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Aegon had buried all of his siblings. Even killed one of them himself, he huffed at the thought. He lost so so much for a useless war, for a worthless stupid throne. He lost sons, brothers. He lost a sister, a wife he had loved, the mother of his children. He loved her so much that he stayed away for most of their marriage, just to avoid staining her with his sins.

But in the end, it hadn’t mattered. The gods had shown him that whatever he did to protect her could be undone in the most brutal way.

She had taken her own life to escape the pain. The pain of losing her sons. The ghosts of their children haunted her so deeply that she could no longer bear to live. So she ended it. By tossing herself out of her window.

Aegon tried to swallow the lump in his throat. The wine in his hand trembled as he turned the cup between his fingers. He wanted to drink himself to death. And yet, some part of him wanted to starve himself of it, to suffer in another way to punish himself.

He lost two brothers. He had been there when both were born, but not when either of them died. He didn’t remember Helaena’s birth as he was too little himself back then but he remembered his brothers’.

Aemond had been a sickly child, born too early and Daeron had been plump, born a little late. He remembered how their mother placed them in his lap for the first time, how they took their first steps, how they chased after him while playing, how they cried when Daeron was sent away to Old Town, and how quiet, how serious Aemond became after he lost his eye. He remembered all of it . 

He didn’t remember a time where they didn’t exist.

He was never taught to.

So how could he live without them?

Yet he did. He lived. He wore a crown he never asked for, at the cost of their lives.

Its spikes felt like they were growing into his skull. It whispered through him, a cruel voice reminding him that crowns were not blessings, but burdens. His was no different.

Any ill will against the kingdom, any complaint, would wound him more than ever, and the lingering pain and false promises would sizzle like poison on his tongue.

The lords were watching, circling like vultures, waiting for a bare weak moment to strike. They wanted to seat his younger namesake on the throne, just so they could pull the strings and rule in his shadow. It was never about justice. It was never about peace.

They were starved for power. And they didn’t even bother to hide it anymore.

And maybe he’d survive their hunger. Maybe he’d carry this cursed crown and the lies that came with it until his last breath. But even if he did he could never go back home to them . That place, that peace, lived only in memory now, and memory was no home at all.

Not just buried beneath the ash of war, but hollowed out by the deaths that came before and after it.

His house had fallen, his siblings and sons were dead. He could never go back.

And he knew deep down, knew with a certainty that sickened him that he couldn’t return not because the doors were barred but because the Aegon who had once lived there didn’t exist anymore. That man was also long dead.

Just because their father made a choice and they were shattered into pieces and their home was destroyed in its wake.

He could never go back because his home was made of his people, of voices and warmth and hands that pulled him close even when he pushed away. And now those people were dead. Every last one of them.

All he could do was drift, drink and grieve to the point of insanity.

He could not turn to his mother of all people, because his siblings were dead and his mother saw nothing but them in his eyes.

He can never go back. He could never go back.

He can bark, scratch and beg but never go back.

Aegon sat alone at the long table in Maegor’s Holdfast, his wine untouched resting beside a half eaten crust of bread. His eyes were unfocused, thinking. Drifting somewhere between grief and apathy so deep that he didn’t even notice the page coming through the door and announcing his Lord Confessor.

Across from him, Larys stood as still as shadow, his head tilted slightly, fingers resting delicately on the back of a carved chair. He had not spoken. Neither had the king.

The Clubfoot was observing his King, slouched in his chair, half of his face hidden with his silver hair, fingers drumming once, then stopping.

Aegon didn’t look up. His mind elsewhere still.

“You didn’t come to drink,” he guessed while wetting his dry lips. “So say whatever it is you come to say.”

It was no accusation, not really, just a quiet prompt. A prod. He was a bitter man now, too used to games but too tired to play.

Larys tilted his head, almost owl-like. His creepy blue eyes moved slowly, studying the man in front of him. A man he had once intended to kill. A man who, by all reason, should have been dead already.

But the unforeseen turns are simply part of any path, the clubfoot mused deep inside. And Larys knew exactly how to take action on such sudden changes.

“I came to release you of your shackles,” the master of whisperers declared.

So this is where it ends, Aegon thought with acceptance. So, living through so much loss and war resulted in him dying at his desk. 

When he felt Larys not moving to strike at all but still staring at him, he took his eyes off his wine and turned to him. He expected him to look at himself with pity, but what he found was something different; he was studying him. 

He seemed to be observing the King not as if he wanted to understand what Aegon was going to do, but as if he was trying to decide what he should do.

Aegon snorted without humor, eyes turning to his wine cup again. He twirled it in his hand.

“If this is about repentance, you’re wasting both our time.”

He longed for death, still yearning for it like it was a simple thing to want. Aegon just held on for the sake of the daughter who woke up at night screaming her dead brother’s name, all he could do from now on was for his daughter. But it seems death was at his doorstep, he had no strength left to send it away or fight with it. He was just done.

“It isn’t.”

At that, Aegon looked petulant, and hummed back. “Then get to it.”

There was no anger in his tone, but something colder: resignation, perhaps. Or the bone-deep numbness that comes after all other feelings has long since ran out. Oh gods, he was so tired.

Larys did something that was completely unexpected of him, and sat down in the chair across from Aegon. The King merely raised his eyebrows, and before he could say he did not give permission, the Clubfoot interrupted him. Such lawful lords, these days.

“My sister has given birth,” he said as if it explained everything. For the first time since childhood, Aegon could hear an emotion in Larys’ voice. It was as startling as the act that he did just a second ago.

What, were they close enough to share their troubles?

“Mm. Congratulations. I assume you didn’t come to share the joy of being an uncle.”

“He is kin, of a sort,” Larys leaned on the table and scratched his fading beard. Aegon gave him a look that was more grimace than curiosity. When he didn’t continue, the King threw his head back and huffed.

“You’re being vague. Which usually means you’re about to offend me. I ask for the last time, what is it?”

“She claims the child is Prince Aemond’s.”

The words hung in the air like smoke, refusing to disperse. Aegon did not answer immediately. He simply looked at nothing in particular. When he lost his thoughts, all he could see was a boy who had once stood beside him with a sword to protect him, filled with rage.

All those years spent with his little brother came flooding back to his mind. All that he could think was that he needed his little brother to relive those years again, again and again. He needed his arms around him, needed him to hold him and whisper they’re gonna be okay, that they’ll be fine.

As if that wasn’t enough of a blow, the man continued, “She says they wed. In silence. Beneath the heart tree, before he left for the God’s Eye.”

Aegon leaned back in his chair slowly, as if it were a real blow to the gut, needing time to let this news sink in. To relieve the pain in his head a little, he took off the crown that was lying on his eyebrow and laid it carelessly on the table.

He looked at Larys with a look that was neither anger nor disbelief, just the heavy, dull pain of too much shock.

“You’re serious.”

“Entirely.”

Aegon’s eyes flicked to the side, to the goblet he no longer wanted but desperately needed.

“She says they married ?”

“Yes.”

The King let out a quiet, humorless breath.

“Aemond married her?” He laughed, short and sharp. “Next you’ll tell me he sang her a love song and picked her flowers. The fuck are we doing, Larys? Writing ballads now? How fucking convenient.”

He stood, abruptly. The chair scraped harshly against the stone, a broken noise in the hush. His left leg throbbed with pain as usual, it had been hurting since the day he tore out Shepherd’s tongue and burned him to death. Too much work on it, the maesters said. 

“You expect me to believe that? That Aemond –a boy who once threatened to gut a maester for calling him reckless– would sneak off and tie a gods-damned knot in the woods with your witch of a sister?”

Larys didn’t move, just shifted slightly as if he was uncomfortable with the subject.

“I don’t expect you to believe it. But I do expect you to consider what it means .”

A boy heir. Instead of his bitch of a sister’s child, his brother’s boy. The easiest way to send Aegon the younger to the Citadel. The easiest way to get the North and the Vale to shut up and sit down. Easiest way to secure his daughter’s life.

But still–

“What it means,” Aegon said, pacing a few short steps as his legs allowed him. “Is that your sister is clever. I’ll give her that.”

“It means the child may carry more than blood. It means legitimacy.”

That made Aegon freeze.

Not with shock. But with something quieter, more painful. Like a wound just beginning to scar, split back open.

He turned, slowly.

“You want me to crown him.”

Larys tilted his head to the other side, calm as water. “You have a daughter, but she has no future. And your enemy’s son yet still lives–”

“The child is not mine.”

“But he’s your brother’s. Sons before daughters. Aemond’s son before Rhaenyra’s.”

Aegon’s mouth tightened, and for the first time, something cracked through his composure.

The King looked away. He felt it low and sharp and twisting in his gut. Just the ache of something that had once mattered and no longer did. He thought of Aemond as a boy, solemn and sickly, chasing after him once with too-big eyes and dreams far too large for his small body. He thought of the bond they once shared, brittle but real, and how it had burned away in the fires of war. And now there was a child. A child with his brother’s blood. A legacy Aegon had not asked for, had not shaped, but could not ignore .

He wasn’t sure what was more unbearable: that Aemond had left something behind or that Aegon had not.

In the end, the only thing that echoed in his mind was that he had lost so much to fate.

And now fate was calling him again, waiting for him, wrapped in the remains of what had been lost, to create something lasting from what could never be repaired.

“Then,” Aegon muttered, turning away from him. “Then what the fuck am I doing alive?”

The King’s words hung in the air, heavy and hollow. Larys did not answer. The silence that followed was not peace; it was a sign of hope that could rise from the ashes of what he had lost.

The fire in the hearth continued to crackle, casting long shadows across the room, and for a moment Aegon just stood there, looking at nothing. Not at the crown. Not at the man before him. All he felt was the weight of the moment, pressing into his spine like a memory of a knife.

He had not wanted to survive. And he certainly had not wanted any purpose.

But they had both held on to him anyway.

Before him, Larys moved with a calm slowness, his presence as cold and firm as ever. Yet something could be sensed in the air between them, not trust at all, but perhaps a shared purpose. An unspoken acceptance that the tide had turned, and they were both being swept along with it in the same way.

Aegon finally turned his head, his eyes narrowing. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter now. More bitter than angry.

“You were going to kill me tonight.”

There was no accusation in his tone. No heat. Just tired recognition, like a man finally turning to face the shadow that had followed him too long.

Larys Strong didn’t flinch. He never did. His head tilted just slightly –for the third time this night– contemplative, calculating the weight of truth against the cost of silence.

“I was.”

Aegon’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t move. The firelight caught the hollows beneath his eyes, painting him in red and gold like an effigy already half-burned. He didn’t ask why, he knew why. He had made himself easy to replace. He had made himself forgettable. Perhaps part of him had been waiting for someone to put an end to it.

His next words came slower. “And now?”

Larys bowed his head, the gesture more theatrical than sincere. There was reverence in it, yes, but also a certain inevitability like the shifting of a board when the final move was made.

“Now I kneel to the future king,” he straightened, his eyes catching the flame. “The son of the Dragon and the Witch.”

The room stilled.

Aegon’s breathing deepened, his gaze falling to the crown that lay like a waiting wound on the table. It gleamed dully in the firelight, all its edges, its weight, its memory. The room smelled of smoke and old iron. For a long moment, he just stared at it—this cursed thing that had cost him everything, now willing him to continue for something that had never been his to begin with.

The silence stretched, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was low. Steady. “Then I better not die.”

Larys’s lips curled faintly. Not a smirk, not quite a smile but something sincere. “No, not yet, Your Grace.”

The words hung itself there, soft and sharp, like cobwebs laced with glass.

The flames continued to flicker behind them.

And so it was: a king too tired to rule, and a spider too careful to strike an ally. Both bound now to a future neither of them had chosen, but both of them knew they would have to survive.

If only to see what rose from the ashes next.

Aegon looked at him now. And for a moment he saw not a schemer nor a spider. He saw a man who had weighed kings in the dark and yet chosen him.

“What’s the boy’s name?”

Larys’s voice was as still as ever. “She hasn’t said.”

Aegon exhaled slowly through his nose. His jaw tightened not in anger, but in calculation, in the slow reckoning of how one ghost might replace another.

“Then she shall bring him here,” he said. “And I’ll claim him.”

The words weren’t loud but they felt like they were. Heavy, final, as though spoken not just to the room but to history.

A long silence followed. In the meantime no servant dared knock. The fireplace continued to make noise, a single piece of coal cracking with a small crackle.

Aegon turned then, his back half-shadowed by the low light, his voice a whisper lost beneath the weight of everything he would not say aloud.

“Tell your sister she’s to come to court. Quietly.”

Larys watched him with unreadable eyes, “I already have,” he said.

Aegon didn’t react. He stepped toward the fire, shadows licking at the hem of his robes, then turned his head slightly not fully, not enough to make it intimate, but enough to make it understood.

“And before she arrives–” He licked his lips, content with himself. “I want it all in order. A letter. A seal. A record, if you must. Godswood vows, witnesses. Fabricated or buried. I want her legitimate. ”

He finally turned, then. His eyes are sharp now, not dulled by loss or grief, but by cold, dry calculation.

“If I’m to name this boy, the realm will not question his mother.”

Larys inclined his head, slow and shallow. The shadow of a smile flickered across his lips not in pleasure, but approval. Task given, path clear.

“It will be done.”

And in the silence that followed, nothing more was said.

Because there was no more choice left to speak. Only history to be written.

𖦹

She was almost hollow. Her already thin body had lost even more weight, the loss of her children had left a thin body to care for her only grandchild. She didn’t know if her cheeks were sticking to her bones from what she had experienced or from losing weight, but she felt the pain of her losses in her bones.

Neither was interested in eating, even though the smell of warm bread hung in the air. Tea was cooling untouched in delicate cups.

Alicent sat poised in her high-backed chair, her spine straight yet softened by the habitual grace of a woman long accustomed to courtly etiquette. Her hands rested lightly on either side of her plate, more in gesture than intent to eat. She had already moved the food on her plate several times, rearranging olives with her fork.

Opposite to the Queen Dowager, her granddaughter Jaehaera sat quietly, her legs tucked beneath her in the chair, one hand wrapped tightly around a porcelain cup that was too large for her fingers. Her eyes stared off toward the tall windows, not quite fixed on anything, as though she were waiting for something to rise from the morning light itself.

The quiet between them was familiar, gentle even, not a strained silence but one woven through routine mornings and lingering loss. It was the kind of quiet that felt like breath held rather than breath wasted. Alicent broke it softly, her voice gentle, probing without intrusion. “Did you sleep well, my love?”

Jaehaera turned slowly, focusing on her grandmother with wide, thoughtful eyes, the delicate blue of an early dawn reflected within them. “I suppose,” she murmured softly. “The cats were restless. One of them jumped onto the bed in the middle of the night. Gave me a fright.”

Of course. The former queen still remembered the day she instructed Larys the Clubfoot to learn the attackers’ true name, so that she might bathe in the blood of their wives and children.

Alicent gave a forced small smile. “Did she settle down afterward?”

Her granddaughter had been through so much for her age, as a grandmother she was rightfully concerned for her. Lost her twin and little brother, mother and uncles. All she had was her father and grandmother. 

“No,” Jaehaera replied easily, wrinkling her nose. She rarely spoke to anyone except a few, and fortunately Alicent was one of them. “She ran off. But she came back when the crying stopped.”

“Crying? You had nightmares?” Alicent asked, brows knitting gently with concern as she smoothed her fingers absently over the embroidered edge of her napkin.

“No,” Jaehaera answered simply, taking a cautious sip of herbal tea. “Not me. There were only some noises. The other boy makes them. He always does.”

At the mention of the boy, Alicent’s expression faltered not with worry, but with a quiet, unmistakable weariness, laced with distaste that she did not attempt to soften. Her eyes narrowed slightly, the line of her mouth tightening as though the very mention of Rhaenyra’s youngest left a sour taste on her tongue.

“He does cry a lot, doesn’t he?” Alicent said, frowning faintly as she set her knife down. Her voice was calm, but there was an edge of quiet frustration beneath it. She wasn’t about to voice her harsh thoughts in front of her delicate granddaughter.

She leaned slightly toward Jaehaera, softening her tone just a bit, like one speaking to a younger child who needed things explained slowly. “Not everyone grows into quiet strength, sweetling. Some little boys just stay a little inside.”

Jaehaera’s lips pressed together, her small fingers tightening around the delicate curve of her teacup. She didn’t look up as she spoke, her voice soft and matter-of-fact, the way a child states a plain truth. “He’s always loud. And he smells strange.”

She paused, her gaze flicking toward the windows again like she could see something others didn’t. “He cries a lot, my old maid Molly is with him and she sighs a lot when I see her. I think the cats don’t like him either.”

She tilted her head a little, thoughtful in her own detached way, her small voice growing even quieter. “I don’t like him. He makes everything feel weird.”

The sound of footsteps echoed softly through the corridor before the door creaked open. Aegon stepped into the chamber with a limp, dark robes loose over his frame, his hair unkempt just like before all this.

He did not speak at first, simply walked to the table, pulled out a chair beside Jaehaera, and sat. He glanced at his daughter, then his mother, nodding briefly before pouring himself a cup of wine rather than tea.

Jaehaera looked up at him with quiet ease, as if she'd been waiting for him to appear all along. “Good morn. What will you do today, Father?” she asked.

Aegon eyed his daughter with his eyes sparkling. He gave her a tired half-smile. “Good morning, daughter. I was going to ask you the same.”

She shrugged, fingers returning to her toast. “I might read. Or sit in the garden. If the cats let me.”

Aegon let out a low breath that might’ve been a chuckle. “A noble plan indeed. Mayhaps I need to accompany you on that.” Even though both knew it was impossible, the thought itself warmed the girl’s little heart.

There was too much to consider. A king like him could not afford to lose a single second, even for his lovely little daughter.

The King reached for his cup, fingers curling around the stem of his goblet with a grip that was steadier than he felt. The wine tasted bitter, too bitter, but he welcomed it. Bitterness was honest. Unlike the words of the lords who haunted his court.

For a few blessed moments, they sat in that delicate stillness; it was the kind that felt like it might break if one spoke too loudly. The kind that Aegon both craved and hated. It made him feel like a man sitting at his own wake.

Alicent cleared her throat, the softest sound, but it carried the weight of something long mulled over. Her hands folded on the table, her gaze flickering between her son and granddaughter. She was a mother before a queen these days. 

“There has been talk,” she began carefully, as though the words might burn her lips. “Among the lords. Lord Velaryon,” Even saying his name was enough to make her grimace. “Suggested that in the interest of healing old wounds, your daughter might be betrothed to the boy. To unite the realm, they say.”

Both were aware it was not for the purpose of uniting the realm. The war was still waging, Tullys and Starks were still marching. The snake’s head should have been cut off at the first moment before it grew longer.

The boy was a threat, even Ser Tyland Lannister argued for the immediate execution of Prince Aegon the Younger. He’ll remain a threat so long as he draws breath, he declared.

They could remove his head, and the remaining traitors would be left with neither queen nor king nor prince to protect them in the end. The sooner he is removed, the sooner this rebellion would end.

However these talks angered Corlys Velaryon, the turn-cloak thrice over, and with his rage he stormed from the chamber. Against the disrespect shown, Borros Baratheon then offered to bring the king the old man’s head. It was a thought that everyone supported, yet Lord Larys warned them against it. He argued that, ‘kill the old snake and we lose the young one’ the Clubfoot said.

And that was that.

After Dowager Queen’s empty words, Aegon heard the scrape of Jaehaera’s knife as it stilled against her plate. He looked at her. Just as he had feared, he saw the light on her face –the light that was already dim– vanish. The small, tentative smile she’d worn at his arrival dissolved like mist. She dropped her gaze, staring down at her plate as if the olives and crumbs there had secrets to tell.

Aegon’s heart clenched. His own grief, his own rage; he could bear those. But hers? The silent disappointment in her eyes, the quiet way she folded into herself? That carved him open.

He set the goblet down harder than he meant to, the sound sharp against the table’s polished wood.

“No,” he said, voice tight, edged with a fury kept carefully in check. “That will not happen.”

Alicent flinched not at his words, but at his tone. She had not heard her son speak with such purpose in what felt like years, or maybe ever. 

“You heard them wrong , Mother. Or they speak out of turn.” His gaze flicked between them, lingering on his daughter, on the way her shoulders had hunched ever so slightly. Only he would notice the way she exhaled, soft and slow, the tiniest release of tension as if his words had let her breathe again.

His mother has instilled violence in him, not just him but all his siblings. Drilled into their bones, placed into their hands, hid it beneath the soles of their feet. It has been like this since the beginning, and now he was the only one left. He’d be the last as well.

“She will not be wed to that boy. No lord will tell me otherwise.”

Or I shall have their tongue.

Alicent opened her mouth as if to argue, but the words died before they could form. She saw it in his face, the steel beneath the weariness, the father beneath the king. It was an unusual sight for her.

But blood was blood and its burden was beast.

Before Aegon could continue, a soft knock at the door interrupted them. The King blinked, as if waking from a dark dream. His jaw worked once before he found his voice.

“Enter.”

A maid appeared, small and nervous, hands folded at her waist.

“Forgive the interruption, Your Grace, Your Highnesses but it is time for Princess Jaehaera’s lessons with Septa Tilly.”

Jaehaera glanced up briefly, her expression composed once more, her emotionless face slipping easily back into place. She pushed back her chair, hands smoothing the folds of her gown.

“Thank you,” she said softly, polite as always. It was not directed at her grandmother for arranging breakfast, but at her father for having the final say on the matter.

Jaehaera rose without a word, the smallest of smiles on her face. She bent down, scooped one of the cats into her arms, and padded over to her father, the King. She leaned in and kissed his cheek, light as a feather.

He swallowed hard, forcing down the words he wanted to speak: I’m sorry. I’ll protect you, this time. I promise.

Instead, all he could muster up was: “Go on, then. Make the maesters earn their keep.”

That earned him the ghost of a smile, fleeting as morning dew, before she turned and followed the maid from the room. When the door clicked shut behind her, Aegon exhaled slowly, resting his elbows on the table, head bowing between his hands.

“She deserves peace,” he muttered, more to himself than to his mother. “And I’ll see the realm burn before I let them take it from her again.”

The door had barely latched behind Jaehaera before Alicent spoke again. She had tried to hold her tongue, truly she had. But the weight of the realm’s unrest pressed too heavily on her shoulders, and the silence felt like a noose tightening.

“She is a sweet child,” Alicent began, her voice low, measured like she was trying to sound reasonable, trying to sound like a mother and not just a dowager queen haunted by failure. Her fingers moved restlessly over the rim of her untouched tea cup. “But sweetness will not soothe the lords. The city cannot endure another sack. Tullys and Starks will not quiet themselves. Not for long. Not while the boy lives.”

Her eyes lifted, and for a moment they were tired, so terribly tired but still alight with that spark of duty that had kept her breathing through too much loss’.

“They will not rest until there is a male heir. Until there is no question, no room for rebellion to take root again.”

Aegon felt the heat rise beneath his skin. Gods, she meant well. She always meant well. And yet how easily her words reopened wounds that had barely begun to scar. He straightened in his chair, the wine’s bitter aftertaste clinging to his tongue.

“I have an heir,” he said, his voice quieter than she expected. Too quiet, like a storm gathering at sea.

Alicent blinked, brows drawing together in confusion. She thought she understood. She thought he meant her , the girl who had just left the room.

“You mean Jaehaera?” she asked softly, hope and doubt tangled in her voice. She shook her head gently, sadly, as if explaining something to a child who did not yet grasp the cruel ways of the world. “No, Aegon. The lords would never-”

But he cut her off, sharper this time.

“ Sons before daughters. ”

The words cracked through the air, heavier than the weight of the crown on his head. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The certainty in his tone did all the work. He sounded like a King.

Alicent froze, her breath catching mid-protest. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. She stared at him, truly stared, as if seeing him for the first time in years; not just as the broken man who’d drunk too much and grieved too hard, but as a king. A son who had learned, at last, how to cut with words as keenly as with steel.

Aegon met her gaze, and in his eyes was no rage, no wild grief but only a cold, hard clarity.

“Aemond’s son before Rhaenyra’s,” he said, the final piece falling into place, the plan shaping itself in the ash and ruin of all that had been lost.

Alicent’s throat worked as she struggled to speak, but no words came. Her mind raced. Aemond’s son? She had not let herself hope nor had not let herself to even think it possible. And yet here he was, speaking of it as if it had always been inevitable.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the table, white-knuckled, as the magnitude of his intent dawned on her. She was dumbfounded, the old certainties slipping through her hands like water.

And Aegon? Aegon simply watched her, as one might watch a wave break against the shore; unmoved, inevitable, waiting for the sea to calm again. He was watching, weighing her reactions like a hunter hunting his prey.

Alicent continued to stare at him, the shock etched across her face so starkly it made her look suddenly older, the fine lines around her eyes deepening, her skin pale beneath the weight of what he’d said.

“Aemond’s son?” she whispered, as if testing the words, as if they might crumble under their own impossible weight. Her mind reeled, grasping for sense where there was none.

She shook her head in denial, her voice gaining strength, confusion bleeding into something sharper.

“But that can’t be– Aemond never married. I would have known. I would have seen–he would have told me. He would have told me. ”

Her tone cracked at the last, and in that crack was the hollow echo of every loss she’d endured, every time one of her children had chosen silence over her embrace.

Aegon watched her, and for a moment –just for a single moment– he felt the old sorrow rise in him again. The boy he’d been once wanted to reach out, to take her hand and reassure her. But the man he was now knew better. There was no room for softness. Not anymore.

He folded his hands atop the table, his voice steady, almost too gentle than he intended.

“You know how Aemond was, Mother. Always choosing silence over spectacle. Always carrying what he thought he must quietly.”

He looked down at his hands, scarred, calloused, trembling ever so slightly as he clenched them tighter.

“I shouldn’t be surprised he’d marry in the same way. Quiet. Alone. No one to see. No one to judge .”

Alicent’s breath hitched, a sound that was half sob, half gasp. She lifted trembling hands to her mouth, as if to stifle the flood of words and emotions surging up all at once. In doing so, she knocked her cup –a delicate, painted thing– sending now-cold tea spilling across the table in a spreading stain, dripping over the edge like the sudden overflow of her heart.

She didn’t even look at it. Couldn’t. Her eyes were wide, glassy, fixed on her son as if she were seeing him anew, as if she were seeing Aemond through him.

Aegon’s thoughts were in disarray, it was as though his mind became one giant numb wound.

One day I’ll weep for this. One of these days, I’ll start to cry.

“Oh, my boy,” she breathed, voice muffled behind her fingers. And then, unable to stay seated, driven by her emotions she could no longer contain, she pushed herself up, skirts rustling, and crossed to him.

Aegon felt her arms around him, thin and frail, but desperate in their strength. For a heartbeat he froze, as if uncertain how to return what was given. His mother’s embrace was a thing of the past, of childhood, of gentler days that no longer existed. But now it wrapped him in something rawer: not comfort, but recognition.

And oh, gods, it burned.

It burned.

Because he could feel her grief mingling with his, her regret tangled in his, her hope rising like smoke in his lungs and he didn’t know if he wanted to breathe it in or choke on it.

For a fleeting instant, he let himself lean into her, let his forehead rest against her temple, his eyes closing. His mind raced: Is this what forgiveness feels like? Or just another kind of mourning?

Alicent, for her part, clung to him as if she could anchor them both, as if by holding him she could somehow hold onto Aemond too, could pull all the shattered pieces of their family back together. Her heart pounded against his chest, and she thought; ‘ Perhaps this is a second chance. Perhaps the gods are not done with us yet.’

The King let the silence stretch, the warmth of her frail arms around him both a comfort and a burden of these days. The smell of old rose water from his mother, ink, and the faintest trace of ash from the fire filled his senses, and for a moment he felt like a boy again, hiding in her skirts from a world too large.

But the boy was gone. Only the king remained. And kings did not get to hide. He was not Viserys .

Even thinking of his name left a rotten taste in his mind.

Slowly, gently, he lifted his hands and placed them over hers where they clutched at his shoulders. His voice came soft, quieter than before, but clearer.

“It’s all right. I know what I must do now.”

Alicent drew back, just far enough to look into his face. Her eyes glistened, her cheeks wet, her lips parted as if she wanted to beg him to explain, to promise, to still her fears but she held her tongue. She was too wise, too worn by the years, to speak before he was ready.

Aegon took a breath, tasting the bitter tang of tea in the air, the sharp edge of resolve on his tongue.

“We will name the boy.” His gaze flicked to the spilled tea on the table; the mess, the ruin, the small disaster that mirrored their greater one. His jaw set. “We will name him, and we will let them see what picking a heir truly means. Let them choke on it.”

Alicent pressed a shaking hand to her mouth again, her heart racing with equal parts terror and hope.

“But-but will they believe it?” Her voice was unsteady, the question born of too many broken promises, too many nights spent fearing the next dawn. “Will they not say that he’s the son of k-kins-”

Aegon’s eyes softened, though the fire within them did not dim. He reached out and took her hand, the one that had so often guided him, slapped him, comforted him, failed him and also been failed by him.

“They will believe what I tell them to believe.” His voice was steady now, a king’s voice, low and sure. “And if they do not, let them remember that I am still here. And I have burned greater threats before.”

Alicent swallowed hard, her mind whirling. She wanted to cling to this hope, to this son who spoke at last with the steel of his grandsire. But still, the mother within her quailed at the danger, at the storm this would surely bring.

Aegon continued to speak. “And we have hostages. Threats are always useful. First we can advise them, but if they do not heed it then we’ll cut off one of the boy’s ears and send it to Lord Tully. Warn them he will lose another part for every mile they advance.”

She opened her mouth, to protest, to plead for caution but no words came.

Because she saw it, truly saw it now: the grief-forged determination in his gaze. The boy she had raised was gone, but a king had risen from the ashes.

And she could only nod, tears sliding silently down her cheeks, her hand trembling within his. Aegon gave a faint, bitter smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Let them come, Mother,” he said quietly. “Let them come, and see what remains of House Targaryen.”

His hand, still loosely clasping Alicent’s, gave the faintest squeeze before he let go.

He rose from his seat with difficulty, adjusting the fall of his dark robes, his shoulders squaring beneath their invisible burden. His tired, silver-ringed violet eyes flicked once toward the door through which Jaehaera had gone, and something in his expression softened. Just for a heartbeat.

“Mother,” he said quietly, as he reached for the goblet he’d left, but thought better of it. His fingers only brushed it before falling away. “Would you see that Jaehaera gets something to eat? A tray of fruit, perhaps. She eats too little.”

His voice was gentle, almost casual, but beneath the words lay that unspoken ache; the helplessness of a father who could not ease his daughter’s grief, who saw her shrinking day by day and could do so little to stop it.

Alicent felt her heart twist at the request, simple though it was. A mother recognized that look in her son’s eyes: the silent, gnawing worry that kept him awake at night, the guilt that made every meal taste like ash.

She managed a small smile, weary but warm.

“I will,” she said softly. “Of course I will.”

Aegon inclined his head, the faintest of nods. He didn’t trust himself to speak again. Words seemed too heavy, too much, when so much already weighed upon him. His body had long felt burdensome; now, even his thoughts were joining in that weight.

He turned and made for the door, his limp pronounced after a brief sitting, but his steps were steady. The room seemed colder the moment he left it, the shadows longer.

Alicent stood where he’d left her, hands resting on the back of the chair he’d occupied, watching the door close behind him.

The smile lingered on her lips, thin and sad, as she looked toward the half-spilled tea, the fruit untouched on the table, the quiet that filled the chamber now.

You don’t either, she thought, the words soft as a prayer, as a lament, as a truth too painful to voice. Not anymore.

And for a long time, she stood there, listening to the fire’s faint crackle, the sound of a house still standing but only just.

𖦹

The door creaked open with a low rusted groan, the sound stretching down the long torch-lit corridor like a faint warning. Shadows pressed themselves against the stone walls, as if they, too, recoiled from what now passed through them.

She entered slowly, deliberately. Alys Rivers, wrapped in a cloak of deep purple, lined with black fur, her hair cascading loose over her shoulders like dark silk. In her arms, she cradled a babe no older than one, sleeping with a stillness that felt wrong, too quiet for one so small, as though the weight of the world already rested on his tiny chest.

Aegon stood waiting at the base of the table, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His posture seemed casual, but there was tension in the clenched line of his jaw, in the way his eyes burned, not with rage, but with something deeper, a strange, unmoored curiosity.

So this is her, he thought, as she came into view.

The witch of Harrenhal.

The woman his brother chose.

She looked older than he expected. Not in the way of withered crones or gray-haired matrons, no, her beauty was intact, but hard-earned, and hard-worn. Her eyes had depth, endless and dark like deepwater wells. She looked older than Aemond . Older than their mother .

And yet she carried herself like someone who feared no judgment.

She stopped before him, and for a long moment, neither spoke. The silence between them wasn’t hostile, it was evaluative as if each was trying to weigh the other’s soul on a scale the other couldn’t see.

Alys bowed, just enough to observe custom, and then looked him directly in the eye. “Your Grace,” she said, calm as glass.

Aegon’s gaze shifted to the child. He didn’t move closer—not yet. He studied the boy, the silver tuft of his hair, the single black forelock that marked him as witch’s own. His quiet, still breath. The shape of his face as he slept, innocent and untouched by the world. Aegon swallowed once, his throat dry, the words scraping out like they had been lodged in his chest.

“He looks like him,” he murmured.

And he did.

The boy wore the face of an ancestor. A face that, as he grew, would become the face of a man he’d never meet. A man lost to time, to war, to death. A man who, in the boy’s eyes, would always remain a ghost.

“Some say so,” Alys replied quickly, disrupting his thoughts. “Though they say it with less warmth.”

Aegon’s lip curled into something between amusement and bitterness. “I can imagine.”

He turned away slightly, just enough to glance out the nearby window. Dusk was beginning to settle over the city, casting long shadows across the stone streets. He inhaled deeply, grounding himself for what he was about to say.

“My brother,” he took a deep breath, “Never explained himself,” he said, more to the room than to her. “He wasn’t exactly a man of confession. He had his principles. His secrets. His madness.”

Little babe in Alys’ arms stirred slightly at the sound of his voice, but she didn’t falter. She merely rocked him gently, swaying back and forth, as if the world had no power to shake her resolve.

“And yet he spoke often of you,” Alys added, her tone calm, measured.

Aegon turned sharply at that, eyes narrowing. “Did he?”

“He did,” she said simply. “Usually in anger. Sometimes in fondness. Rarely in peace.”

The silence stretched between them, long and heavy, like an invisible weight pressing down on both their chests. It was the silence of an unhealed wound, of the bruise that would never fade; Aemond’s name hanging between them like a ghost, unspoken but always present.

Aegon ran a hand through his hair, fingers tugging at the strands as if trying to pull free the confusion that had knotted in his chest. He exhaled sharply, the words tumbling out before he could stop them.

“I still don’t understand why it was you ,” he said at last. He wasn’t trying to be cruel, just honest. “He could have had anyone. Half the court wanted him, the ladies called him attractive. But he chose you. A woman older than our mother, a... Riverlander witch .”

Alys did not flinch. If anything, she looked amused.

“He did not choose me for what I was. He chose me for what I wasn’t .”

Aegon tilted his head slightly, skeptical. “And what weren’t you?”

Her gaze sharpened, suddenly more direct than before. “Obedient. Docile. Afraid.”

Aegon huffed softly, almost a laugh. “That sounds like him.”

“It should,” Alys said, her gaze lowering to the child in her arms, the soft, rhythmic rocking never ceasing. “He was not born to be gentle. He needed a woman who wouldn’t lie to him. Who didn’t flinch from blood. Who could take what he gave and give it back twice as hard.”

Aegon looked at her – really looked at her– and for the first time, saw not the rumors or the whispers or the half-truths spun from the mouths of dead men but a woman who had endured storms and carried its child through the fire.

He stepped forward, just a little, and his eyes dropped to the boy again.

Aegon’s gaze lingered on the child cradled in Alys’s arms. He was small, solemn even in sleep, the faintest furrow between his brows like a ghost of his father’s scowl. There was something eerie in how peaceful he looked, as if the world hadn’t already written stories over his skin before he’d even taken his first steps.

Aegon stood still for a long while, his body frozen, as though caught between the weight of the boy’s existence and the memories of a past that never fully let go. Then, quietly, he spoke, his voice almost a whisper; “Have you named him?”

Alys’s lips parted, then pressed shut again. For once, she didn’t have an answer ready. Perhaps she’d thought of names, perhaps she hadn’t dared. But now, in the presence of the king, Aemond’s brother—Aemond’s ghost walking—she said nothing.

Aegon stepped forward at last, his gaze not leaving the boy. He reached out, gently, and brushed one knuckle down the child’s cheek, a featherlight touch as if afraid he might vanish.

“I’ll name him,” he murmured.

Alys blinked, caught off guard but she didn’t object. There was a flicker in her expression; wary, perhaps even bracing for an insult but she held her tongue.

Aegon’s voice was hoarse with something unspoken as he said, “Aelys.”

And the silence stretched between them.

Alys tilted her head ever so slightly. “Why?”

His eyes flicked up to hers, and for a moment, he looked far older than his years. Tired. Threadbare. “Because it’s not a name of war. Not soaked in blood.” He exhaled slowly. “ Not yet. ”

Alys looked down at her boy again, letting the name settle in her bones like something half-remembered. Aelys .

For a heartbeat, a strange symmetry folded itself into the fabric of her mind, unexpected but undeniable. Alys. Aemond. And now this child, this fragile, living second chance, their pieces together; Aelys.

It was a cruel thing, a reminder that life could still give them something.

A chance at something good.

A warmth bloomed in her chest, unbidden but no less real for it. It was quiet, this warmth, a subtle easing of something she hadn’t even realized was tight within her. She didn’t smile—no, not quite—but the lines of her posture softened, as if a weight had been lifted, even if just for a moment. She nodded once, the quiet gesture of agreement.

“It suits him,” she said. And quietly, without looking up, added: “You chose better than I would have.”

Aegon didn’t respond. He simply fixed his gaze on the child—no, on Aelys.

The boy reminded him so painfully of the faces he had lost. The first time he’d held Jaehaerys, his firstborn son, flickered in his mind. Then, years later, there was Maelor. His sweet, bright-eyed boy. The ache, the hollow in his chest was as sharp and raw as the day they’d been taken from him.

He longed for them. He ached to see them again. If someone had offered him a way, if they’d told him that burning himself would bring his sons back, he would have done it without a second thought. He would have burned alive just to hold them again, to feel their warmth, to hear their voices.

Alys adjusted her hold on Aelys gently, shifting his small weight against her chest. Her eyes rose, and she met Aegon’s gaze steadily.

“He will need a dragon,” she said, her voice calm, devoid of hesitation. It was a statement, not a suggestion. No apology. No doubt. Just quiet certainty. It had always been this way, hadn’t it? Dragons were necessities. A legacy. A tradition.

But Aegon stilled, something cold flickering behind his eyes. A dragon. The word alone tasted like ash on his tongue. Sunfyre, his brilliant, burning boy, was dead, and the loss still ached like a phantom limb.

The dragon keepers had reported a few dormant eggs at Dragonstone, likely Silverwing’s, but they’d shown no signs of life. Morning, Rhaena’s hatchling, was too young to lay. Grey Ghost had vanished with his bastard rider, and Silverwing herself had gone wild near the Red Lake.

“Do you have a particular one in mind?” he asked, voice soft, careful, as if speaking louder might invite the ghosts back into the room.

Alys’s gaze didn’t waver. But there was a flicker in her eyes, a brief hesitation before it was smoothed away. There weren’t many choices left, after all.

“Prince Maelor’s egg,” she said quietly. “It lies unused in Old Town, does it not? Sent there by the traitorous Caswells?”

Aegon felt the name like a sudden blow. His youngest son, innocent and bright-eyed, taken from him before he could learn how cruel the world truly was. A future ended before it ever began.

He turned away sharply, his throat tightening as the weight of it all crushed him. His eyes locked onto the cold hearth, the ashes long dead and forgotten, like everything else that once mattered. He felt numb, so utterly numb that it almost took everything in him to remember how to breathe.

“You speak lightly of things you don’t know,” he muttered, voice thick with bitterness, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. The snap, the outburst. But it did. It was reflexive, unthinking. It was too much, always too much when it came to Maelor.

Jaehaerys’s death had been quick, painless. A mercy, really, compared to the agony that had been Maelor’s fate. His younger brother’s death had been cruel, the kind of cruelty that curled up in your bones and made you question the very gods themselves.

That knowledge twisted Aegon. The image of it, the knowledge of how his son had been torn apart—piece by piece, until there was nothing left but a grotesque emptiness, the hollow echo of limbs that once moved with life. His body had been a map of destruction, and yet, all he had left was the horror of it.

It wasn’t just the pain that tore him apart. It was the helplessness, the utter inability to stop it, to protect him. The thought lingered, vivid and unshakable, like a nightmare that wouldn’t end. Thinking about it made his throat tighten, and yet, he couldn’t escape it.

He couldn’t forget it. It stayed with him, sharp and brutal, carving its place deep within him. It was drowning him, leaving no space to breathe, no room to escape the brutality of a death so violent, it made the very idea of living seem like a betrayal.

And still, here he was. Alive. But how could he keep living with this memory? How could anyone?

“I speak of protection,” Alys returned steadily, undaunted. “I speak of survival. Your enemies have not vanished. They merely wait.”

Protection. Survival.

All empty words in a world that had taken everything from him. His enemies were endless, lurking in the shadows of his every breath. A kingdom had cost him more than his soul could bear, and there was no end to the pain.

Aegon looked back at her, and the quiet fury in his eyes was tempered only by grief, raw and fresh, tearing open old wounds.

“You’d risk another funeral,” he asked, slow and deliberate, “for an egg?”

Alys lifted her chin defiantly, her hold on the child tightening ever so slightly. “I would risk anything for a king.”

Their eyes met again, locked tight, neither giving ground. Aegon searched her face, hunting for deception, for greed or cruelty—yet all he found was resolve, fiercely protective, and familiar in ways that were almost painful. She spoke as a mother, yes, but beneath her words, there was something else, something far darker and more dangerous; a witch whose hands could crush just as easily as they could cradle.

Aegon exhaled sharply, turning from her again, his shoulders sagging slightly under the invisible weight he seemed destined never to escape.

“The Hightowers will not deny me,” he muttered, bitterness turning acidic in his mouth. “Not openly, at least. They kept it safe ‘till now, but they have no right to keep it from me.”

His gaze shifted toward the high window, the sliver of sky slowly darkening beyond it. The shadow of war still lingered, and he knew it would follow them both until the end of their days.

“Take the egg,” he finally said, almost dismissively, voice drained of feeling. “It will find more use here than gathering dust among books.”

But Alys did not move. She knew too well the fragile game they played, knew too well the games lords and houses of Westeros thrived on. She watched him quietly, considering something carefully before speaking again. Her tone sharpened slightly, a new edge entering her words.

“And when the Velaryons protest? When they claim insult and treachery? You know they’ll never welcome a child, not their own making upon a dragon throne.”

Aegon exhaled, the breath leaving his lungs like the slow drip of poison. It was a truth he had long known before her words fell from her lips. He had seen Velaryon’s pride, Corlys’ especially. He’d even accept bastards to carry his name just to get to the throne. And this time he’d accept his granddaughters’, his only descendants left, half brother which he could control and play the puppeteer.

The King’s jaw tightened, a muscle flickering beneath pale skin. He turned slowly, gaze cold, grief momentarily replaced by a calm, measured anger.

“They will protest,” he said, “because they still taste blood in the water. Because they still dream of Driftmark’s dragons spreading their wings once more.”

The man was a turn-cloak thrice over, what held him back from the fourth betrayal?

Alys hissed softly, an almost involuntary sound of disgust.

The witch’s lip curled in disgust, the sound she made was almost like the hiss of a snake before it strikes. “The Velaryons,” she spat, venom dripping from her tongue, “will soon find themselves out of sea to sail. May their protests rot on their tongues.”

Aegon let out a bitter breath, neither disagreeing nor comforting.

“This isn’t peace,” he warned quietly, meeting her fierce gaze.

Alys didn’t flinch. Her hands moved with practiced care, rocking the child against her chest, her gaze steady, unbroken. She didn’t need to think before answering. “No,” she agreed, a sharp edge to her words that still carried its bite. “But it is survival.”

Aegon narrowed his eyes, a brief spark of challenge igniting in the pit of his stomach. His mouth twisted, words threatening to spill with the bitterness that had become his constant companion. “For you.”

“For all of us,” she fired back without hesitation, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. “Whether you see it yet or not.”

How survival, in the end, wasn’t softer or kinder than the war that had stripped him of everything. It was just another way of dying.

“Corlys speaks too boldly,” he said, voice quiet yet sharp as the blade he described. His fingers tightened unconsciously around the goblet of untouched wine in his hand. “I've allowed him to breathe too long because your brother advised me ‘kill the old snake and we lose the young one.’”

Across from him, Alys remained a stone. Her eyes, bright and predatory, never left him, studying him as if she could see the cracks that shattered beneath his skin. She waited, measured, before her voice finally slithered through the tension. “He’s old,” she said, as if dismissing a fly. “He’ll wither.”

“Not fast enough,” Aegon’s words were tight, his patience thin as a thread. “He’s strong still. His voice–his presence, it carries weight. It breeds rebellion. And rebellion, as we both know, is nothing but a plague on a broken crown. The Lord of the Tides must drown before he drowns us.”

Alys leaned in just enough for the shadows to creep across her face, turning her features sharp, a predator in the dusk. Her eyes gleamed, hungry with understanding and power, and when she spoke, her words were velvet, dipped in steel.

“Leave this to me,” she said slowly, deliberately.

It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t even a promise. It was a certainty, a truth Aegon couldn’t deny, and perhaps, in that moment, the only thing he had left to trust. 

“You needn’t dirty your hands more than you already have.”

Aegon’s gaze cut through the dimness, locking onto her face with a kind of desperation. She met his eyes, unwavering, her stare like a blade. There was something in those eyes; green, impossibly bright, as if the flame of the candle itself had found refuge in them.

It was wrong, he thought. Unsettling, even, as if there was something beneath her calm surface, something darker, more dangerous than he cared to confront.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Aegon felt his pulse quicken, his breath shallow, as his mind wrestled with the strange pull of her presence. He wanted to distrust her. After everything, how could he not? But she was different, something about her made him question, made him second-guess his instincts, even as they screamed at him to stay guarded, to stay safe.

He exhaled slowly, feeling the last of his resistance slip away. His voice was quiet, resigned, but oddly intrigued.

“Have it your way, then.”

Alys’s lips curled into something not quite a smile, but a victorious smirk, as though she had already won. The gleam in her eyes was sharp, hungry and in the firelight, they glistened, reflecting the flames, the flicker of something too wild to contain.

And though he didn’t yet fully understand what she’ll do, he knew—somehow—that Corlys Velaryon’s days were already numbered.

𖦹

The days that followed slipped through the Red Keep like a fleeting shadow, visible but impossible to grasp. Whispers floated through the halls, lingering in corners and darkened alcoves: The Witch of Harrenhal was here.

She arrived with the child of their former regent, her presence a silent storm. After the strange and unspoken death of Corlys Velaryon, she had been quietly given chambers within the Tower of the Hand, just as Aegon had ordered, courtesy extended through the silent support of Larys Strong, her brother. It was said that Tyland Lannister, despite being the Hand, wanted to stay in his old chambers given that it’d be easier to live with his new disability.

The Blacks fought to place blame, to tie Corlys’s death to the King, but no proof ever surfaced. Nothing could link Aegon to the shadows that had claimed Velaryon’s life. After Aemond’s son had been declared the rightful heir, houses loyal to the realm knelt without hesitation. It was an announcement made quietly, without fanfare or public spectacle.

And so it was decreed.

Aelys I Targaryen would succeed Aegon II Targaryen as king.

There was no great celebration, no feast. The Tullys and Starks still clung to their treachery, and Alys, ever the strategist, proposed an alliance with the North—should they bend the knee, the crown would offer aid with their winter supplies. That very letter was dispatched to every northern house, save for the Starks, sowing division among them.

The Tullys, ever cautious, had remained silent, ever since Larys had sent a parchment claiming Harrenhal’s ancient authority over the Riverlands, should they refuse.

As for the younger Aegon, he had been dispatched to the Citadel, to take his vows as a priest. Servants would murmur that Alicent Hightower had kissed his forehead with a smile, but whether it was one of warmth or of something cunning, none could say. She had entrusted the boy to her cousin from House Florent, to guide him to the Citadel. And so, he was sent, with the world watching in silence, the last of Rhaenyra’a brood taking a vow of chastity.

And for that day, there were those, like Aegon, who caught the glimpses of something hidden in Alicent’s actions. She had played with her new grandson that day, her joy unguarded, but no one could understand the depth of that affection—not even Aegon himself. Only Aegon, Alys, and Jaehaera were there to witness it.

Alicent, of all people, had accepted Alys’s age with a grace that surprised even Aegon. Yet, he confided his thoughts to Lords Larys and Tyland that perhaps, after all, Alicent had found solace in her new grandson and had turned her gaze away from other issues at hand.

Beneath it all, beneath the shifting allegiances and whispered plots, the castle adjusted. Slowly, almost reluctantly. It was as if the very stones of the Red Keep knew, deep down, that they had no other choice but to accept the change.

And so, life, however fractured, continued.

The godswood was quiet as it always was at that hour, long shadows stretched beneath the weirwood, and the red leaves stirred faintly in the windless stillness. It was a strange place, untouched by war or fire, as if it stood outside of time altogether. Few came here anyway.

But tonight, it had two unusual visitors.

The Weirwood tree stood silent and still, its bone-white bark streaked with red sap like old blood refusing to dry. Newly given the title, Lady Alys knelt beneath it, her dark cloak fanned out around her like spilled ink on the moss. Her fingers brushed the damp earth, reverent. Her eyes, ever unblinking, were fixed on the carved face in the tree, as if waiting for it to speak.

She did not hear the girl approach.

Jaehaera Targaryen came quietly, a small woven basket looped over one arm, half-filled with pale wildflowers and curling herbs. Her shoes made almost no sound on the grass, but the moment she stepped beneath the branches of the Godswood, Alys turned.

Wild green eyes met the shiny violets.

Neither of them spoke at first. A breeze stirred, rustling the leaves in soft murmurs like a thousand old tongues remembering forgotten things.

There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the kingdom, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes the two of the most different persons.

Princess Jaehaera tilted her head. She looked at the older woman, studied her without fear, without real curiosity either—just that distant, dreamlike stillness she always carried, like she lived half in this world and half somewhere else just like her late-mother Queen Helaena.

“I thought this place would be empty,” she said simply. “Usually no one ever comes here.”

Alys rose slowly, gracefully, as if gravity owed her nothing. “The old gods speak clearer when the grove is empty.”

Jaehaera nodded, simply accepting the answer. She stepped closer, setting her basket down beside the base of the tree. The two stood a pace apart now—one cloaked in black, one dressed in soft ivory. Witch and maiden. The mother and the consort of the next king.

“You believe in them?” Jaehaera asked, her eyes on Weirwood’s face.

“I do,” Alys answered. “The trees remember what we forget.”

There was a nostalgic edge of the witch’s smile, like this very exact conversation happened before.

The lass tilted her head questioningly. “And what do they remember?”

“Earth and water, soil and stone, oaks and elms and willows, they were here before us all and will still remain when we are gone remember.” Alys recited without a pause.

Jaehaera’s lips curled faintly, not quite a smile. “That sounds lonely.”

“It is,” the witch said. “But some things are better carried alone.”

They fell into silence again, not uncomfortable, but not warm either. Just as the wind moved, the leaves whispered through the trees.

Jaehaera looked down at the ground, toeing the moss absently. She glanced around the corner of her eye to see if there was a flower that might catch her eye.

There wasn’t.

“I suppose you’ll be raising him now.”

Alys’s eyes never left her. “Yes.”

“And I’ll be beside him.”

The princess didn’t even hesitate. There was not even a hint of hesitation in her tone. It was as if this was all part of Gods’ game.

To the witch, there was no bravado in the words. No entitlement. It wasn’t a declaration per se but it was an acceptance. A quiet one, like a thread she was willing to tie around her neck if it meant the world would stop trying to hang her with it.

“When he takes the crown,” Jaehaera said, looking now at the carved face of the Old Gods. “I will wear it with him.”

Not if but when. Hm.

Lady Alys tilted her head, something ancient flickering in her gaze silently regarding the young princess. The girl seemed fragile in the moonlight—fragile, but sharpened by grief. She felt sympathy but kept it hidden, knowing it would offer neither of them comfort.

“Then I will raise him gently,” she said, her voice soft as the wind. “So he does not burn you.”

And this was it. There was no vow, no pact but just a genuine promise.

Something passed silently between them then—an understanding deeper than warmth or affection, forged not in trust, but in shared necessity. Both knew the world would never offer them kindness freely; whatever peace they might have would have to be quietly made, fiercely guarded.

Jaehaera moved gracefully, lifting her basket of flowers carefully into the crook of her arm. She regarded Alys one last time, her voice quiet, steadied by acceptance. She picked up a single flower from her basket—a herb with violet petals and a bitter root—and laid it at the foot of the tree.

“Good,” she whispered softly. Then she turned, leaving Alys alone beneath the watchful, weeping eyes of the weirwood tree.

In her absence, Alys lingered a moment longer, breathing deeply the scent of earth and sap, feeling the quiet power of the Old Gods wrap gently around her like a mantle. She knew their pact had no warmth, no sweetness but it had strength. It had a purpose.

And in the silence of the godswood, that was enough.

Princess Jaehaera walked slowly back toward the Keep, her basket held protectively in one hand, the delicate blossoms and herbs trembling faintly with each step. The fading sun cast a gentle, muted glow on her pale hair, gilding it softly as if offering silent consolation.

As the distance between her and the weirwood grew, the young princess lowered her head slightly, eyes fixed on the ground, and whispered barely audible, even to herself. 

“Soon,” she whispered softly, a ghost of a smile touching her lips, bitter yet sweet. “Soon, I’ll be free.”

This was muttered days before word would come of Aegon the Younger’s death.

𖦹

The letter was sealed with navy wax; the mark of House Velaryon was etched on it like a threat disguised as courtesy. It didn’t even arrive with fanfare, but quietly, as brave things do; it was delivered by a pale, reserved courtier who left the moment he delivered it to the king.

For now, Aegon sat alone on the Iron Throne, his crown heavy on his brow, the wine in his cup untouched. His fingers, worn with familiarity, broke the seal with empty precision. He didn’t brace himself; after all, what could they possibly say that hadn’t already been said? Baela had been powerless without her dragon. Another plea, another appeal, perhaps even a veiled threat—but none of it mattered. He had heard it all before.

But as his eyes lingered over the words, something changed.

“...in light of recent tragedies, and in seeking stability for the Driftmark, we, sons of the late Ser Vaemond Velaryon, offer this petition to Your Grace: That the title and seat of Driftmark be formally passed to Ser Meryn Velaryon, of trueborn Velaryon descent, and at last free of bastard blood.”

Aegon blinked once. Then twice.

And then he smiled.

It was not a warm smile. It was not the smile of victory or even satisfaction. It was the smile of a man who had grown accustomed to the stench of decay and found it, at last, predictable.

He leaned back on his throne, the parchment still in his hand, his fingers absently tapping the edges as if the letter amused him far more than it should have.

Free of bastard blood.

How strange.

How naive.

Then Baela and Alyn were presumably dead. The letter didn’t even pretend to mourn them. No theatrics. No honor. Just a neat little phrase to sweep them off the board. Their bones were barely cold, their memory barely dust.

Aegon stared at the words a moment longer. Meryn Velaryon. A name meant to calm the waters of the Driftmark.

He laid the letter down carefully, as if sheathing a dagger. His smile remained, quiet and sharp.

“Let Driftmark be theirs,” he murmured to no one in particular, the room echoing his words like a conspirator.

Velaryons, it seemed, had once again found their footing.

As the quiet tension of the room settled into a strange, palpable weight, King Aegon felt the subtle shift in the air. Slowly, his lordships began trickling into the throne room, filling the space with their whispered conversations and rustling cloaks. The Queen Dowager entered with the familiar quiet authority she carried, her presence filling the room like an unspoken command.

She made her way to the base of Aegon’s throne, standing there with an air of silent defiance, her gaze fixed ahead, unwavering.

The last time he had seen her was at the council meeting to discuss the Riverlands bending the knee. After the council, she probably spent her time with her new grandson, he concluded.

Today her regal presence was impossible to ignore. Her eyes, cold and calculating, were fixed firmly on the proceedings, but there was something unreadable in her expression; a quiet intensity that spoke of a mind always calculating, always measuring.

Aegon noticed her gaze shift, briefly meeting his. For just a moment, he wondered if she saw him as the king he had become, or if she still saw the boy who had once relied so heavily on her. The thought lingered in his mind as he returned her gaze, the weight of her silent judgment pressing down on him.

The lords settled into their positions, the murmurs growing into low hums, each voice thick with the weight of their own agendas. It wasn’t long before the heralds began to call out, the tension in the air thickening further.

The heralds, positioned near the doors of the hall, began to announce the arrival of the lords, their voices ringing out clearly, each name punctuated with the echo of ancient titles.

“And now, the North,” the herald called, his voice carrying the sharpness of inevitability.

The massive doors to the hall creaked open, and in marched Cregan Stark, the lord of Winterfell, flanked by his northern lords. Each of them was a towering figure, dressed in the stark, unforgiving furs and leathers of the North.

Aegon’s gaze never wavered from Cregan as the lords filed in, the silence of the hall nearly deafening. The click of boots on stone, the soft rustle of thick pelts, filled the space with a low hum, as if the North itself was drawing closer.

Cregan Stark was a man who carried the weight of his lands in every stride, a man whose loyalty to the North could not be questioned nor could his fury when provoked.

His eyes, sharp and unyielding, never once left Aegon as he made his way forward. With each step, the tension in the room thickened, the lords’ murmurs softening to whispers, as the cold air of the North seemed to enter with them.

Behind Cregan, the other northern lords followed.

“Lord Mervyn of House Glover,” the herald announced, his voice clear. A burly man with a face lined from years of struggle, he stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “Lord Rodrik of House Karstark,” the herald continued. The man moved with quiet authority, his eyes dark. “And lastly, Lord Jonnel of House Norrey.”

Each name felt like a heavy stone being dropped into a pond, the ripples extending out to touch every corner of the room. The northern lords, each a living symbol of their harsh, unforgiving lands, had come to stand before their king—or rather, the man who would call himself such. And still, the cold silence between them lingered.

As the final northern lord, Lord Cregan Stark, reached the center of the room, Aegon gave a subtle nod to his servant, who immediately moved to bring forth the bread and salt. The servant was quick, almost too quick, as though aware of the delicate line they were walking.

The bread and salt was placed before Cregan, and he, without hesitation, broke the bread and dipped it in the salt. He did not flinch, nor did he break his unwavering gaze from King Aegon.

It was a ritual, a symbol of guest right, and it was performed with the precision of a man who had long ago learned the power of tradition.

The room watched in silence as Lord Cregan consumed the bread, his eyes never once straying from the king. 

His lords followed suit, mimicking his every move, the room falling into an uneasy stillness as they completed the ritual.

Then, as if sensing the unease that had gripped the throne room, Cregan spoke, his voice low but pointed, as if testing the tension of the moment.

“Let us not forget, ‘Your Grace’, the sacredness of guest right,” he said, his eyes glinting with a mixture of defiance and challenge. “I trust that, as tradition demands, you would not do anything rash in this presence.” His words hung in the air, thick with a subtle threat that was not lost on anyone in the room.

Aegon’s lips curved into a half-smile as he heard the words. He let out a quiet laugh, his head tilting in amusement as he looked directly at Cregan. His voice, when he finally spoke, was smooth, though there was a sharp edge to it that matched the subtle bite of his words.

“I am no pretender,” Aegon said, his smile never wavering as his eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m not going to order your death when you’ve taken the guest right.”

His gaze flickered for a moment, just long enough to make the implication clear. The words were a thinly veiled jab, a reference not just to Cregan’s challenge, but to the fact that Rhaenyra ordered House Mooton to disobey such a sacred oath. His smile deepened, as his words hung in the air like a dark cloud.

He could almost feel the eyes of the room on him, the unspoken tension hanging between them. The unspoken reminder that, in the game of thrones, nothing was ever as simple as it appeared. And Cregan Stark, despite his intimidating presence, was not immune to the rules.

The very same rules that had claimed so many before him.

The room became even quieter, if that was possible, tense with the weight of Cregan’s thinly veiled accusation. He stepped forward boldly, the subtle echo of his boots filling the throne room as he faced Aegon directly, unyielding, unafraid.

“I have ridden South in search of justice,” Cregan declared, voice hard as northern stone, eyes glittering with barely-contained fury. “I swore fealty to Queen Rhaenyra, and you’ve slain her, I’m told. Then ought her crown to pass unto her son, upon the fall of the vaunted glory–”

Aegon interrupted the northern lord with an indifference. “My Lord, there is no glory in war, only death. She was never a lawful heir since I was born.”

Lord Cregan crinkled his nose in disgust.

“I reckon this is due to the northern ignorance of southern law. But in Westeros, in the Seven Kingdoms—which includes you as well,” said King Aegon firmly. “Crowns are not given by affection, but by law. In the feudal structure of Westeros, law is older than sentiment, and kings do not rule from preference but from precedence.”

The King couldn’t see his mother’s face but he was pretty sure she twisted her lips at his words.

“And the law,” King Aegon clasped his hands in front of him. “Does not bend to the whim of one king’s guilt. I admit my elder sister was my late father’s favourite, but the realm is not a stage for favoritism. It is a lineage. And that lineage runs through the firstborn son.”

Yes, Rhaenyra was loved. But love is not law.

Lord Stark couldn’t help but raise his voice.

“Aegon the Younger was but a boy. The blood spilled was innocent. What kind of man, what kind of king, would allow such a crime to go unanswered? Tell me, ‘Your Grace’—what exactly are you?”

Aegon’s jaw tightened, anger flashing briefly in his eyes. But before he could respond, another voice sliced through the silence, drawing all eyes toward the figure who now stepped forward; Tyland Lannister, the new Hand of the King, his posture stiff but confident despite the scars of torture etched into his frame, his eyes long since lost in the darkness that Rhaenyra had left him.

“You speak boldly, Lord Stark,” Lord Tyland began, his voice measured yet sharp, resonating with quiet authority. “But remember, our King lost two sons to your partake in treasonous acts with the pretender. No pretender’s shadow for you to hide behind this time. Tread your words very carefully. ”

It was a very clear warning.

Cregan’s gaze snapped toward Tyland, lips pressing into a thin line because of his sight. But before he could counter, Aegon’s voice erupted, cold and cutting as a blade drawn swiftly across the throat.

“Many have opposed me,” Aegon began, voice low, seething beneath the surface. “First and foremost, the queen of bastards . Long dead against her will, while I yet live against mine.” His voice rose, bitterness twisting his words. “There have always been those who interfered with my life, and only one thing has ever remained true. My love and devotion to my family. And even that has been stolen from me.”

He leaned forward, his eyes wild, almost unhinged. “I had accomplished everything I had to. I was at rest, emptied of everything until your whore of a queen took my son. I was at peace, yet something dragged me into this pain.” Aegon’s voice dropped dangerously low. “And now, insects , you dare ask me what I am? What I am is angry. What I am is insane with rage.”

The room went deathly silent, stunned at the king’s raw fury. Cregan Stark’s jaw tensed, but even he, proud and defiant, hesitated before speaking again.

In that charged silence, the Queen Dowager stepped forward, voice sharp as ice, cutting clearly through the tension. 

“Kneel, Lord Stark,” Alicent commanded, eyes burning into him with fierce determination. “Kneel before your King. Kneel and accept the help the Reach graciously offers—or remain standing, and face alone the winter you so often threaten us with. Kneel, as is your desert and destiny, before King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name. Kneel as all Westeros must, before her new, lawful and rightful lord.”

Cregan’s eyes darted sharply between mother and son, Alicent and Aegon, fierce pride warring openly on his face. But before he could speak again, the northern lords behind him, sensing the weight of Alicent’s threat, began quietly to kneel, one by one, slow and reluctant, like trees bowing beneath a harsh wind.

Lord Stark surely felt it keenly, betrayal and pragmatism warring within him. Because he drew in a long, silent breath, lips pressing into a thin line.

He remained standing longer than any other, until at last, seeing no other path, he bent the knee slowly, eyes never leaving Aegon’s.

Aegon watched this with quiet satisfaction, his voice dripping disdain when he finally spoke.

“It amuses me, Lord Stark, to let you live,” he said quietly, dangerously calm. “Next time, you may not be so lucky.”

Cregan held his gaze, anger flaring quietly beneath resignation. Yet, wisely, he held his tongue.

Silence filled the hall once more, heavy with tension, broken only by Aegon’s lords’ slow, deliberate steps back toward his throne to stand beside the Dowager Queen. He tilted his head once again, expression distant, indifferent, as though Stark’s surrender had already faded from his mind.

But all in attendance knew: the North had bowed, and the last barrier to Aegon’s peace was broken.

𖦹

The Keep had grown quiet, burdened by a peace it could hardly remember. Its walls still bore the scars of what had passed, but the echoes of war had dimmed, settling into a stillness unfamiliar, almost unsettling.

Life kept going on, somehow. The servants moved quietly, fulfilling tasks that had lost all urgency. Lords met behind closed doors, speaking softly now of rebuilding instead of destruction. Knights rose from the ashes, shining brighter for their newness, untested yet hopeful.

Just like new lords got selected, new knights also got assigned.

Among them was Ser Kyren of House Redwyne. Young, unseasoned, and eager to please, got appointed to guard Princess Jaehaera by her grandmother’s careful arrangement. Yet youth had its follies, and he was prone to making mistakes and staying cautious. And Jaehaera knew exactly how to escape him.

Thus, it was simple enough for the princess to slip quietly away.

The corridors were quiet when Jaehaera arrived just after the changing of the guard, just before the bells tolled for midday. She was alone, as she preferred. No maid announced her, no guards whispered her name in greeting. She needed no herald either. 

She had come without instruction, without retinue, wearing her plain light blue dress that fell like fog around her thin frame.

The chamber was modest, considering whom it sheltered: Aelys Targaryen, heir to the throne, her uncle’s only son. Yet, modesty was fitting. Her uncle Aemond had never surrounded himself with finery; his chambers had always been sparsely furnished, except for quiet carvings of dragons, it was stern yet comforting at the time.

Just like his father, the boy was nestled in a cradle of darkwood and at the head of it were carved dragons.

His mother was absent, exactly as Jaehaera had known she would be.

Slowly, the girl approached the cradle, a basket gently bumping against her thin hip. She did not lean close, only watched quietly from a careful distance. Though he was awake quietly, like on alert. His pale lavender eyes, staring at the ceiling and blinking slowly as if he were cataloging the world, suddenly turned his gaze to his cousin.

She didn’t speak. She hadn’t come to speak either.

Reaching into her basket, she retrieved a small wooden dragon. Its wings were wry around the edges, its tail slightly clumsy, its body rough where her small hands had shaped it with care and uncertainty. She had painted its eyes gold, but the color had faded already.

Beneath the dragon’s body, carved with clumsy yet tender strokes, was a single word in Valyrian, a mark of Jaehaera’s own doing.

“ Drējelion .” she whispered as she placed the toy gently beside him.

Rebirth.

Aelys’ small fingers twitched, soft yet curious. Slowly, with determination clumsy yet strangely firm, the babe reached out to the toy. His fingers closed around the dragon, holding tight.

Jaehaera did not smile. Nor her eyes softened.

Then, in an impulsive gesture so fleeting it surprised even her, she reached out and gently touched a fingertip to Aelys’ small nose. The babe made a soft grunt of surprise, and Jaehaera withdrew quickly, stepping backward into shadow.

After that, without saying anything she turned away. The hem of her dress trailed softly behind her as she disappeared into the quiet that enveloped them all.

Mere moments after the princess vanished, Lady Alys swept into the room with her new maids, coinciding with the guards taking their positions outside the door.

The Witch glanced around sharply, feeling an unfamiliar presence lingering like a faint perfume, just barely there but unmistakably real. Her gaze traveled the modest furnishings, searching, probing, yet finding nothing out of place.

Then, as if in response the air suddenly grew heavy, thickening like mist before a storm.

It’s odd, she thought.

Chambers dimmed, shadows got taller across the walls, smothering the faint sunlight that had illuminated the room only moments before. She moved quickly toward the window, drawing aside the heavy curtain and gazing upward at the darkening sky.

Outside, clouds were gathering rapidly, rolling darkly from the east, heavy and thick as iron, promising rain. Her brows knitted lightly in thought. Strange how quickly the weather shifted, how swiftly darkness arrived, as if summoned by something unseen.

Behind her, the maids glanced nervously at one another, sensing her sudden disquiet. With a flick of her hand, they retreated silently, leaving the room one by one, until finally Alys was left alone.

A soft, gentle rustle interrupted her reverie; a quiet sound from the cradle, followed immediately by a small, restless murmur.

With a faint smile on her face, Alys turned away from the window and crossed the room, her skirts rustling softly on the stone floor. She leaned gently over the crib and reached out to soothe her son. As she did, her eyes fell on something small, clutched tightly in her son's tiny palm.

She stilled, surprise flickering briefly across her features.

Carefully, she took the tiny wooden dragon from Aelys’s fingers, studying it closely. It was rough and uneven, clearly carved by an amateur’s uncertain hand. She turned it gently, fingertips brushing the faded golden eyes, until her thumb traced the word etched awkwardly beneath.

When she saw what was a clearly Valryian word, she immediately thought of him .

She could see him clearly again, the precise way he moved, always restless, always holding too much anger beneath a careful calm. She remembered the first moment she’d met him, how the fires in Harrenhal had cast him in fierce shadows, how he’d whispered things to her, promises she could not dare to imagine.

A sudden flash of lightning burst outside the window, startling her from thought, illuminating the room for the briefest heartbeat before plunging it back into dimness. Thunder echoed heavily across the sky.

And within that uneasy silence, a new sound broke into the room.

A sharp, brittle crack echoed softly from near the hearth.

Alys turned with a frowning face, gaze swiftly seeking the source.

On the hearthstone, the dragon egg rested, dark blue-purple given that it was from Dreamfyre’s nest. Its surface was glinting softly in the flickering firelight. Another faint crack came, it was barely audible yet unmistakable all the same.

The egg trembled gently, its shell slowly fracturing, veins of faint gold threading through the dark surface.

Still holding the wooden dragon, Alys held her breath, still standing before her son’s cradle. She watched with wide eyes and a racing heart as the shell cracked further.

Rain kissed the glass in slow, deliberate taps, as if the heavens themselves were holding their breath.

The histories had spoken of an end, of dragons and dreams extinguished in fire and blood. Yet now, quietly defiant, life stirred once more.

In this small chamber, beneath the gaze of a child born from both tragedy and hope, the age of dragons began once again.

𖦹

Years After the Dance

The days of fire had long passed. Westeros no longer stank of blood, the Dance of the Dragons it was called—was now history.

Time was passing by as was the necessity of life. But Lord Larys remembered.

The Lord of Harrenhal sat alone in his chambers, his retirement the result of his sister's and the king’s relentless insistence, citing his age. Time had carved deep trenches into his face. His hair had thinned, gone all silver. His leg ached more than it ever had in youth. But this was nothing compared to what the king was suffering.

They called him Aegon the Mourner.

Even now, as the king lay sick in his chambers far away, liver rotted by wine and grief, that name clung like a shroud.

A title whispered through the folk not with reverence, but with a strange sort of awe. For grief had sharpened him in ways no sword ever could.

A king made of ashes, Larys thought.

Grief had made Aegon hard. But it had also made him careful, clever. And in the end, merciless.

He had burned bridges and built altars from the rubble. Demanded to make statues of his brothers from gold, and hang the biggest portrait of his late wife in his memorial chamber. He named his nephew heir, and loved his own daughter in silence. Feared her grief more than another war itself.

Aegon had been that kind of king. He ruled within memory.

And mourning men make the sharpest kings, Larys would have thought. Because it was a kind of dying, and once men had died and returned, they forgot how to flinch.

They forget how to yield.

They cut without mercy.

And bleed without regret.

Because they know pain cannot take from him what’s already lost.

Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, lived into his fifties—a miracle, maesters said. A punishment, whispered the servants. He had outlived his siblings, his children, his enemies and lastly his mother. And now, the realm would outlive him too.

He reigned for over three decades after the Dance ended, long enough to see all his enemies turn to dust but all his victories tasted like ash.

He spent his final years in the upper chambers of Maegor’s Holdfast, the same halls where so many ghosts still whispered. The maesters called it the liver—worn through by wine and worry. But Aegon knew better.

He was dying of memory .

Most days he sat in silence, eyes on the flames, ears catching the distant laughter of his grandchildren from below. His daughter Jaehaera visited often—some days reading softly, others knitting quietly. Sometimes she brought her children, who stared curiously at the faded king, eyes bright with wonder and innocence.

For Aelys, his heir, now ruled in his stead as a regent. Just like his father. When required, Princess Jaehaera would sit beside him, still ghost pale but steady as a stone. They were a strange pair to the realm but they worked.

Their children were healthy; bright eyed, dragon riders.

There was Prince Aemon, already a so called prodigy within sword; Princess Daelys who was interested in being a huntress, despite her parents saying no; Princess Elaena was just like her grandmother who was also her namesake, quiet but a lovely girl; and little Prince Kaelor, who cried like his father on bad days and scowled like his mother on good days.

While not as fruitful as the reigns of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, theirs was a peace merely untainted by war, yet still filled with sorrow. However, the people would look back on the reign of Aelys and Jaehaera not only as a time of restored peace, but as a peace reborn. The realm would call it a Golden Age.

And when Aegon the Mourner finally died, the realm did not shake.

No bards sang, no feast was held, no bells tolled twice that day.

When Queen Jaehaera, with trembling hands, commanded the second dragon she claimed to set fire to the empty shell of her father, she watched as flames consumed the last fragments of a man who had once carried the weight of a shattered kingdom.

Upon the stone, there was nothing but ash—the last trace of the man who had once been a king, a father, a brother, a son. A man lost to war and grief.

But the ash was fertile. And from it, Westeros bore anew.

Under the reign of King Aelys and Queen Jaehaera, the realm did not sing of greatness nor of conquest. Their rule was quiet, resilient, tempered by the fires that had nearly destroyed them. From ruins, they built peace; from sorrow, they shaped hope.

And as dawn broke over a realm that had endured fire, grief, and loss, the newly royal couple’s dragons spread their wings.

For dragons had survived the Dance, and so had Westeros.