won. Soldiers return home to their families, towns begin to rebuild. Aegon sits the Iron Throne and knows it will never feel like a victory, only a curse.
His mother, at least, still lives. Aegon thought she might return to Oldtown when the war was over, to escape this memory-infested castle once and for all. Instead, she remains to help Aegon rule. Though there is little warmth between them after everything that has happened, he is grateful for her steadfast and familiar presence, and for someone to look after Jaehaera and Maelor.
By the grace of the gods his remaining two children have made it through these years of strife. They are sweet like their mother; any good in them did not come from Aegon. In them he finds at least one reason to live. He promises himself he won’t abandon them as his own father did, and makes sure they have the best of everything from instructors to nursemaids. Now that the war is over Aegon even invites the members of his court to bring their children so that his will have playmates. He knows firsthand that the Red Keep can be a lonely place to grow up.
When he sees Maelor and Jaehaera, Aegon covers up as much of his scarring as he can so as not to frighten them. He wishes to do the same everywhere he goes but his mother advises him otherwise.
“Let the people see what you have survived,” she tells him, “that it may inspire them.”
So he learns to comb his hair in a way that hides the worst of the scarring. Aegon practices carrying himself in a way that might almost be called dignified and walking using his cane without stumbling. He encases himself in armor to hide the slow decay within.
Late at night Aegon will stand in front of the mirror where once he was fitted in the Conqueror’s armor before that fateful day at Rook’s Rest. If he stands one way, he almost looks like his former self. He tries to remember what it felt like to be that young man, boiling over with rage and ready to fight. When he turns the other way he is faced with the price he paid for his impetuousness.
•••
Aemond’s body was never found after the battle. Still, many months later, the King sends parties out to search every bit of land around the God’s Eye. The first several return empty-handed, but on the fourth attempt they discover Vhagar’s body and her skull is returned to the castle. Aegon counts it as a small blessing that Aemond never had to see the end of his beloved dragon.
Over time the search parties bring back other things - first just pieces of armor and riding gear, then a dagger, then Aemond’s eye patch. His sword is eventually found in the mud along the banks of the lake. Eventually Aegon has amassed enough tokens of his brother to take up the mantle above his fireplace. Nearby shelves display Helaena’s embroideries, Daeron’s sword, Jaehaerys’ toys, one of Sunfyre’s spikes. His rooms have become a shrine to the dead.
It isn’t enough. Aegon orders that statues be built of Helaena, Aemond and Daeron. They bear little likeness to the real things, which in a way that makes them easier for Aegon to look at. When the statues are completed he has the skulls of Vhagar, Dreamfyre and Tessarion placed beside their respective riders. His three dead siblings and their three dead dragons, finally reunited. The sight fills Aegon with pride and sorrow in equal measure.
He tells anyone who will listen that they will be remembered for generations to come as the heroes who put the rightful heir on the throne. Nevermind that to Aegon it was not worth the cost - his closest kin in exchange for a crown he never wanted and was never prepared for. In moments of clarity between grief, sleep and drunkenness, he vows to himself to rule well, to make their sacrifice worth it. Some days he keeps his promise. More often he is absent in mind or body and his mother represents him as she had for Viserys.
When duty does not require him, Aegon wanders the halls of the Keep like a ghost or spends days at a time locked away in his rooms. He can no longer find enjoyment in brothels, nor does he have the strength to practice with his sword. When he goes into town the smallfolk look at him with disgust or pity and so he avoids his old favorite taverns.
Just as Lord Larys once told him, all that is left is his mind. It was and still is a terrifying notion; his mind is exactly what he wishes to escape. Pain and regret plague him, and Aegon tries to drown them in wine and dreamwine but they always return.
With little else to do he finally takes an interest in his father’s many books. They make him feel closer to Aemond, who read them all many years ago. Aegon even finds little notes tucked in some, with things his brother wanted to remember written in his tidy handwriting. Aegon saves them all.
In every waking moment, Aegon misses Aemond. He swears he hears his boots echo in the halls and sees Vhagar’s shadow out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns to look it is only a Lord passing by or a cloud overhead. Ever since Aemond was born, Aegon had some sense of where he was at any given moment. Now his mind reaches in all directions and grasps at air. He feels like a ship untethered, drifting in an open sea all alone.
At night he sleeps alone in his bed, the bed they once shared, trying in vain to remember the feeling of his taller younger brother wrapped around him from behind. Being in Aemond’s arms made Aegon feel safer than any armor ever could. Some nights he sneaks into Aemond’s bedroom and sleeps in his bed just to feel surrounded by his presence like that again, until his smell fades from the bedclothes and Aegon is left with the awful realization that in time he will forget every precious detail of his lost brother, and it will be like losing him all over again.
•••
If Aegon maintained any flicker of hope that Aemond might still be alive, it is doused the day a knight returns from the riverlands with something to show the King and dowager Queen.
When Alicent and Aegon go to meet him he presents them with a small velvet pouch. Alicent hesitates to reach for it, perhaps afraid of what she might find. Too numb to care, Aegon accepts the pouch and looks inside. At first it appears empty, but when Aegon tips it a little something gleams blue from within.
An uneasy feeling forms in the pit of his stomach, worsened by too little food and too much wine even at this early hour. He would know that shade of blue anywhere. There is no other like it.
With a heavy heart Aegon tips the open pouch into his other hand and out falls the sapphire that once served as replacement for Aemond’s missing eye.
Aegon thinks he might throw up.
Alicent goes pale at the sight. “Where did you find this?”
“In the possession of a merchant in Maidenpool. We questioned him, he said he bought it from a smuggler. We are searching for this man to question him. Perhaps he could lead us to-”
“To Prince Aemond’s body,” Aegon says dully.
Aegon traces a thumb over the facets of the stone. He knows it exceedingly well. How many nights did he stare into it, watching light and shadows dance while Aemond slept? How many times did he kiss the scarred skin around it with reverence? Few had ever seen it so close, and none so intimately. To Aegon the gem was as much a part of his brother as his real eye.
And now here it sits in Aegon’s open palm.
This is the closest he may ever get to proof that Aemond is gone. Aegon closes his fist tight around the sapphire, its edge digging into his skin hard enough to hurt. He welcomes the feeling. Suddenly he is enraged at the notion that some common thief knows where his brother lies but he does not, and that he had the nerve to pluck the gem from Aemond’s face like a pit from a peach and sell it in a market.
He and his mother exchange a glance and, in a rare moment of understanding between them, she nods. Aegon silently takes his leave, the sapphire now his to keep. And with that, the truth of Aemond’s loss settles into his bones and makes a home to stay.
•••