Imprisonment had not been entirely unkind to her. But when dragon wings shook the city, it was a chaos she needed to grapple for some semblance of control. If Ceryse didn't, her actions, so impulsively set in motion, would see her dead. To think otherwise would be delusional.
“Flee this city, flee this continent.” She had told Hespaerys the moment word had reached them of dragons’ approach. If he had thought it a joke, the severity on her face quickly corrected him. It had been stupid, the small bit of comfort she had finally taken for herself. What was done was done. She could no more undo her transgression than Maegor could undo their marriage. Ceryse would remind him of that with every ounce of her being now that he was here, crowned and vindicated by the Seven.
Perhaps it would have been better if he had died.
Hate had not replaced love, if anything, it had replaced indifference with occasional smoldering desire. But even now, Ceryse knew it to her core that she had better luck with him alive than ashes.
Whether it was her letter or just anger at the faith that brought him to her family manse did not matter. With her lover’s departure and the city on edge of self-destruction - nevermind the dragons at their doorstep - the Queen took insidious control of things. None wanted to offend her now that Maegor had arrived. Lords and small folk alike suddenly paid her the deference she had deserved and been denied. She took that and turned it back against them.
Her maids and attendants were put under guard as allies to her traitorous brother and the Faith who had imprisoned her. They had committed treason and the sentence could be nothing less than death.
For two days as the men argued and fought over what to do, Ceryse found her own allies among them and gave her advice as the only one who had any insight to the King’s mind. She did not shed a tear when the decision was reached to kill the High Septon and welcome the King.
Within the manse she had his body laid out, not in the finery of his robes, but in sackcloth. The high seoton’s garments, bloodied and torn, were in a haphazard pile next to the dais his body rested on. He had not gone willingly, nor had all of his attendants. The dead Warrior’s Sons had been stripped of their armor and cloaks which were piled next to the dead man. Thankfully he had yet to begin to smell, though Ceryse had called on the Maesters to keep him perfumed to avoid that awful stench.
She looked at him now, a man destroyed by his own hubris but wondered at the deadened feeling in her heart. Was it hubris to do whatever it took to live?
There had not been time to ready a new gown, but Ceryse waited for Maegor dressed to remind him both that she was his Queen and his wife. In black and green, the neckline of the gown had her chest threatening to spill out. A simple gold chain trimmed with brilliant emeralds dripped down her neck before coming to rest in the valley of her cleavage. Each breath she took caused them to catch the light and reflect small sparkles back across the room.
It was not a great hall that she had commandeered for her display. The room, still large but not grand, had once been her father’s favorite study. Those memories and the faint feeling that she desecrated them, nearly stirred her to second guessing herself. Her father’s lingering presence remained, though, and steadied her. Signs of him were everywhere. He would not have approved, but, she thought, he would have understood.
She waited behind the high septon’s body, hands clasped before her, a small number of faithful knights behind her still. A small display of strength in the face of what she had endured. Ceryse had not known how quickly he would come to her once the gates had been opened. But to those who had greeted the king, she had given explicit instructions.
When he entered, a flash of annoyance lighted. Seven, had it really been years since she last saw him? Even from such a distance she could feel him. The men behind her stood firm, awaiting her response. Would she kneel? She had not decided that ahead of time. She should, he was her king. But something in her bristled against that, small fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
Ceryse instead bent her neck in greeting. “Maegor, my husband, how I have missed you.” She spoke, loudly and steadily, her tone flat, indecipherable. Now she heard the uncertainty in small movements behind her. Men could be such cowards.
As Maegor entered the room he brought with him the smell of ash and blood. He had ridden through the city with only a paltry escort, not hiding from the chaos of the lower city as many might. His critics would call it cruelty, for few expected it was out of care for ceasing the destruction. Even still, it was more than the lords of the tower had done. That was the ash, the blood was even more recent. He walked with Blackfyre drawn, the valyrian steel slick and hot with a very recent death. The King had not paused to verify the claims of his first wife, and had begun the long list of punishments such treatment of his spouse had required.
When Ceryse spoke, Maegor did not reply initially, stepping to the side of the entryway, pausing to pull the length of Blackfyre through a set of curtains, whining the blade clean on the decorative fabric before he turned back to her, drawing closer and closer. The fleeting movements behind her grew more numerous as he did, especially as continued in silence. Two men who had accompanied him flanked the doorway but remained in place. There was a possibility they had been among those who had argued against the King in the past, but whoever their master had been had turned his cloak back to the throne early enough that such didn't matter. For now.
“My exile has treated you well enough.” He spoke when he was but a few steps from her, the blazing intensity of his gaze traveling up and down her glittering form without heed for the armoured men behind her. For someone such as Ceryse who had known the man and his fury for more of his life than most, the change would be clear. Whatever fire had burned in Maegor before his trial had become a cataclysm, barely contained by the deep violet of his eyes that still held some phantom beauty despite their violence. “But the pains you have felt on your skin and soul are the same as if your kin had taken their cruelty to me. For are we not one flesh in the Light of the Seven?” His words almost sounded mocking, but the fury in them creaked at the edges of humour like the storm battering on a ship's Hull.
“Give the word, my Queen, and I shall rip Old Town asunder, and build a new tower of their bones.”
The true queen stood resolute in Maegor’s approach, even if her stomach turned and she tasted acid. Her green eyes held his gaze, full of fire and anger. It felt familiar but altered. She couldn't place the feeling and did not want to linger on it. He had aged some since last seeing him, an unfortunate truth for she had as well.
Dangerously, perhaps, she disregarded his question and offer. Her eyes still matched to his, she spoke the men behind her and at the doorway. “Leave us.”
Her knights faltered in heeding the command. Ceryse bristled, her hands unclenched from in front of her and flexed to her side. “Now.” They moved, though she could hear the reluctance in each step they took. She wondered what they thought they would do if she had somehow needed them as protection against the king.
The queen let the men leave in silence, her eyes left his only long enough to look for signs of his jaw clenching or the vein in his neck pulsing. His men would not leave without his bidding, and she used the silence as a challenge, seeking his agreement to her command.
When he gave it, a small wave of relief washed over her. “We are as one by all holy teachings.” She finally offered in agreement once they were alone, barring her deceased uncle. “My time cast aside has been one long, unyielding wound.” There was no hiding the accusatory venom in her words. The trials she endured had not started with her imprisonment and he knew it. “You could destroy Old Town, I would not care.” She felt the lie as she spoke the words. “But what I want is restoration.”
Ceryse had goaded him and in response to it, she lifted her hands and placed them to his chest. The act did nothing to quell the acid in her throat, but neither was she entirely repulsed by the act. Blood and ash or not, a part of her felt relief to feel him beneath her skin again. It was not a smile that crossed her lips, nor a simpering wet eyed look. “I am your queen, I want what is mine.”
“Get out.” The King's command was even more forceful than Ceryse's, made without even turning away from the woman, and obeyed without the delay of concern. He did not push her away, but he did not respond in kind for the moment, the heat of him pulsing against her touch, but unmoving. “You were not cast aside.” His words were steadfast, but not enraged, even if his state of near conflagration seemed never to fade, it was far calmer than he had made the point in the past. “It was I who resided on foreign shores, who fought Khalassars for Pentoshi moneylenders while my brother's kingdom fell into disrepair, while you sat at the heart of the traitors’ court.” Then, at last, he moved, one hand reaching up to grasp her neck, not fiercely, but with enough barely held force to pull her towards him, to threaten the carefully maintained balance of her gown and jewelry. “Some might suggest your call for aid comes only as their ire has turned on you, and not out of the act itself.” He was close enough for her now for his breath to dance across her skin. The warmth of him an overpowering rush that felt as mythical as the dragon he rode.
“I was never not yours, Ceryse, much as you have never ceased to be mine, no matter how much I can taste the treason in the air.” His grip tightened, just slightly, still far from preventing her words or breathing, but such that fingers pressed into skin which reddened beneath them.
She raged inside at the allegations, no matter the grains of truth. Hints of it played across her expression, her eyes narrowed until he gripped her neck and she widened them again in surprise.
“Were you?” She asked with disbelief. “You've never been anyone's.” She gulped and felt her throat press into his palm with the slight effort. The rest of her body responded to the force on its own accord, a slight stumble her feet found themselves again, a desire to twist from the grip against another, for many reasons, that begged for his to do more.
“If you believe I am part of this treason, kill me now.” Her eyes flickered wet and red, an unwanted but uncontrollable reaction, towards Blackfyre. “I won't play a game of words about this. I am and have been yours.” Her hand wrapped around the one around her neck, her nails lightly dug into skin and muscle.
“What is yours and what you control are not one and the same.” The force of his grip on her changed but didn't lessen, turning her back around to face the body of the King's stricken foe, the displayed form of the man who had been High Septon before as, as the towering presence of the King filled the space behind her, the mail and leather of his clothing harsh against the soft silk of her own. “You have done good work since my arrival, but there must be more. More blood to punish those who would forsake their oaths, and harm their Queen.” His hand moved up from her neck to her chin, pulling her face down to hold the dead in her vision while his steady breathing cascaded across her neck and ear. “Point my blade, or do not, and I will take vengeance where I see fit, and I imagine I will see matters more broadly.” It was a simple offer, to become aligned in act, to mend a bridge between then, but it would no doubt break down another that might have been her escape from him.
His other hand finally moved from Blackfyre, the blade resting aside as the hand moved around her, clasping her tighter to him, the feel of his calloused hand barely muted by the texture of her gown.
“I have requested a celebration of unity between our houses once more, it seems likely my terms will be agreed to.” He continued to speak to her ear, as if now ignoring the grim sight before them. “We will show them that we are of union once more, after I shall have you again.”
She had thought for a moment he was going to take her there, with a dead man in the room. And when he hadn't, she felt the familiar pang of rejection. Her lips curled and twisted into displeasure before she could stop it. Her breath had become ragged, a fact he had certainly noticed. Her stomach tightened in response, a mix of fear and loathing, a touch of unwanted desire. She offered no resistance to his hold or force, her body rigid but acquiescent to his demands.
“There are some still who will pretend they always supported you and not the faith.” Ceryse’s voice was steady in its quietness, nearly sultry. She traced his arms around her with her own, the sleeves of her dress catching against the rough mail and leathers, something she had not done for so many years. “I will join you now, and in King’s Landing.” It has not been offered directly, but she would see herself restored and she would do what she should have done in the first place - make life the seven hells for the whore from Harrenhal.
One of her sleeves caught and tore against Maegor, a hole, small and annoying. Ceryse frowned. “This gown will no longer do.” She didn't expect him to care, but she pulled lightly at the fabric and felt the threads give way, the hole now a long tear from elbow to shoulder. Her father would have understood, she reminded herself again, as she twisted in his grip, not in resistance or to remove herself, but to find his face, to encourage a different sort of control.
“I've no trustworthy women remaining here to remove me from these rags. You may not be delicate enough for the job but it is already ruined.” She forced a sly grin across her lips, but her eyes lit up with a hunger all the same.
In the halls outside the study, Ceryse’s men shared a look before moving further down the corridor to await their queen's need of them once more.
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