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Chapter Text

When We Were Orphans

The pact would be sealed by the marriage of King Argilac’s daughter to Orys Baratheon, Lord Aegon’s childhood friend and champion. These terms Argilac the Arrogant rejected angrily. Orys Baratheon was a baseborn half-brother to Lord Aegon, it was whispered, and the Storm King would not dishonor his daughter by giving her hand to a bastard.  The very suggestion enraged him. Argilac had the hands of Aegon’s envoy cut off and returned to Dragonstone in a box. “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me,” he wrote. (The World of Ice and Fire sample)

A marriage that could have been, the marriage that actually was. (Orys, Argella, and the story of Aegon’s Conquest)

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Argella

The storm was battering the castle again, ferocious and unforgiving in its intensity. But Storm’s End endured; it had always endured, since the day Durran Godsgrief had it built. To defy the gods, they said, but it was more to protect himself from their wrath, Argella suspected.

Imagine marrying a man your father and mother so loathed they would not cease trying to kill him (and perhaps even their own daughter, for Elenei was always present by Durran’s side in every castle her parents destroyed), even after you have been wedded to this man for many, many years. But then Elenei and her parents were no mere mortals. The gods, Argella knew, played by very different rules, then and now.

Argella was tracing the progress of raindrops on the window with her fingers when her father walked into the solar. He was in his nightclothes, lacking his cloak or even a mantle. His hair, his famous mane of black hair, now sadly grown grey and sparse, was looking disarranged and unruly. Her father had grown old, and frustrated. The sons he had hoped for never came, his only child and heir a young unmarried maiden. Argilac Durrendon the Storm King, whose battle prowess had been legendary; he now watched with fury as his hand shook trying to lift a goblet of wine.

Time was a cruel master, sparing no one. Not even Argella’s proud father.

If only he had a son. Someone to lead men into battle in his stead.

And self-doubt a cruel mistress.

Argella had never been trained in arms. Her father had not allowed it. He had been convinced that he would be blessed with a son, eventually. His only daughter was to be trained in all the womanly arts and graces, to make her a worthy prize in the game of marriages and political alliances.

“I can hear them. I can hear them in my sleep,” Argilac grumbled under his breath, to no one in particular.

Relieved that no one else was in the solar to witness her father’s distress, Argella made her way closer to her father, reaching for his hand. “What can you hear, Father? The rain? Or was it the thunder disturbing your sleep?”

“No, no, no,” he replied impatiently, frowning with irritation. “The hammers, the axes. Clack clacking. Building Harren’s monstrosity of a castle. Harrenhal! Harrenhal, I ask you. The arrogance and the vanity of the man. Even our glorious ancestor did not name this castle Durranhall. And Durran had defied the gods themselves. Who has Harren defied?”

Most of the kings and lords in the Seven Kingdoms, her father included, if the stories were to be believed. But now was not a good time to point that out to her father.

“Only a man with disputed antecedents would wish to proclaim his personal glory so loudly. That’s what you said, Father,” Argella replied, trying to calm her father.

“He will come. Oh he will come. Once his vanity castle is completed, he will think it safe to venture further and further into our land. He will rob and plunder as he pleases.”

“And you will resist him.”

Argilac shook his head violently. “No, not on my own. Once I might have. But not now. Something else must be done, or we will lose everything. I will not sit by while our lands continue to decline day by day. I will not go down in the pages of history as the Storm King who lost the Stormlands.”

The decline had been going on for generations, in truth, beginning centuries ago with Durrendon ancestors whose names Argella had to read up in the history books. Once the Storm Kings ruled the whole of the eastern half of Westeros, from Cape Wrath to the Bay of Crabs. Then the Kings of the Reach came from the west to challenge the dominion of House Durrendon, the Dornishmen pestered them from the south, and more recently, Harren the Black and his ironborn expelled them from the Trident and the lands north to Blackwater Rush. The Stormlands, and the dominion of the Storm King, were dwindling more and more.

Her father had been the one who arrested this decline, for some time, at least; turning back a Dornish invasion as a young man, and killing the King of the Reach in the Battle of Summerfield. But now Argilac was old and weary, with no son to take up his mantle in war. What he had was a daughter, a prize worthy of a marriage alliance.

The match must be with Harren, Argella thought, shuddering. Harren the Black. Harren the Cruel. What would it be like marrying such a man, she wondered?

I could slip something in his food. Or his wine goblet. But first I would have to gain his trust. I must act as a loyal, if not loving, wife, until the opportunity comes to be rid of him.

“I will wed whoever it is you command me to wed, Father. For the sake of House Durrendon. Even if it is Harren.”

Argilac looked up with horror. “No, child, I would never consider you marrying that monster. Never! In any case, it would do us no good. That would not stop him plundering our lands. Once I am dead, Harren will declare himself the Storm King and put you to death, or imprison you in his dungeon, count on that. Someone else. Someone who could defeat even Harren. Someone with dragons. The Lord of Dragonstone.”

“Aegon Targaryen? But he is already married. Twice, in fact.”

Argilac scoffed. “Married to his sisters in that strange Valyrian tradition? Not a real marriage according to our customs and traditions. He could take another wife, a real wife in the eyes of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Aegon Targaryen, a descendant of old Valyria, probably did think of his sister-wives as his real wives, Argella thought. “Why would he wish to wed me? The Targaryens are obsessed with keeping their bloodline pure.”

“It would mean that his descendants will be the Storm Kings one day. That must be a sufficient inducement to tempt any man. And the lands I mean to offer him as your dower lands, they would give him a foothold in Westeros.”

The lands east of the Gods Eye from the Trident to the Blackwater Rush, that was what Argilac meant to offer Aegon Targaryen as Argella’s dowry. Near the Gods Eye was where Harren the Black was building his monstrosity of a castle. And those lands had belonged to Harren for more than a generation, taken by force from the Storm King and the Stormlands.

“He will have to take those lands from Harren. Aegon Targaryen will not be pleased,” Argella pointed out.

Her father’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps he will go to war with Harren. Or perhaps Harren will fear this dragonlord and his three dragons, and will not venture further into our territory.”

Her father wanted Aegon Targaryen to serve as a bulwark between the Stormlands and Harren the Black, that much was clear.

“Why would Aegon accept this? Offer him something else, Father. Other lands, or castles. Lands that are actually yours to give, lands he would not have to go to war for. How can a dowry be something that must be taken by force?”

“I’m offering him something more precious. The hand of my beloved daughter in marriage. Why would Aegon Targaryen be foolish enough to refuse such honor?”

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Orys

Orys found his lord standing over the Painted Table, tracing his fingers over Gods Eye on the carved slab. Orys had just returned from the area, scouting the progress of Harrenhal.

“How strong?” Aegon asked without any preamble; their usual way of starting any conversation.

“Ten thousand men would have trouble breeching the castle once it is completed,” Orys replied.

“What about one dragon?”

Orys shrugged. “I lead your men to battle. I do not ride your dragons. You are the dragonriders, you and your sisters. You would know better.”

“Or would we need all three dragons?” Aegon mused.

Orys raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean to burn the castle with its lord inside? That might make the people peevish.”

Aegon met Orys’ eyes. “Not Harren’s people, I should think. He is not called Harren the Cruel for no reason. They will be glad to see him gone. In any case, I do not mean to do anything just yet. I will come when the people of Westeros call for me. Not before.”

“Judging from their fear of Harren, that might be sooner than we think. Or has that already happened? Rhaenys told me about the envoy sent by Argilac Durrendon. The envoy is still lurking around Dragonstone waiting for your reply, supposedly.”

“The Storm King, he would not have us forget. No, Argilac’s envoy is long gone. I sent him back to Storm’s End the very same day he delivered the message. We don’t want him skulking around Dragonstone spying for Argilac. I will send our own envoy to deliver my reply,” Aegon said.

“And what does this Storm King want from you?”

“He offers me his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Orys had heard of the Storm King’s maiden daughter. Argilla? No, Argella. Probably just as arrogant and as full of pride as her father, Orys thought. “Will you accept?” He asked.

“Rhaenys and Visenya might have something to say about that,” Aegon replied dryly.

Visenya especially, Orys thought. To wed brother to sister was a Targaryen tradition, but the brother was only obliged to take one sister to wife. Visenya was the elder sister, so Aegon had done his duty by marrying her. He had married Rhaenys for love. Visenya might have been willing to accept sharing her husband with a sister she adored, but not with another woman, a woman whose bloodline was not Targaryen.

“I have no wish to take another wife. Two are … challenging enough. And take a look at the dower lands this Storm King is offering,” Aegon said, his finger pointing to the specific land mass on the Painted Table.

Orys was outraged. “Those are not his lands to give. They belong to Harren now. They have not belonged to the Durrendons for a long time.”

Aegon brushed off the perceived insult. “Oh he means for me to fight Harren for those lands, I’m sure. If Harren is too busy trying to defend himself against us, he can’t turn his eyes towards Argilac’s other lands.”

“The conceit of the man! To think that he could use you in this manner.”

Aegon laughed. “It’s sneaky and almost brilliant, I have to admit. But I will not give him what he wants as easily as that, of course.”

“What will be your terms?”

“I will not turn down the dower lands he is offering, of course. That would be rude, and foolish. But I will ask for other lands as well, for the dowry. The question is, where?” Aegon pondered.

“There,” Orys said, pointing to Massey’s Hook. “And the woods and plains from the Blackwater south to the river Wendwater and the headwaters of the Manders.”

They would be making headway into the Stormlands, not just into Harren’s territory. Aegon nodded his head with satisfaction. “Yes, that should do very well. Very well, indeed.”

“And who will you offer this Storm King to wed his daughter in your place? Velaryon? Celtigar? Take care, my lord. Whoever he is, this man’s son might be the Storm King someday, once he is wed to Argella Durrendon. He might start to entertain notions beyond his station, thinking that his loyalty to Lord of Dragonstone is no longer all that important. Perhaps … perhaps you should wed this storm maiden yourself.”

Orys would not want to be in the same room when Visenya and Rhaenys were told, however. And love and sentiment aside, Aegon’s power resided with his sister-wives as much as it did with himself and his men. Aegon alone could not ride the three dragons, and no one besides the three siblings could ride a dragon to battle. His sisters were as ferocious and as strong a fighter as he was. Aegon would do well to keep himself in their good stead.

“Or perhaps you should turn him down,” Orys said, revising his counsel. There were risks and dangers waiting on either path.

“No, I will not turn him down, and I will not offer him Velaryon or Celtigar. It has to be someone else. Someone whose loyalty I do not doubt. Someone who I know will never betray me.”

“Who?”

“I will offer the Storm King my own brother.”

“But you don’t have a broth – surely you do not mean – you cannot –“

“I will offer him my most trusted companion, my champion Orys Baratheon. The rest … no one else has to know.”

Chapter Text

Argella

What did she know about this Lord of Dragonstone? Not much, in truth. If she was truly to be married to this man, it would serve her well to know more about him.

His dragon was called Balerion; that much Argella already knew. The other two dragons, Argella learned, were not Aegon’s to ride at all. His sisters were the riders of Meraxes and Vhagar.

Or, his wives, rather.

Imagine actually naming your dragons. Well, Argella had named the first horse she had learned to ride, so who was she to judge?

On the other hand, she had named her horse ‘Aggie’, a more prosaic name than the grandiose-sounding Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar.

But then again, maybe that was how all Valyrian names sounded. Aegon was simple enough, but the names of his sister-wives …

Imagine being married to your sister. No, not just one sister, but two. How strange it must be. One day you were playing in the treehouse together, and the next, you were sharing a bed. And doing more than merely sleeping next to each other.

Perhaps they were no treehouses in Dragonstone.

Did he alternate the days in which he would spend the night with each wife? Or did they share the bed together, all three of them?

I would never consent to that. He must come to me on his own, without his sister-wives trailing along.

She was the daughter of the Storm King, and one day she would be the Storm Queen. It would not befit her honor to be lumped together with his other wives.

Visenya the older sister, and Rhaenys the younger one. Those were their names, Argella had learned. Dragonrider and warrior, the both of them. She envied them. Oh how she envied them!

Perhaps … with three wives, Aegon would not come to her bed all that often.

That should be a disappointment, Argella knew, but in truth, she suspected she would find it a relief.

There was a knock on the door to her bedchamber, interrupting her thoughts before Argella could ponder the matter further.

“Enter.”

Her maid walked in, in a rush, out of breath. “Princess Argella, your father bids you to attend him in the Great Hall.”   

“Has the envoy from Lord Aegon arrived?”

“Yes, my princess. He is here.”

The Great Hall was filled almost to capacity, with the lords and bannermen sworn to Storm’s End and the Storm King mulling around waiting for King Argilac to command Aegon’s envoy to start speaking. Argella observed the faces, counted the numbers, scrutinizing which lords were present and which lords were absent. Her father would have done the same, or he would have done, back when he had been less troubled, less distracted. She had found him wandering the castle again last night, muttering about Harren the Black and his monstrous castle. Argilac’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot this morning, and he looked as if he had not slept for days.

Lord Massey of Stonedance was not present, Argella noted. Neither was Lord Bar Emmon of Sharp Point. Both lords were from Massey’s Hook, and there were those who whispered that Lord Massey and Lord Bar Emmon were too close to Aegon Targaryen for comfort, when by right they were sworn bannermen to the Storm King, not to Lord of Dragonstone.

Some men forgot their loyalty so easily. Or traded it from one king to another with impunity and scant regard.

Not that Aegon Targaryen was a king. He was merely a lord, even if he was a dragonlord.

Her father waved to Argella, summoning her to sit by his side on the raised dais. Argella made her way from the back of the hall to the front, conscious of all the eyes staring at her. She was used to it by now. She was no longer intimidated by the intent scrutiny, as she had once been, as a young girl.

King Argilac started speaking, and all the noises ceased at once in the Great Hall. “So you are finally here. We were beginning to wonder if Lord Aegon’s envoy had gotten himself lost on the way to Storm’s End.”

The envoy looked nervous, clearing his throat before replying. “Your Grace, my master bids me to tell you that he receives your proposal with –“

The king waved off the pleasantries with impatience. “Yes, yes, honored, flattered and so on and so forth. Well, get on with it, man! Does he accept? Yes or no?”

The envoy hesitated. “Lord Aegon, while flattered by your offer –“

“No? So he refused?” Argilac’s voice filled the Great Hall. “The Lord of Dragonstone refuses the hand of the daughter of the Storm King in marriage?”

There was pandemonium in the Great Hall. The lords were whispering and muttering, some exclaiming with anger. How dare he? Who does he think he is? Her father’s fist was balled up in anger. Argella’s hand grazed her father’s clenched fist, and she whispered to him, softly, “Let the man speak and tell us the rest of Aegon’s message.”

The clenched fist relaxed, but his jaw was still working furiously. Her father’s anger was terrifying to behold, even though it was seldom, if ever, directed towards Argella.

“The Durrendons are prone to fits of anger and uncontrollable fury,” Argella’s mother had told her when she was only a little girl, not long before she had died trying to give Argilac a son. “It is in their blood, this mercurial temper. Or perhaps they are taking their House words entirely too seriously for their own good. Ours is the Fury is not meant to be taken literally, I expect.”

“They, Mother? But I am a Durrendon too,” little Argella had protested.

Her mother had smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Yes, you are. But you have my blood too, and don’t you ever forget that. Cool instead of hot, calm in the face of fury.”

Argella had forgotten much about her mother, but never that. “Father, you must let him finish,” she insisted to her father.

“Quiet!” Argilac shouted to the still-twittering men in the hall. He pointed his index finger to the envoy. “Speak. Now.”

The envoy was looking pale. “Lord Aegon bids me to say that he is already a married man, with two wives to his name. He has no intention of seeking a third. But the alliance that Your Grace proposed is still of an interest to him, seeing that it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement for both sides.”

“How is this alliance to be sealed, then, if Lord Aegon has no interest in our princess?” Lord Peasebury asked. Argella loathed the way the man had said ‘our princess’, as if she was their belonging to be given away to the highest bidder.

She would suffer only her father speaking or acting in that manner. No one else. Certainly not one of the lords who was sworn to be loyal to House Durrendon.

They think me weak and meek. Because I smile at their greetings and laugh at their japes, ask after the health of their wives and the prosperity of their children.

But that was nothing new. These lords had been underestimating her for years.

“Lord Aegon is offering his most trusted man, his loyal companion since childhood, his champion, Orys Baratheon, to seal the pact between Dragonstone and Storm’s End,” the envoy said.

Orys Baratheon? Argella knew the name. Aegon’s third eye in the Seven Kingdoms, he was called by some. Aegon’s spy, according to the less charitable. Orys Baratheon must have ridden his horse through most of Westeros in the last year, doing Aegon’s bidding. He was spotted at Oldtown, meeting the High Septon in secret, the rumor went. He was at the site where Harrenhal was being built, negotiating a deal with Harren the Black, some said; trying to ascertain the strength of the castle and how it could be destroyed, others whispered. Rumors and confusion seemed to follow the man wherever he went.

There were other rumors too. Of a more personal nature. That the man was -

King Argilac stood up, his face flushed with anger, his voice like a thunder. “Orys Baratheon? His bastard brother? Aegon dares to offer me his bastard brother? Does he take me for a fool? Does he take my daughter for a fool? A baseborn bastard? I will not dishonor my daughter by marrying her to such a vile creature. I will not suffer the descendants of a bastard to one day rule over the Stormlands as Storm Kings.”

“Your Grace, I can assure you, Orys Baratheon is a most honorable man. Most honorable. Lord Aegon would vouch for that,” the envoy said, looking paler by the minute.

That only served to infuriate Argilac further. He walked off the dais and had the envoy by his throat before Argella realized what he was about to do. “Oh he would, would he? I suppose Aegon cares not for the shame his father brought to his own mother, and the shame he himself is piling on by taking this bastard into his service and making him his closest … what was it you said? Companion? But we do thing differently here. It is insult and dishonor he is offering me. Insult and dishonor! I offer him a prize more precious than gold, and he wants to repay me with shit! Shit!”

What happened next, what precipitated the envoy to open his mouth at that moment about the dower lands, continued to be a mystery haunting Argella for a long time to come. Perhaps the envoy thought he could defuse the situation by moving the subject off from Orys Baratheon. Or perhaps he was displeased by King Argilac’s assertion that Aegon had offered him shit in return for gold. There was no way to know; the envoy was no longer around to be asked.

The envoy spoke quickly. “Regarding the dower lands, Your Grace, Lord Aegon would like to remind you that the lands you offer belong to King Harren now, and thus are not yours to give. But Lord Aegon would agree to accept them, if in addition, you would also consent to cede Massey’s Hook, along with –“

Shouting. Yelling. Her father’s voice and the assembled lords’ voices drowning out the envoy’s voice.

Massey’s Hook. So that was why Lord Massey and Lord Bar Emmon were both absent today. Had they been discussing this plan with Aegon all along? She must warn her father. Treachery was afoot. Which ones of the other lords were also complicit?

Argilac, however, was concentrating all his anger on Aegon Targaryen, and by proxy, his envoy. “Cede Massey’s Hook? He offers me his bastard brother, and he dares to demand other concessions? Dares to demand even more gold for the piece of shit he is offering? No, no, no! I will show him the just reward for daring to insult the Storm King and House Durrendon. Guards, seize this man.”

The envoy protested. “Your Grace, I am an official messenger. I may not be harmed or –“

“Guards!” Argilac shouted.

Three guards came forward to seize the envoy. Argella tried to make her way closer to her father, but chaos and confusion reigned in the hall, and her way was blocked by men also trying to figure out what was happening. “Father!” She called out desperately. “You must not be hasty. Have some care,” she wanted to tell him, but shouting it out loud for her father’s bannermen to hear was not a wise move.

Argella was still struggling to reach her father’s side, when he gave his command about the envoy’s fate. “Cut off his hands. Both hands. Return them to Dragonstone to Lord Aegon. His bastard brother will never have my daughter’s hand in marriage. These are the only hands his bastard will ever get from me.”

Chapter Text

Orys

The wooden box, carved with the prancing stag of House Durrendon on all four sides, sat atop the Painted Table while Aegon and Orys waited for Visenya and Rhaenys to join them. The letter from Argilac Durrendon was in Aegon’s hand, as yet unopened and unread.

The sisters walked in side by side. “Sister,” Aegon greeted Visenya first, with a kiss on her cheek. In front of others, he was always careful to show precedence to Visenya as the older sister, even if he did spend more nights in Rhaenys’ bed.

“A gift from the Storm King, I presume?” Rhaenys spoke, her finger tracing the outline of the prancing stag on the box. “Ours is the fury. You wonder how much fury a prancing stag can muster, truly.”

“A lot, if the stories about Argilac’s temper are to be believed,” Visenya replied. With her hand guiding Rhaenys’ fingers away from the box, she continued, “Careful, sweet sister. It could be a poisonous viper this Storm King has sent us.”

“He sent us a letter too,” Aegon said, but he was not making any move to read the letter.

Rhaenys, always attuned to any change in Aegon’s state of mind, asked, “You predict bad tidings, Aegon?”

Aegon turned to Orys, nodding his head almost imperceptibly.

“The envoy Argilac sent to deliver the box and the letter was too eager to leave Aegon’s sight as quickly as he could. And our own envoy has not yet returned to Dragonstone,” Orys said.

“He came to us!” Visenya exclaimed. “Argilac was the one offering his daughter to Aegon on a platter, like she was bait to hook a big catch.”

“An offer Aegon rejected,” Rhaenys reminded them.

“It was not a rejection,” Aegon countered. “I offered Argilac something better.”

“The chance for his precious daughter to be Orys’ first and only wife, and not your third. I’d wager anything this Storm King never meant for his daughter to be your third wife for long, Aegon,” Visenya said to her brother-husband. “She will be your first wife, or perhaps your only wife, soon enough - perhaps that was their scheme all along.”

Aegon had considered this too, Orys knew, from a previous conversation they had together. “Argilac would demand that I give precedence to his daughter once we are married. She is a princess and heiress to Storm’s End, he would say, and my other wives mere Targaryen women and heiress to nothing at all. Argella’s children must be given precedence as well, as proud descendants of the Storm King, regardless of their birth order compared to my children from Rhaenys and Visenya. I’m sure Argilac and Argella would both demand that.”

“Just because they would demand it, does not mean that you would have to agree to it,” Orys had countered.

“I could refuse them while I still live, but afterwards? Brothers and sisters taking arms against each other. No, I would not risk that.”

All for Dragonstone? Orys was skeptical. Argella’s oldest son would inherit Storm’s End from his mother; surely he would not care about Dragonstone?

Orys’ skepticism must have been clear to Aegon from his expression. “It will be more than Dragonstone. I will have more than just Dragonstone to bequeath to my descendants soon,” Aegon said meaningfully. “I mean to make the Storm King beholden to us, not for me to be tied and yoked to him and his daughter. No, it is you who must wed this Storm Princess, Orys, and rule the Stormlands in your son’s name. Argilac Durrendon is not long for this world, I should think. Perhaps that is why he is so desperate to have his daughter married.”

The Storm Princess might have a thing or two to say about that, Orys thought. The Storm Queen she would be, after her father’s death. Married to a queen with that Durrendon pride (and the famous Durrendon temper too, most probably), who must consider it her god-given right to order everyone around, even her own husband. The thought was distasteful to Orys, to say the least. And yet, how could he refuse Aegon? Aegon his sworn lord, his half-brother, who had embraced him and accepted Orys as one of his own. The debt he owed Aegon was deeper and more encompassing than just the simple loyalty owed by a man to his liege lord.

Visenya’s hand on his shoulder startled Orys from his recollection. “Not dreaming of that Storm Maiden, are you? She is beautiful, I hear. Well, beautiful by the standards of the Seven Kingdoms at least. Hair as black as coal. Your sons would have dark hair,” Visenya said.

Our sons might have had silver hair, Orys thought.

Targaryens might wed brothers to sisters, but they did not wed bastard sibling to their trueborn counterpart.

Orys flushed, tried to meet Visenya’s gaze steadily and said, “Not as beautiful as you and Rhaenys, I’m sure. What is the dark of the moon after seeing the brightness of the sun?”

The two sisters laughed in unison. “Flattery is not your strong suit, Orys,” Rhaenys said fondly.

Silence dominated the room after that. The four of them exchanged wary glances. “We’re only delaying the inevitable. Read the letter, Aegon,” Visenya finally said, her hand tightly gripping the wooden box carved with prancing stags.

There was no change in Aegon’s stony expression as his eyes moved down the page. He could have been checking the steward’s monthly account for all the reaction he was displaying. Or not displaying, as it were. When he finished reading, he handed the letter to Visenya, who moved closer towards Orys and Rhaenys so the three of them could read the letter together. The dark, dangerous glint in Aegon’s eyes - something Orys had not seen for a long time - was the only indication of what could be expected in Argilac’s letter.

Rhaenys gasped, when they reached the last line. “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me,” Argilac had written. Visenya rushed towards the box, snapped the lid open, and displayed the content to the other three occupants of the room. “Your envoy, Aegon. His hands.”

Orys had been expecting a lot of blood. More carnage, certainly, than the shriveled, mummified limbs contained in the box.

“My envoy is still alive, being treated by the Storm’s End maester, Argilac wrote, as if I should bow down and thank him for that absolute kindness and generosity of spirit,” Aegon said, his voice alarmingly, chillingly, very calm and composed. This was when Aegon was at his most dangerous and unpredictable. “My bastard, Argilac says. He offers me gold and I offer him shit in return, he claims.”

“Your bastard. Well, it seems this Storm King must have been confused about whose bastard I am. Aegon is hardly old enough to father me, unless he fell into my mother’s bed before he was even conceived,” Orys said, trying to make light of the insult, even as his own chest was tightening and constricting with the fury building inside him.

“I offered him my champion, my most trusted companion, and he threw that in my face,” Aegon said, his voice still too quiet, too calm.

“He’s throwing that in all our faces,” Visenya said, pounding the lid shut on the box with a loud thud with one hand, while her other hand was squeezing Orys’ shoulder.

“What does Argilac hope to gain by this?” Rhaenys wondered, frowning. “Surely he is not such a fool to believe that you would somehow agree to wed his daughter now, Aegon, after he has insulted you in this manner?”

“It was me he called a bastard, not Aegon,” Orys reminded them. “And he was not wrong there, whatever we might think about his method of showing his displeasure.”

Three faces turned simultaneously towards Orys. Visenya was the one who spoke. “We are one and the same. Whoever insults one, insults all of us.”

But we are not the same, not really, Orys thought, but did not say. There was no Targaryen in his name, no dragon in his sigil; he could not claim Fire and Blood as his words.

And there was no dragon for Orys to ride. No wonder the Storm King thought it a bad bargain; he must have been counting on Aegon’s dragons to hold back Harren the Black and his rapacious hunger for more land. Argella’s son by Aegon Targaryen would be a dragonrider too, riding Balerion after his father; her son with Orys Baratheon, on the other hand, likely a mere mortal with only swords and arrows at his disposal. How could any sword, no matter how skilled the swordsman, match the power of a dragon?

Orys being a bastard must have been the least of the problem.

Or perhaps Orys was only desperate to believe that; to believe that the taint of illegitimacy would not be following him, haunting him and stalking him, always, for as long as he drew breath. Desperate to believe too, that the mockery and the insults could not touch him, had no power to hurt him in any way at all.

Enough!

“Argilac is an old man, desperate, and not in full control of himself,” Aegon said, his voice dripping not with pity, but with contempt. “Old and … weak. He has shown that clearly with this act, for only the weak would lash out so recklessly in this manner.”

I am weak as well, Orys thought. I wish for the things that could never be mine, that would never be mine.

“How will you reply to Argilac?” Orys asked Aegon quickly, to drown out the words in his thoughts.

“He deserves none, so I will send him none,”Aegon replied, firm. “But he will have his eyes opened to the consequences of his action soon enough, count on that.” He turned to his sisters. “Send words to our allies and bannermen to come to Dragonstone. Lord Aegon has need of their counsel, tell them that.”

After the sisters left, Orys turned to Aegon and asked, “Are you calling your banners?”

“You heard what I said. I seek counsel from my loyal bannermen and my faithful allies. No more, no less,”Aegon replied, staring down at the peaks and valleys of the Seven Kingdoms carved on the Painted Table, keeping his face hidden from Orys.

“You said you would wait. Until the people of Westeros call for you.”

“They are calling for me now,”Aegon replied.

“The Stormlands is not the Seven Kingdoms. What about Harren? What about-“

“Harren has overreached,” Aegon interrupted. “Made himself so powerful, so dreaded, so hated, until someone like the Storm King could consider an alliance with the likes of us. If we rid them of the threat of Harren the Black, Harren the Cruel, many a lord would be willing to bend the knee, I’m certain.”

“Many a lord, perhaps, but not the various kings. The Storm King would never yield, that Durrendon pride would never allow him to do so. The same could be said of the King in the North, the Westerlands, the Reach, and the rest. Proud, prickly and stubborn, all of them,” Orys countered.

“A king is only as strong as his vassals. Even a king could not fight a war on his own, without his lords bannermen.” Aegon smiled. “You worry too much, brother.”

“It is my duty to do the worrying for you. You said only a weak man would lash out recklessly. You are not a weak man, Aegon. But are you certain you are not lashing out unnecessarily now? Are you certain this is the right course of action?”

With his hands on Orys’ shoulders, Aegon said, “I have never been more certain of anything in my life. The time has come. We must not squander the opportunity that has fallen into our laps.” He paused, staring into Orys’ eyes. “How would you like to rule the stormlands, Orys? Not in your wife’s name, not in your son’s name, but in your own name and by your own right. Orys Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End. You cannot be king of the Stormlands, of course, soon there will be only one king in the Seven Kingdoms. But you will take more - much, much more - from Argilac Durrendon than those hands he sent us in that box.”

Chapter Text

Argella

“How is he, maester?”

“Mending, Princess Argella. He should be well enough to return to Dragonstone soon.”

The box containing the envoy’s hands must have reached Dragonstone by now, along with her father’s harsh words. There had been no reply from Aegon Targaryen, but Argella had not been expecting one.

The pale man lying in bed stirred, mumbling incoherent words under his breath. “Ser Roland,” the maester called out his name urgently. “Roland Baratheon, you are safe here. Fear not, ser.”

Roland Baratheon laughed, a harsh, bitter and mirthless laugh. And who could blame him, after what had been done to him? To cut off a man’s sword hand as punishment for crimes or violence committed was not so very unusual, but this, cutting off both of his hands for the sin of relaying his lord’s words; that was unprecedented.

His life had been spared at least; Argella had seen to that. To have an envoy with guest rights murdered under her father’s roof would be a grave transgression recklessly inviting untold disasters for House Durrendon. How she regretted that she had arrived too late to her father’s side to prevent him from giving that fateful command. Once given, even Argella was powerless to countermand her father’s command, but if she had arrived in time, perhaps she could have –

What was it the maester had called the envoy? Roland Baratheon? The name came as a surprise. Argella had not been in the great hall when the envoy first arrived from Dragonstone, and thus had missed hearing his name being announced. “Are you related to Orys Baratheon, ser?” Argella asked, without any preamble.

“My father and his father are brothers,” Ser Roland replied. “Bormund and Ormund Baratheon. They were hedge knights once, wandering the countryside serving one lord and then another, until Lord Aerion, the old Lord of Dragonstone, was kind enough to take them into his service and granted them a piece of land and a keep.”

His father. Ser Roland was still maintaining the facade that Orys Baratheon was not a Targaryen bastard, but was in fact the trueborn son of Ormund Baratheon, once a poor, penniless hedge knight, afterwards a prosperous landed knight. Like many in the Seven Kingdoms, Argella had heard all the juicy, scandalous tales from her maids. How the slender, unmarried daughter of the steward of Dragonstone suddenly seemed to have gained a lot of weight, not long after she caught the attention of the lord of the castle’s wandering eyes. How a marriage was then hastily arranged between this girl and an unknown hedge knight, a hedge knight who for no apparent reason was granted a valuable piece of land by Aerion Targaryen just before the wedding.

And how, only four months after the wedding, Ormund Baratheon’s wife died giving birth to a son whose Targaryen’s ancestry was spelled out very clearly on his features. The boy was given his dead mother’s husband’s name – Baratheon - but there was never any doubt in anyone’s mind as to whose child he truly was; especially after Lord Aerion took the motherless boy  to be raised in his own household, ostensibly to serve as playmate and companion to his trueborn son Aegon.

What Lord Aerion’s Velaryon wife thought of this arrangement, few knew; and even fewer cared enough to wonder.

“So you are cousins. You must be close to Lord Orys,” Argella said. The ‘Lord’ was a courtesy; Orys Baratheon was not lord of anything, truly. Certainly he would never be Argella’s lord husband.  

Roland Baratheon hesitated. “We were raised apart,” he mumbled, almost inaudibly.

“You spoke so highly of his honor and his accomplishments before. I was certain you must know him very well indeed.”

“I serve Lord Aegon, and Lord Orys is his most trusted companion,” Roland Baratheon replied, as if that should explain everything. Perhaps in his eyes it did.

“He must be full of wrath, that his cousin has been so woefully treated.” There was a note of apology in Argella’s voice, not to Orys Baratheon or to Aegon Targaryen, but to Roland Baratheon whose only transgression was in keeping faith with his sworn lord.   

Roland Baratheon hesitated, fear shining through his eyes. “You may speak freely, ser,” Argella assured him. “You have my word of honor that no further harm will be done to you under my father’s roof.”  

“Lord Orys would be full of wrath that Lord Aegon’s proposal has been so dishonorably rejected,” Roland finally said. “He is Lord Aegon’s most loyal champion, and his dedication to Lord Aegon’s cause and interest is second to none.”

Reading between the lines, Argella asked, “You mean he has no particular wish to wed me, but is merely doing his duty to his lord?” That should not have come as a shock to Argella, and yet the insult still rankled. Sole heir to the Storm King, future queen of the Stormlands, and yet, not only did the Lord of Dragonstone refused her hand in marriage, even his bastard brother would only consent to accept her in deference to his lord.  

Her pride was insisting - To hell with them both! We have no need of them, any of them.

But then she remembered her father’s greying hair and his failing prowess at arms. She recalled Harren the Black and his rapacious hunger for more land and more power, and that monstrosity of a castle he was building near Gods Eye. She recalled the peaks and valleys of her father’s land, the rivers and streams of this realm that would be her duty to rule one day. She remembered the faces at the gates; the men, women and children who would be her responsibility soon, very soon, if her father continued to fail at the rate he was failing now.

Remembering all that, Argella made up her mind, and spoke the words she never wanted to say, mindful that if there was still a possibility to salvage the situation, she could not refuse out of pride, out of fury. A princess did not have that luxury; a queen even less so.  

“Ser Roland, will you convey a message from me to Orys Baratheon when you return to Dragonstone? Something meant only for his ears, and no one else’s.”

“You have shown me great kindness, Princess Argella. My life was spared only because of your insistence, according to your maester. I have a duty to return the favor.”