Chapter Text
Rage boiled to a fever pitch. The House of the Dragon remained a small, dwindling dynasty. A far cry from the berth of Targaryen offspring that had wandered King's Landing in her grandfather's time. Death, illness, and exile had deluded the line year by year until only a remnant remained.
One ailing king, a rapscallion prince, one young princess and the Queen that Never Was. The totality of House Targaryen that lived to carry on the royal line. A minuscule, pitiful line.
King Viserys must remarry. Rhaenyra Targaryen knew that. She accepted that.
Why her? Why steal Alicent Hightower from her like a thief in the night? In that moment she'd never hated her father more. It was a sickly, envious emotion that made her regret the fact she'd never been afforded the ability to train with the sword. Hadn't been born a man capable of claiming the girl before this moment.
It took all the young princess's strength to beat back angry tears. A child's reaction. A child's reaction that would be witnessed by the half-dozen advisors who held more power than she did as heir to the Iron Throne.
Dark-skinned Lord Lyonel Strong looked on with an unassuming, straight expression, but said not a word of congratulations at the announced nuptials. Old Lord Lyman Beesbury, hair long since gone grey, merely raised a brow at the odd choice of bride and gazed past even older Grand Maester Mellos to exchange a long glance with Lord Strong.
Grand Maestor Mellos nodded at the announcement as if the choice of bride made all the sense in the world. Surely, a Hightower, even one as lacking in station of Alicent Hightower was the only right choice? None was as openly ecstatic as the Lord Hand, the chief advisor to the king.
The scrunch of confusion in her father's brow at the tense silence that had stolen over the council chambers caused a barb of iron and metal to be seared into her bones. She rocked back and shifted her left foot away from the king, her father—the man who saw too little.
Alicent threw her a desperate look, deep, dark eyes peered at her from beneath a thin veil of calm, and serenity. A mask the girl had yet to perfect. The tightness of the jaw and the strain in the eyes revealed the tension to any who cared to look. Rhaenyra did, by the gods, she did.
Violet eyes drank in the green gown that bared long swathes of alabaster skin on her arms and neckline to the ravenous eyes of lords that did not deserve to gaze upon it. Not the gown of a pious maiden, but one of a hunting courtier. The clues were all there. Her father's constant mention of her friend. Alicent's insistence on bridging the gap between daughter and father. The slow shift of older girl's wardrobe from demure gowns worn by girls not yet courting to the revealing cuts of a woman grown should have been noticed.
What an utter, useless blind fool she'd been. It's not fair! The sentiment circled her mind, a dragon rumbling her discontent while readying jets of flame. But who to cast her ire towards? Her father? The fool who didn't know that absconding with her Alicent was akin to stealing a dragon egg from a Targaryen babe's cradle? Alicent herself? The brief glance at the girl bared desperation and guilt behind a flimsy mask.
Rhaenyra felt on the edge of fleeing from the room. From the reality that her dearest friend, her love had been stolen away from her by her own father, by the fact she'd been too far in her angst and grief to notice the slow shift in the other girl.
Words that could not be spoken without forming unhealable wounds sat at the tip of her tongue. I need to leave. The thought rose like a wild, untamed tempest.
The Sea Snake rose. A tempest of a man that exuded an aura of cold, icy fury. The deepest, darkest depths of the sea on a stormy day had a tamer, safer look than the midnight, loathsome glint in the man's dark eyes. The fury-driven gaze darted from the tall, lanky Otto Hightower to the smaller, more regal king. He did not bother to turn that icy gaze to Alicent. “This is an absurdity,” he said, voice an angry rasp. “I am Corys Velaryon of Old Valyria, the Sea Snake. A lord, a merchant, a privateer that herries our enemies and safeguards the realm from incursions from the east. I import the silks that the ladies covet and the delicacies that you dine on. Rhaenys and I produced two Valyrian offspring, one a dragonrider.” The man paused, white dreadlocks quivered with the force of his fury. “One of THE TWO greatest powers in the realm and you...choose the daughter of a second-son? One must wonder why?”
The words hit the room with the force of the fiercest winds from the Sea of Storms. The lords of the Great Counsel shifted in their seats. The king's effect shifted from confused and jovial to dark. The dragon awakens. The thought almost conjured a hacking laugh that would spew flame and fumes if they were in fact dragons made flesh.
Otto Hightower twitched where he stood and his bearded visage twisted in distaste.
“You dare impugn my daughter's honor, her reputation. Your future queen's honor? The Hightowers are a house of Faith and Piety. Alicent trained with the Silent Sisters.” Alicent twitched at that and her gaze sunk to the hard stonework of the Red Keep.
Enough, Rhaenyra thought. Enough. Questions of Alicent's virtue and character could only help her own claim as heir when the time came, but she would not ascend the steps to the Iron Throne over her dearest friend's prone form. The thought cooled her temper from an uncontrolled flame to a cold fire that burned bright but could be shaped into a more useful tool. Kings and queens of the realm could not let anger and rage lead them astray.
As heir to the iron throne, Rhaenyra could not fall into an unchecked rage. She needed to secure her position. She would not allow herself to be sent away to rot in her husband's castle, to become a broodmare for some covetous lord, to bow and scrape before a Hightower prince who would not understand what it meant to be a Targaryen when the time came.
No Rhaenyra Targaryen would not wait—she'd seize what was so carelessly offered and claim the power offered in scraps and crumbs. There is little she would not do for Alicent Hightower. Rhaenyra's violet eyes tracked to Alicent cowering beneath Otto Hightower's tall, slim frame freed her from that fear. She would not allow House Hightower to steal both Alicent and her birthright from her. They might be able to steal one of them; they'd claim both over her burning corpse.
“Lord Velaryon. Men have been—” Her father spat the words between clenched teeth.
She could not allow this to escalate. Two quick strides forward brought her a hand span from the counsel table. The sudden motion jarred her father from his tirade. As cupbearer, she'd never dared to interrupt a council meeting. Princess of Dragonstone and heir she might be, but the men of the counsel did not welcome her as easily as she might wish. Rhaenys had been right on that front.
“Father, Lord Corlys.” Rhaenyra forced her voice to be firm, her chin to rise stubbornly. I must not be a cupbearer at this moment. Not a little girl to dismiss to go play with her dolls. “House Targaryen and House Velaryon. We are kin that have bonds of blood that trickle back to the days of Old Valyria.”
She let her eyes sweep from her father who stood, stubbornly at the head of the table to Lord Corlys on the other end. This could drive a wedge through the very heart of Targaryen power if left to run unchecked.
The stubborn tilt of her father's head, his shuttered expression, and the brief glance between the hand and the king broadcast his intentions as openly as the most stubborn and ill-tempered of dragons. He is weak. Daemon's words to her on more than one occasion had never been clearer. He is too easily led. The Hightower pulls him this way and that like a wolf leading a calf to slaughter.
Lord Velaryon seemed to have cooled, violet eyes assessing her with a consideration she'd yet to receive from a man of his accomplishment, of his political power.
Rhaenyra pushed onward before anyone could tilt the scales that she balanced on precariously. Women were so rarely granted the time to speak so openly. “When Lord Daemon Velaryon aligned with Aegon the Conqueror it was through ties of blood that he set sail to help conquer Westeros—for an aunt he loved and cousins who were as close as blood-siblings. Aegon the Conqueror was granted the crown, yes, but it was through the might of Targaryen dragons that the Velaryon fleet flourished.” It was dragon power that kept the worst of the pirates and raiders from plundering your ships. She could not say more, not without turning the man against her. Gods, it was a line she had the flimsiest of a concept of how to walk. These political games Alicent could play far better.
The Hand of the King straightened, brown eyes tightened, and he began to shake his head. An interjection, the lightest of laughs, and a dismissal would soon follow before he moved to censor Lord Velaryon for his brazen insults to Alicent, to her father, to the crown.
Rhaenyra continued, words firm, strong. “I say, that it is time the House Velaryon and House Targaryen join once more.”
Lord Otto lips twisted for the barest of moments. He shook his head and looked enormously disappointed, the put-upon father dealing with a child that had no sense. “It seems the Princess's education on the Faith of the Seven is severely lacking. None but the High Septon can break a betrothal.”
“I was not aware Targaryen king's bowed to the Faith of the Seven,” Lord Velaryon growled, teeth gleaming white between the twisting slant of his scowling lips. The man looked ready to leap over the stone table to strangle Lord Otto.
Now or never. “I am of age. A woman grown,” Rhaenyra interjected. The words felt heavy on her tongue. A woman grown at ten and five. She did not feel like a woman grown. Her mother Aemma Aeryn had been wedded and bedded at ten and five. Years upon years of a string of dead babes and miscarriages followed. Grief and pain and the inevitability of death in the birthing bed remained a real risk for Rhaenyra. I might never be queen. To be felled by the woman's battle before she ascended the Iron Throne. A risk that must be borne as the heir to the Iron Throne.
The warring men ceased their political jockeying. The Hand of the King seemed to be stuck mid-thought, mouth agape. Lord Velaryon's gaze settled on her. The satisfaction and pleasure in his gaze, the barest tilt of his head in acknowledgment of a proposition that met his liking.
The approval meant the next words flowed smoother than the prior ones. This proposition would be accepted. She must merely have the courage to speak the words. “It is time that House Targaryen and House Velaryon became tied in bonds of blood once more. I will marry Lord Laenor Velaryon. He will be my consort and our children will sit the Iron Throne after me.” A fire burned through Rhaenyra's veins as the words flowed from her tongue smooth and languid as a dragon lazing in the sun. She could hear her heart thumping away, her blood rushing with an intensity that only the fastest of dragon flights had ever induced.
“House Velaryon accepts.” The white-haired lord rumbled the words before anyone could object. “The fleets of Driftmark, the might of House Velaryon, and our vassals will follow Princess Rhaenyra and her line.” The lord shifted until he faced her and fell into a bow that sent his white dreadlocks tumbling over his shoulder. The coarse white hairs melding with the equally white beard that framed a strong chin. The motion had a languid grace that only those who spent more of their life tied to a quaking boat than dry land could manage.
Her father gifted her with an affectionate smile and a pleased one at that. One that said she had just offered a solution, a viable one to all of his problems. He seemed to have forgotten Lord Velaryon's many insults. A good omen, a battle won, but she knew the Hand of the King would not allow his plans to be upended so easily.
Otto looked as if he had swallowed a lemon, mouth pulled taught within the frame of a wispy beard. Lord Strong looked on with interest, hands fidgeting with the unadorned chain around his neck. Old Mellos seemed to droop under the weight of the interlocking Maester chain around his neck at a plan upended. Lord Lymen shifted enough to meet her eyes and offered a smile and a nod. A good match proposed. Far better than the king's own match. The unstated praise brought the beginnings of a flush to her own pale cheeks.
“Your grace,” Otto interrupted, hands resting behind his back loosely. “The princess is far too young. Surely, it would be far better to wait–”
“I am of an age to Lady Alicent, Lord Hightower. Do you imply that Alicent is too young to wed the king?” The words were meant to leave her mouth with the lightest, most innocent of touches. There was a tartness to her tone that destroyed that prospect. She'd never been good at playing innocent, at playing political games of lies and half-truths.
Alicent straightened at that. “Father,” she said, voice so soft that it almost didn't carry across the room to where Rhaenyra stood.
Otto waved a dismissive hand in his daughter's direction. Alicent's eyes dropped and she swallowed heavily against words that she'd never speak to her father. Rhaenyra hated how the other girl became a smaller shadow of herself before her domineering father. “This is not a conversation to have with children about. Betrothals and courtships are a matter for the heads of houses,” Lord Hightower objected.
“I am the named heir to the Iron Throne. Old enough to rule in my own right without a Regent if the wor—” The words died in her throat the thought sat like a lump in her throat. She'd seen too much death. The wound of her mother's death pulsed, but she could not stop. “As heir, it is my duty to provide the realm the security of heirs. I am ready to meet that duty.”
Rhaenyra kept her eyes on her father. He had tears in his own lighter purple eyes. When he spoke next, his voice cracked with emotion. “My daughter is right. I married my Aemma at fifteen. Laenor Velaryon is a fine squire. He will be a fine knight, a good king consort. House Targaryen accepts the match.”
Corlys offered a smile that was all teeth at the tall, spindly man's displeasure before settling into a more lordly persona. “It is an honor, your grace. Lady Velaryon and I would be pleased to meet with you to discuss the terms of the betrothal. It is a negotiation that will require a bit more finesse than can be given its proper due at a council meeting. A dinner perhaps? To negotiate terms and begin planning a royal wedding?”
Otto Hightower looked even more displeased.
“We could make it a double wedding. A royal event that will be remembered for generations to come.” The princess looked over to her friend. At that offer, the brunette visibly relaxed. Alicent did not far well as the center of attention. She never had. A royal wedding, alone with only a far older husband as a buffer, would be a different type of torture.
Lord Lyonel Strong entered the conversation for the first time since the king announced his betrothal. The man dressed in a black dark enough to meld with his skin tone. It seemed fitting that House Strong, for once, was ruled by a family that had the look of Harren the Black of old, if not the temperament. “A joint wedding would be wise.” He ran a finger over the marble sphere before him. “It would allow more great houses to attend without unduly straining resources and time before the approaching winter.”
No one could object to that. The reasonable suggestion brought on a cascade of informal planning that spelled the doom of any Hightower plots to thwart the arrangement. The king ended the meeting with a beaming smile, a request for his hand to arrange a dinner with House Velaryon for that evening, and a bid to re-adjourn in three days' time to begin the planning in earnest.
The meeting ended, and one by one, the participants filtered out. First, the Grand Maester Mellos scurried out first. After brief words of congratulations to their Princess, Lord Beesbury and Lord Strong departed together.
The Hightowers, after a brief talk with the king, removed themselves without more than a word to Princess Rhaenyra. Before departing the room, the princess and the lady's eyes met. The princess made sure she gave the briefest of smiles. Alicent merely ducked her head, visage white and wane, before scurrying after her lord father.
The princess held in a weary sigh. She turned to where Lord Corlys and King Viserys conversed in soft voices at the front of the room. “My lady wife will be thrilled to hear of Princess Rhaenyra's suggestion. We look forward to re-solidifying Valyrian rule of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Lord Corlys gave one final bow before marching from the room.
Rhaenyra left alone with her father felt breath come far easier.
The king walked over and clasped a hand on her slim shoulder. “I have never been prouder, my dear girl. Your mother would...” The king looked to the side, a grief-stricken agony pulled the eager smile into a tired, pained pinch. He swallowed heavily, dark violet eyes swung to the open door; the bandaged hand not clasped around her shoulder twitched where it hung limply at her father's side.
“She would have been proud of both of us,” Rhaenyra offered. Alicent's words to be kind, to try to connect with her grief-stricken father returned to her. “I just...” I wish you would have told me, the princess thought. Really told me your intentions. Instead of masking it like a thief in the night. The thoughts were bitter and would only cause struggle and strife between the Targaryen line. He is king.
Instead, she said, “Lady Alicent is a fine girl — a fine woman. It gladdens me that we will be family soon.”
“Thank you, my dear. Walk with me. We have much to discuss before my negotiations with Lord and Lady Velaryon tonight.”
The king and the princess walked together talking quietly about the betrothal, the future nuptials, as well as the future of House Targaryen. By the time, Princess Rhaenyra left the king's chambers she felt reasonably sure that her future had been secured.
The Queen That Never Was lounged in a chair overlooking the gardens of the Red Keep. Below her daughter frolicked in the gardens. The girl rushed from one rose bush to another. The girl's companions, minor members of House Velaryon, followed in her footsteps. The giggles of young girls filled the air.
The brief, contentious conversation with her niece lay heavy on her mind. They rejected you. The words, spoken with youth and passion and just a tad inkling of anger and spite hit closer to home than she'd ever admit.
The Queen That Never Was. The black-haired, purple-eyed child of a Baratheon and a Targaryen. More Baratheon than Targaryen had been the words whispered about her at court. She'd hoped wedding Corlys Velaryon would quiet the snide comments, the dismissal, and the questions of her worth to take the crown.
She'd hoped the birth of white-haired, Valyrian children to her line would set her once more on the right path.
The Counsel of 101 AC dashed those hopes. Not that the speed of the proceedings had granted her much time to lobby support and allow all of her own vassals and supporters to attend the fated meeting. The ascent of her uncle and then her cousin to the Iron Throne had already been decided before the proceedings began.
That injustice would soon be corrected. A child and grandchild of The Queen That Never Was would sit on the Iron Throne. The lady of Driftmark wished she didn't need to marry off her youngest and only daughter to achieve that goal. The girl had yet to flower.
Girls had been married much younger. The thought brought a bitter curl to her lips.
Footsteps that rapidly approached drew Rhaenys out of her dark thoughts. She glanced to the side.
Her husband, Corlys Velaryon approached. A triumphant smile carved his face into that eager, hard grin that made him look more pirate than lord. The ends of pristine white dreadlocks shifted around broad shoulders.
Rhaenys grasped the edge of her brocade gown and stood. She released the dark blue material once she came to a stop. “The arrangement has been met? The king agreed to the match?” She spoke the question low enough not to be heard by any hidden spies.
The question was a mere formality. If the king had decided otherwise, her husband would already be yelling for his squires, his knights, and his servants to uproot their luggage into trunks to set sail to Driftmark before nightfall.
“No, King Viserys has, in his wisdom, announced his engagement to Lady Alicent Hightower.”
Rhaenys could not bring herself to be surprised or disappointed. Overlooked once more. Purple eyes studied her lord husband. He seemed far too happy. “My love,” she inquired.
The lady of Driftmark glanced to the side quickly. No one, save for a guard at the very end of the balcony stood nearby. She waited, patiently for further news. There were times she wished her lord husband didn't feel the need to dance around the news. Especially news where the winds blew in his favor.
“We are to meet King Viserys tonight for dinner to discuss the betrothal and the wedding of the Princess Rhaenyra and Laenor.” Dark lips curled into a satisfied, smug grin. He reached out, snagged onto her arm, and drew her into a tight hug. He dropped a quick kiss to the side of her pale neck and whispered, “Our grandchildren will sit upon the Iron Throne through Laenor. I swear it on the Old Gods and the New.”
Rhaenys pulled away. Relief swept through her. Her daughter would be left to be a child for a few years more. The happy shriek of young girls pierced the air. The deeper boom of laughter accompanied it. She retreated from her husband and walked the few steps to the very edge of the balcony.
Laenor, a slim, lean lad, twirled his sister around fingers firmly clasped around her small hands. The boy's friend Joffrey Lonmouth stood at the outskirts of the group. The handsome red-haired lad watched the boy with an intense look that spelled out the relationship that had developed in recent days for anyone who cared to see.
The development of the boy's preferences worried her, but the boy would do his duty and sire heirs. She'd have to talk to both Laenor and the princess about the matter. House Velaryon could not afford bastards over true-born heirs. It risked too much. Despite Princess Rhaenarya's stubborn refusal to see the succession crisis that rapidly approached at the birth of the king's first male heir, Princess Rhaenys was too old and jaded not to see it and be concerned.
“We will need to stay a while more,” Rhaenys said, voice a quiet whisper for her husband's ears alone. “We will need to do much to ensure the succession is not changed to Lady Hightower's firstborn son.”
“My brother has Driftmark well in hand. We will remain at court as long as needed.” Her husband, born to sail the seas, looked a tad regretful at that.
The Lady of Driftmark glanced to the side. Her lord husband followed her gaze down to where their children played in the gardens below. Laenor and Laena lay sprawled on their backs in the carefully cultivated grasses of the Red Keeps' gardens. The giggles flowed freely as they could only in children not yet jaded by the harshness of the world.
Corlys looked pleased, exceedingly proud, and had that calculated glint in his eye of a man who had already accounted for future Royal Heirs. He had never particularly been good at not dreaming and planning big.
“Let us go break the good news, husband.”
Lord Corlys nodded eagerly and took off toward the stairs that led down into the garden with quick steps.
Lady Rhaenys followed after at a more sedate pace already planning the meetings she would have with her son and his lover without her lord husband. Lord Corlys, for all of his ambition, did not always see what lay before his eyes if it did not meet his standards. It had long been her duty to quietly, invisibly tend to those dangers.
The wedding of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Ser Laenor Velaryon might be courting more danger than would be healthy for House Velaryon. It would take careful plans to ensure House Velaryon did not find itself, landlocked, encircled, and overrun by House Hightower.