Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warnings:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2025-07-11
Words:
5,028
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
30
Kudos:
195
Bookmarks:
45
Hits:
2,068

You Wrong Us; Shall We Not Revenge?

Summary:

In the wake of her grandson's violent murder, Queen Alicent Hightower struggles under the weight of grief and suppressed anger...until Princess Rhaenyra's unexpected visit during prayers at the sept provides the queen with an opportunity for catharsis and a way to save her children's lives, all in one.

Notes:

Hello, hello, hello. This was inspired by a Tumblr post I saw, and while it doesn't follow the OP's exact specifications it's close enough. Title from The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare, naturally.

A massive thank you to @CoffeeBooksRain for proofreading and making me a mood board for inspo. Hope you enjoy this girl.

TW: Graphic depictions of child murder, violence, gore, blood, death etc.

If you really love Rhaenyra and can't stand to see her suffer, this fic is not for you I'm afraid.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Alicent’s breach hitched as she lit one of the many votive candles on the altar. She tried to suppress her unshed tears as the wick sparked to life — to no avail; they slid down her pale cheeks all the same. The assassins had bound her limbs and gagged her, but neither of them had bothered to cover her eyes. A deliberate cruelty, the Dowager Queen was now aware. Rhaenyra had intended for her to watch Jaehaerys's murder.

Jaehaerys had been screaming as they sawed through his throat, Alicent recalled. She placed her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. Two old septa’s who’d been attending to their duties in the quiet cool of King’s Landing’s largest sept looked at her with concern. Alicent was blind to it — the image of Jaehaerys’s decapitated body, perversely small and pale, rose in her mind’s eye and the taste of bile filled her mouth. She’d looked into her grandson’s eyes as those brutes fell upon him, had seen the fright give way to fear, and known deep within that Jaehaerys had felt every second of pain. The child is dead, his pain is at an end, she’d managed to choke out to her father in the aftermath, and yet Alicent had not believed it, did not believe it still.

Jaehaerys’s death had not been an end to pain — it had lasted for agonising minutes as those monsters had worked their way through the muscle, gristle and tendons of his delicate throat. Death had not come on suddenly, but in gradual pain filled starts. For those last few moments of consciousness, little Jaehaerys’s life had been all suffering.

When her grandchildren had come into the world, Alicent had been grappling with her new role as regent for her ailing husband, and she’d found some solace in Helaena’s darling twins. As the strains of running the Seven Kingdoms grew more tumultuous, and the oncoming war hung over her family’s heads like a butcher’s axe, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera had become her refuge. By the time Maelor had arrived, Alicent could admit to herself, not without some guilt, that her love for Helaena’s children outclassed anything she’d ever felt for her own.

Now one of them is—

Alicent did not allow herself to finish the thought. Rather, she took in a deep shuddering breath, and moved to light another candle, once again dedicating it to Jaehaerys’s memory. The Dowager Queen lit seven more, for each of those people whom she loved best.

The first was for Helaena, her daughter and queen, who had not spoken a single word since that terrible evening; the next two for Jaehaera and Maelor, the only grandchildren that remained to her. Alicent vowed she would protect them, whatever the cost. The fourth was for Daeron, her son who’d been taken from her too young, but her child all the same; soon enough, he’d be dragged into the bloody fray. The very thought was enough to cause Alicent’s heart to drop into her stomach.

The fifth for Father, who retained his steely demeanour despite the monstrous act that’d been visited upon them — Ser Otto had brought Alicent back to her senses when she’d been half-gone. The sixth was for King Aegon, her mirror image, her pain and pride, her firstborn who was labouring under a grief that never should’ve been his.

The last was for Aemond. Alicent found herself swallowing down anger as she lit his candle. If he’d not killed Rhaenyra’s bastard, a seductive thought whispered to her, this would never have happened.

With more difficulty than she’d have liked she quieted that voice. She’d been horrified at the death of the Waters boy and even more horrified by her son’s seeming nonchalance over it. Aemond, wherever did you find the gall? she wondered not for the first time. Alicent’s third child had only become a blooded warrior recently, fighting to subdue Rhaenyra’s loyalists in the Crownlands. The act of murder should not have come so easily to him. And yet…

She was forced to concede that there’d been a darkness in Aemond since his half-nephews had blinded him, a righteous anger that had been howling to out itself as Aemond grew into a man. Jaehaerys’s death is his fault, that same thought hissed and Alicent stiffened, feeling queasy and treacherous. This was precisely what Rhaenyra wished for, her father had lectured her when she’d spat something about Aemond’s culpability in their tense meeting after the murder.

“Think, daughter,” Ser Otto had cautioned her. She could still feel the weight of his beringed hands on her shoulders, digging in. It had snapped her out of her fugued grief — pain had always been able to clear her mind like nothing else. Her oft bloodied finger nails stood testament.

“Rhaenyra wishes for us to blame Aemond,” Father had continued. “If we do, it will disunite us. We must not allow familial discord to rule us. Aemond and Vhagar are our only hope of winning.” Otto Hightower’s voice had turned low and comforting. “Turn your anger to those more deserving of it. It was the princess who ordered Jaehaerys be murdered. The princess and no-one else.”

Alicent sighed deeply and put her head in her hands, clinging to her fathers words. She let them bank the fiery rage within, as she hewed to the truth that had kept her sane since the Kingsguard had burst into her rooms and found Jaehaerys dead on the floor, his mother and sister screaming over his corpse.

And the truth was this: Jaehaerys’s death was Rhaenyra’s design. Her stepdaughter had always been a threat to Alicent’s children and grandchildren, had always wished them ill. That lowly strumpet could’ve targeted anyone else — her father, her adult sons, Ser Tyland and his plans for the treasury, even Gwayne with his tenuous command of the City Watch; men grown who would’ve had recourse to defend themselves — but she’d aimed for Alicent’s grandchildren, meaning it as a slight against the step-mother she’d always despised.

Oh, there were a thousand-and-one political reasons, the fact that Jaehaerys was the rightful king’s heir not least among them, but there had always been layers to Rhaenyra’s malevolence, and forcing a grandmother to witness the death of her dearest and nearest was one of them.

If I could lay hands on her…

Alicent stared blankly into the flickering candlelight. She couldn’t wring the Pretender's neck. There was no point tantalising herself with fantasies. Alicent clasped her hands together, the words of prayer coming once more to her lips, as comforting as a worn blanket in winter, when she saw a woman’s pale hand reach out beside her and light one of the candles.

Queen Alicent glanced sideways, through the lace of her veil. A septa had come calling.

Alicent made an effort to ignore the irritation she felt. The septa’s dedicated their lives to a higher purpose, Alicent reminded herself primly; who was she to bristle at their presence?

That’s when she heard steel being unsheathed.

Alicent turned to the side with a jerk, brown eyes widening as she saw the septa palm a small dagger. Those brown eyes looked up, only to see Rhaenyra, and the face which held them froze. And then Alicent was reaching forward, grasping her stepdaughter’s wrist in an effort to gain the dagger, all her pain forgotten—

“I must speak with you,” Rhaenyra said, her voice a hurried whisper.

Alicent tugged her wrist out of Rhaenyra’s hand. The princess made no effort to retain it; the dagger was firmly in her grasp and aimed at the Dowager Queen’s side. Alicent had lost her opportunity. She felt a swell of anger. Was she always to be powerless, unable to revenge herself against even the likes of Rhaenyra?

Eventually, she spluttered, “If I cry out?”

The Pretender Princess was breathing heavily, expression tense as her pale lilac eyes swept over their surroundings. The sept was quiet, the septa’s tending to their duties. Faintly, the queen could hear a pair of choirboys singing.

“Your knights would find me. I would be taken or slain…”

Alicent stopped listening. Taken or slain. The anger returned, heady and potent, along with flashes of memory. Jaehaerys lying in a pool of blood; Helaena comatose, eyes drugged and distant; Jaehaera and Maelor clinging to each other. Maelor had been silent in a way now two-year-old should be.

Had she not just vowed to protect her grandchildren? Had she not sworn to it?

It was that, more than anything else, that propelled her forward onto the dagger’s blade. She let out a loud scream, as the dagger sunk into the flesh of her side, loud enough that it sent the septa’s running toward her, loud enough that Rhaenyra scrambled forward, blade forgotten, and attempted to stifle the Dowager Queen’s screaming with her hands.

To no avail.

The armour clad figures of Sers Rickard Thorne and Willis Fell came bursting through the grand doors of the sept. Their eyes landed on Rhaenyra, on the way her hands covered Alicent’s mouth. The princess panicked, scrambled up and ran toward a side door leading out into the narrow, warren like streets of Visenya’s Hill.

Alicent let out a wild laugh as her stepdaughter pulled and pushed at the locked door. Ser Willis was quick to apprehend her, knocking her unconscious with a blow to the head before she could begin struggling in earnest.

Alicent had to keep control — Rhaenyra had not stabbed her, but no one else knew that. “Ser Rickard,” Alicent gasped, leaning against the knight as he supported her frame, her hand pressed over the blood sluggishly pumping out of her wound. “Rhaenyra — she tried to kill me! In this holy place, she put a dagger in my side!”

The knight’s face darkened, and he barked out several orders at Ser Willis, shooting Rhaenyra a contemptuous look, unconscious though she was.

“My sworn brothers and I will conduct a thorough investigation, Your Grace. The Pretender shall be brought to justice; I’d stake my honour on it,” he told her, as he escorted her out the door and down the sept's marble steps.

Gasps rang out as common folk and minor nobles alike took in the sight of Dowager Queen Alicent hobbling into a carriage with the hilt of a dagger protruding from her side. Alicent wondered how Ser Willis would manage to bring the Pretender to the Red Keep, before she slumped forward onto the carriage seat, her vision fading to black.

Grand Maester Orwyle and several of his assistants spent the rest of the day attending to Queen Alicent’s wound. Though the dagger had not penetrated any fragile organs, it had torn through several layers of protective muscle. By the time Orwyle had washed out the wound with boiled wine and finished sewing the inner and outer lesions, his hands had been bloodied up to the wrist.

“How is she?” King Aegon demanded, almost as soon as Orwyle had exited Dowager Queen Alicent’s chambers. “She’ll live, won’t she?”

The young king’s eyes had been filled with tears, and the shadows under them spoke of little sleep. Behind him, the Lord Hand brooded, his face torn between disapproval at his royal grandson’s display of emotion and anxiety over his daughter’s life.

“I’ve seen to Dowager Queen Alicent ’s wounds as best I can,” Orwyle replied, his voice deliberately soothing. “The wound has been washed and sewn and my assistants are applying an ointment of rose and vinegar even as we speak.” They’d already been setting out long strips of linen bandaging when Orwyle finished his bloody task.

“So she’ll live?” asked the king, violet eyes shining with hope.

The Grand Maester hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “There will be a fever, I’m afraid.” King Aegon’s face fell, and the Lord Hand’s eyes narrowed to slits. “If she survives it, in all likelihood she will recover. If not…” he gave a helpless shrug, hoping it adequately conveyed the precarity of Queen Alicent’s survival.

The king’s face turned ashen, and then a violent red. He turned on his heel and stalked away. To drink and rage, no doubt, Maester Orwyle thought to himself. That had been all the king had devoted his time to, since the recent murder of Prince Jaehaerys.

“Is there nothing else that can be done?” Ser Otto asked into the silence. He looked as though he were in pain, as if the Pretender had stabbed him instead of his child. It was the most emotion Orwyle had ever seen on the man’s face.

“I’m afraid not, my lord. The only thing we can do now is wait.”

Ser Otto swallowed jerkily, and gave a grim smile. “Thank you for informing us, Grand Maester. Your efforts are appreciated” — he gave a side-long glance in the direction where his grandson had stood — “even if some in my family are, at present, rather too overwrought to express it.” He gestured for Orwyle to follow him. “Come, good maester. We’ve a meeting of the small council to attend.”

By the time they’d arrived at the small council chamber, the Lord Hand had excised all traces of worry from his features, as if they’d never been there at all.

Thirty guards accompanied Ser Otto Hightower and the rest of the small council to the outer ward where young Prince Jaceaerys had arrived with his younger siblings. Princes Aegon and Viserys, and their older half-brothers had been snuck in on a boat secretly sent to Dragonstone for that express purpose, with the young dragon Vermax following above. A score of Dragonkeepers were already prepared to chain the beast in the very bowels of the Dragonpit, and as the Lord Hand arrived in the courtyard, a pageboy scurried up to him.

“Vermax has been chained by the ’keepers, my lord,” he whispered. Otto gave him a penny for his trouble, feeling very smug.

The plan to break up the Blacks once and for all had been hammered out across a string of tense small council meetings, as king and council tried to determine how best to press the advantage the Pretender Queen represented. In truth, it was more the council than their king, Otto thought wryly. Aegon had demanded the immediate and painful execution of his traitor sister, and Otto had been forced to call upon all his low cunning to dissuade him.

“Revenge shall be all the sweeter if we first destroy Rhaenyra’s faction,” he’d advised. Only the possibility of his enemies' complete and utter debasement had stayed Aegon’s hand.

Not for the first time, Ser Otto found himself feeling grateful towards his daughter. Alicent had struggled through the fever and, mercifully, lived, and whilst Otto was not a man to wish pain upon family, her injury had been a great stroke of fortune for their future.

It had turned the commons more assuredly to their side than anything else, though of course they’d not been told the truth of it.

Princess Rhaenyra was their greatest advantage, and none of them had wanted information about her presence in King’s Landing to become common knowledge. Court and commons had instead been told that Rhaenyra had sent an assassin in the guise of a septa to murder the king’s mother, whilst Ser Willis had secretly spirited the princess to the Red Keep and lodged her in the dungeons. The Pretender was watched there day and night. Only a few were privy to her presence; the septa’s and other witnesses were permanently silenced.

Rhaenyra’s brood were huddled together, when Ser Otto caught sight of them. Jacaerys had taken on the role of protector, standing defensively in front of his younger siblings, and their attendant, Lady Elinda Massey. Otto merely clicked his fingers and the guards accompanying them sprang into motion, separating the young children from their older brother. Jacaerys reached forward trying to seize the boys back, before being stopped by two of the burlier men-at-arms. The screaming children were carried into the Keep — Otto had already seen to it that rooms were prepared for them in Maegor’s Holdfast. No motley crew of would-be heroes would be abducting them today, or any day after.

“Confine Lady Elinda to a set of rooms in the Tower of the Hand,” Ser Otto instructed one of the guards, who set about executing the command immediately. The pitiful lady was dragged away shouting, until she was gagged with her own cap.

“Prince Jacaerys, I hope the weather was not too inclement whilst you journeyed?” The boy didn’t bother to answer, staring at him with sullen eyes.

“We had an agreement,” the boy finally managed, hands bunching into fists at his side. “If I came to the Red Keep–”

“—and brought your siblings with you, your mother would be spared a traitor’s death,” Otto finished for him, with no small amount of condescension. “Worry not, my prince, I am a man of my word.”

The letters had been delivered to Prince Jacaerys secretly, by one of their men on Dragonstone. Perhaps Daemon would have abandoned his niece to the consequences of her own stupidity, Ser Otto knew, but Jacaerys was different. They’d told the boy that unless he agreed to their conditions they’d kill his mother. A little harsh perhaps, but it had the desired effect. Prince Jacaerys had sent letters to the North and the Vale of Arryn, asking them to wait until Princess Rhaenyra herself allowed them to bring their armies to the south. They were not to do anything until she’d given her express permission.

Of course, she’d never give her permission, and thus those armies would never arrive. But their most valuable coup was the arrival of the Pretender’s children. Rhaenyra would not dare attempt an escape with her sons in the custody of her enemies, Otto knew, and Daemon likely didn’t even know, being away at Harrenhal.

“If you’d follow us into the Keep, Prince Jacaerys, we’ve a few things we’d appreciate you signing,” Ser Tyland prompted, smiling and genial from his place at the back of their group. “It’ll only take a moment, and then you shall be reunited with your brothers.”

The boy didn’t have much of a choice, what with the guards at his back, watching his every move as if they were birds of prey. Jacaerys was marched to the chamber of the small council, where at knifepoint, he was made to sign several declarations to be read out to the public; that his mother was no true queen, that he’d seen with his own two eyes her unseemly flirtations with her sworn sword, the late Ser Harwin Strong, that Joffrey, Jacaerys and their late brother, were the products of adultery and thus Waters, all three.

“By dint of this,” Grand Maester Orwyle droned, “Princess Rhaenyra broke her marriage vows. In lying about the heritage of her natural children, she attempted to corrupt the royal line with the blood of a man not formally trothed to it in marriage.”

“The highest of treasons,” the Clubfoot commented in his sibilant voice. “It demands an answer.”

“And answered it shall be,” Ser Otto assured him, as the guards escorted Jacaerys out.

The boy was crying, Otto noted with faint disgust. Likely upset that he’s lost his chance to sit the throne. But really, the sight of a young man sobbing was too disgusting for Otto to bear; it felt like a blessed relief when his face was out of sight.

“What of the Velaryon’s?” asked Lord Wylde.

Otto made a dismissive gesture. “They’ve long since abandoned Rhaenyra’s cause.”

“The Lord Hand speaks true.” Larys Strong steepled his fingers. “They personally escorted their granddaughters to Driftmark when the princess failed to show at Dragonstone for three days.”

Ser Tyland was more cautious. “The blockade still stands.”

“A mere formality, Ser Tyland.” Otto let himself smile, feeling relaxed for the first time in years. “They’ll recall their navy as soon as Rhaenyra is executed.”

“Yes, about the execution. It’s to take place in two days, is it not?” Ser Rickard Thorne, the interim Lord Commander, began.

Otto nodded, feeling truly happy as the small council began to set about the issue of how best to kill the Pretender. There was a strong chance, Otto could not help reflecting, that his grandchildren would yet make it out of this war alive.

On the day of her stepdaughter’s execution, a small council meeting was held. As the first pale rays of dawn filtered through the windows of the chamber, Alicent took her seat at the Hand’s side. Lord Wyle looked at her askance, his eyebrows rising.

“Are you very sure that the Queen Mother is fit to witness the execution, given her health as of late?” he asked Ser Otto, and Alicent resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

He doesn’t want me here. She looked to the rest of her son's councillors; not one of them looked her in the eye. None of them do. Now that I have served my purpose in turning the tide of war, the unseemly sight of a woman on the small council can no longer be endured.

“The Queen Mother stays,” Aegon decided, emphasising the new title he’d bestowed on her in the wake of her recovery.

The Lord Hand lent his voice to the king. “His Grace is quite correct. The queen has been of invaluable service to the crown. It’s only right that she witness the Pretender’s death.”

There was a short silence, until Aegon asked, “How fares my brother’s campaign?”

Larys Strong seized upon the change in subject. “Several of the castles in the Crownlands have fallen to his assault. They’ve taken Duskendale and Hayford, as well as Rosby and Castle Stokeworth. I'm told Ser Criston lead the charge himself, at Stokeworth. A score of smaller outposts have also fallen.”

“We can be confident that the Crownlands will be ours by the next moon turn, then?” Alicent asked, hope prickling up her spine. Their victory was imminent and they’d not even had to penetrate into another kingdom to gain it. “Rosby is something of a boon. It’ll provide us with food should our deliveries from the Reach go awry.”

“That’s unlikely to happen. Support for Princess Rhaenyra’s cause will almost certainly collapse once her death is announced,” Ser Tyland countered.

The Lord Hand stroked his beard, smiling. “That’s certainly true. We have her children, the Velaryon’s have abandoned her, and Daemon is well away.”

“Her council has noted her disappearance,” Tyland pointed out, “and will almost certainly have written to Prince Daemon.”

“Not quite,” Ser Otto said. Tyland shot him a questioning look and the Lord Hand elaborated. “Lord Massey sits on the traitor’s council. We’ve his daughter, Lady Elinda. He’s been foiling the attempts of Dragonstone’s maester to send letters to Prince Daemon, in exchange for a pardon and her safe return once hostilities cease.”

“Sooner or later he’ll be found out, yes?” Alicent asked. It was only a matter of time, and treachery, even if it was for one’s child, was still treachery.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” her father replied dismissively, “but that’s neither here nor there. By the time Daemon rouses himself, Rhaenyra will be dead.”

And her children too. Best to leave that part unspoken. The Lord Hand would arrange the ‘accident’ that would sadly take the lives of the four princes. Ser Otto had always been best at taking the hard decisions; a certain cold pragmatism ran in his blood. Alicent found that she’d gladly pay this cost to preserve the lives of her own children, though it brought her no joy. The prospect of the future murders chilled her, but she had only to think of little Jaehaerys for her heart to harden, and her resolve to calcify.

This would always have ended in blood, Alicent reasoned. Better theirs than ours.

The Queen Mother wore darkest teal and flashing cloth-of-silver to Rhaenyra’s death. The sleeves were ornamented with silver scrollwork, so long that their points grazed the floor. An elaborate silk veil, worked at the front with tourmaline and pearls, served to cover her hair.

A hush fell across the expectant crowd of smallfolk and nobles as Queen Alicent Hightower surmounted the dais where the headsman awaited his prisoner. She took up her place next to the rest of her son’s councillors with quiet dignity, her face settling into an expressionless mask. The king was present, waiting eagerly; the Conqueror’s crown sat on Aegon’s head as though he were born to it. Despite Alicent’s misgivings, with each new day that dawned her son seemed to further embrace his new role as monarch.

A few people cheered. Oddly, Alicent’s brush with death had served to increase her popularity amongst the smallfolk, though she herself could not fathom it. Perhaps the idea of a virtuous queen almost murdered by her traitor stepdaughter was touched with something of the romantic, though Alicent could admit in the privacy of her own mind that she was no such thing.

The day was overcast and chilly; it made her wound throb, though it was wrapped in bandages and beginning to scar. Alicent had made a full recovery, but that hadn’t stopped the Grand Maester from expressing his displeasure at seeing her out of bed. She’d not suffered his protests; Alicent intended to watch the death of Jaehaerys’s murderer. It was time to make an end of things.

The crowd before the dais began to shout and jeer as a large prisoner's wagon was rolled forth. It stopped just beneath the steps, and as Rhaenyra was roughly hauled out by three guards, the jeers increased. The peasantry began to lob rotten vegetables at her. A desiccated leak splattered across Rhaenyra’s face along with a pair of foul smelling onions.

Perhaps it’ll serve to improve her appearance, Alicent mused doubtfully, for it seemed that Rhaenyra had lost all of her famed beauty during her short imprisonment. Her beautiful silvery locks had been shorn and there were patches of blood where the razor had nicked her scalp. Stress and lack of sleep had combined to carve deep grooves of worry into the Pretender’s face, lending her features a hollow, haunted cast.

Princess Rhaenyra, gagged and fettered hand to foot, stumbled up the stairs where once she might’ve walked. It did not endear her to the crowd, who increased in their ridicule, until they resembled an amorphous seething mass of hate. Good.

One particularly clever fellow shouted, “Behold! Princess Rhaenyra, The Realm’s Delight!” The laughter that followed was raucous.

Alicent’s stepdaughter struggled as she was dragged to the execution block, thrashing like a cod caught in a fisherman’s net. Where is Viserys, to help you out of your trouble and sweep your mistakes away, Rhaenyra? Alicent thought with malicious glee. Gone. No one can help you now. Not where you’re going.

Just as she was thrown down before the execution block, Rhaenyra lunged for Alicent with a final burst of strength, before she was dragged back by her chains. The princess began to scream. Her voice sounded like the braying of a demented donkey, gagged as she was.

Septon Eustace stepped forward in diamond crusted vestments, his crystal coronal glimmering with rainbows in the weak sunshine. “We gather today to witness the death of a traitor who, in following her lusts, sought to challenge King Aegon for a throne she’d no right to,” Eustace intoned gravely. “Indeed, the Pretender Queen sought to plunge His Grace’s good realm into chaos for the sake of wicked treason!” The crowd hissed and booed. “Treason was her aim when she conspired with her sworn sword to pass bastards off as trueborn heirs! Treason was her aim when she allowed her sons to blind brave Prince Aemond! Treason was her aim when she ordered the deaths of Prince Jaehaerys and the Queen Mother!” The crowd was eager for Rhaenyra’s death now, like bloodhounds who’d caught a scent. “There is no aspect of her life that has not been touched by sin and sedition! But as the Seven-Pointed Star warns us, as we sin so do we suffer — the Pretender’s time has come. Her sins can only be cleansed through the agonies of death, for did Hugor not instruct us to excise the adultress from the land! Did the first of the High Septon’s not order us to bar immoral women from the kingdom, just as we would bar a thief from our house!”

The crowd began a steady chant of death, death, death to the pretender, whilst above them, Septon Eustace pressed his hands together and led them all in thunderous prayer. He asked for fire and brimstone to come down upon the heads of those who’d sought to harm King Aegon’s family, and for the traitor and her allies to be utterly destroyed by the wrath of the righteous. After each prayer, the commons echoed him. It was almost a relief when the headsman stepped forward, his face covered by a leather mask. Rhaenyra was still screaming as the guards forced her head down onto the block. She’d never been one to go quietly, Alicent knew.

All the same, the headsman decapitated the princess with one neat swing of the axe. Her blood sprayed out across the dais, staining the wooden planks crimson. Alicent’s world contracted to the sight of Rhaenyra’s headless corpse. Blood of the dragon, she thought hysterically.

“Jacaerys Waters won’t be pleased,” Ser Tyland said, his face darkening with caution. “You did promise to spare his mother, and complications at this stage of things would be…inconvenient to say the least.”

“I promised the boy I’d spare his mother a traitor’s death.” Ser Otto gestured at Princess Rhaenyra’s remains, giving Tyland a sly look. “According to ancient custom, noble traitors are to be drawn and quartered following beheadings, and their body part's spiked along the city gates.” The Hand that had raised his blood to royalty, now played at mock innocence. “The only part of the princess’s body that we’ve touched is her head. No other part of her has been dismembered. In fact she is soon to be cremated.”

Notes:

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this fun little one shot of mine; making up fake quotes from the seven-pointed star as pretty fun. If you have any ideas for future Alicent-centric/TG one shots, pop them in the comments and I'll see if one strikes my fancy.

Edited 12/7/2025 - in hindsight, Septon Eustace sounds like a televangelist.