"An eye for an eye. A brother for a brother."

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The room was still cloaked in the deep embrace of midnight, the silence broken only by the occasional whisper of a breeze outside, when Daenys stirred in her sleep, a low rasp escaping her parched lips as she slowly emerged from the clutches of a restless dream she could not recall. The air in the chamber felt thick, suffused with an unspoken tension that seemed to mirror the turmoil within her.

As her heavy eyelids fluttered open, she winced at the stabbing pain in her temples, a relentless throbbing that pulsed in rhythm with the beating of her heart. The room swayed gently around her, and she felt a strange stickiness on her cheeks as she blinked away the remnants of tears that had painted trails down her face. Her vision was blurred, as if the world had decided to don a hazy veil, and it took her a few moments to gather her bearings. 

Then the sensation of a weight across her waist caught her attention, and when she turned her gaze downward to the source, there he lay, Aemond Targaryen, clinging to her as if she were a lifeline. His eyepatch had been carelessly discarded, revealing the vulnerability of the one who usually bore the mantle of strength. Moonlight spilled through the jagged maw of the window, casting an ethereal glow upon his tousled hair and smooth features, and even in slumber, his face was etched with lines of worry, a reflection of the troubles that plagued him past his waking hours.

His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm and Daenys resisted the urge to trace the soft glow that highlighted the shadows beneath his eyes. The arm that wasn't wrapped protectively around her waist rested gently on her neck, his fingers entwining with the tendrils of her hair, while his head nestled into the crook of her throat, finding comfort in the curve of her shoulder.

It made Daenys feel sick. His touch burned in a way that made her want to peel off her skin and leave it out to shrivel and crackle in the sun until she was a version of herself he had never laid hands on. 

Determined not to disturb her husband's peaceful slumber, she began the delicate task of extricating herself from his hold. With the utmost care, she shifted her body ever so slightly, attempting to loosen the grip of his arms. However, as she maneuvered, Aemond unconsciously tightened his hold, responding with a reflexive sigh that hinted at the reluctance to release his grasp on her.

For a moment, Daenys paused, her heart pounding with trepidation. The moonlight continued to weave its silver tapestry around them, the room shrouded in the stillness of the night. She took a deep breath, determined to continue her discreet escape.

Undeterred by Aemond's unconscious resistance, Daenys resumed her slow, methodical movement. She carefully peeled his arm from around her waist, feeling the tension in his muscles as he unwittingly clung to her. The sigh that escaped him seemed almost like a lament, the complaint of a man reluctant to let go of an anchor during a storm.

Step by step, she managed to slide away from him, the silk sheets whispering softly in response to her cautious retreat until she finally slipped out, her feet landing on the broken glass that littered the room. She held in the pained whine that threatened to escape her lips and surveyed her surroundings carefully. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for until her gaze settled on the dagger strapped to Aemond's belt. The weapon seemed to beckon to her, and without thinking Daenys found herself reaching for it. 

With a deft hand, she unsheathed the dagger, its metallic rasp muffled. The cold touch of the blade sent a shiver down her spine and she held it tightly, the weight of the weapon grounding her as she considered her next move.

She wondered if this was the same dagger Aemond had offered up to her brother. The very same dagger that would have rid Luke of his eye. 

Daenys glanced back at her sleeping husband, her hands moving unconsciously again and she didn't even know she had moved until the wicked blade was below Aemond's chin. It would be so easy. One smooth movement, one whispered hush with no one but the moon as her witness and then it'd be over. She could leave him bleeding into his own sheets, in the same bed where he had whispered all the lies to her. She could be rid of him. 

Something hungry inside her begged for that crimson fountain to bubble forth and she hazarded pressing the weapon closer, its razor-sharp edge hovering just above his throat. She could almost feel the warmth of his skin beneath the cold steel, a stark contrast to the iciness that gripped her heart. The blade traced an invisible line, too close and too far apart all at once, the distance between two lovers, the distance between a promise and a lie. 

Then he said her name. 

Not in the coherent syllables of a fully conscious man, but a whispered invocation of her name as a desperate reach from the recesses of his slumber.

Daenys placed a hand over his seeing eye, and the furrow in his brow seemed to melt away at her touch. She could carry out the deed now, in the quiet of the night, and he would not even see it coming. His eyes would fly open, only to be met with an abyss of darkness, a void that would swallow both sight and consciousness.

Darkness and then nothing.

It would be a mercy. 

Then she pulled back with a sigh. He did not deserve such a mercy. He did not deserve such a painless death of confusion and darkness. No, he deserved the spectre of fear that must have haunted Luke. She refused to hand Aemond over to the Stranger so easily. She would make him beg for it when the time came. 

But now was not that time, and she could not risk awakening the entirety of the Red Keep for the sake of the sadistic desire that unfurled beneath her ribs. 

For now, she had to go home and pledge her allegiance to the one true Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. 

 Still clutching the dagger tightly, she tiptoed across the chamber, her feet seeking refuge in the spaces between scattered belongings, avoiding the treacherous shards of the shattered debris. Despite her meticulous efforts, the floor betrayed her intentions, and a faint trail of deformed carmine footsteps marked her silent journey across the room.

Her fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the door handle, and to her surprise, it yielded effortlessly beneath her touch. Turning one last time to ensure her husband's continued slumber, Daenys cast a glance over her shoulder. 

Then she scowled and stepped outside, flinching when her bruised soles made contact with the cold marble outside. 

"Princess?"

The knight from earlier stood sentinel near the doorway, an unexpected obstacle in her path. Ser Percival, if she recalled correctly, the very same man who had shown her some semblance of kindness when she had been ordered to the Queen's chambers to be a part of Aegon's cruel joke, and if she tried hard enough she could remember him asking Aemond to let her return home. She could not say how much of the latter was true though, as much of the events that followed were a blur in her memory, clouded over by her own consciousness.  

"Is everything all right, princess?" Ser Percival inquired, his voice gentle.

Daenys nodded hastily, panic tightened her chest as she let her eyes silently plead with her captor to let her continue her escape undetected. Before she could slip away, however, the knight's gauntleted hand closed firmly around her wrist.

"Forgive me, my lady, but you cannot leave. It would be against my orders, and I'd find myself in grave trouble."

Daenys, her breath caught in her throat, her eyes flickering nervously toward the open door of Aemond's chambers, praying that he remained undisturbed in his slumber. Ser Percival, following her gaze, frowned in understanding but maintained his grip on her wrist.

"Pleas—please, I must go," she implored, her voice a quiet plea laced with desperation. Her fingers, concealed around the hilt of the dagger behind her back, tightened instinctively. She wished not to resort to violence, but she would do it if pushed any further. 

The knight's gaze softened, a fleeting expression of pity in his eyes. "I understand, princess, but I cannot allow it. I am sworn to keep watch, and letting you go would betray...the king."

Daenys's eyes hardened and she wrenched her hand away from him aggressively, "I would cut your tongue out for being a traitor. Be grateful I do not have more time."

When she turned around to depart, he did not stop her a second time, only watching apologetically as he heard the young prince stir awake in his chambers behind him.

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Aemond Targaryen was immediately aware of the absence of the familiar weight beside him, and panic surged through him, a cold realization that his wife was no longer in the bed where he had last seen her before drifting off to sleep. When his hand strayed to his waist where his scabbard was empty of his dagger his heart dropped. 

In an instant, he bolted upright, disoriented by the abrupt awakening. His seeing eye darted around the chamber, searching for any sign of her, hoping to see her pacing agitated form. When the truth sank in, a surge of urgency propelled him to the door, and the knight stationed outside looked up with a start as he burst through.

"Where is she?" the prince demanded, his voice edged with a mix of fear and anger. The knight's eyes widened, and he struggled to find the words to convey what had just transpired.

"The princess... she just..." 

There was a stammer in the knight's voice, and he was unable to meet Aemond's intense gaze. It was not often that the one-eyed prince walked about without his eyepatch on, and his singular gaze was strikingly unsettling, making it difficult to look at him for too long. 

"I will not ask again. Where. Is. My. Wife?" he enunciated the words slowly, as if speaking to a fool, his hands coming up to grab the trembling man in front of him by the shoulders. 

"She...she left, my prince."

"Left? Left where? What do you mean? It was your job to watch over her! Where is she?"

Ser Percival, caught between duty and the fury in Aemond's eyes, gestured vaguely in the direction opposite to where Daenys had gone. Still, the prince's sharp gaze scrutinized both sides of the hallway and, to his horror, he noticed the faint bloody footprints that marked her departure. The realization hit him like a physical blow.

"What happened to her?" Aemond growled, his fingers digging into the knight's armour. "Why is there blood? Answer me!"

Now pinned against the wall, Ser Percival struggled to maintain composure, "I don't know, my prince. She just left. I tried to stop her, but she insisted on going. I... I don't know anything about the blood."

"You tried to stop her? And you couldn't have tried harder? You, a knight of the realm, could not stop that wraith of a girl? Seven hells, and you're expected to protect my brother the king?"

If fear hadn't laid siege to his mind, Percival might have scoffed. Wraith of a girl? The princess was a little more than that. Something in her voice reminded him of another who once roamed these halls. He never thought he'd hear that voice again, the dominating tone of the Commander of the City Watch coming from the mouth of the silver-haired princess, and for a moment it was as if Percival's old mentor had returned to life, if only to scorn him for being a traitor. Perhaps that is why he had let her go in the first place, as some sort of penance. 

Aemond's eyes flared with anger, his mind racing with the possibilities of what could have transpired in his absence. Without another word, he released the knight and stormed down the corridor, following the bloody trail left by his fleeing wife. His mind threw his way an onslaught of worst-case scenarios. Was she still sick in the head from her fever? Had she thrown herself off some balcony or slit her throat? Or was the dagger meant for someone else? Would he find her standing above Aegon's bed, or worse, his mother's or Helaena's, her hands and his dagger drenched with their blood? He would not put it past her. 

He wondered what state he'd find her in. The version of her who dug craters into her arms as if they were graves, whose eyes contained a glint of mania that spoke of impossible actions. Or the version who would plead and cry and allow him to hold her once he finally reached her. 

He knew which version he preferred. He knew which one of them was easier to subdue. 

Aemond pursued Daenys's trail to a painting on the wall, and he immediately knew where she was headed, even as the footsteps ended with a faint smattering of red in the darkness. It was a path well traversed by both of them, for late-night escapades in Flea Bottom, and he quickened his step. 

Eventually, he arrived at a secluded courtyard, where in the dim light, he discerned a figure—limping, dragging one foot behind, and cloaked in the shadows.

Approaching cautiously, Aemond's heart ached at the sight of his wife. She really was a wraith of a girl here, her unbound hair a spill of starlight down her back, and her silhouette, fragile and ghostly. Before he could take another step, she whirled around, a dagger clutched in her hands, poised as a barrier between them.

"Daenys," Aemond called out, his voice gentle and laced with concern. "What are you doing out here? The hour is late and it's freezing. Let me take you back to bed."

Daenys, her eyes hollow and distant, stared at him through the dim light. The dagger remained a silent sentinel between them, the one-eyed prince watched it cautiously, not knowing who she'd use it against.

"You're hurt, Daenys. Let me help you. I'll carry you back if I have to. Just please...let us return."

She backed away, her movements cautious and guarded. The moonlight danced on the blade in her hand, casting glimmers of silver across her face. A fleeting smile crossed her lips, but her eyes remained distant, as if she were standing at the edge of a precipice. The fever that had gripped her earlier seemed to have subsided, yet an unnatural flush lingered on her skin. Aemond, sensing the fragility of her mind, extended a hand toward her.

"Daenys give me the weapon. You'll hurt yourself."

Daenys's gaze, still clouded and enigmatic, flickered between the dagger and Aemond's outstretched hand. 

"You know I wondered if you'd come after me," she finally spoke, her voice low and contemplative. "I even hoped for it."

"You wanted me to come for you? Well, you wanted me, so here I am. Let us go back then."

"No that's not why I wanted you here."

"Then...why?"  Aemond's brow furrowed, not understanding the game she played.

"I'm not entirely sure."

Daenys paused. She was leaving here tonight, that much was certain. She had made up her mind about it and there was nothing that could keep her from it. She had hoped to slip away unnoticed, but she couldn't deny the thrill that shot through her bloodstream to see her husband's cautious form trailing after her like a shadow. He was asking for it at this point. If he laid a hand on her, she would end him, but if he didn't...then well, it remained to be seen. The night hungered for bloodshed, and perhaps she'd oblige, although she hadn't yet decided who would make the sacrifice. 

She raised the dagger, her smile mirroring the sharp edge of the blade, and her husband instinctively raised his hands placatingly.

"Daenys, put the knife down," he implored, his voice a gentle but urgent plea. 

"Do not worry, lord husband," she murmured. "It's not for you."

Aemond's heart pounded in his chest, the dread of the unknown tightening its grip. What did she mean? Was she planning to end her own life; did she wish to hurt him by making him watch?

"Who is it for, then?" 

"Would you like for it to be for you?"

"I-No, that's not..."

Daenys placed the dagger against her collarbone, and Aemond blanched. Amused by his reaction she cocked her head to the side, as if contemplating a profound question.

"What would you do if I said it was for me?" 

Aemond's seeing eye widened, the realization sinking in like a heavy stone in his stomach. He took another step closer and the courtyard seemed to narrow around them. 

"Why would you even think of doing something like that?"

"I don't know. Why would you think of doing something like what you did?"

She trailed the dagger up the column of her throat, and then further up until it rested just above her left eye. The one-eyed prince's breath hitched, and something inside of him knew where this was going. He should have surged forward, he should have wrestled the weapon away from her, he should have slammed her head against the stone wall behind her, if only to stop her next actions. 

All he was capable of doing at that moment though, was standing still, waiting with baited breath. 

"You know I thought about it. I thought about ending myself right here in front of you. Letting you watch as I bled to death here. I wondered if that would hurt you half as much as you have hurt me. But that would be no fun at all, would it? And it would make no difference to you."

She took a deep breath, the slight waver in her lungs being the first sign of real emotion she had shown all evening. 

"And besides...why should I die? Why should I be the one to," — another shudder— "why should I be the one to die for your crimes? I have so much left to do, so why should I do you the favour of ending myself, when you don't give the slightest damn about me?"

"That's not true. You know that that's not true. You are the one person I care about most," Aemond was pleading now. In fact, he might have sunk to his knees in front of her, the way she had for him, but there was still too much pride left in him. 

"Liar. You are nothing but a fucking liar."

"Daenys pleas-you aren't well...let us..."

"An eye for an eye was it?" her words burned with fury but they remained calm, nonchalant as if she was merely discussing the weather. "Well then, did you get the eye you so desired? Did you pluck out my dead brother's eye? Did that bring you peace husband?" 

Aemond was taken aback. Is that what she thought of him then? Someone who would desecrate a corpse like that —not that there was a corpse to begin with. Someone that heartless and cruel? But he supposed he had given her all the reasons to believe him so.

"No! Of course not. Why would I...you have to know it was an accident. I would never..."

"Pity. If you had taken what you were owed, then perhaps you might have given the rest of him to me. Perhaps then there'd be something of him to burn."

"You know I would never do such a thing. To violate a corpse-"

"Says the man who has no trouble at all violating the living. Tell me, is there a greater violation than murder?"

The one-eyed prince was rendered speechless, so his wife continued with a long-suffering sigh. 

"The fact of the matter remains then. Your debt has not been paid. We shall have to remedy that. If it is an eye you want, it's an eye you shall get."

Daenys's subsequent grin had an unhinged quality to it and for the first time in his life, Aemond Targaryen found himself afraid of his wife. Perhaps equal parts afraid of her and afraid for her.

"I don't want anything," he whispered, shaking his head. "I don't want anyone's eyes. Daenys please you're scaring me."

"Ah, that's a shame. The debt must be paid after all. Unpaid debts lead to deadly grudges, as you probably already know."

Before Aemond could respond, before he could move a single muscle, she had already lifted the dagger to press deeper into her skin. In the brief second before her skin split, she thought of Luke. She thought of his pale lifeless body floating in the sea, his empty fingers reaching out but never holding. She imagined he'd look something like Lord Caswell, whose bloated swaying form hung from the stone arch behind Aemond. 

The dead were all the same, in that they were dead. 

Some things were worth spilling blood for. Some people were worth bleeding for. 

The blade left a neat, horrifying slash across her left eye, tracing a line from brow to cheekbone. Daenys bit her lip, stifling the instinctive shriek that begged to escape her throat. Aemond, recoiled with horror, feeling the spectre of pain that unfolded before him almost viscerally.

A thin line of crimson welled from the fresh wound, staining her pale skin, but she was resolute, determined to bear her suffering silently, just as Lucerys had. She would carry her silence to her grave, just as her brother had. Still, the twitch in her lips belied her. The dagger dropped from her trembling fingers, echoing against the courtyard stones, and without hesitation, she drove her hands into the bloody aftermath.

Blood gushed over her face, a torrent of red that reminded Aemond so much of his injury. He watched in numb shock as Daenys pried apart the torn skin and drew out her eye, the macabre appendage trailing a bloody root. She cradled it for a moment in her hands as if one might cradle a newborn babe, and though her other eye leaked a steady stream of tears, her face remained expressionless. 

Aemond was jolted from his initial paralysis when she walked forward to press the disembodied thing into his shaking hands. 

"I always did say I would have given you one of my own, you only had to ask," Daenys's whispered voice was strained as if it took all her remaining strength to keep it steady. "I would have given it to you with my blessing and a kiss."

She grabbed his jaw, her fingers leaving red smears on the prince's chin. Then she pressed a kiss to his frozen lips, staining them too. She tasted of blood, and although her actions were smooth, precise, her hatred felt unfamiliar and hard. Something within her had torn loose. She wanted to devour him. She wanted to chew him up and spit him out so he resembled the mass he cradled so protectively in his hands. 

There was no time for that now. She could feel her consciousness slipping, feel her resolve crumbling as more of her flowed out of the gaping wound in her face. If she passed out here, then everything would be for nought, and she'd never make it back home. 

"I-I never asked for it."

"You never asked for it, but now you have it."

With a curse and a kiss. 

"Here's your debt repaid in full Aemond. An eye for an eye."

"I'm sorry, gods I'm so sorry," Aemond's eye filled with tears, the one that could shed tears anyway. 

He had lost his right eye, and she had given him her left. Standing side by side, they might have made a whole person even. He could still feel it, when she had sliced into herself, he had felt the sharpness of his nephew's blade and for a few short moments, he was ten again, except this time there was no thrill of riding Vhagar for the first time humming in his blood. Only guilt and horror. 

"Oh, Aemond. Valzȳrys."

The prince's heart clenched at the sound of the words that spilled from his wife's lips. A remnant of another time when they were full of love, but there was no affection in her eyes—eye, for only one of them was capable of emotion— now. There was only emptiness. 

"I have paid the debt my brother owed you. But rest assured, the blood of Lucerys will be repaid tenfold. A debt your entire family will pay. A brother for a brother if you will."

Aemond's blood ran cold.

"What are you insinuating?"

"I don't have to insinuate anything. I will kill your brother. A fair trade don't you think, a brother for a brother, especially now that you have my eye."

"I did not ask for your eye!" Aemond raised his voice in frustration. 

"And I did not ask for you to kill Lucerys... yet here we are."

"That was an-"

"Do not say accident, you fucking coward. At least own up to it. At least admit to your crime."

She turned around to leave, her tongue heavy and her eyelids heavier. It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on her feet. 

"You're leaving?"

Daenys scoffed, her voice barely audible now, "You expect me to stay in this prison then? Play house with the man who murdered my brother, pay my respects to his traitor brother and conniving mother? The family who stole my mother's birthright?"

Something in Aemond snarled at her insult toward his mother, or perhaps it was the panic that reared its head because she was leaving. She was finally leaving, just as his grandsire had warned him. She was going to abandon him. 

"You cannot leave. I am your lord husband. If I demanded it, you would have to stay," Aemond snapped. 

She could not leave him, she would not. Not her. Not the only thing in the world that he had for himself, the only good thing that had ever happened to him. The only thing his brother hadn't spoiled for him, although he supposed he had ruined it all by himself without any help.

"You really think you can make me stay, because what? The gods say that I must? Abide by your pathetic rules that bind wives to their husbands, slave to their every whim. I did not make vows of obedience to you. I do not have to listen to a word you say."

"No, please. Don't go. Don't leave me here," Aemond's tone shifted immediately. 

He inched forward faster now. Beseeching her to let him hold her. To let him keep her. He reached out to snag her forearm but she shook him off just as swiftly. Her skin was burning. She was burning. He could have held on harder, could have forced her but she had picked up his dagger again and he could not imagine where she'd embed it next. 

"Would you come then? If I asked you to abandon your family and support my mother's true claim, would you come with me," she meant to mock him, but something in her eyes implored him.

It was a chance. It would not absolve him of his sin, but she shared in his Kinslaying and if he bent the knee to her mother, then perhaps one day she might be able to forgive him, and forgive herself too. 

Aemond stayed silent, his jaw clenched, his outstretched hand retreating. That was the one thing he could not do. 

"I do not hold a candle to the flame you harbour for your family. Who was I to think that you would choose me."

The one-eyed prince frowned, a tear trickling down his face. 

Or I to think that you would choose me. 

He watched her limp away, her hand coming up to cup her face only when she had turned around, her back toward him. 

He let her go, and when she finally disappeared from view, his attention returned to the carnage he still clutched tightly in his hands. His anger, his panic, had made him ball his fists, and when he separated his fingers, he was relieved to find the bloody sphere still whole, the violet iris wide and unseeing. 

He finally sank to his knees, unable to keep down the surge of bile that rose in his throat, and burned his way out of his mouth, depositing the meagre contents of his stomach on the stone floor. 

The moon continued its silent vigil, casting a luminous embrace over the troubled prince as he heaved, still clutching the final remnant of what he had lost. 

He had always been a better knife than a person and now he had turned the girl he loved into a gaping wound. She hated him, but he knew he'd see her again. It was the law of the world, for a knife and a wound to seek each other out, because they spoke in a language of damage no one else did. 

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A/N: So sry for the delay folks, it's been busy but I hope you enjoy the chapter. 

As usual, don't be a ghost reader, comments really motivate me to continue writing so share your thoughts plz and thank u
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