Chapter 78: Prelude to God's Eye
ULF
Aemond kept the war council short, and kept everyone standing.
No stools in the command tent. A trestle table, a map of the Riverlands held flat at three corners by a dagger, a cup, and a grey stone somebody had carried up from the lakeshore. Rain came down on the canvas in bursts. It had been coming down two days.
"Three dragons. One target." Aemond moved markers with two fingers. "Vhagar approaches from the west. Vermithor from the east. Silverwing from the south. We box Daemon in over the lake, eliminate escape routes, and destroy Caraxes together."
"Overwhelming force." Hugh's grin was too eager. "I like it."
He'd come in wet to the knee and hadn't taken his gloves off. He'd been out past the horse lines again, in the dark, alone. I'd noticed. I hadn't decided what it meant.
"And if Daemon doesn't engage?" I asked. "If he retreats to Harrenhal, uses the castle's defenses—"
"Then we burn Harrenhal around him." No hesitation in Aemond's voice. "The castle's cursed anyway. Better to destroy it."
"That could take days. Weeks. Meanwhile, the Blacks regroup elsewhere."
"Then we kill them elsewhere." Aemond's single eye came up off the map and fixed on me. "You have objections, Dragonslayer? The man who let Rhaenys escape?"
Meleys had died at Rook's Rest with Vhagar's jaws in her throat, and every man under that canvas knew it. But there'd been half a breath over the burning field when Silverwing could have closed the last gap and hadn't, because I'd hauled her off the line. Aemond had watched it from above. He'd kept it since. He kept everything.
He's using that against me. Of course he is.
"I have concerns. Daemon's too smart for a straight fight. He challenged me specifically. Not you, not Hugh. Me. Why?"
"Because you killed his assassins. Personal vendetta."
"Daemon doesn't do personal. Everything is tactical." I set a finger on the God's Eye, on the pale scrap of island at its centre. "He's drawing us somewhere. Setting something up. We should—"
"Should what? Run?" Aemond's smile was cold. "We have three dragons to his one. What trap could possibly work?"
Hugh laughed. "The bastard's scared. Wants to fly back to his queen."
Not scared. Careful. There's a difference.
I hunted for one more argument. Everything I had would sound, spoken aloud in that tent, like a man begging to keep his dragon out of the fire.
But I was outvoted and outranked.
"Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow." Aemond rolled up the map, and the stone slid off the corner and thumped into the mud. He left it there. "Get some rest. You'll need it."
THAT NIGHT
Hugh found me by the picket lines.
The horses shifted and stamped, ears flat back. Dragons nearby always unsettled them, and three had been lying in the pasture since noon. I had Silverwing's harness across my knees and a horn of tallow open beside me, working grease into the strap that crossed her shoulder, running the checks I ran every night before flying. It kept my hands busy. It kept dawn at a distance.
"Walk with me."
Not a request.
We moved away from camp, past the last fire, past a guard who looked at Hugh and then looked at nothing at all. Beyond earshot of the guards. The rain had stopped and the field steamed.
"You know what tomorrow is." Hugh's voice was low. Intent.
"A battle."
"More than that." He stopped. Faced me. "Tomorrow, Daemon and Aemond kill each other."
"You're certain of that?"
"I'm certain of dragons. Of pride. Daemon wants Aemond dead. Aemond wants Daemon dead. Neither will back down." Hugh's eyes glittered in starlight. "They'll tear each other apart over that lake. And when they do—"
"We return to King's Landing as heroes."
"We return as kings." His voice rose. He caught it and brought it back down, and that was worse. "Think about it. Aegon's a cripple who'll never walk again. Aemond dies tomorrow. Daemon dies tomorrow. Who's left? Rhaenyra, on an injured dragon, with a broken army. And us. Two dragonriders with the two largest surviving dragons."
He listed the dead in order and never once stumbled.
He's been planning this. For weeks. Maybe longer.
"You want to overthrow the Targaryens."
"I want to replace them." Hugh stepped closer. Smoke on him, and horse, and the cold iron smell that never washes out of a smith. "Why should their blood matter more than ours? We've got the same fire. Same power. Same right to rule."
"And Helaena? Her children?"
"Hostages. Legitimacy. Whatever you want to call them." He brushed it off with the back of his glove. "Your queen can stay queen. Your children can stay heirs. I don't care about the throne. I care about power."
He's offering me a partnership. A betrayal that pays everyone except the two people I crossed a war for.
"And if Aemond and Daemon don't kill each other?"
Hugh's smile widened.
"Then we help that along."
There it is. The full truth.
I kept my face neutral. Forced calm into my voice.
"That's... significant."
"It's necessary." Hugh took my shoulder. A smith's grip, and he closed it until the bone shifted under his thumb. "Think about it tonight. When they're both dead tomorrow, we'll have choices. Make the right one."
He walked away. He never looked back, which told me he thought the thing was already settled between us.
I stood in the darkness, calculating.
Hugh wants Aemond dead. Daemon wants me dead. Aemond wants Daemon dead. Three-way murder wrapped in a battle.
And somewhere in the middle, I need to survive.
THE RAVEN
The message was coded.
Helaena would understand. We'd developed the cipher together, after the assassination attempts, a way to speak when words might be intercepted. Four lines of dull business first, orders to a wool factor, nulls salted through them. Then her own marks in the margin, small ones, the letters folded into shapes only the two of us had ever agreed on. A cipher inside the cipher. She'd built that part herself at the desk in her solar with the shutters closed, and she'd said then that one of us might one day have to write with a stranger's eyes on the page.
If I don't return, follow the plans we made. Take the children and go. Our child will be safe even if I'm not. I love you. I'm sorry.
Simple. Necessary. Possibly final.
I gave the message to my most trusted contact, a camp follower who'd served me since Flea Bottom, years ago. She took it without opening her hand to look at it.
"If I die tomorrow, this goes to Queen Helaena. No one else."
"And if you survive?"
"Then burn it and forget we spoke."
She nodded. Pocketed the message. Disappeared into the camp between two tents, and the camp closed behind her.
I returned to my tent.
Helaena's ribbon was wrapped around my wrist. Silver thread against scarred skin. I'd flown Rook's Rest with it and it had come back cleaner than I had.
I'll come back. I have to come back.
But promises meant nothing against dragonfire.
DAWN
Morning came gray and cold.
Fog hung over the Riverlands in thick curtains that would burn off by midday. Somewhere beyond it the God's Eye waited. A cursed lake for a cursed battle. Men struck the tents without talking.
Three dragons launched from the Green camp.
Vhagar first. Ancient, massive, Aemond riding with cold determination, his armor gleaming black in the early light, his sword hung ready at his side. The ground shook when she left it.
Vermithor second. Bronze scales caught what little sun broke through the cloud. Hugh Hammer laughed as they climbed, eager for blood.
Silverwing last. I guided her into formation, taking the southern position as planned. She went up easy under me, the old muscle rolling in her shoulders, and she knew the shape of the day before I gave her anything.
Below us, the land fell away. Rivers became ribbons. Forests became carpet. The world shrank to toy-scale as we climbed toward the clouds.
Helaena. The children. The child I'll never meet if this goes wrong.
The ribbon pressed against my wrist.
I'll come back.
And somewhere ahead, over the dark waters of the God's Eye, Daemon Targaryen waited with revenge in his heart.
The Battle Above the God's Eye had begun.