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The image was still vivid in his brain. As much as Aemond tried to ignore it, it was still there, haunting him. He had done something he never thought he would, and now it was too late.
He felt exhausted, having been walking for hours, trying to reach his destination. Campus was not far now, but he wasn’t quite conscious of his surroundings. He only knew he had to walk in the shadows, otherwise people would see him. And the big blood stain all over his shirt.
It was probably a bit washed out now, a small part of his brain supplied the information, a part that was still trying to remain rational, despite his irreversible actions. The rain was pouring down heavily; it had started when he was still at the beach and it hadn’t stopped since. Every lightning that illuminated his path alongside every thunderclap ringing in his ears was a reminder of what had happened.
He hadn’t meant to do it, he told himself right after, trying to convince his mind not to panic. It simply felt like the right thing to do, at the time. He didn’t know how he could possibly had changed the outcome, and that, sometimes, eased his thoughts a little. Aemond told himself that it couldn’t be his fault that he was there. He didn’t put any ideas in his head—Aegon had done that for him, he was sure, always trying to mess with things he shouldn’t be involved in.
But it was hard to cope. He felt like he was on the brink of losing it, and he couldn’t let it happen. He needed to talk to someone, but who? His siblings? He had no idea how they would react. Aegon would most definitely lose it, and Aemond would have to deal with him, ignoring his own struggles. Helaena would panic, trying to think of ways to help him, and that wasn’t good either. His cousins were out of question, he barely even talked to them about personal matters, and this particular one would be even harder to explain.
His only option was Lyra. Oh, sweet and clever Lyra, who hadn’t asked to be caught up in such a turmoil. Would she understand? Could she still look at him the same, with those big brown eyes that drove him insane? Aemond didn’t know if it would do them good. If he would push her away by confessing what he had done.
But he had to get this off his chest. He had to feel some sort of release, because he feared if he kept it to himself, he would explode.
When he turned left after arriving on campus, heading to the dorm area, he had already made up his mind.
Lyra gasped, waking up with a strong knock on her door. She looked at the time and frowned. Who could it be at 3:06 in the morning? She wasn’t expecting anyone, obviously, so she wasn’t sure if she should answer the door.
Another knock came, and she didn’t move, trying to make no sound, so that whoever it was decided to leave. It was only when a muffled “Lyra” came through the door that she relaxed, recognizing Aemond’s voice.
She got up immediately, putting her slippers on and heading towards the entrance of her room. She opened the door and locked eyes with a drenched Aemond Targaryen, looking like shit—which was pretty much impossible, considering that even like this, he still looked extremely hot.
She gave him space and he entered, closing the door and locking it as soon as he stepped inside. She furrowed her brows, not sure of what was happening.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?” She asked, staring at his silhouette pacing around her room. Something was wrong, she could tell. Aemond was usually so collected, but now he was the complete opposite. “Are you alright?” She moved towards him, concern invading her mind.
“I should,” he answered the first question. “But I wasn’t. I did something bad, Lyra,” he said, not bothering to answer the second one. So he wasn’t alright, then. Noted.
Lyra motioned him to seat on her desk chair as she walked towards her bedside table to turn on the lamp there so she could actually see Aemond, because the only light coming inside had been the one on the street next to her window, and it was doing a poor job of illuminating the room.
When she turned to him, her eyes widened and her hands moved to cover her mouth. Aemond had blood on his shirt, and she wondered if it was his. She ran to him, immediately touching his face to inspect if he had any injuries. She kneeled in front of him, hands moving to his arms and stopping at his knees. “What happened? Are you hurt?” The urgency in her voice must have broken him out of his trance, because his eye moved to find hers and he shook his head.
“The blood is not mine,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, Lyra, I swear it. I had no clue he would be there. It happened so fast. One minute I saw him and the next thing I know he’s bleeding next to me,” he said, not making much sense.
Lyra was confused. Trying to piece the tiny bits of information Aemond was giving her. She was certain he’d hurt someone, but she didn’t know who or why. She touched his face, making him face her. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Remember when I stayed at the library after you all left when we were done with our session?” He started and she nodded, recalling how tired she had been after translating a bunch of old texts in High Valyrian. “I was researching a few sayings that allegedly help in claiming dragons.”
Lyra shuddered, not liking where this was going. Everyone knew about Aemond’s obsession with dragons. Every person in their group had interest in them, especially because it was said that their family had had a special connection to the creatures in the past, which was lost through time. Aemond believed he could rekindle it somehow, since some scholars suspected that it happened because of language. High Valyrian, to be more precise. He just had to find the right words.
“I studied a few texts and gathered enough information that made me confident enough to try it tonight,” he explained, his eye no longer on her, staring at some random thing behind her that she wasn’t sure he was even acknowledging. He seemed to be somewhere else.
“Oh, Aemond,” Lyra bemoaned, giving his knee a gentle squeeze. “How would you even find a dragon?”
Dragons still existed, of course, but they were hard to find. Experts said they didn’t like to bond with humans anymore—and that perhaps they never did, but instead were forced to, so they could help win wars long ago.
“Aegon told me he saw one outside the city limits, so I went there,” he disclosed. “And he was right, there was, in fact, a dragon there,” he added with the ghost of a fascinated smile on his lips. “I’ve read about her before, in books. Saw drawings of her. Vhagar, they called her. The largest dragon in the world.”
Lyra shivered listening to him. She found dragons to be interesting creatures, and she would love to see one, but she wasn’t obsessed with them like the rest of her Targaryen friends—if she could even call them that; she knew not everyone in their group truly accepted her.
“She was there, by the beach,” he continued. “She was sleeping. It was late when I got there, ‘cause I walked,” he said and Lyra gasped. The beach was far away from campus. “But I wasn’t the only one who had that idea,” his tone changed, something bitter coming through. “Lucerys was already there, standing before her. She hadn’t even acknowledged him, still sleeping.”
Lyra trembled, starting to connect the dots. She remained quiet, though, waiting for Aemond to finish his tale. She didn’t want to jump to any conclusions before knowing the whole thing.
“I must have made a noise, because he turned, and when he saw me, he gave me a smug grin, so sure of himself. He told me he had beaten me, that he would claim the dragon before me and be the first Targaryen in ages to do so,” the mix of anger and disdain in Aemond’s voice was apparent. She could tell it was hard for him to take that, especially coming from Lucerys.
They hadn’t been on the best of terms ever since Lucerys took Aemond’s eye when they were children. She didn’t know the whole story because neither of them enjoyed talking about it, but she had heard bits of it here and there.
“I couldn’t let him do that,” he said as if he were at the scene he was describing. “I told him he wasn’t prepared, that he didn’t know how to properly talk to her. He even frowned when I said the dragon was a she,” he let out a humorless laugh. “He wasn’t aware that it was Vhagar. He clearly didn’t deserve to claim her. It would be such a shame, considering he didn’t even know who she was.”
Lyra felt something twist in her stomach. She could see how much Aemond cared about this, how much time and research he had put into it. If someone had the right to claim the largest dragon in the world, that person was certainly him.
“What happened, then?” She prompted softly, not wanting to disturb him from his narrative.
“I went up to him and grabbed his shoulders, trying to make him understand how important this was, how he couldn’t simply have that when he wasn’t the right person for the job,” he declared. “But he didn’t listen, he tried to turn away from me but I didn’t let him go… I was so nervous that I didn’t think, I don’t remember consciously doing so. I just grabbed one of the old daggers that I always carry with me, those I’ve found in our place at Dragonstone, and stabbed him.”
Deep down she already knew. But something inside her had hoped it wouldn’t have happened like this. She thought maybe Lucerys had tried something that made Aemond defend himself, but no. It hadn’t been self defense. He had done it just to prevent Lucerys from claiming the dragon before him. He couldn’t have been more selfish.
“Aemond,” she called his name, making him notice her presence once again. The mix of doubt and hope in his eye was so clear. She could tell he wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision by telling her what happened. But she also knew he had no one else he could trust. Not like he did her. She wasn’t sure of how she felt, but she was conscious of the fact that he was one of the very few people she could count on. “We have to get rid of the body,” she whispered next, even though there was no one there to hear those words.
Any doubt Aemond had showed her vanished after he heard what she had said. She knew he had been wrong, but it also didn’t feel right to condemn him for that. She believed him when he’d said he had no intention of hurting Lucerys. But it was done now, and there was no way to turn back time to prevent it from happening. There was only so much she could do. But she knew she didn’t want Aemond to go away, so she was offering to help.
“I burned it,” he confessed after a while. “I claimed Vhagar and asked her to burn the body.” He closed his eye, as if he were relieving the memory. “Nothing remains except for his ashes that are now mixed with sand.”
The way he said it sent shivers down her spine. She couldn’t tell if he regretted it or not, but it wasn’t her place to judge him. “What do we do next?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m glad I told you and that I’m here with you right now.”
Lyra could swear her heart skipped a beat at the sound of his words, convincing herself that she had made the right call.