At this moment, time seemed to slow.
Aemond saw the trajectory of the dagger Lucerys swung at him, and at the same time he saw Jacaerys closing in from the other side.
He made his choice.
He twisted his body to the side, narrowly avoiding Lucerys's straight thrust.
His left hand followed through, exerting force in a pull, and Lucerys lost his balance and lurched forward.
At the same time, Aemond's right foot precisely hooked around Jacaerys's ankle.
Jacaerys pitched forward.
And directly in front of him was the dagger in Lucerys's hand, its cold light flashing.
Lucerys saw his brother falling toward the blade and thought to pull back, but everything happened in the blink of an eye.
Time seemed to freeze.
Everyone stood rigid, mouths gaping yet unable to make a sound.
Joffrey and the girls covered their faces, suppressed sobs spilling out between their fingers.
Aemond stood in place, panting, his eyes locked on Jacaerys as his body began to convulse violently.
Jacaerys did not scream right away.
He seemed not to have understood what had happened.
His intact right eye slowly, incredulously, shifted—toward Aemond, and then toward the extra length of metal now lodged in his left eye.
Then a hoarse, rasping sound escaped his throat.
Immediately after, the scream erupted.
"Ah!!!!!"
Jacaerys dropped to his knees. The sound no longer resembled a human voice, but a shriek born of extreme pain.
His younger brother, Lucerys, stood to the side at a loss, wanting to touch him yet not daring to, able only to flail uselessly at the air.
Blood poured steadily from around the wound, mixed with a transparent, viscous fluid, sliding down his cheek and dripping onto the stone floor.
"No… no! Brother!" Lucerys finally found his voice. He lunged to his brother's side, yet had no idea what to do.
Aemond, having come back to his senses, rasped hoarsely, "Don't touch it! Don't pull it out!"
He knew that if the dagger lodged in Jacaerys's left eye were pulled out now, Jacaerys would die without a doubt!
Lucerys shuddered at the shout. He looked at his brother, wracked with unbearable pain, then raised his head and pointed at Aemond with anger and helplessness.
"It was you! This is all because of you, Aemond!"
"If it weren't for you, how could my brother have ended up like this!"
Inside, Aemond felt only irritation. The fate of losing an eye—had it truly been impossible to avoid in the end?
Only this time, the one who lost an eye was Jacaerys…
"Someone help! Someone help!" Rhaena and Baela screamed at the top of their lungs.
A mass of chaotic footsteps surged in from the far end of the corridor, rapidly closing in.
The first to rush in were the guards. After them came Princess Rhaenyra, wearing a nightgown, her hair somewhat disheveled.
Behind her followed Prince Daemon Targaryen, with only a single outer cloak draped over his shoulders.
"What happ—" Rhaenyra's words cut off abruptly.
"No!!!" Rhaenyra saw a dagger embedded in the left eye socket of her eldest son, Jacaerys.
All the color drained from Rhaenyra's face in an instant.
She staggered a step, nearly falling, but Daemon behind her caught her in time.
Yet in the next moment, Rhaenyra flung off Daemon's hand and threw herself to Jacaerys's side.
"My child… my little Jace…" Her voice was broken and fragmented.
Rhaenyra wanted to touch her suffering eldest son, yet feared that doing so might cause something to go wrong…
Her hand froze in midair.
She slowly wrapped her arms around her agonized, convulsing eldest son, feeling Jacaerys's entire body trembling violently.
Her gaze locked onto the dagger—onto her son's face, half of it smeared with blood, the other intact eye unfocused from searing pain and terror.
Then she lifted her head and roared at the guards, "Summon the maester! Get the maester here, now!"
The guards behind her, utterly at a loss, hurriedly ran off.
Her fury ultimately settled on Aemond.
"Who did this…" Rhaenyra's voice was as light as a whisper, yet it made the temperature of the entire Dragonpit plummet.
Within those violet eyes, it was as if the purest hatred—steeped in poison—had been tempered.
"It wasn't me," Aemond answered firmly, meeting the scrutinizing gaze of his half-sister, Rhaenyra.
His sister Rhaenyra truly lived up to the name by which she was known in the original work—"the Light of the Realm."
She was beautiful, undeniably so, and as a person, she was quite admirable.
Although later she would darken, letting her judgment go completely astray.
Even so, there was no denying that the early "Light of the Realm," Rhaenyra, genuinely possessed personal charisma.
Otherwise, in an era where male-preference succession was already firmly established, she would not have been able to draw a large number of lords across the realm to fight for her and stand behind her, earning her faction the name the Blacks…
But unfortunately, Aemond, as the second son of Queen Alicent, the second queen, and a son of the Greens—
The nature of their respective positions meant that the relationship between the two was destined to be irreconcilable.
And in this matter, he had not acted intentionally; he had always wanted to avoid this conflict.
He did not want to intensify the conflict between the two factions, nor did he want that eye-losing incident to be repeated…
But Lucerys and the others insisted on hounding him without end.
He had never wanted to fight in the first place.
He had already made up his mind to let the adults come and resolve the matter of Vhagar through negotiation.
At the scene, the other children fell completely silent, at a loss as to how to explain this tragedy.
Prince Daemon, however, noticed all the children at once. His gaze landed on Lucerys's right hand, smeared with blood…
He understood.
Daemon quietly moved closer to the panicked Lucerys, seized his right hand, and discreetly used a handkerchief to quickly wipe away the bloodstains.
Lucerys looked up at Prince Daemon with visible fear.
Daemon pressed his index finger to his lips in a silent "shh," then tucked the bloodstained handkerchief into his clothing.
At this moment, Aemond—who had not noticed this exchange—explained to his elder half-sister, who was tightly holding her unconscious eldest son, "It was your son Lucerys who pulled the dagger out."
"He accidentally injured Jacaerys."
Listening to Aemond's explanation, Rhaenyra turned her head and looked at her second son, Lucerys, in disbelief.
She saw Daemon standing beside Lucerys, while Lucerys himself was clearly terrified.
"It was Aemond who did it." Under his mother's gaze, Lucerys said this with a trembling voice.
Aemond looked over in anger. This feeling of being falsely accused made his blood surge.
He did bear responsibility, but it was Lucerys who pulled out the dagger, and he had never taken the initiative to deal a killing blow.
"You filthy bastard—you ruined your own brother, and now you dare turn around and bite me instead!" Aemond shot back angrily.
"I didn't— it wasn't me… Mother, it was Aemond. If it weren't for him, big brother wouldn't be like this…" Lucerys retorted weakly, his voice clearly lacking strength.
Rhaenyra had already heard the obvious weakness in her second son's rebuttal, her expression turning dark and uncertain.
But Aemond immediately noticed that the blood on Lucerys's hand was gone—and that Prince Daemon was standing right beside him.
Aemond's heart sank halfway.
It seemed Daemon intended to pin this on him.
A faint, knowing smile—half a smile, half a sneer—rested on Prince Daemon's face as he appraised Aemond.
Moments earlier, his daughters had quietly told him what had happened.
Since little Jace had already lost an eye, his fate uncertain…
It would be better to push the entire matter onto Aemond.
The Greens behind Aemond would have to pay a price for this.
"It was Aemond who did it!"
"I saw him stab the dagger into Prince Jacaerys's eye with my own eyes!"
"It was him!" As Lucerys spoke, Rhaena, Baela, and Joffrey echoed him in quick succession.
"You…" At this moment, Aemond felt completely unable to defend himself, no matter how many mouths he had.
"You," Rhaenyra turned her head, her voice very soft, "intended to murder my eldest son?"
Aemond opened his mouth. "You should know very well that Lucerys was clearly panicking just now."
But a cold voice answered him, "I only believe what my children say."
"If it weren't because of you, little Jace would never have ended up like this."
Rhaenyra remembered now—this dagger was a gift the Sea Snake had given to his grandson, Lucerys. But at this moment, she would never acknowledge that her second son had accidentally injured her eldest son.
"Heh…"
Aemond knew there was no point in trying to explain anything to this unreasonable Rhaenyra, and he scoffed disdainfully.
In her eyes, even if he had been forced into it, it was still murder—everything was being laid squarely at his feet.
Prince Daemon slowly walked to Rhaenyra's side and crouched down to examine Jacaerys's injuries, his movements professional and practiced.
After a moment, he raised his head and looked at Aemond. A faint—extremely faint, extremely cold—smile curled at the corner of his mouth. "Who would have thought that our House Targaryen…"
"…would produce another vile seed who seeks to slay his own kin. How ironic."
He stood up, one hand still resting on the hilt of his sword, his gaze sweeping over Aemond. "Boy, you've got more guts than your father."
Not far away, the sound of many footsteps approached.
"I'll kill this bastard!" Rhaenyra suddenly flew into a frenzy, reaching out to try to draw Dark Sister from Daemon's waist.
Hearing this, Aemond's muscles tensed, but he realized that this sister of his might be putting on a show.
"Hey! Don't act rashly, Rhaenyra!" Daemon pressed down on the sword hilt, stopping the enraged mother. "Little Jace isn't dead yet."
"What happened!"
"What exactly happened!!!"
King Viserys's roar came from the distance.
Clearly, the king had heard his eldest daughter Rhaenyra's furious outburst.
Even more footsteps surged closer.