Chapter 1: A Blight in the Soul

Summary:

Once Lucerys Velaryon plummets into the sea and is thought to have died, Aemond finds it within himself to end the heated feelings that tear apart his soul, finally settling for peace. But once a taunting message written in High Valryian finds him as he ascends toward his high duty, his valiant attitude is shed and the angry fire in him is restored.

Across the Narrow Sea, a broken boy finds his path in Essos, within a black-and-white temple tucked away on a little island in Braavos.

Chapter Text

Aemond always felt plagued by his position since a young child, watching the backs of his family members as they propelled forward on their dragons while he stayed fixed on the ground. He felt it was unfair, how when he studied and practiced his High Valyrian every day, his elder brother Aegon was nowhere to be found, and yet the maesters still put more attention towards his nephews, Jace and Luke. The Targaryen prince always especially felt the sting of being put on the back burner of his families life's when he would be in his mother's arms, telling her about his day to notice her eyes were vacant and her fingers absentmindedly fidgetting at each other. The only other person he could find to share this burden with would have been his sister Helaena, and yet she was always elsewhere in her mind with incohesive mumblings and an avoiding gaze.

Not even love was felt from his own father, too old and writhing in sickness and pain to ever give him a word of advice or ask Aemond anything about himself. It was lonely, being a Targaryen in a house full of them, and yet none of them seeing the young prince as one simply because there was no dragon to his name.

No—Aemond felt less than indeed—a scalding hot knife being jabbed in between his ribs it seemed whenever his nephews and brother pranced around teasing him for his misfortunes, rubbing salt into his wounds. But even when he would clamor into his mother for her to soothe his injured feelings, he would always find her coming to the conclusion of trying to justify her own pain.

"You needn't pay mind to those two nephews of yours. They might have dragons, but they are plain-faced creatures who don't possess the true Targaryen heritage of your white locks and violet eyes," It would always start like that at first when she was present and actively mothering her children, despite being too familiar with pushing the four of them away. "Who knows where they retrieved those pug noses and dark curls from?"

There it was, the familiar venomous singe of his mother's words, the ones she'd always found herself coming back to allude to. Aemond would just sit with her and listen, watch and witness as he was all too familiar with Alicent dragging his elder sister's name through the mud. That is when he felt of sudden importance, being the quiet ear for his mother's wrath that he kept hidden like the pliant child he was, comforting her shaking arms and fingers picking at each other as he held her while she ranted. For her, he would simmer the fire that she was, in the hidden corners of the Red Keep, as the prince understood this accusation was of high treason; concluding that being a bastard was worse than being without a dragon.

Soon, he found comfort in that secret truth as well, becoming poised and reasonably controlled even when his nephews and Aegon presented him with a pig dressed in wings to ride, biting his tongue as it wriggled to say a hurtful word or two. The young prince felt drawn to the depths of the dragon pit, walking deep into the darkness to the scent of the winged creatures and charred sheep carcasses, coming into eye view of a glorious beast, to just be roared at with a horrendous wave of flames. Instead of focusing on the momentary scorching, Aemond was returned back to his mother and told her about his teasing all over, confiding in the awful words she felt about his sister and her family, figuring his mother felt and voiced enough pain for both of them.

But there was always the ringing inferiority he felt when his father would be alerted of these mishaps, never making any changes about how scorned his child prince felt by his grandsons. That was the defining moment that birthed something ugly inside Aemond, a blight that he recognized too well inside of his mother's character, and it began to fester without his want.

The embers of these violent fires inside him went fanned as the rivalry between the Targaryen uncles and Velaryon nephews resumed, especially during sparing practices. That was one of the first times Aemond felt a good scratching at his festering hate, witnessing the way the two brunette boys struggled to wield their swords and Ser Criston Cole paying mind mostly to the Targaryen princes. Then the wound throbbed as Harwin Strong loomed and spoke suddenly.

"It seems the younger boys could do better with a bit of your attention… Ser Criston." Everyone who knows the allegations hold their breath, Aemond biting the inside of his cheeks in anticipation, looking at his nephews with clueless looks.

"You question my method of instruction, Ser?" Criston Cole replies, Aegon looking over at Aemond with an eager smirk on his face as they both know nothing good will follow next.

"Oh, I merely suggest that method be applied to all your pupils."

"Very well."

That is when Aemond quickly understood that this would be one of the many instances where the adults in their life would use the children to express their silent distaste for one another. But the wounded part of himself whispered that his insignificance was still showing, as he watched unexploited while Aegon got to combat Jacaerys. The scorned child always felt the sting of his role in the family when it came to times like this—a spare—and ultimately never the first choice. Aemond glanced over from the fight to look at Lucerys, the blundering idiot bouncing back and forth in anticipation and excitement without understanding the true meaning behind this spar. The prince felt a bit relieved, knowing being pitted against that barbaric child would be anything but fair to the both of them. The humor of the match was cut short when Harwin clamped down on Aegon to prevent him from striking Jace who was already down on the floor, Aemond watching right beside Lucerys as everything began to unfold.

"You dare put hands on me?" Aegon yelled, everyone who wasn't already watching now putting a halt to their individual duties to watch just as earnestly as Aemond had been.

"You forget yourself, Strong. That is the Prince." Ser Criston says, and the young Aemond wonders if he himself would just be referred to as 'a prince', a title without as much weight to it compared to the one his idiot brother held. Harwin ignored the severity of his actions and picked up after them, lecturing Cole while the boys instinctively gathered around each other, a tension brooding in the air of the sparing grounds. And yet, nobody dared intervene either because they too wanted to know what would come next or were too afraid to get in between the fierce knights.

And then the words splurted from Criston Cole's mouth, the same way Aemond would hear the insulting jabs hidden in his mother's ramblings, the ones everyone else was too political to say, "Your interest in the princeling's training is quite unusual, Commander. Most men would only have that kind of devotion toward a cousin... or a brother... or a son."

The Targaryen prince could feel his brother shaking him gleefully by the shoulders as Harwin pounded down with his fists on Criston, crimson blood flinging from behind the large back of the Strong knight. Even though this event confirmed the truth about his nephew's bastardism, the rest of the realm witnessing how the Velaryon boys were truly beneath their uncles, the second son couldn't help but look up into the high peaks where he knew his father was watching everything. Aemond wondered if there would ever be a day when Viserys would stand up for him the way Ser Harwin did at that moment, but he killed that idea as quickly as it came, feeling it was better to squalor in somebody else's pain, even if it were his own family's.

____

There were times when Aemond's rotting hatred for his nephews would flutter, like when the death of Harwin Strong and his father occurred along with the charring of Laena Velaryon. The young prince had a crippling moment of guilt on the way over the seas to Driftmark from King's Landing, forgetting the fact that this was his first time traveling Blackwater Bay, and instead wondering if his want for the pain of Jace and Luke is what conjured the death of their father so shortly after his departure back to Harrenhal. It twisted even more so when his grandfather returned to them as the King's Hand with their youngest sibling Daeron from Oldtown, Aemond noticing quickly how their loss was his own family's gain.

And the guilt continued to gnaw at him through the funeral and departure of Laena's body, encased in a casket and sent to the depths of the ocean in contrast to Targaryen's being burnt to ash with blazing fire. Aemond was wondering what exactly they were sending away exactly if the woman had already been sent ablaze by Vhagar, which lead to him wondering which dragon would ignite his own body when he died. He snapped back to the service when his ears started picking up and putting together the High Valryian words Vaemond Velaryion was speaking as a tribute to his niece, realizing that his words were not at all to create peace as he turned to stare right at his half-sister and her dark-haired sons.

"Salt courses through Velaryon blood. Ours runs thick. Ours runs true. And ours must never thin."

Not even in a state of grief and in the presence of death could their family remain civil.

Aemond just ghosted along the walls of the terrace where the service continued, paying mind to Aegon or Daeron when they would come near enough to exchange a word or two, enveloping his thoughts back to his nephews. Driftmark was what Lucerys was set to inherit along with the Velaryon fleet while Jacaerys was thought to ascend the Iron Throne after his mother. But their mother and people like Ser Criston referred to Aemond and his siblings in high regard, Aegon as the trueborn heir, Helaena as his queen, and the second son understood that this way of thinking could ensure him his own place in their Targaryen legacy.

Looking over the fire, Aemond saw Jacaerys across from him and felt himself start to begin to smile, trying to simmer the guilt he had felt about the loss of Harwin Strong. But he felt that a gesture so false wouldn't be enough to try and fix the pain they'd caused each other and that it was unfair to pretend it was.

So Aemond just continued as he would at King's Landing, invisible and lonely even among the nobility gathered, daydreaming about the beasts who breathed fire and listening keenly whenever their sounds rumbled into the air. It was the little amusement he could find, but as always peace was not something familiar to Old Valyria's households. Lord Corlys Velaryon made a scene about his son wading in the ocean in sorrow, everyone present gawking at the sight but too stunned to comment. There was a murmur of voices again shortly before Aemond's father got up with his cane, bidding his mother goodnight even though he called her by the name of 'Aemma', ghosts haunting their family incessantly. Ser Harrold quickly corrected him for his mother's sake, but she was already scorned enough in front of everyone that she dismissed herself as well, Ser Criston on her heels. Aegon was deep into his cups of wine, enough for even their grandfather who would usually turn his eye away from him in disgrace to finally react, grabbing him up and taking him to his quarters. Aemond watched in the corner under the moon as everyone turned their attention to Laenor who was returned by his father's command, wondering if making their children go to bed was truly the state of the great Valyrian houses, his attention whisked away once more as he heard the hum of dragons in the air. The young prince ascended the stairs of the terrace to find himself better company.

He noticed that the smell wafting from the ocean wasn't a sour one that the capitol had, even though he still wasn't that far from home. No—the scent was of salt and freshness as well as dragon. The sands sinking his feet weren't enough to slow him down, as soon as Aemond realized what he was sensing and what he was doing, the sheer sight of the beast made him halt and lower himself to the ground. He felt pure astonishment peering from tufts of grass and prickly greenery, staring at the curled-up creature, her scales glistening in the moonlight as well as her scars and huffing breath. The oldest and biggest dragon in the realm. Vhagar. Aemond knew that she was a glimpse into his Targaryen greatness. That Visenya conquered Westeros on the she-dragon by Aegon's side, one of the reasons why they ruled on the Iron Throne.

Aemond was first of his name yet possessed no power, no claim to anything, and had no presence as being regarded as anything but the king's son. As he stood before the beast, the young prince understood that what he had was a will, and that made him bound forward on the hills of sand and grass.

He might die yes— being burnt by the dragon if anything went wrong, but it seemed a better fate than living a life of mediocracy and continuing to be a lone Targaryen without a great beast. The boy knew how the gods did not favor him. Aemond needed to become more than a boy, he needed to become a man, and just running toward Vhagar's presence was enough to make him feel like one. But then he stopped for a second, remembering the face of his mother and how she always reminded him he was enough, and that if he were to perish due to this foolish endeavor then she'd be even more tormented.

"Fuck." He whispered to himself, feeling the vulgarity unfamiliar to him but just for the circumstances.

He walked toward Vhagar with shaking knees, his neck cranking up to take in the entirety of her size into full view, and his mouth fell agape without intending. She was beautiful, sounding like machinery with her breathing and heavy heaving as she slept, kicking sand up and birds that tried to rest on her as she resembles a grand stone in the dark night. Aemond felt he was probably the size of one of her smallest teeth, gulping as he realized he did not want to know just how much that truth measured. He put a hand out to touch, just graze her scales in between the ropes reins, and that was enough to wake the creature and have her face the boy head-on, Aemond thinking only of the shape of her teeth and if they were as long as his body indeed. He stayed still and silent, holding his breath as she breathed her own into his face, feeling he could smell the smoke from her fire-breathing lungs. He finally caught his breath once she turned away in boredom, or maybe it was the painful truth that Aemond was truly invisible, but either way, the boy understood he was safe enough to try again to touch her.

He wasn't so lucky this time as she snapped her head at him and opened her jaws, a brilliant fire brewing in the back of her throat. 

"Dohaeras, Vhagar! Lykiri!" Serve me, Vhagar. Calm Down. Aemond called out to her in her mother tongue, praying she could recognize the white hair that shone on his head. Aemond reached out his hand still with the hope that if not, her fire would consume him all at once. Vhagar retracted her fire as he continued chanting the Old Valyrian words he'd memorized while watching his elder brother and younger nephews bond with their own dragons. Aemond struggled to breathe again as she stared at him face-on, feeling a sense of triumph but simmering those emotions once he felt a new challenge arise, the rope and saddle on the beast screaming at him to be used.

The boy clamored onto her with shaking limbs and quaking lungs, swinging himself onto her great build and saddle with a heaving chest that threatened to break at the overwhelming joy bubbling through his body in the form of adrenaline. Then, with a grumble, Vhagar moved slowly and readied for the flight, the Targaryen prince letting the rope reigns fall into his hands like the sands of Driftmark, yelling out the command he'd always dreamt of wielding.

"Soves!"

Fly. 

At first, she tried to shake him off like he was some pest, and then she began to run on her great two legs, taking off from the ground in a great leap, and then a gust of wind flapped from her wings as she took to the sky. Aemond held on, the rope burning as it rubbed and pulled into his palms, but he understood that it was time his hands were no longer soft. The flight was bumpy, and then all of a sudden it was as it should have been, from the beginning of Aemond's life if he had his egg hatched in his cradle, him in the open sky like a true Targaryen. The birds, the ocean, the land, it was all staring at him as he was alone with Vhagar in the sky, the boy laughing and feeling the best he'd ever felt in his ten years of life. He was Aemond Targaryen, the first of his name and he felt now he could add the weight of the largest dragon in the world to it.

He—or Vhagar really since Aemond couldn't necessarily control her just yet—landed themselves on the terrace where they had had the dreadful service. It felt like forever ago, the day had started long and mournful the boy realized, but he smiled to himself as he returned to his chambers that it would end in glory. He was wrong.

There was a rumbling of footsteps coming to meet him, Baela and Rhaena right in front of him with glowing rage, and Aemond slowly realized just what everything really meant when he made the choice to claim Vhagar.

"It's him."

"It's me." She referred to Aemond like he was a ghost still. Like he wasn't enough to even address by name.

"Vhagar is my mother's dragon." Was. Vhagar was her mother's dragon.

"Your mother's dead. And Vhagar has a new rider now." Aemond tried to speak it clearly to make Baela realize this was the truth of life now.

"She was mine to claim," Rhaena spoke now, the usually quiet twin staring at him with fire in her eyes and anger in her voice, Aemond realizing how she was just like him without a dragon, a lonesome Targaryen. But then why didn't she have the same desperation as him? Why did she feel entitled to the beast that had already lived for a century, did she expect Vhagar to wait one more for her? He and she weren't anything alike, Aemond thought and then remembered how he had the will.

"Then you should've claimed her!" The blight inside him wasn't resting, this was his moment, his glory and they were trying to make him sorry for it. Then his eyes found his nephews behind them, the hatred he had put to sleep for them in pity coming out to bite as he remembered how horrid they'd made him feel the past ten years. "Maybe your cousins can find you a pig to ride. It would suit you."

Rhaena, the smaller twin sister who was crying her eyes out all day suddenly went at him, Aemond throwing her down and feeling a monstrous twisting inside him for the violence he had created. That's when Baela landed a punch right into his face, Aemond yelling at the impact and then swinging right back at her with a wave of newfound anger he had never been able to express before.

"Come at me again and I'll feed you to my dragon!" He seethed, Jacaerys reacting now and going at his uncle with great roars as the twin sisters remained on the floor. Aemond jumped from side to side and evaded his blows, wondering how he could've been belittled and tortured by these inferior creatures, finally getting enough room between them to kick him back onto the ground. 

And Lucerys came with a shriek, a sound fit for the horror he himself was, Aemond silencing him quickly with a punch square in his face that he knew instantly had broken something as he heard a crack.

Then they all came pummeling at him with tiny fists, the twins and Jacaerys, weighing him down on the ground and knocking the air out of him. He was Aemond, the first of his name, and he was not dying here on Driftmark at the age of ten at the hands of his family for taking the dragon he wanted and deserved. He kicked and pushed the three back and was almost up before Lucerys came at him again with his teeth baring at him and bloody-faced. Aemond clutched his throat in his hand and kept him away long enough to get up, the blight in his soul glowing hot red as it was fanned thoroughly by now. 

He picked up a large stone, aiming it for the younger in his clutches still, and looked at Jacaerys as the light of the fire from the torches danced on their faces, the guilt he had for them gone and everything ugly bubbling into his throat.

"You will die screaming in flames just as your father did! Bastards."

"My father's still alive." Lucerys cried out with his eyes clenched and squirming in his grip, Aemond finding humor in the pathetic second son who was too young to understand anything still. He looked to Jace, just a year younger than him, and let a shrew smile fall on his lips to milk out the truth they both saw plainly, seeing if the supposed heir to the Iron Throne would cry now.

"He doesn't know, does he, Lord Strong?"

There was no emotion in his eyes as he brought out the blade, glaring at his uncle, and before anyone could move, one of the twins screamed for Jacaerys as if to help him refind a moment of clarity. Aemond threw Luke at his brother before he could decide whether or not to put the blade away, distracting him in case of the latter, but he supposed Jace had his own blight within him as he simply threw his brother aside and bounded for his uncle swiftly.

He swung the sharp metal desperately, Aemond knocking him down quickly with the stone still in hand and looking down at the dark-haired boy that had a claim to the realm, to the girls who felt they had a claim to his dragon. The Targaryen prince understood the words his mother would say about how the truest claim came from the white hair on his head and the will he had to make something out of it. So if Jace was willing to kill him with a blade, then Aemond was willing to kill him with the stone.

That's when Jace threw dirt into his face, the same way an animal who was trapped would begin to chew off its leg, a pathetic last stand Aemond thought. But it was not the case as Lucerys stepped forward, and then he felt the blade sink into his left eye and the heat of pain in his socket, the sound of squishing from his open wound rang through his ears as he held his face with a shaking hand, the amount of blood pooling out making the young prince about to vomit. 

He couldn't hear anything but his own groaning and screams, the pain so vibrant and new that Aemond felt he couldn't breathe, the same way when Vhagar was seconds away from charring his body. Maybe she should've, maybe it would've been less painful than this, Aemond's mind spiraled. Ser Harrold was talking to him, but he couldn't hear and allowed himself limp in his grasp as he was carried elsewhere, the prince letting go of his wound and calming down as he realized he'd be in front of his father and that a new horror would emerge from this incident.

Aemond was sat by the fire, a maester cleaning him as his father began to yell at the knights and seek to blame whoever was responsible, the truth shaking like a leaf in his brother's arms. Aemond kept quiet, focusing on his wound and preparing to take a needle through his skin to stitch the socket shut, his mother holding his hands and looking at him in agony, the prince too scared to look back at her. He wondered what he looked like now, whether his mother would be able to hold him in her arms again or if his face was so maimed and disgusting she'd peel her skin from her fingers at the sight of him. Even Aegon was too stunned to say anything, the younger praying he'd just blubber some idiotic word to bring a sense of normalcy again. The wound was stitched with shaking hands, and the words of everyone became clearer in his ringing ears, the bile in his throat finally able to be swallowed down.

"It will heal, will it not, maester?" His mother was desperate, shaking as she held his small hands still.

"The flesh will heal. But the eye is lost, Your Grace." Everyone in the room held their breath, a sorrowful pity filling the room for the prince which made him stir in his seat, feeling helpless once more. Alicent chose to blame Aegon instead, smacking at him as she demanded to understand why he was not by his side to defend his brother, Aemond groaning silently at the blame game whilst Lucerys still stood in the center of the room plain as can see. That's when Lord Corlys and Lady Rhaenys came rumbling down the stairs from their quarters, and then his half-sister Rhaenyra with Daemon by her side, and the room began to spin again as she cried at the sight of her bloodied bastards.

"Who did this?" She asked Lucerys as she cupped his face and cradled him as if he were a baby, Aemond seething at the sight.

"They attacked me!" He finally gave a word in, the other four children beginning to shout back in response, and the adults looking at one another with their own helplessness now. Finally, after a minute of squabbling, the king yelled for a halt, the noise simmering. Whispers came from between Rhaenyra and the two creatures close by her, a look shifting into her eyes as she stood tall and put the two behind her body as if shielding them.

"Aemond... I will have the truth of what happened. Now." His father had hardly addressed him whenever he was in his presence, and by name either, the boy stared at him in awe and thought back to when Ser Harwin was beating down on Ser Criston for the sake of his own sons.

"What else is there to hear? Your son has been maimed. Her son is responsible." His mother backed him, and Aemond felt as if he was soaring through the sky again on Vhagar, a justice around the corner waiting to be served for him on a platter.

"It was a regrettable accident." 

"Accident? The prince Lucerys brought a blade to the ambush. He meant to kill my son." Aemond should talk now and serve the truth, but he felt there was something stirring, something he had always known was in between his mother and his elder sister, so his tongue laid dormant inside his mouth.

"It was my sons who were attacked and forced to defend themselves. Vile insults were levied against them." Rhaenyra raised her voice, Aemond pushing himself into his seat to try and hide away from his father who pressed on the matter, anger rising from him again, and the shift to protect Rhaenyra instead could be felt throughout the room.

"He called us bastards," Aemond smirked to himself, the silence deafening now as everyone knew that the insult was the plain truth. 

"This is the highest of treasons. Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders." He shot his sister a grimace, Aemond feeling he would have to name everyone in the Red Keep.

"Over an insult? My son has lost an eye." His mother quickly tried to brush everything under the rug, knowing that her constant complaints and ramblings seeped into his ears and had marinated well enough to lead them to this dead end. Aemond knew if he named his mother, she'd be ruined, possibly maimed the same way he had. His father pressed for an answer, Alicent trying to intervene again but immediately ignored and shut down. The boy looked up at his father as Alicent began to talk again to try and stir trouble elsewhere and away from the accusation. But Viserys looked at Aemond throughout the blundering, staring into his eyes and speaking to him again.

"Aemond... look at me. Your King demands an answer. Who spoke these lies to you?" Why couldn't he be his father at this moment? Why hadn't he asked if he was alright or coddled him in his own arms the way Rhaenyra had done to her own sons? The Targaryen prince looked at his father and understood he wouldn't be fighting for him today, and never in the way Ser Harwin had for his own boys.

"It was Aegon." The lie slipped from his mouth so easily, his eye looking at his mother who was trembling slightly in relief. The room was so quiet now as Aegon did not back down from the accusation, Viserys finally blowing up at everyone, lecturing them to get along as if they were simply brawling and telling each other childish insults. As if there wasn't an eye lost.

"That is insufficient. Aemond has been damaged, permanently, my King. 'Good will' cannot make him whole."

"I know, Alicent, but I cannot restore his eye."

"No, because it's been taken."

"What would you have me do?" His father was desperate for this to end, but his mother, like her second son, was ready to have that platter of justice served to them by the end of the night.

"There is a debt to be paid. I shall have one of her son's eyes in return."

Everyone gasped, Aemond's stomach churning at his mother's sudden demand, Viserys trying to calm and shut her down as well as kill the momentum entirely but she spoke again.

"If the King will not seek justice, the Queen will. Ser Criston.. bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon!" The creature shrieked in fear behind Aemond, excitement and fear bubbling inside his vessel. He sprung from his place by the fire, his blight whispering for blood.

Viserys continued to dismiss Alicent, Aemond realizing just how far his father would go to protect Rhaenyra and her virtue without realizing how far he'd gone to undermine his own sons, as well as his own queen's. His mother quieted down as he spoke into her face with a final warning about the future accusations of his nephews' birth, the removal of the tongue ensured. 

Then when his mother moved just as his father turned to his back, Aemond witnessed just how far she'd go to protect him, or even herself as she flung at his half-sister with a blade in her hand. They yelled and the children screamed in horror as the two women held each other in the center of the room. Aemond watched with his one eye as they spoke words only they could understand between another, whispered insults and hatred as well as something else unspoken. The two women represented something as they stood their ground for their sons, even when they released each other and Rhaenyra was left bleeding. He looked at his mother now who was on the verge of tears, vacant and understanding there was nothing more to be done.

"Do not mourn me, Mother. It was a fair exchange. I may have lost an eye... but I gained a dragon." He spoke softly to her, her eyes flickering so slightly at the sound of his voice, her hands lifting from her skirts to reach out to him for comfort. Then his father seethed at her again, sizzling her fire and making sure she understood that what she sought would not be redeemed, absolute voidness showing on her face as if she were a child once more, helpless the way Aemond had been. Once the king went away from her with his trembling cane, and Ser Criston came by her side instead to pick up the blade, Aemond held onto her silhouette to soothe her like she was the one wounded and bleeding, because she was surely the one left unfeeling at this point. And right across from them was Lucerys in his mother's own arms with Daemon towering right beside, the Targaryen prince staring at the true beast in the room, dormant inside of the little brunette runt with a bloodied face. 

And Aemond vowed then in High Tide, to serve his own justice, to show to everyone plainly just how much of a vile creature Lucerys truly could be.