Chapter Text
Rain hammered against the windows of Maegor’s Holdfast with relentless fury, rattling the ancient panes in their lead frames. Somewhere beyond the walls of the Red Keep, thunder rolled across Blackwater Bay, low and heavy enough to make the stone beneath the king’s chair tremble faintly. The storm had hung over King’s Landing for days now, smothering the city beneath cold rain and dark skies. Even the air inside the chamber smelled damp, thick with smoke from the hearth and the sharp scent of medicinal herbs.
Aegon II Targaryen sat beside the fire wrapped in blankets and furs, though sweat still clung to his skin beneath his tunic. His ruined leg stretched stiffly before him atop a cushioned stool, hidden beneath layers of bandages stained yellow with ointments. The flesh beneath them pulsed constantly. Burned nerves screamed day and night without rest. Some mornings he woke thinking he still lay upon the field at Rook’s Rest with dragonfire cooking him alive inside his armour.
He had once thought pain would make a man sharper. Stronger.
Instead it hollowed him out piece by piece until only bitterness remained.
Aegon stared into the flames without seeing them. The firelight danced gold against the walls, and for an instant it reminded him of Sunfyre before the war. Beautiful Sunfyre, gleaming brighter than any dragon in the world, his scales shining like beaten gold beneath the sun.
Now there was nothing left of him but bones beneath the earth.
Just another corpse the throne had claimed.
The king drank heavily these nights, though wine no longer brought him pleasure. It dulled the edges of memory, nothing more. Enough to make sleep possible when the milk of the poppy failed him. Enough to quiet the screams that still echoed through his dreams.
Children screaming.
Dragons screaming.
Helaena screaming.
His jaw tightened hard enough to ache.
No. He would not think of her tonight.
There were memories that opened like wounds if touched too deeply.
Instead his thoughts drifted, as they always did, toward hatred. Hatred was easier to carry than grief. Hatred kept a man standing long after love had rotted away inside him.
Rhaenyra Targaryen rose before his mind as clearly as if she stood in the chamber still: silver hair tangled and filthy, eyes burning with fury even at the very end. He hated her with every broken piece of himself. Hated the sound of her voice. Hated the memory of her sitting his father’s throne as if it belonged to her by right. Hated that the realm had bled for her. Burned for her.
His fingers curled against the armrest.
She had taken everything from him before he had even understood what it meant to lose. His brothers, his children, his peace, his body. Even now, after her death, after Sunfyre had devoured her before her son’s eyes, the hatred remained inside him like poison that could never be purged.
And yet killing her had changed nothing.
The dead had not risen.
The war had not ended cleanly. There had been no triumph waiting on the other side of victory. Only ashes and ghosts and lords whispering behind closed doors while they waited for their crippled king to finally die.
Aegon gave a humourless laugh beneath his breath. The Iron Throne had proven the greatest fool in the realm. Men slaughtered one another for generations to possess it, yet it gave nothing back except misery.
The door opened quietly behind him.
“Your Grace,” came the careful voice of Grand Maester Orwyle.
Aegon did not turn immediately. He heard the faint clink of chains and the shuffle of measured footsteps crossing the chamber floor. When he finally looked over his shoulder, Orwyle stood there holding a silver tray. Steam curled from the cup resting atop it, dark red wine mixed with herbs strong enough to sting the nose.
“For your pain,” the maester said gently.
Aegon almost smiled at that.
As if there remained enough milk of the poppy in the world to cure what the throne had done to him.
Still, he reached for the cup. His hand trembled slightly as he took it, and irritation flared hot in his chest. Gods, he despised the shaking. More than the scars. More than the limp. His own body had become weak and uncertain, betraying him before every watching eye in court.
The wine smelled strangely sweet.
He noticed it only briefly.
Then he drank.
Warm liquid slid down his throat. Bitter beneath the honey.
For several seconds, nothing happened. Aegon leaned back into the chair, staring once more toward the fire while the rain battered against the windows.
Then agony exploded through his stomach.
The king doubled forward violently, the cup slipping from his fingers to shatter against the stone floor. Pain ripped through him with such sudden force that for one disoriented instant he thought his wounds had burst open inside him. His breath caught sharply. Heat surged upward into his chest and throat, burning like wildfire.
Aegon gagged.
Blood splattered across his hand.
The chamber tilted sickeningly.
No.
No no no–
Poison.
The realization struck at once, cold and absolute.
Aegon tried to stand, but his ruined leg collapsed beneath him immediately. He hit the floor hard enough to jar pain through his spine. Somewhere nearby Orwyle shouted for help, his voice suddenly sharp with panic, but the king scarcely heard him over the roaring in his ears.
His stomach twisted again.
Gods.
It felt as though hooks were tearing through his insides.
Hands seized his shoulders. Voices filled the chamber. Guards. Servants. Someone calling for water.
Poisoned.
By his own men.
A harsh sound escaped him — half laugh, half choking gasp. Of course. How else could it end? Not with honour. Not with a sword in hand or dragon beneath him. They had waited until he was crippled, alone, despised. Then they had poured death into his wine cup and bowed while he drank it.
Aegon coughed violently. More blood spilled from his mouth, dark against the floorstones.
Who?
The thought came wildly now, battered apart by pain.
Corlys.
Larys.
The regents.
All of them.
Any of them.
Traitors smiling in candlelight.
Kneeling.
Whispering.
Waiting.
The pain worsened with terrifying speed. His body convulsed against the floor as another wave tore through him. A scream ripped free before he could stop it, raw and ragged enough that he scarcely recognized the sound as his own.
He was dying.
The certainty settled over him like ice.
Not on dragonback.
Not in battle.
On the floor of his own castle while the court watched.
Aegon’s vision blurred. Candlelight smeared strangely across the room. The voices above him seemed distant now, muffled beneath the pounding of blood in his skull.
Jaehaera.
His thoughts lurched suddenly toward his daughter with desperate force.
Sweet girl. Quiet girl.
He saw her small hands clutching at Helaena’s skirts. Saw the fear that never seemed to leave her eyes anymore. Another child born into a cursed house already drowning in ghosts.
Please.
The word formed soundlessly inside him.
Let her live.
Let her escape this.
No crowns. No dragons. No throne.
Let her laugh somewhere far away from all of this.
Another spasm wracked his body. Aegon choked hard enough to taste bile and blood together.
The room swayed around him.
Helaena.
Gods, Helaena–
He squeezed his eyes shut as grief crashed through him at last, unbearable in its fullness. He had not protected her. Had not protected any of them. His sons dead. His brothers dead. His sister-wife broken until death became mercy.
And his mother.
A sudden sharp hatred cut through the haze.
Alicent Hightower.
Her voice. Her hands crowning him king. Her prayers. Her ambition wrapped in righteousness.
You made me this.
The thought came fractured now.
You put the crown on my head and called it duty.
Did you ever love me at all?
Or only the king?
Darkness crept inward at the edges of his vision.
The pain no longer even felt human. It consumed everything. Thought shattered beneath it.
Rhaenyra’s face.
Sunfyre screaming.
Blood on snow.
Jaehaerys.
Helaena.
Rain against windows.
The throne.
Always the throne.
Aegon dragged in a final ragged breath that scraped through his chest like broken glass.
He had won.
That was the cruellest thing.
He had won.
And it had destroyed them all.
Then the darkness swallowed him whole.