Chapter Text
She notices it first when they are at a family dinner.
The divide between their families is clear. On one side her boys are relaxed and chatting with Laenor, excitedly recounting their day to their father and grandsire. Tales of childlike mischief and complaints of boring lessons and strict teachers are met with chuckles and fatherly teasing.
On the other side, Alicent and her half siblings eat silently, only interrupting by a slight scrape of silverware on their plates or the slurping noise coming from Aegon as he downs another cup of wine. The servants have had to refill their pitchers four times now. Otto has joined them this evening, seated across from Aemond and beside Alicent. His presence in the capital is unpleasant and doesn’t bode well, his attendance throwing a shadow over the joyful atmosphere.
Her attention is drawn by a sharp noise from the other side of the table. Her gaze snaps to her eldest brother, whose red cheeks are hollow under wide eyes as his goblet tips and wine splashes across the table. Her brow furrows at his reaction, watching his body tense and his gaze darted wildly between his mother and grandfather as he scrambled to clean his mess, servants rushing forward to help the young prince. Out of the corner of her eye, Otto turns towards him and Aegon flinches and knocks the cup further away before gaining control of it, hurriedly scrambling to sit up straight, avoiding everyone's gazes.
Her father's attention is drawn for a second and she narrows her eyes as Aegon tenses further at the brief attention before Viserys turns away. Her eyes drift to her other siblings, over Helaena and her wide eyes seemingly staring at her plate but looking like she was far away, at Aemond and his white knuckles tightly clutching his cutlery as he shifts towards Aegon slightly. She shifts her attention back to her eldest brother and finds the eldest prince watching her, his gaze quickly snapping down to his plate when he notices, panic swamping his face. She watches as he draws a curl behind his ear, hand trembling faintly, and her body goes cold.
The boys sleeve had slipped down and upon his wrist finger shaped bruises mottled his pale skin. She darted her eyes to the rest of the table to see if they had noticed and found Aemond flicking between her and Aegon, eyes wide as he worried his lip. He flinched slightly when she met his gaze, lips downturned and eyes narrow as she inspected him, looking for any sign of injury. He pulled his sleeves further down his wrist and looked away, murmuring something to his mother.
Rhaenyra quickly schools her face into the happy and proud mother she is meant to be at these gatherings, but she is too late. Alicent had caught notice, and she narrowed her eyes, gaze switching between Rhaenyra and Aegon before she nodded and caught the tables attention as she announced her and her children departure, claiming it had been a long day at the training field and Dragonpit and that they needed rest.
Rhaenyra frowned as she watched them leave, her eyes lingering on Aegon as he turned around quickly before ducking away. They are hurried away, Otto placing a hand on the back of his grandsons necks in a way that makes her heart tighten. She leaned back in her chair, fingers spinning her rings, dinner forgotten as she got lost in the images of their fearful gazes and Aegon's bruised wrist.
A voice in the back of her mind reminded her that they had been at the training ground earlier, but her boys has also been training and she knows the bruises that practise swords leave and they do not look like fingers.