Diminish
She is naked, and the night is still.
Moonlight rides her shoulders. Sand glitters in her hair. Misty water laps at her knees and I am frozen, watching.
The stretch of beach beside the Blackwater Rush is abandoned all but for us. At our backs, the windows of the Red Keep blink like eyes. The air smells of slimy fish and Rhaenyra’s clothes on the sand beside me are still warm. I can feel her heat fading from them.
Rhaenyra looks over her shoulder at me, pale skin shining.
I do not look at her knobby foal-like legs. I do not trace the lythe muscles of her stomach with my eyes. I do not study the sweep of her upturned breasts.
I do not dare.
She has entrusted her nakedness to me like a sister. Nothing more.
I would betray her by looking.
Rhaenyra beckons with a single brittle finger. Upon it, the ring I once gave her glints. It is twin to the one I wear.
Summoned by some small magic, I step forward. Only a single step.
She is a porcelain knife, cutting through the shadows. Even the wiry veins beneath her pearlescent flesh seem to gleam. I am a moth drawn into her orbit.
“Come on, Alicent! It is not cold,” she calls. “Don’t be such a coward!”
“Somebody might see us,” I say. The night swallows my voice because it is big and I am small. I am not made of moonlight, not like her.
I don’t glow in the dark. I just diminish.
“What?” Rhaenyra calls back. “I can’t hear you!”
I open my mouth to reply, but she is not listening.
Rhaenyra splashes out to sea. Her laughter sweetens the air. I watch her skinny arms windmill, tossing water up for the clouds to catch. I watch a wave sweep over her head and I watch her emerge again, spitting seawater from between her lips.
My fingers shake, but I take off one shoe, then another. Barefoot, I step towards the seam in the world where the ground turns to water. The surf is cold. It stings my toes.
Rhaenyra swims back to me, still grinning. Her pert nose is pink, her purple eyes are full of my reflection. “You won’t do it, will you?”
I glance around the beach. “Rhaenyra,” I laugh. “I don’t wish to be naked.”
With you. I don’t want to be naked with you.
“Everyone swims naked in The Rush,” Rhaenyra pouts. “You are craven not to do so.”
Ashamed, I look down at my hands. I touch my ring that is a match to hers.
An impatient sigh puffs from between Rhaenyra’s lips. When she smooths her fingers across her scalp, her ring catches my eye. All her other adornments still lie atop her clothes.
She has cast everything else aside. Everything but that.
I must not give these sorts of moments meaning.
***
She is drunk, and the ballroom seems to circle around her. She is, after all, the realm’s delight.
And delight in her they do. Even the drums beat in time to the swishing of her skirts. From the opposite side of the room, I watch.
Knights with oiled hair take Rhaenyra’s arm and drag her into dance after dance. They feed her cheese and pomegranate seeds from their fingers. They touch the spokes of her hair.
She is all smiles. She does not need me tonight.
All the world is already her friend.
And in all the world, she is my only friend.
I run my thumb across the ring I always wear. I look at my hands folded in my lap and stroke the band. The stone inlaid in the center of her ring is green—in honor of my house. The ring I wear is topped with a ruby, the perfect shade of her Targaryen red.
Red like the blood beneath my fingernails. Red like biting my tongue.
I look at my fingers—at the pink indents in my skin where my scabs would be had I not peeled them all off. The skin is tender and raw, leaking clear liquid now.
It does not hurt. Nothing has hurt me in a long time. I am so tightly wound that the only pain I feel is the noose of judgment I wrap around myself.
I see an old scab nestled near my knuckle. When I see it, it itches. It calls my name. I latch my nail beneath the bed of the scab and pull. I do not stop when I feel the warm blush of blood.
I hide the mess made I’ve beneath a napkin and look around.
Nobody has noticed me. Their eyes are drawn toward the dragon girl with a violet gaze.
As are mine.
Her sloping cheeks are flush with wine. Rhaenyra’s mouth is full and frivolous with laughter. When she tosses her head back, her throat is as long and lovely as a swan’s.
Her hand tightens on the man’s shoulder as he spins her across the flagstones.
He is handsome, I guess. He is older than her, I know. And still, he is looking at her with velvet eyes—soft and warm.
If a man looked at me like that, I would not know what to do. I would not know what to do until instructed otherwise.
I glance at my father. Otto is graying. He is gaunt. He is speaking to King Viserys, but he is looking at her.
I do not feel the gasp of jealousy tightening my throat. I do not think back to hours earlier when Rhaenyra and I were dressing for the feast. I do not remember how she promised to dance with me, how she swore that she’d make sure my cup was always full.
I do not mourn the joy she’d promised me.
I do not dare.
For her part, Rhaenyra does not kiss the man she is dancing with, but she wants to. I can tell by the brace of her body—how close her face is to his, how her gaze does not stray from his pink mouth.
She is luminous. She is a struck match. A midnight blossom. A fevered prayer.
She is loving and she is beloved. She is everything I want to be and everything I want to have, all at once.
I am silent. I am stiff. I do not drink. I do not eat. My appetite is gone.
I will waste away watching you, I think.